Feedback | Hist | India | Other Sites || Math | Theol | Th Phys | Time | Translit

The Genesis account of creation takes only 433 Hebrew words, and has many interpretationss. To understand the actual events would probably take a larger brain and mind than any human has. It has long been noticed that the story is highly structured. The first three days describe the world being separated into the "containers" Day & Night, Heaven & waters, Earth & Seas. The next three days describe these containers being populated with sun / moon & stars; sea creatures / birds, animals wild & domestic, and humans. The seventh day is set apart as the sabbath. Since the sabbath is a day of 24 hours, it seems most likely that the other days are too.

The passages Ex. 20:8-11, 31:12-17 refer to Genesis and verify that the creation account is set in seven ordinary days. I take this in the following sense. The account separates the work of creation into six parts, which are mapped to six weekdays. This gives a kind of writing which may be called a picture-story-poem. The seven weekdays are a poetic background indicating process in general, rather than the actual time frame - whatever that was. God is clearly shown as the Creator.

A similar approach to the seven days of creation in Genesis is found in Charles E. Hummel, The Galileo Connection/ Resolving Conflicts between Science and the Bible. Downers Grove IL: IVP, 1986, pp. 205, 214-215.