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Were the Creation Days 24 Hours in Length?

Does the Bible really teach young earth theology or is that just another legalism to elevate adherents to a peerage above the rank and file Christian? The views of a few theologians, whose theological persuasions cover the entire spectrum of mainstream Christianity, are presented in this Article. Surely, all these men can’t be accused of embracing liberal thinking in order to reconcile science and the Bible.
Francis A. Schaeffer: “What does day mean in the days of creation? The answer must be held with some openness. In Genesis 5:2 we read: ‘Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.’ As it is clear that Adam and Eve were not created simultaneously, day in Genesis 5:2 does not mean a period of twenty-four hours….In other places in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word day refers to an era, just as it often does in English. See, for example, Isaiah 2:11, 12, 17 for such a usage. The simple fact is that day in Hebrew (just as in English) is used in three separate senses, to mean: (1) twenty-four hours, (2) the period of light during the twenty-four hours, and (3) an indeterminate period of time. Therefore, we must leave open the exact length of time indicated by day in Genesis.” James Oliver Buswell: “When we say that the word day is used figuratively, we mean that it represents a period of time of undesignated length and unspecified boundaries, merging into other days or periods….The figurative use of the word day is very common in the Scripture. The day of the Lord and that day are expressions commonly used by the prophets to point to complexes of events covering a considerable period of time….In Genesis 2:4 we read, ‘These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.’ The only possible way in which six days can be referred to as one day is the figurative use of the word day….The fourth commandment, Exodus 20:8-11, is brought forward as evidence against the figurative interpretation of the word day in the first chapter of Genesis. The Scripture says, ‘Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God…for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.’ If we had no other example of Moses’ language, this passage might be taken as evidence for a twenty-four hour creative day, but we have Scriptural evidence that Moses made a radical distinction between God’s attitude toward time and the attitude of man. What Moses is saying, in the total Scriptural context, must be understood as teaching that man should observe a periodicity in the ratio of work to rest, of six days to one day, because God in the creation set an example of an analogous periodicity of six and one of his kind of days.” Thomas C.
Oden: “The word day (yom) has several levels of meaning. It is used in biblical Hebrew to mean not only a twenty-four-hour day but also a time of divine visitation or judgment, or an indefinite period of time, as in Psalms 110:5, Isaiah 2:11, 12, and Jeremiah 11:4-7, 17:16. To insist on a twenty-four-hour day as the word’s only meaning is to intrude upon the text and to disallow the poetic, metaphorical, and symbolic speech of Scripture….The creative activity of God is viewed in a pattern of six days or periods…” Charles Hodge: " ....the word day is used in Scripture in many different senses; sometimes for the time the sun is above the horizon; sometimes for a period of twenty-four hours; sometimes for a year, as in Lev 25:29, Judges 17:10 and elsewhere; sometimes for an indefinite period, as in the phrases 'the day of your calamity, the day of salvation, the day of the Lord and the day of judgment.' And in this account of creation it is used for the period of light in antithesis to night; for the separate periods in the progress of creation; and then for the whole period (Genesis 2:4): 'In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens'....if the word day be taken in the sense of 'an indefinite period of time,' a sense which it undoubtedly has in other parts of Scripture, there is not only no discrepancy between the Mosaic account of the creation and the assumed facts of geology, but there is a most marvelous coincidence between them." Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com http://www.articlesfactory.com/author/Bruce%20McLaughlin.html .