Genesis Chapter 1, Verses 6-19

I find myself a bit confused about the order of creation as it’s presented in the Bible.

God creates light on the first day, but it isn’t until the fourth day that he creates the objects from which light is derived, i.e. the Moon, the Sun and the stars. If this is the case, what was the source of light on the first day, and what caused this light to wink out at night? There is no Sun as of yet, so are we to believe that God is just tossing around balls of light like confetti for the first four days?

The Biblical reference to the creation of the stars is also interesting. It’s written as almost an afterthought, or more likely the subsequent addition to an obvious oversight. Verse 16 reads:

And 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.

Millions of stars in the heavens, stretching out across trillions of miles, and all they garner are five simple words, tacked onto the end of a rather grandiose description of the Sun and Moon? It sounds like the awkwardly placed addendum to an embarrassing omission if you ask me.

Speaking of omissions, God also fails to mention the many other sources of light that he presumably created, like planets, comets, and asteroids. In fact, Venus is often the first and brightest light in the night sky (other than the Moon), and Mars can be quite bright dependent upon the time of year. Yet these celestial objects, unrecognized by human beings as planets until less than a thousand years ago (even the Greeks referred to the planets as “tramp stars) fail to receive mention in God’s litany of creations.

What gives? Did God really forget to mention the existence of the second brightest source of light in the night sky?

In terms of confusing of order of creation, it should also be noted that God creates plant life on the third day (verses 11-13), one full day before there is a Sun to provide the sunlight required for photosynthesis. Whatever mysterious, unnamed light source that God created on day one is apparently sufficient for these grasses, herbs, and fruit trees to survive until God gets around to creating the Sun on the next day.

One can almost picture a white-bearded God standing on a mountaintop, suddenly realizing that the plants he just created were in need of sunlight:

“Let the Earth bring forth grasses, the herb yielding seed, and the… oh crap. I forgot the damn Sun. Oh well, I’ll just keep sprinkling my lighted confetti until the end of the day and plop a ball of nuclear fission in the sky tomorrow. Now where was I? Oh yes. And the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind…”

Plausible, I guess, if you are willing to accept the existence of a temporary light source other than the Sun that allows for day and night. Temporary, of course, because this unidentified light source no longer exists as far as I can tell, yet the Bible never acknowledges its disappearance. Essentially, we are to believe that God created light on the first day from an unknown source, allowed this light to serve as the demarcation between day and night for four full days, and then replaced this light source with the Sun and Moon, making no mention of the unidentified light source’s elimination.

This is one hell of a forgetful God.