Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning According to Genesis and Science

by John C. Lennox

since God is the author both of his Word the Bible and of the universe, there must ultimately be harmony between correct interpretation of the biblical data and correct interpretation of the scientific data.

It would be a pity if, in a desire (rightly) to treat the Bible as more than a book, we ended up treating it as less than a book by not permitting it the range and use of language, order, and figures of speech that are (or ought to be) familiar to us from our ordinary experience of conversation and reading.

Even though our interpretation relies on scientific knowledge, it does not compromise the authority of Scripture. And this is the important point. Scripture has the primary authority. Experience and science have helped decide between the possible interpretations that Scripture allows.

Thus Philo thought creation was the act of a moment, and the Genesis record had more to do with principles of order and arrangement.

(“For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night”)

“On one and the same day on which they ate, they also died (for it is one day of creation) … He (Adam) did not overstep the thousand years, but died within their limit.”

He therefore understood the days to communicate the priority of created things but not the timing of their creation.

“Now what man of intelligence will believe that the first, the second and the third day, and the evening and morning existed without the sun, moon and stars?”

This implies that “the beginning” of Genesis 1:1 did not necessarily take place on day 1 as is frequently assumed. The initial creation took place before day 1, but Genesis does not tell us how long before. This means that the question of the age of the earth (and of the universe) is a separate question from the interpretation of the days, a point that is frequently overlooked. In other words, quite apart from any scientific considerations, the text of Genesis 1:1, in separating the beginning from day 1, leaves the age of the universe indeterminate.

Origen was asking a very reasonable question: “If the sun is not yet there, how are we to understand the first three days with their ‘evenings and mornings’?” The word “day” makes no obvious sense in the absence of the sun and the earth’s rotation relative to it.

the fact that some early church fathers had difficulties with interpreting the text should give us some comfort, make us more humble, and, in addition, show us that the difficulties are not all generated by modern science but arise from a serious attempt to understand the text itself.