.
• Gen 1:9 . . 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.
At this point, dry land as yet had no soil because at first it would've been
bare rock; and there's not only a lot of it, but quite a bit of it is very scenic
too.
One of my favorite geological wonders is Arches National Park in Utah USA,
and another is Canyon Lands National Park, also in Utah. Some very smart
people have yet to figure out how nature formed the amazing features in
those areas; but I guessing that God, the most skillful painter/sculptor that
there is, did it because He wanted to leave His mark on the Earth by creating
something spectacular.
"He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. 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." (Ps 104:5-9)
That passage is stunning; and clearly way ahead of its time. Mountains
rising, and valleys sinking speaks of magma pressure and tectonic plate
subduction-- on-going titanic forces that keep the Earth's surface in a
perpetual state of alteration.
Now, it's right about here that young-earth theorists have a problem
because it's obvious from physical evidence that much of the Earth's higher
elevations were inundated for a very long time before they were pushed up
to where they are now.
Take for example Mount Everest. Today its tippy top is something like
29,029 feet above sea level. The discovery of fossilized sea lilies near its
summit proves that the Himalayan land mass has not always been
mountainous; but at one time was the floor of an ancient sea bed. This is
confirmed by the "yellow band" below Everest's summit consisting of
limestone: a type of rock made from calcite sediments containing the
skeletal remains of countless trillions of organisms who lived, not on dry
land, rather, underwater in an ocean.
Anyway; soil formation is a very slow process, sometimes taking as long as
a millennium to make just one inch; which at first would consist of little
more than powdered rock. In order for soil to become really productive, it
needs organic material mixed with it. So it's my guess that the very first
vegetation that God created were species that thrive on stone, and little by
little their remains would amend the powder to increase its fertility.
Some of the lyrics of one of AC/DC's songs says: "It's a long way to the top
if you wanna rock 'n roll". Well, it was an even longer ways to the soil from
which human life was eventually brought into viable existence.
• Gen 1:10 . . And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together
of the waters He called Seas: and God saw that it was good.
"good" meaning not that the dry ground and seas are morally acceptable,
but rather, perfectly suitable for the purposes that God had in mind for
them.
NOTE: There are Hebrew words in the Bible for marshes, rivers, and
streams; but I've yet to encounter one for lakes and ponds. In other words
"seas" suffices not only for oceans; but also for smaller accumulations. (A
rather curious sea is located at 1Kings 7:23-26)
_
• Gen 1:9 . . 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.
At this point, dry land as yet had no soil because at first it would've been
bare rock; and there's not only a lot of it, but quite a bit of it is very scenic
too.
One of my favorite geological wonders is Arches National Park in Utah USA,
and another is Canyon Lands National Park, also in Utah. Some very smart
people have yet to figure out how nature formed the amazing features in
those areas; but I guessing that God, the most skillful painter/sculptor that
there is, did it because He wanted to leave His mark on the Earth by creating
something spectacular.
"He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. 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." (Ps 104:5-9)
That passage is stunning; and clearly way ahead of its time. Mountains
rising, and valleys sinking speaks of magma pressure and tectonic plate
subduction-- on-going titanic forces that keep the Earth's surface in a
perpetual state of alteration.
Now, it's right about here that young-earth theorists have a problem
because it's obvious from physical evidence that much of the Earth's higher
elevations were inundated for a very long time before they were pushed up
to where they are now.
Take for example Mount Everest. Today its tippy top is something like
29,029 feet above sea level. The discovery of fossilized sea lilies near its
summit proves that the Himalayan land mass has not always been
mountainous; but at one time was the floor of an ancient sea bed. This is
confirmed by the "yellow band" below Everest's summit consisting of
limestone: a type of rock made from calcite sediments containing the
skeletal remains of countless trillions of organisms who lived, not on dry
land, rather, underwater in an ocean.
Anyway; soil formation is a very slow process, sometimes taking as long as
a millennium to make just one inch; which at first would consist of little
more than powdered rock. In order for soil to become really productive, it
needs organic material mixed with it. So it's my guess that the very first
vegetation that God created were species that thrive on stone, and little by
little their remains would amend the powder to increase its fertility.
Some of the lyrics of one of AC/DC's songs says: "It's a long way to the top
if you wanna rock 'n roll". Well, it was an even longer ways to the soil from
which human life was eventually brought into viable existence.
• Gen 1:10 . . And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together
of the waters He called Seas: and God saw that it was good.
"good" meaning not that the dry ground and seas are morally acceptable,
but rather, perfectly suitable for the purposes that God had in mind for
them.
NOTE: There are Hebrew words in the Bible for marshes, rivers, and
streams; but I've yet to encounter one for lakes and ponds. In other words
"seas" suffices not only for oceans; but also for smaller accumulations. (A
rather curious sea is located at 1Kings 7:23-26)
_
I'm just now looking at this forum so not sure exactly where you stand, but Genesis says this is an 'account' of Creation. It is laid out as an account in simple terms so that even a child would be able to understand it. You mentioned the arches in Utah--those were created by the worldwide flood just as The grand canyon was--we see a myriad of creatures encased in sediment--this is only possible if it happened quickly--otherwise the would rot--the even have fossils which show creatures being birthed. Genesis says God created the world in six days and I believe it--we need to remember God spoke it into being--also he spoke it into being 'outside of time'--therefore time is irrelevant. Six days is how we would have observed it had we been there on the first day. It's difficult to wrap our minds around since we live inside of time.
Also you mentioned something about the sea and mountains--i can't view at the moment, but it sounds like you think it would take a great length of time to occur, however scripture says that 'mountains rose up and valleys sunk down' this is noted in Psalms and elsewhere--this also occurred during the world wide flood when water burst forth from under the ground from tectonic shifts. This article explains it better than I can.
If continental separation did occur, the only place within the Bible framework where it could fit would be during Noah's Flood. The cause of Noah's Flood is described in tectonic terms: "all the fountains of the great deep broken up" (Genesis 7:11). The Hebrew word for "broken up" is baga and is used in other Old Testament passages (Zechariah 14:4; Numbers 16:31) to refer to the geologic phenomena of faulting. The mechanism for retreat of the Flood waters is also associated with tectonics. Psalm 104:6,7 describes the abating of the waters which stood above the mountains; the eighth verse properly translated says, "The mountains rose up; the valleys sank down." It is interesting to note that the "mountains of Ararat" (Genesis 8:4), the resting place of the Ark after the 150th day of the Flood, are in a tectonically active region at the junction of three lithospheric plates.11
https://www.icr.org/article/continental-drift-plate-tectonics-bible/