The Day-Age Theory
Thomas Allen
The following is an excerpt from Adam to Abraham: The Early History of Man by Thomas Allen (Franklinton, N.C.: TC Allen Co., 1998).
The Day-Age Theory
According to the Day-Age Theory, the six days of creation should not be or cannot be regarded as ordinary 24-hour days.[1] They should be considered as periods of indeterminate length. As these days have an indeterminate length, they can be equated with the vast amount of time required for the geological history of the Earth.
In the first chapter of Genesis, the Hebrew word yôwm or yôm is translated “day” in the King James Version and most other translations. Fenton translates yôwm as “age.” The word means day both in the literal sense of from sunrise to sunset or from one sunset to the next or in the figurative sense of a space of time of unspecified duration, era, or age. For example, Genesis 2:4 reads, “These are the generation of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.” Here, “day” refers to the entire period described by the six days of creation in chapter one. Even in Genesis One, the word “day” is used in several different senses. In Genesis 1:5 “day” is used as a term for light. It seems to mean a period of 24 hours in Genesis 1:8 and 13. In Genesis 1:14 and 16, it seems to mean a period of 12 hours. As makers of day and night, the Sun and Moon did not exist until the fourth day. Therefore, the first three days cannot be treated as ordinary days.[2]
The seventh day is described as God's day of rest. This day has not yet ended and therefore extends a long time. If the seventh day extends a long time, then the preceding six days may also legitimately be considered as long periods of indeterminate length.[3] It, therefore, cannot be dogmatically asserted that the six days of Genesis One must be treated as ordinary days. Based on the discoveries of science, the logical and reasonable interpretation of yôwm in chapter one would be “era” instead of a literal 24-hour day. Such an interpretation does not infringe upon God's sovereignty or creative powers. Neither does it prove evolution. What seems to finite man as an extremely long time is less than a moment in God's present, which is infinite.[4]
Further evidence that the days in Genesis One are not 24-hour days, but are days or eras of indeterminate length, is the description of events that occurred on the third and sixth day. Much more than 24 hours is needed for the water to run off from the emerging dry lands on day three. This is especially true if subsequent growth of vegetation also occurred on the same day. For all the events that occurred in the sixth day to occur within 24 hours is impossible. Adam could not have named the multitudes of species of animals that would have existed on that day, even if God created them during the first second of the day.
Time is relative. When one looks at the Andromeda galaxy, he sees what happened more than two million years ago. That is, his present is Andromeda’s past two million years ago. As Psalm 90:4 puts it, “For a thousand years in thy [God's] sight are but as yesterday when it is past.” That a thousand years in man’s eyes is but a day in God’s shows that God’s idea of time differs from man’s. That God has a different idea of time is supported by 2 Peter 3:8, which reads, “But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Time is relative to the observer. The days in Genesis One are best thought of as days of God and not as 24-hour days.[5]
Another problem with a literal 24-hour interpretation is how the Hebrews measured the length of a day. To the Hebrews, days were measured from sunset to sunset. Thus, a day was seldom 24 hours long. They varied in length. Between the winter solstice and the summer solstice, each day was the same length or slightly longer than the preceding day. Between the summer solstice and the winter solstice, each day was the same length or slightly shorter than the preceding day. The length of day would also vary with latitude. Between the summer solstice and the winter solstice, the farther north or higher the latitude, the longer the day in the northern hemisphere. Several days may pass at the equator while only one day passes above the Arctic Circle, where the sun does not set for days.
The creation week of Genesis One is best interpreted as a figurative week with long overlapping days. However, such an interpretation does not mean that the days and the week are allegorical, mythological, or symbolical. What is being described in Genesis One is a historical week, a real week. The events described for the various days are actual events that occurred in space and time. The day-structure is figurative only in the sense that these days are not identical to ordinary 24-hour days. Rather, they are indeterminate stretches of real, historical time.
Genesis One presents a concise summary of the major events that occurred during the creation week. The general sequence of creation is given, but overlapping of these events is not ruled out. The creation week is described in terms of very broad, large-scale phenomena. It is not described in terms of precise, scientific, technical phenomena (as much as modern man may have wished it to have been so described). Not everything that happened is described. Genesis One is an economy of expression. It is a generalized description of major events.
Creation is just as Divine and miraculous under the long periods allowed under the Day-Age Theory[6] as it would be if God created the world suddenly and completely. The power necessary to originate and support a ceaseless and prolonged process of developing the world is at least as great as the power necessary to bring it into being in a week.
Endnotes
1. Before the Reformation, the days of Genesis One were not generally interpreted as 24-hour days. Only in the last 400 years have they been interpreted as a literal week of seven consecutive 24-hour days.
2. Augustine contended that the first three days of creation were not ordinary 24-hour days because they were not marked by the rising and setting of the Sun. The Sun is not specifically mentioned until the fourth day of creation. He said that it was difficult, if not impossible, to conceive the type (or length) of days in these verses. (He also held that the events described in the first two verses of Genesis were not part of the six days of creation.)
3. Proof that the seventh day did not end with Genesis 2:3 is that, unlike the other six, the Bible does not state that “there was evening and there was morning—the seventh day.” The absence of this phrase is one clear indication that the seventh day was never terminated. Hebrews Four provides further support to the continuing existence of God’s Sabbath.
4. Perhaps God created the Universe 15 billion years ago, which is an extremely long time, just to show man how insignificant time is when compared to the eternal God.
5. In Joel 3:18, Acts 2:20, and John 16:23, “that day” seems to mean the whole Christian era.
6. A more in-depth discussion of the Day-Age Theory is found in Christianity & the Age of the Earth by Davis Young.
Copyright © 1998 by Thomas Coley Allen.
