For Christians, we believe that the world was created by God. Genesis 1:1 says: “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The Hebrew word for “created” is bara. It is used 45 times in the Old Testament and God is always its subject.

What does the Bible say about God and the Creation?

Christians have historically affirmed that the creation happened as follows:

1. God created out of nothing- ex nihilo.

Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”

2. God created by verbal command.

Genesis 1: 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26: “Then God said . . .”

Psalm 33:3-9: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. ⁷ He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deep in storehouses. ⁸ Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. ⁹ For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”

But HOW long did it take?

This gets a little more complicated among Christians. While many (maybe most) believe the universe was created in six literal days, large numbers of Christians see the scriptures differently. Scientific discoveries have led many Christians to question whether the creation took place in six twenty-four hour days. Let’s look at the four major approaches within Christianity to interpreting Genesis 1.

1.  The universe was created in seven literal days.

Those who hold this view rely simply on taking the Bible at face value. Genesis 1 says the Bible was created in six days and God rested on the seventh day. Further, they would point to the multitude of times that scientists have erred in their calculations of their “old earth” theory, making their findings unreliable. For them, the Bible is simply literal and factual on the matter of how God created the world in Genesis 1.

2. The Gap Theory   

The Gap Theory is the idea that there is a gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Let me explain. Genesis 1:1 reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” 1:2 reads: “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” The Gap Theory says that God created the world over a long period of time, maybe billions of years. Then that world came to an end, being left “without form, and void.” Sometime later (thousands or millions of years), God created the world that we currently enjoy in six literal days. Proponents of this doctrine, widely espoused in the Scofield Study Bible that was very popular in the 20^th century point to the Hebrew word hayah found in verse two, which is often translated “became.” They believe the verse should be translated, “The earth became without form, and void.” This allows them to harmonize scientific beliefs in a long view of history with six literal days of creation. Some people call this “theistic evolution.” However, it should be noted that those who hold this view deny that humans were created in evolutionary steps. Rather they hold that humans were created as we are, by God.  

3. The Day=Age Theory

This theory suggests that in Genesis 1, “day” does not mean a literal 24-hour day. Rather, the “days” are indeterminate periods of time, maybe years, centuries or millennia. One proponent of this interpretation was the Church of God theologian Russell R. Byrum. He gives his reasons as follows:

1. That the strata of the universe tends to suggest the earth is millions/billions of years old.
2. That “days’ in the Bible are not often 24-hour periods. Byrum writes,

            “’Day’ is frequently used in the Scriptures in other senses than the twenty-four hour day. It is sometimes used for a year, sometimes for an indefinite period as in ‘the day of                   your calamity, ‘the day of salvation,’ or in reference to the gospel dispensation, an in Genesis 1:5 it is used for the period of light in antithesis to night.” (Christian Theology,                   241)

3. Genesis 2:4 uses the Hebrew word toledoth which means “generations” to describe the process of creation.
4. God rested from His creative work on the 7^th day (Gen. 2:2) and still continues to rest (Hebrews 4:3-4, 11). This means that we are still in the 7^th day.

Others point out oddities such as Adam and Eve being created on the 6^th day. Yet, after Adam is created, he names all the animals and becomes lonely, prompting God to create Eve. This causes some to question the validity of the twenty-four hour day in Genesis 1. It is to be noted that in Genesis 1-2, “day” (yom in Hebrew) is used in three different ways: “day” as opposed to “night” in 1:14, a 24-hour day in 1:14, and an indefinite period of time in 2:4.

Others point to the nature of God for support. They argue that if God dwelt in eternity for, well, “eternity,” it doesn’t make sense that He would speedily create the entire universe in 144 hours. N. T. Wright, says (and I paraphrase) that if Jesus is the agent of creation, then we should expect a gradual process for this is how He does His work in the world and in the human being.  These would argue that, while possible, it seems improbable that God created the world in 6 literal days. It should be noted that Byrum and most others who hold this view of creation strongly deny that evolution was involved in the creation of human beings.

4. The Framework Hypothesis

In this view, the creation account is understood to be poetic and not to be taken literally. Timothy Keller, a proponent of this view puts it like this in a sermon:

If you go to Judges 4, you have the account of a historical event, which is the great victory of Israel over the invading armies of Sisera. . . . When you get to Judges 5, you see Deborah using repetition and using a lot of metaphor. Like at one point she says, “The stars came in the heavens and fought against Sisera.” Does she mean that’s what happened … comets nailed him? No. What you have in Judges 4 and 5 is not history and a myth. You have a historical event and a song about a historical event, talking about the significance of it. What you have in Exodus 14 and 15 (Red Sea Crossing/ the Song of Moses) is not history and a myth, but you have two genres looking at the same event. Both a historical event, but the second genre is lyrical and it’s poetic; therefore, you don’t press the details. You don’t ask, “Well, probably the stars aren’t literal, but the chariots were.” It’s not that easy always to tell, but you know it’s a poem. You interpret it as a poem. Genesis 1 is a poem. Genesis 1 has an enormous amount of repetition. Don’t you see it? Over and over again you have, “The evening and the morning was … the first day,” “The evening and the morning was … the second day,” “And God says,” “And it was so,” “And God said it was good.” Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. You get to Genesis 2, and it’s totally different. Why? Because Genesis 2 is historical reporting and Genesis 1 is a song, and because Genesis 1 is a song, we ask the general questions not the specific. (Sermon Entitled “The Song of Creation”)

So, what about the dinosaurs?

Those who teach “old earth” creationism (the gap theory and day=age theory) are able to account for dinosaurs living and dying over a period of millions of years. However, those who believe in the “new earth” or that the earth is about 6000 years old see dinosaurs as existing before the flood. After all, how would Noah have gotten dinosaurs on the Ark? One passage that many believe refer to dinosaurs is Job 40:15-19 which reads: 

“Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you; He eats grass like an ox. ¹⁶ See now, his strength is in his hips, And his power is in his stomach muscles. ¹⁷ He moves his tail like a cedar; The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit. ¹⁸ His bones are like beams of bronze, His ribs like bars of iron. ¹⁹ He is the first of the ways of God; Only He who made him can bring near His sword.

Job 41 also talks about the Leviathan, an ocean creature that is clearly sounds like a dragon or prehistoric creature. Other passages that refer to “dragons” are also applied to dinosaurs (Isaiah 27:1, 30:6; Jeremiah 51:34; Psalm 74:13).

Dr. Nathan Leasure is the Senior Pastor at the First Church of God in Greeneville, TN. He has degrees from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, Anderson University, and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is married to Jenny and they have four children- Ava, Olivia, Maria, and Samuel.