[split] a discussion on origins sparked by "The Order of Things"

[Torkelburger]

First light, and above the formless Earth

 

The fact that light appears on the first "day" is not out of line with big bang theory: an "explosion" of particles (including photons).

First off, that is not what the writer of Genesis is saying.  You are putting those words into his mouth by shoehorning your interpretation in order to make it look like they predicted it.  Predictions (even if it is an actual prediction) must be SPECIFIC, not extremely vague to where any varying set of circumstances can satisfy it.  An explosion of particles must be an explosion of particles.  Or at least, something referring to an explosion would be much more accurate.

Secondly, it says the earth was in the beginning.  It wasn’t.  The earth was formed not even close to the beginning of the universe, not even remotely near the T=0, the time of the big bang.  Big Bang over 13 ca. bya.  Earth 4 ca. bya.

Thirdly, the earth was not even close to the center of where the big bang took place.  It is so far from there that it would take millions of years for that light to reach the earth, not instantaneously.
 

below, a primordial water world.
The sun and moon then appeared through clouds,

 
There is a huge problem with this.  We know that the earth did not have oceans for millions of years.  Well AFTER the sun and moon appeared.

Regarding "day" 3, it is understood now that the sky was opaque before any type of observation from Earth would have revealed the sun, moon , and stars; the sky as we now see it (and well before any creature was alive and able to see it).

The problem with all of that is that all throughout the account, and most importantly in 1:3-5, 14-19 it is saying there was light with the particular “night and day” designation, so the opaque sky would make no sense.  And in the verses stated above, this is BEFORE there was a sun! (light, night, day)
 
Another problem with the “order of things”, besides the ones you even mentioned but don’t seem to mind, is that according to Genesis 1:12, and 16, plants are beginning to grow BEFORE there was SUNLIGHT.
 
The bible is simply not a book of science.  It even has gross historical errors.  It can be poetic, or allegorical, or a book of faith, etc., but there are just too many silly things it says about science and history to not take it seriously in those matters.

Like another one would be saying that all plants and trees that yield seed are given by God for us to eat.  (Genesis 1:29).  But that includes hemlock, buckeye pod, nightshade, oleander.  Those are poisonous.

And Daniel 4 verse 11 writes of a tree so large that “it was visible to the ends of the earth.”  Clearly implies that the earth is flat.

Same thing in Matthew 4:8.  He writes of a mountain so high, that all of the kingdoms of the world can be seen from the top of it.  (That would mean that the earth is flat).

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Hey Duke, you commented:

Logic requires that ocean preceded fish, rock preceded ocean ... and stars/sun/light preceded all.

So, our senses organize the world in exactly the order in which it came to be... because our senses came last.

I believe that humans 4,000 years ago were every bit as intelligent as humans today.  They just didn't have the knowledge base that we have now.

The powers of logic and observation were most valuable 40 centuries ago, and humans most likely used those powers to describe the sequence written in Genesis.  Still, correctly stating that dry land arose after Earth was purely a "water world", and that life appeared in the oceans first, and then appeared on land, is pretty remarkable. 

Arguing that Genesis gets some things dead wrong does not invalidate the things it gets right.  It is fascinating stuff.

As an aside, I'm very interested what our observations from the WEBB space telescope will reveal: how many new questions will be posed.

Dry land did not arise from a water world.  It is still up for debate as to where most of the water came from.  Some likely came from the atmosphere, but much of it may have come from meteors, which would have been much more prevalent in the early stages of geological history when the atmosphere thinner.

Dry land was (obviously) here even before the atmosphere. The earth obtained its FIRST atmosphere (its changed many, many times over time) from the gases from the rocks.  The very first atmosphere would have been poisonous and unsuitable for modern surface life today.  It was mostly methane, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide.  Very large and simple molecules on the surface of the dry land may have been able to have used the carbon dioxide and expel oxygen as waste, eventually over time changing the atmosphere.