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Although Moses wrote the book of Genesis approximately 3,400 years ago, it has been in just the last couple of centuries that serious debate over the nature and date of creation has developed. Consequently, there are now a number of theories relative to the creation account, and one of them is called the Day-Age Theory. Basically, this is a belief that the "days" spoken of in the first chapter of Genesis are sequential periods and not literal, 24-hour days. Each day, therefore, is thought to represent a much longer, albeit undefined, period of time, such as a million or more years. Essentially, it is an attempt to harmonize Scripture with theistic evolution. Day-age creationism, a type of old Earth creationism, is an interpretation of the creation accounts in Genesis. It holds that the six days referred to in the Genesis account of creation are not ordinary 24-hour days, but are much longer periods (of thousands or millions of years). The Genesis account is then reconciled with the age of the Earth. Proponents of the day-age theory can be found among both theistic evolutionists, who accept the scientific consensus on evolution, and progressive creationists, who reject it. The theories are said to be built on the understanding that the Hebrew word yom is used to refer to a time period, with a beginning and an end and not necessarily that of a 24-hour day. The differences between the young Earth interpretation of Genesis and modern scientific theories such as Big Bang, abiogenesis, and common descent are significant. The young Earth interpretation says that everything in the universe and on Earth was created in six 24-hour days, estimated to have occurred some 6,000 years ago. Modern scientific observations, however, put the age of the universe at 13.8 billion years and the Earth at 4.6 billion years, with various forms of life, including humans, being formed gradually over time. The day-age theory tries to reconcile these views by believing that the creation "days" were not ordinary 24-hour days, but actually lasted for long periods of time-or as the theory's name implies: the "days" each lasted an age. According to this view, the sequence and duration of the creation "days" is representative or symbolic of the sequence and duration of events that scientists theorize to have happened.
The Old-Earth figurative view can be traced back at least to Saint Augustine in the 5th Century who pointed out, in De Genesi ad Litteram (On the Literal [Interpretation of] Genesis) that the "days" in Genesis could not be literal days, if only because Genesis itself tells us that the sun was not made until the fourth "day". Scottish lawyer and geologist Charles Lyell published his famous and influential work Principles of Geology in 1830-1833 which interpreted geologic change as the steady accumulation of minute changes over enormously long spans of time and that natural processes, uniformly applied over the length of that existence (uniformitarianism), could account for what men saw and studied in creation. In the mid 19th century, American geologist Arnold Guyot sought to harmonize science and scripture by interpreting the "days" of Genesis 1 as epochs in cosmic history. Similar views were held by a protégé of Lyell, John William Dawson, who was a prominent Canadian geologist and commentator, from an orthodox perspective, on science and religion in the latter part of the 19th century. Dawson was a special creationist, but not a biblical literalist, admitting that the days of creation represented long periods of time, that the Genesis flood was only 'universal' from the narrator's limited perspective, and that it was only humanity, not the Earth itself, that was of recent creation. American geologist and seminarian George Frederick Wright was originally a leading Christian Darwinist. However reaction against higher criticism in biblical scholarship and the influence of James Dwight Dana led him to become increasingly theologically conservative. By the first decade of the 20th century he joined forces with the emerging fundamentalist movement in advocating against evolution, penning an essay for The Fundamentals entitled "The Passing of Evolution". In these later years Wright believed that the "days" of Genesis represented geological ages and argued for the special creation of several plant and animal species "and at the same time endowed them with the marvellous capacity for variation which we know they possess." His statements on whether there had been a separate special creation of humanity were contradictory. Probably the most famous day-age creationist was American politician, anti-evolution campaigner and Scopes Trial prosecutor William Jennings Bryan. Unlike many of his conservative followers, Bryan was not a strict biblical literalist, and had no objection to "evolution before man but for the fact that a concession as to the truth of evolution up to man furnishes our opponents with an argument which they are quick to use, namely, if evolution accounts for all the species up to man, does it not raise a presumption in behalf of evolution to include man?" He considered defining the days in Genesis 1 to be twenty-four hours to be a pro-evolution straw man argument to make attacking creationists easier, and admitted at Scopes that the world was far older than six thousand years, and that the days of creation were probably longer than twenty-four hours each. American Baptist preacher and anti-evolution campaigner William Bell Riley, "The Grand Old Man of Fundamentalism", founder of the World Christian Fundamentals Association and of the Anti-Evolution League of America was another prominent day-age creationist in the first half of the 20th century, who defended this position in a famous debate with friend and prominent young Earth creationist Harry Rimmer. One modern defender is astronomer Hugh Ross, who in 1994 wrote Creation and Time defending the day-age view in great detail, and who founded the day-age creationist ministry Reasons to Believe. Interpretation of Genesis Day-age creationists differ from young Earth creationists in how they interpret a number of crucial Hebrew words in Genesis, and thus how they interpret the genealogies and creation account contained in it. They point out that the Hebrew words for father ('ab) and son (ben) can also mean forefather and descendant, respectively, and that the Biblical scripture occasionally "telescopes" genealogies to emphasize the more important ancestors. This, they argue, renders genealogically-based dating of the creation, such as the Ussher chronology, to be inaccurate. They admit that yom can mean a 24 hour solar day, but argue that it can refer to an indefinitely long period of time. It is in this sense that the word, day-age creationists say, is employed in Genesis 2:4, with a "day" of God's total creation taking place in the course of "days" of creation. The day-age approach is rejected by Young Earth creationists, whose more direct approach to Biblical literalism leads to a reading of yom as referring to literal 24-hour days. In attempting to challenge the view of "yom" as "era", Young Earth creationists typically address three things. 1.Day means day, not prior or era. This argument tends to fall on its face, since even the English word "day" has a variety of meanings. 2.There are other words for 'period of time', but these were not chosen. This argument is difficult for either side to maintain, since it forces you to read the minds of the writers, to understand why one term is used and not another. Of course, it is in effect the exact same argument Old-Earth types are using when they say yom means period. 3.Yom is followed by an ordinal (First, Second, Third), which is only done when yom means day. Unfortunately for Young Earthers, this too is flatly incorrect. Throughout the bible, "yom" is also associated with ordinals to indicate periods of time under particular kings, periods of time under the lawlessness of exile, etc., e.g. periods of time substantially longer than a single 24-hour day. It is also incorrect, because it is not clear that the distinction between ordinal and cardinal in ancient Hebrew was followed consistently. 4.The Hebrew text states "Evening and morning, One Day" in pattern and days have evening and mornings, "eras" do not. The counter to this tends to be that Eras are described as beginning and ending, and that morning and evening frame the period of time. 5.There are six literal days of work symbolising the six "days" of creation followed by the Sabbath rest, also one day long clearly suggesting the days mentioned in creation are literal days rather than figurative days. The response is that the week as we know it, was framed after God's week, and does not point to, nor require literal 24-hour days. Neither side has any compelling linguistic or contextual analysis that would make the other side obviously inaccurate. The fact is, without a time machine to find out the intent of the writer on something so poetic and abstract as the creation of the universe, this debate will rage. Jews and Christians who attempt to read Bible in a literal manner generally accept either approach as it fits into their own personal view of their religion and science, but neither the NEC or the OEC approach is is able to reconcile the existence of the two contradictory creation myths in Genesis. Issues with science A created Earth, as defined by Genesis, is problematic with science regardless of the length of days, so all the Old Earthers have truly obtained is one less conflict - that of the age of the earth itself. As explained in the article Young Earth creationism, there are a variety of problems of a literal creation, even if it did take a "long time" to make the Earth.
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