I don't really understand the controversy. I'm most likely to annoy both Bible scholars and scientists but I thought I'd give you my working Hypothesis on both and see what you guys thought. Again please remember what a hypothesis is. I'm quite willing to test and revise it if needed. For we should seek GOD's truth and not our own understanding or "rightness" on matters pertaining to the world.
Early Earth - National Geographic Magazine
"Its birth pangs began some 4.6 billion years ago as rock and ice particles swirling around the young sun collided and merged, snowballing to produce ever larger planetary building blocks. In violent pileups, they smashed together to create planets, including the infant Earth. In the turmoil, another body, as big as Mars, struck our planet with the energy of trillions of atomic bombs, enough to melt it all the way through. Most of the impactor was swallowed up in the bottomless magma ocean it created. But the collision also flung a small world’s worth of vaporized rock into orbit. Debris quickly gathered itself into a ball, and since then Earth history has unfolded beneath the blank stare of the moon.
After the moon’s fiery birth, the Earth’s surface cooled. Even so, our planet remained an alien world for the next 700 million years; scientists call this time the Hadean, after the Greek underworld. Rafts of solid rock drifted in the magma like dark ice floes. Gases hissed from the cooling rock—carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water vapor, and others—enveloping the planet in a scalding atmosphere
devoid of oxygen. As the temperature dropped further, the steam condensed into rain that fell in primordial monsoons and filled the ocean basins.
These first oceans may have been short-lived. Space rubble left over from the birth of the planets—chunks of rock tens to hundreds of miles across—bombarded Earth throughout the Hadean. The greatest impacts might have boiled the oceans away, forcing the process of cooling and condensation to begin again.
By 3.8 billion years ago the impacts relented. Liquid water could persist. About that time, perhaps in the oceans,
lifeless chemical reactions crossed a threshold, producing molecules complex enough to reproduce themselves and evolve toward greater complexity. Life was on a road that led, as early as 3.5 billion years ago, to single-celled, blue-green cyanobacteria that flourished in the sunlit parts of the oceans. By the trillions, these microscopic organisms transformed the planet. They captured the energy of the sun to make food, releasing oxygen as a waste product. Little by little they turned the atmosphere into breathable air, opening the way to the diversity of life that followed."
Genesis 1
The History of Creation
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was[a] on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
Ok what do you think it means that "darkness was on the face of the deep" and notice that "the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters?"
Let there be light I always thought was the lightening that released oxygen from the water like in the Urey and Miller experiments.... Now how can we have day and night when the sun and moon and stars aren't formed until day 4? If the light was lightening or the movement of electrons or energy ,then wouldn't it make more sense for the night to be matter or "darkness" which "was on the face of the deep"? I'm not sure but it doesn't sound like our typical day and night as we would define them without a sun and moon.
6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7 Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.
ok this is when God created the atmosphere and our ozone, oxygen and "Heaven" and "waters were divided from waters" Without our ozone, life would not be possible because
'These first oceans may have been short-lived. Space rubble left over from the birth of the planets—chunks of rock tens to hundreds of miles across—bombarded Earth throughout the Hadean. The greatest impacts might have boiled the oceans away, forcing the process of cooling and condensation to begin again"
that would have continued to happen and God protects us from asteroids and other things people forget to thank God for....
should we go to day 3 and 4 of creation?
9 Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 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.
11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 So the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.