Biblical Hebrew Forum

[John Ronning <ronning AT xsinet.co.za>]

Noel asked, 
> 
> As for God creating the sun and moon etc on the fourth day, this is just one
> of the anachronisms in the text, after all God created light on the first
> day, and as we know our light comes from the sun, so where did the light he
> created come from.
> 
Thanks to astrophysics we now know the answer to that one -
it's not anachronistic at all.  The earth, along with the
rest of our solar system, began as a dark amorphous (tohu
wabohu) cloud of hydrogen along with some heavier stuff
which began to contract due to gravity.  The particles
accelerated towards the center, and after a time they were
going fast enough that the whole cloud began to glow (there
was light).  Some time later, the outer planets formed, and
there would have been light only on the side towards the
center (God separated the light from the darkness).  Even
after the sun was formed, the primitive earth atmosphere was
a dense cloud (like it says in Job 38:9), and the sun was
not visible until the production of sufficient oxygen
cleared the atmosphere.  The order of the six phases in
Genesis 1 is quite correct both astronomically and
geophysically.

More details in R. C. Newman, Genesis One and the Origin of
the Universe, and John Wiester, The Genesis Record.


Regards,
John Ronning