| Did God
REALLY Create the World in Six Days? How Do I Know? ∙ 2014 Youth Lectureship
∙ Jason Hardin Fears or hesitancies
related to confessing a belief that God created the world in six days: “And
there was evening and there was morning, the first day” (Gen 1:5) • Yom
(Hebrew) – “day” o Can be used of a period of time (Gen 2:4) o More than 200
occurrences in the Old Testament that are linked to some numeric value,
always indicating a typical day • Yomin (Hebrew) – “days” o More than 1,700
occurrences in the Old Testament that are linked to some numeric value,
always indicating a typical day • How were the terms used by Moses in other
sections of his writing? o Genesis 30:16 – “in the evening…that night” o
Exodus 18:13 – “The next day…from morning till evening” o Exodus 20:8-11 –
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” o Genesis 1:8, 13, 19, 23, 31-2:4
– “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished” “And God said, ‘Let there be
light,’ and there was light…” (Gen 1:3) • Throughout the Bible, God’s
creative work is spoken of in terms of instantaneous execution o Psalm 33:6-9
– “For he spoke, and it came to be” o Psalm 148:1-6 – “For he commanded and
they were created” o Hebrews 11:3 – “The universe was created by the word of
God” “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were
created…” (Gen 2:4) • Compare to Genesis 5:1 – “This is the book of the
generations of Adam” • The book is claiming to be an historical account of
what happened! “He who created them from the beginning made them male and
female…” (Matt 19:4) • The New Testament treats Genesis 1-2 as an actual,
reliable, historical event o Paul (2 Cor 4:6; 1 Cor 15:21-22; 2 Cor 11:3; 1
Tim 2:13) o Jesus (Matt 19:4) o Luke (Luke 3:23-38) Biblical strands that
begin to unravel if Genesis 1-2 aren’t appreciated as literal: |
