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@Jas3.1: That's clearly a false explanation, as for centuries the church has read it as a non-literal account. The concept of a literal 7-creation days has only existed for about 150 years. –  Flimzy Nov 16 '12 at 1:58

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No textual reason for interpreting Genesis figuratively



The Order of Genesis


Genesis 1:2 identifies the nature of the earth:



Confirmation of Scripture



Problems with figurative interpretations


What reason is there to take it as figurative?






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If you ask me, the Earth is only a few thousands years old. In the creation.com magazine, one of the issues uncovered astronomical evidence for a young Earth. When a satellite orbited Mercury, it was found to have a decreasing magnetic field. This magnetic field cannot exist if Mercury were millions of years old.

Also, the number of supernovae in our galaxy match with a 6 thousand year old universe, not a 13.7 billion year old universe.

The 13.7 billion year old universe is believed to have begun with a "big bang", a singularity of infinite density. When it exploded, time, matter, energy and space were created. Before then, nothing else existed.

The Bible says that in the beginning, "the Spirit of God hovered over the waters". This cannot fit with the big bang theory. Since the Bible is always true, the big bang theory is false and therefore the young Earth interpretation of Genesis is correct.

Besides, if God can do anything, He can certainly create the universe in less than a week.

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Welcome to Christianiy.SE. Could you expand on what you mean by the verse about "hovering over the waters" being inconsistent with anything but a young earth interpretation? –  Caleb Nov 14 '12 at 11:44
Notice the while "the Bible is always true", interpretations of the Bible often are not correct. For instance, everyone assumed the Messiah would come as a conquering king, but he came first as a baby who grew up to be a man who was slaughtered like a Passover lamb. The important bit of Genesis 1 is that God created everything. Everything else is secondary. –  Jon Ericson Nov 14 '12 at 17:53
btw, the magnetic field wasn't found to be "decreasing" - the 2008 readings were simply lower than the 1974 readings... and guess what: mercury's magnetic field is hugely impacted by the solar wind. Basically, that is a debunked theory, based on someone (D. Russell Humphrey specifically) trying to fit a creation model onto existing data. BTW, having two data points does neither a: prove a "rapidly diminishing" field (a lot of things fluctuate in a region; you can't measure twice and draw a line), nor b: as a result, prove a creation model. All it says is "this was different". –  Marc Gravell Nov 15 '12 at 13:12

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