Literal reading of Genesis 1&2

Bible is not a Cosmology text book but a book that explains man- how he came to be, how he fell from grace and how is reconciled back to God. So everything including the creation account is in relation to man.

The six day creation account is in relation to man- if man is created in the 6th day, there must be 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th day. The account starts with a general statement (God created the heavens and earth) and quickly narrows down to the conditions that would make it possible for man to live and then last, man becomes the focus from that point onward. So God had man in mind when He created all those things including the heavens.

There are no 2 creation accounts, it is just one, the six days creation, Genesis 2 is already being written in the point of view of man, to bring to the fore how man failed. In genesis 2 you don't expect to see light and moon and stars because it focuses on man's responsibility.

Were the creation days 24hrs? yes, i believe they were because:

1. Each day passed as an evening and morning

2. God creates with Knowledge and wisdom and will
If you know something, how it works, then you won't take billions of years through trial and error. God already had a plan - meaning that the universe already existed in the mind of God so actualization could not take billions or millions of years.

3. 6 days account is not for the creation of heavens and earth but for making life conducive for man here on earth. The heavens and earth were already in place before day one but we also can not say they were created billions or millions of years before.

4. There's no evidence that the earth is old - scientific or not, it is speculation.

5. The concept of time.
Time is a construct of a conscious mind and without the mind, time doesn't exist. It means that if God tells as there was a beginning, we as men can not speculate anything before that, we have no right. Time is not and can not be extrapolated beyond what we experience with our minds.

Amazing how people can misinterpret Scripture and misunderstand Bible truth.

The Bible clearly says that GOD IS LIGHT, which is to be taken literally. God is divine and ineffable light. CHRIST IS LIGHT. And when the saints are glorified they will radiate light just like the angels.

The Bible does not say that god was in darkness but that darkness was over the earth and the waters surrounding the earth initially. Big difference.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

I enjoyed reading your comment, and indeed it's not that big of a deal, sure 6 days is possibe or 1 day or 14.4 biilion years as well, and or like scripture says in one single breath not breaths but breath and still going today very possible any of these can be IMO.

About the evidence you mentioned, does the bible say the earth is young or is that because Man has added up equated the years in the genologuy so it must be?

I think genealogy can not be very accurate but the bible generally points to young earth.

Your statement is misleading. Yes, Jesus is the light but He was not illuminating, we know He was flesh and bones like you and me.

Looks like you missed reading about the Transfiguration, Paul on the road to Damascus, and the first chapter of Revelation.

Jesus is now the Lord Jesus Christ and is literally and spiritually LIGHT. Believe it instead of arguing about it.

ACTS 22
6 And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.

7 And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

8 And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.

9 And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.

10 And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do.

11 And when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus.

12 And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there,

13 Came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him.

14 And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth.

What did Paul see when he saw the Just One? CHRIST AS LIGHT WHICH BLINDED HIM.

Some of the times I read things about history on the Internet with a grain of salt but I have read about the 6,000 yr old earth thing, The 6,000 year age was arrived at by James Ussher, a 17th century Irish Archbishop who counted up estimates of the ages of Abraham’s family listed in the Old Testament and calculated that the creation began (on the Julian calendar) on Saturday, October 22, 4004 BC, at 6 pm. could he really dial it in down to the day year and hour huh I wonder abou that.

That would be a very difficult thing to do; during Joshua's time, the sun stood for about 3 hours and it affected the duration of the day somehow- i don't know if God compensated that or if there were more such incidents that were never recorded but it is very difficult to pin point the time/ day/ week/month.

I can't believe I read through four pages of all these suppositions, and there are many. Speculating about the makeup of time and light. Has it gotten this complicated to serve God?

Trofimus, you started all this. I think this one sentence by Deut. says it all:
Genesis 2:19 is a statement of fact, a summary/restating of how part of the Creation was accomplished/Who it was accomplished by, not a reordering of the chronological events from Chapter 1.

Then someone suggests the gap theory and you don't want to hear it. Yet you are saying you think the old earth is correct. Well, I hate to have to tell you those theories go together.

When all you Einsteins get done figuring out space-time and whether light moves, why not just pray and ask your heavenly Father how much of this you can understand. You will probably get told when you can understand God's makeup and how it relates to the universe, then you will know these things. Until then, be content looking through glass darkly.

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I can't believe I read through four pages of all these suppositions, and there are many. Speculating about the makeup of time and light. Has it gotten this complicated to serve God?

Trofimus, you started all this. I think this one sentence by Deut. says it all:
Genesis 2:19 is a statement of fact, a summary/restating of how part of the Creation was accomplished/Who it was accomplished by, not a reordering of the chronological events from Chapter 1.

Then someone suggests the gap theory and you don't want to hear it. Yet you are saying you think the old earth is correct. Well, I hate to have to tell you those theories go together.

When all you Einsteins get done figuring out space-time and whether light moves, why not just pray and ask your heavenly Father how much of this you can understand. You will probably get told when you can understand God's makeup and how it relates to the universe, then you will know these things. Until then, be content looking through glass darkly.

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Light travel argument is circular reasoning. Speed of light = 299792458 m/s, the second in this rate is already in relation to earth's movement against the sun. So, for one to get the speed of light, the earth must exist rotating constantly to give us time- you can't use the same rate for dating the earth.

Saying that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and the earth is 4.5 billion years old doesn't make sense. The light traveled at an earth 'dependent' speed for 9 billion years before the earth was fully formed.

I know most argue that right now we know the speed of light and can use it, i don't believe that light travels.

When God said let there be light the sun came into existence and the sun provided light for the day.

In the new heaven and the new earth there will be no sun but the glory of God will be the light therein and there will be no night.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

Because this solution took like one short sentence, I think the description "simple" fits very well

Personal consequences of this simple solution for people who based a significant portion of their theology or worldview on literalism (YEC, flat earth, solid dome, science is conspiracy etc.) can be complex and deep, but that's another, rather psychological issue, IMHO.

First off, the universe is not measured and aged by light, it is measured by red lines that indicate expansion. Secondly, the stars we see just within our own galaxy (yes, there are hundreds of galaxies)(how do we know?)(patterns which is a form of mathematics)(we know what our own galaxy looks like from our satellites - and through high powered telescopes we can see other galaxies that look identical to ours)...back to the stars within our own galaxy - they are literally hundred thousand miles away from the sun. They are so far away from us, when a star gives off light today, we literally are seeing it from several days ago even though we see the same star every night. Even the sun is far enough away from Pluto it takes more than a day for Pluto to see it (even though they see it every day).

And that is the beauty of earth how God created it (3rd rock from the sun). We see it literally every day, because it causes plant life and trees to grow for our benefit to live.

Look at science this way, more people do not believe in God and yet a doctor saves many of their lives through medicine, operations, biology. God does not perform miracles for all of us all of the time. Some times those weak in faith are healed by a doctor's suggestion. This ultimately means, to a degree, doctors (who are scientists and biologists) do understand the human anatomy and perform miracles through surgeries and medicines (now, I am not suggesting we want medicine, but some do need it).

But the fact, doctors who are both scientists and biologists, have knowledge that saves lives. This is the same for Astrophysicists and physicists. Many of them have enough knowledge to create theories, and some of those theories are correct.

No, they don't hold the important answers. But they do help us understand scripture out of their own ignorance and denial when we find situations within the scripture that deals things like the age of the earth being older than 6,000 years, by cleaning teeth of bones of dinosaurs and humans to know they ate plants that only grew well before Adam (there are plants that once grew on earth and no longer exist - they were destroyed between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 when the earth became void and formless like Jeremiah 4: 23-27 suggests). There are trees that have age rings currently older than 6,000 years, ice rings older than 15,000 years, rock varnish older than 20,000 years. I am not suggestion millions of years old, but I am suggesting that anything we mathematically age near 50,000 years is as close to accurate as it possibly gets.

It's like Galileo stated: Mathematics is the alphabet by which God created the universe!!

That somewhat humorous note aside, the reason why millennia of both Jewish and Christian theologians and linguistic scholars have never seen the "contradiction" that you are insisting exists

Thats not true. Many of them in history saw it and tried to solve it in various ways. For example to solve problem with light before sun, some said that "light" are angels, not literal light. Etc.

For example Augustin, Clement of Alexandria, Origen did not read Gen 1 as calendar days.

"Augustine argues that the first two chapters of Genesis are written to suit the understanding of the people at that time. In order to communicate in a way that all people could understand, the creation story was told in a simpler, allegorical fashion. Augustine also believed God created the world with the capacity to develop, a view that is harmonious with biological evolution"
https://biologos.org/common-questions/biblical-interpretation/early-interpretations-of-genesis

Allegorical explanation of Genesis was quite common.