The Corruption of Scripture
There are dozens of man-made theories that attempt to explain the Scriptures. The focus of this article is mainly on the first eleven chapters of Genesis; however, man has tried to add in his fallible ideas to all of Scripture ever since sin was introduced into the world. Genesis chapter 3 is the account of the fall of man. Before man fell (called the Fall of Man), God had to create everything perfect otherwise He would have violated His Holy Nature. According to the words of Jesus, God is perfect (Matthew 5:48). If we believe that God’s Word is true and accurate (Psalm 18:30; Proverbs 30:5) then it should be clear that His Word is also perfect (Job 36:4). The question is, “Why would we want to add anything that is not there to a perfect book?” Adding to literature that changes its meaning is called eisegesis or taking out our own meaning and thoughts and putting them into the text that differs from what the original author intended. The opposite of eisegesis is called exegesis where the reader is supposed to get out the meaning of the text and then take in intellectually what the author wrote. These are two Greek words and their definitions can be found by clicking here.
Please understand that the Bible has science in it. The definition of science comes from Latin called “scientia” and simply means knowledge. The Bible is knowledge, instruction, history (factual) and contains the Gospel or “Good News.” The Bible does in fact explain scientific things. Does the Creation of everything have anything to do with science as we call it? Absolutely! Since God created everything it is up to us to get the real knowledge. We are the ones without knowledge. God is all knowledge as stated in 1 Samuel 2:3, Job 21:22, Proverbs 2:5, Hosea 6:6, Romans 11:33, 2 Corinthians 2:14, 2 Corinthians 10:5, Ephesians 1:17, Ephesians 4:13, Colossians 2:2 and 2 Peter 1:2. Since we are the ones lacking knowledge we need to look to God for knowledge. This passage from Romans 1:18-25 tells us what we do when we don’t seek wisdom and knowledge. When God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1), He created the rules of science also. Read Psalm 19.
A study of Genesis 3 concerning the Fall of Man tells us that the temptation that Adam and Eve succumbed to was over eating the forbidden fruit from the tree called “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Furthermore, Adam and Eve decided to become their own gods and ignore the Creator of everything (Genesis 3:5-6).
Is Evolution Compatible with Scripture?
Evolution, properly called macro-evolution, is a product of man’s fantasy and imagination. Evolution is also properly called a religion because no one was there to observe the process of life forming from mud, ponds or rocks and it takes faith to believe in such a fantastic theory. A belief in God takes faith so our faith in God can be expressed in religion also. A belief in the Creation Account itself is not to be considered as religion; it is a factual narrative. Also understand that Christianity is not to be considered a religion. It is based on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Through the name of Christ is where we get the word Christianity. We are the followers of Christ. We either reject Christ as the Promised Messiah who takes away the sins of the world or we choose to accept Him as Savior (John 3:16-19; John 5:24).
Those that believe and embrace evolution do not have an eyewitness account through recorded writings. We Christians have the Word of God and the way it was written in Hebrew, especially in Genesis 1-11, is in the historical narrative format. The Creation Account is not to be construed as prose or poetry or simple instruction; it is purely Historical and was narrated to the writer of Genesis. Could that original writer of the Creation Account have been Adam himself? Some have proposed that possibility but we cannot be sure. We know that Moses was the author of the first five books of Scripture. Moses wrote and also compiled the Pentateuch (John 5:46 – the words of Jesus; Acts 13:39 – Moses wrote the law commonly called the Law of Moses). Exodus 19:9 is extremely interesting to me because this verse shows the significance of Moses in that he (Moses) will always be believed. The Words from the Lord say he will be believed forever! God is to speak through a cloud so that the people will hear what He has to say to Moses as well. There is a lot of credibility placed on the Words of the Lord recorded by Moses! This includes the first eleven chapters of Genesis! Try searching for verses using the two words servant and Moses and you will find numerous records of Moses as God’s servant throughout the Bible. There was none other like Moses (Deuteronomy 34:10).
Evolution makes a mockery of and totally denies the Creation account we read in Genesis 1 and 2. As I stated before, man adds in his fallible ideas in an attempt to corrupt the truth. A straightforward reading of these first two chapters of Genesis should leave no doubt as to their authenticity. Evolution is the exact opposite of truth as stated in the creation account. Since it is opposed to Scripture, it has to be atheistic in nature. This is in the form of a naturalistic worldview in which man makes himself willingly ignorant and claims to be wise but becomes a fool (Romans 1:18-25).
What Does Evolution Say?
Evolution in its purest form says that all life randomly began with the right mix of chemicals under the right conditions. Another way of expressing this is to say that life accidently occurred. In other words, no intelligence was involved in the process of life starting. The religion of atheism means simply no God. The atheists also say they do not believe in absolutes so I guess that means they are absolutely sure that God doesn’t exist?!
Once this smallest speck of life got going it took a long time for it to evolve into more complex forms of life – typically millions of years. How do atheists answer the questions about where order and morality come from? They come from the Scripture, of course.
With Evolution comes an Old Earth
When a person studies evolution he or she is presented with the notion of an old earth. The numbers of years given are in the order of millions. The secularists don't seem to be able to agree on an exact figure and the number of years can sway back and forth at will depending on which current dominant scientist or educator is most highly respected by the secular world. Does this mean that when a person believes in what is called an “Old Earth” that he or she believes in an atheistic philosophy? The answer to that is yes because the false concept of the earth having existed for millions of years is essential and absolutely necessary for the survival of the false religion of the evolutionary theory. The two beliefs of evolution and an old earth are totally inseparable. Unfortunately many Christians – real believers in Christ have bought into the notion of an “Old Earth” while attempting to believe in God as the Creator and also claiming disbelief in macroevolution. The problem they carry with them is belief in the old earth theory.
Some go as far to say that Adam and Eve were created millions of years ago but fortunately that view is not quite as widespread. Another version of this belief is that God created the earth and then waited millions of years before creating Adam. Along with this idea, some believe He also created other forms of life before Adam. On top of all that, there are those Christians that do believe in macroevolution. Theistic Evolution in its fullest concept accepts macroevolution. How is that for mixing a godless religion with Christianity? I guess that is nothing new since man has been mixing pagan religion with Christianity from the beginning.
Let us examine the idea of life existing long before Adam and see if there is any validity in this belief. If other life forms existed long before Adam (actually they did according to Genesis 1 but only days before), then would there have been the possibility something could have died? You have to keep this concept separate from a pure belief in evolution (macroevolution) because we are talking about what some Christians say about God creating life over millions of years. Of course, the macro evolutionists already believe that life started long before man came along. They state that Adam was a myth or just some ancient name for a man that evolved through the evolutionary process. Molecules to man is another expression used by evolutionists.
Remember I stated in the first paragraph that what God created had to be perfect. Now are they trying to tell us that all these life forms remained in a perfect state for millions of years before man came along? How absurd that thinking is. The other side of this would be that something had to die and death is not even considered as being perfect. God clearly told us that death entered the world through sin. Romans 5:12 is the verse that tells us about when and how death first entered the world. Death had to start with the Fall of Man in Genesis 3. Now if we believe that verse in Romans along with the fact that God’s Word is Holy and True, nothing could have died before man and it was man who introduced sin and death into the world.
Now why would anyone want to believe life was created before man millions or even thousands of years in advance? The reason the world was created was to provide a habitation for all of God’s Perfect Creation. Everything living thing was intended by our Creator to coexist harmoniously through symbiotic and other beneficial mutual relationships. This is what I mean by order in the Creation. Furthermore man is the only living of God’s creation that can communicate directly with Him because we are created in His Image and Likeness (Genesis 1:26 -27). God wants us to worship and honor Him as our Creator. He wants to care for us with His Infinite Love.
A very stunningly beautiful Psalm is Psalm 104. This Psalm talks about God’s beautiful Creation and gives some hints of the relationships of nature within itself and with man as well as the relationship with our Creator and what He did. This is not the kind of coexistence that liberal minded people postulate today along with their worship of nature instead of the Creator of nature (Romans 1:18-25 – especially note verse 25). If you read all of Romans 1:18-32, you should see what becomes of those that deny the evidence of God’s Creation and His handiwork. This lack of belief in the Genesis Account has extremely serious consequences especially when replaced with a belief in evolution including an old earth. I find the Genesis Creation Account accurate and truthful and it makes complete sense especially since I believe God’s Word.
Evolutionists deny the existence of the Global Flood Account. At the same time the evolutionists will never deny that floods have occurred in the earth’s past and still occur today but they insist they are all local and that the one Global Flood never happened. Genesis 6-9 is very precise in its written language that the one major flood of Noah’s day was global or worldwide and was intended to destroy all living things (Genesis 6:5-8; 6:13; 6:17; 7:17-24). Why did God wipe out all living except Noah and his family and other living things on the ark (Genesis 6:18-22)? As incredible as it sounds, all mankind was corrupt, full of wickedness and evil and the earth was filled with violence (Genesis 6:5-8; 6:11). Only Noah was found righteous (Genesis 6:9-10). A local flood by itself or even a series of local floods would not destroy all living from the entire earth! If they were local, all Noah, his family and a lot of the animals had to do was escape to a high section of land to survive instead of building an enormous ship as the Ark (Genesis 6:14-16). The dimensions of the ark were 450 long by 45 high and 30 wide in feet (150x15x10 meters). Those that believe in an old earth miss the correct timeline from the beginning of Creation to the start of the flood (1656 years) and in essence, they are saying that the truth about the Global Flood doesn’t matter. Click here for the “Age Chart – Adam to Joseph.”
What Does the Genesis Account Say About the Days of Creation?
After a thorough reading and study of Genesis 1 and 2, I find it hard to see how anyone cannot take it literal. God very clearly said in chapter 1 He took exactly six days to create everything. How do we get that information? Remember I said above that Genesis 1-11 was written as a Historical Narrative and especially not as prose or as a poem. The Hebrew word for day is yom. I have heard people try to cast doubt on the meaning of yom in Genesis 1 and 2. Yom is not plural in the original text – it is singular. The plural of yom can be written as yomin. Some say that the word yom or day could mean a span of time. We do use the word day to mean a span of time in both Spanish and English and other languages as well. A typical expression could be “Back in my day, neighbors used to be more sociable and we would get together more.” Another example could be, “Back in my grandfather’s day life was very hard since they didn't have modern conveniences.” Certainly those are valid and proper usages of the word day. Even Scripture uses day to mean a span of time. Zechariah 14 refers to The Day of the Lord. There are other examples in the Bible of the word day meaning more than 24 hours if you do a good search.
So what is so Special About this Word Yom During Creation?
I want to propose a scenario for an example. If I told you that we could meet together one day next week I would hope you would understand that would be during a 24 hour day. What if I said on the first day of the week? Would you understand that I am referring to Sunday since Sunday is usually considered the first day? Let us go a little further. What if I gave you a choice of meeting in the evening or morning on this Sunday? Still I think you should understand me. I stated in the last paragraph that day or yom can mean a single day or several days or even possibly even a longer time. But in my example I have asked you to meet with me on a specific day and have stated that a day has an evening and a morning time during this 24-hour day. Is that not correct? Genesis chapter 1 uses that same format relative to a week (some refer to it as the Creation Week) of stating a number along with yom (day). In other words, each of the six days of creation is numbered – first, second all the way to sixth. Not only that, the Hebrew words ever and boker are used and those mean evening and morning respectively. An example for day one would read “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:5)” Now if that is pointing exactly to a 24-hour day, I don't know we can misinterpret it or add anything to it! Read the fourth commandment from Exodus 20:8-11. There are more than 2000 instances of yom in the Old Testament and we can understand its usage with no problems. When it comes to Genesis 1 and 2, we seem to have trouble understanding the meaning and the usage of day.
As to the actual 24-hour days being recorded in Genesis 1 and 2, have you ever wondered why God wrote these chapters the way He did? Was He wrong? Was He lying to us or just trying to confuse us? Maybe He was trying to make sure we fully understand those were real, actual 24-hour days.
Ok, now we have six exact 24-hour days of everything being created. Genesis 2 refers to God resting on a last seventh day that is also exactly 24-hours in length. Does an eternal perfect God have to rest? No, but we do. God is telling us right from the very start of Creation that we should work for six days and rest on the last one. He had that planned out completely just like everything else and in perfect order. This day of rest is also Holy and we need to keep it Holy (fourth commandment). That is why we worship God – our Father God and Creator Savior Jesus – during one day a week. Resting for one day is for our health also. God only stopped creating everything and rested because He was finished but He didn't stop keeping everything going (Colossians 1:17). If you were a designer of a piece of equipment would you let those that are to use your design work without supervision, help and knowledge?
A group of people called the Deists believed that – yes - God created everything but He left it alone to run its own course. Unfortunately, they had a problem believing in a personal God – just He is impersonal. That should have made everything very difficult for them to believe in a personal Savior. That is not what Colossians 1:17 tells us. By the way, to whom is this verse in Colossians referring? None other than Jesus! Jesus is our Creator according to John 1:1-18.
Now We Have the Days Figured Out But What About the Age of the Earth?
You might ask me, “Are you one of those young earth creationists?” I would answer “Yes.” Next question – “Why?” We have to look at the rest of Genesis starting with the fifth chapter and decide if the earth is old or young. There is also a genealogy of Adam to Christ in Luke 3:23-38.
Under the section of this article titled “With Evolution Comes an Old Earth”, I stated that God didn't create everything millions (or even billions) of years ago. One key point to remember is that death did not enter the world until the Fall of Man (Genesis 3) otherwise the Gospel in the Garden is rendered useless and Christ’s death for our sins was futile, unnecessary and unsuccessful. That is the seriousness of this false belief in an Old Earth. That is why Christians have no reason to play around with such nonsense. When we adhere to this concept of an old earth, we are saying that God never created the earth in an original perfect state and that is tantamount to calling God a liar and that His Word is untrue along with robbing Him of His Glory and placing it upon man.
So, just how long ago were Adam and Eve created on day 6? Approximately 6000 years is the answer. Many totally reject that idea. Even many Christians want God to have taken longer to create everything. We get the preliminary answer by research and study of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. We get a time frame from Adam to Abraham in the chapters of Genesis 5 and Genesis 11. Genesis 5 takes it from Adam to Noah and Genesis 11:10-31 takes it from Shem (one of Noah’s three sons) to Abraham. Lifespans of each descendant are recorded along with the age of that descendant when the birth of a son occurs. Nowhere else in Scripture is it critical for a genealogy than as that recorded in these two chapters of Genesis. It is so obvious to me that God planned it that way for us to believe in the proper time frame from Adam to Abraham and then from Abraham ultimately to Christ. He didn't have to record all those ages; that information was given to us in order for us to believe His word and understand events.
Abraham was born approximately 1948 years after Adam or about 1813 BC. We could say that Christ’s ministry started on earth around 2000 years ago. Adding my figures together 1948+1813+2000, we arrive at 5761 years. The current Hebrew year (our year 2017) is 5777. Even if you take these figures as exact (some do) or even near exact, that is a far cry from millions of years. Don’t forget those same evolutionary believing secularists that believe in an old earth (millions) claim the origin of the universe started at over 13 billion years ago (Big Bang Theory) – or have they changed that one lately? Bishop Ussher did a 17th century chronology and a PDF file showing his work is available for download by clicking www.creation.com.
Conclusion
Please read and study all of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. I hope and pray that if you are a Christian you haven’t allowed man’s fallible ideas to influence your worldview. We need an infallible Biblical worldview and not a secular fallible atheistic worldview that man has. Pray for those fellow Christians that are swayed by an incorrect worldview that is counter to Scripture. Pray for those that claim to be atheists. Pray for those secularists, teachers and scientists caught up in the false religion of evolution. Pray for our children and grandchildren as they are being taught a humanistic atheistic worldview of evolution and an old earth in our schools and institutions of learning (and in our churches as well).
Please understand that the Bible has science in it. The definition of science comes from Latin called “scientia” and simply means knowledge. The Bible is knowledge, instruction, history (factual) and contains the Gospel or “Good News.” The Bible does in fact explain scientific things. Does the Creation of everything have anything to do with science as we call it? Absolutely! Since God created everything it is up to us to get the real knowledge. We are the ones without knowledge. God is all knowledge as stated in 1 Samuel 2:3, Job 21:22, Proverbs 2:5, Hosea 6:6, Romans 11:33, 2 Corinthians 2:14, 2 Corinthians 10:5, Ephesians 1:17, Ephesians 4:13, Colossians 2:2 and 2 Peter 1:2. Since we are the ones lacking knowledge we need to look to God for knowledge. This passage from Romans 1:18-25 tells us what we do when we don’t seek wisdom and knowledge. When God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1), He created the rules of science also. Read Psalm 19.
A study of Genesis 3 concerning the Fall of Man tells us that the temptation that Adam and Eve succumbed to was over eating the forbidden fruit from the tree called “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Furthermore, Adam and Eve decided to become their own gods and ignore the Creator of everything (Genesis 3:5-6).
Is Evolution Compatible with Scripture?
Evolution, properly called macro-evolution, is a product of man’s fantasy and imagination. Evolution is also properly called a religion because no one was there to observe the process of life forming from mud, ponds or rocks and it takes faith to believe in such a fantastic theory. A belief in God takes faith so our faith in God can be expressed in religion also. A belief in the Creation Account itself is not to be considered as religion; it is a factual narrative. Also understand that Christianity is not to be considered a religion. It is based on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Through the name of Christ is where we get the word Christianity. We are the followers of Christ. We either reject Christ as the Promised Messiah who takes away the sins of the world or we choose to accept Him as Savior (John 3:16-19; John 5:24).
Those that believe and embrace evolution do not have an eyewitness account through recorded writings. We Christians have the Word of God and the way it was written in Hebrew, especially in Genesis 1-11, is in the historical narrative format. The Creation Account is not to be construed as prose or poetry or simple instruction; it is purely Historical and was narrated to the writer of Genesis. Could that original writer of the Creation Account have been Adam himself? Some have proposed that possibility but we cannot be sure. We know that Moses was the author of the first five books of Scripture. Moses wrote and also compiled the Pentateuch (John 5:46 – the words of Jesus; Acts 13:39 – Moses wrote the law commonly called the Law of Moses). Exodus 19:9 is extremely interesting to me because this verse shows the significance of Moses in that he (Moses) will always be believed. The Words from the Lord say he will be believed forever! God is to speak through a cloud so that the people will hear what He has to say to Moses as well. There is a lot of credibility placed on the Words of the Lord recorded by Moses! This includes the first eleven chapters of Genesis! Try searching for verses using the two words servant and Moses and you will find numerous records of Moses as God’s servant throughout the Bible. There was none other like Moses (Deuteronomy 34:10).
Evolution makes a mockery of and totally denies the Creation account we read in Genesis 1 and 2. As I stated before, man adds in his fallible ideas in an attempt to corrupt the truth. A straightforward reading of these first two chapters of Genesis should leave no doubt as to their authenticity. Evolution is the exact opposite of truth as stated in the creation account. Since it is opposed to Scripture, it has to be atheistic in nature. This is in the form of a naturalistic worldview in which man makes himself willingly ignorant and claims to be wise but becomes a fool (Romans 1:18-25).
What Does Evolution Say?
Evolution in its purest form says that all life randomly began with the right mix of chemicals under the right conditions. Another way of expressing this is to say that life accidently occurred. In other words, no intelligence was involved in the process of life starting. The religion of atheism means simply no God. The atheists also say they do not believe in absolutes so I guess that means they are absolutely sure that God doesn’t exist?!
Once this smallest speck of life got going it took a long time for it to evolve into more complex forms of life – typically millions of years. How do atheists answer the questions about where order and morality come from? They come from the Scripture, of course.
With Evolution comes an Old Earth
When a person studies evolution he or she is presented with the notion of an old earth. The numbers of years given are in the order of millions. The secularists don't seem to be able to agree on an exact figure and the number of years can sway back and forth at will depending on which current dominant scientist or educator is most highly respected by the secular world. Does this mean that when a person believes in what is called an “Old Earth” that he or she believes in an atheistic philosophy? The answer to that is yes because the false concept of the earth having existed for millions of years is essential and absolutely necessary for the survival of the false religion of the evolutionary theory. The two beliefs of evolution and an old earth are totally inseparable. Unfortunately many Christians – real believers in Christ have bought into the notion of an “Old Earth” while attempting to believe in God as the Creator and also claiming disbelief in macroevolution. The problem they carry with them is belief in the old earth theory.
Some go as far to say that Adam and Eve were created millions of years ago but fortunately that view is not quite as widespread. Another version of this belief is that God created the earth and then waited millions of years before creating Adam. Along with this idea, some believe He also created other forms of life before Adam. On top of all that, there are those Christians that do believe in macroevolution. Theistic Evolution in its fullest concept accepts macroevolution. How is that for mixing a godless religion with Christianity? I guess that is nothing new since man has been mixing pagan religion with Christianity from the beginning.
Let us examine the idea of life existing long before Adam and see if there is any validity in this belief. If other life forms existed long before Adam (actually they did according to Genesis 1 but only days before), then would there have been the possibility something could have died? You have to keep this concept separate from a pure belief in evolution (macroevolution) because we are talking about what some Christians say about God creating life over millions of years. Of course, the macro evolutionists already believe that life started long before man came along. They state that Adam was a myth or just some ancient name for a man that evolved through the evolutionary process. Molecules to man is another expression used by evolutionists.
Remember I stated in the first paragraph that what God created had to be perfect. Now are they trying to tell us that all these life forms remained in a perfect state for millions of years before man came along? How absurd that thinking is. The other side of this would be that something had to die and death is not even considered as being perfect. God clearly told us that death entered the world through sin. Romans 5:12 is the verse that tells us about when and how death first entered the world. Death had to start with the Fall of Man in Genesis 3. Now if we believe that verse in Romans along with the fact that God’s Word is Holy and True, nothing could have died before man and it was man who introduced sin and death into the world.
Now why would anyone want to believe life was created before man millions or even thousands of years in advance? The reason the world was created was to provide a habitation for all of God’s Perfect Creation. Everything living thing was intended by our Creator to coexist harmoniously through symbiotic and other beneficial mutual relationships. This is what I mean by order in the Creation. Furthermore man is the only living of God’s creation that can communicate directly with Him because we are created in His Image and Likeness (Genesis 1:26 -27). God wants us to worship and honor Him as our Creator. He wants to care for us with His Infinite Love.
A very stunningly beautiful Psalm is Psalm 104. This Psalm talks about God’s beautiful Creation and gives some hints of the relationships of nature within itself and with man as well as the relationship with our Creator and what He did. This is not the kind of coexistence that liberal minded people postulate today along with their worship of nature instead of the Creator of nature (Romans 1:18-25 – especially note verse 25). If you read all of Romans 1:18-32, you should see what becomes of those that deny the evidence of God’s Creation and His handiwork. This lack of belief in the Genesis Account has extremely serious consequences especially when replaced with a belief in evolution including an old earth. I find the Genesis Creation Account accurate and truthful and it makes complete sense especially since I believe God’s Word.
Evolutionists deny the existence of the Global Flood Account. At the same time the evolutionists will never deny that floods have occurred in the earth’s past and still occur today but they insist they are all local and that the one Global Flood never happened. Genesis 6-9 is very precise in its written language that the one major flood of Noah’s day was global or worldwide and was intended to destroy all living things (Genesis 6:5-8; 6:13; 6:17; 7:17-24). Why did God wipe out all living except Noah and his family and other living things on the ark (Genesis 6:18-22)? As incredible as it sounds, all mankind was corrupt, full of wickedness and evil and the earth was filled with violence (Genesis 6:5-8; 6:11). Only Noah was found righteous (Genesis 6:9-10). A local flood by itself or even a series of local floods would not destroy all living from the entire earth! If they were local, all Noah, his family and a lot of the animals had to do was escape to a high section of land to survive instead of building an enormous ship as the Ark (Genesis 6:14-16). The dimensions of the ark were 450 long by 45 high and 30 wide in feet (150x15x10 meters). Those that believe in an old earth miss the correct timeline from the beginning of Creation to the start of the flood (1656 years) and in essence, they are saying that the truth about the Global Flood doesn’t matter. Click here for the “Age Chart – Adam to Joseph.”
What Does the Genesis Account Say About the Days of Creation?
After a thorough reading and study of Genesis 1 and 2, I find it hard to see how anyone cannot take it literal. God very clearly said in chapter 1 He took exactly six days to create everything. How do we get that information? Remember I said above that Genesis 1-11 was written as a Historical Narrative and especially not as prose or as a poem. The Hebrew word for day is yom. I have heard people try to cast doubt on the meaning of yom in Genesis 1 and 2. Yom is not plural in the original text – it is singular. The plural of yom can be written as yomin. Some say that the word yom or day could mean a span of time. We do use the word day to mean a span of time in both Spanish and English and other languages as well. A typical expression could be “Back in my day, neighbors used to be more sociable and we would get together more.” Another example could be, “Back in my grandfather’s day life was very hard since they didn't have modern conveniences.” Certainly those are valid and proper usages of the word day. Even Scripture uses day to mean a span of time. Zechariah 14 refers to The Day of the Lord. There are other examples in the Bible of the word day meaning more than 24 hours if you do a good search.
So what is so Special About this Word Yom During Creation?
I want to propose a scenario for an example. If I told you that we could meet together one day next week I would hope you would understand that would be during a 24 hour day. What if I said on the first day of the week? Would you understand that I am referring to Sunday since Sunday is usually considered the first day? Let us go a little further. What if I gave you a choice of meeting in the evening or morning on this Sunday? Still I think you should understand me. I stated in the last paragraph that day or yom can mean a single day or several days or even possibly even a longer time. But in my example I have asked you to meet with me on a specific day and have stated that a day has an evening and a morning time during this 24-hour day. Is that not correct? Genesis chapter 1 uses that same format relative to a week (some refer to it as the Creation Week) of stating a number along with yom (day). In other words, each of the six days of creation is numbered – first, second all the way to sixth. Not only that, the Hebrew words ever and boker are used and those mean evening and morning respectively. An example for day one would read “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:5)” Now if that is pointing exactly to a 24-hour day, I don't know we can misinterpret it or add anything to it! Read the fourth commandment from Exodus 20:8-11. There are more than 2000 instances of yom in the Old Testament and we can understand its usage with no problems. When it comes to Genesis 1 and 2, we seem to have trouble understanding the meaning and the usage of day.
As to the actual 24-hour days being recorded in Genesis 1 and 2, have you ever wondered why God wrote these chapters the way He did? Was He wrong? Was He lying to us or just trying to confuse us? Maybe He was trying to make sure we fully understand those were real, actual 24-hour days.
Ok, now we have six exact 24-hour days of everything being created. Genesis 2 refers to God resting on a last seventh day that is also exactly 24-hours in length. Does an eternal perfect God have to rest? No, but we do. God is telling us right from the very start of Creation that we should work for six days and rest on the last one. He had that planned out completely just like everything else and in perfect order. This day of rest is also Holy and we need to keep it Holy (fourth commandment). That is why we worship God – our Father God and Creator Savior Jesus – during one day a week. Resting for one day is for our health also. God only stopped creating everything and rested because He was finished but He didn't stop keeping everything going (Colossians 1:17). If you were a designer of a piece of equipment would you let those that are to use your design work without supervision, help and knowledge?
A group of people called the Deists believed that – yes - God created everything but He left it alone to run its own course. Unfortunately, they had a problem believing in a personal God – just He is impersonal. That should have made everything very difficult for them to believe in a personal Savior. That is not what Colossians 1:17 tells us. By the way, to whom is this verse in Colossians referring? None other than Jesus! Jesus is our Creator according to John 1:1-18.
Now We Have the Days Figured Out But What About the Age of the Earth?
You might ask me, “Are you one of those young earth creationists?” I would answer “Yes.” Next question – “Why?” We have to look at the rest of Genesis starting with the fifth chapter and decide if the earth is old or young. There is also a genealogy of Adam to Christ in Luke 3:23-38.
Under the section of this article titled “With Evolution Comes an Old Earth”, I stated that God didn't create everything millions (or even billions) of years ago. One key point to remember is that death did not enter the world until the Fall of Man (Genesis 3) otherwise the Gospel in the Garden is rendered useless and Christ’s death for our sins was futile, unnecessary and unsuccessful. That is the seriousness of this false belief in an Old Earth. That is why Christians have no reason to play around with such nonsense. When we adhere to this concept of an old earth, we are saying that God never created the earth in an original perfect state and that is tantamount to calling God a liar and that His Word is untrue along with robbing Him of His Glory and placing it upon man.
So, just how long ago were Adam and Eve created on day 6? Approximately 6000 years is the answer. Many totally reject that idea. Even many Christians want God to have taken longer to create everything. We get the preliminary answer by research and study of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. We get a time frame from Adam to Abraham in the chapters of Genesis 5 and Genesis 11. Genesis 5 takes it from Adam to Noah and Genesis 11:10-31 takes it from Shem (one of Noah’s three sons) to Abraham. Lifespans of each descendant are recorded along with the age of that descendant when the birth of a son occurs. Nowhere else in Scripture is it critical for a genealogy than as that recorded in these two chapters of Genesis. It is so obvious to me that God planned it that way for us to believe in the proper time frame from Adam to Abraham and then from Abraham ultimately to Christ. He didn't have to record all those ages; that information was given to us in order for us to believe His word and understand events.
Abraham was born approximately 1948 years after Adam or about 1813 BC. We could say that Christ’s ministry started on earth around 2000 years ago. Adding my figures together 1948+1813+2000, we arrive at 5761 years. The current Hebrew year (our year 2017) is 5777. Even if you take these figures as exact (some do) or even near exact, that is a far cry from millions of years. Don’t forget those same evolutionary believing secularists that believe in an old earth (millions) claim the origin of the universe started at over 13 billion years ago (Big Bang Theory) – or have they changed that one lately? Bishop Ussher did a 17th century chronology and a PDF file showing his work is available for download by clicking www.creation.com.
Conclusion
Please read and study all of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. I hope and pray that if you are a Christian you haven’t allowed man’s fallible ideas to influence your worldview. We need an infallible Biblical worldview and not a secular fallible atheistic worldview that man has. Pray for those fellow Christians that are swayed by an incorrect worldview that is counter to Scripture. Pray for those that claim to be atheists. Pray for those secularists, teachers and scientists caught up in the false religion of evolution. Pray for our children and grandchildren as they are being taught a humanistic atheistic worldview of evolution and an old earth in our schools and institutions of learning (and in our churches as well).