Swimmy, where did you go?
"In the beginning" is its own age of creation. In it God created "the heavens and the earth." This is a merism which uses two extremes to define a single concept, the universe. It's like saying, "Invite all, young and old to the party." You are including all ages in between. Likewise, the merism in Genesis 1:1 includes the stars (sun) and galaxies, etc.
In Gen. 1:2 the point of view, as well as the focus shifts to the earth. Everything is to be seen from an earthbound point of view (the Spirit is hovering over the waters). We are told that the
EARTH was formless, void, and dark and covered with water. The earth needed to be changed, not the universe.
On each "day" God changes one of the initial conditions of earth. Exodus 20:11 points this out, as well, by
not using the Genesis 1:1 merism. Instead, it refers to the
MAKING of the sky (heavens), the dry land (earth), the seas and all that is in them (birds of the sky, land plants and animals, and small and great sea creatures). All of these were changes to the earth and its atmosphere, not the universe.
Haya
On creation days one, two, and four God says,
haya (let there be or allow there to be). The verb
haya is used in these verses instead of
bara (create) or
asa (make). It does not mean “let appear,” as some old-earth creationists have suggested. Each time that God uses
haya, as the main verb in His creation command, it institutes a transformation of the atmosphere (Gen. 1:3, 6 & 14). The ultimate outcome is the visibility/appearance of the lights in the sky, but that is not its meaning.
So, let us examine the evidence supporting this interpretation of those three verses. In Job 38:4-7, God says the stars (and angels) were there when the foundations of the earth were laid. Job 38:8-9 tells us how the earth became dark and covered with water (see Gen. 1:2 & Ps. 104:5-6). In Job 38:9, God says that darkness covered the earth, because He covered the earth with thick clouds.
This establishes that something had to happen to this cloudy proto-atmosphere to allow light to pass through to the observer. So, in Gen. 1:3
haya refers to a transformation in that proto-atmosphere to make it translucent to light. Think of a foggy day. Light is all around, but you cannot see the source. This transformation was only used to thin the cloudy shroud, not to remove it completely.
In Gen. 1:6 God (
haya "let there be") caused an expanse to form in the midst of the waters. Since it is dividing the waters above the expanse from the waters below, it sounds like the global ocean was still shrouded in something like a global mist (fog or steam). Now, this mist became a global cloud layer (waters above), which still blocked the visibility of the individual light sources, but not the light. Compare this second day of creation with its parallels in Ps. 104:3, 13 and Prov. 8:28.
At this point we have established that the first two uses of
haya, dealt with a transforming of earth's atmosphere. Why would anyone think that the third use would be any different?
Genesis 1:14-15 is telling us that on the fourth day God (
haya) broke up the cloud layer. This exposed, to the observer on the planet's surface (the Holy Spirit; Gen. 1:2), the individual light sources. These verses along with 16-18, also explain to us the important functions that God gave to the lights.
Parenthetical
Since
haya is a command about transforming the atmosphere and not about making lights, Genesis 1:16 should be seen as a parenthetical phrase, much like Gen. 2:19. Both of these verses are looking back at completed actions and should be translated with the pluperfect tense. Gen. 1:16 should read
“So God had made the two great lights” and Gen. 2:19 should read
“the Lord God had formed every beast of the field.” Genesis 1:16 is looking back at the Gen. 1:1 merism and Gen. 1:3, describing what the light was and where it came from. The functions of the lights found in verses 16-18 parallel those found in verses 3-5.
Genesis 2:19 is doing much the same. It gives us more details about how God produced the birds and mammals mentioned earlier in Gen. 1:20-25.
The Expanse
In his argument against the Framework View, Dr. Sarfati (of Answers in Genesis) quotes Dr. Wayne Grudem:
The sun, moon, and stars created on the fourth day as “lights in the firmament of the heavens” (Gen. 1:14) are placed not in any space created on day 1 but in the “firmament” that was created on the second day. In fact, the correspondence in language is quite explicit: this “firmament” is not mentioned at all on day 1 but five times on day 2 (Gen. 1:6-8) and three times on day 4 (Gen. 1:14-19).
Dr. Jonathan Sarfati,
Refuting Compromise (Green Forest, AR: Masters Books, 2004), p. 96
Taking Dr. Grudem's lead, I noticed that this “firmament of the heavens” is also mentioned once on day 5 (Gen. 1:20). Here it is the place that the birds fly. It is furthered mentioned three times (as heavens) on day 6, in the phrase “birds of the heavens.”
Genesis 1:17 says “And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth.” The word translated set,
natan, literally means give. It can also mean appoint, which I believe is the correct sense here. So God appointed them in the sky to give light. In fact the majority of the description of the fourth day is dealing with the functions for which these lights had been appointed.
The phrase “God appointed them in the firmament of the heavens,” could not possibly mean that they were placed in the atmosphere. Yet, that is exactly where they are said to have been given/appointed. Remember that the “firmament,” “firmament of the heavens,” and “heavens,” of Gen. 1:3-29, are consistently defined as the expanse between the clouds and ocean, where the birds fly. The very fact the clouds are said to be the upper bounds for this “firmament,” shows that God was not saying that the lights were placed in it. Everyone could see that the clouds pass in front of not behind the lights.
Had God wanted to say that the lights were made on day four, He could have said that they were “set in the heavens.” Without the mention of a firmament, waters or birds, this would have pointed us to Genesis 1:1 where the universe was created. Instead, as mentioned above, He told us that on day four the lights were appointed in the atmosphere.
These combined arguments force the interpretation that the “lights” were already in the universe, but now became visible to the Spirit looking up into and through the “firmament” (atmosphere), to what lay beyond. Therefore, they were not placed or set in the firmament, but given or appointed (when God parted the clouds) in order to be the daily, seasonal, and yearly signs needed by the advanced life forms God was about to create.
Here is my translation of day four in light of this and a previous paper:
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse (sky) to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse (sky) to give light upon the earth." And it was so.
(God had made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars)
And God appointed them in the expanse (sky) to shine upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
I didn't read the first posts in the thread where the discussion of death pre-fall was happening, however where I chimed in at you just seemed to me more YEC in leaning. I wouldn't have guessed the opposite.