Introduction

This section looks at Creation, the first of God’s two major works, as described in the first two chapters of Genesis.

It’s a great place to start looking at the Bible, not only because it’s the start, but because it addresses the question “are we here by design or by accident”? If we’re here by design, then there must be a designer, and if there’s a designer, he must have a purpose, and if he has a purpose then we have an accountability to him for that purpose. That last part “accountability” is quite heavy, which is probably why many people look for as many elaborate ways possible, to explain it away as “we are here by accident”. If we were here by accident, you could and would commit any atrocity you could imagine, but you’re not, and you won’t. You know it’s not society or your parents that stop you doing atrocities, or even being a little naughty, it’s conscience and it is with that, and with creation, that God has made Himself clearly perceivable to everyone. Throughout scripture, God holds everyone accountable to know Him through His creation. “Clearly perceivable” might seem a stretch to some; perhaps “perceivable enough”, would be better, since it’s not universally accepted and there’s a lingering uncertainty for some. The bible suggests that absolute clarity on our nature and position with God, would make us even more accountable to Him and the consequences then of rejection, far worse. 

It's not just Romans 1 (v20), but all through scripture, creation in and of itself, makes us accountable to Him. This lingering accountability is the likely cause of the myriads of ways some secular scientists find to not entertain the possibility of explanations that permit God (which is unscientific in and of itself) and for most of us to just put it out of our minds, at least until we’re older. 

God’s second major work is Redemption. Redemption is a religious word for how our free will, having inevitably lead to our guilt (going our own way), and an act of atonement for this guilt (planned for at creation), to enable us to be joined with God despite this, both whilst we still live in our bodies, and for eternity, when our already eternal souls leave our bodies and time and continue.

Creation is pretty much covered in two chapters in Genesis, and a few chapters in Job and Psalms. It doesn’t take long to find what the Bible says about creation; maybe a dozen chapters, and as this research shows, it’s reasonable to believe it’s true.

But how much of the Bible is devoted to Redemption? Loads! Genesis goes on to lay down the foundation of redemption. Exodus is the redemption from Egypt. Leviticus, the prophets etc its’ what it’s all about! The Gospels, the epistles; redemption. The climatic book, Revelation, is all about the redemption.

The creation cost God, what? 6 days to call it into existence. He can do that again. What did Redemption cost Him? The death of His son, well a part of Himself, and that won’t be repeated.

The creation is completed in Genesis 1. The Redemption is completed in John 19, when God/Jesus says “it is finished”. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was not a tragedy, it was an achievement, on a par with creating the Universe.

When you look at creation you can’t help but be in awe of God, when looking through a telescope or a microscope, you can’t help but see how skilful a creator God is.

The Redemption is even more intricate. As Chuck Missler says, “We’ll be spending an eternity learning the subtleties and insights of it, that are right before us in the text, but would defy an entire lifetime of devotion, to try and unravel it all”. “Jesus died for our Sins”, is more worthy of amazement and wonder, than creation.

But back to Genesis and creation…

Most scholars agree that Moses wrote the Torah (Biblical Hebrew: תּוֹרָה Tōrā, meaning "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law"). It is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These five books are also the first five of the Christian Bible. Jesus referred to “when Moses wrote the Law”, so confirming this. 

To get the best understanding, the Hebrew for key words, from which our English translations are derived, will be reviewed.

We’ll see how the more you understand modern science, and the scientific explanations left possible by the statements made in these verses, the more phenomenally feasible and prescient these verse in Genesis are. We’ll see how, far from being undermined by current scientific thinking, and not worthy of consideration, it in fact offers common sense explanations that have remained relevant through the centuries, as our scientific knowledge has grown. That is to say, the words ring as true now, with our recent understanding of the galaxies, atoms and DNA, as it did centuries ago, when we had no knowledge of such things. To put it another way, it would have been impossible to have made it up, as long ago as it was written, and not to have been found out as mistaken by now.

However, as John Lennox comments, it’s important not to be too resolute marrying specific theories to the text of the Bible, as happened centuries ago when some scholars believed the Earth couldn’t be floating in Space, as we now commonly understand it to, because certain verses of the bible referencing its unmovable foundations, seemingly precluding such a state.

None of these interpretations are central to any Christian doctrine. The primary thing is that we believe God made everything. The secondary thing is the belief that the text in the original manuscripts of the Bible, is the unerring word of God and is true; God says what He means and means what He says. He is not deceptive. All of these are possible whilst having different interpretations or understandings of the statements made in Genesis. I’d be happy worshipping alongside Christians with different interpretations and do.

That said, I think we’re in danger of becoming too apologetic in our apologetics (defence of the faith). The fear of tying our flag to the wrong scientific flagpole, and the proliferation and ubiquity of long earth and evolutionary theories (all of which are entirely to be expected, given the accountability issues we face once we stop denying that God exists) can lead Christians to being too timid, and even fearful of engaging in scientific and logical debates. Given basic logic and current scientific evidence, it requires blind faith to believe in evolution and chance formations; we’ve just been conditioned to think of it as common sense and proven, when it is neither. It requires far less convolutions with evidence and the wording of Genesis, to align what is observed around us with everything having been created by God in the way Genesis says.

The more we know about real science (not conjecture) and a bit of Hebrew (with the help of www.blueletterbible.org making Strongs concordance easy to navigate) the more comfortable the text of Genesis becomes. For years I found these first two chapters of the Bible, whilst not undermining of my faith, a bit disconcerting, out of touch with modern science and contradictory of itself. Which is perhaps the case for a great many people and since this is the first few chapters, many people trying the Bible might start here and may give up on the bible entirely due to them thinking it incompatible with modern science and correct thinking. It certainly isn’t! Hopefully this will help convince more people of that.

It's worth noting that attributing an idea to “science” isn’t the harbinger of truth many attribute to it. Science is, most often, what some experts think currently, based on evidence. But this changes over time and is not always agreed by all experts at the same time. Further the science we’re made aware of in school, or is promoted at a given time, is not always the most current. To say “science says” is to say “some people say” or at best “some respected clever people say”. You might also need to add that they “once said”, because there’s elements of what is thought in UK schools, from a prominent scientist, that he himself said would be proven wrong, if findings that have since been made, were to be made after his work. Darwin, noted that his suggestions as to the origin of life, would be made impossible (wrong) if science were to later find out that “single cell organisms” were in fact made up of more complex systems than they then thought, which of course we have discovered them to be.

So what have I concluded? The key points, and there are many fascinating asides covered throughout that remain possible as well, are in summary the Bible wording says to me that:

• When was everything made? It was fashioned circa 6,000 years ago, with matter that was of unspecified age, possibly then new, possibly billions of years old. All “physical matter”, or just the matter of this specific planet, “came about” either circa 6,000 years ago or any number of billion years ago. Either. And with matter, read energy and time as well. That matter came into being for the first time, 6,000 years ago and was worked on by God in creation, or that matter by then billions of years old, in some “beat up deflated” form, was worked on by God in creation, circa 6,000 years ago. If asked how old the earth is, thousands or billions of years? I’d say yes to both. How old is my Son’s Lego castle? Do you mean how long has it been put together like that, or when did I get it from the shop? Are you assuming all clocks have run at the same speed always? And if so why?

• How long did it take? 6 lots of 24 earth hours. Well quite apart from the relativity of time, i.e. durations of time differ dependent on the date, where you are and how fast you are going when you measure them, it is much like asking “how long did it take to make time”? We focus on matter and forming it into recognisable shapes and how long we “feel” this might take (especially when a convoluted and long explanation avoids accountability), we can deduce that matter and energy haven’t always existed in our reality, but rarely consider that time itself exists hand in hand with matter and energy. Introduce any amount of one of the three, into our reality, and you must add a dollop or two of the others. And no more is being added of any of them. When they were being added, was in a “period” for want of a better word, before the laws of physics were fully operating as they are now, and parts of it before the things we use to measure time (planet rotation and the sun) had apparently been set up. Truth be told, logic and evidence makes me think even 24 hours is too long, not too short. How could so much interdependent intricacy survive 12 hours half finished? Wouldn’t blood squirt out of holes not yet filled in? Further, how do you “measure time”, whilst it’s being created? Why do we think time measurement is so simple? Why don’t we specify how the acceptable tolerances of the answer we’re expecting? Hasn’t the speed of light been slowing down? Couldn’t God keep time before He finished the Sun? God probably knew, how we’d adapt the meaning of the word Day and what we were going to become capable of discovering and understanding scientifically and He meant to say Days.

• Did God use Evolution or Epochs? No. Even without the proclamation of it taking Him only 6 lots of 24 earth hours to make everything, the text does not allow for death (a necessary part of evolution) to have been used in the process. But you don’t need the Bible to discount much of evolution or epochs; common sense and modern science do this.

• What happened shortly after? The resulting creation was later, after the 7th day, fundamentally altered, through reduction, not more creation, at some point in the lifetime of Adam, the first human, due to the fall (the first Sin). In fact, “lifetime” is an interesting phrase, as before the fall, no human’s or animal’s body died, nor would have ever, were it not for the fall. The fall was in a sense inevitable, God knew we would sin (and who would and how) and He knew the consequences, so creation was ready in advance for it.

• Did anything else happen that accounts for fossils and geology today? The resulting fallen creation was further altered (battered) through a year long global flood, from rain and water coming out of the earth’s mantle and accompanied by earthquakes, tectonic shifts and possible volcanic activity, around 4,500 years ago. 8 humans and 2 of every original kind (not species, so far less types) of land and air animal survived, along with sea creatures that could survive. I don’t cover in this document, how this explanation eminently matches what is found in geology and fossils.

Here's why…

Day 0  - Genesis Chapter 1

Verse 1

1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. [Original]

It doesn’t read explicitly that the beginning was at the start of day 1. The beginning could have been at the start of day 1, but v2 and/or v1 could as easily have been anything from a day before, to billions of years before v3.

“In the beginning” (saying that there was a beginning, that time was “inaugurated”, it hasn’t always been so) “God created the heavens” (both “spiritual”, dimensions* we can’t now [if ever] perceive  and the sky/space type that we can perceive) and the earth (just this planet or all matter everywhere, in all dimensions, typically thought of as 3, plus a forth, time – we’ll review both options). *It has been proven there are 10 dimensions and only the first 4 are perceivable by us.

The implication of “Heavens and Earth” is simply “everything”.

First let’s pause to consider angels. God has created the Angels (and presumably Demons) by verse 1 too, since in Job it says “The sons of God (Angels) witnessed the creation of the Earth”. So perhaps there is a reason for Heavens coming before Earth in the sentence. Perhaps the Heavens were made first.

What is meant by Heavens? “Heavens” has denoted the spiritual heavens (other unseeable dimensions) and physical heavens (sky), throughout the ages. It works for all levels of understanding and intellect. 

What is meant by Earth? Likewise for “Earth”, be any more “sciency” or specific, and it wouldn’t have made sense for so long. The Bible had to use the word interchangeable for matter and our planet, to remain understandable through the ages. The two words eloquently and simply convey, and has always conveyed, irrespective of understanding of the solar system, or quantum physics, that “God made everything that is perceivable by us, and more that is not perceivable by us”. “Earth” itself has many meanings, we presume it to mean our planet, in this context. It can mean soil or land but the Hebrew for Earth here 'ereṣ’ means the whole (planet) earth. As we’ll cover later, words for things named by God and used to describe processes, timings and things in Genesis, later went onto have more specific and now ubiquitous meanings, but when used in Genesis, they often preceded physical circumstances, necessary for the specific use (Heavens, Earth, Day, Night, Light, Dark, Morning, Evening, Expanse, Water and Waters). Much as “Heavens” is a catch-all word that can mean more than one specific thing, Earth here could mean all universal matter as well as just our planet earth.

1 In the beginning God created everything, the spiritual and physical heavens and the earth (all dimensions, all matter and time) [no full stop, the absence is important] [Nat Amplified]

Gap Theory (Between v1 and v2)

Then a well known “very likely” gap, not called out, and not central to any Christian doctrine, in which Satan “falls” and takes some angels.

To explain this, we need to review the beginning of v2 and then consider implications here, before going on with v2. v2 begins 2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness,….

We go from ….Earth (“full stop”) in verse 1, to And… in verse 2. There are no punctuation marks in Hebrew and also the “And” is better translated as it is in the LXX , adversative, to “but” (the Hebrew verse has neither and or but). However, let’s consider it as…

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth but the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness….

The “Was” hāyâ, is also translated “had become” (pluperfect form). As in when Lot’s wife was made into a pillar of salt.

The “Without form and void, formless and desolate tôû va bôû”, unclear and empty, this Hebrew term implies a destruction action. When used else where in the Bible, it as the result of a judgement. Jere 4:24-26 and “in vein” Isa 45:18.

So the beginning of v2 could read 2 but the earth (all universal matter and/or planet earth) had been made formless and empty, from a destruction due to a judgement….

The Angel that became Satan, likely “fell” “before” verse 2. We can get this from God talking to Satan behind the leader of Tyre, who Ezekial was speaking to, in Ezekial 28, and God was talking to Satan, behind the king of Babylon, through Isaiah in Isaiah 14.

Here in lies a conjectured answer to “what did Satan do that God could not forgive?” It could be suggested, within this theory, that there was a previous Earth (a planet similar to ours, or any formation of matter, space and even time), not necessarily confined to our 4 dimensions, that Satan took rulership of and/or corrupted or destroyed. And leading into v2, God then made this void, as judgement. But what made what Satan did unforgivable? It is perhaps that, unlike us, Lucifer did this with full knowledge of what he was doing and the consequences, and none of our weaknesses that make it harder for us not to sin.

It is conjecture, but links a lot of different passages. It is often mis-applied, it does nothing for you in terms of dinosaurs, but could account for the apparent age of rocks and the light in the universe. Rock ageing techniques, are notoriously flaky science, but if they are correct, this would account for, “current” matter, light and time itself, preceding verse 2, by the many billion years rock aging science and astrology (light travelling distances) calculates. Note, however the Bible explains that the elements as we know them, undergo significant reformation, being pulled apart left, right and centre during day 2 and 3, physics are changed, perhaps even perceivable dimensions removed, because of the “Fall” and the Earth and Oceans get a significant battering 1650 years later, 4500 years ago, by “the Flood”, which was more than just “a lot of rain”.

Imagine, if you will, that all Lego bricks each had a small date of manufacture, embossed inside them, and you enter a play room to find an elaborate castle made out those bricks. You can guess as to how long it took someone to put those bricks together, hours or days perhaps, but you wouldn’t assume it to have taken since the date of manufacture of the bricks, perhaps many years ago, and you couldn’t know if what you were looking at had previously been formed into anything else. It could be this way for creation.

A better analogy might be that of a house that was originally made out of reclaimed tiles and bricks, had a wing removed at some point and a major renovation later still. You can’t say definitively how long the house has stood, by dating the creation of the tiles or bricks. You can’t say for sure how long ago the tiles were made, if they’d been baked from old tiles or how long after their first use they’d sat in a yard waiting be used on this house. You can’t say what the house looked like when new. You can’t at all say how long the scaffolding was up for during the build. You can’t say for sure, even knowing all the weather conditions, how long the house has stood in its current configuration, based on wear and tear. But you can hazard a good guess as to this later fact, and there’s plenty of geological and astronomical evidence saying our “house” has been like it has, since about the time of the flood and a/the flood and other seismic events fit the evidence around us. Evidence to the contrary does not make sense of the data, and is circulatory on its own assumptions, yet still taught in Schools, but that’s a whole other subject.

Equally, but less satisfactorily, just as Adam when created, would need to have “appeared instantly” as a fully developed and strong man, breathing, blood pumping and ready to eat solid food, not mother’s milk, who, if tested by a doctor would perhaps be identified as being 30 years old; so too might other elements of creation:

• rocks and the decay of certain atoms within them 

• light that appears to have travelled from afar through galaxies (see further notes on Day 4 regarding “He made the stars also”)

test older than in fact they are, due to the remnants of their being created, and/or unaccounted for changes in their environment over thousands of years.

Conjecture with some substance is that the speed of light has been decaying since creation, which would mess up radio carbon dating.

This, so far, before any “then God said let there be….”

No “Nat Amplified version” for Gap theory, that would be adding too much.

Verse 2 

2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. [Original]

As covered above, “v2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness,” has been rendered 2 but the earth (all universal matter and/or planet earth) had been made formless and empty, from a destruction due to a judgement….

Darkness, “ḥōšeḵ”, is more literally “unnatural darkness” or a “darkness that may be felt” as in Exodus 10:21.

And unnatural darkness (the Devil?) was upon the face of the deep tᵊhôm which is also translated the “abyss” (the home of demons, where the anti-Christ will come from).

The Spirit of God (Holy Spirit) was hovering (brooded protectively with concern) over the surface of the waters (pieces of matter, shaped or not ready, to be the Earth, or other planets/stars).

This so far, still before, “then God said let there be….”

2 but the earth (all universal matter and/or planet earth) had been made formless and empty, from a destruction due to a judgement and an unnatural darkness (the devil?) was upon the face of the abyss (where the anti-Christ will come from) and the Holy Spirit was hovering in a brooding protective way over the surface of the messy matter that was to become the Earth, stars and planets. [Nat Amplified]

Nat Amplified Day 0

1 In the beginning God created everything, the spiritual and physical heavens and the earth (all dimensions, all matter and time) [no full stop, the absence is important] 

2 but the earth (all universal matter and/or planet earth) had been made formless and empty, from a destruction due to a judgement and an unnatural darkness (the devil?) was upon the face of the abyss (where the anti-Christ will come from) and the Holy Spirit was hovering in a brooding protective way over the surface of the messy matter that was to become the Earth, stars and planets.

Day 1 Light/goodness, darkness/evil set apart 3-5

Verse 3

3 Then God said, “Let there be light” and there was light. [Original]

“Then”, implying sequence. God said this after v1 and v2, but not necessarily immediately after, in adjoining periods of time of the same day. Then God said, “let there be light”…can easily be interpreted as the beginning of day 1.

Note this is the first time God speaks. The Word is Jesus, He must be there as through Him everything was created (John 1), and the Holy Spirit is “hovering”.

Let’s not forget the implication of the notion “God said”. This is like Jesus saying he is the door. Jesus actually said this, he had vocal cords when He did, but we know the word “door” is an analogy. In Genesis and indeed throughout the Bible, “God said” is in itself an analogy for the majesty of what happens when God communicates, and in this case, Jesus enacts.

God, the Word, is primary; matter, energy, the universe, and life are derivative.

“Then God said” gets used preceding all creation events from here. It’s the action notation. The work in verse 1 and 2, are possibly somehow different or previous to this sequence. Previous being the operative word; there’s no reason not to think verse 1 and 2 were before day 1 began, and by any amount of time.

Genesis may be describing the creation of more than we might think, more than we can conceive (perhaps Adam and Eve could until the fall, but we consequently are no longer capable), when it uses words like Light, Dark, Evening, Morning, Day, Night, Deep, Waters, Heaven and Earth, Land and Sea.

What is meant by “Light”?

Just “normal” light

The most simplistic explanation could be true, that this is meant to be understood as “natural” light and that this isn’t a metaphor for spiritual light or a word having had greater meaning in the past. Before this moment, (simple) light did not exist in the physical universe (Genesis 1:2). God intends for us to understand Him as the Creator even of light itself.

But “normal” light is hardly simple

However, “simple” light (the type we now consider) in physics, is itself notoriously difficult to describe and predict how it will behave. It is very complicated. It sometimes acts as though it is made of particles, sometimes as though it is a wave. It knows when it is being observed, it behaves differently when it is! Consider the logic defying “double slit experiment”, where light is shone through two slots side by side and see the resulting light beam pattern doesn’t do what anyone would expect. It deftly cuts to the heart of the weirdness of quantum mechanics. So if we struggle to describe normal sun light and know of other types, invisible to the naked eye and we know this passage is probably referring to goodness and pureness, or other physical dimensions, and not just sunlight, especially since the Sun hasn’t yet been created…

Some might object to the idea of light existing before stars or the sun. As an interesting scientific point, though, secular models such as the Big Bang themselves theorise that light—photons—actually existed before complex forms of matter. In other words, just as the Bible stated that there was "a beginning" long before secular science admitted the same, the Bible also said that light existed before stars, well in advance of secular science coming to the same conclusion.

More than just “normal” light

When Satan the “prince of light” is described as wearing robes festooned with all types of precious stones and metal, it is to represent this “light” of many colours. This “light” has to be more than just the type of light we now get from the Sun, because it’s specifically separated from darkness by God and it preceded the Sun.

It has been supposed that Adam and Eve had been clothed in light before they sinned (because God covers Himself with light as with a garment (Psalm 104:2) and because the Lord Jesus, in His transfiguration, was similarly arrayed (Mark 9:2-3). Perhaps they could perceive, or even had, more dimensions than us, before the fall.

All of which is to say that it is God’s glory that is the light. As in the end times, as described in Rev 21:23. “And the city (New Jerusalem, made by God not man, descends from Heaven) has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb (Jesus AKA the Word)”.

Without Him, there would be only darkness. A darkness that can be “felt”; such is the absence of God.

Multi dimensional light

A common analogy is that of Mr and Mrs “flat”. Imagine if we could perceive only in 2D, 2 dimensions, a flat world, and a sphere were to pass through our perception, it would first appear as a dot, then a growing disk or circle, then a dot and then nothing again. What if God told us a sphere had just gone by? We’d call growing-then-shrinking -circles, “spheres”. What then if God said he’d brought about “light”? Light could easily mean more than that which we get from the Sun or a torch. More could be entailed in the things God names, than we allow ourselves to consider. What is categorised as “supernatural” as a dismissive, derogatory slight on religion, can also be considered scientifically as “outside of nature” or “not yet understood”.

Energy

The phrase light could also imply the addition of some (more to follow in Day 2) energy, so we have “matter” before or during day 1 and “energy” brought about in day 1.

Conclusion

A period is being described that is before and inaugurating the laws of physics as we know them now. So anything goes and our understanding and imagination can’t be expected to grasp the reality, because it’s so far beyond/previous to our reality. The target of words used to describe that reality are now used only for a remnant, or simile of that reality. It’s safe to say it’s unsafe to pretend to be certain of this meaning. This is going to be a mystery until the end of time.

3 Then, later, God said, “Let there be all types of light more than just physical/visible light and energy, but also goodness”, and Jesus, being the Word and God, did that. [Nat Amplified]

Verse 4

4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness [Original].

The Heavens and the Earth (blobby matter at this point) isn’t declared to be good. Energy (well light with its other probable connotations and difficulty to pin down) is declared to be good.

How do you separate light from darkness, if the light in question is like normal light and the darkness a shadow cast by putting something between said normal light and something else? So it is not normal light being referred to.

We should probably stick with the “light represents all things good and is a bit like normal light too in that it’s crazy hard to fathom” and darkness equals bad and evil, but could have a physical connotation too, think Dark Matter or Black holes. But also this could be the start of the laying out of supernatural boundaries between light and dark on Earth.

4 God saw that the thing, more complex than “just normal” light, was good; and God separated that from the something more complex than just “darkness caused by a shadow”, Evil itself. [Nat Amplified]

Verse 5

5 God called the light “day”, and the darkness He called “night”. And there was evening and there was morning, one day (or the first day). [Original].

But of course there isn’t a sun or a formed spinning planet yet. Well there maybe something of a planet, that’s constituting this matter being called earth, but certainly no Sun, that’s in a few days time. God named these things this, not Adam. So Adam in later adopting the words day, night, evening and morning, for what we now think of as them (daytime, nighttime and the transition states), was inferring some of the original meaning onto what we now have.

And there was evening and there was morning, one day (or the first day). Evening to morning isn't 24 hours, its just part of a full day, the night part. A day would be evening to evening, so this is imparting something else. Evening and morning, are also 2 early Hebrew words whose origin is just here.

Evening = Erev, Morning = Boker

We suspect these words mean what they normally mean. But note, these words aren’t used for the 7th day, so this is a clue.

Erev = Obscuration, mixture, increased entropy, when approaching darkness began to deny the ability to discern forms, shapes and identities, so it was used for twilight, the time of approaching darkness (Prov 7:9, Jer 6:4) and so it later went onto be used to mean “Evening”, but it’s original root meaning may have been something more fundamental. Erev was the beginning of the Hebrew day.

Boker = Becoming discernible, distinguishable, visible; perception of order; relief of obscurity (decreasing entropy); attendant ability to begin to discern forms shapes and distinct identities; breaking forth of light; revealing; hence dawn or morning.

Consider a scale going from Chaos to Order, nothing to maximum Energy, blank to lots of information, Cold to Hot, from there being nothing to their being lots of stuff. Each day was a ramping up, or step change on this scale.

Disorder to Order, Noise to Signal, Cacophony to Music, Chaos to Cosmos, Randomness to Design, Entropy to Information/Energy.

A “winding up” of the universe, adding incremental steps of additional energy, structure, order, clarity and information, each day culminating by day 6 with “nearly” (the Fall is yet to come) the physical sate of the universe as we see it, winding down nothing new is being added.

It’s worth considering also that, whether instantaneous, 24 hours, a thousand years or more, the “process” of creating time and matter, and subsequent creations steps, would in all likelihood, not leave typical aging traces having not been subject to the same scientific laws, as the process happened, because it was in itself creating those scientific laws. As consequence, our rock dating methods, uncertain as they already are, (note dating recently solidified magma throws up errors), may very well presume rock to be of a very different age than it might actually be.

The Hebrew words for Evening and Morning, likely later became associated with said times of day, but in their literal original, align closely with Evening, being darker, less clear and discernible and Morning, improving those matters.

'eḥāḏ  yôm. One day. Yom means day 1181 times out of 1480. When there is a number associated it is always a literal, imparting exactness, what we would call, a 24 hour day. But, given how Erev and Boker came to mean, evening and morning, Yom/Day could have come to mean 24 hours.

We think we’re being very precise when we say 24 hours, but it’s not very exact. To be exact we should specify +/- how many nano seconds, the altitude or distance from the location we’re measuring time for (as this alters time), the speed we’re travelling at (as this alters time) and considering the big bang (for want of a better term) was a singularity warping everything, measuring “time” during such a singularity would surely throw up some odd looking timings; should we now look at the clock and assume it had just been reading since yesterday, not a time when the laws of physics were coming about, i.e “when” we measure 24 hours needs to be considered. In the middle of creation would surely throw the clock, and since the speed of light has been slowing exponentially since we started to measure it (even accounting for improving accuracy), even a measurement of “24 hours” from 6,500 years ago, is postulated would read as much longer, on today’s scale.

However, in Exodus 20:11 it says For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Cleary God is content with us understanding that the days in Genesis were literal days, but it can be interpreted as longer without denying what the Bible says. Science is starting to realise the sense of them being literal modern days too, but other science maintains creation looks to have taken longer. Longer remains compatible with the Bible, unless this long time is needed to justify a belief in their having been a random process and/or process for creating new things, that requires pain and suffering.

And finally, at this point in the events, we've yet to get planet rotation that we consider to be a 24 hour period, so we must take Him at His word that his timing is accurate without planets spinning to check, and His intent for our understanding is reasonable, but that there is scope in the wording and the historical adoption/use of words, and variables that impact time measurement, for the days to have been longer periods of time.

5 God called the ever so complex light stuff “day”, and the mysterious thick darkness He called “night”. And so in this period, a “day” (despite there being no planet rotation yet), things went from obscure and indistinguishable, to less obscure and more discernible. [Nat Amplified]

So an incredibly complex few verses and it’s just Day 1!

Nat Amplified Day 1

1/2 In the beginning God created everything, the spiritual and physical heavens and the earth (all dimensions, matter and time) but the earth (all universal matter and/or planet earth) had been made formless and empty, from a destruction due to a judgement, and an unnatural darkness (the devil) was upon the face of the abyss (where the anti-Christ will come from) and the Holy Spirit was hovering in a brooding protective way over the surface of the messy matter that was to become the earth, stars and planets.

3 Then, later, God said, “Let there be all types of light, more than just physical/visible light and energy, but also goodness”, and Jesus, being the Word and God, did that.

4 God saw that the thing, more complex than “just normal” light, was good; and God separated that from the something more complex than just “darkness caused by a shadow”, Evil itself.

5 God called the ever so complex light stuff “day”, and the mysterious thick darkness He called “night”. And so in this period, a “day” (despite there being no planet rotation yet), things went from obscure and indistinguishable, to less obscure and more discernible.

Day 2 – Stretching of space, energy 6-8

Verse 6 - 7

6 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 God made the expanse, and separated the waters that were below the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so.  [Original].

Expanse is sometimes translated “firmament”, “sky”, “heavens”, “atmosphere”, it is from the Hebrew rā'qi'a,, which infers an “extended surface (solid)”.

God calls for this something to be placed between the waters: a space or firmament or vault or sky or heaven (depending on the translation). This leads many to think of the word-picture of raising up the top part of the waters and inserting an open area: what we would usually think of as the "air" above the sea or land. Where the top layer, the "waters" above the sky, some suggest, are the clouds of the upper atmosphere, or simply the atmosphere itself. Others have speculated that a water "canopy" once existed in the upper atmosphere that is no longer there in our day.

There’s no reason to think, even if limiting the word “expanse” to mean only “the sky” or “space” that it would look like the sky does now. The fall and flood are yet to come which make considerable changes, for example we’re told it hadn’t rained yet (Gen 2.5) or until Noah’s flood (although one can only really deduce that it hadn’t rained until Gen 2.5), that a mist watered everything, a sort of uber protective o-zone layer.

We’re also not at the point of having “solid land”. “Stuff” or “matter” isn’t necessarily in the positions and shapes we’re familiar with (solids, gasses, liquids aren’t yet distinctions).

Clearly, if all matter by this point exists, water is not the only liquid, and the water we know can be fresh, salty or muddy, so it’s reasonable to understand the use of the word “waters” as an approximation for this transitionary “somethingness”, impossible to describe and no longer like this anyway.

Water is always used as a negative thing in the Bible. It means threat, danger and transition, but also refreshment.

Waters below the expanse could be that which becomes the oceans and the vast amounts of water, greater than the content of the oceans, recently found to reside within the Earth’s mantle. The waters above the expanse/gap/firmament, a sort of canopy.

However, this “messing with water”, could represent the formation of the building blocks of matter, as described by the periodic table, and matter organisation that we don’t know about yet.

This could represent the separation of matter, into distinct (micro) atoms - protons, neutrons and electrons, into vapours/gasses, liquids, and solids, and/or the macro formation into the blobs we call a planet, with an atmosphere, and space beyond. Indeed the gaps between, protons, neutrons and electrons could be the expanse, rather than just “sky”.

This shifting and setting in place, could very well imply the “injection” or creation of energy, and the storing of potential energy within matter. That which is now ebbing away through entropy, from this beginning, as is understood now by scientists, i.e. simply put, there was beginning, matter and energy haven’t always existed.

Atoms are about 99% empty space. If you were to remove all of the empty space contained in every atom in every person on planet earth and compress us all together, then the overall volume of our particles would be smaller than a sugar cube (that weighed the sum total of everyone on earth). In a sense the matter of all the universe described until day 2, may have been this sugar cube or deflated balloon, waiting to be inflated. 

This could be the making of “solid surfaces”, in keeping with the Hebrew word. 

If you follow this logic, we might be surrounded by matter (anything that has a mass and occupies a given amount of volume) that is billions of years old, deflated at some point, then re-inflated 6,000 years ago, then pummelled, and mixed up 4,500 years ago. Try dating that rock now.

The use of the Water/Waters, could very well be an original wider meaning, now reduced to mean only H20 , but previously something more, or different.

Note God made (ʿāśâ) the expanse, He didn’t create (bārā') it. The Hebrew word for made has the distinction of fashioning or shaping, where as creation implies more something out-of-nothing.

6 Then God said, “Let there be separation of matter into the dimensions, so that it can become safer and ready for use”. [Nat Amplified]

7 God moved stuff to become separated and some stuff clumped together and it happened. [Nat Amplified]

Verse 8

8 God called the expanse “heaven.” And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. [Original].

God names this (not us, which is usually significant), He calls it “heaven”. There are three distinct heavens described in the bible. There’s the first heaven, the sky/atmosphere and space beyond our atmosphere; the 2nd is the spiritual realm (where spiritual entities can rule over parts of the physical world, and the 3rd where God resides (as named 3rd by Paul).

This is presumably emblematic of the “first heaven” the physical one, but could feasibly be considered the gaps between the stuff in atoms. It’s just such a distinction hasn’t been possible through history, so could not have been used for Human comprehension, from the beginning. 

As before we’re considering evening and morning, in their possible original usage, that of going from obscure and indistinguishable, to less obscure and more discernible, and this can be considered the winding up of the “system clock”, which is now winding down through entropy – by adding matter, useable energy, or information, which have since been ebbing away.

A busy day, but no mention of God thinking it "good". Perhaps since no language like DNA was added, or that things weren’t really being formed into anything, just prepared. Perhaps because of the negative connotations of dealing with “wateriness”.

This is the only day of creation that God doesn’t see or state “behold that” it is/was good or very good. Following the Jewish days of the week, this is Monday and it sounds like it was a wet. Thus it can be concluded that God like us, doesn’t like Mondays 😉.

8 God called the expanses “heaven” And so in this period, a “day” (despite there being no planet rotation yet), things went from obscure and indistinguishable, to less obscure and more discernible.

[Nat Amplified]

Nat Amplified Day 2

6 Then God said, “Let there be separation of matter into the dimensions, so that it can become safer and ready for use”. 

7 God moved stuff to become separated and some stuff clumped together and it happened.

8 God called the expanses “heaven” And so in this period, a “day” (despite there being no planet rotation yet), things went from obscure and indistinguishable, to less obscure and more discernible.

Day 3 – Land and vegetation 9-13

Verse 9

9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. [Original]

Why weren’t day 3 and 4 the other way around? Working out from the universe, in towards our planet and eventually us? I think it is because, whilst our planet isn’t physically central to the universe, its purpose is central to it (to be habitable by us), to sustain and delight our life here. The rest of the universe serves it, but only after “it” is made “planet like”.

If there was ambiguity about whether previous days were acting on a planetary or universal level, day three seems on the surface (no pun intended) to be describing “changes to the surface of our planet”. It uses the word “dry land” (or more often the word is translated to mean just “dry”) instead of earth.

This isn’t a “let there be” creation event, but a “let things already present be different” one, suggesting movement (gathering) of previously materialised (day 0), energised (day 1) and formed (day 2) matter. It should be noted that vegetation, though imbued with life giving and reproducing information, is made of types of matter present in rock and earth (think animal, mineral, vegetable). This of course is confirmed with modern science but wasn’t an obvious determination when written. If this had been made up, it would have been far easier to be found in error by now, than we give it credit.

Water (and/or whatever else is represented by the word water) is being modified for a second day. In Day 2 whatever was represented additionally by “water” was pulled “apart” (waters from waters) into higher and lower (vertical axis) components. Now, whatever is being represented by “water” (in addition to simply water), is the watery stuff that is below, so the wet type (not steam or ice, if we’re being literal, but being literal is wise to avoid in Genesis).

It is the creation of oceans, seas and lakes, distinct from dry land.

Dangerously applying modern sciency thought to this, we could suggest this is done now because of gravity and so this might also represent the inauguration of gravity. That would mean, if we have understood gravity correctly and it hasn’t changed in eons (again a dangerous assumption) that it is only now that planet earth is pulled into a sphere shape with great mass.

This is then, in terms we can apply in terms of today’s Laws of Physics, an input of energy and potential.

It’s not just gravity that separates water from land, other creational forces or influences, would presumably be needed to “filter” sediment out one way and liquid out another, and clump the solid bits together on the mantel of the earth. This is a deliberate, calculated, designed action of choice.

9 Then God said, “Let the waters pool below the sky into one place, and let the dry parts of planet earth come together and stick out”; and it was so. [Nat Amplified]

Verse 10

10 And God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of the waters He called “seas”; and God saw that it was good. [Original]

Earth, eres, is dry land and interchangeable with the whole planet “earth”, the meaning comes from context. Note however, that this doesn’t stop the possibility, that more than dry land and/or our planet, is considered “earth” to God. He could still use the term for all matter.

Seas, yam, always seems to mean the same as we would imagine, but has warranted a new name from God, separate to Water, suggesting further that the “waters” of previous verses, should be considered more than just that which you have in a glass!

God names it, which is always relevant and God perceives (saw) that it was good, a judgement he reserves for increases of order and information (very good is reserved for later).

10 And God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of the waters He called “seas”; and God saw that it was good. [Nat Amplified – no change]

Verse 11

11 Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit according to their kind with seed in them”; and it was so. [Original]

“The God said”, the Word enacts, Jesus authors all plant life, with the potentiality for all that now exists.

Vegetation, deše', is more often translated as “grass”.

Plants, ēśeḇ, is more often translated as “herbs”.

“Let the earth sprout” So the building blocks came from the earth, but they came fully formed, with seed in them (fertilised and ready to go), so a “mutating replicator” – life, that which Neo-Darwinian evolution cannot account for.

Kind, mîn, means groups of living organisms belong in the same created "kind" if they have descended from the same ancestral gene pool. This does not preclude new species because this represents a partitioning of the original gene pool. Information is lost or conserved—not gained. A new species could arise when a population is isolated and inbreeding occurs. By this definition a new species is not a new "kind" but a further partitioning of an existing "kind".

Far from this hindering scientists, considering this maxim has aided horticulturalists, animal breeders and geneticists.

11 Then God said, “Let the earth sprout fully formed vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit according to their kind with seed in them”; and it was so, because again Jesus the Word had done it. [Nat Amplified]

Verse 12

12 The earth produced vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good. [Original]

Following on from what v11 said was to happen and did (was so), this verse repeats v11 in saying explicitly that each part happened and adds that God saw that it was good.

God doesn’t name these things.

Things we were left to name in creation, are simply what they are, or what we perceive/d them to be (plants and animals). The things God named (God called such and such Light, Dark, Evening, Morning, Day, Night, Heaven/s, Earth, Water/s, Expanse, the Deep/Abyss) are their basic meaning and/or far more than we can perceive, or could have remained comprehensible through history. If it says God called something “something”, then it’s best not assume it means only what we use that word for now.

God perceives (saw) that it was good, an observation he reserves for increases of order and information (very good is reserved for later).

12 The earth produced fully formed vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good. [Nat Amplified]

Verse 13

13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day. [Original]

As before we’re considering evening and morning, in their possible original usage, that of going from obscure and indistinguishable (with less design and information), to less obscure and more discernible (with more design and information), and this can be considered now as the introduction of intelligent design in life forms with potential for partitioning into separate species, which are winding down through entropy/extinction.

13 things went from lifeless, lacking design and information to having life, design and information in this period, a “day” [Nat Amplified]

Nat Amplified Day 3

9 Then God said, “Let the waters pool below the sky into one place, and let the dry parts of planet earth come together and stick out”; and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of the waters He called “seas”; and God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, “Let the earth sprout fully formed vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit according to their kind with seed in them”; and it was so, because again Jesus the Word had done it.

12 The earth produced fully formed vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good.

13 things went from lifeless, lacking design and information to having life, design and information in this period, a “day”

Day 4 Sun, Moon, Stars

Verse 14

14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years;

The last of the “let there be”, creation day events (“Light” Day 1, “Expanse” Day 2). Note it is not recorded that God said “let there be matter” in Day 1, further supporting the notion that when God did say “let there be matter”, was prior to the story we are presented here.

Day 3 involved gathering of existing matter into land (with God saying let this gathering “happen”, not “be”) and the earth sprouting vegetation (on God’s instruction), Day 5 will have waters teaming with fish and the sky birds, through “God created” bārā' (God shaping, fashioning or creating), but this is somehow different. This is again, after a taking Day 3 off of “let there be”, it could have been “let lights shine in the expanse”.

It’s hard enough understanding that energy and matter can’t be created (by us), but can be interchanged (always with some loss of useable energy), but harder still to realise that time is a tangible and linked ingredient to the reality of space (matter and energy). There is no distinction between time and space. As Albert Einstein said “People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between the past, the present and the future, is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

If a capable intelligent being, “inserts” matter or energy, into the universe “from nowhere”, then given the space time continuum, they are also “inserting” time into the universe. 

Such an unfathomable process, might in itself, create patterns that when now observed, make things appear older than they are.

Something must have done this, because science has deduced that matter, and energy, hasn’t always existed, based on their observed properties (namely entropy: useable energy is lost in converting from matter to energy and vice versa, and as such will wind down to there being no useable energy, therefore matter and energy had a beginning). Therefore, when all matter and energy were inaugurated, so too was all time, either in one go (day) or in stages.

So it’s like if, as well as buying “cake mix” and “oven heat”, you also had to buy the “minutes” of time the cake had to go in the oven. 

This could be significant to this verse. It could denote where God is adding matter or energy, He must also by implication, have “added time”, since they are linked, in our the universe.

If so, it’s suggesting that the matter and energy in the sun, moon, stars (which are, as we now know, other suns) and other planets (because they can be bundled up with the other “lights in the expanse”), were added out-of-nowhere, to the universe, after our continents, oceans and vegetation were first arranged, along with an “amount of” time. If so, this construction process, would play havoc with our dating methods.

Ultimately though “let there be”, hāyâ in Hebrew, can be either “arrange” or “make appear out of nothing” and second guessing “how”  God chose to accomplish things, on this basis is speculative. On this basis, you have to remove the added credence to gap theory, noted above.

In this verse we finally arrive at the creation of things by which we as humans record chunks of time, such as 24 hours. As previously discussed, days 1 to 7 can be interpreted from the bible, as a literal 24 hour periods or long periods of time. Likewise, scientific evidence can be interpreted to explain either, though the interpretation of evidence suggesting long periods of time, an old earth, is more prominent in modern society, but it doesn’t make it more right. Though not fundamental to Christian doctrine or faith, I personally favour the young earth interpretation, with gap theory as a back-up argument for how old the “bricks” are (should radio carbon dating actually become convincing), mainly factoring evidence and arguments pertaining to irreducible complexity; the way so many components of living organisms or facets of interrelated cycles and systems (solar, geological, ecological etc) are dependent on each other for their very existence, that they couldn’t exist (or evolve) without the other. To the point that 6 x 24 hours seems almost too long! This and the evidence emphatically points to their being a designer, luck and chance (now proven to not exist), can’t have given us what we see around us, even if it were possible to generate randomness (which it is not).

There are many simpler indications of the age of the Earth, that are more intuitive and less undone by assumptions and variables, that point to a 6,000 year old world, namely:

• Sea floor mud, how much there is

• Ocean salinity, the amount of salt in it

• Helium content in the world

• Helium in the wrong places

• Earth's Magnetic Field

• World population

• Skin colour and ethnicity

• Moon dust depth

• Lack of Moon meteorite debris

• The current distance of the Moon from the Earth

• The current brightness of the Sun

• Comets not having all worn out

• Supernova remnants in our Galaxy

• Missing neutrinos from the sun

• The oscillation period of the sun

These are just indicators of the starting of the clock. There are plenty more that account of current geology and fossils, apropos of “the flood” 4,500 years ago, with all of the other geological events that accompanied just a-lot-of-rain.

It doesn’t require “ingenious interpretations” of the Hebrew to determine it could be 24 hours and it could be billions of years (with gap theory); it just takes a bit of time (nowadays) with blueletterbible.org.

What is fascinating therefore, is that writings this old, without the author’s foreknowledge of all the arguments to be raised against it, could be this robust today and have been so for thousands of years.

It’s not clear if “science” or human observation (same thing) preceded the notion written here that the sun, moon and stars, indicate as well as drive, the days, months, years and seasons. If it was “common” knowledge by then, it was more than good luck that the author chose this bandwagon to join and this particular wording, because there will have been other beliefs as to what they were all about, and only this one has stood the test of time.

More likely this writing first gave humans the idea to track and trace the stars and days lapsed.

There’s some speculation that the sun, moon and stars, already existed, and that they were only made visible in some way (though there were no “eyes” made yet to verify this) in this day, like with a cloud or ozone layer being removed. This “helps” with our limited astrology knowledge, with its notion of big bang and everything exploding outwards. However, astrology also shows, that the universe is not ordered in the manner we would get from such a singularity. Large planets are further out than smaller ones, things rotate the wrong way and at the wrong speed amongst other things. So it seems there was non-random design and configuration, not following set patterns of an explosion.

Therefore, it seems acceptable to be content with the account that the Sun, Moon and Stars (if not necessarily the matter they now consist of) were “formed” at this step.

This has implications for Bible believing old earthers. It requires them to imply that plant life was kept alive in a different manner than it is today (where sun light is required) for a long time, or it requires us to take a different interpretation of the days as not being in chronological order, but somehow overlapping.

Verse 15

15 and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 

“Lights” also light bearers.

“Expanse” also firmament, atmosphere (sky) or space

“Serve” also “be”.

Verse 16

16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 

The greater lights being the Sun and the moon. Stars (distance suns and planets reflecting light).

There’s a certain nonchalance about the ending of the verse, “He made the stars also”, almost like a throw away “did that small thing too”. Clearly it’s not insignificant astronomically, but to the servitude to the earth and its purpose, other than for us to track time and location, they do have less impact on life on earth.

There are four theories accounting for the fact that it appears light has been travelling from distant stars to us, for billions of years.

1. Created in transit (mature creation) – light was created “as if” in transit, in an instance with an apparent history, but this doesn’t account for the fact that starlight would not reflect what actually happened to the stars*, but information that God put in the beams of light.

2. Speed of light decay – This proposes that in the beginning the speed of light was infinite and has been slowing down since. Despite common physics saying C is a constant, statistical analysis of the speed of light as measured through the history of measuring/calculating it (a few hundred years), allowing for bands of confidence (accuracy) improving along the way, show it has been slowing down. But not all scientists, theistic or atheist, are convinced of this. If so however, it provides a very tidy supporting argument for an apparently conflicting young yet old earth/universe.

3. Young-earth relativistic cosmology – God speeded up the process of star making relative to earth, so that billions of year’s worth of creation took place in the distant cosmos, whilst the clock here on Earth ticked over only one day. The theory further suggests the speeding took place by natural processes and that complex phenomena such as a “white hole”, “relativistic time dilation” and expansion of space” allowed for this. Some discount this because the Bible is clear that creation was a supernatural event (though I’ve not seen it explicitly stated), and this is natural processes. God “speeding things up relative to Earth” isn’t a very natural sounding process, so the argument doesn’t detract from this theory. Additionally, as discussed, the introduction of matter and energy, into our “reality” comes with the introduction of “a lump of time”. Ageing things then is impossible.

4. Speeded up stars – this theory is in a way an extrapolation of the first 2, it has the slowing down of the speed of light, but also the slowing down of the expansion of the universe, post creation. The universe is thought now to be expanding (slowly), and this theory purports that during the 4th day, God altered physics (which to be fair, he’s at liberty to in our narrative, given that He’s inaugurating physics itself) and vastly accelerated away from us and each other, the stars and other planets, and then slowed this down to its current pace, on completion of creation. So a more descriptive assertion of number 1 “mature creation”.

* However, there is a problem with this solution. Our bodies have subtle evidence of things that occurred during our growth and maturing processes. The most obvious of these are small scars of minor injuries sustained while growing up, but there are other evidences, such as the sealing off the ends of our leg bones upon completion of the growth process. Did Adam and Eve bear in their bodies any evidence of a childhood they never experienced? Most supporters of mature creation would opine that Adam and Eve did not. This amounts to an affirmation that while Adam and Eve were created mature, they did not bear any detailed evidence of processes that never happened. Such evidence would seem to be deceptive, which would violate the character of God. The light we receive from distant astronomical bodies is not just illumination. Details of the light often bear evidence of processes. For instance, observing eclipsing binary stars. An eclipsing binary star is a system of two stars that orbit one another very closely with an orbital plane that lies close to our line of sight to the binary. From the distance we view close binaries, we cannot see the individual stars, so their combined light blends into what appears to be one star. However, as the two stars orbit each other, they alternately eclipse one another, causing their combined light to dim. We measure the brightness of eclipsing binaries as a function of time to obtain their light curves, a plot of how their light varies over complete cycles. We can use light curves to deduce properties of the stars involved. However, if the light of these stars were created in transit, so that the light never left the stars, then we would see evidence of events (eclipses, for example) that would have never happened. This is deceptive.

Verse 17

17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,

nāṯan the Hebrew here for “Placed”; is more often translated to “give” (over a thousand uses, translators went for “give”) or “bestow” but can be “put” or “placed” (around 191 times they opted for “put” or “placed”) and you can see why. So, no Nat Amplified needed.

Verse 18

18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.

It gives a sense that, if not physically the centre of the universe, this planet was built to be the central focus or purpose of the universe. We now know that this “governance” is far more than a means by which to record timings, it actually changes states of play on the surface of the earth, the sky and seas. The sun, moon, stars and other planets are “just so”, in a way that without which, life here would not be possible. Some people argue that what we have is just the result of this reality being the only one to survive for observation, that countless other attempts have happened before now, and this version is the only one to survive. Frankly and mathematically, this is absurd. “Absurd” is anything so unlikely, as to be greater than 10 to the power 50, 10 with 50 zeros after it: to 1. Odds to high as to be consider so impossible, that it should no longer be considered and to do so is absurd. That’s mathematicians for you, always siding with God.

Verse 19

19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

Nat Amplified Day 4

14 Then God said, “Let there the Sun, Moon, Stars and Planets in space, to separate the day from the night, and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years; 15 and they shall serve as lights in space to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 

16 God made the two great lights, the greater light (the Sun) to govern the day, and the lesser light (the moon) to govern the night; He made the stars also. 

17 God placed them in space to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 

19 Things went from obscure and random to being more defined, visible and purposeful in this period, a “day”.

Day 5 Sea animals and Birds 20-23

Verse 20-21 

20 Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.”  [Original]

21 And God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind; and God saw that it was good. [Original]

Verse 20 is Jesus the Word “saying” them be (swarming/swimming or flying) and where (in water and the sky). Verse 21 is explaining that that saying action resulted in the creation of the same, with the addition of the notion that said sea creatures are “great” and it includes anything living in water (less there be confusion) and that birds in question are winged.

We have the first life on Earth. And whilst other days worked at the macro level, today we’re at a micro level; here we’re into mass subtleties and details. Vast amounts of information (Human DNA there are the equivalent of 3.2 billion characters worth of information), balance and co-dependency. Design, beauty, wonder. So a lot of creative work.

This is a real “choose a side” day. Since evolution teaches us that fish evolved into land creatures like lizards, and lizards evolved into birds; Day 5 is another place where you, must choose; Do you accept the Bible's account of creation or do you believe the "evidence" of evolution?

Before, nay instead of, leaping for literary excuses for the bible, let’s first review some challenges evolutionary theories faces:

• Atheistic reductionism does not make sense of the data. Biblical theism is a credible alternative, that far from leading to intellectual suicide, makes better sense of the data

• There is scientific evidence for a beginning, even though science cannot comprehend the nature of that beginning

• Neo-Darwinian evolution cannot account for the origin of life, it presupposes the existence of a mutating replicator in order to get going in the first place. Neo-Darwinian evolution cannot be an explanation for the existence of the very thing without which it itself cannot get started

• Pre-biological natural selection is a contradiction in terms (to select, there needs to be something to choose from)

• Fish are amazing creatures in their own right!  Evolution minimizes them as base, inferior creatures in the chain of evolution. Octopi can solve complex puzzles and mazes, dolphins have sonar and use 20% of their brains (we use only 10%).

• Mutations don’t bring improvements or added information, but reductions

• Helpful survival characteristics, don’t permeate in unmanaged (wild) populations, only in controlled breeding (this disproves the last bastion of evolutionary theory, that natural selection/survival of the fittest, is at least one acceptable notion)

• Fish to lizards to birds is the outline of a branch of evolution, but never is it fully explained, just outlined based on similarities, the logic of which is rarely challenged, even though easy to do so (perhaps because it’s part of the educational curriculum and so joins “the emperor’s new clothes” genre of ideas). Given all kinds and species appear “evolved to the hilt” uber suited and adapted, 

  • What possible conditions could arise to make a fish better off out of the water, or a lizard better off in the air, and their brothers and sisters remain not doing that? That is to say, the things other things are purported to have evolved from, still exist as they were, suggesting there is no need or likelihood for diversification on a naturalistic basis

  • What possible conditions could arise to make interim modification / transitionary states of half fish/lizard or half lizard/bird sustainable? A fish with legs, might get a different meal, but is now less good at swimming so less likely to survive, where it needs to, to reproduce, in the water. A lizard born with hollow lighter bones might fly to a better meal once or twice, but can’t get about to get the remaining meals it needs to survive

  • Transitionary states are lethal, one mistake and a fish out water, holding its breath dies, has no babies; lizard jumps off too high a spot, and doesn’t fly, dies, has no babies.

  • Sudden changes of state are implausible: 

    • in this moment I process oxygen from water, in the next from air

    • in this moment my bones are solid and strong for climbing, in the next hollow for flying

    • in this moment my fins are soft and need to be kept wet and unscratched, in this they are tough and articulated to bear weight and press on land

    • in this moment I have scales, in the next skin with feathers and new glands excreting new oils that I didn’t before, to keep the feathers working optimally for flight I’m about to start doing

    • in this moment my eggs are covered in jelly and suited to water, in the next they have a shell and need to be warm in the air

  • In-lifetime newly learned behaviour and in-lifetime developed physical capability are not passed down to your offspring in genetics. You can teach Chimps to read and sign language, but their children don’t inherit this. You can learn to hold your breath for longer than normal, but it won’t be passed down to your children. There are butterflies that migrate so far and back, it takes three generations to complete a migration. Three! That can’t have evolved naturalistically.

  • There’s no scenario where half the constituent parts of a Human (or any life form) could survive (or reproduce) before the other half of the parts have fortuitously morphed into existence. Minutes will kill you before millennia can bring you the good fortune of skin or an ankle joint.

  • If you can surpass all these hurdles, then a male and female need to exist, in proximity to one another, with the same mutated changes, and the propensity to pass these mutations on to their off-spring (far from a given)

  • And final you need to believe that, without purpose and design, many fortuitous micro changes (which have proven to be impossible) further developed incrementally towards an optimal purposeful, life form (whilst also leaving no fossil traces of such intermediaries) without dying trying or before producing offspring going in the same direction (with all the impossibilities of that above addressed), and so having to have that direction of evolution start from scratch again and again, and do all this at the same as a myriad of other animals and ecosystems you are dependent on or are dependent on you! Good luck! Oh and science has proven that luck, or true randomness, isn’t possible.

  • Instantaneous is more logical than incremental. Logic typified by “irreducible complexity” (an organism needs all say ten of its functions in order to continue existing, nine or less would mean it couldn’t survive) rules out gradual progression.

• Information and language are massless and timeless (like software on a computer, but Einstein’s theories prove it better). DNA contains an immensely sophisticated information and language system. Matter (which has mass and is subject to time) cannot come together to form it, any more than ink and paper can come together to form this essay and convey a meaningful message of its own accord. The content of DNA had to come from outside of time and space.

• You’ll find a Lamborghini logo on sports cars and tractors. You wouldn’t assume one evolved from the other, just that the same company worked on designing and building both.

As a Christian, if you’ve intellectualised away all of the above, you then have to contend with the idea that evolution, if used by God to create, necessitates actions by Him that are against His very nature, those of death and decay. At this juncture, the fall has yet to occur, so presumably creation is brought about without death or decay to facilitate. So evolution, as well as being intellectual suicide, is contrary to the teachings of the Bible about God.

In one literal day God created fish and birds. There was no evolution out of the water into the sky. These two aspects of creation, according to the Bible, happened on the same day.  They are unique creations.

Then we have the first according to their kind.

The modern creationist view is that, since Noah took only two of the cat “kind” aboard the ark, the 30-plus species of cats alive today have formed since the flood, via adaptation, natural selection, and biological change.

Species vary, change, and even appear over time (and the definition is constantly debated). The biodiversity represented in the 8.7 million or so species in the world is a testament, not to random chance processes, but to the genetic variability and potential for diversification within the created kinds.

The supposed vehicles of evolution are mutations, natural selection, and other mechanisms that—when combined with that “magic pixie dust” of time—allegedly led to the development of all life forms present today. However, natural selection merely redistributes or reduces preexisting genetic information, and mutations always corrupt the information.

God designed creatures with the marvellous ability to adapt to different environments as they spread out to fill the earth. Species can change; in fact, they do so surprisingly quickly. But one Kind cannot change into another Kind.

Then we have that “God saw that it was good”, even before he blesses them, which makes them, later the same day, capable of reproduction. But not before this blessing, and even without it, they were seen as good.

If it was “good” the creation process can’t have involved suffering. The creation process can’t have utilised natural selection. Natural selection, if it works at all, let’s assume parts do*, came after the fall. * The parts where dormant, inherited genes cause traits, not previously prevalent, to the fore; not mutations magicking up new DNA information, that can also be passed down a generation.

20 Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the sky.”  [Nat Amplified]

21 And so the Word (Jesus) created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their origin kind (not species), and every winged bird according to its origin kind (not species); and God saw that it was good. [Nat Amplified]

Verse 22

22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” [Original]

They get a special blessing from God, so they can multiply and a command to do so.

All life, beyond that of just plant life, is blessed by God in creation. Reproduction of life requires this huge blessing. He imbued them with potential.

Perhaps we can consider this blessing not just for reproduction, but for the act of sex itself. Sex, like no other activity, required a blessing to be so good. Sex is a blessing. But its’ purpose isn’t an end in and of itself, but of reproduction.

22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” [Nat Amplified – no change]

Verse 23

23 And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. [Original]

23 and so where there had been less information, order design and purpose there was now much more of these, a fifth day [Nat Amplified]

Nat Amplified Day 5

20 Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the sky.”

21 And so the Word (Jesus) created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their origin kind (not species), and every winged bird according to its origin kind (not species); and God saw that it was good.

22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 

23 and so where there had been less information, order design and purpose there was now much more of these, a fifth day.

Day 6 – Land animals and man. 24-31

Verse 24

24 Then God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kind: livestock and crawling things and animals of the earth according to their kind”; and it was so. [Original]

In literal terms, this would imply the land animals being produced by the earth itself, alluding to how God chose to accomplish His creation. This certainly isn’t “appearance out of nothing of new matter” and seems to mean His creative process, reused matter that was Earth, that is vegetable matter (perhaps, it says only “earth”) and or mineral, became animal. It would seem odd to suggest it means the inanimate matter took a role in the production, other than being used.

Whilst being a “re-use previously materialised matter” kind of creation day, so no addition of matter, it’s a day of addition of phenomenal amounts of information and purpose, in the form of DNA.

“Living” and “Kind” we covered in day 5 so won’t be repeated here.

Key items created:

• Livestock (Cattle in other translations)

• Crawling things (Creeping things in other translations) – and presumably bacteria and viruses can now be included here, but aren’t given a mention since microscopes weren’t available. Perhaps there are other discoveries we’ve yet to, or will never make.

• Animals (Beasts in other translations)

Doesn’t seem to be anything left out, and a very informed, for such early writing, way of putting it, in such succinct totality.

God said “X” and it was so. Not, “God said “X” and after a long while, or with nature taking its course, it was so”. Would take a leap of logic, to suggest that this phrasing, is inclusive of the event happening over the course of a long time.

24 Then God said, “Let the earth’s matter produce living creatures according to their origin kind, from which all species will be derived: livestock and crawling things and animals of the earth according to their kind”; and it was so. [Nat Amplified]

Verse 25

25 God made the animals of the earth according to their kind, and the livestock according to their kind, and everything that crawls on the ground according to its kind; and God saw that it was good. [Original]

Verse 24 has God said “X” and it was so. Verse 25 has God made “X” and saw that it was good. There’s been this sort of poetic pattern throughout this chapter.

25 God made the animals of the earth according to their origin kind, and the livestock according to their origin kind, and everything that crawls on the ground according to its origin kind; and God saw that it was good. [Nat Amplified]

Verse 26

26 Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” [Original]

The creation week now reaches its climax with the creation of human beings. This verse is breathtaking in its implications and puzzling in the questions it raises.

God decrees, "Let us make man in our image," using a Hebrew word—ē'nu—which is unmistakably plural. Why does God speak of Himself as more than two persons? Yes more than two, since Hebrew has singular, duo (2) and plural (more than 2), ē'nu means more than 2. Scholars have offered a wide variety of ideas over the centuries. Three explanations are offered more often than any others.

First, God may be referring to Himself and the angels. This seems unlikely given the rest of Scripture's depiction of angels. These beings are presented as servants and messengers, not creators or rulers.

Second, this could be what scholars call a plural of self-exhortation or self-encouragement, meaning He is referring only to Himself. This would also be referred to as "the royal 'we,'" something we see used by human kings and rulers when making proclamations or decrees.

The third possibility is that God is speaking as a Trinity, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. According to Scripture as a whole, the full Trinity was present at creation. Genesis 1:2 describes the Spirit of God hovering over the waters, and John 1:1–3 reveals that the Word, Christ, was active in the creation of all things.

Next, this verse raises the question of what it means to be made in God's image, or in His likeness. Without question, this statement does not mean that God created humans to resemble Him physically (John 4:24). Rather, this seems to support the idea that God endowed humans with a certain kind of awareness, one which animals and birds and fish were not given. In other words, humans would possess the capacity for reason, morality, language, personality, and purpose. In particular, the ability to use morality and spirituality are unique to human beings among God's creations on earth. Like God, we would possess the capacity to experience and understand love, truth, and beauty.

Humans are made in God's image in another way: as a model, or a representative. God is the Maker, and all of creation belongs to Him. He is Lord over it. However, in the moment of creation, God gives mankind the responsibility to rule over all other life He has made on the earth. In that sense, humans would stand as God's image, God's representatives, on earth as we rule over and manage all the rest of His creation.

The Hebrew word for Mankind, more often translated Man, is Adam! Another example of a Hebrew general term becoming idiomatic (belonging to a single person or use).

With the authority to rule comes the responsibility to rule well. There is an inherent accountability in the command to subdue the earth. Man has a duty to exercise his dominion under the authority of the One who delegated it. All authority is of God (Romans 13:1-5), and He delegates it to whomever He will (Daniel 4:17). The word subdue doesn’t have to imply violence or mistreatment. It can mean “to bring under cultivation.”

When God gave humanity dominion over the animals, it was in order to care for, tend to, and use those animals to their fullest potential in a just manner. At the time that God gave mankind dominion over the animals, humans did not eat meat (Genesis 1:29). Eating meat did not begin until after the Flood (Genesis 9:1–3), and it was at that time that animals started to fear humans and perhaps then also each other. However, although God changed the way we interact with animals, in that they are now “meat,” we still bear a responsibility to treat animals humanely. Human rule over animals does not mean we have the right to mistreat or misuse those animals.

Having dominion over the animals should entail a humane management of them as the resource God has ordained them to be. We should consider that mankind was given the task (and blessing) of representing God in this world. We are the caretakers. We hold sway over all the earth, and we (bearing God’s image) bear a responsibility to act as God would. Does God misuse His creation? No. Is God unwise in His management of resources? No. Is God ever cruel or selfish or wasteful? No. Then neither should we be. Any misuse or mistreatment of God’s creation is the result of sin, not the result of following God’s original command. We must fulfil our duty to manage the earth wisely until that time when the wolf shall lie down with the lamb in the kingdom of Christ (Isaiah 11:6).

Could this have been an iterative process as evolution suggests? Hardly! And that’s just applying logic to life forms (let alone, eco-systems) and considering “irreducible complexity”, a fancy way of saying anything less than the minimum parts all at once, won’t work at all, and so won’t remain to have a go at getting better, it’ll just disintegrate. 

The leaps of logic, necessary to believe the materialistic (atheist) view point of creation, are many, and often overlooked, when we study them in science before we are 16. We aren’t encouraged to ask “really? How would that work then?”. They require a “blind” faith, far greater than that attributed by its proponents, to anyone believing in a Creator.

Consider the following questions. Isn’t it fortunate that mutations happened in the just the right order such that…

• The first single cell life form was able to synthesise energy, heal itself and reproduce instantly?

• Those unlikely single cell life forms, coagulated into the first life form, that started to spontaneously breath, filling its lungs with air, before it suffocated and never started? 

• That that first life form did that near another like it, a male or female counterpart, so another could be made?

• That they did that near sufficient food, water and shelter to survive long enough to reproduce.

• Skin evolved just in time and in the right places for our flesh not to fall out?

• Blood vessels evolved in just the right lengths, strengths, shapes and sizes around the body, for the blood to flow through and not splurge everywhere?

• The lumps we call lungs evolved at the same time as the lump we call a heart, and tubes we call blood vessels and the blood itself, so they can sustain each other and us?

• Blood flows in us and coagulates in air to stop us leaking? 

• Skulls have exactly 2 holes the right size, to house 2 eyes?

• Our skeleton and muscles fit together and cause controlled motion from our brains, such that anything less, wouldn’t work long enough to last as long as it takes to hold your breath (lungs would collapse), or as long as it would take not to starve (you couldn’t see or move towards your food), or process that food into growth and energy if you were somehow “fed”, (because you did evolve a stomach this morning didn’t you?), OK so you can hold your breath to lunch time and you found a mate (without eyes), you did make your reproductive organs this morning right? So millions of years don’t help, you’ve got till lunch time or you have to start again and hope to get a fully fledged skeletal and muscular system in one go that time. Working this way billions of years won’t help either.

None of the above have possible part-way-there states. It either all happens for you at once, or you don’t breathe, eat or reproduce. You die. Start again from square one.

How well did they do and where are they now?:

If there were ever Animals with one only eye and so depth perception and so couldn’t traverse well. But enough of them supposedly survived to spawn 2 eyed variants. You’d think we’d have found a few 1 eyed skeletal fossils. Maybe a few 3 eyed ones, where that variation was having a go and failed. But no, everything seems to have stopped at 2 eyes and by-passed having just one.

26 Then God said, “Let Us (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) make mankind in Our image, physical hosts for eternal spirits, with our awareness, capacity for reason, morality, language, personality, and purpose according to Our likeness; and let them rule, as we would, over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” [Nat Amplified]

Verse 27

27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. [Original]

This is the summation verse, it is written with a poetic structure of three lines. God creates man in his own image. In the image of God man is created. God creates both male and female.

One meaning of being created in the image of God is mankind's unique capacity for moral and rational awareness. God made humans to be inherently different from animals. He built into us some of His own qualities; we share with Him the experience of personality, truth, beauty, meaning, will, and reason. These attributes allow us to relate to God in ways other created beings cannot. Another meaning is that humans were meant to stand as the image of God's authority on the earth as we rule over and subdue the rest of His creation.

This verse is also the introduction of gender into the bible. Yes, whilst fish, birds and animals have been created and the fish and the birds (thus far) blessed and so able to have sex and reproduce, they’re not explicitly named male and female as we are. Not that they aren’t, it’s just that they don’t get the distinction called out (for what it’s worth, probably the poetic nature than a profundity).

Chapter 2 expounds on this process (first man, then man from woman) and considers it differently, but not in a contradictory way.

27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. [Nat Amplified unchanged]

Verse 28

28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” [Original]

God pronounces His blessing on these first people who are made in His image. Built into the blessing is the capacity to reproduce new generations of human beings—and the command to do so.

God gives four instructions: Be fruitful (or "bear fruit," have babies). Multiply (as each new generation has more kids and they have more kids). Fill the earth (populate). Have dominion (or authority and management) over all the other creatures.

These commands frame many important aspects of a Christian worldview. One crucial point to note is that the commands to reproduce and multiply came prior to the fall of man in Genesis chapter 3. In blunt terms, this means that God created mankind with the capacity for sex, and sexual reproduction, and intended us to utilize those abilities. Sex, therefore, is not sinful in and of itself. Of course, like all good things, sex has a proper context: marriage. And yet, this simple point—that God created us as intentionally sexual creatures—speaks against the recurring myth that the Bible considers sex itself to be morally wrong.

As to be explained in Genesis chapter 2, God would directly create only two humans. The rest of us would come from them, one generation after the next. Humankind's first responsibilities would be to fill up the earth with people and to care for the earth as God's representatives.

28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” [Nat Amplified unchanged]

Verse 29

29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; [Original]

Firstly the word “surface” is better translated “before” or “face”.

God now describes what humans are, at this point, to eat: the fruit of all the plants and trees created on day 3.  Given death (of the body) hasn’t yet become a thing through the fall, there’s no reason to presume that not eating would result in death. It could have been for pleasure only and at times of one’s choosing to. If necessary or pleasure, it is God’s first act of provision for Humans.

As was the case with every other living thing created by God, these plants and trees were designed to reproduce themselves (through their seeds), one generation after the next.

God does not instruct humans to use animals for food (or offer them as an option) at this point in history. Some Bible scholars hold that there was no animal death before sin entered into the world (I agree). Others hold that the natural process of predator-prey did occur, but human beings were not subject to physical death until after the fall.

29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; [Nat Amplified unchanged]

Verse 30

30 and to every animal of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. [Original]

These words are very similar to the previous verse, in which God expressly makes clear that humankind could make use of every seed-bearing plant and tree for food. Now He says the same is true for the animals, birds, and creeping things. It's all but impossible to miss the fact that, in this moment, God does not expressly offer animals as food for humans or for other animals. Later, God would specifically change His instructions to man about what other parts of His creation were available for food.

This is often interpreted to mean that all creatures God created were initially herbivores: plant eaters. Other scholars see this in a less literal and more general sense: that self-sustaining plants are the core source of food for the animal kingdom. While there are various theological, scriptural, and scientific arguments to be made on both sides, neither is really the point of this passage.

In other words, the specific food being eaten is not the take-home lesson of this verse. Rather, this passage clearly defines God as the provider. That's who He has been from the very beginning. In His own way, by His own will, He provides food for man and beast (Matthew 6:26).

However, all animals starting herbivores and then some becoming carnivores, later, and without further creation (evolution, for the those that insist on the term) is not as unscientific as at first it sounds. Consider this from our understanding of the animal kingdom, Lions can be vegetarian, even now and Pandas have teeth that look to be for tearing flesh like lion incisors, when they eat bamboo; amongst many others.

It can’t be suggested that “predators eating pray” attributes were added (a creating act) after the fall, since the Bible states that creating anew was done with by the 6th day. So the “kinds” must have had embedded in their genes, the information, though dormant in the original donor animals, details of different attributes and capacities for killing, and trying not to be killed, that came out in species after the fall.

30 and to every animal of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. [Nat Amplified unchanged].

Verse 31

31 And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. [Original]

On each day of this creation week, God recognized what He made as good. Now, having created mankind to populate and rule over this world, God declares what He has made as "very good”.

There’s no linguistic distinction that shows He’s referring to Mankind only (as “very good”), as some suppose, that this distinction excludes the animals He made earlier in the day, or everything so far in previous days inclusive; indeed it specifies that God saw all that He had made.

31 And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And so where there had been less information, order design and purpose there was now much more of these, a sixth day. [Nat Amplified unchanged].

Nat Amplified Day 6

24 Then God said, “Let the earth’s matter produce living creatures according to their origin kind, from which all species will be derived: livestock and crawling things and animals of the earth according to their kind”; and it was so.

25 God made the animals of the earth according to their origin kind, and the livestock according to their origin kind, and everything that crawls on the ground according to its origin kind; and God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let Us (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) make mankind in Our image, physical hosts for eternal spirits, with our awareness, capacity for reason, morality, language, personality, and purpose, according to Our likeness; and let them rule, as we would, over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.”

27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;

30 and to every animal of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.

31 And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And so where there had been less information, order design and purpose there was now much more of these, a sixth day.

Genesis Chapter 2

Day 7 – Rest

Chapter 2 Verse 1-3

v1 And so the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their heavenly (stars) lights.

v2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

v3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

It is Shabbat meaning rest, or Saturday, the end of the Jewish week.

There’s no “and it was evening and morning a 7th day” for this seventh “day”. But it is a day. Giving further credence to the interpretation of Erev and Boker denoting creation, or decrease-in-entropy, (the opposite of the norm now, where entropy is increasing), not times of day 8 hours apart, denoting the full 24 hours, as if night time is a full day.

It says “rested”, not “(is) resting”. So not denotive of epochs, or periods of time. The 7th day is done. We’re not in it now. There are no epoch theories that will operate with this text. It does violence to the text, because God means what he says and says what he means. There is no deception.

From His creative work. He’s done creating, there’s no more creating to be done or being done, after the Fall, but His work isn’t done, the next work is Redemption. God isn’t finished but He’s finished with creation.

Did God rest? Was it so hard? Did He need to? Some Hebrew sages, say the Hebrew really implies, the Creator “caused a repose to encompass the universe” as opposed to it being God Himself resting. This sits well with the Laws of thermodynamics if so.

First law of thermodynamics = Conservation of Matter and Energy.

On the 7th day God ended His work Gen 2:2-3 (Hebrews 4 3-4). There’s no new matter to create and all Energy necessary is in place. The universe is like a gigantic clock that has been wound up and is now winding down. There’s no new creation going on.

Second law of thermodynamics = Entropy (loss of usable energy and/or information – tendency away from order to chaos).

Entropy is not just thermodynamics, but in all sciences, (but illogically ignored in evolution).

Paul says in Romans 8:21, the world will one day be free of its bondage to decay.

At this point in Genesis chapters 2 and 3, just after creation, the universe may not have been subject to decay before Gen 3. Decay may part of that curse.

It’s interesting to note that when the fourth of the 10 Commandments are given, written on tablets of stone, it says “remember the Sabbath to keep it Holy” (Exodus 20:8), i.e. they already knew of this instruction from God (and which animals He considered clean and unclean, since Noah knew which were which for the ark), suggesting God communicated this to them in the Garden of Eden.