Were They Ordinary Days of Twenty-Four Hours Each?
Or Were They Millions of Years in Duration?
By EUGENE LELAND
IT is quite popular, for various reasons, to consider the seven days of creation week as long, indefinite periods, perhaps millions of years in duration, instead of literal days of twenty-four hours each. This opinion is said to be the scientific one,—the one that is published in some of our public school text books for the school children to learn. It is the opinion held by many modern theologians also, and taught by them to the "children of larger growth." It would not do for a minister of the gospel to risk his reputation as a scholar and a scientist in these days of "evolution," "new thought," and a few other things, by teaching so "unscientific" a truth as that the word "day" of the first chapter of Genesis signifies a period of twenty-four hours.
THE MANIFEST MEANING
To be sure, that is so manifestly the meaning of the word in that chapter, that no one but a "scientist" would ever think of giving it any other meaning; and as scientists have accomplished some wonderful transformations, theologians have decided that they were able to transform the meaning of the word "day" from that of a period of twenty-four hours, as everybody hitherto has understood its meaning to be, to that of a period of a million years, more or less, according to the fancy of the scientist.
We have no desire nor disposition to ridicule this opinion, though the argument upon which the opinion is founded, does not appear to have much weight. There are several simple facts, besides some statements of Scripture, which stand in the way of our subscribing to this opinion. Let us notice a few.
The period of time which the first chapter of Genesis calls a "day" is said to be made up of two parts of about equal average length,—696a light part, also called "day," and a dark part, called "night." This division of time into day and night was made by the Creator Himself during the first three days of time. Verses 4, 5. But after the fourth day, this division of time was effected by the sun, which was created on that day. Verses 14-19.
WAS ADAM’S FIRST NIGHT A MILLION YEARS?
Now, as Adam was created on the sixth day, he must have lived all through the night following; and that being about equal in length to the day, which, we are told, was millions of years in duration, he must have longed — earnestly longed — for the morning of his first full day to dawn. Though he retired to rest on the evening of the sixth day in the full strength of youthful vigor, like Rip Van Winkle, he arose on the morning of the seventh day, a gray-haired, toothless old man, bent with the weight of a million years.
And that is science! But the Bible says that "all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died." Gen. 5: 5. Or are we to understand that these "days" which Adam lived are also long, indefinite periods of duration, like the "days" of creation week? We can see no "scientific" reason why they should be considered differently.
We are told that the seven days of creation week were not literal twenty-four-hour days, because the sun was not created until the fourth day. "How," it is asked, "could the days have been divided before the sun was created?"
TIME DIVIDED WITHOUT THE SUN
Sure enough! That is a most serious objection to the mind of a "scientist." But we who are not "scientists," wonder if the Creator would have found any more difficulty in dividing the time, before the creation of the sun, into periods of twenty-four hours each, than He would have found in dividing it into periods of millions of years.
And then, again, we wonder how it was that the grass, the herbs, and the trees, which were created on the third day, could exist through all those millions of years without sunlight, any more than time could be divided into periods of twenty-four hours each without the sun. And how did vegetation survive all through the darkness of the millions of years of night that lay between the third and the fourth day of creation week?
The answer to the first question comes quickly: "Light was created before the sun; and by means of this light, vegetation was kept alive until the sun was created."
Very true; but is it not equally true that the division of time into day and night was made before the sun was created? Read the passage: "And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." Gen. 1: 4, 5.
Now, in all candor, what sense or significance is there in speaking of dividing a million-year period into night and day, evening and morning? Was it one long night succeeded by one long day, that constituted the first and each succeeding day of creation week? If so, what is meant by the word "night"? Or was time measured, during all those million-year periods, by literally recurring periods of twenty-four hours each? If not, when did the twenty-four-hour division of time begin?
It is better to take the simple, straightforward statement of the record, and believe it. In taking this position in the past, the writer has been publicly dubbed an ignoramus. But in reply to this argument , we may say that neither skill, courage, education, nor refinement is required to call one an ignoramus.