At a time when we may be sitting at the edge of the church's removal from earth, it seems strange to ask the question,
"Are we dealing with a young earth or an old one?"
Science, with its ties to Darwinian theory and all of those simian-like skulls that we were compelled to associate with evolutionary theories, which were proven to be human manipulations pushed upon the public; that and the growing understanding of how the Smithsonian Institute and its aggressive push toward evolution and crushing of Christian beliefs played a role in our understanding of history, the less I value their input.
In a typical conversation with a young earth advocate who has brutishly advocated for their position, I will frequently bring up the validity of an old earth against a young earth based upon our lack of understanding of the scope of a simple Hebrew word like yôm, or day in the English transliteration.
The Young Earthers typically base their spirited arguments on information they have obtained from Dr. Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis. Dr. Hamm also created the Young Earth creationist organization that operates the Ark Encounter in Kentucky and believes wholeheartedly in the teachings of James Ussher.
According to Wikipedia and information listed by the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, James Ussher obtained a Master’s in Theology by age 20. He quickly became the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland between 1625 and 1656. Many sought his wisdom, and he had the ear of King James of England. His influence extended into every known denomination of the time.
Ussher was best known for his calculation of the age of the Universe, known as the ‘Ussher chronology.’ He determined the first day of biblical creation to be October 23, 4004 BC. By the middle of the 19th century, Ussher’s chronology came under increasing attack from supporters of uniformitarianism, who argued that Ussher’s “young Earth” was incompatible with the increasingly accepted view of an Earth much more ancient than Ussher’s.
In the book Before Genesis, the authors Donna Holland and Dr. Thomas Horn pointed out that Ussher admitted that he assumed several dates. This assumption, as Donna Holland and Dr. Horn have pointed out, “may have been necessary, seeing as scripture is vague on some things like the word used for both a small increment of time or a vast period of undocumented time; and the transliteration of the King James version from “original” sources of Hebrew is influenced by many issues and difficult at best.”
These are things that would have influenced and potentially corrupted someone's understanding.
Moses documented what he saw, heard, and experienced. God filled in other details, such as the creation of the earth and, in time, humanity—Adam and Eve.
This accumulation of laws, history, and—in the case of Psalms and Proverbs—poetry became the Torah. But remember that until Heidelberg invented the printing press, the Torah was only in scroll form. These scrolls were so valuable that copies were primarily kept in the synagogues. If the scribe "copying" a scroll made a mistake, the entire scroll must be trashed. So, errors may not have been found for many years.
What language did they use to make these Bibles we use? Well, it is safe to say it was NOT English. We know that the Torah may well have been initially written in a form of Hebrew that was banished during Roman oppression. There would have been an eventual struggle to try to recover that language. A problem like this might explain why much of the Bible was transliterated from Koine Greek. Wikipedia gives us this about Koine Greek – it is also known as Hellenistic and Biblical Greek, evolved from Attic, and is a more recent dialect. It is pronounced more closely to modern Greek. It is the dialect in which the New Testament was composed and into which the Old Testament, or Septuagint, was translated from older Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts.
I asked Wikipedia how many forms of Hebrew are known? The response:
Biblical Hebrew: Also known as Classical Hebrew, this is the archaic form of Hebrew used in most of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).
Mishnaic Hebrew: Also known as Rabbinic Hebrew, this was the language used in the Mishna, a collection of Jewish traditions written around 200 CE.
Medieval Hebrew: This period lasted from the 6th to the 13th century CE, and many words were borrowed from other languages.
Modern Hebrew: This is the language used in Israel today. It has two main versions: Sephardic Hebrew, also known as Ivrit or Israeli, and Ashkenazi Hebrew, also known as Ladino or Yiddish.
Ashkenazi Hebrew: This dialect is commonly used in Israel, but its popularity is declining compared to Israeli Hebrew.
Sephardi Hebrew: This dialect is spoken by Jews from Spain, Brazil, Portugal, and Italy.
Mizrahi Hebrew: This dialect is spoken by Jews from the Middle East.
So, under Roman rule, where the Hebrew language, both written and spoken, was banished, the Jewish people had to learn Greek. Thus, Greek and Aramaic became the primary languages of biblical restoration, as we see in Daniel's writings.
Imagine the collective effort required to recover the entire book of Isaiah, for example. An oral recitation, a shared responsibility, would have been mandatory. The process of picking someone or multiple persons' brains to recover a rather large document not only adds to the potential for errors but also underscores the sense of community in the restoration of these texts. Many of those documents that were stashed away in the Qumran caves played a crucial role in the restoration of the Torah.
So when you respond to someone (typically a religious zealot who adheres to a literal six-day, 24-hour creation) with yes, but the Hebrew word yôm, which was translated as a day in Genesis 1:5, can also be translated as vast eons of time, the skilled young earth apologist will perpetually try to deter your assertions by pointing out God's installation of day and night, which, in their minds, clearly demonstrates a 24-hour period.
Sadly, all this talk about 24-hour creation periods doesn't seem to work without a Sun, and we don't see that until Genesis 1:16 when we see God placing the Sun in the sky on the fourth day.
Genesis 1:16NASB God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.
The Hebrew word yôm covers a wide range of time concepts. The Word Study Dictionary gives us this.
A masculine noun meaning day, time, or year.
This word stands as the most basic conception of time in the Old Testament.
It designates such wide-ranging elements as the daylight hours from sunrise to sunset (Gen_1:5; 1Ki_19:4);
a literal twenty-four-hour cycle (Deu_16:8; 2Ki_25:30);
a generic span of time (Gen_26:8; Num_20:15);
In Genesis 26:8 it is an indeterminate amount of time, likely consisting of days (hence, along time.)
Genesis 26:7-8 LEB When the men of the place asked concerning his wife, he said, "She is my sister," for he was afraid to say, "my wife," thinking "the men of the place will kill me on account of Rebekah, for she was beautiful." 8 And it happened that, when he had been there a long time, Abimelech the king of the Philistines looked through the window, and saw—behold—Isaac was fondling Rebekah his wife.
In the book of Numbers, we see God's people as slaves in Egypt for a long time.
Numbers 20:15 LEB our ancestors went down to Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians mistreated us and our ancestors.
In Exodus 12:40 we see a reference that spells out how long Israel was there in captivity; that would indicate that “yôm” also meant 430 years.
a given point in time (Gen_2:17; Gen_47:29; Eze_33:12).
In Genesis 2:17, the day was not specified and was certainly to come, but when?
Genesis 2:17 LEB but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die."
Genesis 47:29, in speaking of Jacob / Israel, he had lived a full life and at this point they could see his death coming, but no one could say when that would happen. In this case, the yôm (or day of his death) was unknown to them.
In the plural, the word may also mean the span of life (Psa_102:3 [4])
Psalms 102:3 LEB for my days vanish in smoke, and my bones are charred like a hearth.
or a year (Lev_25:29; 1Sa_27:7).
Leviticus 25:29 LEB "' And if a man sells a residential house in a walled city, then it shall be his redemption until completing a year after his selling; its redemption shall last a year.
In the NASB version of this passage, the length is spelled out as a full year. This is the Strong's number H3117 yôm.
The prophets often infuse the word with end-times meanings or connotations, using it in connection with a future period of consequential events, such as the "day of the LORD" (Jer_46:10; Zec_14:1) or simply, "that day" (Isa_19:23; Zec_14:20-21).
Zechariah is speaking about the thousand year reign of the Messiah over the earth and specifically the nations participating in the Feast of Booths.
Zechariah 14:20-21 LEB On that day there will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, "Holy to Yahweh." And the cooking pots in the house of Yahweh will be holy, like the sacrificial basins before the altar. 21 And every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to Yahweh of hosts, and all those who sacrifice will come and will take from them, and will cook in them, and there will be no longer a trader in the house of Yahweh of hosts on that day.
Here, in contrast to a 24-hour day, the usage of the phrase “on that day” clearly refers to the entirety of actions that occur during the millennial reign, and it is the word yôm.
The word yôm is used by the Prophet Jeremiah as he addresses the seven years of God's wrath.
Jeremiah 46:10 LEB For that day is to the Lord Yahweh of hosts a day of retribution, to take revenge on his foes. And the sword will devour and be satisfied, and it will drink its fill of their blood, for a sacrifice is for the Lord Yahweh of hosts in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.
Having studied our Bibles, we know that this time of revenge is also known as God's wrath. This is the period between the catching away of the bride of Christ and the millennial reign.
My hope is that I have made it possible for you to read the scriptures with an open mind and are willing to take in other information that would help to make a concept, such as a day a word that can help to answer your questions instead of creating more.
If I can l read Genesis 1:1 with the understanding that Jesus spoke the entirety of the creation into existence; and that Isaiah 45:18 tells us that it was perfect in the day that it was formed, then something cataclysmic happened between verses 1 and 2. It is now easier to understand that the cataclysmic event happened within an indeterminate time frame and that God was now putting things back into order without holding to a 24-hour time frame.
