The Fourth Day of Creation

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rmcmullan

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On the third day, God created all the plant life on the earth. On the fourth day,
Genesis 1:14 ¶ 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:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
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This has always struck me as somewhat pre-Corpernicus–it sounds like the earth was half-created when all the stars, other galaxies and the rest of the universe was created. And just so we could have decorations in the night sky.

Isn’t this passage best understood as the lights in the firmanent were made to appear rather than created?
 
Well, the verse isn’t talking about daylight or light that dervies from the sun. It understand the light that surrounds us in the daylight to be an independently created by God. This light was created on the first day. THe sun, moon and stars are, according to the verse, light sources.
 
DD is a scientist and teaches astronomy and physics at the college level. according to her the order of creation as presented in the first Genesis account is essentially the same order accepted by science. First, God said let there be light, and there was light. according to science, she says, first came light–energy–and then all else, in the order the bible describes. Science – like Augustine and many of the fathers – does not say with certainty how much time elapsed in each of these stages of creation, how long a “day” was, but obviously until the sun was created on the 4th day time as we know it on earth did not exist, so to reduce this poetry of science to a literal 6 day narrative is absurd. the sun and other stars are not light, they are bodies of matter and energy that emit light. the moon merely reflects light, as do the planets.
 
There’s a big diference between light and lights. At times I read in one room by the light from another room. There is light in the room but there isn’t a light in the room – at least not one that’s on. When it’s muggy there is light from the sky but there isn’t a light in the sky – i.e. a source of light isn’t visible overhead outdoors. Since we know it was very muggy in the early days of life on earth and we know that creatures that care what time it is came along around when it became possible to see the sun and moon, and since “regulate” can easily mean “measure”, I see no difficulty. Living things with no regular schedule lived and grew in the fog, and then the earth cooled more and the fog cleared, and the sky became clear enough to see the distinct lights. Then some creatures were given the gift of telling time – some flowers, insects and other creatures. And the darkening (of our position relative to our galaxy) and the lightening were the fourth yom (a period of time set apart by distinctive features esp. as a cycle within a larger pattern, as a solar day, a reign, a time of war or of peace, astronomical or ecological stages etc.).
Then came the yom of the big mammals and the fields of grass and then our yom.
 
rmcmullan said:
Woah there, that’s quite a stretch. The sun brought time to the universe?
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no the sun brought time to the earth, namely the solar day, which fundies insist on believing applies literally to the creation narrative
 
Okay, that’s true. I’m not familiar with what the fundies believe though. SO what do you think, was the sun (and stars) created after the earth? Or is that not what it’s saying?
 
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