"Day" not always a 24-hour period in Genesis?

The King James version of the Bible renders five verses of Genesis 2 thus:
4 These [are] the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and [there was] not a man to till the ground. 6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 7 And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

The Blueletter Bible is very helpful. It posts 16 translations, 12 in English (the others are in Spanish, Latin, Greek and Hebrew). Here they are for Genesis 2:4, and here for Genesis 2:5, here for Genesis 2:6, here for Genesis 2:7, and here for Genesis 2:8. (To show these multiple translations for any verse in the Bible, locate it in the Blueletter Bible web pages, and then click on the V to the left of the verse.)

Some points to make.

Ten of the English versions use "day" here, much as the KJV has. Thus, even in the earliest parts of Genesis, "day" does not seem to always mean a 24-hour period, or the period between sunrise and sunset. Here, it seems to stand for the entire length of the time of creative activity.

The Blueletter Bible is also helpful, in that it has a Hebrew/Greek lexicon. If you click on the C to the left of Genesis 2:4, you will see the best guess we have at the original language. The KJV's "in the day" in that verse comes from the Hebrew word yowm. Clicking on the Strong's number, in this case H3117, shows us that that word has about the same sort of meanings that "day" does in English. That is, it can mean day, rather than night. It can mean a 24-hour period. It can mean a general time, or period.

At the right of the display is a list of where the word is found in the Old Testament. It's used a lot, 139 times in Genesis, and 146 in Deuteronomy, plus other times in each of the 39 books of the Old Testament. I decided to remain in Genesis, but to get past the creation narrative, and the "begats." So I went to the middle of Genesis, to page 4 of the 6 web pages used for H3117 in that book. The first use on that web page is Genesis 26:8, which uses yowm for "time" in the phrase "he had been there a long time."

It seems clear that yowm, although it is often used, in the Bible, for a 24-hour period, does not have to be.

Thanks for reading.

More about the days of creation in Genesis 1

I did a Google search, on the words (not phrase) theories on Genesis 1 days. I don't have time, or inclination, to go through the roughly 3,000,000 web pages that Google says it can find for me. However, I was interested in the first few that came up. (I'm not giving the URLs. One reason is that I'm not sure these pages are authoritative exponents of a particular position. If you want to see these pages, you can do a Google search yourself!)

I found that there was a diversity of views on the meaning of the word "day" in Genesis 1, just among the first ten hits.

Here are some such views:
1) The six, or seven, days of creation were literal days, approximately 24 hours in length.
2) The days refer to long periods of time (ages).
3) There was a gap in God's creative activity, between day 1 and day 2.
4) The days were days of revelation. God revealed different truths on different days.

All of these views have problems, as do any other views of the time frame of Genesis 1.

I indicated some of the problems with the first view in a previous post. Some of my readers were kind enough to comment. I may be missing something, but I remain convinced that Genesis 2:5 seems to be scriptural evidence against taking Genesis 1 as speaking of literal days. There are other scriptural reasons for questioning this view. (See this post, and the comments)

Although belief in literal days does not require belief in a young earth, at most thousands of years old, I'm not aware of anyone who believes that these days took place, say, several million years ago. The scientific evidence, what we can learn about nature from observation, is part of God's revelation, according to Psalm 19, Romans 1, and Colossians 2. Although there have been questions about the evidence, the vast majority of scientists believe that the earth is much older than thousands of years.

The second view may be correct, but it is not possible to merely say that the days were long consecutive periods of time, and that making them so yields a scheme consistent with paleontological evidence. Birds appear before reptiles, in the Genesis account, and most paleontologists are convinced that birds descended from reptiles. Water animals, apparently including seals and whales and their relatives, appear before land animals, in Genesis 1. They are believed to have descended from land animals.

As to the third and fourth options, there is little scriptural evidence for them. One of them may be correct, and they both have some appeal.

I received a comment on the previous post, indicating that the commenter, a serious theologian, intends to post more about Genesis 2:5. He hasn't yet, but I await his contribution with interest.

Thanks for reading.

Question on the meaning of Genesis 2, especially on the meaning of "day"

This is the first part of Genesis 2 (ESV) (I'm reading the ESV through this year, I hope, using one of their plans to do so):
2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

The Creation of Man and Woman

4 These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

5 When no bush of the field [1] was yet in the land [2] and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist [3] was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Footnotes

[1] 2:5 Or open country
[2] 2:5 Or earth; also verse 6
[3] 2:6 Or spring


It struck me, as it never had before, that there is a puzzle here. Genesis 2 apparently says that humans were created before plants were. Genesis 1, taken literally, says that plants were created on the third day, and humans on the sixth. I am not a Hebrew scholar, but the translation above, also the NIV and the NASB, seem to say that there were no plants growing until Adam was created. Here's the ASV, which is public domain:

Gen 2:5

And no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth: and there was not a man to till the ground;

So what's going on? Well, it seems to me that Genesis 2:5 is scriptural evidence that the days of creation of Genesis 1 are not meant to be taken literally. (Exodus 20:11 seems to be evidence that they were.)

I knew that Meredith G. Kline, who was a Bible scholar, had written about Genesis 2:5 as evidence for non-literal days, and that knowledgeable Christian blogger Jeremy Pierce had written about this subject also, and that neither had argued that correctly interpreting Genesis demands that the days of Genesis 1 were literal, but reading this passage in the ESV reminded me forcefully of this matter.

Any comments?

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Note added Jan 24: There have been enough comments that I plan to post again on this subject. Also, I entered it in this week's Christian Carnival, so it may get a few more readers, who may also deserve some sort of response.