Why Did God Create The World In Six Days?

[Moneybags]

Why did God create the world in six days? What is the symbolic purpose of Creation?

[Pio Nono]

JMJ
7/27 - Sixteenth Friday

St. Benedict,

Your question has a significant number of answers, and it's unclear what exactly you want to ask. What I will do is stick to scholarship on the text itself, a sort of "criticism," as it were.

The symbolic value of the text seems to be that of a giant "loop", as it were. Look -

Day 1: God creates Light
Day 4: God creates the creatures of the Light (Sun and Moon)

Day 2: God creates the Firmament to divide the waters and creates the seas
Day 5: God creates the creatures of the seas

Day 3: God creates dry land
Day 6: God creates the creatures of the dry land, especially Man

God "does" three things, and then (so to speak) "does" them over again. It's a common poetic form of Hebrew poetry, and if I'm not mistaken, Origen was the first to point this out. One could give it a spiritual meaning - for instance, the first three days represent the basis for the second three, like the Old Testament is the basis for the New, but I have no basis for saying that.

If you're looking for something else, please let us know - we'll try to do our best!

Yours,
Pio Nono