CONCORDISM. — A method adopted by those who seek to determine the lines of a positive harmony between the Bible and modern sciences. With the rise of the natural sciences, especially geology and paleontology, the effort to find in the Bible new data for scientific hypotheses led to the elaboration of a new system of interpreting the Hexaemeron (Gen. 1:1–2:3) and related passages. From this attempt to demonstrate harmony between the Bible and science, the method was called *concordism*; while from the more pressing issue at hand—the geological periods and epochs—it was also termed “periodism.” Its beginnings may be traced to Cuvier (1821).
The geological periods were found in the “days of creation,” interpreting the Hebrew *yôm* as a period or epoch, and citing biblical passages where *yôm* signifies an indeterminate period of time (Gen. 2:3, 4; Ex. 10:6; Lev. 7:35, 36; etc.). To overcome difficulties in the biblical narrative, it was argued that the appearance of light before the stars should be understood as the nebula of Laplace; that the creation of the sun and moon on the fourth “day” (while plants had already been created on the third) corresponded to the dissipation, through aqueous precipitation, of dense layers of vapor. Such an effort, initially appearing commendable and successful, was destined to fail. As science advanced, concordist exegetes were compelled to modify their exegesis to accommodate new scientific hypotheses. The fundamental error of this system, in both its rigid and mitigated forms (opposed among us by A. Stoppani), lies in reading the Bible as a book of science, whereas St. Augustine had already warned against such an approach (*De Genesi ad litteram*). It may now be considered definitively obsolete.