Ted's Response:

Initially, let me say that I certainly agree that God created the universe and everything in it. However, I absolutely disgree with the view that all things, including the earth, were created in six solar days. I believe that, over billions of years, God created everything out of nothing. He patiently crafted the heavens and the earth, and carefully included innumerable vital and essential finely-tuned parameters, so that we could have a "very good," but not "perfect," place to live here on earth.

The debate between the "young-earth" and "old-earth" views of creation seems to revolve around the meaning of the Hebrew word yom (see yôm = "day"). Basically, I believe that the assumption that "day" in Genesis 1 must refer to a 24-hour solar day is erroneous.

Indeed, a great many time-consuming events took place on the sixth "day" of the Creation. God made or created the following, during that particular "day":

• "livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind" (Genesis 1:24);
• "wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds" (1:25);
• "man in his own image, in the image of God he created him" (1:27); and
• "trees [to] grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food" (2:9).

• "planted a garden in the east, in Eden" (Genesis 2:8a);
• "took the man [Adam] and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it" (2:15);
• brought to Adam "all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air...to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field" (2:19,20); and
• "caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs [or took part of the man's side] and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib [or part] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man" (2:21,22).

Upon seeing Eve, Adam's initial exclamation was "Happa'am," which can be translated "now at last," "now finally," or "now at length." Here are the translations, according to the New Living Translation and The Message Bibles:

"At last!" Adam exclaimed. "She is part of my own flesh and bone! She will be called 'woman,' because she was taken out of a man." (Genesis 2:23—NLT)

Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." (Genesis 2:23—TM)

Adam was placed in the garden (and tended systematically to all of it, presumably as God had instructed him to do), then methodically named all of the untold quantity of livestock, birds of the air, and beasts of the field that were brought to him. We must assume that Adam performed his tasks in daylight hours—which, if done during one, single 24-hour day, would have been about half of that amount of time.

There is no biblical indication that, before Adam sinned, he executed his tasks at super-human speed, nor that he possessed phenomenal intelligence or wisdom, as some suggest in attempting to explain how he carried out the profusion of assignments and projects God had given to him, allegedly within a single solar day. In my opinion, the idea that all of these activities, by both God and Adam, would have taken place in 24 hours (or, even more implausibly, 12 hours of daylight) is so incredible that it defies logical reasoning.