“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.” (Genesis 1:6-8).
At this point I’m assuming the earth had coalesced into a globe of its present size and shape. As Day 2 begins, the earth was surrounded by a cocoon of water of some sort. This is not unlike a babe being surrounded by a placenta of waters. Of course, the waters surrounding the earth may have been far more extensive than a cocoon. We have no way of knowing, but I like the symbology of the earth being wrapped in a womb of water. As to there being water in outer space, you might want to check out the article,
“Water in Space More Abundant than Expected”.
But what is a firmament? The Hebrew word suggests “an expanse” or “visible arch of the sky.” The Hebrew word for heaven suggests “the sky,” “perhaps alluding to the visible arch in which the clouds move.” It also refers to “the higher ether where the celestial bodies revolve”—basically, the sun and everything you can see in the night sky. Based on the Hebrew, it would appear the firmament is none other than the earth’s atmosphere. (See the NASA photo below.)
Earth’s atomosphere (a NASA photo)
Next, Day 3 arrives and things start picking up:
“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. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas; and God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:9-10).
It appears when Day 3 began there was no dry land. This suggests the entire earth was covered with the water that had been gathered together. When the land appeared, the waters were gathered into one place. This would leave one massive landform, or else the waters would be divided as they are today.
If, indeed, the waters did cover the entire earth, how, then, did the land appear? I’ve got an idea which I shall combine with one theory of how we got our moon.
We know there’s a lot of space debris in the universe. We also know there are occasional collisions. (See NASA photo of Jupiter below.)
Jupiter swallowing up the comet Shoemaker-Levy fragments (a NASA photo)
It is well known the moon is full of craters, many huge. Even our own earth has had its share, most notably the famous Arizona crater. (See photo below.)
Arizona crater (a NASA JPL photo)
Picture this: A large planetoid-like object approaches the newly created earth at a high rate of speed. It strikes a glancing blow, sinking deep into the earth’s perhaps still malleable crust under the water. Of course, water flies for miles into the atmosphere and the planetoid “grabs” a piece of the still relatively soft earth, ripping it into outer space. Likely some of the planetoid breaks apart as well. The water may or may not have fallen back to earth. The natural result of this collision would be an on-rushing of water to fill the newly created basin which we now call the Pacific Ocean. (See artist’s conception below from a Harvard-Smithsonian press release.)
Artist’s conception of two planets colliding (Credit: David A. Aguilar, Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)
One problem you might see in this scenario is that the moon wasn’t made until Day 4. That is a good point. However, I’m not saying the moon was at this point created or made, only that the raw materials for it found its way into space.
Now, the question remains: Is there any empirical evidence in the earth that such an event did, in fact, occur? Actually, there is . . . or may be, according to how one interprets the data.
To get an idea of how this might have happened, check out this interactive ocean-bottom topographical map. One outstanding feature of the map of the Pacific Ocean is the long mountainous arc covering thousands of miles, located near the bottom. It’s what I would expect to see if a large chunk of land was ripped out of the earth. The arc represents the last earthly hold of the displaced earth before it finally broke away. You will notice a number of mountainous chains running generally in a northwest to southeast direction. This could easily be accounted for by a collision of a planetoid-like object coming from the northwest in the direction of the southeast where the land fully broke away.
Another ocean-bottom topographical map shows the northwest to southeast mountainous chains even clearer. However, it doesn’t show the long mountainous arc nearly as clear.
If you want to get an even closer look at how rugged it is at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, you might want to check out these maps. One would expect to see some ruggedness where a large chunk of earth had been ripped away.
I would suggest this new landform remained one massive continent until the days of Peleg, when it was divided. (See Genesis 10:25.) We have no proof that it was otherwise. Thus, we can assume that when looking at these ocean-bottom maps, that at least Australia was not in its current location. You can see on the UCSD map how Australia may have gravitated from the east side of India by observing the striations on both its north and south sides. Judging by the striations, one could conclude Antarctica might have traveled south from the massive continent.
Now let us turn to the Atlantic Ocean to solidify the idea of there being one massive continent. In either of the two ocean-bottom topographic maps you will see what is called the mid-Atlantic ridge in the near dead center of that ocean. You will see east-west striations in both maps caused, I believe, by the separation of the Americas to the west and Europe and Africa to the east. That must have been some earthquake!
You can easily see how the mid-Atlantic ridge parallels the continents on either side. Other maps show how the giant continent might have looked, although there is no consensus as to the final product. None of the maps I’ve seen are configured the way I would guess, but then I’m not an expert on tectonic plate movements. A simple Google map search on “supercontinent” will give you a number of different looks.
The other, much simpler theory of how land came to be can be explained by one or more global earthquakes, in which the entire massive continent raised up out of the waters. That could happen, no question, but it wouldn’t account for the moon. So, I like the collision scenario better because I can observe information at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean which not only accounts for the land rising, as it were, but also for the moon.
Continuing with Day 3:
“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. 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” (Genesis 1:11-12).
The first question that may be asked is: Where did all this flora come from? Of course, no one knows for sure, but there aren’t too many natural options available. God may have spoken a word, figuratively snapped his fingers, then Poof! All the flora magically appeared. I know it sounds a bit strange to some of us, but many people believe exactly this, for that’s basically the way it is presented in Genesis. Some believers are very literal when it comes to the Bible; hence, the six 24-hour day creation periods.
On the other hand, God may have actually planted seeds—lots of seeds. I’m sure some people can’t see God doing such a mundane task, but the seeds had to get there somehow. Of course, he may have had a lot of help. (More on that idea in the next subject for discussion.) He certainly had a lot of time, time not being a part of his existence.
However, the important thing to remember is the flora produced seeds of its own kind. One species of grass didn’t evolve into something else, such as a fruit tree. So, if you’re a Christian and a Darwinian (there are some), you might want to rethink that. Either God is God or Darwin is god. They both can’t be right. And I don’t buy into the “intelligent design Darwinism,” either, where God orchestrated physical evolution. God formed man in his own image and likeness, not in the image and likeness of a monkey-man, or anything else. At least that’s what the Bible says . . . and that’s good enough for me. And I think this equally applies to everything else God placed on earth.
The next question that may be asked is: How did all these plants grow without the light of the sun which wasn’t made until Day 4? And that’s a good question. To answer that, let us turn to Revelation 21. John had just finished describing the great cubed city, “the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God” (verse 10). In verse 23 he says:
“And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb of God is the light thereof.”
Plain and simple, the flora didn’t need the light of the sun. We might remember that both Deuteronomy 4:24 and Hebrews 12:29 describe God as a consuming fire. Both the Hebrew and the Greek words for fire mean literally and figuratively just that—fire! That’s a vision of God we don't often hear about.
Now let us introduce time to the earth as we take a look at Day 4.
“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And god set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 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” (Genesis 1:14-18).
Remember back in Day 1: “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night” (verse 5). This is the second time God divided the light from the dark. So, what gives?
Whatever the case, these verses seem to indicate the earth was formed before the sun, moon and stars, if taken literally. Nevertheless, in Day 1, according to my fanciful ideas, God infused what may have been dark matter with light, thus separating it from its surrounding darkness. In Day 4, God placed the earth in its present position. He then formed the moon from the disparate pieces surrounding the earth . . . and voila! We have a real day and night, based presumably on a 24-hour rotation. Of course, we have no real way of knowing this. It could have just as easily been a year-long rotation. We simply don’t know.
If we take the Bible literally, the earth was created first, then the sun, moon and stars. I’ll buy the idea of the moon, but after looking around the universe through the eyes of Hubble and other telescopes, I have a hard time swallowing the rest of it.
Still, the question may be asked: Why couldn’t all this have been accomplished right here in our own solar system? Mainly because of the size of a typical nebula, continuing with that idea.
Take, for example, the Crab Nebula, some 6,500 light-years away. (See photo below). The Hubble site says it’s 6 by 12 light-years in dimension.
Hubblesite.org
Astronomers call the nebula the “expanding remnant of a star’s supernova explosion.” Oddly, it has a central neutron star, even after the explosion, which the site says is the source of the internal bluish glow. I find it strange that a star should explode, then leave behind another kind of a star. I don’t believe anyone has ever actually seen this happen live, so whatever they say in regards to exploding stars can be viewed as suspect, in my opinion.
For fun, you might want to check out the really huge, scrollable version of the Crab Nebula.
A light-year is the distance light travels in one year at 186,000 miles per second, or about 5,878,625,373,184 miles. This is equivalent to about 63,241.077 astronomical units, which is defined as the average distance between the earth and the sun. In other words, the Crab Nebula is about 63,241+ times the distance between the earth and the sun. See “How far is a light-year? In miles and kilometers.”.
This would make the Crab Nebula much larger than our entire solar system. According to the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the distance from the sun to Pluto is 5½ light-hours! That means the approximate width of the solar system is 11 light-hours! I’m not even going to attempt the math to figure out how many times larger the Crab Nebula is than our entire solar system.
Nevertheless, if it were true the earth was created from a nebula (I’m not saying it was, only offering an alternative theory), how could such a humongous bit of gases and/or space dust be condensed into something as small as our earth? In reality, there’s no way we can possibly know. Nevertheless, we might ask a similar question of our astronomer friends: How could the (pre-atom) elemental material of billions of galaxies we know exist (likely many billions more), each containing perhaps billions of stars, fit into a space of only a few millimeters across, just prior to the so-called Big Bang? And how did all this material get there? And who lit the match to make them explode, given that they likely existed in this state forever? And where was God in all this? (I know, I know. Astronomers like to keep God out of this universe of theirs.)
Next to this bit of what I consider nonsense, my theory starts to sound a little more plausible, if not still fantastic. I’ll leave it at that.
So, if the earth were created from a nebula, it would have to be created somewhere else. Why couldn’t God just have created the earth in our own solar system—sans nebula?
I guess he could have, but then it wouldn’t have fit into the Genesis 1 account of the creation. Even science at its worst couldn’t come up with the idea of the solar system and all the stars having been created after the earth was created. There’s no good sense in it.
Day 4 continues:
“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and the fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind: and God saqw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth” (Genesis 1:20-22).
Like the flora, we find all these creatures were to multiply and fill the earth in their various milieus—after their own kind, not evolving from one species into another. God has so spoken.
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