A handbook of Freethought

by Unknown

“And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night; and the evening and the morning were the first day.”

Bible expounders have found it difficult to reconcile the word “day” with the teachings of geology. According to common chronology the creation of this universe out of nothing took place four thousand and four years before the birth of Christ, which would make the universe about six thousand years old. The testimony of geology is that the formation of this earth as it now is, must have a record of millions of years. And astronomy demonstrates that there are stars so far from this earth that it would take an indefinitely long time for the light from them to reach this earth.

Here then are two witnesses against this story which makes the earth about six thousand years old. These witnesses cannot be impeached.

What shall be done with the record? Oh, put a new interpretation upon it. “A person who is not a critic,” says Huxley, “and is not a Hebrew scholar, can only stand up and admire the marvelous flexibility of the language which admits of such adverse interpretations.”

The great expounders who explain the inexplicable things assure us that the six days of creation spoken of in the book of Genesis do mean literal days of twenty-four hours, but that the word “day” is here used to mean an indefinite period, “a great while.” But there are so many, and such great difficulties in the way of our accepting this explanation that we are forced to reject it.

In the first place the record says “days,” and says nothing in connection with the word that would lead us to think the writer meant anything by the word more than it usually signifies; while on the other hand all the uses of the word seem to imply that a day in every instance where the word is used, means a period of twenty-four hours.

Hugh Miller, and an eminent geologist, attempted to reconcile Genesis with geology, and after a laborous effort to achieve this end committed suicide. He attempted an impossible task.

There is not the slightest grounds for supposing the writer of Genesis to mean by the word “day” anything more than we mean by the same word. The language, “the evening and the morning were the first day,” can admit of but one interpretation, and that is the duration of twenty-four hours. We shall find that the writer uses the word “day” where, by no possible flexibility of interpretation, can the word mean anything other than this, and gives no hint that he means anything different in the use of the word in the latter case from its signification in its previous use.

“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. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work.”

“For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”