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The Hebrew of Genesis One

The first chapter of the Bible is a summary of God’s creation and begins in verses one and two with the creation of space, then the Earth with the waters. Later that same "day" (the Hebrew word "YOM"), God created "light" (the Hebrew word "OR"). He saw it was all good and declared the evening and the morning to be the first "day" [again using the word "YOM"]. 

The chapter progresses with the creation of the Earth’s atmosphere and seas on the second day (YOM), the grasses and fruit trees on the third day (YOM), then the sun, moon, and - in that greatest of all understatements – “He made the stars also” – on the fourth day. 

The "light" created on that fourth day (YOM) is written in Hebrew as "MAOR", related to but not the same as "OR" on the first day. After describing the creation of the sea creatures, birds, and then land animals, the chapter states that God created man in His own image, “male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27) and concludes (Genesis 1:31) by declaring that everything on that sixth day (YOM) was “very good.”

A Thousand Years = A Day?

By making an appeal to two Scriptures, some Christians claim that the “days” of creation week were actually each of a thousand years. This is made in the hope of reconciling Genesis with the doctrine of evolution. 

The two scriptures used are “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is passed, and like a watch in the night.” (Psalm 90:4) and “But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8)

The context of the first passage (Psalm 90:4) is to teach us to number our days, while that of the second passage (2 Peter 3:8) is to show that the Lord is long-suffering, calling all to repentance before the Earth and the works in it are burned up.

Rational objections to the “day is as a thousand years” theory are:

1. The Hebrew word "YOM" used in the Genesis context means a normal 24-hour day.
2. The context for each of the "thousand-year" passages is not appropriate.
3. The grasses and fruit trees created on the third “day” could not possibly survive for a thousand years without the sun created on the fourth “day.”
4. The theory would require Adam and Eve to be created during the 1,000 years of the sixth day and possibly be hundreds of years old with no children before the normal 24-hour days began

Lastly, even if you were to accept this "a day is as a thousand years" theory, academic and scientific establishments are convinced that many millions of years were necessary for evolution to have taken place. Suggesting that the creation of heaven and Earth all took place in six thousand years is still not accepted by the establishment as a hopeful reconciliation between the two ideologies represented by geology and Scripture.

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