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While the 'days' of creation could be either a figure of speech or literal 24-hour periods, this passage is nevertheless an orderly narration of what took place. It tells us that there is intelligence, meaning and purpose behind all existence. In other words, the word of God is seen in the method of creation as well as the source of creation (Psalm 33:6,9; Heb 11:3). Yet human beings have been given the privilege to explore, through scientific investigation, how God may have engineered these events, and how long he took.

Many understand the six days of creation to represent long periods of time, simply because 24-hour days were not created until the fourth day. Actually, the word day is used in chapters 1-2 in three distinct ways: (1) as approximately 12 hours of daylight (1:5); (2) as active activity from day one to day seven (see 2:4, where the word that is translated when is the same word that is elsewhere translated day). The light (1:3) did not come from the earth's sun if it was not created until the fourth day. It could have come from other sources that God provided in the universe prior to the sun. We can only speculate about what the atmospheric conditions might have been at that time.

A sample from the best-selling Quest Study Bible. Copyright Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. www.Zondervan.com. To order, click here.

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