1:14 God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night;

A Multidisciplinary Contextualized Analysis of Select Passages From Genesis V2.0

and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; ¹⁵ and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth;" and it was so. ¹⁶ God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.

[This is an excerpt from an exhaustive personal study of most of the first 9 chapters of the book of Genesis. This is a vastly expanded effort from the original version that can currently be found here downloadable for free. The purpose of this exercise is to compare a non-symbolic literal reading of the text to our current understanding of language, paleontology, and the physical sciences. Constructive discussion on the merits of this study is encouraged!]

Approximate Year: 4,000 Ma

Historical Period: Late Hadean

Event: Sun main sequence

You may have noticed that we have skipped a “Yom”. As mentioned earlier, I’ve swapped Days 3 and 4 to align with Earth’s habitability timeline.

For all the attention being given to straight interpretation in this exercise, I could certainly be accused of violating this driving premise. My primary defense for this departure from sequence is the argument of poetic license or relatable structure. That there are seven “Yamim” in total, reflecting the common quarter moon cycle week, does imply that poetic framing or analogy is used. We cannot know the original inspiration of the text, whether directly relayed, a vision, or otherwise. But that the author based the pace, and perhaps retroactively so, on the ordinance of a 6-day work week, one cannot disregard the human element of structuring this story. If such poetic or associative framing was employed, then that suggests there may be some flexibility to the exact chronology of the passages. Several literary theories suggest that, despite being largely sequential, the “Yom” are further organized in subgroups.

• A Hierarchy of Creation: Categorical ordering

  • The first three ages are the formation of the world’s physical properties and environments (light, sky, sea, and land). These ages are the constructs named by God.

  • The subsequent ages are the inhabitants of the environments (stars, fish, birds, and land animals). These are the creations named by man.

• Literary Parallelism: Similar to the Hierarchy consideration where each age has a twin.

  • Age 1 is the properties of light and darkness, where age 4 are the sun, moon, and stars that provide light.

  • Age 2 is sky and seas where 5 is birds and fish.

  • Age 3 sees the creation of land where 6 is land animals.

• A Dream or Series of Dreams:

  • The author took note of the most notable features from these visions in what order they were revealed to him.

  • Or took a single longer vision and formatted it in a memorable fashion.

  • Or the visions given to the author were from a point of view that the state of the sky wasn’t apparent at first. That they are mentioned later on does not mean they were not extant.

Per the information available to me at the time of this writing, it is my opinion that the sequence of creation events may not have been authored for strict chronologically depending on one’s point of view. No one prior to the last century would have speculated that these verses might have eventually paralleled scientific observation in any way which I believe makes it a fair question if the order had been maintained accurately. This is contrasted with thousands of years of even the most ardent believers treating early Genesis as wholly symbolic or even anti-scientific. In this rare case I am choosing to re-order the 3rd and 4th ages to better fit the cosmological progression presented here.

That being said, it is still scientifically plausible that the sun, moon, and stars were not clearly visible until after the oceans began to form. It is possible that a thick smog or persistent cloud cover was common prior to the explosion of plant life in the Devonian period. The early volcanically active earth likely was shrouded in a thick sooty atmosphere including clouds of water vapor. Only after the earth’s surface cooled adequately would atmospheric water precipitate to the surface, and in doing so the sky would have been cleared of clouds and particulate enough to reveal the cosmic bodies above.

Also, we don’t know what the atmosphere looked like at this time. A clear vision of stars and local astral bodies could have been obfuscated until then. Or the visions given to the author were such that the state of the sky wasn’t apparent at first.

At the end of the previous “era”, the earth is shrouded in a thick cloud of gasses within the protoplanetary disk. Additionally, the early atmosphere spewed violently from the volcanically active surface and would be thick enough to block out the sky. Although the universe would have been teaming with stars and galaxies, an observer at the surface of the early earth would not see stars, other planets, or even the moon. At least until the sun achieved main sequence ignition.

The interpretive preference of this study is a narrowing progression of narrative scope with each creative action. In the first two “Yamim”, the creation of ubiquitous electromagnetic force represents the absolute observable extent of our existence in time and space which is followed by the accumulation of matter within that space. The 5th “Yom” adds creatures that have uninhibited freedom to roam the earth and seas, where the 6th focuses on those that are land bound with limited mobility. The only “Yamim” that appear to deviate from this narrative progression are the middle pair being the cosmically local sun moon and stars on the 4th day placed after the oceans formed and plant life appeared on this planet.

The difficulty in literalizing the original order is that the types of plant life described in the later half of the 3rd age did not appear on earth for a few billion years after the oceans formed. One would assume that the view of space would have been adequately clear by then. In light of this, I favor breaking the original sequence of ages. But it is worth considering that much of the scientific information I am referencing is less than 100 years old. It is likely we will make additional paradigm shifting discoveries in the future, and any interpretation I provide now will likely be subject to revision in the future.

Despite the veracity of arguments from either side, it is a valid consideration that the author was striving to make the account memorable, relatable, or simply reported details in the way he recalled them. As the intent to maintain scientific accuracy of the order of eras in Genesis could be debated, I ask that the reader consider a transposition of verses in this one instance for the sake of the linear ordering being considered here.

In any case, my intention is not to debate the accuracy of the order of eras in Genesis. I confess to a degree of speculation since all other biblical narratives are serialized, and by definition genealogies are necessarily sequential. But as for the contents of each era I am still strictly adhering to the written word. I only ask that the reader allow me a transposition of verses in this one case to accommodate the interpretive arc being used to structure this study.

At the end of the previous “era”, the earth is shrouded in a thick cloud of gasses within the protoplanetary disk. Additionally, the early atmosphere spewed violently from the volcanically active surface and would be thick enough to block out the sky. Although the universe would have been teaming with stars and galaxies, an observer at the surface of the early earth would not see stars, other planets, or even the moon. This visually obfuscated condition would continue until some time after the sun achieved main sequence ignition.

When a sufficient amount of matter accumulates in the center of a stellar accretion disk, the immense pressure at the center spontaneously begins nuclear fusion which is called stellar main sequence. A star in main sequence, like our sun, is serendipitously balanced between gravitational pressure and the outward force of fusion. This equilibrium provides a prolonged period of relatively consistent energy output which is essential for life on earth.

The heat and radiation generated by a star causes an outward pressure called solar wind. Due to this pressure, In a relatively brief time after the sun’s main sequence ignition, lighter gasses and dust are blown away from the inner solar system. It not only illuminates the moon and planets, but also unveils the stars and galaxies beyond our solar system for the first time. This delayed reveal may explain why the sun and moon are mentioned first while the stars seem to be an afterthought in verse 16.