Earth first. Sun, Moon and the stars later

[levycarneiro]

Someone shared with me a Youtube video where this pastor said something to the effect of "how can you know the Earth was created in 24-hour days, if the sun and moon - created to divide the day from the night - were created only on the 4th day? So what about days 1-3, were really 'days' of 24 hours?"

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: {the day...: Heb. between the day and between the night}" Genesis 1:14

I find this is a nice and simple point in discussions with young-earthers.

But what blew my mind is the fact that - if I'm not wrong - it seems the Earth was created first, and then the other things around it, such as the Sun, the Moon, the stars, etc, were created later. Judging by Science, a.k.a. the videos one can watch on Discovery Channel, they always show the Big Bang Theory and then the Earth as one of the products of the whole process, and not as the first thing in the process.

Thought it was nice to share

[Kat]

Since I do not believe that Ray addressed this, I found a few things on the internet that seemed very well put. The first gives a good explanation, from a scientific view, for the question, which came first, the Sun or the Earth?
The second is a explanation of how that science is correct in view of what the Bible says in Genesis 1. I think what he had to say is very pertinent.

Which came first, the Sun or the Earth considering Genesis 1, since modern science tells us that the Sun is 4.57 billions years old, while the earth is 4.54 billion years old?

About.com - Geology
The Earth's Formation in a Nutshell
By Andrew Alden

Some 5 billion years ago a supernova exploded, pushing a lot of its heavy-element wreckage into a nearby cloud of hydrogen gas and interstellar dust. The mixture grew hot and compressed under its own gravity, and at its center a new star began to form. Around it swirled a disk of the same material, which grew white-hot from the great compressive forces. That new star became our Sun, and the glowing disk gave rise to Earth and its sister planets. We can see just this sort of thing happening elsewhere in the universe.
While the Sun grew in size and energy, beginning to ignite its nuclear fires, the hot disk slowly cooled. This took millions of years. During that time, the components of the disk began to freeze out into small dust-size grains. Iron metal and compounds of silicon, magnesium, aluminum, and oxygen came out first in that fiery setting. Bits of these are preserved in chondrite meteorites. Slowly these grains settled together and collected into clumps, then chunks, then boulders and finally bodies large enough to exert their own gravity—planetesimals. This whole process is rather well modeled by scientists like those at the Planetary Research Institute.

As time went by, planetesimals grew by collision with other bodies, and as their mass grew larger, the energies involved did too. By the time they reached a hundred kilometers or so in size, planetesimal collisions produced a lot of outright melting and vaporization, and the materials—which we can confidently call rocks and iron metal—began to sort themselves out. The dense iron settled in the center and the lighter rock separated into a mantle around the iron, in a miniature of Earth and the other inner planets today. Planetologists call this differentiation, and it is documented not only for the planets, but also for most of the large moons and the largest asteroids (from which come iron meteorites). The asteroids Ceres, Pallas and Vesta survive from that time, miniature planets.

Earth Is Born...

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D.Phil. (Oxford), Near Eastern Cultures and Languages, Biblical Studies
History and Philosophy of Science; Retired professor of Biblical Studies

Millions of Christians and a great many Biblical scholars (especially those fluent in Hebrew) see no conflict between Genesis and modern science. The Biblical text makes little effort to provide a detailed chronology of "in the beginning" and modern readers should not assume that other cultures (especially ancient ones) placed the same emphasis upon chronology that we do. For example, during a lifetime of teaching in various secular university religious studies classes, I can attest that most students simply ASSUME that "order in the text is the chronological orders of events." Untrue! Strict chronological order is purely a cultural bias. Other cultures (even today) may emphasize other priorities (and even care little about chronology.)

Look at the text:
1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

That is clearly a SUMMARY STATEMENT (and an appropriate introduction of the book of Genesis). Indeed, in the Hebrew Bible (as with many ancient documents) the first words of the document/book serve as the TITLE of it -- and Genesis is appropriately entitled "In the Beginning".

The statement MAY presume that all of the heavens (the heavenly bodies) and the earth were created at the same time but that isn't not specifically stated. It only says that all was created during the general time period that is called "In the beginning".

> 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

This is the first reference to the earth -- but the fact that verse two doesn't mention the sun or stars IN NO WAY DEMANDS THAT THEY DIDN'T EXIST. In fact, the mention of "earth" doesn't even demand that the earth as we know it EVEN EXISTED! Read carefully: "And the earth was without form and VOID." The earth had no form! It had no shape! And it was describe as VOID -- something empty and nondescript. So logic would suggest that the author is describing the ORIGINS of the earth in terms of the raw ingredients that went into it -- or even the "stuff" which led to the entire solar system or galaxy or the universe itself! Obviously, the author focused on the EARTH because that is where humans live and it is what we care about. So the earth is the frame of reference for the Genesis account in general. SO YOUR STATEMENT THAT GOD CREATED THE SUN AFTER THE EARTH CANNOT BE BASED ON GEN. 1:1-3.

Now I have written entire journal articles on Genesis 1 so I'm not going to even try here to cover the additional matters behind Day 4 and the APPEARANCE OF THE SUN in terms of it becoming useful for time-keeping and navigation. Suffice it to say that plenty of Biblical scholars have demonstrated that within these texts we have no conflict with the idea that the earth did NOT precede the sun in creation. Indeed, Genesis 1 is in harmony with an astrophysics presumption that the earth and all other planets share a common origin in the sun's origins.

But Genesis 1 is not meant to focus on astronomy. It was meant to emphasize GOD's role in creation everything and that he had a purpose in it, all culminating in man as the pinnacle of that creation: Adam and Eve made in the Image of God. So if one looks for detailed chronologies, you will get frustrated. I often remind students to think not only about what the text SAYS -- and what the text DEMANDS that the faithful believe -- but also the VARIOUS INTERPRETATIONS which an honest reading of the original Hebrew ALLOWS? Accordingly, we shouldn't be surprised that many TRADITIONS about what the text meant to people in the past may fall short of what the Hebrew text CAN mean -- and what modern science clarifies about its likely meaning.
. . .

I have no reason to doubt that you are honestly trying to read and understand the text. But it is definitely a learning process (when we read the literature -- especially cosmological tomes -- from other cultures.) If we were in my classroom, I would have responded to your "God created the sun AFTER the Earth" statement with the Socratic, "Are you SURE that that is what it says? Read it again." I often have to ask the student and the class that same question repeatedly until they catch on. One must train the mind to suspend tradition and suspend one's own cultural bias. It is as important to determine what the text DOESN'T SAY as what the text DOES SAY! [And I say that to EVERYONE because both skeptics and the "true believers" make many of the same mistakes in reading their own presuppositions into the ancient texts.]
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mercy, peace and love
Kat

[levycarneiro]

Got you, that makes sense. Thanks Kat!

Someone once said that Genesis 1 is a Hebrew poem, I don't doubt it

So much for literal interpretation!

[indianabob]

Thanks very much Kat, this is helpful and stimulating of thought.
We can benefit by curiosity and patiently seeking true knowledge.
Reference the first author's scientific explanation:

Bob's NOTE: I don't necessarily believe that God had to use this process or any "process through time" re: successive events. For example I don't see that God had to create the sun by an accretion of matter over time, but could have just created a sun [star] by fiat, all at once in a location.
What we today are able to see in the created order is not necessarily an example of the original event.

Regards, Indiana bob

[Dennis Vogel]

God cannot lie.

Tit 1:2  In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

So whatever we see in the universe is real else that would mean God is deceiving us by telling many millions of lies.

Personally, I believe whatever science 'thinks' is the truth about the universe.

[Kat]

Hi Bob,

Though I believe that science tells us the probable way our planet got it's start, I certainly do not believe that God just got it all started (the Big Bang) and then had a hands off approach and let it evolve as it would. And I think the proof in that is that our planet earth is so different than all other planets.

I think that God has stepped in numerous times and miraculously brought about certain things, like the various "days" of creation and the conditions necessary for life and He specially/miraculously prepared this planet to ready the world so to bring about mankind.

I see the universe as His wonderfully grand setting (certainly a miracle in itself) for this earth and His glorious work of the miraculous creation of beings (no evolution) that will be brought into His image.

mercy, peace and love
Kat

[levycarneiro]

God cannot lie.

Tit 1:2  In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

So whatever we see in the universe is real else that would mean God is deceiving us by telling many millions of lies.

Personally, I believe whatever science 'thinks' is the truth about the universe.

Agree. If Creation took only a blink of an eye - in our sense of time - this verse would mean everything was created with the so-called "apparent age", and this per se would be a lie, ie, God creating something that "looks older" than really is. This doesn't look like God's ways through the Scriptures. God uses miracles often, but then they would be self-evident for someone to be blessed by it. Like the opening of the Red Sea, etc, it was to bless people, not to impress people (Look I can create the Universe in a blink of an eye).

Just a thought.

[levycarneiro]

I think that God has stepped in numerous times and miraculously brought about certain things, like the various "days" of creation and the conditions necessary for life and He specially/miraculously prepared this planet to ready the world so to bring about mankind.

Kat,

recently learned that there's a term "Fine tuning science" that lists several and several variables that are precisely tuned such as oxygen percentage in the air, distance from the Sun, etc. So for any of these several "knobs" if there's a light variation, life wouldn't be possible. I looked up some websites on Google, it's amazing the number of variables and conditions God precisely created/configured for human life here on this planet.

God bless,
Levy

[levycarneiro]

From Ray's Where we got the Bible (http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,5815.msg48011.html#msg48011)

Why does God take billions of years to build mountains? I mean He could do it quickly, but He doesn't. That's the whole point, He doesn't. You say, 'well I wish He did. It would make more sense if God would do the magic trick, like I always thought. Boom, there's the stars, boom the earth, boom the mountains and hills.' What is greater is how He did do it.

It's one thing for 100 construction men to go out and they build a big building or something. It's another thing to level off a piece of land and carry out all the materials and have the building build itself. Imagine that. Just say, 'okay go.' Anybody can get a group of men and build a building. But put the materials out there and I'm going to tell the building to build itself. That's what God does. He says, 'watch this, I create what's necessary. I give the raw materials, but watch this.The earth is going to create itself, over billions of years.' Why does He do that? I only have some glimpses into it.