Re: [asa] Light, waters, days of Genesis

George,

I would suggest starting at Genesis a different way.? Instead of saying, "how can I make what I see in the text match what we know from modern science," we should say, "how would Moses have expected his original audience to understand the text?"

For example, Moses would have never expected his audience to understand deuterium fusion or accretion disks.? When he said, "waters above the heavens" he would have expected his audience to wonder, "is there water above the heavens?? Ahh yes, we know about it because it falls down and waters the earth."? So they would have thought about rain.? So this is what Day 2 is talking about.? If it meant something obvious to the original audience, and if Moses didn't go to pains to keep them from thinking that obvious thing, then obviously that is what Moses wanted them to think.

This "rain water" interpretation is confirmed in Psalm 104.? That Psalm praises God for what he made during each of the 6 creation days.? He starts out saying how God clothes himself in light (perhaps a reference to Day 1?), and how he sets the pillars of his upper chambers [in the sky] in the waters (perhaps a reference to Day 2?).? Then it goes more definitely through the other 4 creation days.? When he gets to the plants in day 3, he talks about how God waters these plants from his upper chambers.? This is the same term "upper chambers" that he had poetically stated as the place God sets his pillars in the waters, and so this is a reference to Day 2 "waters above the heavens" that fall down and water the plants.? So we see that the waters above the sky were indeed interpreted by the Psalmist as a reference to ordinary rain.

Also, if Genesis 1 surely must reference rains somewhere.? Genesis 1 is a polemic against worship of the Canaanite and/or Egyptian gods.? The Hebrews?were an agrarian society and completely dependent on the rains to survive, and so they were frequently tempted in later times to pray to Baal to send the rains.? It would be important for them to know that Yahweh, not Baal, is Lord over the rains.? So as a polemic Genesis 1 would be woefully inadequate if it failed to address what was arguably the most important issue of all -- who controls the rains!? But where in Genesis 1 does it discuss rains?? Only on Day 2 if anywhere.? So again, it is most plausible to conclude that Day 2 is indeed a reference to ordinary rain water.

For "let there be light," the Hebrews would have imagined an ocean sitting in darkness, and then suddenly light shines upon the ocean and the sky is no longer black.? What caused that?? As far as the text is concerned, it doesn't matter.? The important thing is that God is the one who made it so that light shines on the surface half the day, leaving darkness for the other half.? The text could have been meant as a literary framework, only, with no connection to the way God actually did it?(Framework hypothesis), or it might have been intended as an actual sequence of events, in which case we must conclude that the sunlight eventually got through to the dark of the Earth for some reason after the earth already existed (Day-Age hypothesis).? But it couldn't be the beginning of stellar fusion because Moses' original audience would have understood it to say that the Earth's ocean waters already existed before the light began, and if we want to concord that with science then we ha
 ve to conclude that it took place long after stellar fusion had already begun.

Many books have been written on the meaning of the Days of Genesis, including the view you mention below.

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: George Cooper <georgecooper@sbcglobal.net>
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 6:49 pm
Subject: [asa] Light, waters, days of Genesis

I would enjoy getting some comments on?several views I have been strongly entertaining for a number of years:

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1) First light from the Sun for "Let there be Light"

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2) A blue Solar accretion disk that would be described as waters for Day 1 and Day 2.

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3) The possibility that the six, or seven, days of Genesis were references to the days of the observer, and not days that creation was performed from scratch.

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In no. 1,? it seems to me that the first light from our host star would be a major historic moment for the founding of life on Earth.? It is the primary energy source for our planet and the others, too.? The "Let there be light, and there was light" passage suggests that light came forth in a moment of time, and not gradual over long periods.? Can stars suddenly spring forth light?? I think the answer to that is yes, but it is not common in observations.? Dust and gas shrouds around protostars are known to exist.? At some point, light will spring forth from them, but how fast this might happen is not known to me.?

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Protostars are hot simply from gravitational contraction, but their dull light can be blocked by the dust shroud.? Perhaps a few possibilities exist for a sudden burst of light to shine through the shroud:

a) Initial?Deuterium fusion.? Deuterium will fuse at a lower temperatue than hydrogen, so this short phase in the early centuries of a pre-main sequence star happens first before hydrogen fusion.

b) Initial Hydrogen fusion.? This might produce quite a light punch, though I doubt the shroud would have survived this long.? I don't really know, however.

c) Flare.? The Sun, like most stars in its class, likley displayed rather violent behaior in its early years.? T-Tauri class stars are examples of this.? Perhaps an early,?violent Solar flare burst a hole in the shroud.

d) Planetary migration.? Larger objects formed in the accretion disk of a nascent star sytem will migrate inward.? Some are believed to get swallowed by the host star.? This could trigger a strong burst of light.? [V838 Mon is an amazing star that is in a new class of stars known as flashing stars, I think.? One theory has suggested the three bright light echos discovered are due to three stellar gulps of planets.]

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Of course, the idea here is that an actual eye witness was taken to see our star sytem's first light.? It would be the light that would cause us to distinguish day from night.? Interestingly, God actually named the light, Day.? Perhaps, the daylight we see today is one in the same for our special, biblical observer.

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For 2)? The existance of stellar accretion disks is no longer conjecture or hypothesis; they are being observed by the hundreds.? These disks are comprised of gas and dust.? The particle sizes are such that strong illumination by bright neighbors could cause the disk to appear as a beautiful blue ocean.? Rayleigh Scattering provides the proper explanation for the scattering of light.? The sky is blue for this very reason.? Reflection nebula are blue, but at a surface illumination too low for our color cones.? The cloudless portion of the norther hemisphere of Saturn is blue, watery blue.? [Guess where this is headed. :)]?

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If our observer saw a very blue relatively flat region billions of square millions in size, wouldn't waters be a reasonable simple term used by a simple witness?

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Also, it is very likely our star had neighbors, perhaps in the hundreds or even thousands.? Giant molecular clouds (GMC), once triggered, will condense into large numbers of stars creating a stellar nursery.? The Hubble images of these regions are stunning.?? The more massive stars develop much quicker than solar-mass objects, and they are prodigious in light production.? Further, these massive stars are hotter and produce a distinctive blue color to them that would also help to cause its neighbor's disk to appear more blue.?

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For 3) Why not?? The Bible is unclear what is meant by... "the evening and morning were the ___ day".? Why could that not simply be the rough time period for our observer, in lieu of the hardened idea that it was the Creator's time to create from scratch?

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I presented some samples of this before, but no one gave much response.? A more detailed text of this is in the ASA forum.? I realize this is yet another literal approach and, for some, this may be gravel to the mouth.? Yet, I am not stuck on any of this, so don't worry about hurting my feelings (assuming I can find where?I last put them).? In other words, fire-a-way; I appreciate your thoughts.? If you want more elaboration, please ask.

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GeorgeA

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Received on Mon Dec 3 23:28:21 2007