The Genesis Timestamp

Some folks do not believe God made the earth in six days, like He said in Genesis 1. Some folks do not believe in God at all. I want to deal with the folks who believe God made the earth, but not in six days like we know days. There are quite a few folk in that camp; agnostics, deists, "C&E" christians, pseudo-atheists, and so forth. Some folks say that there was this period of, oh a few billion years, that took place between the first few "days" of Genesis 1. I'll call those folks Darwin Christians. Of course, that is an oxymoron, as is the idea that God said He made the earth in six days, yet it took a billion years. Contradiction, indeed. Okay, I will give you my theor of what I will call "The Genesis Timestamp." First off, the actual text: The Creation - Genesis 1:1-2:3 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. The Darwin Christians usually have two foundations for their view that the six-day creation was not a six 24-hour day creation. One, they rely on scientific data. Two, they state that the 'day' described in Genesis really refers to millions of years. The verse typically used to support that view is: 2 Peter 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. First, the scientific evidence: I cannot cover that subject in depth and do it any real justice, but I will offer this: Most scientifc evidence supporting the evolutionary model is based on measuring the apparent age of rocks, bones, and other artifacts. Scientific analysis determines that some object or other has an age of millions or billions of years. Fair enough. Now for the concept I call "The Genesis Timestamp". Looking at the King James text above, there is an intentional effort made to identify the span of time between each day. 5 ...And the evening and the morning were the first day. 8 ...And the evening and the morning were the second day. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 31 ...And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. I call these statements "The Genesis Timestamp". I believe the timestamp works like an algebraic equation, you can deduct the unknown by looking at the known. Solve "x+3=7". You end up with x=4. 4+3=7. Solve "y+y+y+1+1+1=6". You end up y=1. Now let's switch "y" with "day". "day+day+day+1+1+1=6" You end up with day=1. In other words, if you know the specific values of the last few parts of the equation, you can correctly solve the value of the first. God knew that we would eventually get around to discovering problem solving, algegbra, and stuff like that. He knew that if He was careful enough to stick in the precise time values of each day in the Genesis account, and if we knew the time span of at least one of those days, we could determine the remaining days were of the same time span. In the account of the fourth day in verses 16-19, we get our measure of a day, the typical solar day. And the description of that fourth day is the same for all seven days mentioned. God took that last day off. The timestamp tells us the span of time, even when there was no sun! So, now for the two points used by Darwin Christians. The scientific evidence points to the earth being very old, and if you look at the Genesis description above, you see the eart started out without form and void. As He gave it the characteristics we are familiar with, the result appears to be age. If I draw a picture of a cat, I am not obligated by the forces of nature to draw a newborn kitten. I am the artist, and I can draw as old a cat as I choose. God, as He shaped the earth, modified the carbon-14 content of the rocks and other goodies in the ground. I personally go out on a limb and believe that He put dinosaur bones in the ground, too. I admit, even the six-day-Creation Christians don't usually go for that one. But that specific point is my own belief,and I'll accept all the ridicule people want to dish out. But my dionsaur theory notwithstanding, I do believe that God changed the atomic structure of the compounds in the ground to give what we would analyze to be an age of millions of years. Okay, what about the "a day is as a thousand years" mentioned in 2 Peter? I dare you to read the entire third chapter of 2nd Peter! The chapter speaks of how in the last days, scoffers will mock at the idea that God will return to judge the earth. The chapter speaks of warning that God is not slack concerning His promises. The verse about a thousand words being equal to a day is there to warn the reader that God will keep His promise to judge the earth, even though a couple thousand years have already gone by. God is warning mankind that He is an excellent timekeeper and will bring forth His judgement precisely when He intends to, even if that time is thousands of years from when the warning is given. So, in summary, if God says the evening and the morning were a day, they were a day.