Creation Days Not the Same as 24-hour Earth Days: Click here for the third part of this blog.
Getting our parameters right begins with knowing beginnings, but more than that is being able to distinguish one beginning from the other. Most think that Day 1 of Creation is also Day 1 on Earth. The Bible explains that these two differ. It is on the fourth day of creation that the first earth day commenced.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
The doubt that we have to solve is how vegetation could exist when the sun was made to bring light unto the earth only on the fourth day.
It is scientific knowledge that vegetation can exist for some time without the light of the sun upon which plants depend to produce their food by the process of photosynthesis. We must remember that it was on the third day of creation that God caused the appearing of dry land from the globe of waters, after which He caused vegetation to appear.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
From these accounts, we understand that two great parts of creation happened on the third day: the appearing of the ground or the dry land, afterwards the appearing of vegetation. This is wonderfully scientific considering that the book of Genesis was written less than four thousand years ago, when people could hardly understand that vegetation is necessary to hold soil on its place and to prevent erosion! But the doubt is focused on this: why was the sun necessary for plant life made only the following day which is the fourth day?
As I mentioned earlier, there are plants that can exist for some time even without sunlight.
The possibility is that since vegetation and plant life were created at the end of the third day (of Creation), the sun was made to shine immediately at the start of the fourth day (Day 1 for Earth). This solves the scientific problem involved!
While it is true that the bud of a seed that grows tend to the direction of light, it is also true that the budding process can start without light. A seed planted below the surface of the soil where there is no light will grow.
REVISED STANDARD VERSION
I CORINTHIANS 15:36-38
36 You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
37 And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.
38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
This will clearly erase the doubt in the mind of one who understands the truth in the Bible and in science, but certainly will be questioned by scoffers!
We must also consider that when God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass,” he did not say “Let the dry land bring forth grass.” When God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass,” he meant the ground in dry land and the ground under the sea to bring forth plant life. It is worthwhile mentioning that “grass” – the plant life in the depths of the sea sustain most of marine creatures.
Back to Creation, at the dawn of the fifth day God said –
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
This is a very scientific chronology of the account of creation in Genesis! After plant life was caused by God to exist at the dusk of the third day and the sun to give light unto the earth immediately at the dawn of the fourth day, marine creatures were brought forth at the dusk of the fifth day! What a wonderful scientific narration, not found in any other book on earth! Here’s an excerpt describing the Earth before as “barren landscape” quoting researchers from Pennsylvania State University –
The earliest evidence of land plants and fungi appears in the fossil record around 480 million years ago. Before that, the Earth’s landscape was believed to consist of barren rocks, home to bacteria and possibly some algae. But some have argued that it is quite possible for land-dwelling plants and fungi to have been around much earlier, but their primitive bodies were too soft to be preserved as fossils in rock. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1482382.stm).
Science affirms – as do atheists guess – that marine life existed before land life. Richard Dawkins wrote that, being land-oriented now, one day he will go back to the sea. Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist.
I MUST GO DOWN TO THE SEA AGAIN
The move from water to land launched a major redesign of every aspect of life, from breathing to reproduction: it was a great trek through biological space. Nevertheless, with what seems almost wanton perversity, a good number of thoroughgoing land animals later turned around, abandoned their hard-earned terrestrial retooling, and trooped back into the water again. Seals and sea lions have only gone part-way back. (The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins, Page 80).
THE START OF HUMAN LIFE
Note that marine life were brought forth first then land life.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Animals like cattle and creeping things were made by God at the dawn of the sixth day of creation and humans towards the end of the sixth day. (Creeping things are on dry land, not in the sea). This allows millions of years of animal existence before mankind. This also solves doubt about the existence of dinosaurs millions of years before mankind! A day in creation is not a 24-hour day as other Bible apologists claim!
Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.
The earth was not brought forth in one (1) earth-day! The First to the Fourth day of Creation happened before the sun was made to shine in the dome of the sky to light the earth, determining how an earth-day is made!
This is Part 4 of Possibilities and Impossibilities in the Bible.
More to come.