I have a hobby, and sometimes it surprises me. I am writing as a Christian, and I like to read the Bible, one chapter a day. There are 1,189 chapters in that book, and a few are quite large and I have to break them up, and a few are very small, so it takes me almost three and a half years to read the entire book. 

I have added one wrinkle to the process; I like languages, so I read in other languages. Never mind which ones, I recommend my hobby to anyone who wants to know the Bible, and to do more than argue about their own religious ideas. Some things are bigger than us. 

This is also a good way to learn or to reinforce knowledge of other languages, for free. Did you know that a Bible APP for a phone or computer is free, and language versions are almost unlimited?

Ok, I will admit something. A Brazilian Portuguese version of the Bible is available, for free, and it is in a plain language “easy to read version” or “versao facil de ler.” If you know the language, I apologize for leaving out the accent marks.

So, we all have hobbies, and that is one of mine. It’s good for me.

I read the whole Bible, in two languages that are difficult for me, so I had to struggle and read carefully. As I struggled, I noticed more about the actual words, and I don’t just gloss over Bible stories that I heard when I was a child. That is a good discipline for me, as a Christian.

A few days ago, I finally read Revelation chapter twenty two, which is the final chapter in the Christian Bible. The final words, in an English version are “The one who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon!” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.” (Revelation 22: verses 20 and 21)

Earlier this week, I decided to do it all over again, since I had just finished the whole book, so I turned back to Genesis Chapter one, the story of the creation. You probably know, the Bible’s creation story is one week long, with everything created in six days, and then with God resting on the seventh day. 

In modern science, Christians who think that the Earth was all created a few thousand years ago are dismissed as fools. Still, we can’t escape from these words “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Those are the opening words of the Bible, in Genesis 1:1. Since I am a Christian and I was reading in foreign languages, I struggled and read carefully.

I read about those six days of creation, and I noticed that life was not created in six days, in the Bible story. Life was created in three days; days three (plants) five and six. Did you know? I’m sure I knew that, but I have spent a lifetime glossing over those old Sunday-school stories, and not always reading carefully, myself.

So, what happened in the first days of creation?

A planet was born.

The birth of a planet is a topic that interests modern scientists, and they study the topic carefully. Here is one example, note that a brief video is embedded in the written text:

• Breakthrough Photo: See The ‘Birth’ Of A Planet For The Very First Time: https://share.google/QN8MMJo4wjJkfxLyl  

The first four creation days, in Genesis chapter one tell about the formation of a planetary environment, that could support life, including plants on day three. Animal life forms arrive on days five and six.

On day five, life appears in the water, and the air, with plants on land. I don’t know about the things flying in the air, possibly flying dinosaurs, but fossil eras that formed crude oil, natural gas, and coal, seem to match the early days of creation. On creation day two, animals on land were created, including human beings.

We seem to have descriptions of Planetary Science, Geology, and Climate Science, in the first four creation days, and these details were written long before those modern sciences existed.

I remember a Bible teacher who spoke about the creation story, as we read it in Genesis chapter one. He referred to the Hebrew word “yom” which we translate as “day.”

Our problem with modern Hebrew is that it is a revived language, mostly taken from written texts. The spoken language died about two thousand years ago, and we may have lost some informal usage, in the old language. Some small things might not be remembered.

For example, if I told you “In my day people used to …” you know that my “day” was more than twenty four hours long, it was an era in time. For us, English is an old spoken language. In the first chapter of the Bible, the teacher told us, the six or seven creation ‘Yoms’ might be eras, longer than twenty four hour days.

Feel free to form your own opinion. I find these ideas interesting.

We were told, by that teacher, that the first thing created, during the first creation Yom was the twenty four hour day. The teacher told us that creation days might be longer eras: 

It is possible that there is more scientific detail, in the Bible’s creation story, than we know.

I hope we can all learn something from this.