This article, entitled “In Defence of a Literal Six-Day Creation”, proposes a scientific and theological argument for a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3. While I recognise that many Christians have adopted a non-literal interpretation of these opening chapters of the Bible, I believe that this position is both scientifically unsound and hermeneutically flawed. This paper is published in the hope that it might assist believers in understanding the full implications of a non-literal interpretation of the first chapters of the Bible and challenge them to have confidence in the clear teaching of God’s Word.
Elsewhere on this website, I have published other papers that provide additional supporting information for a literal six day creation, but it is recommended that you read the article on this page first. Links to the other supporting articles are as follows and are also provided at the conclusion of this article:
SUPPORTING ARTICLES
Evidence For a Young Earth and Universe
A Solution to the Starlight Problem
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In Defence of a Literal Six-Day Creation
The majority of Christians no longer interpret the first few chapters of the Bible literally. In particular, they regard the six-day account of creation as poetic and allegorical rather than descriptive of real-time chronology.[1] This reinterpretation does not primarily arise because of any obvious hermeneutical considerations within the biblical text itself. Instead, it is driven by a desire to align the Bible with the current (and historically very recent) scientific dogma regarding a very old earth that supposedly resulted from extremely slow geological and biological processes. In essence, the contemporary church has acquiesced to popular science and reinterpreted the Bible to accommodate this popular viewpoint. In this current climate of accommodation, any Christian who maintains a literal belief in Genesis 1–3 is regarded as naïve and unscientific.
In this paper I want to make three important points. Firstly, the science underpinning the old-age model of the earth (also known as the ‘deep time’ model) is flawed and increasingly contradicted when tested against observable data. Secondly, there is an abundance of scientific evidence for a young earth and a young universe that is inherent in a literal six-day creation. Thirdly, the hermeneutical reinterpretation of the first chapters of the Bible as being poetic and allegorical is deeply flawed and results in profound but not well understood contradictions with the rest of scripture.
PART A: The Science Supporting The Old-Earth View is Flawed
Popular science proposes that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old and the universe is 14.3 billion years old, having been formed through extremely slow processes. The old-age (or deep-time) view of the earth and universe gained increasing prominence in the early 19th century, particularly through the work of James Hutton and Charles Lyell, whose theories of slow geological processes prepared the intellectual ground for Darwin’s evolutionary model. Darwin’s theory, in turn, reinforced the need for vast geological time. In fact, belief in a very old earth is essential for the theory of evolution which requires vast amounts of time for the tiny incremental geological and biological processes to adequately account for life as we observe it today.
Faced with this prevailing old-age view of the earth and the universe, many theologians and ordinary Christians have reinterpreted the six days of creation in Genesis 1 to conform to this popular scientific dogma. But does hard scientific data continue to support the old earth timescale?
Flawed Scientific Radiometric Dating of Rocks
Radiometric Dating and Its Assumptions
Radiometric rock dating techniques such as uranium-lead, potassium-argon, and rubidium-strontium methods are commonly used to assign very old ages to rocks – often giving ages of millions or billions of years. Fossils contained in various rock strata cannot be dated directly, as they do not contain these radioactive elements. Instead, it is the rock strata in which the fossils are embedded that are dated using this methodology. Essentially, these rock dating techniques attempt to calculate a rock’s age by measuring how much of a rock’s unstable isotope of a particular element has degraded into its final stable element. By measuring the ratio of the unstable parent isotope to the resulting stable daughter isotope and factoring in the known rate of decay, an estimate of a rock’s age is proposed. However, these methods have three huge problems:
- The initial ratios of isotopes are not known
Scientists must assume how much of the parent and daughter isotopes were present in the rock when it formed. Often it is assumed that ALL the current daughter isotope in a rock sample was formed by radioactive decay and none was initially present when the rock was formed. But this is a huge and unprovable assumption which, if it is wrong, would result in estimated ages that would be vastly inaccurate. Indeed, as I will explain shortly, all newly formed rock from recent eruptions and sedimentation contain significant amounts of daughter isotope. - The decay rate may not have remained constant.
Radiometric dating also relies on the assumption that radioactive decay rates have never varied. Yet recent experiments have demonstrated that this is most certainly NOT the case. It is now understood that decay rates can change enormously under certain conditions (e.g., exposure to magnetic fields or pressure).[2] - The system may not have remained closed.
Radiometric dating also assumes that no isotopes were added or removed from the rock over time. But we now understand that geological processes such as heat, pressure and immersion in water can easily disrupt this balance, adding isotopes or removing them from the rock in significant amounts, thus rendering calculated dates completely unreliable.
Testing The Methodology Against Hard Data
Regular huge anomalies in rock ages proposed by radiometric dating reveal the deeply flawed nature of its underlying assumptions. When samples of newly formed rock from recent lava flows have been sent to dating laboratories for ‘blind’ dating, extremely old ages are returned despite the fact that the rocks are known to be only decades or hundreds of years old.
For example, newly formed rocks from the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens have been ‘blind’ dated using potassium-argon methods at over 2.8 million years,[3] yet we know that they are only decades old. Similar huge discrepancies have been obtained when dating rocks from other recent lava flows. Samples of newly formed rock from the eruption of Mount Hualalai in Hawaii (1801), were dated by different laboratories as being 1.9 to 3.3 billion years old. Rock formed by the 1973 eruption on Nishino Shima Island off the coast of Japan have been blind dated as being 15 to 100 million years old. In October 1968, “Science” magazine published dates of between 12 and 21 million years for volcanic rock formed from the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. Once again, these rock samples were blind tested and revealed dates of millions of years for rocks that were, at the time of publication, only 85 years old.
These are just a few examples. There are many more. This is an extremely important point. EVERY time radiometric dating methodology is tested against rocks of known recent age, the methodology is shown to be monumentally and ridiculously wrong.
Proponents of radiometric dating argue that these erroneous results from recently formed rocks are due to unexpected, anomalous levels of the stable daughter isotope (such as argon) in the new rocks or from other methodological artefacts. However, since such ‘anomalies’ are ubiquitous in all rock that has been formed from recent known eruptions or sedimentation events, this casts extreme doubt upon the ability to eliminate such confounding variables in ancient, unobservable contexts. If all newly formed rock has significant levels of a daughter isotope already present, why wouldn’t this also be the case for rocks formed in the distant, unknown past? In short, these findings completely undermine the fundamental assumptions upon which radiometric rock dating is founded.
Further to this, there are also many instances where samples of the same rock have been sent to different rock dating laboratories around the world who use different radiometric dating techniques, with the result that and vastly different ages have been proposed. For example, Dr. John Ashton in his book, Evolution Impossible, documents how a sample of basalt rock from Sommerset Dam, Queensland was recently ‘blind’ dated using four different dating techniques: potassium–argon, samarium–neodymium, rubidium–strontium and uranium–lead. The result? The ages proposed were 183 million years, 252 million years, 393 million years and 1.4 billion years respectively. The same piece of rock!
If the assumptions underlying radiometric dating of rocks were correct, the various dating techniques focusing on the decay of different isotopes should produce ages that are the same or very similar to each other. The fact that they do not tells us that something is seriously wrong with the underlying assumptions. These empirical anomalies are not isolated cases but are part of a consistent pattern that undermines the foundational assumptions of radiometric methodologies.
Furthermore, if blind testing of rocks of a known young age consistently produces wildly erroneous and overblown ages, how can we trust this methodology for rocks whose ages are unknown? The clear answer is, we can’t. Radiometric rock dating simply doesn’t work. It is a deeply flawed methodology and, for this reason, a growing number of scientists have abandoned it altogether.
Dr Andrew Snelling (Ph.D. in Geology from Sydney university) writes:
“Radiometric dating relies on three major assumptions that cannot be proven. If any one of them is incorrect—which is often the case—the whole dating process is invalid. The fact that different methods often produce wildly different dates for the same rock unit should cause serious doubt about their reliability.” [4]
Dr Steve Austin (Ph.D. in Geology from Pennsylvania State University) writes:
“Radiometric dating has become a religious belief system in itself—immune to contradictory evidence. Geologists often discard dates that do not fit the expected geologic timescale, revealing how interpretation overrides measurement.” [5]
The Myth of Slow Sedimentary Deposition
While radiometric rock dating is the flagship that supports the old earth timescale, the theory surrounding slow geological deposition rates is its support vessel.
The second critical assumption underpinning the old earth timescale is the belief that sedimentary rock layers—comprising most of the visible geologic record—formed slowly over millions of years through gradual deposition. This view, rooted in the principle of uniformitarianism, asserts that present-day processes such as river sedimentation and oceanic deposition must have always occurred at the same slow rates observed today. Consequently, the multiple strata of sedimentary rock around the world are interpreted as geological ‘clocks’, gradually laid down one upon the other and representing vast eons of time, with fossils in these various layers having been deposited millions or billions of years apart. However, modern geological research has increasingly challenged this paradigm, revealing that multiple sedimentary layers can form rapidly under catastrophic conditions.
The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens provided dramatic, real-world evidence of rapid stratification. Within hours, volcanic processes produced 600 feet of sedimentary rock with finely layered multiple strata that were virtually indistinguishable from those thought to take thousands and millions of years to form. Furthermore, a massive mud flow from the eruption carved a canyon 100 feet deep and 200 feet wide through rock and soil. The canyon even had a river flowing along the bottom, diverted into the newly formed canyon by the massive upheaval in the area. Evolutionists have always maintained that strata in rocks, and the formation of canyons, took millions of years to occur, and yet at Mount St. Helens they were formed in a SINGLE DAY!
Similarly, research into underwater turbidity currents—massive sediment-laden flows triggered by underwater landslides—has shown that hundreds of meters of multi-strata sediment can be deposited within a matter of hours. [6]
Another piece of evidence for rapid deposition of sedimentary layers and the formation of defined strata is the existence of polystrate fossils such as fossilised trees that pass vertically through multiple rock layers – rock layers that old earth scientists claim took millions of years to form. There are at least five examples of these polystrate tree fossils discovered in recent years – fossilised trees found in Joggins Cliffs in Nova Scotia, in the Lama River in Yellowstone National Park, in a coal mine in St. Etienne, France, in coal beds in Germany’s Ruhr Valley and in sandstone strata in Kettles Hill, Alberta, Canada. The claim that these trees were slowly embedded over millions of years and that the multi-layered strata they are embedded in represent millions of years of history is clearly ridiculous. An embedded tree trunk would not have survived for millions of years, exposed to the weather, while the rock strata gradually built up around it.
Although some geologists attempt to explain polystrate fossils through rapid burial in localized events, the widespread and frequent occurrence of such fossils across the globe suggests a far more catastrophic and universal process, consistent with the biblical flood model.
Further to this, the recent experiments of Dr. Guy Berthault, a respected French geologist and sedimentologist, have demonstrated that a large number of strata can be formed virtually simultaneously. His experiments were filmed and they revealed that strata and banks do not necessarily provide an indication of age but may simply be the result of variations in the speed of the water current depositing the sediment. [7] This confirms the findings of the famous German geologist, Johan Voltar, who, last century, discovered multiple strata being deposited and formed simultaneously in the Bay of Naples.
The result of these recent findings is a growing acknowledgement by many scientists that strata cannot be used to date rocks and their fossils. In fact, it is highly likely that fossils in different strata and banks may all be the same age, having been deposited at the same time, and not millions of years apart as we have been led to believe.
Findings such as these recent observations demonstrate that sedimentary layers do not require millions of years to form, but can accumulate rapidly under the right conditions, especially in the context of large-scale flooding. Such observations are consistent with the biblical account of a global flood and lend strong support to a young-earth framework.
The Dating Clock is Broken
Let us be very clear here. Those who propose a very old age for the earth have only two means of establishing this: radiometric rock dating and slow geological deposition rates. There is no other geological ticking clock that they have in their locker. But this geological clock is broken. It simply doesn’t work. It is based on assumptions that are now shown to be naïve and false, and when it is tested against known data and recent observations, it is profoundly contradicted.
In science, when a theory is contradicted by hard data, it must either be modified or discarded. In this case, the errors are of such a magnitude as to warrant the theory’s complete repudiation. The fact that evolutionists, in particular, continue to cling to their geological clock is because if they discard this clock, they have nothing with which to establish an old age for the Earth – and a very old age is absolutely essential for the theory of evolution. Without it, the theory is dead.
This is the broken clock that scientists continue to hold up to the world. In particular, it is this broken clock that is used to discredit the Genesis account of a six-day creation event and its associated inference of a young Earth. But if the empirical basis for an ancient earth collapses under scrutiny, then the primary reason for reinterpreting the Genesis account is invalidated. Sadly, however, the response of many Christians is to accept this broken clock unthinkingly and rewrite the Bible to accommodate it. This is a naïve response which ignores the hard scientific evidence and is out of step with the growing tide of respected scientists who are calling for the abandonment of this dogma.
Dr Larry Vardiman (Ph.D. from Colorado State University) states:
“The radiometric method’s credibility has collapsed.” [8]
PART B: Scientific Evidence for a Young Earth
If the universe was created in six literal days as Genesis describes, this has implications for the age of the earth. Instead of being gradually formed over 4.5 billion years as is popularly proposed, Genesis indicates it was created in just a few days. If this is true, it means that the earth is significantly younger than is commonly claimed. But is there any scientific evidence for a much younger earth and cosmos?
The answer is a resounding ‘yes’. There is a large and growing body of observable scientific data that indicates a very young Earth and a young universe. The following is a very brief summary of some of that evidence. A more comprehensive analysis can be found in my book, “No More Monkey Business: Evolution in Crisis” which can be either downloaded as an eBook or purchased as a print edition from this website. I have also published on this website a more comprehensive article, “Evidence for a Young Earth and Universe”. For further details on this topic I also recommend visiting Answers in Genesis (AiG), Creation Ministries International (CMI), Institute for Creation Research (ICR) or Creation Research Society (CRS).
Geological Evidence
If the earth is billions of years old as some scientists propose, geological erosion rates and deposition rates should have resulted in vastly different geological features than those we observe.
- The continents should have eroded flat multiple times if erosion has been occurring for billions of years. Yet we observe high mountains and deep canyons still present.
- The thickness of sedimentary layers in river deltas such as the Mississippi Delta is far less than would be expected if deposition had been occurring over millions or billions of years.
- As mentioned in the previous section, polystrate fossils—fossilised trees extending vertically through multiple rock layers—indicate rapid burial and catastrophic processes, not slow deposition of rock strata over eons.
- Coastal erosion rates provide further evidence for a young earth. Shorelines around the world are eroding rapidly—often at rates of several feet per year. If the earth were truly billions of years old, continents should have eroded completely into the oceans long ago. For example, the White Cliffs of Dover in England are eroding at a rate of 6 inches per year, and many other coastlines experience even faster loss. At these rates, continents could not have remained intact for billions of years, as claimed by uniformitarian geology.
- The oceans are not salty enough to be billions of years old, even accounting for known processes of salt removal. Our oceans contain approximately 3.6% dissolved salt and other minerals. Scientists estimate that 457 million tons of salt are added to our oceans each year from rivers and land run-off, while only 122 million tons are removed via various processes. Thus only approximately 27% of added salt is removed each year. If our earth was millions or even billions of years old, the oceans would long ago have reached salt saturation. The current level of 3.6%, however, sits perfectly with an earth that is only thousands of years old.
Biological Evidence
One of the most startling discoveries in recent decades has been the recovery of soft tissue in dinosaur fossils. Dr. Mary Schweitzer found flexible blood vessels and red blood cells in a Tyrannosaurus rex femur, dated by conventional methods at 68 million years. [9] Initially, evolutionists claimed that her findings were impossible and suggested that contamination was the culprit. They suggested that the soft tissue and haemoglobin molecules had somehow been introduced to the specimen after extraction. Accordingly, Dr Schweitzer led a second expedition to the extraction point in Hell Creek, Montana, this time with a much larger team of scientists who closely monitored the extraction and transport of more T-Rex bones. Under the most stringent scientific protocols, more soft tissue was found.
Dr Schweitzer’s discovery rocked the scientific world. Dinosaurs were believed to have become extinct 65 million years ago and it is impossible for soft tissue to remain intact for that length of time, even under ideal conditions, because soft tissue observably degrades at a rapid rate.
Since this initial discovery, soft tissue including red blood cells, collagen and skin is now being found in dinosaur bones and other fossilised remains all around the world. For example, there was a recent discovery of soft skin tissue and preserved scales belonging to a marine reptile called Plesiopterys Wildi that scientists claim lived 183 million years go. Found in the Posidonia Shale of Germany, this fossil exhibits remarkably intact skin structures, including smooth tail skin and small flipper scales. Such preservation of delicate organic materials such as melanosomes and keratin layers defies the old-earth claim that the fossil is 183 million years old. It can only be thousands of years at the most. [10]
While some researchers have proposed that iron particles or unusual mineralization could preserve tissue for extended periods, peer-reviewed responses (including Schweitzer’s own rebuttals) have demonstrated that these mechanisms fail to account for the preserved biochemical structures and elasticity observed under electron microscopy. The regular discovery of soft tissue in dinosaur fossils continues to be a huge problem for the old earth narrative.
Chemical Evidence
- Carbon-14, an isotope of carbon which has a half-life of only 5,730 years, has been found in coal, diamonds, and dinosaur bones that are supposedly tens to hundreds of millions of years old. [11] Since all detectable carbon-14 should have decayed after about 100,000 years, its presence implies a much younger age. These samples simply CANNOT be millions of years old as many scientists claim them to be. Proponents of the old-earth paradigm often invoke contamination to explain carbon-14 in coal or diamonds, yet rigorous handling procedures by laboratories involved in the RATE project render such claims increasingly implausible.
- Helium retention in zircons. The RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth) project, led by Dr. D. Russell Humphreys and supported by other Ph.D. scientists, measured helium retention in zircons extracted from granite in the Fenton Hill borehole in New Mexico. Their analysis indicated diffusion rates consistent with an age of 6,000–10,000 years, not billions. This helium should have completely diffused out of the crystals if the rocks were billions of years old. [12]
Paleontological Evidence
There are many ancient carvings and rock wall paintings around the world depicting dinosaurs.These predate modern palaeontology and indicate that ancient people actually saw these creatures and lived concurrent with them, long before they were given the term “dinosaurs” by modern science. [13]
For example, in 2017 pre-historic cave drawings of dinosaurs were discovered in a series of caves in Kuwait. The archaeologist who first examined them, Dr. Abdul Al-Shalafi, admits that his first assumption was that they were fraudulent, but subsequent radiocarbon analysis of the remnants of the paint, dated the drawings as thousands of years old.[i]
Dr. Al-Shalafi comments:
“These prehistoric pictograms seem to illustrate dinosaurs being hunted by humans. This could mean that humans are actually to blame for their extermination. This is certainly a revolutionary new perspective and it will certainly be hard for many historians and archaeologists to accept.”[ii]
Drawings such as these completely undercut the current dogma that dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, long before humans arrived. These artworks are further evidence for a much younger history of the earth.
Here are several other examples of ancient artwork showing that humans and dinosaurs co-existed:
There are literally hundreds more examples, which you can investigate here: https://genesispark.com/exhibits/historical-evidence/ancient-dinosaur-depictions/.
The best explanation for these hundreds of ancient depictions, including some which clearly portray humans hunting dinosaurs, is that humans and dinosaurs lived contemporaneously and were not separated by millions of years. The evolutionary timescale of millions and billions of years is refuted by these images.
Cosmological Evidence
The mass of the sun. The sun is decreasing in mass at a rate of 600 million tonnes per second. Extrapolating backwards, if the solar system is billions of years old as popular science proposes, the original size and temperature of the sun would not have been life permitting. The current temperature and size of the sun, however, fits perfectly with a universe that is only thousands of years old. (See my paper “Comprehensive Evidence for a Young Earth and Universe” for a more detailed discussion of this point).
The ’winding up dilemma’. The stars close to the centre of our galaxy are rotating around the galactic core much faster than the stars in the outer edges, which is what gives the galaxy its spiral-armed appearance. Our galaxy is effectively as the galaxy winding itself up tighter and tighter from the inside out. The difference in speeds of stars between the inside and the outside of the galaxy is so significant that astronomers have estimated that after only a few hundred million years the galaxy would be so tightly wound that it would have completely lost the shape of the spiral arms and simply be a conglomerated mass of stars. Yet our galaxy is supposed to be 14.5 billion years old. Scientists are aware of this conundrum, referring to it as the ‘winding-up dilemma’. Over the years many theories have been advanced to try to explain how the galaxy can be so old yet still have perfectly defined spiral arms. None of these theories have been able to adequately explain this problem. Even the latest theory, involving ‘density waves’ has now been seriously undermined by recent discoveries by the Hubble Space telescope (see my paper, “Evidence for a Young Earth and Universe”). Of course, the simplest explanation is that the universe is only thousands of years old.
Magnetic field decay. The earth’s magnetic field is decaying rapidly, having lost about 10% of its strength in the last 150 years. Extrapolating backward, the earth could not be billions of years old. [14] This rate of decay was first systematized by Dr. Thomas Barnes (Ph.D., Physics), and later expanded upon by Dr. Russell Humphreys (Ph.D., Physics, Institute for Creation Research), who calculated that the Earth’s magnetic field cannot be more than 10,000 years old. Even allowing for theoretical magnetic pole reversal at some point in the past, our declining magnetic field cannot have continued for billions of years.
Decaying orbits. The observably decaying orbits of planets in our solar system and of geological satellites, rings and moons around the planets, is further evidence for a much younger solar system. If the solar system is billions of years old, these orbits would have degraded long ago and there would be no rings remaining around Saturn or moons around many of our planets. (See my paper “Comprehensive Evidence for a Young Earth and Universe” for a more detailed discussion of this point).
Receding moon. The moon is slowly moving away from the earth at about 3.8 cm per year due to tidal forces. Extrapolating this rate backward suggests the moon would have been so close to Earth tens of millions of years ago that tidal forces would have torn it apart, posing a serious problem for an old solar system model.
Short-Lived Comets. Comets lose mass every time they pass near the sun, limiting their lifespan to tens of thousands of years at most. The continued existence of many short-period comets is difficult to explain under a ‘billions of years’ narrative without invoking speculative sources like the Oort Cloud, which has never been observed.
Planetary Heat. Some gas giants like Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune radiate far more heat than they receive from the sun. If they were billions of years old, they should have cooled off, yet they remain thermally active. This suggests a much younger age than conventionally proposed.
Conclusion of Scientific Evidence
In this section, I have only briefly touched on some of the scientific evidence for a young Earth. There is much more evidence in my paper “Evidence for a Young Earth and Universe” which is published elsewhere on this website.
The scientific disciplines of geology, paleontology, biology, and cosmology each provide mounting evidence that calls into question the conventional billions-of-years framework. When interpreted through the lens of recent creation and global catastrophe, many data points—such as soft tissue in fossils, the persistence of comets, the Earth’s magnetic decay, and helium diffusion in zircons—are not anomalies but expected outcomes. These findings, drawn from observable, measurable phenomena, increasingly challenge the deep-time paradigm and lend strong empirical support to the young-earth model described in the Genesis narrative.
What is particularly frustrating in all of this is that young earth creationists are often regarded as being naïve and unscientific fundamentalists who blindly cling to their outdated interpretation of the Bible while ignoring the clear findings of science. But the exact opposite is true. Far from being the conclusion of naïve fundamentalism, belief in a literal six-day creation is increasingly reinforced by empirical data. Unfortunately, many Christians who accept the old-earth model do so having never critically examined the scientific evidence, effectively adopting a consensus-driven model in blind faith. In contrast, it is not blind faith but informed analysis that leads many to affirm the young-earth position.
PART C: Hermeneutical and Theological Considerations
The danger of abandoning a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3 lies in the erosion of biblical authority. If the clear, repeated statements of the early chapters of the Bible are reinterpreted to fit spurious secular theories, what prevents similar reinterpretations of the virgin birth, the resurrection, or the second coming? Moreover, Genesis 1–11 forms the theological foundation for the rest of Scripture. As I will explain in this section, many fundamental biblical doctrines pivot off Genesis 1-3.
Let us now delve into all this more deeply.
The Biblical Case for a Literal Six-Day Creation
The Grammar and Structure of Genesis 1
Genesis 1 uses the Hebrew word “yom” (יוֹם), which throughout the Old Testament most often refers to a literal 24-hour day, especially when paired with an ordinal number (e.g., “first day,” “second day,” etc.). This combination occurs repeatedly in Genesis 1:
“And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day” (Gen 1:5).
This structure is repeated six times in the chapter. Scholars such as Gleason Archer and Douglas Kelly affirm that the usage of yom with ordinals elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible always denotes literal, sequential days, without exception. This strongly suggests that the original author intended to convey normal calendar days, not metaphorical ages or poetic epochs.
The repeated phrase, “evening and morning”, also strongly suggests the normal cycle of a literal day and is used six times in Genesis 1. The regularity and repetition of this phrase seems intended to establish a literal chronological framework. If the author had intended to convey long, unspecified epochs, the language could have been more ambiguous or metaphorical. Instead, the structure is precise, regular, and concrete.
Another consideration is that Genesis 1 consistently employs the waw-consecutive verb form—used in Hebrew to denote sequential, historical events. This narrative marker is common in Old Testament historical books (such as Genesis, Exodus, and Judges), but rare in Hebrew poetry. Its use in Genesis 1 indicates that the text is structured as a chronological historical account, not a poetic allegory. Even Dr. James Barr, former Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford and a critic of conservative theology, admitted in a 1984 letter that the grammatical and narrative conventions of Genesis 1 clearly reflect an intent to describe a literal, six-day creation as real history—not poetry or myth.
The Testimony of Exodus
One of the most compelling theological confirmations of a literal six-day creation comes not from Genesis itself but from Exodus:
“For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:11).
This statement is part of the Ten Commandments, spoken directly by God to Moses, forming the moral and theological foundation of the Sabbath. The parallel between God’s six days of creative work and humanity’s six-day work week is explicit. There is no indication that the “six days” in Exodus are any different in duration than the 7-day week pattern of work and rest that Israel was commanded to observe.
If the days in the original Genesis narrative were not literal, the entire rationale for the Sabbath collapses into theological incoherence. Why would God base a commandment for literal human labour and rest cycles on indeterminate periods of millions or billions of years? The logic of Exodus 20 demands chronological symmetry.
Refuting the Poetic Framework Hypothesis
Some theologians, such as Meredith Kline and Henri Blocher, propose the Framework Hypothesis, arguing that Genesis 1 is not a chronological narrative but a poetic structure organizing the events of creation thematically rather than sequentially. According to this view, the “days” are not literal periods but a literary framework to present theological truths.
However, Genesis 1 lacks the features of Hebrew poetry, such as parallelism and chiasm, and instead follows the grammatical conventions of Hebrew historical narrative—particularly the use of the waw-consecutive verb form (וַיְהִי, “and it was”). Old Testament scholar James Barr, who was not a theological conservative, admitted:
“So far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writers of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world… [and] that creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience.” [15]
In other words, even scholars who do not accept the literal account of Genesis acknowledge that the original intent of the text is historical, not poetic.
Furthermore, the previously mentioned subsequent reference to the six days of creation in Exodus repudiates the poetic hypothesis of the Genesis account. Carefully consider the following.
Proponents of the poetic hypothesis propose that the Genesis 1 account was a poetic retelling of the creation event. According to this view Moses wrote allegorically rather than depicting a strict chronological timeline. But if Moses intended Genesis 1 as a poetic allegory, where did such a framework originate? Did he simply construct it from his imagination? After all, he wasn’t present at the events of creation; the creation of the world had taken place long before he was born. So was Moses just making this story up – using his poetic license to attribute the creation of the world to God?
Rooted in Divine Revelation
The answer is provided in the book of Exodus. It was God himself who revealed this information to Moses on top of Mount Sinai. After God’s liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, God called Moses to the top of Mount Sinai for an extended period of instruction (lasting at least 40 days). During this time, God revealed a huge amount of information to Moses, which he subsequently recorded and codified in what we now refer to as the Pentateuch – the first five books of the Bible.
Importantly for our current discussion, on two separate occasions during this period of instruction, God specifically stated that he had created the Earth and the entire universe in just six literal days:
“For in six days the Lord, made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord, blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:11)
“It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days, I, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day I rested and was refreshed.” (Exodus 31:7)
The first reference, Exodus 20:11, forms part of the ten commandments, as the underlying basis for the fourth commandment instructing people to keep the Sabbath day holy. Importantly, these ten commandments were inscribed by the finger of God, himself, on two tablets of stone. This was God’s description of the process of creation – not Moses’ poetic imagination regarding the event.
The second reference, Exodus 31:7, is even more telling. These are the specific words of God to Moses, recorded in the first person. God spoke this to Moses and his words are unambiguous. God declares that he made the world in six literal days.
Obviously, there was much more information conveyed to Moses during these forty days of instruction, allowing him to flesh out the creation narrative in greater detail when he eventually penned the book of Genesis. But the important thing to note here is that the Genesis account did not arise from Moses’ poetic imagination, but from direct divine revelation on Mount Sinai.
Didactic Rather Than Poetic Allegory
Furthermore, the language used by God in the Exodus passages is clearly in the form of literal, didactic instruction and not poetic language. The book of Exodus records the huge amount of didactic instruction that Moses recorded following this intense period of instruction by God, including the teaching about the sabbath day of rest and its precursor in the six days of creation. There is no hint of poetic allegory in ANY of the instructions that resulted from Moses’ encounter with God on the mountain. There is absolutely no reason to impose a poetic interpretation on God’s statements about the days of creation when ALL the other instructions are clearly literal and didactic.
No Reason To Allegorise
To claim that these statements by God in Exodus were not literally true would be to make God out to be a deceiver. Not only is this contrary to God’s nature but there is no reason for God to have done this. If God did not create the world in six literal days, but instead created it gradually over billions of years, he could have simply said this. The claim that a gradual process of creation would be too difficult for ancient people to comprehend and that God simplified it for them by speaking allegorically is an argument without merit. Arguably, it is HARDER to accept that God made the world in six days rather than gradually over a long period of time. The ancient Israelites would have easily believed that God made the world gradually if it had been true – the concept is not too tricky to comprehend! There is no logical reason why God should have misled the Israelites by claiming to have created the world in six literal days if it was not actually true.
These clear, definitive statements by God in Exodus – that he created the world in six days – destroy the hypothesis that the Genesis account is a poetic allegory for simple minds. There is no hint of poetic allegory either in the Genesis account or the statements by God in Exodus, and there is no logical reason for God to have employed such a misleading and inaccurate allegory.
Genesis Account Not Scientific
An associated line of reasoning often used defend the to allegorisation of the Genesis creation account is the argument that Genesis 1-3 is not intended as a scientific description of creation but as a theological one. I agree. The Genesis account of creation is, indeed, theological rather than scientific. But many Christians then extrapolate this point further to reach an illogical conclusion. They claim that the Genesis account only describes the FACT that God created the world; it does not describe HOW he did it. For that, they claim, we must turn to science.
I strongly disagree with this, on two counts.
Firstly, Genesis 1 DOES describe how God created the universe: He simply spoke the heavens and the earth into existence. Days 1 to 5 of the creation week in Genesis 1 describe the precise method by which God created each aspect of creation. He simply commanded them to exist. The universe was created supernaturally by the command of an omnipotent, transcendent God. The Genesis account does not simply specify THAT God created the universe, it specifically describes HOW he did it.
Secondly, and this is very important, we cannot turn to science for an explanation of how the universe including our planet and all life upon it was created, because the laws of science themselves were created by God at the precise moment that the physical universe came into existence. Prior to God’s creation of the universe, the laws of science did not exist. God’s creation of space and time – all matter and energy – also required the creation of the fundamental forces and constants that now continue to hold our space-time continuum together and keep it functioning. Prior to the creation of space-time, these forces and constants did not exist; they are part of God’s amazing creation.
It follows, then, that we cannot turn to science and its study of these laws and forces to explain the creation of life and the universe, because they were not pre-existent. They were not causal but caused. They were created along with the physical matter to which they are now inextricably bound. In other words, the laws of science (which is a misnomer, because they should really be called the laws of God) did not cause the universe in the beginning because they themselves were created at the same time.
Furthermore, God had no need to rely on the laws of science to create the universe and all life within it; he used his own infinite, transcendent power. God simply spoke the laws of science into existence at the same moment he spoke our space-time continuum into existence. In this sense, the laws of science are simply the operating system that God created for our universe in a similar way that a computer designer might write a computer code to serve as the operating system for a new physical computer. The computer code does not build the physical computer, and neither did the laws of science build our physical universe. Only an all-powerful, intelligent designer could do that.
This whole line of reasoning might be a little nebulous for some people to grasp but it is an important point to make. Christians who read the first chapter of Genesis and claim that it is ‘unscientific’ are correct, but not in the sense they mean. Many Christians discard the Genesis creation account because it does not conform to the well-documented laws of science. My answer to them is, “Of course it doesn’t! But that’s the whole point!”God did not create the world and the universe through the laws of science. He created the universe supernaturally, by means of his infinite, transcendent power. Creation is a miracle, not a function of science.
So don’t reject Genesis 1 because it is ‘unscientific’. Embrace it for that very reason!
Foundational For Other Biblical Doctrines
Many Christians have the view that reinterpreting the first chapters of Genesis as allegorical has very little impact on the rest of the Bible and on subsequent Christian doctrine. But this is not the case at all. Several key doctrines pivot off Genesis 1-3 and completely fall apart if the creation account is merely allegorical. Consider the following.
No literal Adam and Eve. If the Genesis account of a six-day creation including the creation of Adam and Eve on Day 6 is a myth, then there was no literal Adam and Eve. Instead, the long-age view of creation posits that mankind gradually evolved over time and that there was no original first couple. Rather, the long age view proposes that there were a large number of early humans who gradually transitioned from their pre-human state.
Universal progenitors. Following on from this, the New Testament doctrine that all mankind is descended from Adam and Eve must also be a myth. Acts 17:26 states, “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth…” Similarly, Genesis 3:20 declares that “Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all people.” Thus, according to the Bible, every single person alive today is descended from this first original couple. But the long-age evolutionary view is that there was not a single first man and woman but a large number of first humans as growing number of pre-human creatures gradually made the transition from pre-human to human. On this view, all people today are not descended from the same original pair, but from many different early humans. But if this is the case, the statement in Acts 17:26 about Adam being the father of all nations and the Genesis statement about Eve being the mother of all people are false and must be discarded from our Bibles.
The Genealogy of Jesus. If there was no literal Adam and Eve, this has direct implications for the life of Jesus. Matthew’s Gospel traces the lineage of Jesus back through King David, Jacob, Abraham, Noah and, finally, to Adam. But if there was no such person, where does Jesus’ genealogy cease to be factual and veers into myth? If Adam were mythical or symbolic, the entire genealogy—and by extension, the incarnational history of Jesus—would collapse into fiction.
No death before the fall. Romans 5:12 indicates very clearly that death only entered the world after Adam and Eve sinned: “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin.” This passage is very clear. Prior to the fall, there was no sin and, therefore, there was no resulting death. Death was a part of the curse that was only put in place by God AFTER Adam and Eve sinned. Genesis 1 and 2 confirms this, indicating that creation was perfect prior to the fall of Adam and Eve. Thus, we find God continuing to declare “it was good” or “it was very good” at the conclusion of each day of creation. But the long-age evolutionary story paints a drastically different picture. It proposes that death and suffering were an integral part of the world for millions or billions of years prior to the appearance of mankind. On this view, the pre-human world was characterised by the death and extinction of individual animals and whole species as the process of survival of the fittest unfolded over millennia. This is no small issue – it is an unreconcilable contradiction between the biblical account of six-day creation and the evolutionists’ long-age theory. These two conflicting viewpoints cannot be reconciled. Once you disregard the literal account of Genesis 1-3 you must then remove from Romans 5 this doctrine of death resulting from sin. This is a huge issue that many long-age creationists have not considered.
Jesus the second Adam. In 1 Corinthians 15:45, Jesus is called the “second Adam”, drawing a direct parallel between the first man who brought death into the world and the incarnate Son who reverses that process and brings life. This typology only makes sense if Adam was a real historical figure whose actions had real consequences for the entire human race. Jesus’ description as the ‘second Adam’ and his mission to reverse the curse of death caused by the first Adam makes no sense if there was no literal first Adam and if death was already in the word prior to the first humans. This is another huge, irreconcilable problem for Christians who want to allegorise the early chapters of Genesis.
Jesus’ statement about “the beginning”. In Matthew 19:4-6, Jesus refers to Adam and Eve’s creation as a pattern for marriage. In doing so, he states, “Haven’t you read that in the beginning of creation,God made them male and female …” His reference to Adam and Eve being created “in the beginning of creation” makes perfect sense if they were created on Day 6, during the week of creation. But according to the long-age view, humans did not arrive on the scene until billions of years after the creation of the earth. In fact, if this old-earth timescale is compared to a 24-hour day, humans only came into existence at one minute to midnight! This would represent the END of creation, not the beginning! If the old-earth evolutionary timescale is true, Jesus is wrong and his words must be discarded from or Bibles.
The atonement. Our universal need for redemption and the resulting atonement of Jesus on the cross for the sins of mankind pivots off the foundational doctrine that sin and death came into the world through one man and woman and that Jesus reverses that process as the second Adam. Paul writes, “For since death came into the world through one man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through one man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” The link is very clear. Sin and death came through the first Adam, and salvation comes through the second Adam. But if, instead of a single progenitor couple, there was a large number of early humans who gradually transitioned from their prehuman state and founded new population lineages, it renders the description of Jesus as the second Adam farcical and destroys the link between the singular origin of sin and its singular cure in Jesus.
In each of the above cases, the rejection of a literal Genesis undermines the New Testament’s theological framework. The doctrines of original sin, substitutionary atonement, Christ’s role as the second Adam, and the universality of death hinge on the historical reality of the first chapters of Genesis. Without a literal Adam and Eve and a real fall, there is no need for a real redemption.
Conclusion: A Call to Faithful Interpretation
We must not reinterpret the clear and consistent witness of Scripture to accommodate the shifting sands of human philosophy. Instead, we are called to shape our understanding of the world through the enduring truth of God’s Word: “Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens” (Psalm 119:89).
The so-called ‘evidence’ for an old earth and a very long process of creation is based on flawed assumptions and circular reasoning, and at the same time there is growing scientific data that supports a much younger creation. Furthermore, there is no valid hermeneutical reason for interpreting the early chapters of Genesis poetically and allegorically. Indeed, these first chapters of the Bible lay a theological foundation for several key biblical doctrines which become completely unravelled if the events described in Genesis are not literally true.
In this paper I have not specifically dealt with the theory of evolution, which is another topic in itself, but I have occasionally referred to the old earth timescale as belonging to the evolutionary worldview. This is because a very old age of the earth is foundational for evolutionary theory. The dual mechanisms of genetic mutation and natural selection which lie at the heart of the theory necessitate an earth that is billions of years old in order to allow sufficient time for these supposed slow incremental processes to unfold. For this reason, evolutionists continue to hold doggedly to the old earth narrative, despite its crumbling façade, because if the earth is only thousands of years old the theory of evolution is dead.
I have analysed the deep and growing flaws in the theory of evolution in my book, “No More Monkey Business: Evolution in Crisis.”
While I acknowledge that some Christians may adhere to the old earth worldview without necessarily fully embracing the evolutionary narrative, the two concepts are closely tied. Historically, scientists did not arrive at a belief in an old earth after an unbiased examination of geological evidence. Rather, the growing recognition that Darwinian evolution is only possible if the earth is ancient led, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, to a scientific scramble to find geological justification for an old earth. Thus, the dating mechanisms and geological narrative that scientists now use to establish an ancient age for the earth arose not out of unbiased science but from an almost religious allegiance to a theory which did away with the need for a supernatural Creator. And it this same religious zeal that causes evolutionists to continue to cling tenaciously to their dating methodology despite its now completely undermined scientific basis.
Christians must not surrender the clarity of Scripture on the altar of popular and increasingly questionable science. While scientific investigation is valuable, it must never become the lens through which we reinterpret divine revelation. Science is fallible but God’s Word is not. As Jesus said:
“Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
We are not called to interpret the Bible in light of fallible human wisdom, but to interpret mankind’s wisdom in light of God’s unchanging Word. The six-day creation is not a peripheral issue. It is a cornerstone of biblical theology and a test of our commitment to the authority of Scripture. Let us, therefore, boldly affirm with the psalmist:
“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host… For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps 33:6, 9).
SUPPORTING PAPERS:
Evidence For a Young Earth and Universe
A Solution to the Starlight Problem
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FOOTNOTES
[1] Recent research data from the Pew Research Group reveals that only 22% of evangelicals believe in the literal six-day creation described in Genesis 1.
[2] D. R. Humphreys, “Accelerated Nuclear Decay: A Viable Hypothesis?”, Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism (2003), 337–348.
[3] Steven A. Austin, Excess Argon within Mineral Concentrates from the New Dacite Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens Volcano, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 10(3): 335–343.
[4] Dr. Andrew Snelling, Earth’s Catastrophic Past, Vol. 1 (Master Books, 2009), p. 858.
[5] Dr. Steve Austin, Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe (ICR, 1994), p. 122.
[6] Austin, S.A. (1986). Mount St. Helens and Catastrophism. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, Vol. 1, pp. 3–9. Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship.
[7] In the video, Evolution: Fact or Belief?”, Creation Science Foundation.
[8] Dr. Larry Vardiman, Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, ICR/CRS, 2000, p. 23.
[9] Mary H. Schweitzer et al., “Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex,” Science 307, no. 5717 (2005): 1952–1955.
[10] https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=763413106344089&set=a.194908519861220
[11] John R. Baumgardner, “Carbon-14 Evidence for a Recent Global Flood and a Young Earth,” in Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Volume II, eds. L. Vardiman et al. (ICR/CRS, 2005), 587–630.
[12] D. R. Humphreys, Young Helium Diffusion Age of Zircons Supports Accelerated Nuclear Decay, Creation Research Society Quarterly 41(1): 1–16.
[13] https://genesispark.com/exhibits/historical-evidence/ancient-dinosaur-depictions/
[14] Thomas G. Barnes, Decay of the Earth’s Magnetic Moment and the Geochronological Implications, Creation Research Society Quarterly 20(3): 105–111.
[15] James Barr, Biblical Faith and Natural Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 40.