The Genesis account of the creation of the earth is remarkably similar to our current scientific understanding.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth”
The universe had a beginning. The Big Bang. Formed from a singularity infinitesimally small, “nothing,” in a highly controlled event. The universe and the galaxies and the sun and planets, including the earth are assumed at this point. Our focus is now on the earth. The Hebrew noun for ‘day’. used here is ‘yom.’ It can mean any part of a 24 hour period or a long finite period of time. Using the latter definition we are talking about a total of seven long periods of time, epochs, each period ranging from thousands to billions of years.
Day 1: “Earth is formless and void”
All the planets spun off from the sun. The earth is an accretion disk settling into a spherical shape.
“Darkness was over the surface of the deep”
Initially no light penetration at all. The earth was surrounded by a thick, dense atmosphere of toxic gases allowing no light penetration. The earth was covered with water. Not as surprising as you might think. If we include ice, it is the most common non-gaseous molecule in the universe! The moons of Jupiter and Saturn: Europa, Ganymede, Enceladus & Titan are all considered to be ocean worlds. Titan is believed to have more total water than earth! Even Mars was considered to be globally covered with water billions of years ago.
“The Spirit of the Lord was moving over the surface of the waters”
This is the frame of reference for the rest of the narrative; an important stipulation in any scientific explanation. This isthe perspective from which the rest of the narrative isinterpreted.
“Let there be light”
The formation of the moon. Theia is an asteroid the size of a small planet that slams into the earth in a very controlled manner and the moon is produced as a enormous fragment from this collision, and the earth tilts and a lot of the dark atmosphere is dissipated, causing light to reach the surface of the earth. [See picture above]
“God called the light day and the darkness he called night”
The sun is not yet visible because the atmosphere has changed from dark to opaque but the light that is penetrating means the day-night cycle is detectable on the surface of the earth. Note that the earth has been rotating from its beginning as accretion disc spinning off from the sun.
“And there was evening and morning, one day”
Poetic image of completion (evening) and the morning a prelude to the next period.
Day 2:
“God create the expanse and separates the waters below from the waters above”
The atmosphere above the surface of the deep continues to slowly clear as the light and accompanying heat evaporates the surface waters and creates the water cycle with clouds (the waters above).
Day 3:
“God separates the waters from the land “
After about a billion years of the earth being totally covered with water, dry land appears for the first time. This happened because of the strong radiochemical
nature of the core of the earth and all the heat the core produced, resulting in volcanic activity and the production of lighter silicates causing the land to rise above water level.
“Let the Earth sprout fourth vegetation,”
The earth, aquatic and terrestrial, is photosynthesising.
The Hebrew nouns translated in English as ‘plants yielding. seed and fruit trees’ are “zera, es, peri,” can also mean “semen” or “embryonic plants” including all plankton. Most of this photosynthesis is aquatic (as it still is today) and while the sky is still not transparent, the nitrogen and oxygen ratio is heading towards today’s levels. The diversity and complexity of plant life is now evident.
In December we will continue with Days 4 to 7.