What are the different views of the seven days of creation in Genesis 1-2 and what are the strengths and weaknesses of each?

Answer 1

A very common view held by many Christians is that the first creation account (Genesis 1:1-2:4a) is then summarised for the creation of man in the second creation account (Genesis 2:4b-2:20). In fact, they are quite different and very inconsistent accounts. Leon R. Kass (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis ) says that once we recognise the independence of the two creation stories, we are compelled to adopt a critical principle of reading if we mean to understand each story on its own terms. We must scrupulously avoid reading into the first story any facts or notions taken from the second, and vice versa. Interestingly, Young Earth creationists, believing in biblical literalism, usually attempt to read the first account literally to establish that the world was created in just seven days, but also read the second account to say that this all happened only six to eight thousand years ago. If they rejected one or the other creation account from Genesis, their position would appear more rational.

Another common view held by many Christians is that God began by creating the world itself, ex nihilo, as stated in the KJV English translation (Genesis 1:1): "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Scholars disagree with this translation. The influential eleventh-century Jewish scholar, Rashi, said that Genesis should really be read, "When God began to create" or "In the beginning of God's creation," which makes no suggestion of God creating the world. Instead of using the the KJV English translation, Robert Alter (Genesis Translation and Commentary) translates the first sentence as "When God began to create heaven and earth, and the water was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God's breath hovering over the waters ..." Thus the first act of creation was when God created the light of day, therefore the first day.

Because it is now known that the world is not six to eight thousand years old, but over four billion years old, some try to resolve this by saying that the 'days' of this creation account are actually of indeterminate length and could even be millions of real years long. This is unnecessary if, as explained above, the story does not credit God with creating the world itself, since the world could already have been billions of years old when God began his creation.

Generally, scientists do not consider it their role to actively disprove religious traditions, but they do acknowledge that this creation story is scientifically impossible. You can not have daylight on day one, but only have the sun, moon and stars created on day three. In any case, the sun and stars are older than the earth, and the other planets are a similar age to the earth: approximately 4.5 billion years. The firmament that separates the waters above from the waters below, does not exist. Overall, the order of creation is wrong and simplistic.

Kass says that in this, the first account, the animals come first and man is to be their ruler, whereas in the second, the beasts come after as man's possible companions.

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