Creation vs Evolution: Did God Create the Universe Before the First Day?
The pattern for a day of creation
When I first read Genesis 1, it sounded like God created everything in 7 days.
But when I studied it and paraphrased it for the Simple Bible, I discovered something that might suggest that the universe and the spiritual realm might not have been created during that first day.
When Genesis 1 describes what happens during each day of creation, it follows a pattern. Here’s the pattern it uses:
1. God said, “Let there be ___” and it was so.
2. God saw that it was good.
3. There was evening and morning, another day.
Every single day of creation in Genesis 1 follows that exact same pattern. There are no exceptions to this pattern.
The first 2 verses break the pattern
Each day starts with the opening statement of God saying “let there be ___,” and then that day ends with the closing statement “There was evening and morning, another day.”
Every single verse in Genesis 1 falls between the opening and closing statements of a day… except for the first two verses of the Bible:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. —Genesis 1:1–2
Then the very next verse starts the opening statement for day 1:
Then God said, “Let there be light”… —Genesis 1:3
After realizing that the first two verses of the Bible don’t fit within the structure of a “day,” I think it’s possible that God created the heavens and earth before the “days of creation.”
Evolutionary theory and the biblical account of creation might have more in common that most people think.