So one might ask how legitimate is the modern interpretation of certian apologists that the sun, moon, and stars were in existence as of Genesis 1:1, before Genesis 1:14-19? Here's what a very zealous Christian trying to preserve the original literal interpretation of the creation narrative has to say about it: http://ldolphin.org/waw.html
Understanding the Hebrew of Genesis One:
Star Formation and Genesis 1
by James Stambaugh*
The Institute for Creation Research: Impact Article #251, May 1994.
Most astronomers accept the idea that stars form by gravitational collapse of a cloud of gas and dust, and that this process takes a minimum of 210,000 years. (Ref. 1) The consensus is that it was the Big Bang that made all this possible. There are Christians who assert that the Bible can be harmonized with the Big Bang and this process of star formation. (Ref. 2) Dr. Hugh Ross, astronomer and minister, is the most prominent spokesman for this position. He postulates that the sun was formed before the earth and that it is wrong to view Genesis 1:14-19 as an account of the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. All God needed to do was to clear the cloudy atmosphere so that these celestial objects simply "appeared" or became visible. E.J. Young a Hebrew scholar, takes the opposite view: "That the heavenly bodies are made on the fourth day and that the earth had received light from a source other than the sun is not a naive conception, but is a plain and sober statement of the truth" (Ref. 4) These interpretations are at odds with each other, so both cannot be true. At least one of them contradicts what God said in Genesis 1:14-19 concerning Day 4.
An Historical Interpretation
It would be useful to gain some insight from an early church father, Theophilus. He differs greatly from the views of Dr. Ross and the modern cosmologists as he says:
On the fourth day the luminaries came into existence. Since God has foreknowledge, he understood the nonsense of the foolish philosophers who were going to say that the things produced on earth come from the stars, so that they might set God aside. In order therefore that the truth might be demonstrated, plants and seeds came into existence before stars. For what comes into existence later cannot cause what is prior to it. (Ref. 15).
It appears that Theophilus clearly understood the significance of this passage and would dispute current theories. We realize that when all the facts are discovered and rightly interpreted, science and Scripture will be in full agreement. Until that time, we must "take every thought captive" (2 Corinthians 10:5) and make it obedient to Christ. The Bible is to be the standard for all thought! This means that we must not seek to insert foreign ideas into the Biblical text.
Conclusion
In the beginning of this article, we drew attention to two vastly different interpretations of Genesis 1:1-19. If current theories of the origin of the universe and star formation are correct, then the Bible is wrong
. God did not say exactly how He created the stars, so we should attempt to build scientific models describing His actions, which utilize the best scientific data and that are consistent with Biblical revelation. The purpose of this article was to examine the Biblical data and determine what the Bible says about the creation of the stars. This article should be thought of as establishing a Biblical foundation upon which a scientific model can be built.
References
Theophilus, To Autolycus 2.4, Oxford Early Christian Texts, as cited in Louis Lavallee, "The Early Church Defended Creation Science" Impact 160 ICR Acts & Facts (October 1986): ii.
The truth is that the Bible and Modern Science go together like water and oil, cats and dogs, or what-have-you. The modern apologetic effort to try and claim that the old Hebrew interpretation of the bible gives the impression that the sun, moon, and stars came into existence as of Genesis 1:1 - during the prolouge before the days of creation instead of on the fourth day of creation when it's commanded into existence by God - is refuted by Hebrew scholarship! This modern apology of Dr. Ross and all others who assert a Genesis 1:1 existence of the sun, moon, and stars as well, is nothing more than yet another 'pagan heresy' according to early church Father Theophilus - to whom Luke starts off addressing in his Gospel. Theophilus clearly saw the creation of the stars right where the bible places them on the fourth day of creation when they are first made, mentioned, and set up in the sky in the narrative. And that sky was the biblical sky which was a primitive multi-leveled universe concept. Sheol below the earth, firmament above, and a greater heaven above and beyond that. Prior to Genesis 1:14 the sky was unpopulated in the narrative and prior to the second day of creation the waters above and below the earth had not yet been separated to form the firmament region of the sky that God would later set the sun, moon, and stars in.
Church Father Origen of Alexandria, being learned in the ways of the mystical side of religion and seeing beyond shallow minded "literalism", pushed for a "spiritual" interpretation of the Genesis 1 creation account:
Origen of Alexandria (185-254AD): http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04124.htm
De Principiis (Book IV) 16. Now who is there, pray, possessed of understanding, that will regard the statement as appropriate, that the first day, and the second, and the third, in which also both evening and morning are mentioned, existed without sun, and moon, and stars— the first day even without a sky? And who is found so ignorant as to suppose that God, as if He had been a husbandman, planted trees in paradise, in Eden towards the east, and a tree of life in it, i.e., a visible and palpable tree of wood, so that anyone eating of it with bodily teeth should obtain life, and, eating again of another tree, should come to the knowledge of good and evil? No one, I think, can doubt that the statement that God walked in the afternoon in paradise, and that Adam lay hid under a tree, is related figuratively in Scripture, that some mystical meaning may be indicated by it. The departure of Cain from the presence of the Lord will manifestly cause a careful reader to inquire what is the presence of God, and how anyone can go out from it. But not to extend the task which we have before us beyond its due limits, it is very easy for anyone who pleases to gather out of holy Scripture what is recorded indeed as having been done, but what nevertheless cannot be believed as having reasonably and appropriately occurred according to the historical account. The same style of Scriptural narrative occurs abundantly in the Gospels, as when the devil is said to have placed Jesus on a lofty mountain, that he might show Him from thence all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. How could it literally come to pass, either that Jesus should be led up by the devil into a high mountain, or that the latter should show him all the kingdoms of the world (as if they were lying beneath his bodily eyes, and adjacent to one mountain), i.e., the kingdoms of the Persians, and Scythians, and Indians? Or how could he show in what manner the kings of these kingdoms are glorified by men? And many other instances similar to this will be found in the Gospels by anyone who will read them with attention, and will observe that in those narratives which appear to be literally recorded, there are inserted and interwoven things which cannot be admitted historically, but which may be accepted in a spiritual signification.
So after listing a few examples of where an historical seeming account shouldn't taken historically at all, he concludes that they are to be accepted in a "spiritual signification". The first of these examples being the creation account in Genesis 1 where the sun, moon, and stars are given as coming into existence on the fourth day in the narrative when taken "literally". That's just what the bible has always said about the creation of the earth - Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English or other wise - and these early Church Fathers taught the bible in the context that it was originally written. But Origen points out that when taken "literally" as it reads, then three days go by before the sun exists and the first day goes by without the sky / firmament. He suggests that it's very ignorant to accept the creation account in the "literal" historical sense, just like every other example he listed as well. He goes into great depth on this issue in the provided link. Never once does he bring in a different "literal" interpretation where the creation of the heaven in Genesis means that the sun comes into existence right then. That wasn't suggested at all because it would be contradictory to the narrative to suggest such a thing in the first place.
It seems that modern minded Christian apologists not seeing where this all leads in the end, have taken off trying to alter the creation account in Genesis to make it seem to fit the empirical universe that we understand today, the universe where the sun and stars pre-existed the earth's formation. What Genesis actually suggests is that the sun, moon, and stars come on the fourth day after planet life. Modern science and the creation account in Genesis 1 do not accord with one another at all and by taking Dr. Ross up on investigating the Hebrew meanings of the creation we find Hebrew scholarship sticking to the same traditional story that was preached by the early church fathers in the first place. Devout Christians fully reject the assertion that Genesis 1:1 represents the sun, moon, and stars coming into existence before Genesis 1:14-19, and they reject as a modern version of an ancient pagan heresy pointed out by Theophilus!
Oil and Water!
