What Is/Was The Light?

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In the April 2014 edition of Discover magazine, astrophysicist/cosmologist Avi Loeb states that the Bible attributes the appearance of stars and galaxies to the divine proclamation "Let there be light". Is Mr. Loeb's statement correct? No; of course not. God created light on the very first day of creation; while luminous celestial objects weren't created until the fourth.

The Bible is notoriously concise in some places; especially in it's story of the creation of light. Well; the creation of light was a very, very intricate process. First God had to create particulate matter, and along with those particles their specific properties, including mass. Then He had to invent laws to govern how matter behaves in combination with and/or in the presence of, other kinds of matter in order to generate photons.

The same laws that make it possible for matter to generate photons also make other conditions possible too; e.g. thermodynamics, fusion, dark energy, gravity, atoms, molecules, magnetism, radiation, high energy X-rays and gamma rays, temperature, pressure, force, inertia, friction, and electricity; et al. So the creation of light was a pretty big deal; yet Genesis scarcely gives its origin passing mention.

â€*. Gen 1:1-2 . .The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep

That statement reveals the cosmos' condition prior to the creation of light; and no mystery there because sans the physics that make light possible, the cosmos' particulate matter would never have coalesced into something coherent.

2Cor 4:6 verifies that light wasn't introduced into the cosmos from outside in order to dispel the darkness and brighten things up a bit; but rather, it radiated out of the cosmos from inside-- from itself --indicating that the cosmos was created to be self-illuminating by means of the various interactions of the matter that God made for it; including, but not limited to, the Higgs Boson.

Some Bible students regard science an enemy of religion; but I sincerely believe that is a bad attitude to take towards science. Galileo believed that religion and science are allies rather than enemies-- two different languages telling the same story. Religion provides answers to questions that science cannot answer, while science provides answers to questions that religion does not answer.

1Tim 6:20 commands Christ's followers to avoid "science-- falsely so-called". However, not all science is false. Previous to what we might call the modern era, many scientific ideas were theoretical and largely untested. and therefore subsequently proven largely false. But that all began to change as men begin making, not ideas, but discoveries; and discoveries are far more reliable than untested ideas.

There are well-meaning folk who prefer to keep science out of the first chapter of Genesis. I truly believe that is an error because though the cosmos has a supernatural origin, it is not a supernatural cosmos; rather, it is a very natural cosmos and the creation story makes better sense, at least to me anyway, when it's approached from that angle.

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God does not create waste and desolate as would be implied by your reading of Gen. 1.1. Rather, God created perfectly in Gen. 1.1 over 13.8 billion years. But then the inhabitants of earth's earliest ages sinned. So much so they were irredeemable. So God caused the earth to become desolate and waste in Gen. 1.2. We know this occurred about 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit earth (we know its exact location today and size) to wipe out the dinosaurs. From then on the restoration of creation took placed summed up by the 6 twenty-four hour days. What is particularly noticeable is of the 6 days, only day 2 was not called a good day. Why? Because when the firmament was split unavoidably up came some of those demons that had been cast into the deep. One of those demons entered into the serpent in the Garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve. The rest is history. Only Gap Restoration explains why the dinosaurs were evil killing machines and the source of demons (disembodied spirits that seek to inhabit especially humans) prior to the Garden of Eden.

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Originally Posted by Parture

God does not create waste and desolate as would be implied by your reading of Gen. 1.1

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I rather think that God went about manufacturing the cosmos in a normal fashion. For example ships, warehouses, homes, factories, malls, skyscrapers, highways, bridges, automobiles, computers, etc, don't just pop out of somebody's head ready-made. No; they're manufactured from scratch with suitable materials.

Well; I think Gen 1:2 indicates that God first rounded up all the materials He would need to construct the cosmos and then beginning with Gen 1:3 proceeded to knock it all together.

The so-called gap theory is okay as far as it goes; but it is, after all, just a theory.

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Evidentially, no creation view makes sense except gap restoration. This can be shown. Only gap restoration explains why there were killing creatures even microbial killing. Manufacturing the cosmos? As gases turned into stars and planets, that is not manufacturing is it? Rounding up materials? There were no materials rounded up like humans do. From the singularity the explosion occurred and that explosion was filled with gases that turned into planets and stars. This took 13.8 billion years to where God created perfectly. Genesis 1.1 doesn't say how long it took only that it did take.

God does not cause the earth to become desolate and waste, but it was created perfectly.

In the original Hebrew, this initial verse of the first chapter of Genesis contains seven words which carry within themselves a sense of independence. These divinely revealed words do not say that in the beginning God “formed” or “made” the world out of certain raw materials. No, the heavens and the earth were created. This word “created” is “bara” in the original. So that in the beginning God bara the heavens and the earth. This word “bara” is used three more times in Genesis 1 and 2: (1st) “And God created [bara] the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind” (1.21); (2nd) “And God created [bara] man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (1.27); and (3rd) “And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it he rested from all his work which God had created [bara] and made” (2.3). To “create” is to “call the things that are not, as though they were” (Rom. 4.17). These sea-monsters and living things not only had physical bodies but also had an animated life within them. They therefore required a direct creative act of God. Thus it is only reasonable that the Scriptures should use the word “created” rather than the word “made” in these passages. In similar manner, though man’s body was formed out of the dust of the ground, his soul and spirit could not be made out of any physical material, and hence the Bible declared that “God created man in his own image.”

In the first two chapters of Genesis three different words are used for the act of creation: (1) “bara”—calling into being without the aid of pre-existing material. This we have already touched upon; (2) “asah”—which is quite different from “bara,” since the latter denotes the idea of creating without any material whereas “asah” signifies the making, fashioning, or preparing out of existing material. For instance, a carpenter can make a chair, but he cannot create one. The works of the Six Days in Genesis are mainly of the order of “asah”; (3) “yatsar”—which means to shape or mold as a potter does with clay. This word is used in Genesis 2.7 as follows: “And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground.” Interestingly, Isaiah 43.7 illustrates the meaning and connection of all three of these words: “every one that is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yea, whom I have made.” “Created” signifies a calling into being out of nothing; “formed” denotes a fashioning into appointed form; and “made” means a preparing out of pre-existing material.

The words “In the beginning” reinforce the thought of God creating the heavens and the earth out of nothing. There is really no need to theorize; since God has so spoken, let men simply believe. How absurd for finite minds to search out the works of God which He performed at the beginning! “By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God” (Heb. 11.3). Who can answer God’s challenge to Job concerning creation (see Job 38)?

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This heaven is not the firmament immediately surrounding the earth; rather, it points to the heaven where the stars are. It has not undergone any change since it was created, but the earth is no longer the same.

To understand the first chapter of Genesis, it is of utmost importance that we distinguish the “earth” mentioned in verse 1 from the “earth” spoken of in verse 2. For the condition of the earth referred to in verse 2 is not what God had created originally. Now we know that “God is not a God of confusion” (1 Cor. 14.33). And hence when it states that in the beginning God created the earth, what He created was therefore perfect. So that the waste and void of the earth spoken of in verse 2 was not the original condition of the earth as God first created it. Would God ever create an earth whose primeval condition would be waste and void? A true understanding of this verse will solve the apparent problem.

“Thus saith Jehovah that created the heavens, the God that formed the earth and made it, that established it and created it not a waste, that formed it to be inhabited: I am Jehovah; and there is none else” (Is. 45.18). How clear God’s word is. The word “waste” here is “tohu” in Hebrew, which signifies “desolation” or “that which is desolate.” It says here that the earth which God created was not a waste. Why then does Genesis 1.2 state that “the earth was waste”? This may be easily resolved. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1.1). At that time, the earth which God had created was not a waste; but later on, in passing through a great catastrophe, the earth did become waste and void. So that all which is mentioned from verse 3 onward does not refer to the original creation but to the restoration of the earth. God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning; but He subsequently used the Six Days to remake the earth habitable. Genesis 1.1 was the original world; Genesis 1.3 onward is our present world; while Genesis 1.2 describes the desolate condition which was the earth’s during the transitional period following its original creation and before our present world.

Such an interpretation cannot only be arrived at on the basis of Isaiah 45.18, it can also be supported on the basis of other evidences. The conjunctive word “and” in verse 2 can also be translated as “but”: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but the earth was waste and void.” G. H. Pember, in his book Earth’s Earliest Ages, wrote that...

the “and” according to Hebrew usage—as well as that of most other languages—proves that the first verse is not a compendium of what follows, but a statement of the first event in the record. For if it were a mere summary, the second verse would be the actual commencement of the history, and certainly would not begin with a copulative. A good illustration of this may be found in the fifth chapter of Genesis (Gen. 5.1). There the opening words, “This is the book of the generations of Adam,” are a compendium of the chapter, and, consequently, the next sentence begins without a copulative. We have, therefore, in the second verse of Genesis no first detail of a general statement in the preceding sentence, but the record of an altogether distinct and subsequent event, which did not affect the sidereal [starry] heaven, but only the earth and its immediate surroundings. And what that event was we must now endeavour to discover.*

* G. H. Pember, Earth's Earliest Ages, New Edition, edited with additions by G. H. Lang (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1975), p. 31. (The original work of Pember, under the same title, was initially published in 1876 by Hodder and Stoughton. Later editions were issued by Pickering and Inglis and the Fleming H. Revell Co.)

Over a hundred years ago, Dr. Chalmers pointed out that the words “the earth was waste” might equally be translated “the earth became waste.” Dr. I. M. Haldeman, G. H. Pember, and others showed that the Hebrew word for “was” here has been translated “became” in Genesis 19.26: “His wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” If this same Hebrew word can be translated in 19.26 as “became,” why can it not be translated as “became” in 1.2? Furthermore, the word “became” in 2.7 (“and man became a living soul”) is the same word as is found in Genesis 1.2. So that it is not at all arbitrary for anyone to translate “was” as “became” here: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, [but] the earth became waste and void.” The earth which God created originally was not waste, it only later became waste.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1.1) and “in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is” (Ex. 20.11). Comparing these two verses, we can readily see that the world in Genesis 1.1 was quite different from the world that came after Genesis 1.3. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In the Six Days God made the heaven and earth and sea. Who can measure the distance that exists between “created” and “made”? The one is a calling into being things out of nothing, the other is a working on something already there. Man can make but cannot create; God can create as well as make. Hence Genesis records that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but later on the earth had become waste and void due to a tremendous catastrophe, after which God commenced to remake the heaven, earth and sea and all the creatures in them. 2 Peter 3.5-7 expresses the same thought as well: the heavens and the earth in verse 5 are the original heavens and earth referred to in Genesis 1.1; the earth mentioned in verse 6 that was overflowed with water and which perished is the earth covered with water which became waste and void as mentioned in Genesis 1.2; and the heavens and the earth that now are as spoken of in verse 7 are the restored heavens and earth after Genesis 1.3. Hence the works of God during the Six Days are quite different from His creative work done in the beginning.

Read the rest here,
http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/moc12.htm