Day-Age Theory
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The Day-Age Theory is an effort to reconcile the literal Genesis account of Creation with modern scientific theories on the ages of the Universe, the Earth, life, and humans.
The differences between the two views are nontrivial: the literal Genesis account says that everything in the Universe and on Earth was created in six days (with a seventh day of rest), estimated by those who develop Biblical chronologies to have occurred some 6,000 years ago; whereas recent mainstream scientific theories put the age of the Universe at 13.7 billion years and that of the Earth at 4.6 billion years, with various forms of life, including humans, originating more or less continuously over the last 3.5 to 3.8 billion years.
The Day-Age Theory tries to reconcile these views by arguing that the Creation "days" were not literal, 24-hour days, but actually lasted for long periods of time -- or as the theory's name implies: the "days" each lasted an age. According to this view, the sequence and duration of the Creation "days" is representative or symbolic of the sequence and duration of events that scientists theorize to have happened, such that Genesis can be read as a summary of modern science, simplified for the benefit of prescientific Man.
Proponents of the Day-Age Theory can be found among theistic evolutionists and progressive creationists. Biblical literalists reject the idea.
Compare with Gap Theory.