Please forgive, but the first sentence I must respectfully disagree with. I can read the text, and I don't see anything saying the days passed without any time between them. But no matter. Please just forgive. I don't see it.
I forgive, don't worry.
In a sequence of days (such as 1st day, 2nd day, 3rd day, 4th day, 5th day, 6th day), there is no time between the days.
Now if it were not clearly a sequence in Genesis 1, you could wonder if the text by itself leaves room for time in between, but this is not the case.
Also, it is confirmed several times in Scripture that God did it in 6 days, and resting from his work the 7th day.
I see no room in Scripture to suggest time in between those days, it consistently reads as a sequence in 1 week.
But I think they are real days, actual, with morning (after sunrise), and an evening (to sunset and just after). Literal. If that even helps at all. It's....too fine a detail to focus on very long. A distraction, finally, only a mere distraction to argue with people about, and the arguing itself is wrong. I don't need to confront anyone that thinks the days are metaphorical, and argue. It would be wrong for me to do so.
I agree the discussion can get blown out of proportions easily. I'm sometimes guilty of that, i suppose..
It's not a salvation issue.
I think the question is where we should draw the line.
When you allegorise this, then you open the door to allegorise more.
But on the other hand, the suggested flat earth model as portrayed in the Bible is only credible when you agree this is God's perception, not man's, not ours.
I guess this could be said too about the creation week, although there is much more emphasis on the creation week, which seems like a reason to take it more seriously and literally (so it seems to me anyway).
I'm not sure whether I know what you mean in the 2nd sentence above -- it seems like it says because the day has a morning and an evening, that the next "second" day in the text could not have more than one night or day passing before it comes. But perhaps you meant something else. Sorry, I don't think such a conclusion is good to make into a doctrine.
Yes, that is what i meant.
I read a quite clear emphasis on the days as sequential days, which start in the evening each time.
Even the first day starts in darkness by the way.
But i see your point, i think.
But it doesn't 'resonate' in my mind with the 7th day, when God rests of his work, when there would be periods of not creating in between the creation days.
I.m.o. it doesn't read like that.
But on your 3rd sentence we agree 100%. Really.
It's truly a theory to think that time passed between the days!
Absolutely.
Perhaps that's a better thing for us to agree on -- that's merely an idea, just a theory.
Okay.
I know for sure that the profound way I have been affected by Genesis chapter one does not rely even the slightest amount on whether 156 or 16,000 hours passed, or whatever time. That I can tell you as a sure thing.
It has to be limited though, otherwise the plants would be without sun for too long, unless God was the light source up until then.
But the eco system as a whole would not function if there were vast amounts of time between the creation days.
The time period is not the meaning of the text, and I think likely you agree on that. I don't feel it would be good at all in any way for me to argue on all of this time period stuff though. We are only saved solely by our faith in God and Christ risen, our Redeemer, and doing as He said in Matthew 7:24-27. That's our firm foundation.
We agree.
But the problem with Old Earth Creationism is that God did apparently not create man in his Image, from the dust of the earth, and did not form Eve from the rib of Adam.
The problem with OEC-ists is that they feel obliged to subscribe to naturalistic ideas because of the authoritarian position science has assumed in the matter.
What confounds me is that OEC-ists usually refuse to look into YEC science, and dismiss it as unscientific.
This must be peer pressure at work, because it's not reasonable.
It seems to me that OEC-ists refuse to choose between naturalism and supernaturalism, and while they're at it they simply don't believe Scripture anymore or are forced to allegorise a lot of it, throwing proper exegesis out the window.
They will have to ignore evidence from other fields of knowledge too, about things like the Nephilim and the Flood, even the Exodus.
Apparently it's not Scripture itself that they can not believe, but rather the fact that science is a human endeavour with usually a naturalistic viewpoint to work from and thus not objective and not necessarily financed, acknowledged and facilitated by people who pursue the truth of the matter.
But this was my biggest hurdle too.
I never expected main stream science to be as opinionated / opinionating as it apparently is.