Creation – what does the Bible actually say?

[puddleglum]

There are a lot of misconceptions about what the Bible says about creation. For example, many people think that the Bible says that God created the entire universe in six days. But is this really true? We need to take a careful look both at what the Bible says and what it doesn’t say.

The first verse consists of a declaration that God created everything.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1 ESV

The account of the six days in which our world was created begins with this statement in verse two:

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Our planet already existed at the beginning of the first day. It is described as being in darkness and covered by water. The six days do not describe the actual creation of our earth but its transformation from a chaotic condition into one which supports life.

We are not told whether the earth had just been created or had existed for some time. Bible believers are divided between two groups over this question. Young earth creationists believe that the earth had just been created in this chaotic state. Some old earth creationists believe that the world had originally been created perfect but that there was some catastrophe which brought about the condition which existed in verse two. The Bible ends by describing the creation of a new earth to replace an old one that had been corrupted by sin. Perhaps it starts the same way.

When it comes to understanding what the Bible teaches it doesn’t really matter which view of creation is true. Our present earth was created was six days just a few thousand years ago. All life, including human life, was created by God and didn’t come about by any process of evolution. The fossil evidence which some consider evidence of evolution is the result of the worldwide flood in Noah’s day. The only point of disagreement is whether or not the planet we live on was in existence before the six day creation.

(In case anyone wonders, I believe the old earth view is more likely but I can’t be absolutely certain that it is true.)

One question that arises is whether these are literal days or merely indefinite periods of time. On the first day light appears and God separates the light from the darkness, calling them day and night. The day concludes with this statement, “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.� Each subsequent day ends with a similar statement. It is obvious that each day consists of one rotation of the earth on its axis, so these were literal days.

Whether these were days were 24 hours long as our days are now would depend on whether the speed of the earth’s rotation was the same then as it is today. There is an event in the Bible that might possibly have brought about a change. The flood in Noah’s time was part of a cataclysmic event that radically changed the geography of the earth. For the waters to cover the earth, the topography must have been been different from what it was today. A description of how it was changed at the end of the flood is found in Psalm 104:6-9:

You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.

It is possible that with changes of this magnitude the speed of the earth’s rotation could have been changed. The first civilizations that developed after the flood had calendars with 360 days. Perhaps before the flood the year was in fact 360 days long and the simply retained their old calendars.

The six days only describe what happened on earth and tell us nothing about the rest of the universe. The sun was already in existence on the first day because the earth began receiving light from it then. But we don’t know whether the sun was created on the first day or whether it existed before that but there was some barrier which kept its light from reaching the earth.

Genesis 1:14 seems to contradict this.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens 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 of the heavens to give light upon the earth.�

And it was so. And God 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 set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth.

But if you read it carefully you will find that it doesn’t actually say anything about the creation of the sun and the moon. It only says that God made lights in the sky, not that he created the bodies that produced these lights. The presence of light shows that the sun already existed so there must have been some kind of cloud cover which kept the sun from being seen but still allowed its light to reach the earth. This was now removed so that the sun, moon, and stars could now be seen.

Exodus 20:11 is sometimes cited as proof that the entire universe was included in the six days.

For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Some people think it is a restatement of Genesis 1:1,

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

But the word heaven has more than one meaning in the Bible. It is used to describe the atmosphere, outer space, and the home of God. Genesis 1:1 apparently includes all three meanings, but verses 6 to 8 use the word only in the first sense.

And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.�

And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

The word earth also has more than one meaning. It can mean the planet we live on or it can mean dry land. In verses 1 and 2 it means the planet. But it has the second meaning in verse 10.

God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

It is obviously used in the second sense in Exodus because it speaks of the heaven, the earth, and the sea. If it were speaking of the planet the sea would be included in it and wouldn’t need to be mentioned separately.

The verse from Exodus is obviously using the words “heaven� and “earth� as they are used within the account of the six days rather than as they are used in verse one. It says that God made the air, the land, and the seas, and everything in them. In addition, Psalm 115:16 says,

The heavens are the Lord’s heavens,
but the earth he has given to the children of man.

Since this earth is the only part of creation given to humans it seems reasonable that the creation account would only describe how it was formed and not tell anything about the creation of the rest of the universe or about the history of our planet before he began preparing it for us to live in.

[The Tongue]

[theophilus40 wrote]........ There are a lot of misconceptions about what the Bible says about creation.

[The Tongue’s Response].......There certainly is! One only has to tune into one of Woodrow Kroll’s “Back to the Bible “ programs to realise just how many misconceptions of the bible are being spread throughout the earth via our modern communications network.

[theophilus40 wrote]........ For example, many people think that the Bible says that God created the entire universe in six days.

[The Tongue’s Response].......Correct! The bible does say that God created the entire universe in six days. But what is meant by a creative day? What time period are we looking at?

According to the Hindu religion, the days and nights of Brahma are called Manvantara or the cycle of manifestation, ‘The Great Day,’ which is a period of universal activity, that is preceded, and also followed by ‘Pralaya,’ a dark period, which to our finite minds seems as an eternity. ‘Manvantara,’ is a creative day as seen in the six days of creation in Genesis, ‘Pralaya,’ is the evening that proceeds the next creative day. The six periods of Creation and the seventh day of rest in which we now exist are referred to in the book of Genesis as the generations of the universe.

The English word “Generation,� is translated from the Hebrew “toledoth� which is used in the Old Testament in every instance as ‘births,’ or ‘descendants,’ such as “These are the generations of Adam,� or “these are the generations of Abraham, and Genesis 2: 4; These are the generations of the Universe or the heavens and earth, etc. And the ‘Great Day’ in which the seven generations of the universe are eternally repeated, is the eternal cosmic period, or the eighth eternal day in which those who attain to perfection are allowed to enter, where they shall be surrounded by great light and they shall experience eternal peace, while those who do not attain to perfection are cast back into the refining fires of the seven physical cycles that perpetually revolve within the eighth eternal cosmic cycle.

A series of worlds following one upon the other,-- each world rising a step higher than the previous world, so that every later world brings to ripeness the seeds that were imbedded in the former, and itself then prepares the seed for the universe that will follow it. Every universe from the first to the last, from the smallest to the greatest, which have been created throughout the eons of eternity, still exist in their independent Space-Time positions within the eternal and boundless cosmos.

The New international Version, the Scofield Referrence Bible, and the Companion Bible, all note that the phase in Genesis 1: 2; The earth was formless and void (Having neither shape or mass) should be correctly translated, “The earth became without form and void.� The Hebrew word “Hayah� translated “was,� means “To become, occur, come to pass, Be.� (Vines Complete Expository of Old and New Testament Words, 1985. “To Be.�)

According to the Hindu belief, when all creation is called back to the beginning, it is Krishna, who enters into the ever evolving mind that is Brahman, as the supreme Personality of Godhead. (The root to the word “Brahman� originally meant “SPEECH�)

When the “LOGOS GOD� calls all creation back to himself before creating for us a new heaven and a new earth, it is Jesus who will enter into the creator “LOGOS� as “The Supreme Personality of Godhead, the “Light of Man� and Life of the “Logos� who creates the new heavens and the new earth. (The “LOGOS� means ‘The WORD�)

The term, "the word of God," pertains to the sense that 'word' is identical to the term 'logos.' Or the mold. The mold by which the whole sense of a thing is given. In other words, the very plan from the outset.

In Sanskrit the similar meaning is given in the use of the word 'vach.' Vach means word. But in Sanskrit teachings of the Sanatana Dharma vach has many levels. Including where the word is first considered as in the mind as a thought, not as the spoken word or speech.

While we express in our spoken words, all the information that has been gathered through the senses of our bodies in the creation of the minds=spirits that are “WE�: The “LOGOS=WORD� and "BRAHMAN=SPEECH� who are the gathered information of the aeons, express that gathered information as the resurrection of the universal body in which the Godhead had developed and who is the observer of his own resurrection, when he says, “LET THERE BE LIGHT,� as HE, who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the “LOGOS� begins to die in the process of involution in order that we, who are in the process of evolution, might live again.

The “LOGOS=BRAHMAN,� is the essential divine reality of the Universe, the eternal spirit from which all being originates and to which, all must return.

Our ancient ancestors expressed the belief that our scientist today are just beginning to come to terms with, and that is, that following each “Big Bang� there Comes the “Big Crunch,� when this universe is condensed once again, into the infinitely dense, infinitely hot, infinitesimally small singularity from which it originated.

The Buddhists also believe that the universe exists in two different states, one as the physical three dimensional body in which we are the living receptors that feed into the developing mind of the Godhead to the physical body, and the invisible spiritual state, where the Godhead to this physical universal body, after it has descended into the great Abyss=Black Hole, is born into the God Family within the invisible inner dimension that co-exists within this one.

Universe after universe is like an interminable succession of wheels forever coming into view, forever rolling onwards, disappearing and reappearing; forever passing from being to non being, and again from non being to being. In short, the constant revolving of the wheel of life in one eternal cycle, according to fixed and immutable laws, is perhaps after all the sum and substance of the philosophy of Buddhism. And this eternal wheel has so to speak, six spokes representing six forms of existence.� ---- Mon. Williams, Buddhism, pp. 229, 122.

[theophilus40 wrote]........ But is this really true? (That God created the universe in six days) We need to take a careful look both at what the Bible says and what it doesn’t say.

The first verse consists of a declaration that God created everything.

Quote: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1 ESV

The account of the six days in which our world was created begins with this statement in verse two:

Quote: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Our planet already existed at the beginning of the first day. It is described as being in darkness and covered by water. The six days do not describe the actual creation of our earth but its transformation from a chaotic condition into one which supports life.

[The Tongue’s Response].......And this misconception came from that which you learned from watching and listening to Woodrow Kroll’s “Back to the Bible “ programs, did it?

The planet earth was not created until the second period of universal activity, or the second creation period.

The biblical account of the creation was recorded in such a way that it was acceptable to all the ages of man, and is capable of adapting with the changing=evolving concepts of man according to the ever accumulation of incoming data.

In the beginning God created the universe=heavens and earth, and the earth was formless and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and God’s active force was moving on the face of the waters.

In the beginning, there was the “BIG BANG� which spatially separated the infinitely dense, infinitely hot, infinitesimally small singularity, which event spewed out liquid like (the waters) electromagnetic energy in the trillions of degrees, it was from the quantum of that liquid like electromagnetic energy (Waters) that the earth and all the heavenly bodies were created, and although all that the earth was created from, was already there in the beginning, the earth at that time had neither shape=formless nor mass=void, and no suns had yet come into existence to light up the darkness of the expanding space, but there was movement within that ever cooling cosmic cloud of wave particles which are the quantum of that liquid like electromagnetic energy, which waves have zero mass and no electric charge, yet they carry angular and linear momentum.

One would expect, that those wave particles which are the quantum of the liquid like (Waters) electro magnetic energy, would have continued to expand further and further away from each other in the expansion of the universal building material, but with the momentum of those waves they were attracted to each other in the creation of the first sub-atomic particles, which themselves were attracted to each other in the creation of the first basic atoms.

As the universal temperature dropped to some billions of degrees, the dark energy which was the expansion’s acceleration force, began to form into dark matter, hydrogen and helium, with trace quantities of lithium, beryllium, and boron. As the universe expanded and cooled, more hydrogen molecules were formed, and from these came the formation of the first generation stars.

And God said, “Let there be light."

According to the best theory we have today as to the origin of this generation of the universe, it was some 14 billion years ago, that an immense explosion, known as the Big Bang, spewed out massive amounts of liquid like electromagnetic energy in the trillions of degrees, creating a rapidly expanding universe. Within moments of the explosion, the universal temperature had dropped to some billions of degrees, and the gathering vibrating waves, which were the quantum of that energy, collided in nuclear fusion reactions to form hydrogen and helium and when the universal temperature had cooled to a point where fusion stopped generating these basic elements, it left hydrogen as the dominant component from which the first generation stars were created, in which massive atomic reactors, the more heavier elements, such as carbon and oxygen, would be created.

Those first stars were anything up to 1000 times as massive as the Sun and millions of times as bright, but they burned for only a few million years before meeting a violent end, when they collapsed in upon themselves creating the massively centrally condensed system (Black Holes) in which the greater percentage of their mass was trapped. It was from the nebular cloud, which was the residue of the heaver elements that were exploded off with the great super nova, which was the death of the Star, that galaxies would be formed.

Those galaxies today, are being gathered together by their own gravitational attraction, and will one day become so condensed that the elements will become so excited, they will burn up, and this particular galactic cluster will become a super massive body of unapproachable light, which will eventually collapse into its own centrally condensed system where that energised body will be torn to pieces molecule by molecule, atom by atom, sub-atomic particle by sub-atomic particle, and reconverted into the electromagnetic energy from which they were created and accelerated along the dark worm hole to speeds far, far in excess of the speed of light, where that liquid like Magnetic energy is spewed out in the trillions of degrees, somewhere far beyond the visible horizon of the boundless cosmos, where, from the cooling quantum of that electromagnetic energy a new universe is created, to which the light from its old position in space-time, would take billions upon billions of years to reach it.

TO BE CONTINUED:

[The Tongue]

[theophilus40 wrote]........ We are not told whether the earth had just been created or had existed for some time.

We “ARE� told, that in the beginning, God created the earth, but at that point in time it had neither shape or mass, and although it was in the process of being created as a planet in the second day, it was not until the third period of universal activity, that it was completed with its oceans and all.

[theophilus40 wrote]........ Bible believers are divided between two groups over this question. Young earth creationists believe that the earth had just been created in this chaotic state. Some old earth creationists believe that the world had originally been created perfect but that there was some catastrophe which brought about the condition which existed in verse two. The Bible ends by describing the creation of a new earth to replace an old one that had been corrupted by sin. Perhaps it starts the same way.

When it comes to understanding what the Bible teaches it doesn’t really matter which view of creation is true. Our present earth was created was six days just a few thousand years ago. All life, including human life, was created by God and didn’t come about by any process of evolution. The fossil evidence which some consider evidence of evolution is the result of the worldwide flood in Noah’s day. The only point of disagreement is whether or not the planet we live on was in existence before the six day creation.

(In case anyone wonders, I believe the old earth view is more likely but I can’t be absolutely certain that it is true.)

Well my friend, I am absolutely certain that none of the above, whether the young earth creationists, or the old earth view are correct, as this earth which was created in the third creative day, was created through the process of gradual growth=evolution, some 4.5 billion years ago, almost ten billion years after the Big Bang.

[theophilus40 wrote]........ One question that arises is whether these are literal days or merely indefinite periods of time.

Well one thing is for certain, they were not 24 hour days, as the sun, around which revolves the earth in 24 hour periods, was not created until the fourth period of universal activity.

The first to light up the darkness of deep space was the massive first generation stars, which would have been turned on and died in sequences over billions and billions of years, and with the supernova of the last of those stars, darkness descended which was the evening and the beginning of the second period of darkness and light.

On the second day, after the supernova of the first born of those stars, the active force of God was moving on the face of the great nebula cloud, that was the residue of a first generation star, that blew off a small percentage of its mass, before collapsing into a centrally condensed system so great, that not even light could escape from the massive Black Hole around which the nebula cloud that would become this galaxy slowly began to rotate.

The accretion galactic nebula disk transferred angular momentum outward as it transferred mass inward, it was this that caused our solar nebula to begin to rotate and condense inward, bringing a division of the solar cloud, from the galactic cloud, or the waters above from the waters below.

As the piece of our galactic cloud, called the solar nebula collapsed, its slight rotation increased. This is because of the conservation of angular momentum.

Centrifugal effects eventually caused the outer parts of the Solar nebula to flatten into a disk, while the core of the solar nebula would in time, form the Sun. The planets formed from material in the disk, at the centre of which, was the proto-sun.

As gravity pulled the gas and dust together, the solar nebula, just like a dancer that spins faster as she pulls in her arms, began to spin faster and faster as it collapsed. Eventually, the cloud grew hotter and denser in the centre, but cool at the edges. As the disk got thinner and thinner, particles began to stick together and form clumps. Some clumps, which had received angular momentum from the spinning Solar nebula disk, got bigger and bigger, as particles and small clumps stuck to them, eventually forming the spinning planets and moons of our solar system.

[theophilus40 wrote]........ On the first day light appears and God separates the light from the darkness, calling them day and night.

Correct! That first period of universal activity, which was lit up by successive forming and dying first generation stars over billions and billions of Years, was called the First day, and our solar system of planets, moons and our sun, was not created until the fourth of those greater creative days.

[theophilus40 wrote]........ The day concludes with this statement, “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.� Each subsequent day ends with a similar statement.

Correct!

[theophilus40 wrote]........ It is obvious that each day consists of one rotation of the earth on its axis, so these were literal days.

Obvious to “Woodrow Kroll� and yourself perhaps, but no one who believes the biblical truth, that our Solar system, which includes the sun and the earth, were not created until the fourth creative day, simply laugh at such a ridiculous suggestion.

[theophilus40 wrote]........ Whether these were days were 24 hours long as our days are now would depend on whether the speed of the earth’s rotation was the same then as it is today.

The biblical six days of creation, have nothing to do with our minor sun that was created on the fourth creative day.

I thank the Lord, that Satan and his disciples have not been able to deceive the greater majority of the body of mankind into believing that ridiculous belief by the small minority who listen to Woodrow kroll and other charlatans, who apparently preach that the Cosmos was created in six literal 24 hour days.

TO BE CONTINUED: