Genesis Day 4, Filling the Universe

Rejoice in creation’s fourth season interpreted by nature! The structured circular poetry conveys an outline of the filling of the universe viewed by science through the human perspective. Without the overburden of unbiblical “perfectionism,” the ancient text matches the evidence perfectly.

Genesis 1

¹⁴And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day (NIV).

The poetic structure fills day 1 with day 4. Structure lets the sun and moon define light and dark, and it removes the scientific problem of the existence of days before the sun existed. Such a poetic season lets the universe evolve naturally.

Cosmologically, stars come first, not like the text that introduces them as an afterthought. However, day 4 relates astral objects to their usefulness to people, and a human viewpoint eliminates the “out of order” aspect. Life on Earth uses the sun and moon to navigate in our world. Almost-humans could count days because of the sun. Early humans counted months using the moon. Staying up through the night let us discover that we could count years using the stars. For humans, understanding astral movements instituted the first long-term “science” project that had nothing to do with our survival.

However, people included the study of the lights in the sky with all things not understood. These they considered magical. Magical things involved the spiritual or divine. People invented false beliefs to explain the unexplained. Some of those still influence our thinking.

The next step in understanding planetary movement was to realize that Earth was a sphere that orbited the sun and not the center of the universe. That awareness explained the erratic motions of the planets. However, that solution was too farfetched. For over two thousand years, religion hampered the quest to understand. People insisted that the lights had to remain divine and that they circled us to affect our lives.

The writer of the biblical creation never attributes spiritual attributes to the light and darkness. He does not even name them; instead, he simply called them the greater and lesser lights. Poetically, no astral body sways our spiritual lives. They only govern our days, nights, and years. Jews and Christians must stop bestowing on creation what belongs to God alone. That is idolatry.

This text says the astral bodies govern (rule) the darkness and light on Earth (day 1), our perception of time. That is what they do, and science agrees.

To be continued: