p. 92 | Untitled article

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, January 21, 1868

THE DAYS OF CREATION.

Were these literal days of twenty-four hours each, or long periods of time as Geologists guess? Biblical commentators are pretty generally agreed that they were literal days. The following authorities on this point, are quoted by N. V. Hull in a late Sabbath Recorder:

J. G. Murphy, D. D., T. C. D., in his Commentary on Genesis, published the present year, on page 44, says, “The days of the creation were natural days of twenty-four hours each. We may not depart from the ordinary meaning of the word without a sufficient warrant, either in the text of Scripture or in the laws of nature. But we have not yet found any such warrant. Only necessity can force us to such an expedient. Scripture, on the other hand, warrants us in retaining the common meaning, by yielding no hint of another, and by introducing ‘evening, night, morning, day,’ as its ordinary divisions. Nature favors the same interpretation. All geological changes are, of course, subsequent to the great event recorded in the first verse, which is the beginning of things. All such changes, except the one recorded in the six days of creation, are, with equal certainty, antecedent to the state of things described in the second verse. Hence no lengthened period for this last creative interposition.”

Knapp, in his “Christian Theology,” page 177, speaking of the six days of creation, says, “By days, Moses appears to have meant common days of twenty-four hours.”

The Comprehensive Commentary, Baptist edition, page 19, in the body of the work, says on verse 5, “This was the first day’s work; the evening and the morning were the first day, not only of the world, but of the week.” In a note at the bottom of the page, Poole says, “It is acknowledged that the evening and the morning are not to be understood according to our common usage, but are put by a synecdoche, each of them for one whole part of the natural day.”

Such, also, are the views maintained by Edward Hitchcock, D. D., LL. D., in his “Religion of Geology.” On page 61, he says, “It supposes the six day’s work of creation to have been confined entirely to the fitting up of the world in its present condition, and furnishing it with its present inhabitants.”

Dr. J. Pye Smith holds essentially the same views. John Harris, D. D., holds the same opinion, and says, “Now, that the originating act, described in the first verse, was not meant to be included in the account of the six Adamic days, is evident from the following considerations:” &c. (Preadamite Earth, page 280.)