Is There One Creation Story or Two? (Part 1 of 3)

It has long been an established “fact” that Genesis 1 is the chronology of the physical creation of the earth. But is it really?

At first glance, it would certainly seem so. Everything appears to follow a certain logical order leading up to the creation of the male and female in verses 26-28. Yet, there are other indications that there may be more than meets the casual eye on this subject.

Whatever the case may be, there is so little information in the creation story as to leave one with many more questions than answers. And perhaps it was intended to be so. Either that, or we have lost a great deal of information over the ages through multitudes of translations and apparent omissions.

Remember also: This was Moses’ version of what he saw. I’m sure he was quite speechless after seeing all this. Think of the time Moses lived in. I would have to wonder if he even had the vocabulary to verbalize what he saw. Hence, we have this really short version in our Bibles.

Personally, I don’t believe God ever intended Genesis 1 to be a full account of the creation of heaven and earth. If he did, then why don’t we have it?


Have you ever wondered what the purpose was of giving us such an abbreviated account of the creation of our heaven and earth? I can only speculate, of course, not being God, but perhaps he only wanted us to know these two things: 1) that he, God, created our earth and its heaven; and 2) that he, our Father in heaven, created it for us to live on. We can forget about Darwinism.

So, how long did the creation take? Only God knows for sure. However, that doesn’t stop rampant speculation.

There are three basic theories regarding how long it took to create the earth. The first, and most unlikely, in my opinion, is the idea that it took six twenty-four hour modern days to accomplish this mammoth feat. I’m guessing—only guessing—that those who believe this think that God just spoke a word, and everything came together, just as it intimates in Genesis 1—all in a snap of his fingers, so to speak.

The main problem with this idea is that it is scientifically unsound. There is nothing visible in the universe that would support such a rapid creation . . . of any kind! If there were, surely our powerful telescopes would have picked something up. Besides, it doesn’t make sense: For in the first three Days there was no measurement of time, as time hadn’t yet entered the picture.

Other theorists use 2 Peter 3:8 as the basis for their claims: that a day of the Lord is one thousand years to man. Therefore, six “Days” of the Lord equals six thousand years for the creation.

I’ve been reading a book, “In the Beginning,” by Walt Brown, Ph.D., a scientific look at the creation and the flood of Noah. In it, he shows actual scientific evidence supporting the idea that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. Not being a scientist, I cannot argue any of his points, but they seem to have some validity, so far as I have been able to tell. Even so, cosmic changes don’t appear to happen that fast.

Others cling wholly to traditional science, stating the earth couldn’t have self-evolved in anything less than several billion years. Of course, science most generally leaves out the idea of a God-creator, which, in my mind, puts them out to pasture. However, I will say that pure science goes hand in hand with pure religion. I view them as two sides of the same coin when they are in harmony.

One of the problems science these days is that it is too politicized and driven by government grant money. Whenever a scientist starts leaning toward, say, the theory of intelligent design, he is ostracized, is rejected by all professional scientific journals, and will likely lose his grant money. Our leaders, after all, have established a de facto atheistic, humanist government (thus breaking the First Amendment with regard to establishing a religion) and doesn’t want anything to do with God.

Before delving into “In the Beginning,” I was leaning closer to the last theory than to the first two. After all, time means nothing to God, for in the realm where God dwells there is no time. In fact, sometime after the Book of Revelation’s seventh seal is opened, “there should be time no longer” (Revelation 10:6). So, keeping this in mind, we shall be living in God’s no-time time even before the return of Jesus.

If we look around, we can observe order in the universe, from great groups of galaxies all the way down to planet earth. Look even further down into microscopic levels and it's even more orderly. I believe God works in such an orderly fashion using natural laws, his laws. Mankind has discovered some of these laws, however rudimentary.

While the Hebrew word for day indicates the period of time from sunrise to sunset or from one sunset to the next, it also can mean a space of time. (Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, 1973.) So, from my current point of view, a day equals an undefined space or period of time.

When we look into the heavens through the eyes of the world’s most powerful telescopes, one rarely sees anything resembling speed. Looking at Hubble photo of the V838 Monocerotis red super giant star below, one sees what, in cosmic time, a lightning-speed event. What appears to be an exploding star is actually a rare outburst of light. This sequence took nine months to accomplish, even at the speed of light. The star, which never changed size, eventually returned to normalcy. And this light show didn’t involve any act of creation, however spectacular it might have been, so far as can be determined.


Source: Hubblesite.org

So, what I’m looking at are six spaces or periods of time, not 168 hours, although I'm thinking Brown is leaning toward the six-thousand-year period. On the other hand, I don’t believe these six periods of time were necessarily equal, whatever they were. Some days may have lasted much longer than other days, depending on what was being accomplished during each phase of the creation story.

When we look at the events surrounding the six days of creation, we scarcely can imagine what actually took place. So, what I’d like to do is examine the creation story as written, day by day, and plug in some ideas to ponder.

“In the beginning” has often been interpreted as “In the beginning of the entire universe.” I don’t view it that way, although Brown seems to be leaning toward a much newer universe than the rest of science.

Since this story is about the creation of this earth and this heaven, I view “In the beginning” as the beginning of this specific creation. I like to think God’s entire work didn’t begin and end with the creation of this earth and its heaven. All one has to do is look up into the night sky and wonder at all the stars, knowing most all of them are part of this vast galaxy—only one of billions—that we live in.

So, let us take a closer look at how I imagine certain things were done in the first few Days of creation.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1-2).

Basically, in the beginning stages of the earth’s history, it had no shape; that is, it was formless. It didn’t look anything like an earth. And it was dark throughout. In other words, the basic elements of its formation were there but were not in any recognizable form. Perhaps in its formative stage the earth consisted of that mysterious substance called dark matter.

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light, And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness” (Genesis 1:3-4).

What this means no one really knows. The only thing we do know is that this light was not our sun, which didn’t enter into the picture until Day 4. I like to think these en-light-ened particles may have existed as a nebula (see Hubble photo of a section of the Orion nebula below). And why not?


Source: Hubblesite.org

I know astronomers would be falling all over themselves, were they even to take notice of my little blog, to point out the error of my ways. They insist these nebulae are the aftermath of dying or exploding stars, but they are only guessing. So far as I have been able to determine, astronomers have never actually witnessed the entire process of a dying or exploding star evolving into a nebula. The V838 star above wasn’t an explosion, but a "massive outlay of light," according to the Hubble website, which isn’t the same thing. In reality, the only difference (okay, not the only difference) between astronomers and myself are the initials behind their names. I can guess as well as they.

Astronomers tend to think that much of the universe exists in an exploding, dying sort of arrangement. I like to think of it as a God-evolving (not Darwinian) sort of an affair. Therefore, I like to think the next stage in the development of the earth is as pictured below—a central star gathering in the en-light-ened elements into something more resembling the shape of the earth, such as is pictured below with the planetary nebula, Helix.


Source: Hubblesite.org

However, astronomers still maintain this is the aftermath of an exploding star. Apparently, they haven’t bothered looking closely enough. If you look at the close-up of the Helix nebula below, you will see the comet-like orbs moving towards the central star. An even closer look at these comet-like orbs coming from the other side follows:


Source: Hubblesite.org


Source: Hubblesite.org

While verse 4 says God divided the light from the dark, he may have been referring to this gathering process as illustrated in the above photos of the Helix nebula.

Of course, astronomers insist that planetary nebulae aren’t planets at all, but, again, remnants of exploding stars. However, with exploding stars, one would expect the matter to be going away from the central star, which, I might add, mysteriously remains after exploding. Yet, we clearly see the reverse to be true, indicating a pulling toward rather than a pushing away of matter from that central star.

The curious thing about Day 1 is that God called the light day and the dark night. Yet, the sun and moon weren’t even mentioned until Day 4, and then only by implication.