How Long was Creation Day One?

Modern Christians interpret creation with Western science, a system that did not exist when Moses wrote Genesis. For example, many Christians believe that God created time. Augustine introduced this doctrine to the church, but it is not found in the Bible. During Moses' era, people did not even imagine that time exists by itself, independently of events. Conservative Christians sometimes make 24-hour creation-days a test of doctrine. Moses would have failed their test. Thirty-four hundred years ago, linear 24-hour days had not yet been invented.

Ancient people used the cycles of the heavens to mark the days, seasons and years, as the Bible prescribed in Genesis 1:17. However, they believed that ancient cycles were slower than later ones. If Moses had drawn a Genesis time-line, it might have looked like this. Adam lived 930 year-cycles, but the years kept getting shorter as he aged. Evidence for this non linear world-view comes from their written accounts and the fossils. The bones of the face are the only part of our skeletons that keeps growing with age. If we lived for geological ages, we would grow thick brows like a Neanderthal. The skulls of Neanderthal youth do not have the prominent brows, which supports the ancient world-view that the first generations lived for eons. The Bible agrees with the ancient world-view, especially in the books of Job and Genesis. For example, Jacob, when he was 130 years old, stated that his days and years were shorter and worse than the days and years of his fathers (Genesis 47:9). Did Jacob have dementia? Couldn't he remember that grandfather Abraham lived five year-cycles less than father Isaac? What Jacob stated was how people thought in that age. His days and years and Isaac's were shorter and worse than Abraham's days and years, because the duration of days and years deteriorates. The evidence that Jacob spoke the truth is visible in galactic history, the only history that is visible as it happened.

Let's try interpreting creation in Moses' world view, rather than modern science.

Genesis gives us the sequence of creation. First Elohim created the heavens and the earth. The single Hebrew word translated "in the beginning" does not refer to time, per se. It means that which comes first in importance or sequence. The fourth Hebrew 'word' is not translated in modern Bibles. It is just the first and last letters of the alphabet (et). Like Alpha - Omega, it means - the sum total of everything. First Elohim finished creating everything, the heavens and earth. Whatever God made first in the heavens and earth was completed, since the verb bara (to create) is a completed action in Hebrew.

Verse two explains the next sequence in creation using the Earth (erets) as an example. What God finished in verse-one was tohu bohu, without form, not taking up space. Darkness covered the transitory (mayim) abyss (tehom). Then the Spirit intensely fluttered over the face (panyim) of the transitory thing (mayim). Apparently the primordial state of the earth had a surface because panyim is mentioned twice, but it did not have extension in space. Out of the darkness, Elohim continually commanded light (owr) to continually be. It was then that matter began to receive form as a relation with light.

Verse three says God saw (imperfect - a durative seeing) that the light was good. He causally and continually separates light from darkness.

In verse four, God continues to call out the name of light: day. He completed calling darkness: night. Light is a continuing activity while darkness is an absence of light. Perhaps this is why God completed naming darkness but continues to call out the name of light. There was evening and morning, Day One, a single cycle of darkness and light.

Overview. Elohim created primordial matter on Day One. The wind or Spirit fluttered over the transitory state (mayim) that was formless (tohu bohu), yet had a surface (panyim). Elohim does not flutter around in a body. The fluttering action suggests that the form of matter - the reason it takes up space - comes from a dithering relation with light. Indeed we find that all matter interrelates with light that continually jitters around within atoms. The observed properties of matter are related to this dithering, internal (and external) relationship with light. Matter began to receive form on that day because God continues to command light (owr) to continually be.

What was the duration of creation Day One? According to the Genesis account, God made the Sun, moon and stars to distinguish days, seasons and years on Day Four. On Day Four, He formed the Sun, Moon and stars and continually places them in the spreading out place (the raqiya). We have no Sun-reference for the duration of Day One, other than it was a single cycle of darkness and light. Yet we can see back to the creation age. Perhaps a trillion primordial galaxies shine from the earliest universe. We see them just as they were eons ago. The earliest galaxies were often naked and compressed, without diffuse star-arms. Ancient galaxies were evidently made of primordial matter, since the atomic light-clocks shone at tiny fractions of the light frequencies of modern atoms. At closer ranges, eras, we see that billions of galaxies grew from the insides outward as the stars accelerated outward. Billions of galaxies grew into huge, local, dusty, growth-spirals. The star-orbits evidently accelerated concurrently with the accelerating atomic clocks.

The simplest history of the universe uses biblical physics. Biblical physics uses no complex mathematics nor does it define symbolical things like mass, seconds or energy. Yet biblical physics is supported by the strongest possible evidence, the visible evidence of how the galaxies formed. We can see that the properties of matter are always changing, just as the Apostle Paul wrote, that the creation is in bondage to phthora, fundamental change. We observe through many ranges (eras) that the star orbits accelerate outward. If the same laws are in effect everywhere (Job 38:33), then ancient years (and days) on Earth would also have been much longer than later ones. Orbits that steadily move out are accelerating orbits and the only possible cause for this visible action is that the properties of matter change as matter ages. After all, steadily expanding galaxies violate every law of Western science.

It is because scientists have a fixed dogma, that their universe is 99 % invisible. They cannot compromise on this creed because most of their measuring units, mathematics and laws depend on the assumption that the properties of matter are fixed, not relationally emerging. The scientific universe is allegedly crammed full of vacuum forces and invisible matter. Scientists must invent an invisible universe to preserve their dogma that the properties of matter are fixed.

The Bible will certainly triumph over Western science, because we can see that the first principle of science is false, just as the Bible predicts. In the last days, Peter wrote, false teachers will come saying "all things remain the same".

Think about it.