The Bible says God created the world in six literal days

The word yom

The word used for "day" in the creation account is the Hebrew word "yom". It's true that "yom" can mean simply "time", such as in the phrase "the day of the Lord" in Isaiah 13:6. Indeed, it has a number of similar meanings, but there are many reasons why the word "yom" in Genesis 1 clearly has literal meaning.

  • It is the plain meaning
    • Simply put, just read the creation account (Genesis 1). The plain meaning of the text is that God created the world in 6 24-hour days.
    • Try to insert something else into the text. Go ahead. Here, let me help:

      There was evening, and there was morning, a third [thousands of years].Genesis 1:13, twisted to include heresy

      It just doesn't work.
    • Even scholars who do not believe in a literal 6-day creation admit that Scripture teaches a literal 6-day creation

      So far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Gen. 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah's Flood was understood to be worldwide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.Dr. James Barr (professor of Hebrew at Oxford), in a letter to David Watson dated April 23, 1984

      If, for example, the word "day" in these chapters does not mean a period of twenty-four hours, the interpretation of Scripture is hopeless.Marcus Dods (professor), in the Expositor's Bible

  • Syntagmatic relationships (context) indicate a literal interpretation1 Outside Genesis 1, the word "yom" is used with a number 359 times
    • The words "evening" and "morning" appear in association without "yom" 38 times, each time referring to a literal day (Stambaugh, 75). Why would Genesis 1 be any different?
    • The words "evening" and "morning" appear in association with "yom" 23 times, each time referring to a literal day (Stambaugh, 75). Why would Genesis 1 be any different?
    • Robert C. Newman, who does not accept a literal 6-day creation, admits that "no clear counter-example [of yom with an ordinal number] can be cited with yom meaning a long period of time"2. That is, every time "yom" appears with a number such as "seventh" or "first", it refers to a literal day. Why would Genesis 1 be any different?
  • Other words were available if Moses was referring to something other than literal days
    • There were 13 words available to Moses to indicate time, and 11 of them referred to long periods of time (Stambaugh). Why wouldn't Moses have used any of those 11?

Notes

1 Figures for this point taken from James Stambaugh's The Days of Creation: A Semantic Approach, published in Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, volume 5, issue 1, pages 70-78, originally published 1991. Source available online here.

2 Newman, R. and Ecklemann, H., Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1977, p61