What did God do when taking 7 days to create the world?

Answer 1

Day 1. And God said, 'Let there be light' (verse 3). Day 2. And God said, 'Let there be a firement in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from waters .(verse 6). Day 3. And God said, 'Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear' (verse 9). Then God said, 'Let the land produce vegetation: seedbearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds' (verse 11). Day 4. And God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth' (verses 14-15). Day 5. And God said, 'Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky' (verse 20). Day 6. And God said, 'Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, wild animals, each according to its kind' (verse 24). Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the creatures that move along the ground' (verse 26). Day 7. God Rested.

SIMPLE ANSWER:DAY1:He created day and night.DAY2: Sky and water.DAY3:Land,sea and plants.DAY4:Sun,moon,stars.DAY5:Birds and fish.DAY6:Animals,man,woman.DAY7:God rested.

Answer 2

God created the world in six days with his almighty power.

Another answer:

In the Genesis account, God doesn't have to make the earth "from scratch." The earth was already there. It was just covered with water [the deep].

God had only to build upon its foundation.

In the six days, He just "lit it up" [let there be light]... possibly repaired a damaged atmosphere, making it "breatheable"... shifted earth's tectonic plates around for land masses to surface... planted the flora... created the fauna... made man... and gave man the Sabbath day and the repeated seven-day week for him to remember creation, his Creator, and appreciate it all.

What God did do in that amount of time was no small feat, of course... but it was a lot less He had to do than if He had had to go about compacting atoms to make the planet from nothing.

The earth was already there. It just needed "fixed up"... specific preparations that were needed for it to sustain man, who was made on day six.

Answer 3

This is a question that those of us that believe in God will have to wait until we meet Him to ask. It is my belief that God is God and man is man. Man was created by God and who are we that we should know how God does things? According to The Bible, we are part of the creation that God created. Does the clay pot ask why it is a pot and not a vase? No, so I'll wait till I meet God to find out.

All the Bible reveals is that God spoke and it came to be. Obviously God 'thought' about it beforehand, not of course entirely as we think, but in terms of perfect and infinite wisdom (the Bible also talks about this). The words He spoke thus brought into being, because of His infinite power the very matter, space and time necessary as well as the laws governing it all. In addition it is a beautiful place and we have been given the ability not only to appreciate that beauty and to learn much about it as well as to know the one who made it, in a real and personal way.

Certainly, as stated above, we will never really know exactly how God did it, apart from what He has revealed about it and about Himself, until a later time.

Answer:

Read the Genesis account. God didn't make the world in seven days [or six].

Look at it closely. The world was already there when the account begins.

"...THE EARTH WAS WITHOUT FORM, and VOID; and DARKNESS WAS UPON THE FACE OF THE DEEP. And the Spirit of God MOVED UPON THE FACE OF THE WATERS." (Gen.1:2)

The NIV says it this way: "Now the earth was FORMLESS and EMPTY, DARKNESS WAS OVER THE SURFACE OF THE DEEP, and the Spirit of God was HOVERING OVER THE WATERS."

The earth was "formless" and "empty" -- but it was already planet earth... whatever shape it was in. "The deep" is a term for "water"... "the ocean."

The earth was an "ocean-covered" planet... already made.

What God did in the six-day Genesis account was to cause land masses to surface above the waters... and "prepare" an eco-system on planet earth with a breatheable atmosphere, flora and fauna to sustain man, who was made last.

Then, God sanctified [set apart for holy use] the "seventh day" as a "Holy Reminder" for man to "remember creation," and that he is created.

"...God blessed the seventh day and made it Holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done." (Gen.2:3)

How hard could a "quick six-day refurbishing" of one small pre-existing planet be for God, who made the universe? All the basic materials to create everything were beneath the water, waiting to be used.

When He caused the "dry land" to appear... we know of the devastation of earthquakes. With God... one good shaking of the earth could cause islands, continents and mountains to appear in a brief matter of minutes [as well as disappear... as is possible, today, as well as prophesied - "...And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places." - Rev.6:14].

God wasn't starting from scratch. He had all the resources of pre-existing earth from which to choose and prep the planet to receive and sustain man.

It's very likely that He didn't even need seven days for the job itself. The establishment of the meaning of the number "7" may have been more of a factor, here, than for the physical creation of anything. But that's another issue.

Answer 4

While many feel that the Bible is referring seven "creative days", which were not literal 24 hour days.

To begin with, the earth was already formed when the "creative days" began.

Genesis 1:1, 2 states:

"1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and desolate, and there was darkness upon the surface of the watery deep, and God's active force was moving about over the surface of the waters."

Of note, a day to Jehovah God is a thousand years to mankind. (Psalms 90:2,4 & 2 Peter 3:8)

At Genesis 2:4, Moses refers to all six creative days as "one day", so what is a day?

On the seventh day, God entered his "rest". That day of rest is still going on, 6,000 years after the creation of Adam and Eve.

Without being told specifically on human terms, it is feasible that each "creative day" could have been as long as 6,000 years, but we do not know for sure.

Read more: Is_biblical_creation_fact_or_fiction

Answer 5

The Scripture does not speak of the original creation event, only the 'renewal' (see Psalm 104:30) of the face of the Earth in Genesis 1 & 2. This took God seven actual days as the darkness of the night covering the Earth was separated by the light of God's voice making a day. It took 6 days before the man Adam was created in God's image and likeness and then God blessed the 7th day calling it HIS Sabbath for mankind to rest from his/her usual work and ponder God's creative powers. The 7 day week was given to man for his time management. There is no other physical cycle that man could have observed to form the week.

Further, the Bible is silent on this total number of days God is/was creating as it may not be finite. The Genesis account of the Creation week is actually a 1 verse statement on the entire physical creation up to that point, followed by the 7 days of renewing and blessing the creation for mankind, His highest created being and potential heirs to the Kingdom of God as sons and daughters (see Matthew 5 and 2 Corinthians 6:18).

Answer 6

There are two creation stories in Genesis. It is the first of these creation stories (Genesis 1:1-2:4a), which states that God created the earth in six days. The second account (Genesis 2:4b to 2:22) does not actually give a time scale for its creation.
In this creation account, there was a pre-existing watery chaos. The ocean was already present and a wind moved across the surface. The seas rested on the dry land, which appeared on day 3 when God gathered the waters together.

• On day 1, God created light [day]. Although the sun was universally understood to rule the day, the light of day was not yet understood to actually originate from the sun.
• On the second day, he created the firmament. The firmament was believed to be a solid dome that held up the primeval waters, while the sun, moon and stars would be in the sky below the firmament. The sky literally touched the earth at the horizon and was a solid part of the universe just as much as the earth itself. Interestingly, if we do not believe that the firmament is a physical reality, then nothing was created on the second day.
• On day 3, he gathered the lower waters in one place, and the land appeared. Grasses and trees were created. There was not yet a sun, that we now see as essential for light and warmth, but there was day and night. With day and night in place, plants could thrive.
• On the fourth day, God created the sun; moon and stars. This is much later in the order of creation than science allows.
• On the fifth day, he created fish and all creatures of the air.
• Finally, on the sixth day, God created land animals and man, both male and female.
  

Some creationists, such as Hugh Ross (Creation and Time: A Biblical and Scientific Perspective on the Creation-Date Controversy), say that the "days" of the Bible were not literally days, but eons - because the ancient Hebrew language did not have enough words to adequately explain long durations of time. Experts in the Hebrew language dispute this explanation.

Many experts in Hebrew have carefully examined the biblical text and confirm that Genesis says that the waters, the dry land, the wind, and therefore the air, already existed before creation. Thus the biblical creations were not ex nihilo.

For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation

Answer 7

Through His Word - the Logos who was the preincarnate Jesus Christ (see John 1:1-4, 14) and out of nothing else (see Hebrews 11:3). Looking carefully at Genesis 1, in Hebrew or even in English, it is quite clear that God created everything in six literal (24-hour) days. First, we are told that He separated the darkness covering the planet under water and then created light. God called the light day and He called the darkness night. And then He said (in the original Hebrew) and [there] was evening and [there] was morning, one day. He repeated the same statement at the end of the second day through the sixth day.

In the Old Testament, this 24 period for a day is repeated many times. Consider this:

Exodus 20:8-11New King James Version (NKJV)8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

There are two schools of thought for Creation - young earth and old earth. Within the old earth group there is 'gap creation' and within this is 'progressive creation'. It is the latter group who ascribe to the 'day' in the creation account being thousand of years and not one full week.

Upon resting and blessing the 7th day or Sabbath (Friday sunset to Saturday sunset as days began in darkness), God established and gave to mankind 'the week' which was revealed and not discovered by mankind to be used as a chronological tool. There is no physical event like the lunar moon cycle or the solar year cycle whereby mankind could calculate this unique period of time. Throughout the history of man, many attempts have been made to lengthen or shorten this 7 day period but all did not function well and all reverted back to God's given week of 7 (24 hour) days.

Answer 8

Many believe that the creation account in Genesis 1:1-2:4a says that God created everything in the universe in six days, then rested on the seventh.

However, many experts in Hebrew have studied the story and come to a different conclusion. The ocean was already present and a wind moved across the surface. The seas rested on the dry land, which appeared on day 3 when God gathered the waters together.

Since the early centuries of the Common Era, tradition has held that Genesis 1:1 says "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." But as long ago as the eleventh century CE, the influential Jewish scholar, Rashi, said that Genesis 1:1 should be read, "When God began to create" or "In the beginning of God's creation ". E.A. Speiser ( in the Anchor Bible series, goes further and translates the sentence as: "When God set about to create heaven and earth - the world being a formless waste, with darkness over the seas... God said, 'Let there be light.' And there was light." In other words, the original Hebrew does not even say that God created everything.

This creation account says that God created day and night first, then the firmament, which was believed to separate the waters of the heavens from the lower waters; grasses and trees, which were created before the sun; moon and stars, then finally fish, land creatures, fowl and man, both male and female. By gathering the lower waters in one place the land appeared, but was not created.
For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation

Answer 9

The story of how God created the world in seven days is the first creation account in Genesis (Genesis 1:1-2:4a). The second Genesis creation account differs widely in content, mood, tone and orientation (Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis), and does not provide any information as to how long creation took.

In the first account, creation actually only takes six days and God rests on the seventh. The sequence of creation is:

(Day 1) light (day);

(2) the firmament, which was believed to separate the waters of the heavens from the lower waters;

(3) By gathering the lower waters in one place the land appeared. Grasses and trees;

(4) sun; moon and stars - the lights in the firmament;

(5) fish, land creatures and fowl;

(6) man, both male and female.

Notice that the light of day was not yet understood to have originated from the sun, although the sun was universally understood to rule the day. That is why it was possible to have grass and trees before the sun was created. In this account, which is attributed to the Priestly Source writing during or shortly after the Babylonian Exile), the name used for God is El Shaddai ('God Almighty'). This is reflected in God's ability to simply speak things into existence. In the much older, second account, God is referred to as YHWH ('Yahweh') and he is unable to make living things out of nothing but makes Adam and then each of the animals out of moist earth.

For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation

Answer 10

The narrative of God's creating the Earth may be found here: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/e/et/et0101.htm

Note:

According to tradition, there is only one Genesis creation-narrative, with ch.2 serving as an expansion of the brevity of ch.1, not a separate set of events (Rashi commentary, Gen.2:8).It may be noted that the same literary devices which the Torah employs to enrich its text, have been seized upon by "Bible-critics" in their ongoing attempts to undermine it. The Jewish sages, based on ancient tradition, identified many of these devices, which include:

recapping earlier brief passages to elucidate,

employing different names of God to signify His various attributes,

using apparent changes or redundancies to allude to additional unstated details,

speaking in the vernacular that was current during each era,

and many more. While Judaism has always seen the Torah as an intricate tapestry that nonetheless had one Divine source (Exodus 24:12), others such as Wellhausen (the father of modern Biblical-criticism, 1844-1918) attempted to artificially turn the Torah's text into its own undoing. This need not concern believers, since his claims have been debunked one by one, as Archaeology and other disciplines have demonstrated the integrity of the Torah. No fragments have ever been found that would support his Documentary Hypothesis, which remains nothing more than an arbitrary claim, whose falsehood has been pointed out:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=1131(a Christian author)

http://www.whoreallywrotethebible.com/excerpts/chapter4-1.php

http://www.pearlmancta.com/BiblicalcriticswrongRShlomoCohen.htm

And see also the wider picture:

http://judaism.answers.com/hebrew/does-archaeology-support-the-hebrew-bible