In
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 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. And God
said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light,
that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And
God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the
evening and the morning were the first day.
(Gen
1:1-5)
When
some people think of the first day of the Creation Week, they only
think of God creating day and night. We can see here there is
actually a lot more going on. Let's break it down, verse by verse:
v.
1a, In the beginning...
First
we can see that God created, “in the beginning.” The
beginning of what? The answer is obvious but we seldom stop to think
about the implication. This is the beginning of not only the
universe but it is the beginning of time. So one of the first
creative acts was God creating time. The things we ordinarily use to
mark the passing of time will come later but God started the clock
ticking here.
v.
1b, ...God
created the heaven and the earth.
The
term “heaven” can have several meanings depending on its context.
It sometimes refers to the sky and other times to the abode of God.
Here, I believe “heaven” clearly refers to space. Before God
created everything, He needed a place to put it. Space isn't
something that always existed and God simply put the earth and stars
into it. Space itself was created. Before this moment there was no
space.
Immediately
after creating space (or perhaps simultaneously with it), God creates
the earth. We know that the sun, moon, and stars are created later
so, at this moment, the earth is the only matter in the entire
universe.
We
can see from this short, simple verse the very profound and
fundamental creative act of God. He began the creation in a very
logical and orderly way. He created time, space, and matter.
v.
2a, 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.
The
Hebrew word translated here as “without form” is tôhû
(תּהוּ)
which is a seldom used word – not just in the Bible but in Hebrew
in general. We're not entirely sure what is meant by the term and
Brown-Driver-Briggs says the primary meaning is hard to grasp (that
is, it's hard to grasp the meaning; not that it means “hard to
grasp”). The Greek word used in the Septuagint literally means,
“unseen,” possibly a reference to the fact that it was dark.
Certainly
the earth lacked any features. There were no mountains, no valleys,
and certainly no living things. There was not even land. The wording here creates a distinct impression namely that the earth then was empty and did not resemble the present earth in any way.
We
see from last sentence that the earth initially was only water.
Since water can only exist at temperatures less than 100°C
(212°F),
perhaps we could assume that the initial creation was a “cool”
event.
We
also learn from this verse that God was actively involved in the
creation. Yes, He spoke and it happened but He did not speak from a
distance; He was there, hovering over the face of the waters. This
is not a case of God nudging the universe in a certain direction and
then letting physical laws take over.
v.
3, And God said, Let there be light: and
there was light.
For
some reason, many people seem to think the creation of light marked
the beginning of the creation. We have seen that much has already
happened before this point. The first day began in darkness and now
it is light so the day is about ½ over.
The
Bible doesn't mention the source of this light. We know that it
cannot be the sun since the sun will not be created until day 4.
Some have suggested that God Himself was the light but I am skeptical
of that claim; if God were the light, then where was the light just a
few minutes earlier? The Bible does attest that in the new creation,
there will be no more need of the sun because the Lamb will be the
light (Rev 21:23). However, verse 25 tells us that there will
neither be any more night so we cannot draw an exact parallel between
this light and the light of the Lamb in Revelation. Since the Bible
is silent on the source of this light, we cannot be dogmatic in our
speculations. Suffice it to say this was a temporary source that God
used to mark the passage of days until the sun was created on day 4.
It's
interesting that God created a light that specifically is not the
sun. Even the ancients understood that the sun gave light so if
Genesis were truly the product of human imagination, it's rather
incredible to believe someone would think to separate the creation of
light from the creation of the sun. Some might argue this is
evidence of a divine revelation for Scripture.
v.
4a, And God saw the light, that it was good:
Several
times during the creation week, God pauses pauses to reflect on His
creation. Each time, He sees that what has been created is “good.”
The fact that God continuously affirms that each created thing is
“good” flies in the face of theistic evolution (TE). According
to TE, the world was created over billions of years of death and
destruction. According to this belief, the world has been bad, bad,
bad, on its way to finally being, “very good.” The Bible attests
over and over that everything was initially “good.”
v.
4b-5a, and God divided the
light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the
darkness he called Night.
The
presence of night and day indicate that the earth has already begun
rotating. Therefore, we can be sure that physical laws – like
gravity – have also already been created. Nobel laureate, Dr.
Stephen Hawking, once said that because physical laws like gravity
exist, then the universe could create itself out of nothing. It's
rather laughable that such an intelligent person could make such a
contradictory statement. How could there be any physical laws before
the universe was created?
Physical
laws are only our descriptions of the way matter behaves. Matter
exhibits gravity. Just like matter cannot create itself, neither can
gravity create itself. Science can only presuppose gravity existed
in the creation; secular scientists really have no more explanation
for the origin of gravity than they do for the ultimate origin of
matter. They can only appeal to poofery.
v.
5b, And the evening and the morning
were the first day.
Each
day of the six creative days is punctuated by this phrase. Since God
created light on the first day, we can know how much time has passed.
It was an evening and a morning – an ordinary day. The presence
of the term “morning and evening” leave little wiggle room for
anyone wishing to reinterpret the word “day.”
God
could have created the entire universe in a single moment. God could
have stretched the creation out over billions of years. Yet for
whatever reason, God chose to create the universe in the way He did –
over six ordinary days.
3 comments:
When some people think of the first day of the Creation Week, they only think of God creating day and night.
This is perhaps because many people view the first verse as a summary of the entire first chapter rather than an event in itself. This may be encouraged by (though not necessarily depending on or agreeing with) modernist scholars who view Genesis 1 as describing creation from pre-existing chaos rather than being ex nihilo (cf. many pagan creation myths); some go so far as to suggest that bara in the first verse should be translated "separated" (God separated sky from earth), rather than "created."
Then again, it may just reflect dependence on illustrated charts of the six days of creation that, unlike yours, just identify day one with the creation of light and its separation from darkness (as opposed to actually reading the text).
The term “heaven” can have several meanings depending on its context. It sometimes refers to the sky and other times to the abode of God. Here, I believe “heaven” clearly refers to space.
Perhaps. A few verses down, though, God creates a vault or canopy that separates the waters beneath it from the waters above it, and calls it "heaven" when this seems to be clearly a description of the origin of the weather sky. So I think that "sky" is to be preferred in verse 1, as well.
We see from last sentence that the earth initially was only water. Since water can only exist at temperatures less than 100°C (212°F), perhaps we could assume that the initial creation was a “cool” event.
Obligatory pedantry: water boils when its partial pressure (which depends on temperature) is equal to the pressure of the air (hence it boils at lower temperatures at high altitudes, since the air is thinner, and at any temperature above freezing, in vacuum). Conversely, water can remain liquid at up to 705 degrees F in very high pressures. So the existence of liquid water argues for the existence of air pressure (and hence air).
It's interesting that God created a light that specifically is not the sun. Even the ancients understood that the sun gave light so if Genesis were truly the product of human imagination, it's rather incredible to believe someone would think to separate the creation of light from the creation of the sun. Some might argue this is evidence of a divine revelation for Scripture.
Many of the ancients didn't understand that the moon shines by reflected light, rather than emitting light itself (the fifth-century BC Greek Empedocles may have been the first to state that the moon only reflects the sun's light). By the same token, they may not have realized that the daytime sky's bright blue is simply scattered sunlight, and thought that daylight was a thing -- a light from the sky itself rather than some body in the sky -- that existed distinct from sunlight.
The presence of night and day indicate that the earth has already begun rotating.
Again, this was not obvious to flat-earth scholars like Flavius Josephus or Theophilus of Antioch, or to geocentrist Bible scholars like Martin Luther. Even given a spherical Earth and (after day four) a heliocentric cosmos, it's possible to read this as describing a moving light rather than a moving Earth (though with just the light and the Earth, I suppose you could argue that either view was relativistically valid).
I'm pretty sure that Hawking holds that some sort of primordial vacuum precedes the existence of the universe as we see it, and that that vacuum has properties and regularities of its own.
Steven J,
You said, “This is perhaps because many people view the first verse as a summary of the entire first chapter rather than an event in itself.”
I could understand that of verse 1. However verse 2 clearly indicates that the earth (or the globe of water) had already been created prior to the light so the light wasn't created first in any case.
You said, “This may be encouraged by (though not necessarily depending on or agreeing with) modernist scholars who view Genesis 1as describing creation from pre-existing chaos rather than being ex nihilo”
Exodus 20:11 says, “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.” This seems to say, unambiguously, that everything in the universe was created inside of the six days. This is further reinforced in John 1:3, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” These verses leave little room for the concept that God created the universe out of pre-existing matter.
You said, “Perhaps. A few verses down, though, God creates a vault or canopy that separates the waters beneath it from the waters above it, and calls it "heaven" when this seems to be clearly a description of the origin of the weather sky. So I think that "sky" is to be preferred in verse 1, as well.”
So where is space then? Where is the earth and the sky if God has not already created space? The sky created on Day 2 may have also been called heaven but I believe it is distinct from the heaven created on Day 1. I concede it's a little out of character for me to invoke two different meanings of the same word in the same passage but I believe the context here justifies it. Verse one says God created the heaven AND the earth on Day 1 (2 separate things). Certainly that must be a different heaven then the heaven created on Day 2.
continued...
You said, “Obligatory pedantry: water boils when its partial pressure (which depends on temperature) is equal to the pressure of the air (hence it boils at lower temperatures at high altitudes, since the air is thinner, and at any temperature above freezing, in vacuum). Conversely, water can remain liquid at up to 705 degrees F in very high pressures. So the existence of liquid water argues for the existence of air pressure (and hence air).”
I'm aware that water boils at different temperatures at different altitudes – although I will admit I didn't know it could remain liquid as high as 705º. Regardless, even at 705º, we're talking about a much cooler event than the supposed Big Bang. Also, there need not be air pressure if the space around the water was also cool.
You said, “Many of the ancients didn't understand that the moon shines by reflected light, rather than emitting light itself.”
It doesn't matter what the ancients understood. I'll talk about the sun and moon when I reach the post for Day 4. No one was talking about the moon here anyway.
You said, “Again, this was not obvious to flat-earth scholars like Flavius Josephus or Theophilus of Antioch, or to geocentrist Bible scholars like Martin Luther. Even given a spherical Earth and (after day four) a heliocentric cosmos, it's possible to read this as describing a moving light rather than a moving Earth (though with just the light and the Earth, I suppose you could argue that either view was relativistically valid).”
That's exactly what I'm going to say. It might be possible to interpret this from a geocentric paradigm. Even so, the Bible isn't saying that the light circled the earth. The day/night cycle had begun. The ancients might have believed the light circled the earth but we now know better.
You said, “I'm pretty sure that Hawking holds that some sort of primordial vacuum precedes the existence of the universe as we see it, and that that vacuum has properties and regularities of its own.”
If “universe” means all there is, then the primordial vacuum was a part of the universe that manifested first. You should perhaps say it, “precedes the existence of the REST of the universe.” But such a belief hardly rescues the contradiction of his statement that universe could create itself out of nothing because he still is saying something existed.
God bless!!
RKBentley
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