Opposing views of "yom"

dysert · Nov 22, 2014

The following text is not original with me, but I'm not citing the source because I don't want *it* to distract from the point of the thread. I think it's important that we hash out what's right or wrong with the following points so that we can rightly divide the word of truth and not impose interpretations on the Bible that aren't warranted...

On the one hand, there are Christians who understand the days of Genesis as 24-hour, consecutive periods for reasons such as the following: (1) The days of Gen. 1 are consecutively numbered and comprised of an "evening and morning." (2) Exo. 20:8-11 commands a literal week of six days of work and one day of rest based on God's original creation/rest week. The two weeks would seem, then, to be of equal duration. (3) According to Rom. 5:12, "sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin," but OECs would have animal death entering the world before the sin of Adam & Eve.

On the other hand, there are Christians who argue against 24-hour creation days for reasons such as these: (1) The word "yom" is used in different ways in the creation account. For instance, Gen. 1:5 refers yom only to daytime (daylight), not night-time. Also, Gen. 2:4, literally translated, speaks of "the yom that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." (2) God's rest on the seventh "day" has no evening and morning (Gen. 2:2-3), and Heb. 4:3-11 portrays this same Sabbath as continuing to the present time. (3) Adam could not have named all the birds and animals in 24 hours according to Gen. 2.

What does everyone think of these two points of view?

Merlin · Nov 22, 2014

If I talk about King David and say "In that day " which 24 hr period do I refer to ?

greentwiga · Nov 28, 2014

dysert said:
The following text is not original with me, but I'm not citing the source because I don't want *it* to distract from the point of the thread. I think it's important that we hash out what's right or wrong with the following points so that we can rightly divide the word of truth and not impose interpretations on the Bible that aren't warranted...

What does everyone think of these two points of view?

For me, Gen 2:4 is Key. it says; "This is the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven." The passage, at a minimum covers the creation of man. Thus the creation of the of the heavens and earth and the creation of man, 6 days in Gen 1 is all one day in Gen 2. It also says "generations."
Again, at a minimum, it covers Adam and his children. (~1000 years) If Adam of Gen 1 is not the same as Adam in Gen 2, then there can be many generations since the creation of man in Gen 1 and Adam in Gen 2. Either way, Gen 2:4 proves that yom can't be one day in Gen 1. Yom is 12 hours, 24 hours, 6 days, and many generations in Gen 1 and 2.

SkyWriting · Dec 2, 2014

dysert said:
The following text is not original with me, but I'm not citing the source because I don't want *it* to distract from the point of the thread. I think it's important that we hash out what's right or wrong with the following points so that we can rightly divide the word of truth and not impose interpretations on the Bible that aren't warranted...What does everyone think of these two points of view?

""sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin,"

DEATH is something that comes from the aging process.
The aging process did not begin before Adam's fall.

Adam was immortal up until that moment that he separated from God.

Evidently time and decay began with Adam's sin.

It doesn't matter how "yom" was used in other passages. Time, as-we-know-it, did not begin until Adams separation from God.

Percivale · Dec 2, 2014

SkyWriting said:
""sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin,"

DEATH is something that comes from the aging process.
The aging process did not begin before Adam's fall.

Adam was immortal up until that moment that he separated from God.

Evidently time and decay began with Adam's sin.

It doesn't matter how "yom" was used in other passages. Time, as-we-know-it, did not begin until Adams separation from God.

Adam's immortality was apparently something that was renewed by eating the tree of life, not because time had not begun. What you say means that God's creation didn't really happen, or take effect, until the fall. When God said 'very good' he was talking about a highly simplified and temporary condition, in your view, and real life in all its wonder and complexity only came about because of sin. I think that has worse theological implications than there being animal death before human sin (it probably wasn't before Satan's sin). Romans 5 only talks about human death. I recognize it doesn't seem as perfect to have animal death as part of the original creation, and that kept me from accepting an old earth for some time, but that is a value judgment we can leave to God. He said it was very good, not perfect, and I believe the natural world is still very good. Besides, Satan may have played a role in marring it even before man came on the scene. A perfect Eden would not have had the serpent in it, for instance.

Roonwit · Dec 8, 2014

Dysert

The word 'yom' in Hebrew has pretty much the same semantic range as the word 'day' in English, ie. it can be used in the same ways - for a 24 hour period, for the daylight period (as opposed to 'night'), and for a general period of time (eg. 'in Henry VIII's day'). Just as in English, we work out the meaning from the context.

The day in Genesis 1 is defined for us: "and there was evening and there was morning: one day". So we know what type of day we are dealing with - the type with evenings and mornings. A second type of day is also defined when light is separated from darkness, with the light called day and the darkness called night.

In Genesis 2:4, the word used is not 'yom' but 'b'yom'. This is a phrase that is literally translated 'in-day', leading to the misunderstanding that it means 'on that particular 24-hour day', but the NIV has a more accurate sense of the meaning by translating it as 'when'. The phrase translated 'generations' in the older versions, 'toledoth', is also better translated in meaning by the NIV as an account. We see this phrase used ten times in Genesis to mark off key sections. I have heard it argued that the different sections were written by the named people, Adam, Noah, Shem, and so on, with this first section being either directly given by God to Adam or put in editorially by Moses. I make no comment on whether that is an accurate interpretation, but I would support the NIV's rendering as "this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created".

The attempt to use this verse to blur the meaning of 'day' in Genesis 1 is spurious, and I find it surprising that we still have to debate this. There are defensible reasons for arguing that Genesis 1 was not intended to be taken literally (I don't agree with them, but I acknowledge they have some plausibility), but the argument that it is literal but is not talking about 24-hour days is complete nonsense.

On the other hand, there are Christians who argue against 24-hour creation days for reasons such as these: (1) The word "yom" is used in different ways in the creation account. For instance, Gen. 1:5 refers yom only to daytime (daylight), not night-time. Also, Gen. 2:4, literally translated, speaks of "the yom that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." (2) God's rest on the seventh "day" has no evening and morning (Gen. 2:2-3), and Heb. 4:3-11 portrays this same Sabbath as continuing to the present time. (3) Adam could not have named all the birds and animals in 24 hours according to Gen. 2.

In response to these specific points, I have just dealt with (1).

(2) I think there is an intention in God's manner of creating to prefigure or prophecy certain future events - and thus the creation of man in the image of God on the sixth day (Friday), and his being put to sleep in order for his bride to be taken out of his side and then presented to him, I believe prefigures the Man who is the Image of God, entering the sleep of death on a Friday and having his side pierced, in order that his holy bride the church could be brought out of him as part of him and brought into union with him. Similarly, I think the seventh day of rest is similarly pointing forward to the new creation and the rest that is brought with the Resurrection of Jesus - hence there is a prophetic reason for not closing the seventh day. However, that there is a deeper meaning to the story does not undermine its literal history, and Exodus 20 indicates that on the seventh day God rested, not is resting.

(3) How many animals did he need to name, and how long would this have taken? When you work this out, you realise it would not have taken that long. The animals would have been in broad kinds at that time, not the highly specialised species we see today. He wouldn't have needed to name lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, pumas, panthers, domestic cats, lynxes, etc, but just one cat. Neither did he need to name the sea creatures, only the land animals and birds. A child can do this in an afternoon at the zoo; I'm pretty sure Adam could have coped.

Roonwit

dysert · Dec 8, 2014

Roonwit said:
Dysert

The word 'yom' in Hebrew has pretty much the same semantic range as the word 'day' in English, ie. it can be used in the same ways - for a 24 hour period, for the daylight period (as opposed to 'night'), and for a general period of time (eg. 'in Henry VIII's day'). Just as in English, we work out the meaning from the context.

The day in Genesis 1 is defined for us: "and there was evening and there was morning: one day". So we know what type of day we are dealing with - the type with evenings and mornings. A second type of day is also defined when light is separated from darkness, with the light called day and the darkness called night.

In Genesis 2:4, the word used is not 'yom' but 'b'yom'. This is a phrase that is literally translated 'in-day', leading to the misunderstanding that it means 'on that particular 24-hour day', but the NIV has a more accurate sense of the meaning by translating it as 'when'. The phrase translated 'generations' in the older versions, 'toledoth', is also better translated in meaning by the NIV as an account. We see this phrase used ten times in Genesis to mark off key sections. I have heard it argued that the different sections were written by the named people, Adam, Noah, Shem, and so on, with this first section being either directly given by God to Adam or put in editorially by Moses. I make no comment on whether that is an accurate interpretation, but I would support the NIV's rendering as "this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created".

The attempt to use this verse to blur the meaning of 'day' in Genesis 1 is spurious, and I find it surprising that we still have to debate this. There are defensible reasons for arguing that Genesis 1 was not intended to be taken literally (I don't agree with them, but I acknowledge they have some plausibility), but the argument that it is literal but is not talking about 24-hour days is complete nonsense.

In response to these specific points, I have just dealt with (1).

(2) I think there is an intention in God's manner of creating to prefigure or prophecy certain future events - and thus the creation of man in the image of God on the sixth day (Friday), and his being put to sleep in order for his bride to be taken out of his side and then presented to him, I believe prefigures the Man who is the Image of God, entering the sleep of death on a Friday and having his side pierced, in order that his holy bride the church could be brought out of him as part of him and brought into union with him. Similarly, I think the seventh day of rest is similarly pointing forward to the new creation and the rest that is brought with the Resurrection of Jesus - hence there is a prophetic reason for not closing the seventh day. However, that there is a deeper meaning to the story does not undermine its literal history, and Exodus 20 indicates that on the seventh day God rested, not is resting.

(3) How many animals did he need to name, and how long would this have taken? When you work this out, you realise it would not have taken that long. The animals would have been in broad kinds at that time, not the highly specialised species we see today. He wouldn't have needed to name lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, pumas, panthers, domestic cats, lynxes, etc, but just one cat. Neither did he need to name the sea creatures, only the land animals and birds. A child can do this in an afternoon at the zoo; I'm pretty sure Adam could have coped.

Roonwit

Thanks for the thorough explanation of 'yom'. I have a question. You say that the Gen. 2:4 word translated "day" is actually 'b'yom'. Where are you getting this? All of the resources currently at my disposal have the same word as what's used in Gen. 1:5 ('yom'). Thanks.

miamited · Dec 8, 2014

Hi dysert,

Just to put in my two cents worth, I'm in agreement with what roonwit posted.

The word 'yom' in the Hebrew language is exactly the same as the word 'day' in the English language. It is a word that can cover several different time periods. Therefore, for each there must be a contextual clue before one can determine what the word, either 'yom' or 'day', refers to as a period of time.

God, who knows the hearts and minds of all men, understands this principle. He knew when He caused the words to be written through His Spirit by the hands of men, that He would have to follow the basic language rules of men in order to be understood by men. And God, knowing how wicked and stiff the hearts of men are to believe the truth, even went so far as to have it repeated at least twice again in the Scriptures that He created all things in this realm in six days.

Now, we can argue and debate and pontificate and explain and exaggerate all we want. After all, that is the whole issue with man's ability to understand and believe God going as far back as Eve in the garden. We just don't want to believe God even when He addresses us in reasonably clear language and repeats Himself, if we have any thoughts in our own hearts and minds that what God says can't possibly be true. So, we argue and pontificate.

God has said that each day of the creation, at least through day six was a day consisting of an evening and a morning. Nowhere else in all the writings of men, even secular writing, has such a contextual explanation been made, that allows that the word 'yom' or 'day' would intend some length of time longer than a normal solar day. It has also, for several centuries now, been understood in the Hebrew language that any time the word 'yom' or 'day' is numbered, that it automatically refers to a standard solar day.

Finally, God's word twice repeats to us that in six days God made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. The number 'six' would, using standard language construct, automatically intend that the writer or speaker is referring to six standard solar days.

The only reason that any of us aren't willing to believe that is because the wisdom of man says that it is impossible. The wisdom of man says that there is just absolutely no way that all the stars just appeared 6,000 years ago or so and yet we can see them all today. The wisdom of man says that earthly things have been weighed and measured and dated to be thousands or billions of years older than that and so, therefore, the account cannot be true.

Each is free to believe what he will about the when and how we find ourselves living and existing on this planet today, but as for me, I'm going with God's explanation. He created all that exists in this realm in six standard rotation of the earth days. He created it all for the specific and singular purpose of making a place where man could live. I would also point out that because I believe that God created all of this realm to provide a place for man to live; and that creating man was the pinnacle of His creating this realm, that I honestly can't understand, myself, why He would have it all sitting around for billions or trillions of years without man in it. Of course, I have heard often that my being able to understand such a thing doesn't have any bearing on the reality of the truth, and I agree with that. But I'm just sayin'...

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Roonwit · Dec 8, 2014

dysert said:
Thanks for the thorough explanation of 'yom'. I have a question. You say that the Gen. 2:4 word translated "day" is actually 'b'yom'. Where are you getting this? All of the resources currently at my disposal have the same word as what's used in Gen. 1:5 ('yom'). Thanks.

Dysert

I'm getting it from the Hebrew Bible on my shelf. If you can read Hebrew, you can get a Hebrew Bible online on biblegateway.com. If you can't read Hebrew, it's easy enough to learn to read it, or you could probably find a transliteration of the Hebrew words into English characters online somewhere.

As to the interpretations, my knowledge of Hebrew is only slight - not enough to make my own arguments, but enough to follow others' and judge between competing arguments. I have picked up this info about b'yom from various sources over the years, and checked out that it seems to accord with the Biblical usage by working my way through the uses of yom and b'yom in the Bible, using Strong's concordance.

Roonwit

Roonwit · Dec 8, 2014

Yeah, I'll add this to Ted's comments too. Why wouldn't you believe in literal days? The only reason not to do so is in order to fit millions of years into the period before Adam was created. But where is the evidence for the millions of years? In the fossil record, which is full of death and suffering, which the Bible indicates didn't come till after Adam's sin. So, if the fossils are post-Adam, there's no need for millions of years for creation, so why not just six days?

Moreover, if the fossil record is pre-Adam, where is the evidence for the Flood of Noah's day, which the Bible clearly says covered the whole earth? It must surely have left a heap of evidence, and yet modern science can't find it anywhere, because it has put the fossil record pre-Adam. However, if the fossil record is the record of the Flood, then we have a lot of evidence for it.

That's a very simplistic overview - I'm not going into all the arguments for and against the fossil record being the record of the Flood, which are long and complex and not the purpose of this thread. But from a theological point of view, it's pretty important.

Roonwit

Percivale · Dec 9, 2014

Roonwit said:
Dysert

I'm getting it from the Hebrew Bible on my shelf. If you can read Hebrew, you can get a Hebrew Bible online on biblegateway.com. If you can't read Hebrew, it's easy enough to learn to read it, or you could probably find a transliteration of the Hebrew words into English characters online somewhere.

As to the interpretations, my knowledge of Hebrew is only slight - not enough to make my own arguments, but enough to follow others' and judge between competing arguments. I have picked up this info about b'yom from various sources over the years, and checked out that it seems to accord with the Biblical usage by working my way through the uses of yom and b'yom in the Bible, using Strong's concordance.

Roonwit

In Hebrew, the prefix b' is a preposition meaning 'in.' It's still the same word yom, though you might argue that using it with a preposition is a contextual clue to its usage.

dysert · Dec 9, 2014

Percivale said:
In Hebrew, the prefix b' is a preposition meaning 'in.' It's still the same word yom, though you might argue that using it with a preposition is a contextual clue to its usage.

I have yet to look it up in my Hebrew interlinear :-(.

Roonwit · Dec 9, 2014

Percivale said:
In Hebrew, the prefix b' is a preposition meaning 'in.' It's still the same word yom, though you might argue that using it with a preposition is a contextual clue to its usage.

Yes - look up every use of b'yom in the OT, and you'll find it is a non-specific time reference. This is the point I am making - using Gen 2:4 to argue that the 'yom' in Gen 1 is non-specific is an attempt to blow smoke and blur the issue.

Roonwit

Percivale · Dec 12, 2014

Roonwit said:
Yes - look up every use of b'yom in the OT, and you'll find it is a non-specific time reference. This is the point I am making - using Gen 2:4 to argue that the 'yom' in Gen 1 is non-specific is an attempt to blow smoke and blur the issue.

Roonwit

To avoid obfuscation, also look up every occurence of 'in the day' (should be all the same references). You might check the plural form too "biymey" (in the days).

Roonwit · Dec 12, 2014

Percivale said:
To avoid obfuscation, also look up every occurence of 'in the day' (should be all the same references).

Not sure how that helps, since "in the day" is an English translation, and I'm not sure they are all the same references. Depends which translation you use anyway.

You might check the plural form too "biymey" (in the days).

I might. What would I find if I did? In fact, I think probably did include these, since they would be under the same Strong's reference.

Roonwit

greentwiga · Dec 12, 2014

So "In the day that they were made" of Gen 2:4 means that the day that the heavens and earth were created in Gen 1 was not 24 hours?

Roonwit · Dec 12, 2014

No, I'm suggesting that 'in the day' is a misleading translation, since the Hebrew phrase is better translated as something like 'when', as the NIV does.

Roonwit

greentwiga · Dec 13, 2014

I prefer the literal, in the day and generations. Your meanins may come out of those, when the literal doesn't fit, but here it does. To insist that b'yom can only mean when is a slender reed to base your 24 hour interpretation. To exclude a valid translation could be blinding yourself. Especially when the other interpretation has no problem with science, and yours makes you invalidate most of science.

Roonwit · Dec 13, 2014

But that's not the literal translation, that's the problem. That's why I'm saying, look up all the uses of b'yom. You'll find that they are non-specific time references. Therefore, "in the day" is a misleading translation.

In fact, it isn't literal at all, since the word b'yom has no article in it. 'In the day' would be bayom (I don't know if that's even used as a phrase in Hebrew). To translate literally, you would have to translate as 'in day', which makes no sense in English. Therefore you have to change it when you translate. If you translate as 'in the day', you make the time reference sound more specific than it is. So translating as 'when' is better, because it more accurately captures the sense of what is meant.

Besides which, even those who insist on translating it with the word 'day' recognise that 'day' has different meanings in different contexts. You determine the meaning by the context. In Genesis 1, the days are clearly ordinary days - they have evenings and mornings, and you number the days, and if that wasn't enough, Exodus even clarifies by saying that God created in six days and rested for one as a pattern for our week of six days of work and one of rest. Genesis 1 also uses 'day' as the daylight period, by contrasting it with night. Genesis 2:4, then, is using 'day' in its third sense, as 'the period, the time when God created'. Even if we insist on translating it as 'day', therefore, the argument that this undermines the idea that the days in Genesis 1 are ordinary days is utterly absurd. I am astonished that I have to keep on having it.

Moreover, your claim that the other interpretation raises no problem with 'science' is also completely wrong (I put 'science' in inverted commas because, clearly, I think the proper reading of the scientific evidence fits with a YEC view, but you used 'science' in the sense of 'the generally accepted view of most modern scientists', ie. an old earth). 'Science' tells us that land animals came before birds and whales, but Genesis clearly tells us the birds and whales came first. 'Science' tells us that insects came before fruit trees, but Genesis has the fruit trees coming first. 'Science' tells us that the earth came after the sun, but Genesis puts the earth first. So if you want to read the text literally, you have to reject 'science', and if you accept the 'science' you have to reject any literal reading of the text anyway, in which case why are you trying to argue that the literal meaning of the days in Genesis 1 is not of 24 hour days?

Roonwit

Percivale · Dec 15, 2014

Roonwit said:
But that's not the literal translation, that's the problem. That's why I'm saying, look up all the uses of b'yom. You'll find that they are non-specific time references. Therefore, "in the day" is a misleading translation.

In fact, it isn't literal at all, since the word b'yom has no article in it. 'In the day' would be bayom (I don't know if that's even used as a phrase in Hebrew). To translate literally, you would have to translate as 'in day', which makes no sense in English. Therefore you have to change it when you translate. If you translate as 'in the day', you make the time reference sound more specific than it is. So translating as 'when' is better, because it more accurately captures the sense of what is meant.
Roonwit

Do you understand the Hebrew grammar of construct state? The first noun in a construct pair never takes the article, but is always definite if the second noun has the article. b'yom is construct "in the day of something."

Opposing views of "yom"

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