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| Yom |
What is a Yom? Why is Yom splattered all over my scriptures? How do we determine what kind of Yom are we dealing with? When is a Yom not a Yom? And why is Yom a favorite weapon of creation deniers?
Yom is a Hebrew word, it's origin is an unused root word meaning "to be hot" as in the warmth of the daylight hours of the day. Biblical Hebrew has a limited vocabulary, containing fewer words as compared to most other languages. Contrast that with English which has the largest vocabulary.
Because English has so many words, most words have one set meaning, words that have multiple meanings are often differentiated by spelling (such as which vs witch) which actually creates a homonym. However biblical Hebrew has so few words that many words often have more than one meaning and context would determine the meaning.
Yom relates to the concept of time, and exactly what Yom means is determined by studying the context of its use with the other words around it using hermeneutics (Herman who?) Hermeneutics is the theory of text interpretation and can be used interchangeably with exegesis{Yeah, I threw this one in for Pastor Paratus too} and simply put it means to draw out the meaning of the text by studying the context of the text.
Depending on the context Yom can mean daytime, sunrise to sunset, a 24 hour day, sunset to sunset, a year, or a long span of time of either determined or undetermined length, Because Yom can mean all these different things, anti-creationists use Yom as a warclub to beat their unsubstantiated theories into our heads. But we have a defense! It's that Herman guy... Hermeneutics!
Yom is used quite a few times in Genesis 1, and anti creationists like to point out that a Yom can mean a period of millions of years, and to be honest, it can. Yom appears 2,287 times in the KJV bible and at no time is it ever used to mean "millions of years". Here's some hermeneutical rules for determining what a Yom is:
- Yom + an ordinal number (an ordinal number is words like "First", "Second", "Third"...) always indicate an ordinary day
- Yom + the words 'evening' and 'morning' always indicate an ordinary day
- Yom + the words 'evening' or 'morning' always indicate an ordinary day
- Yom + the word 'night' always means an ordinary day
- Yom not qualified with a number or the words evening and/or morning can mean numerous other things including "a period of time" or "every" or "chronicles" it's all determined by the context it's used in. (Remember that Herman guy?)
So there you have it, what a Yom is and is not, when it's a day and when it's not a day. Of the 2,287 times Yom is used in the KJV bible, it is used as an ordinary day 2,008 times. At no time in the bible is Yom used to denote millions of years. The closest you get is when it means "Continually" (always) such as in Genesis 6:5, Leviticus 24:8 and 1 Samuel 18:29, but none of those is speaking of a time frame.
So lets' look at creation in Genesis and see how Yom is used:
God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (Genesis 1:5)
God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. (Genesis 1:8)
There was evening and there was morning, a third day. (Genesis 1:13)
There was evening and there was morning,, a fourth day. (Genesis 1:19)
There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. (Genesis 1:23)
God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day (Genesis 1:31)
By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.(Genesis 2:2)
If you're sharp you noticed the color code I used showing each instance of ordinal number, 'evening' and 'morning' in each verse. You also may have noticed that Genesis 1:5 does not contain an ordinal number, it contains a cardinal number, which has its own set of rules but the outcome is the same.
So there you have it - the bible is very clear when it says that all things were created in six days. There's no scriptural wiggle room, there's no biblical loopholes, no theological escape hatch. Either you believe God when He says that all of creation took 6 days, or you believe that this is not the word of God.
Interesting post. But I have a question. How does one literally interpret the Genesis account from an old earth framework?
ReplyDeleteI supposed one could assume that Adam was in the garden of Eden for a very very long time. The bible does not say how long he was in there. He was told he could eat from every tree in the garden, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, under penalty of death, so since he was immortal (until the temptation) how could that time be counted? When I meet him I'll be sure to ask
DeleteThat is an interesting view to hold. It is certainly not choppy like the gap theory. I know that the age of the earth is not the most important thing there is out there or a hill to die on...But it is one thing that interests me. I've go a few other questions.
ReplyDeleteI suppose you believe in a global flood, right (the text of Scripture at least seems to support that...)? What are your thoughts on uniformitarianism and catstrophism? How about the continental drift or dinosaurs co-existing with man? Was there animal death prior to the fall?
I'm not wild about uniformitarianism, especially the the gradualistic concept that "the present is the key to the past", I firmly believe the opposite to be true. If we look at the present then there's absolutely no way that there could have ever been agriculture on Greenland, it would have always been too cold - but there was. The vikings settled Greenland and grew crops in the 1200's.
DeleteCatastrophism appears to be more of a realistic view. I can stand outside and look west at the mountain named after me (Mt. Evans) and the shape of the mountain is a volcano whose cone has blown out on one side. In fact many of the Colorado rockeys look that way. Driving up to Mt. Evans through the Clear Creek Canyon you can see sedimentary layered rock warped to look like ribbon candy. Then there's the Dakota Hogback - a ridge of land heaved up at a 45 degree angle. The ridge is a couple hundred feet wide and stretches for hundreds of miles. Uniformitarianism tells us that this happened over a long period of time, reality tells us that if that were true, the top soil would have washed off by now.
And as for the biblical flood - every civilization that extends back to that era talks about a great flood, simply look up "Flood Myth" in Wikipedia.
Continental drive to me is a maybe - there is geological evidence showing the same rock types on the east coast of the US and the west coast of Wales, but piecing Africa and South America together? The claims for global warming are slightly flimsier than that.
Dinosaurs coexisting with man? It's not something I care to care about, but Job's description of the leviathan pretty much seals that one up. And as for animal death prior to the fall - sure. I really haven't seen anything in the bible that says this to be true or false prima facie, but I'm willing cosider anything you can show me in the scripture.
Hi Dough,
ReplyDeleteI'm back! I don't want to bother you with too much stuff, but I was wondering what you thought of this article:
https://answersingenesis.org/theory-of-evolution/millions-of-years/where-did-the-idea-of-millions-of-years-come-from/
I need some time to go through this article, but here's one thing to chew on: A geologist can stand on a rock and say "This rock is millions of years old" because it's been there a while and he can make up proof through his studies on that particular rock.
DeleteA biologist can't stand on a chicken and say that its ancestors were dinosaurs because the chicken he is standing on has no scientific evidence of being a dinosaur, and the dinosaur fossils we find have no scientific evidence of tasting like chicken.
Doesn't Genesis say that Adam lived 930 years? Would that not conflict with the theory that Adam and Eve lived in the garden for a really long time?
ReplyDeleteHow come you rejected young earth creationism? You say that the universe seems to look ancient, but could you expound upon that thought some more?
In the Garden of Eden Adam walked with God, and God sees time a lot differently than you or I, who is to say that time doesn't pass differently in Eden also? We don't get the days counted for us as during the creation while Adam lived in Eden. Besides, Adam had to name all of the animals and that was before he met Eve, how long would that alone take?
DeleteI've also rejected old earth creationism and go with "God created the heavens and the earth. When we meet I'll ask Him about the exact timeline and get back with you". Jesus taught that from the scriptures which to me is all the defense they need.
As for the universe looking ancient, our current level of science view it as looking ancient. But ancient is a relative term. To my grandchildren I am ancient. To my children I am ancient, just up until they need someone to watch their children, then I am fairly spry and youthful.
What do you think of the "local flood" interpretation of the Genesis 6 flood? How would you respond to that?
ReplyDeleteI don't buy that. There are ancient civilizations all over the world that have a flood story. The most famous of all is the Gilgamesh but flood legends from Persia, Syria, Greece, Egypt Russia, China, India, Cree (Canada), Cherokee (US), Papago (Mexico), Aztecs (Mexico), Peru, Fiji, Hawaii,and more. And that's just a few.
DeleteMany are similar including divine destruction, a favored family is warned, a rescue vessel is used, animals are saved by that warned family.
I disagree with the writer Graham Hancock, but one thing he was absolutely correct on was this: "Mankind is a species with amnesia" because we let so much of our history get lost. Clearly God wanted mankind to remember this flood.