I just wonder how they get 'ages' out of "evening and morning one day"
Most people who are of the Old Earth theology do not contend anything about a 7 day Creation process and they do not argue for evolution. They are simply saying that there was something here before Genesis 1.
In Genesis the Hebrew word for DAY is "YOM". However there is a problem there.
The Hebrew word
yom translated into the English “day” can mean more than one thing.
1. It can refer to the 24-hour period of time that it takes for the earth to rotate on its axis ( “there are 24 hours in a day”).
2. It can refer to the period of daylight between dawn and dusk (e.g., “it gets pretty hot during the day but it cools down a bit at night”). 3. 3. And it can refer to an unspecified period of time (e.g., “back in my grandfather’s day . . .”).
It is used to refer to
a 24-hour period in
Genesis 7:11. It is used to refer to the
period of daylight between dawn and dusk in
Genesis 1:16. And it is used to refer to an
unspecified period of time in
Genesis 2:4.
Now, the Bible uses the Hebrew phrase ‘Yom Echad’ or ‘one day’ in English – for a reason, and that reason is with the intent of marking the first period of time which was called ‘a day.’
Now if we take the Bible as literal, you will see the problem right here-----there could not be a day until the Sun was created and that was not until day FOUR!
The light in Genesis 1:3 is not the Sun. The Sun was created in Genesis 1:16.
Of course, God does not need the sun, moon, and stars to provide light. God is light! 1 John 1:5 declares,..........
"This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all."
God Himself was the light for the first three days of Creation, just as He will be in the new heavens and new earth.
So those who are Old Earth are saying that there could not be a "DAY" without the Sun and the Earth rotating around it causing a DAY.
In other words, now when ‘God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night’ appeared in the
‘first day of Creation’ it is in fact the invention of the CONCEPT of a DAY. This is why the original Hebrew does not talk about ‘the first day’ but rather the
period of time from one evening to the next evening and that is called ONE DAY (‘Yom Echad’).
Now......before anyone challenges this......I am not an advocate for this. I am only answering cossnotes question with the explanation.