Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints revere and honor the Bible as the word of God. They also have additional writings from Moses and from Abraham, as revealed to the prophet Joseph Smith. These writings clarify some important points about the creation as described in the book of Genesis.
The book of Genesis speaks of each portion of the Creation taking place during one day. For example, most of us are familiar with Genesis 1:5, which reads, “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
The book of Abraham, in the Latter-day Saint book of scripture known as the Pearl of Great Price, uses slightly different terminology to describe the creative periods. After the day is divided from the night, mention is made of “the first, or the beginning, of that which they called day and night.” (Abraham 4:5). Beyond that, the creative periods are designated as “the second time” (Abraham 4:8) or “the third time” (Abraham 4:13) that night and day occurs.
One author has written, “We therefore learn that periods of time for the Creation may have lasted 24 hours each, 1,000 years, or even millions of years. The periods of time are indeterminate in length; as one phase of the creation was finished, the next began. Therefore the age of the earth before Adam and Eve could have been great indeed.” (Robert J. Woodford, “‘In the Beginning’: A Latter-day Perspective,” Ensign, Jan. 1998, 12)
Bruce R. McConkie, an apostle of the Church until his death in 1985, shared these insights: “But first, what is a day? It is a specified time period; it is an age, an eon, a division of eternity; it is the time between two identifiable events. And each day, of whatever length, has the duration needed for its purposes… There is no revealed recitation specifying that each of the “six days” involved in the Creation was of the same duration.” (“Christ and the Creation,” Ensign, Jun 1982, 9).
The important thing to remember here is our trust in the Lord and His purposes. It might be nice to know exactly how the world was created and how long it took, but God, in His wisdom, has chosen not to bog us down with that information at that time. As we exercise our faith in Him, we can come to understand that, regardless of exactly how He created the heavens and the , He did do so. And He did a pretty good job.
