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Biblical Reliability

Can Christians Disagree About the Creation Account in Genesis?

Can Christians Disagree About the Creation Account in Genesis
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The creation period described in the Book of Genesis is of great interest to many Christians. As a result, much discussion has been had within Christianity itself as to the nature of the creation account and the length of time over which creation could have occurred. Many Christians in America hold to a creation period wherein the universe was formed over the course of six 24-hours periods; other Christians believe the period of creation to be much longer, perhaps even millions of years.

One of the central questions related to this issue concerns the use of the Hebrew word “yom” in the opening lines of Genesis. Translations of this word into English use the word “day” in place of “yom,” so that the biblical passages indicate acts of creation on six consecutive days (as in, exact 24-hours periods). This plain reading of the word is simple and concise, likely one of the reasons a large amount (likely the majority)[1] of Christians today hold to a 24-hour interpretation; a 24-hour period would seem the most reasonable interpretation absent some good reason to read a different meaning. The 24-hour interpretation allows the Christian to read the language of Genesis and interpret the language in its most basic terms. To hold a 24-hour view does not require the “wrestling” or interpreting scripture in light of other meanings. Thus, a Christian holding this view can defend the authority of scripture by simply maintaining a straightforward interpretation.

Christians who hold to a longer creation period interpret “yom” in a different way. These Christians point to the use of “yom” to mean a period other than 24-hours. The Bible does use “yom” in several other ways throughout its text, such as to mean “day” (as in daytime rather than nighttime) in Numbers 9:21, an unspecified period (“day of the Lord”) in Amos 5:18, and as a general time frame in Deuteronomy 16:3.[2] While the 24-hour position is often considered the default or traditional view in the eyes of those who hold it, the discussion surrounding interpretation of the creation account is longstanding; some ancient Christians held to an “old-earth” view which allowed for a longer creation period, such as Augustine, Origen, and St. Thomas Aquinas.[3] These ancient Christians did not have modern science to influence their perspective but rather held their views on the basis of the text of scripture alone. The age of the universe and the length of creation days is an “in-house” debate. Christians on both sides of this discussion are just that: Christians. Click To Tweet

And this takes us to the issue of modern science. Scientists, for the most part, have a strong bias towards a longer creation period. Many scientists suggest the universe is billions of years old[4] and that millions of years transpired between the events of the “first day” in Genesis and the time in which humanity was created on the “sixth day.” The scientific case should inform Christians on both sides of this debate, but the inferences of most scientists fit most neatly within the latter, “longer-than 24-hour” interpretation.

That being said, the age of the universe and the length of creation days is an “in-house” debate.

Christians on both sides of this discussion are just that: Christians. A robust creation theology regarding every minor detail of the timeline is not an essential element to the Christian faith (even while belief in a creator is a central tenant).[5] The length of creation is not a universally held position in the church, it is not explicitly required by the text of scripture (due to the various interpretations of “yom” described above), it was not universally agreed upon by early Christians, and it appears in no Christian creed.

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This is an issue for brothers and sisters to enjoy debating but not an issue to divide over.

Although of interest to the believer, the question of time with regards to creation may not carry the same weight to a skeptic or non-believer; while either position may be acceptable for the Christian, that does not mean each view is equally practical when talking to a specific skeptic. In an encounter with a skeptic who holds firmly an alternative view it may not be a wise tactical decision to attempt to rid them of their beliefs (even if it conflicts with the Christian’s understanding of creation). As an apologetic method, spending time arguing with a skeptic over the length of creation may not be fruitful. A factually accurate view of the length of creation is not necessary for the skeptic’s salvation, but a correct view of Jesus Christ is. Conceding a skeptic or non-believer’s point about the length of creation does not disqualify them from learning the truth about Jesus, but it may remove one more distraction on their road to finding the Lord.

For more information about the reliability of the New Testament gospels and the case for Christianity, please read Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels. This book teaches readers ten principles of cold-case investigations and applies these strategies to investigate the claims of the gospel authors. The book is accompanied by an eight-session Cold-Case Christianity DVD Set (and Participant’s Guide) to help individuals or small groups examine the evidence and make the case.

[1] Gose, Tia. “4 in 10 Americans Believe God Created the Earth 10,000 Years Ago.” LiveScience, last modified June 5, 2014. https://www.livescience.com/46123-many-americans-creationists.html

[2] Biblical Hermeneutics, “Can ‘Yom’ in Genesis 1 be translated as an ‘aeon/age’?” Stack Exchange, accessed March 25, 2021. https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/8412/can-yom-in-genesis-1-be-translated-as-a n-aeon-age

[3] Biologos, “How was the Genesis account of creation interpreted before Darwin?” last modified January 18, 2019. https://biologos.org/common-questions/how-was-the-genesis-account-of-creation-interpreted-bef ore-darwin

[4] Rice, Doyle, “Universe is 13.8 billion years old, scientists confirm,” USA Today, last modified July 15, 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/15/age-universe-13-8-billion-years-scienti sts-confirm/3287409001/

[5] Keller, Tim, Russell Moore, and Ligon Duncan, “Keller, Moore, and Duncan on the Non Negotiable Beliefs About Creation,” The Gospel Coalition, Aug 29, 2012, YouTube video, 11:59, https://youtu.be/HfKBCXAOarY.

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Written By

Jimmy Wallace is a detective who holds a BA in Psychology (from UCLA) and an MA in Theology - Applied Apologetics (from Colorado Christian University).

9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. SHELLEE

    June 12, 2021 at 7:59 am

    The earth has to be at least as old as the oldest fossils/dinosaur 🦕. We know about when they existed.We are created in God’s image,but we don’t really know what that image was. We base the picture of him as we are now. Christ was born to Mary,so we had an image of God we could relate to,since we would be unable to look upon God ourselves.
    My BIG QUESTION! How to share Christ’s salvation with someone who doesn’t EVEN believe in GOD as creator? No God,No Jesus.
    I believe in an infinite God. HE is beyond our understanding,but the world around me & all thats amazing in it tells me he is real. My mind is finite, so I make the choice to believe.To an unbeliever thats not very convincing.

    • Jono Martin

      June 14, 2021 at 7:43 am

      Regarding the question of whether or not God or Jesus exist, I like Ray Comfort’s explanation:
      – You know there’s a builder because there’s a building.
      – You know there’s a painter because there’s a painting.
      – You know there’s a Creator because there’s a creation.
      Buildings don’t build themselves.
      Paintings don’t paint themselves.
      Creation doesn’t create itself.

      The evidence for the existence of God is overwhelming and it takes great amount of blind faith to believe otherwise.

      For Jesus, there’s more evidence–outside the Bible–for the existence of Jesus in the first 150 years of his death and resurrection than there is for the existence of Tiberias Caesar, the Roman emperor at the time. To deny the existence of Jesus based on evidence is to force one to deny the existence of Tiberias Caesar. It takes a LOT of denial of plain evidence to deny Jesus existed.

      It’s utter foolishness to deny the existence of God or Jesus (see Ps 14:1; 53:1 – The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”)

    • David

      July 7, 2021 at 2:25 am

      Yes the word Yom can mean a long period but in Genesis after the Word day God through the writer Moses gives a time then there was evening and the morning day one, then day 2 and so on, then God gave the command to work 6 days then rest the 7th he did not put evening and the morning do we Interpret it to mean long period of time no but six 24 hours days to work, and one person noted in a comment that we need to judge time by the oldest Dinosaur but God said that he made all land animals on the 6th day, and death and suffering or the Curse did not enter tell sin came through Adam, that is why we need to look at the whole Bible, should we call God a lier no That is why it is a One week, 24 hour days

    • Flash Titan

      October 21, 2022 at 11:00 am

      Well said, as far as the pictures of Jesus they aren’t accurate. They’re a creation of Europeans that Christ had Lilly white skins with blue eyes and light brown hair. The great likelihood is that while he was a caucasian, he looked like a middle eastern caucasian Jew, not from Greece or Italy or anywhere else in Europe.

  2. Douglas

    June 12, 2021 at 8:45 am

    Consider this: God made all things fully complete and ready for living life. If it took millions of years, then one could say that what God created was not fully completed. So, Earth and the stars, moon and sun were created in a “fully complete” state, thus, “looks” millions of years old. Another fact to consider is fossils can be created in moments. Take Mount St. Helens eruption where fossils were created in an instant of time, but, when measured or dated appear millions of years old?! There is plenty of proof in the text where all God created was fully complete and “very good.” I still believe in a young Earth and see evidence of that all around us. Even our solar system appears very young with gas giants and comets are still with us and should have discontinued millions of years ago, if measured by our standards today. This is still unsettled and perhaps we all should look to the Lord for answers. The main path is knowing Jesus first and obtaining the free gift of eternal life.

  3. Mark

    June 15, 2021 at 12:50 pm

    Have you ever been to the Creation Museum in Kentucky? Ken Ham and his organization show significant evidence in support of a young earth, approximately 6000 years old. The eruption of Mount Saint Helens and the resulting aftermath and land changes show what likely happened during and after Noah’s flood and that millions of years are not needed. Check it out.

  4. Isabel

    August 6, 2021 at 8:32 pm

    Is it essential for a nonbeliever to believe in a literal 6 days creation? Yes, it is of the utmost importance. Understand that I don’t mean it is a necessity for salvation, however, if they cannot believe a literal creation, how can they believe in a literal resurrection. That is most often a huge stumbling block to believe in Jesus’ resurrection.

    Why do we need salvation? We sin? We fell? How do we know? It is all in Genesis and how Jesus viewed the OT.
    Jesus is our second, literal Adam, through whom salvation came, therefore we need a literal, first Adam, which evolution in any shape or form does not provide.

    So, no, we cannot concede to “…a skeptic or non-believer’s point about the length of creation does not disqualify them from learning the truth (which is?) about Jesus, but it may remove one more distraction on their road to finding the Lord.” (brackets mine)

    We need to meet every believer’s doubts or nonbelievers’ questions where they are at as Paul did, not where we want them to be, but while we need love and grace towards them, we also need truth.

    Well, all I need to say is too long to put in this comment box and there are others who explain it better, so I have provided links to more extended responses. Please read and do so prayerfully as I have experienced the unsaved rejecting salvation because they didn’t get the right answers about their Genesis questions.

    https://creation.com/focus-creation
    https://creation.com/what-is-biblical-creation-and-why-is-it-important

    Blessings to you all,
    Isabel

  5. Martin

    September 7, 2021 at 8:52 am

    I tried to write a comment for this but it possibly got moderated away, so I am trying again. Jesus believed in a literal Genesis account- he said “In the beginning God made them male and female”. Paul used a literal creation account in his evangelism in Athens “from one man God made all the nations on earth”. The ten commandments clearly tell the ordinary Jew of the day that God made the world in six days. The use of morning and evening clearly describes the rotation of the earth in a day with a fixed light source. (Probably a created light source before the sun). The seventh day is three times described as the seventh day and is a conclusion to the other six days of work. It has no morning or evening description but it is described as a day of rest. To assume that this is a long age and the other six days are not does not really fit.
    We can all uses Genesis and take it literally including the six days as a bedrock to evangelize from. John’s gospel starts with The Word who made the universe in the beginning. Jesus was not ashamed of a literal genesis account- nor should we be. It is easy to get from Creation to Christ. If someone is amazed that we believe the world was made in six days- then we could say- what is even more amazing is that God who did this came to earth and was born. He did things only God can do and the eyewitnesses saw him die and rise again. This God can give you new birth as well.
    To do away with six days in itself does not seem bad but:-
    It makes it difficult to decide what is literal and not in Genesis. It has to add things to the Genesis account and does not make sense with the Genesis account. It opens the door to believe in evolution which is anti- core Christian beliefs. God is good and created a Good world not one with death. Death was the punishment for sin. Adam was the head of humanity and we are seen as being in Him in the fall. He was made from the ground and in God’s image- an evolved ape is not. In Timothy (I think) Paul goes back to the prior creation of Adam before Eve to show that there should be male leadership in the Church (and in the home).
    There is good science out there that is further good evidence for a literal creation account.
    The theory of evolution has bad science in it. It assumes creatures can get new body parts like a car turning into an airplane with a flight box recorder, wings and jet engines. Random Mutations can’t do that. What we see is adaptation which allows variety within a kind- lots of dog breeds, wolves etc all of one kind.
    The good geological evidence is that in the recent past the whole world had a continental scale flood:-
    The fossil record does show sea creatures at the bottom and larger creatures further up- but in a flood the land animals would have been further up and would have attempted to escape. Further up we do observe fish and land animals mixed together. There may have been zones of destruction, where animals were caught together in their environments and moved. The fossil record shows stasis (some creatures have not changed at all). It shows variety within a kind, lots of types of triceratops like creatures. It shows Dinosaurs in death poses- grasping for air. It shows Dinosaur poo, and soft creatures fossilized (Things that can only happen if something is buried rapidly.) Fossils have been found giving birth or eating another animal- all evidence of a rapid flood. Fossized leaves have been found- these leaves had to be covered rapidly to have been fossilized. Fossils are found on all continents , even on Everest. Trees can be found going through several layers, which means those layers were all laid down at once. Squashed, fossilized logs with the tops and bottoms ripped off have been found on all continents. Multiple layers of rock like cake layers can be seen all bent at once, which means they were all laid down together and bent when soft. When Mount St Helens blew up in 1980 it caused multiple layering in the sediment, it caused trees to lose their roots and branches and the logs floated until they sunk upright down in the mud. When the ash was measured it measured maybe 350,000 years old by standard measuring techniques, when we know it was only 1980.There are knife edge boundaries between some layers- with no erosion. This shows the next layer was laid rapidly on top. There are massive layers of sediment that cover hundreds of miles across. often fossils can be found pointing in one direction- as the current moved them that way. Dinosaurs have been found with the soft tissue still in the bones this probably would not be around today if they were millions of years old. Chalk (sea creatures) is found in layers are about 400m metres deep on average and cross different continents. This is a continental flood. I live on a 50 metre chalk cliff, 50 miles from the sea in England. The sea covered all of Kent. Those cliffs go over to France and America, Turkey and Kazakhstan. Large creatures, such an exctinct swordfish are buried in chalk layers. The ooze on the ocean floor accumulates too slowly today to bury fish and other large animals before they get eaten or decay. So they must have been buried quickly before decay was possible. The Cambrian explosion shows multiple kinds of complex creatures (like trilobites) at the lower levels of the record with not much below it. No evolution before sudden appearance of many complex life systems.
    Coal, oil and gas are fossil fuels made from wood and vegetation are found in massive layers. None of this is happening today through processes we observe. Fossils are being formed rapidly today- you can see a miners hat left in a mine and fossilized. But not large numbers of fossil graveyards, with animals all mixed up together. When animals die today they get scavenged very quickly, both on the land and in the sea. Sea creatures get torn apart before they reach the bottom. All round the world, in different unrelated cultures like the American Indians and in Ancient China are stories of the flood and of dragons. There are many myths also in these stories. The Bible records the true events of the flood and describes dinosaur type creatures. Why not read it . Try John’s gospel to start with.

  6. Mark Hastings

    June 15, 2022 at 9:18 am

    I believe in 6 – 24 hour days of creation. But I also believe that yom can be translated as a long period of time. But if it is, then there is always some other reason for the long period of time that is not always stated. Sometimes it is trying to justify evolution, trying to justify scientism, or trying to squeeze in the Big Bang. But in order to squeeze in those reasons, the Bible must be really be made over.
    They start eliminating the worldwide flood, eliminating sin before death, eliminating the creation of man by the breath of God, or even try eliminating the deity of Christ. That is the stuff that I object to.

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