YoYoMama has taken the viewpoint that the length of a creative day is a trivial matter. Normie67 thinks that there was only a single reference in WTS literature to a creative day being 7000 years long - akind of aberrant entry from Ray Franz. Fortunately we have the WT CD (compact disc) to put them straight. Note the central role played by the 7000 year long creative day in WTS theology. They even say that "the Bible indicates that a creative day is 7000 years long" not "we speculate that a creative day is 7000 years long.
Unfortunately, as YoYoMama admits the WTS no longer teaches that a creative day is 7000 years long - bthey didn't have the decency to admit their mistake of insisting that the Bible says a creative day is 7000 years long. That is, as Farkel would say "we didn't mean what we meant when we said it - in God's name."
Anyone who will swallow such treatment from the Wideboys in Brooklyn must be a real YoYo.
Here goes:
*** w87 1/1 30 Questions From Readers ***
Second, a study of the fulfillment of Bible prophecy and of our location in the stream of time strongly indicate that each of the creative days (Genesis, chapter 1) is 7,000 years long. It is understood that Christ’s reign of a thousand years will bring to a close God’s 7,000-year ‘rest day,’ the last ‘day’ of the creative week. (Revelation 20:6; Genesis 2:2, 3) Based on this reasoning, the entire creative week would be 49,000 years long.
Noting the similarity in numbers, some have compared the 49 years of the ancient Jubilee cycle to such 49,000 years of the creative week. Reasoning this way, they have thought that Israel’s Jubilee (50th) year should prefigure, or foreshadow, what will come after the end of the creative week.
However, bear in mind that the Jubilee was particularly a year of release and restoration for people. The creative week largely relates to the planet Earth and its development. But with regard to the outworking of God’s purpose for man on earth, the globe itself has not been sold into slavery and thus is not in need of liberation. It is mankind that needs that, and humans have existed, not for 49,000 years, but for about 6,000 years. The Bible shows that some time after Adam and Eve were created, they rebelled against God, thus coming into captivity to sin, imperfection, and death. According to Romans 8:20, 21, Jehovah God purposes to liberate believing mankind from this slavery. As a result, true worshipers on earth “will be set free from enslavement to corruption and have the glorious freedom of the children of God.”—See also Romans 6:23.
*** w76 7/15 436 Keeping a Balanced View of Time ***
17 There are reasons why we cannot know this. For one thing, even though Bible chronology clearly indicates that we have reached the mark of six thousand years since the time of the creation of the first human, Adam, it does not tell us just how long after that event the sixth creative day came to its close and the seventh creative period or “day,” God’s great rest day, began. Genesis chapter two, verse three, says that Jehovah blessed and made sacred that “day,” and it therefore seems reasonable that it will see within its bounds the removal of the wicked old order and the establishment of God’s righteous new order by means of the thousand-year reign of God’s Son. Thus there is reason for believing that that thousand-year period will form the closing part of that great rest day and will restore the earth and its inhabitants to a perfect state. That would enable God to say of that seventh day and its results—as he did of other creative days—that “it was good.”—Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31.
*** w76 7/15 437 Keeping a Balanced View of Time ***
25 What, then, does this mean? Simply this: That these factors, and the possibilities for which they allow, prevent us from saying with any positiveness how much time elapsed between Adam’s creation and that of the first woman. We do not know whether it was a brief time such as a month or a few months, a year or even more. But whatever time elapsed would have to be added to the time that has passed since Adam’s creation in order for us to know how far along we are within God’s seventh “day,” his grand day of rest. So our having advanced six thousand years from the start of human existence is one thing. Advancing six thousand years into God’s seventh creative “day” is quite another. And we do not know just how far along in the stream of time we are in this regard.
*** w75 1/1 9-10 Will You Live to See Christ's "Coming"? ***
Now, we know that Jesus Christ had been in heaven with his Father at the time of earth’s creation. (John 1:1-3; Col. 1:13-17) He knew the exact time of the creation of both Adam and Eve. (Gen. 1:26, 27) He knew precisely when 6,000 years of human history would be completed. He knew exactly when God’s seventh creative day, his great “rest” day began and when it would end. (Gen. 2:1-3) Yet, with all his perfect knowledge of chronology, when he was on earth he did not know the day and hour of his execution of judgment on this world, prior to when his thousand-year reign begins. (Rev. 20:4-6) How, then, could any human today possibly figure it out?
*** w73 2/1 82 Will Your Days Be "Like the Days of a Tree"? ***
Since each of the creative “days” or periods was evidently seven thousand years long, the whole creative “week” takes in 49,000 years. If that period is likened to a twelve-hour clock, then trees and other vegetation appeared between about three-thirty and five-fifteen. And man? Much later—sometime after ten o’clock! Yes, trees on earth for between twenty-seven thousand and thirty-four thousand years far outdate man’s nearly six-thousand-year tenure.
*** w70 2/15 119-20 The Days of Creation from God's Viewpoint ***
LENGTH OF THE CREATIVE DAYS
Just how long, then, were these “days” of creation? The Bible gives us a clue as to the length of the seventh day. Since these “days” were all part of one ‘week,’ it would be reasonable to conclude that all these “days” were of the same length.
As regards the length of the seventh day it is indeed of interest that the Bible says nothing about ‘an evening and a morning,’ a beginning and an end to the seventh day as in the case of the other six days. This is a meaningful omission. The record simply states: “God proceeded to bless the seventh day and make it sacred, because on it he has been resting from all his work.”—Gen. 2:3.
The only logical conclusion that we can reach is that the seventh day has continued right on. Does the Bible support this conclusion? Yes, it most certainly does, for it speaks of Jehovah God as still resting thousands of years after creation. Thus at Psalm 95:8-11, we read that Jehovah said to the Israelites in the wilderness that they would not enter into his rest because of the hardness of their hearts. This shows that God had been resting from works of the sort described in Genesis chapters one and two from the creation of Eve to that time, more than 2,500 years.
The psalmist David, some 400 years later, at Psalm 95:8-11 speaks of entering into God’s rest in his day. And then more than a thousand years after David’s time the writer of Hebrews speaks of Jehovah God as still resting in his day. He counsels Christians not to be like the Israelites in the wilderness who failed to enter into God’s rest, but that they should do their “utmost to enter into that rest,” Jehovah’s rest. In this connection he says that “there remains a sabbath resting for the people of God.” And as the words of the apostle Paul are applicable to Christians today, it follows that Jehovah has been enjoying his sabbath or rest from physical creation almost six thousand years now.—Heb. 4:9, 11.
This accounts for 6,000 years. Is that the length of the seventh day? No, because we read that “God proceeded to bless the seventh day and make it sacred.” Its outcome must be “very good,” and that is not true of present world conditions; so the “day” must still be continuing. Actually these six thousand years have been, as it were, man’s workweek, in which he labored by the sweat of his face. But he will get rest during the coming thousand-year reign of Christ, which Bible chronology and fulfillment of Bible prophecy show is to begin very soon.—Gen. 2:3.
The seventh one thousand years of the seventh “day” will thus in itself be a sabbath. During it Satan and his demons will be bound. Christ and his anointed followers will rule with him as kings and priests. With what result? That all God’s enemies will be put beneath Christ’s feet. By means of this sabbath the seventh day will truly be sacred, for it will cause righteousness to flourish.—1 Cor. 15:24-28; Rev. 20:1-6; Psalm 72.
Thus we find the seventh “day” of the creative week to be seven thousand years long. On the basis of the length of the seventh “day” it is therefore reasonable to conclude that each of the other six “days” also was a period of 7,000 years. This length of time would be ample for all that the Bible tells us took place on each of the six days of creation.
*** w70 11/1 645 It Is Not in the Bible! ***
More than 4,000 years later, the apostle Paul understood that this seventh day, the rest day, was still continuing. He referred specially to this rest day mentioned in Genesis, and said: “Let us therefore do our utmost to enter into that rest.” (Heb. 4:4, 11) It is only logical that the peaceful thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ (who is identified in Matthew 12:8 as “Lord of the sabbath”) also be part of God’s great Sabbath, or rest day. Thus, the great “seventh day” of God’s resting from material creation on earth would include the nearly 6,000 years of Biblical history since Adam, plus the 1,000 years of Christ’s reign that Revelation 20:1-6 shows is yet to come. So, if the other six of this group of seven great creative “days” are as long as the last one, then each one must have been 7,000 years long!
*** w68 5/1 267-8 Understanding Time a Help to True Worshipers ***
17 The word day can refer to a longer period of time. At 2 Peter 3:8 we are told: “One day is with Jehovah as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.” An even longer period of time than that can be embraced by the word, for Exodus 20:11 declares: “For in six days Jehovah made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and he proceeded to rest on the seventh day.” This refers to the creative periods of time, each of which, judging by the seventh, appears to be 7,000 years long. However, there is an even longer period of time that can be attached to the meaning of the Bible word day, one that includes all of the creative days together. Genesis 2:4 states: “This is a history of the heavens and the earth in the time of their being created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.” So the word as used in this sense apparently covers a time period far longer than each creative day.
*** w68 8/15 499 Why Are You Looking Forward to 1975? ***
30 Are we to assume from this study that the battle of Armageddon will be all over by the autumn of 1975, and the long-looked-for thousand-year reign of Christ will begin by then? Possibly, but we wait to see how closely the seventh thousand-year period of man’s existence coincides with the sabbathlike thousand-year reign of Christ. If these two periods run parallel with each other as to the calendar year, it will not be by mere chance or accident but will be according to Jehovah’s loving and timely purposes. Our chronology, however, which is reasonably accurate (but admittedly not infallible), at the best only points to the autumn of 1975 as the end of 6,000 years of man’s existence on earth. It does not necessarily mean that 1975 marks the end of the first 6,000 years of Jehovah’s seventh creative “day.” Why not? Because after his creation Adam lived some time during the “sixth day,” which unknown amount of time would need to be subtracted from Adam’s 930 years, to determine when the sixth seven-thousand-year period or “day” ended, and how long Adam lived into the “seventh day.” And yet the end of that sixth creative “day” could end within the same Gregorian calendar year of Adam’s creation. It may involve only a difference of weeks or months, not years.
*** w68 12/15 750 How We Know It Is Getting Near ***
3 Till this twentieth century the heavens have been the dominion of the birds and flying creatures, with the exception of some kites, balloons and dirigibles sent aloft by men. More than thirteen thousand years ago, on the fifth creative day God created the creatures of the sea and the flying creatures to “fly over the earth upon the face of the expanse of the heavens.” (Gen. 1:20-23) But with the successful flying of the airplane on December 17, 1903, man really began to invade the domain of the living flying creatures and to go above their realm into outer space. From then on the airplane was improved and was put to use in World War I in shooting and bombing from the air. Rain, snow and hail were thenceforth not the only things to be poured down from the heavens. With the expanding of aviation in war operations and in peacetime transportation the balance of man’s natural environment was due to be shaken, upset, unsettled.
*** w67 7/15 427 Festivals of Praise to Jehovah ***
5 It is good to know that this weekly sabbath of the Jews is only “a shadow of the good things to come.” The Bible indicates that Jehovah created the heavens and the earth in six days, each 7,000 years in length. On the seventh day Jehovah rested from his creative work and entered into his sabbath. Mankind, however did not keep peaceful rest or sabbath with Jehovah, but through disobedience came into bondage to sin, imperfection and death. Almost six thousand years of the seventh day have passed and there is only a little more than a thousand years left. Jesus, speaking of the weekly sabbath day, said: “The sabbath came into existence for the sake of man, and not man for the sake of the sabbath.” So these last thousand years are set aside by Jehovah for a special purpose foreshadowed by the weekly sabbath of the Jews, namely, for the reign of Christ Jesus, his Son, for Jesus went on to say: “Hence the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath.” (Mark 2:27, 28) It is a thousand-year sabbath within Jehovah’s great 7,000-year sabbath of rest. Like the weekly sabbath, the greater thousand-year sabbath will be devoted to the worship of Jehovah, and to the education of all the living, including those resurrected from the memorial tombs, in the righteous requirements of Jehovah.—Heb. 10:1; Gen. 2:1-3; John 5:28, 29.
*** w63 12/15 768 Questions from Readers ***
Will this be accomplished by a restoration of the water canopy? Will the Creator again suspend it in space so as to produce a hothouse condition on this earth in order that a uniform temperature may again prevail around the globe? The Bible does not say so, whereas the formation of the antediluvian water canopy was part of God’s creative work on one of his workdays before he began his seventh day by ceasing from such creative works for the earth. His rest day has yet a thousand or more years to go. It is sufficient to say that Jehovah God, who already knows what he will do, will handle matters perfectly. He will bring about the most desirable and enjoyable conditions through his King Jesus Christ. This change, which will do away with unpleasant seasonal conditions, will harmonize with God’s restoration of paradise and his removal of death, pain, sorrow, sickness and crying.—Rev. 21:4; Deut. 32:4.
*** w61 6/15 378 The Seventh Day-A Sabbath of Rest ***
The number seven is used frequently in the Bible and carries with it the thought of completeness. The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia points out that the root for the Hebrew word for seven suggests “the idea of sufficiency, satisfaction, fullness, completeness, perfection, abundance.” Thus there being seven days of the creative week indicated completeness or perfection. Since the seventh creative day has proved to be thousands of years in length, nearly 6,000 years having elapsed since Adam’s creation, and since Bible prophecy proves that we are living in the time of the end of this wicked system of things immediately preceding the restful 1,000-year Kingdom reign of Christ, it is reasonable to conclude that this great rest day would be complete with 7,000 years. The 1,000-year reign of Christ would logically be included in this 7,000-year rest day of God. This means the seventh creative day is in itself a week of 1,000-year days. Because Jehovah’s name will be vindicated during this time and his purposes for the earth and for man completely fulfilled, the day is sacred. His blessing of it will be manifested in the 1,000-year reign of the Messiah.
*** w57 8/1 475 Part 3: Rounding the World with the Vice-President ***
Supper we ate at the assembly auditorium, all of us seated together like a big family at four tables, refreshing ourselves on Chinese dishes and eating with chopsticks. In the experience meeting that featured the opening of the evening’s assembly sessions a Chinese special pioneer related her experience in the native tongue, followed by a missionary sister using an interpreter. All the missionaries are tackling the difficult task of mastering the official Chinese language. The two talks that followed in the succeeding hour were based on the year’s text, “From day to day tell the good news of salvation by him.” (Ps. 96:2, NW) They were delivered by former branch servant Carnie and his successor, C. W. Charles. The vice-president rounded off the program for the day by a talk on loyalty to the Society that the Most High God has been powerfully using in the earth in this closing century of his sixth millennium of the seventh creative day. Brother Franz exhorted the eighty-two of his audience to continue rendering heart-given loyalty to Jehovah’s instrument.
*** w56 12/1 724 Jehovah, God of Production ***
10 Earth’s role in Jehovah’s productive program now could be seen. In time it must support an abundance of sea, air and land creatures and be peopled with perfect humans, who would maintain it forever in parklike beauty. The seventh creative day God reserved for this to be done in full, as he himself rested or desisted from his work respecting the earth. At that day’s end, seven thousand years later, the earth will be finished, a perfect jewel in the heavens, reflecting the creative skill of Jehovah.
*** pm 18 1 Our Basis for Hope in Its Restoration ***
30 There is no need, however, for discouragement on the part of us who do not look to sin-enslaved, dying men to make this earth a place fit to live in forever. Rather, how glad we can be that Almighty God, the Theocratic Owner of the whole earth, is unchanging in his purpose to have a Paradise on this earth, not just over there in the neighborhood of the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, but in all four quarters of the earth! If it is his purpose to have this beautification of the whole earth accomplished by the end of his seventh creative day—Scripturally a period of seven thousand years, then the time is near at hand for the ruining of the earth by exploiters to be stopped by theocratic power and for the blessed transformation to a delightsome garden to begin. Already, nearly six thousand years of man’s existence from the close of the sixth creative day have run their dreary course. We must be approaching the threshold of that thousand-year-long reign of Jesus Christ, which must be accompanied by Paradise according to what Jesus promised the sympathetic evildoer on the stake there at Mount Calvary.—Revelation 20:4, 6.
*** pm 407-8 22 An International Festival in Paradise ***
29 It is the close of the last day of the divine week of seven creative days, each seven thousand years in length. As God the Creator examines and sees everything that he has made, look! it is “very good.” (Genesis 1:28 to 2:3) All heaven is watching the perfected earth and listening. The hearts of the heavenly seraphs, cherubs and angels are filled with admiration for the great Theocrat as they see all humans on earth strike a worshipful attitude. Praise to God sounds forth. It thrills the heavenly throngs as they hear the earth’s full population join the “great crowd” in gratefully saying: “Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.” “Amen,” respond all the holy inhabitants of heaven, “The blessing and the glory and the wisdom and the thanksgiving and the honor and the power and the strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”—Revelation 7:9-12.
*** po 131-2 11 The Messiah of God's "Eternal Purpose" ***
“MORNING” OF SEVENTH CREATIVE “DAY” BEGINS, 526 B.C.E.
5 The first half or “evening” period of God’s seventh creative “day” was now closing, 3,500 years from creation of Adam and Eve. The morning of this creative “day” was due to begin at 526 B.C.E. From then on things should brighten with regard to God’s purpose and for His people. According to Daniel’s prophecy, from a certain feature in the rebuilding of the resurrected city of Jerusalem seventy “(year-) weeks” or “weeks of years” (amounting to 490 years) would count. “Seven (year-) weeks” plus “sixty-two (year-) weeks” would run for a total of 483 years until the coming of the Anointed One (Hebrew: Ma·shi'ahh). Counted from when the Jewish governor Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, these sixty-nine “weeks of years” would end in the first half of the first century of our Common Era. Counted from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes (455 B.C.E.), the year in which Nehemiah rebuilt those walls, the 483 years would end in the year 29 of our Common Era. (Nehemiah 2:1-18) That was about forty-one years before the second destruction of Jerusalem, this time by the Romans. Did something historic happen in 29 C.E.?
*** po 189 15 Making the Seventh Creative "Day" Sacred ***
5 There is now a special purpose that the reigning Jesus Christ and his 144,000 joint heirs must carry out. What is this? The making of God’s seventh creative “day” a blessed day, a sacred day. After God created Adam and Eve and gave them their commission of work, setting before them their purpose in life in Paradise, the sixth creative “day” of God ended and the seventh creative “day” began, about six thousand years ago. He ordained this creative “day” as a Sabbath “day” for Himself. On it he would desist from earthly creative work, resting from such work, not because of weariness, but to let the first human pair and their descendants worship Him as their only living and true God by serving him, carrying out the service that he had assigned to them. He knew that his stated purpose for them could be carried out during the next seven-thousand-year period, His Sabbath “day.”
*** gh 60-1 7 Preparing a Happy Home for Mankind ***
6 Here we enter upon the seven “days” of creation. How long were these “days”? Much longer than twenty-four hours! The Bible tells us that “one day is with Jehovah as a thousand years.” (2 Peter 3:8) But each of these “days” of creation must be even longer than that. How do we know? Genesis 2:2 says that, after six “days” of creating, God “proceeded to rest on the seventh day from all his work that he had made.” The Bible shows that Jehovah’s ‘rest day’ still continues. For the apostle Paul writes that Christians should, through faith and obedience, do their “utmost to enter into that rest.” (Hebrews 4:9-11) The Bible count of time shows that it is now close to six thousand years since God began ‘resting’ from his creative works on earth. Just ahead of us lies the thousand-year reign of Christ, by the end of which God’s purpose of filling the earth with a happy human family will have been accomplished. God’s ‘rest day’ will then end. This would indicate that this ‘rest day’ would be of seven thousand years’ duration. (Genesis 1:28; Revelation 20:4) It is reasonable to conclude that each of the six preceding “days” of creation would occupy similar periods of time, during each of which Jehovah carried out a further stage of preparing earth to be man’s future home. As we now observe how He did this, we should truly appreciate the force of the psalmist’s words: “How great your works are, O Jehovah! Very deep your thoughts are.”—Psalm 92:5.
*** g75 8/8 13 Putting Nutrients Back into the Soil ***
Most importantly, the Bible indicates that earth’s soil was formed rather quickly. It speaks of the dry land and vegetation as all appearing within one creative “day”—a period that the Bible indicates was seven thousand years in length. (Gen. 1:9-13 ) Appropriately, The Encyclopedia Americana asks: “How long does it take to produce an inch of soil—an inch of fine rock material that supports plants? One may say a few minutes or a few million years. It all depends upon the exact spot and what stage in the cycle we reckon from.”