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Writer's pictureBible Brian

Dividing day from night


A common argument against Genesis being historical narrative is that the word "day" on days 1-3 cannot possibly be literal because the sun was not created until the fourth day. We base our day on the time the earth rotates on its axis.

Matt Walsh is a notable example, as he recently (at the time of writing) uploaded a video in which he argues that the word "day" means different things to different planets. A day on Neptune is 16 hours. On Jupiter, a little under 10. Venus even has a day lasting 116 earth days.


So how do we solve this "dilemma"? The same way we resolve most dilemmas: Read the text. In Genesis 1:14-15, we read about the creation of the sun and the moon. Verse 14 tells us "Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;"


This verse is so simple that if this particular argument did not exist, I would probably never address it on this ministry. The Lord clearly describes the purposes of the sun and the moon, that being that they are visible signs, particularly indicating time. In other words, the argument "how can a day exist before the sun?" is like asking how mornings existed before clocks were invented. A day doesn't require the sun to exist, the sun is designed to tell us when a day has gone by.


But what about the days on other planets? A simple question for people who argue this way: Are there humans on them? Of course not! They're all uninhabitable. God didn't design the sun so that people on Venus knew how long a day was, because there are no people on Venus. Notice that the Bible is a very geo-centric book. It's so geocentric that in verse 16, God creates the two great lights, and throws the stars in as a side note! "He made the stars also." Yeah, those giant gas balls you can't even count? God made those. No big deal, it's just what He does. God literally shows off by creating the celestial bodies, but He did not populate them, nor did He send His word to them. He didn't split the non-existent Red Sea on Mars. He wasn't born to a Venusian virgin. He wasn't crucified on Saturn. The planetary day argument would only work in the Sci-Fi universes of Star Wars and the like.


Old Earth Creationists and their ilk make many mountains out of mole hills, all to support the feeble opinions of Lyell, Darwin, and even Dawkins. "So many atheists say the world is millions of years old! How can we fit that into Genesis? I know, let's completely tear Genesis 1:14 out of the Bible and invent some false dilemma about how days can't exist without the sun!" But we don't need to do this. We don't need to fit millions of years into the Bible because it doesn't fit the Bible. But that's ok, because it doesn't fit reality either. The Bible, being the testimony of the Creator Himself, gives us the historically accurate account of our origins.

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