1In the(A) beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was(B) without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3And God said,(C) "Let there be light," and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.~ Genesis 1:1-5
The first thing I notice is the both "heavens" and "earth" are not capitalized and that "heavens" is plural. I then assume that both are not proper names of places (for their lack of capitalization) and that there is more than one heaven. What are all the heavens? [Hunt 1]
I want to believe that in verse 2 the earth was not in existence since it was void and without form. I read, however, in verse 1 that God created them but I believe verse 1 was written so that is was clear who created the 'earth" and the "heavens" "in the beginning" and that who was God. Verse 2 then starts from the beginning on how it all happened.
Secondly, these verses are full of a lot of data. [Period]
HUNT #1 - What are all the "heavens"?
- First, I went to Wikipedia. There were two pages for "heaven". The first was the Heaven with the capital H and the other was the "heaven (disambiguation)". The first went through all the religions and what Heaven means to them and the latter listed all the songs, albums, movies, and literature title "Heaven". There are a lot of songs titled "Heaven". So, this doesn't really help.
- Secondly, I went to the Bible. The Bible mentions two kinds of heavens. (I guess I should have went there first.) The first found in just a few verses away in Day 2 of creation in Genesis 1:7-9. And, this "heaven" is capitalized.
7And God made[a] the expanse and(A) separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were(B) above the expanse. And it was so. 8And God called the expanse Heaven.[b] And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
9And God said,(C) "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so.
- Heaven in Verse 8 is the . . . sky. I will assume, so that I do not go crazy, that it is now a proper place and thus deemed to be Capitalized by its author. However, in Verse 9 in "heavens" is lowered in it's case again. I see that in Verse 7 there are two expanses and thus I am settled to believe that "heavens" in our Verse 1 is pluralized and in referenced to these two expanses that were created on Day 2 that were called the "heavens". I am sure to go on the hunt to when I get to Day 2 as to why there are two expanses.
Now, here in verse 3 we get our second mystery. What are the "face of the waters"? Further more, "waters" is plural. Hmm! Are there two separated waters like there were two separated heavens? [Hunt 2] Just a curious side note do you think the Spirit of God was actually "hovering"?
HUNT #2 - What are the "waters"?
- Learned my lesson right away in my hunt to go to the source first, so I go to the Bible and in the same verses that were posted above we find that there are, indeed, two waters. One gathering of water above the expanse and another gathering of waters that were below that expanse.
- I also know from my hopping about through the Bible that "waters" can mean a large quality of it, whereas "water" means a small quality. Like "You can lead your horse to water but you cannot make him drink" compared to "You can lead your horse to the waters but you cannot make him drink." I guess the same for "heavens".
- I, also, want to put out there that I am not certain at this time, nor do these verses say what those "waters" were made of. I would like to naively assume that is it H2O but I need to travel back in time to see. For the assumed writer of Genesis is Moses and should he been given a vision of the beginning, that prime-mortal soup could have looked like "waters". Further reading in the Bible will/should/hopefully tell us.
It seems God spoke "light" into existence. Light is energy and matter. Light is part of the Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS) which is Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR). I had initially thought that in order to produce water one needed light (energy)(hydrogen). My initial thoughts on the subject was that when God spoke light into existence or just spoke for the first time that He actually spoke elements into existence as well. However, according to Day 1, He did not do it that way. It seems that hydrogen and oxygen were at least in existence before the creation of "light" and all the energy/matter it contains. Thus, I am lead to start a new hunt.
HUNT #3 - Why was there water before light?
- Wikipedia on Light: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light
- Wikipedia on Water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
- What has peaked my interested in the very first Day is the the relationship between water/light/God hovering. Why is the significance of God "hovering"? I read about supersonic water and I cannot say at this time if there is a link here. But I will make this a hunt.
- Wikipedia on EMS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum
- Wikipedia on EMR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation
Here is a list of all the verses of the Bible that reference to Day 1:
SUMMARY:
In the beginning when the earth was not formed and void I believe that all the elements needed to form the earth were present. I believe that God gathered all that He had already created (waters) that were in the face of deep and He hovered over it as He begins to create the "heavens" and the "earth" from the soup that was before him. I believe that it was at this time that energy was need and thus spoke it into existence (Light). With the energy spoke forth from His being all the necessary radiation and expanse of the universe were formed. He then gathered some of that energy/light together so tightly and bound it so that it created a separation from the face of the deep/void (dark). In doing so he set the course of rotation and revolution and time with creating a day and a night.
I close with a video.
