1. Science and the Bible A Course of Study by Dr. David C
Science and the Bible A Course of Study by Dr. David C. Bossard Fall, 2007
This is week 8 in a course of study in Science and the Bible.
Last week we talked about some general views on how to read Genesis 1, and introduced the views of St. Augustine and Dr. Allan MacRae.
We also discussed various ways to interpret the meaning of "day" and particularly noted that Dr. MacRae, a Hebrew and archaeological scholar,
denied that there was any necesssity to take the 6 days of creation to mean 24-hour days.
Today we will start to examine the Creation account in some detail, working verse by verse.
Week 8
Genesis 1, Day 1

2. Genesis 1:1-2 Before Day One
[ESV, KJV, NIV, etc.] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
[Young's Literal] In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth --
This says at least the following:
• There was a beginning: The universe and matter are not eternal.
• Time had a beginning: Time is created; God is outside of time.
• God existed before the universe existed (compare John 1:1,2)
• The Nature "gods" are not gods at all.
-- All of the things (sun, moon, earth) that are worshipped
by pagans are actually created by the one God, who
alone is worthy of worship.
[I think this is a major point of the creation account]
Recall Augustine's remark.

3. Genesis 1:1-2 Before Day One
[ESV, KJV, NIV, etc.] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
[Young's Literal] In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth --
Q: Is this a summary of the creation further described in the following, or does it
refer to the initial creation, up to the formation of an "unformed" earth?
Recall Augustine's suggestion, quoted earlier:
"all that God made is to be included and brought to mind first in a
general way, and that then the matter of creation is to be worked
out in detail."
What does verse 1 refer to? Is is an overall summary, or a statement of what happened in the beginning? We discussed this a bit last week,
Since Augustine held to the view that the entire creation -- all of Genesis 1 and 2 -- was done in an instant, or at least outside of time (which is itself part of
creation), I suggest that he takes the summary view.
Dr. Newman's suggestion in the presentation we saw last week, is that verses one and two bring us up to the initial formation of the Earth, and set the stage for
Day One, which begins in verse 3.
Dr. Newman suggests that verses 1 and 2 cover the original creation of the
universe up to the initial formation of the Solar System and Earth out of a
primordial dust cloud (about 10 billion years).

4. Genesis 1:1-2 Before Day One
[ESV, KJV, NIV, etc.] 1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
[ESV] 2 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.
[NIV] 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
The meaning of "formless and void"
• Augustine: The earth before there was an earth. He talks about
"formation of a formless being." ibid. §1.4, p23.
• Newman: The earth just after it congealed out of the dirt cloud
during the formation of the solar system.
Actually things aren't quite so simple as that. Let's look at verses 1 and 2 together.
Augustine's view reflects the Greek science and philosophy of his day, which held that "form" is an essential feature of solid matter: there are four basic
substances: earth, air, fire and water. But what distinguishes one "kind" of earth -- a diamond for example -- from another kind of earth -- a clay pot -- is
the "form" of the solid. Thus to say something is "formless" meant to this view that it was not yet a legitimate substance -- an empty idea, so to speak. Hence
"the earth before there was an earth."
Dr. Newman's presentation suggests that the "formless and void" refers to the earth after it congealed from the dirt cloud when the solar system formed.
It's just a dirt ball. Originally molten due to the heat of impact of bombardments from the dirt cloud , it gradually solidified and "outgassed" water vapor
which ultimately condensed into the oceans. The initial solid earth was fairly smooth so that it was covered with water -- he says to a depth of 2 miles,
but I think that is a bit of an over-estimate. My information says about 800 feet. The darkness was due to the density of the dirt cloud which obscured
the sun and stars, and also due to a thick cloud cover over the earth at this time (which clears up in Day 4).

5. Genesis 1:1-2 Formation of the earth
Here are some artist's views of how the earth formed -- these illustrate Dr. Newman's understanding, and follow the current scientific concensus.
The Sun is a second (or later) generation star. The reason is that the elements found in the Sun and the solar system include elements that cannot be formed
In first generation stars -- all elements heavier than nickel and iron. Such elements are created when first generation stars die in a phenomenal
explosion called a supernova. This explosion is so powerful that heavy elements form when atoms are whammed together with great violence. Uranium, for
example, is formed in this way.
The intial dirtball that eventually became the solar system was the remnants of such a supernova explosion. As the dirtball came together under gravitational
attraction, it got hotter and hotter, and its shape became at first roughly spherical (pic 1). The ball spun faster and faster and bulged out as it contracted (pic 2)
And the center eventually got hot enough so it ignited into our sun. Chunks of the dirtball collided and swept out the dirt, forming the planets.

6. Genesis 1:1-2 Formation of the earth (2)
Stage 2
Here are some artist's views of the dirt cloud, with the sun ignited in the center and the future planets gradually sweeping out the debris in their orbits.

7. Genesis 1:1-2 Formation of the earth (3)
Stage 2
This shows the earth plowing through the cloud of debris. Collisions tend to cause the debris to melt and heat up the earth, so that eventually the
earth is a molten sphere.

8. Genesis 1:1-2 Before Day One
[ESV, KJV, NIV, etc.] 1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
[ESV] 2 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.
[NIV] 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
The meaning of "formless and void"
• Augustine: The earth before there was an earth. He talks about
"formation of a formless being." ibid. §1.4, p23.
 • Newman: The earth after it congealed out of the dirt cloud
during the formation of the solar system. Covered with water.
• Scofield: A primordial chaos (the "gap"?)
1st Ed (1917): "The earth made waste by judgment (Jer. 4:23-26)"
2nd Ed (1967): "Two views: Original Chaos or Divine Judgment"
• My View: push the time back to the very beginning of the universe, befoe
earth formation. (cf. St. Augustine). "deep", "waters" = "fluid" and "darkness"
refer to the primordial chaos of the early universe. -- say more later.
Continuing with Dr. Newman's view: The darkness expresses the time before the Sun ignited, or perhaps the fact that in the early stages of the earth, after it
formed and cooled from a molten state, the earth was fairly smooth so that it was covered everywhere with hundreds of feet of water
that had "outgassed" during the cooling process.
The original Scofield Bible has the heading "The earth made waste by judgment" over verse 2. The Second Edition has a more neutral heading with a
footnote giving two main views. The "divine judgment" view favors a gap theory which Scofield suggests permits geological evidence for an old earth to
be consistent with a re-creation described in the Genesis account. Scofield (1st Ed., note 3) suggests: "Relegate fossils to the primitive creation, and no conflict
of science with the Genesis cosmogony remains." The judgment was of Satan and the fallen angels. This gap theory has fallen out of favor
since the time of Scofield, for reasons that we may discuss at some future time.
Note that ALL views begin the discussion with an ocean that covers the entire globe. This is consistent with the current view of science.
I'll say more about my view of these verses when we discuss Day 1.

9. Genesis 1:1-2 Early earth
Stage 2
This shows the early earth covered with water. The sunlight does not show through the dark clouds and volcanic debris.
Violent earthquakes and volcanoes occasionally punch up through the water, but the cones rapidly erode away, so there is no
Permanent land.

10. Genesis 1:3-5, Day One: Genesis 1:3-5
[ESV, NIV] 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light
was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the
darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
What happened when God said "Let there be light"?
Augustine takes it in the figurative sense of mental illumination:
he asks, "Is it something spiritual or material?" I think he tends to favor
spiritual, something like the "Word" of John 1:1, and "In him was light"
The Literal Interpretation of Genesis Vol. I, §1.3..7, p22.
Dr. Newman takes it to be the ignition of the Sun (which lightens the earth
but is obscured by cloud cover until day 4).
Robert C. Newman Powerpoint, Christianity and Science
I prefer to take the "light" as the original creation of energy at the very beginning.
Light is just a visible form of energy, which is the basic building material of the
elements. [cf. Einstein's formula E = mc2]. So, in effect, Day 1 begins with the
Big Bang.
Just to make things even more difficult: when does day 1 begin? At verse 1 or verse 3? Generally, the [uninspired] headings found in the translations
start the six days at verse 3, although I am sure some would dispute this.
So the next question is, what happened when God said "Let there be light"?

11. Genesis 1:3-5, Day One: Genesis 1:3-5
[ESV, NIV, ] 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light
was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the
darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
What does "He separated the light from the darkness" mean?
Some take this to mean that the earth begins to rotate, which starts off the
day/night cycle.
Dr. Newman takes it to be clearing the cosmic dirt cloud from around the
Sun so that its light (but not its shape) penetrates and lightens the earth
in its direction. The Sun becomes visible on Day 4.
I prefer to take the "darkness" in a much more physical sense -- the time in
the Big Bang reconstruction that is called "the inflation period." This period
made it (eventually) possible for matter to form, including galaxies, stars and
planets.
-- The Ariel skit.

12. Genesis 1:3-5, Day One: The Inflation
Photons 
The Ariel skit dramatizes a remarkable feature of the current understanding of how the universe began. Shortly after the Bang,
the universe suddenly expanded (much faster than the speed of light) from the size of an atom to the size of a grapefruit. From that
time to the present it has expanded at a rate just under the speed of light.
If that inflation hadn't occurred, the universe would probably have collapsed back on itself. In my view this is a great candidate for the
creation of "darkness" -- as Ariel pointed out, "nothing at all".
Incidentally, there is another candidate for when light was created -- about 300,000 years after the Big Bang, when the universe cooled
enough so electrons would be sucked up by nuclei to form proper atoms. Before this time it was so hot that the electrons would escape
the clutches of the positively-charged nuclei.
That hot state is called a plasma -- you may have heard about the solar plasma around the Sun. In a plasma all the charged electrons
and protons zoom around without being bound into neutral atoms.
Ordinary light, as we know it, is generated when electrons bounce between orbits around the nucleus of an atom. So, in one sense, there
was no light until there were proper atoms.
Inflation 

13. Genesis 1:3-5, Day One: Solar Plasma and Atoms
A photon is born
This shows how a photon is emitted when an electron drops into a lower energy state.
The right shows solar plasma - part of the solar corona that is visible during an eclipse of the Sun. Magnetic storms on the
surface of the sun produce these huge loops -- many times the size of the earth. They also produce radio static.
Solar plasma following magnetic lines of force

14. Genesis 1:3-5, Day One: Summary
[ESV, NIV] 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light
was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the
darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Just two more things to note:
Light appeared -- not "created"
It was good.
So you can see there is a lot to ponder just in the simple statement about the creation of light and darkness. I should note in wrapping up
this day that it doesn't say that God created light (as it does say in verse 1 about creation of the heavens and the earth. It just says that
God made it appear. This observation fits with all of the views of what these verses mean, because whichever way it happened, the light
"appeared" -- it was not created as such.
Also, This is the first affirmation that "it was good." which is repeated throughout the creation account.