(It would help to read the note at the start of Genesis 1a)
Recap:
Our last study (Genesis 1:1-3) covered a quick look at time and eternity, and the creation of the heavens, getting as far as verse 3. We recognised that creating light first might be a problem to some – but verses 4 and 5 now compound the problem.
Read Genesis 1:4-5.
3 And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morning— the first day.
SSo in order to separate the light from the darkness it appears that God must have started the Earth spinning. Otherwise, what causes planets and stars to spin (and they all do)? The accepted scientific explanation is that the cloud of material they were made from was already spinning! And that as extra material joined the planet or star, it hit it at an angle that helped the spin!
Actually material would have arrived from every direction. So all the material that might help the spin, is cancelled by other material hitting the other side to slow it down. (And a large enough cloud of material spinning in the same direction would decrease or even stop its spin.)
Interestingly, we are told that the spin of each planet and star is vital to the working of the Universe. It would not be able to exist if everything was stationary. God designed it like that!
Remember that so far the Earth is a smooth ball covered in water. Would that be fresh or salty?
6 And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.’ 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault ‘sky’. And there was evening, and there was morning – the second day.
What do verses 6 and 7 mean? What is a vault (v8)?
This suggests that the next step was to take some of the water that covered the Earth and put it in a canopy or shell round the Earth! Could that conceivably be possible?
It is physically possible. Today there are many satellites in orbit round the Earth at various distances. Geostationary (or Geosynchronous) satellites are roughly 22,236 miles above the Earth (The Earth’s diameter is about 7,926 miles, 24,901 miles circumference).
So a bubble of water could totally enclose the Earth like a greenhouse roof and if it were where these satellites are, 1km of water at the Earth’s surface would form a canopy 16meters thick (although it would probably be frozen solid). (Jupiter’s rings contain much frozen water)
We are not told how much water was put into the canopy, how much was left on the surface of the Earth, or how much was under the surface of the Earth. Calculations indicate that if the Earth were totally smooth, the water currently visible on the surface of the Earth would cover the Earth to a depth of 2.7km. It also seems that up to ten times that amount is contained in rocks in the Earth’s crust.
What affect that may have had on the temperature and humidity of the Earth can only be a guess. However we are told in Genesis 2:5-6
5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the Earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the Earth and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the Earth and watered the whole surface of the ground
The vast oilfields, and coal deposits found all over the Earth, from Antarctica to Siberia, point to conditions that could support worldwide tropical rainforest lushness!
Note also that this water layer could not have been a thick belt of cloud; otherwise the Sun, Moon and Stars would not have been visible. Also from Genesis 13:1 we read that rainbows had not been seen until after the flood, confirming verse 5, that so far there had been no rain.
9 And God said, Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear. And it was so.
10 God called the dry ground land, and the gathered waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good.
VVerse 9 suggests that what are now known as separate continents were originally together ‘gathered in one place’, and recent geological discoveries have shown similar rocks on the Atlantic coastline in Africa and Brazil. The original land mass (called Pangea) could have looked something like this. During the major upheaval of the Flood, they would be broken apart.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pangaea_continents.png
Obviously scooping some of the Earth’s crust to one place could easily (!) provide this – and from now on the Earth might no longer be flat. Note that at each step God inspects the creation, and declares it to be good
11 Then God said, let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. And it was so.
12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
13 And there was evening, and there was morning— the third day.
Remember, the Earth is still the only thing in the Universe. We now come to the creation of the first living matter. And we are specifically told that this was plants and trees bearing seeds. It also answers the old question ‘What came first, the chicken or the egg’ or in this case: ‘the plant or the seed?’ It is obvious, the plant came first, but containing in it the DNA necessary to produce seeds.
But plants need heat and light in order to grow, so:
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times and days and years,
15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the Earth. And it was so.
16 God made two great lights— the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.
17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the Earth,
18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
19 And there was evening, and there was morning— the fourth day.
Only now will the sun be needed. The sun fixed at exactly the right distance from the Earth so that the heat arriving from the sun would allow life to flourish. And without the moon, we would have no tides. (Some people might have a problem with light taking a long time to reach us from a sun 93 million miles away – but at 186,000 miles per second it would only take 8 minutes 20 seconds!)
And look at the throwaway line at the end of verse 16: He also made the stars. As if it had to be put in somewhere, but wasn’t terribly important! Here the time taken for light to reach the world would be a lot longer – unless God decided that as he was creating it, it would arrive when he chose.
So we get to the end of the fourth day and Heaven and Earth are beginning to look recognisable. No animals, fish or humans yet, but the plants are growing – and the greenhouse effect caused by the canopy of water meant that the whole world could have had an atmosphere like a tropical rain forest. And there was no need for God to make plants as tiny seedlings – it would have been more likely that he created them as mature specimens!
We must always remember that as we try to describe what happened at creation, we are in danger of constraining God to ways and methods known to our limited minds. We constantly need to wonder at the immensity of the power and ability of our amazing God until we run out of superlatives!
I have to say that as I read the first verses of Genesis I am reminded of the Star Trek films, and the words of the Captain of the Star Ship Enterprise, when having discussed the best course of action with his officers, he simply said ‘Make it so’ and verses 7,9,11, and 15 have: And it was so.
As simple as that!
