Primordial Planet Puzzles (Part 4)

Day 5: Water creatures, fowl

“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day” (Gen 1:20-23).

Interpretations of Day 5:

• Literal 24-Hour Days:    1 day before man was created circa 6,000 years ago
• Thousand-Year Days:    circa 8,000-7,000 years ago
• Diminishing Day-Ages:  circa 937,500,000-468,750,000 years ago (Duration: approximately 468,750,000 years)

According to Young Earth Creationists, aquatic creatures and birds first appeared no later than 6,000 years ago, but no earlier than 8,000-7,000 years ago, either.

In the Diminishing Day-Ages timeline, God created the first marine animals during Day-Age 5, sometime between 937.5 million and 468.75 million years ago. This corresponds precisely to the oldest known animal fossils, about 700 million years old, that the Encyclopedia Britannica identifies as Ediacara fauna, small wormlike creatures with soft bodies.⁴⁵

Oxygen-breathing animals.

Until about 700 million years ago, there was a negligibly low amount of oxygen available. (The estimated threshold or minimum amount of oxygen needed for animal life to begin and multiply on earth is 1-10% of the present atmospheric level.)⁴⁶ Photosynthesizing bacteria then began oxygenating the oceans to produce the oxygen needed by new marine animals that derived energy through respiration.

Do you see the thoughtful planning involved? God created plants on Day 3 to produce oxygen. After an adequate supply had been assured, He proceeded to create oxygen-breathing animals on Day 5.

 

The Cambrian “explosion.”

Approximately 544 million years ago, new forms of life with various anatomical structures appeared in rapid succession.⁴⁷ Writer Leslie Orgel said in the New Scientist: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.”⁴⁸

All the basic shapes and features of multi-cellular organisms living today first appeared during that period: mouths, eyes, gills, intestines, shells, bones, spines, appendages, joints. The seas teemed with a great variety of invertebrates: sponges, worms, bryozoans (“moss animals”), hydrozoans (jellyfish), brachiopods (clams), mollusks (snails), arthropods (trilobites), echinoderms (starfish).⁴⁹

Sir Jonathan Sacks wonders, “Something’ happened to cause an ‘explosion’ of complex multi-cellular body forms. Scientists have long been puzzled about why this burst of diversity occurred… How did life evolve at such speed that even Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, was forced to suggest that it came from Mars?”⁵⁰

Gerald Schroeder suggests the increased supply of oxygen resulted in a tenfold improvement in the conversion of food to energy. With the new energy, organisms were able to develop more complex structures.⁵¹ These were the “abundant moving creatures in the waters” (Gen 1:20).

 

The first fish.

Fish appeared 490 million years ago. The presence of a backbone differentiates the fish, a vertebrate, from invertebrates. But where it came from remains a mystery.

Author Arthur Strahler wrote: “Origin of the vertebrates is obscure -- there is no fossil record preceding the occurrence of fishes in the late Ordovician time.”⁵² Writer Francis Downes Ommanney says, “How this earliest chordate stock evolved, what stages of development it went through to eventually give rise to truly fishlike creatures we do not know. Between the Cambrian when it probably originated, and the Ordovician when the first fossils of animals with really fishlike characteristics appeared, there is a gap of perhaps 100 million years which we will probably never be able to fill.”⁵³ The Readers Digest sums it up: “To our knowledge, no ‘link’ connected this new beast to any previous form of life. The fish just appeared.”⁵⁴ But, of course. God created the fish.

 

Dragonflies and dragons?

God also said: “Let the waters bring forth… fowl that may fly above the earth… And… great whales” (Gen 1:20-21). “Fowl” from the waters? Were these the first birds? Did they precede the land animals? Let us take a closer look.

“Fowl.” The word is translated from the Hebrew owph, meaning “to cover with wings or obscurity.” “Bird” is tsippor in Hebrew. In its commentary on Genesis 1:20, Barnes’ Notes explains: “[Bird of wing] Here the wing is made characteristic of the class, which extends beyond what we call birds.” The commentator points out that owph (“fowl”) means more than just “birds.”⁵⁵

The idea is demonstrated in Leviticus 11:13-20: “And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray,  And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; Every raven after his kind; And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle, And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.”

God enumerated birds under the word “fowls,” but also included a flying mammal – the bat! Let us grant that in that pre-scientific time the Israelites did not know the difference between a true bird and a bat. Yet, in the last line we read a stranger thing: “fowls that creep, going upon all four.” Four-footed fowl? No member of the avian family creeps, much less on all fours, because birds have only two legs. The NKJV renders the verse in a more contemporary language: “All flying insects that creep on all fours…” (Lev 11:20, NKJV; also NIV and NASU).

It becomes clear that the word “fowls” lumps together true birds, a flying mammal, and flying insects -- even if they are biologically unrelated. It shows that owph refers to any creature that flies! Science asserts: “There is no fossil evidence of primitive wings prior to the appearance of fully developed winged insects...”⁵⁶

Thus, the “fowl” from the waters in Genesis 1:20-22 may have actually been winged insects, prehistoric predecessors of modern dragonflies, mosquitoes, and similar insects which lay their eggs and spend the larval stages of their lives in the water! 

Great whales. The “great whales” God created, rendered “great sea creatures” in NKJV and NIV, and “great sea monsters” in NASU and ASV, is hataninim hagadolim in the original Hebrew text.

In other Bible verses, the translation is “dragons”: “Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons (taninim)…” (Ps 148:7a); “Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon (tanin)…” (Ps 91:13; Ps 74:13, Deut 32:33, Jer 9:11). Elsewhere, the translation is “serpents”: “And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the LORD had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent (tanin)… For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents (taninim)…” (Ex 7:10,12a).

“Dragons” and “serpents” are both reptiles. Hence, the Hebrew taninim hagadolim (“great whales”) must have actually been huge sea reptiles -- marine dinosaurs – the sea serpents of ancient legends!

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⁴⁵Evolution, Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Student and Home Edition
⁴⁶“Reason For Almost Two Billion Year Delay In Animal Evolution On Earth Discovered,” ScienceDaily.com,, Mar. 27, 2008, Internet.
⁴⁷Earth, World Book 2005 (Deluxe)
⁴⁸Leslie Orgel, “Darwinism at the Very Beginning of Life,” New Scientist, April 15, 1982, p. 151
⁴⁹Cambrian Period, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004
⁵⁰Jonathan Sacks, “Genesis and the origin of the Origin of the species,” The Times (London), August 29, 2008
⁵¹Schroeder, The Science of God, p. 117
⁵²Arthur N. Strahler, Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy, 1987, p. 316.
⁵³Francis Downes Ommanney, The Fishes, 1963, p. 60.
⁵⁴Marvels & Mysteries of Our Animal World, The Readers Digest Association, 1964, p. 25.
⁵⁵Gen 1:20, Barnes' Notes, 1997
⁵⁶Schroeder, op. cit., p.

(Excerpted from Chapter 4, Primordial Planet Puzzles, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)

 

Primordial Planet Puzzles ( Part 3)

Day 3: Seas, dry land, vegetation

 “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good” (Gen 1:9-13).

Interpretations of Day 3:

• Literal 24-Hour Days:    3 days before man was created circa 6,000 years ago
• Thousand-Year Days:    circa 10,000-9,000 years ago
• Diminishing Day-Ages:  circa 3,750,000,000-1,875,000,000 years ago (Duration: approximately 1,875,000,000 years)

 

Young Earth Creationists say God separated the seas and the dry land either around 6,000 years ago or 10,000-9,000 years ago.

In the Diminishing Day-Ages chronology, God gathered the seas for the dry land to appear between 3.75 billion and 1.875 billion years ago. The scientific estimate for the appearance of the oceans falls exactly within this period. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says that “the oceans have been present for at least three billion years.”²⁹

 

One supercontinent.

As the waters came together, the exposed dry surface of the planet became one vast supercontinent surrounded by an immense ocean.

Scientists confirmed the Scriptures early in the 20^th century. German geophysicist Alfred Wegener, intrigued by the matching contours of the coastlines of eastern South America and western Africa, postulated in 1912 that all the continents were once part of just one land mass that slowly drifted apart over millions of years. This was called “continental drift,” which became part of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s.

Canadian geologist John Tuzo Wilson posits that the continents have been repeatedly breaking up and rejoining (“Wilson cycle”). As evinced by the rocks, about 800 million years ago all the continents were joined together in one supercontinent called Rodinia, with what is now North America in the middle. The movement of the Earth's mantle caused Rodinia to break up into North America, Europe, and Africa. Then, 250 million years ago, the continents reassembled to form another supercontinent – Pangaea, surrounded by a single, worldwide ocean, Panthalassa. About 200 million years ago, Pangaea broke apart into two large land masses: Gondwanaland and Laurasia. Gondwanaland then broke up to form Africa, Antarctica, Australia, South America, and India. Laurasia split apart into Eurasia and North America.³⁰

 

The plant kingdom

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day” (Gen 1:9-13).

         

God created the first living things on Earth – plants – on Day 3.  The World Book says the oldest fossils are those of bacteria that lived about 3.5 billion years ago.³¹ Paleobiologists say these organisms (microscopic plants) appeared as soon as there was water on Earth. The timing is again a perfect match, because Day 3 in the Diminishing Day-Ages was from 3.75 billion to 1.875 billion years ago.

 

Cells to grass to trees.

The bacteria were one-celled prokaryotes (no nuclei). Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) with chlorophyll were capable of photosynthesis. They were followed by unicellular organisms with nuclei (eukaryotes); then multi-celled vegetation like moss, grass, herbs, trees.

The Jewish sage Nachmanides said the creation of grasses, plants, and trees actually transpired over a protracted period.³² The Genesis writer simply had the tendency to summarize a string of events in one or two sentences, rather than make a long-winded, detailed narration. After all, even if he did lengthily describe a bacterium that could not be seen by the unaided eye, would he have been understood and, more importantly, believed by his fellow desert nomads 3,500 years ago?

 

Prefab components?

God said, “Let the earth bring forth…” The wording implies that the elements that would constitute the grass, herbs, and trees had been laid down in the earth earlier. The various “prefabricated” components were just waiting to combine into specific forms at God’s command.

Note that each type of plant life reproduced “after his kind,” showing that the Creator had set the fixed laws of genetics in operation.

 

Plants without a sun?

At this point, there was still no mention of the sun. How did the first plants manage to survive without sunlight for photosynthesis? We get the answer from prophecy. In Acts 3:21 (NIV) Paul speaks of “the time… for God to restore everything,” which infers that former conditions (in the beginning) will be reestablished in the future.

We are told that in the future Kingdom of God there will be “no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof (Rev 21:23,22:5; also Isa 60:19). If this is a glimpse of the restored conditions in the future, then in the beginning it was light from the glory of God and His Son that enabled the first plants on earth to survive and even thrive.

 

Day 4: Sun, moon, and stars

“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 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. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 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. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day” (Gen 1:14-19).

Interpretations of Day 4:

• Literal 24-hour Days:     2 days before man was created 6,000 circa years ago
• Thousand-Year Days:    circa 9,000-8,000 years ago
• Diminishing Day-Ages:  circa 1,875,000,000-937,500,000 years ago (Duration: approximately 937,500,000 years)

 

Young Earth Creationists hold that the sun, moon, stars, and other heavenly bodies were created either just 6,000 years ago or 9,000-8,000 years ago at the most.

In the Diminishing Day-Ages, the celestial lights first shone on Earth sometime between 1.875 billion and 937.5 million years ago (mya).

“Made” or “had made”?

The Creator used the words “let there be” and “let them be,” which could mean that the heavenly bodies were already in existence before Day 4. In the phrase “And God made…” the word translated “made” is from the Hebrew asah, (“to do or make”), which can be translated into several words in English, but “to create” is not one of them.  

The verb form in English is in the simple past tense (“made”). However, the pluperfect or past perfect tense “had made,” indicating a prior act, could have also been used to translate asah (ex.: Gen 1:31, 2:2, 3:1, etc.). Hence, the verse could also be rendered as: “And God had made two great lights…” Gen 1:16a), implying God had earlier created the sun, moon, and stars before they became visible on earth.

 

Gas clouds thinned?

Possibly, after the Earth had formed, the lighter gases which did not become part of the solid sphere continued to surround the planet – the way some planets, like Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, are still shrouded with gas clouds today. Venus is covered by a gaseous canopy so thick that astronomers cannot see its surface. Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is also veiled by a thick blur of gases.

The Earth’s cloudy atmosphere could have thinned and become clear sometime between 1,875,000,000 and 937,000,000 years ago. From a viewpoint on the surface of the planet, that would have been the first time the sun, moon, and stars shone from the sky.

Moreover, according to ScienceDaily, “The primitive sun did not use to shine as brightly as it does at present. Four billion years ago the solar output was only about 60% of what it is today.”³³ The weak rays of the young sun would not have been able to penetrate Earth’s dense gaseous atmosphere, which might have been merely translucent.

 

Signs in the stars.

The Bible says God arranged the celestial bodies in certain ways for particular reasons: “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs…” (Gen 1:14, cf. Dan 6:27).

The sun, moon, stars, and other celestial objects bear messages from God! “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world…” (Ps 19:1-4a). To communicate His messages, God uses a heavenly language that can be understood by all peoples.

The Mazzaroth. Men in Mesopotamia first visualized the shapes of the constellations, or clusters of stars, around 2700 B.C.³⁴ Collectively, they were called the Mazzaroth, which means “high ones”³⁵ or “scattered ones.”³⁶ “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?” (Job 38:31-32).

The constellations seem to have been named at the time of the Tower of Babel³⁷ circa 2000 B.C., and arranged in groups around 700 B.C.³⁸ The earliest known zodiac with all 12 signs dates from the 400s B.C.³⁹ At least one fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, from the 200s B.C., lists the signs of the Zodiac.⁴⁰ Adopting the Babylonian symbols that mostly represent animals, the Greeks called them ta zōdia, “the little animals,” or zōdiakos kyklos (“circle of animals”).⁴¹ The Egyptians and the Chinese also used the 12 divisions, but gave other names and symbols to them.⁴²  

The Magi. Some Biblical personages appear to have been astrologers: “And the king communed with them; and among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: therefore stood they before the king. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm” (Dan 1:19-20).

Daniel was made the king’s top astrologer: “There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the time of your father he was found to have insight and intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods. King Nebuchadnezzar your father -- your father the king, I say -- appointed him chief of the magicians, enchanters, astrologers and diviners” (Dan 5:11, NIV).

Daniel probably passed on his knowledge to his assistants, especially fellow-Jews in Babylon, which lay east of Judea. Some 600 years later “wise men from the east,” apparently astrologers who knew the star signs, came to Jerusalem looking for the newly born Messiah, “Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him” (Matt 2:1-2). Christ had been prophesied as the coming “King of the Jews.” The wise men must have been Jews; else, why would they worship the King of the Jews if they were not themselves Jewish?

 

Starry story.

First century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote of an ancient belief that Adam’s son Seth and great-great grandson Enoch saw a drama inscribed in the starlit night sky. The starry story is said to be the salvation of man by a coming Messiah. How do we read the story? Where does it start? The constellations in the celestial circle have no apparent beginning or end. Ancient astrologers started the year from Aries, where the sun was at the spring equinox. Should we do likewise?

Egyptologist Frances Rolleston found the key in the 4,000-year-old zodiac of Dendereh on the ceiling of the portico of the temple of Esneh in Egypt. She discovered a picture of the Sphinx just below and between the figures of Virgo and Leo.⁴³ In Greek, Sphinx means “to bind tight” (also the root-word of “sphincter,” a ring of muscle around a body opening). The Sphinx, with the head of a woman and the body of a lion, “tightly binds” the two together. Thus, Virgo is the “head,” or start of the story, and Leo, the rear, or “ending.”

Gospel in the stars. Interpretations of the 12 constellations slightly vary, but the overall picture they paint is the same: the Gospel is in the stars! Below is a synthesis of the basic meaning of each sign:

1.      Virgo, the Virgin: a sinless woman (the pure faith, church, or religion) carrying an infant and holding a branch (the Messiah);

2.      Libra, the Weighing Scales: purchase and judgment -- the son of the woman will pay the price (for sin) and act as the coming judge;

3.      Scorpio, the Scorpion (formerly the snake Serpens battling the eagle Aquila): Satan opposing the Messiah, the Redeemer of men;

4.      Sagittarius, the Archer or mighty hunter: the Antichrist defying God and attempting to kill His Only Son, the Savior of mankind;

5.      Capricorn, the Goat-Fish or wounded scapegoat: the sacrificial offering was pierced (His blood as atonement for the sins of the world);

6.      Aquarius, the Water-Bearer: God pouring His Holy Spirit (water) upon the earth, baptizing the body of believers during the Church Age;

7.      Pisces, the Fishes (a small one and a big one): the Judeo-Christian faith, made up of two groups of people who will be saved;

8.      Aries, the Ram: the sacrificed Lamb of God, the Messiah, who has  grown greater and more powerful through His death on the cross;

9.      Taurus, the Bull: the power and longsuffering of God, patiently waiting for men to repent of their sins before rendering judgment;

10.  Gemini, the Twins: two children of the same woman (faith), also symbolic of the Bridegroom (the Messiah) and His bride (the Church);

11.  Cancer, the Crab (formerly a sheepfold): the ingathering of the flock at the “Rapture” or first resurrection at Christ’s Second Coming;

12.  Leo, the Lion: the return of Christ as Lion of Judah, pouncing on the serpent Hydra (Satan) stretching over a third of the stars (angels).

Do you see the complete story?

 

Horoscopes? Horrors!

The Mazzaroth reveals God’s plan for His chosen people. But Gentile stargazers began making predictions for their countrymen – such as national prosperity or disaster. (“Dis-aster” comes from the Latin words dis [“reverse”) and aster [“star”], a reversal or disarrangement of the stars.) The Greeks and Romans started casting personal horoscopes sometime between 600 and 200 B.C.⁴⁴ Fortune-telling, however, including horoscopes, is detestable to God: “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD” (Deut 18:10-12).

Jeremiah told the Jews: “Thus says the LORD: "Do not learn the way of the Gentiles; Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, For the Gentiles are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are futile…” (Jer 10:2-3a, NKJV).

____________________

²⁹Atmosphere, Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Student and Home Edition
³⁰Earth, World Book 2005
³¹Bacteria, op. cit.
³²Cited by Gerald Schroeder, The Science of God, 1997, p. 71
³³ScienceDaily, March 22, 2006, Internet
³⁴Astronomy, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia
³⁵Mazzaroth, New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary
³⁶Mazzaroth, Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary
³⁷Chuck Missler, Cosmic Codes, 1999, revised 2004, p. 200
³⁸Astronomy, op. cit.
³⁹Zodiac, World Book 2005
⁴⁰“Three Wise Men and a Star,” Strange Stories, Amazing Facts, 1975, p. 373
⁴¹Zodiac, Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Student and Home Edition
⁴²Zodiac, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2004
⁴³F. Chris Patrick, The Zodiac Conspiracy, 1993, p. 13

 

(Excerpted from Chapter 4, Primordial Planet Puzzles, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)

 

Primordial Planet Puzzles (Part 2)

Day 2: Firmament, waters under and above

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And 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. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day” (Gen 1:6-8).

Interpretations of Day 2:

• Literal 24-Hour Days:    4 days before man was created circa 6,000 years ago
• Thousand-Year Days:    circa 11,000-10,000 years ago
• Diminishing Day-Ages:  circa 7,500,000,000-3,750,000,000 years ago (Duration: approximately 3,750,000,000 years)

A firmament, the arch or vault of the sky, can be seen only from the surface of a planet. That means planet Earth, our home world’s sphere, formed on the second “day” of Creation. Astronomer Hugh Ross says: “From what I understood to be the stated viewpoint of an observer on Earth’s surface, both the order and the description of creation events perfectly matched the established record of nature.”⁹

Young Earth Creationists say the “firmament” appeared just 5,000 or 11,000 to 10,000 years ago.

In the Diminishing Day-Ages timeline, Earth took shape sometime between 7.5 billion to 3.750 billion years ago. Squarely fitting into this time span is the scientific estimate that, based on the age of the oldest rocks, the Earth was formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago.¹⁰

A nebulous hypothesis?

The Encarta Encyclopedia tells us that Earth and the “planets reached their present sizes and arrangement probably within 10 million to 50 million years after the Sun’s ignition.”¹¹

The Nebular Hypothesis, which posits that solar systems formed from nebulae, swirling clouds of gases and dust in space, has raised many questions that remain unanswered. For instance, if all the planets had formed from one spinning disk, why are the inner planets much smaller than the outer ones? It should be the other way around.

The sun has 99.86% of all the mass of the solar system, but only 1.9% of the angular momentum. The planets have 98.1%.¹² Why? 

All the planets should spin in the same direction, but Venus, Uranus, and Pluto rotate in reverse. Some planetary orbits are tilted. One of Saturn’s 60 moons, Phoebe, has a tilted orbit nearly perpendicular to the planet’s equator. Of the nearly 200 moons in the solar system, more than 30 orbit in the opposite direction. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have moons orbiting in both directions.¹³

Why did colliding particles adhere rather than destroy each other? Science writer Erik Asphaug points out: “It turns out to be surprisingly difficult for planetesimals to accrete mass during even the most gentle collisions.”¹⁴ Even if a planet did manage to form through collisions, it would be nearly non-rotating, because the spins imparted by many small impacts would have been largely self-canceling.

Concerning gas planets, Boyle’s Law states that gas clouds dissipate, they do not agglomerate. Gases disperse rapidly in the vacuum of space, specially the two lightest gases, hydrogen and helium, which compose most of the mass of the giant gaseous planets.¹⁵

If the solar system had formed from a cloud of dust, particles that did not become part of planets, according to the Poynting-Robertson Effect, should still be falling into the sun today, burning up and giving off a measurable infrared glow. No such glow has ever been detected.

Author Stephen G. Brush observes: “Attempts to find a plausible naturalistic explanation of the origin of the Solar System began about 350 years ago but have not yet been quantitatively successful, making this one of the oldest unsolved problems in modern science.”¹⁶

Waters under and above.

The “waters under the firmament” we understand as the oceans, as well as underground water, including the waters beneath the continental shelves and tectonic plates, evidenced by the formation of the Mid-Ocean Ridge stretching under both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. But what were the “waters above the firmament”?

The psalmist affirms there were waters above the firmament or sky: “Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens” (Ps 148:4).

Ice crystal canopy? Researcher Dr. Joseph Dillow speculates that the high-altitude waters may have been water vapor¹⁷ above the atmosphere, forming a protective canopy around the planet. Extremely low temperatures in the Earth’s upper atmosphere could have frozen much of the water vapors. In the early 1900s Isaac Vail theorized that the “waters above the firmament” might have been an ice-crystal canopy.¹⁸ Dr. Larry Vardiman thought of the ice particles as equatorial rings surrounding the Earth similar to those around Venus.¹⁹ Recent studies by Donald Cyr on light patterns that could have been produced by a crystal veil fifty miles above the Earth where noctilucent clouds form, showed a correlation with patterns in archeological artifacts (pottery, woven materials, temple construction). These relationships have reportedly been confirmed in computer simulations.²⁰

There seems to be a hint about this in the Biblical text: “Spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what looked like an expanse, sparkling like ice, and awesome” (Ezek 1:22, NIV).

A hanging “circle.”

The ancients thought the world was flat. The first Greek philosopher Thales believed the world was a flat disk floating on water. Later, men realized that the circular shadow which covered the moon during lunar eclipses was that of planet Earth. World-circling sea voyages during the Age of Exploration provided additional proof that the world is a globe. With the coming of the space age, photographs from manmade satellites captured the curvature of the Earth's horizon. Finally, men first saw the Earth as a complete orb floating in space in December 1968 as the Apollo 8 spacecraft carried astronauts around the Moon.

Yet, the prophet Isaiah knew more than 2,750 years ago that the earth was a circle, or what we call today a globe or sphere: “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in” (Isa 40:22).

Earth’s support. The cosmogonies or legends of the origin of the world of various cultures have different things supporting the Earth -- twelve pillars, four huge elephants, three great fish, a great bull, a giant tortoise, the god Atlas, etcetera.

Around 4,000 years ago, Job already knew that the earth hung in the emptiness of space: “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing” (Job 26:7).

Empty north.

Job cryptically said that the north was over the empty place. Incredibly, astronomers have discovered that the area north of the axis of the Earth, toward the pole star, is indeed nearly empty – unlike the rest of the star-filled sky! An article in the November 27, 1981, issue of Science magazine reported: “The recently announced ‘hole in space,’ a 300 million-light-year gap in the distribution of galaxies, has taken cosmologists by surprise… But three very deep core samples in the Northern Hemisphere, lying in the general direction of the constellation Bootes, showed striking gaps in the red shift distribution.”²¹

Center of the universe?

Jewish tradition has it that God formed the earth and the entire universe from a single piece of rock. In the pseudepigraphal Book of Enoch, the man saw the rock holding up the world: “I then surveyed the receptacles of all the winds, perceiving that they contributed to adorn the whole creation, and to preserve the foundation of the earth. I surveyed the stone which supports the corners of the earth” (Enoch 18:1-2).

The rock is said to be the same block on Mount Moriah upon which Abraham laid his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God. It was also the room-sized rock inside the Holy of Holies of the Temple that King Solomon built. Falling under different hands since 70 A.D., when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, the rock is today the centerpiece of the Temple Mount’s Dome of the Rock, Islam’s third holiest shrine.

The Temple Mount is in Jerusalem, which pious Jews in all ages have regarded as the center of universe. God Himself spoke of the city as being centrally located: “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her” (Ezek 5:5, NIV).

Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary tells us there are also historical reasons for this: “The medieval concept that Palestine was the center of the earth is not as farfetched as one might expect. This tiny strip of land not only unites the peoples and lands of Asia, Africa, and Europe but also the five seas known as the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. Palestine was sandwiched in between two dominant cultures of the ancient world – Egypt to the south and Babylon-Assyria-Persia between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to the northeast.”²²

Cartography and calligraphy. Mapmakers and scribes confirmed the idea. Gentile cartographers traditionally drew their world maps with the Holy Land at the center. On the next page is a simplified 11^th century world map depicting the world as a disk surrounded by water, with the east on top (a common practice for many centuries). Paradise (Eden) is in the east, as part of Asia, with the two other known continents then, Europe and Africa, occupying the northwest and southwest, respectively. Jerusalem lay in the center of the disk of the Earth.²³

In addition, the handwritings of nations west of Jerusalem – Greek, Latin, French, German, English, and others -- are written from left to right. On the other hand, the scripts of countries east of Jerusalem are written from right to left – Hebrew (Abraham came from the east), Aramaic, Chaldean, Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese, etc. It is as though the calligraphies of all the other peoples to the east and to the west of the Holy Land are pointing to Jerusalem as the center!

Cosmological confirmation. Dr John Hartnett, in his book Starlight, Time and the New Physics, refers to “recent observational data that overwhelmingly leads to the conclusion that the universe must have a centre, with our galaxy somewhere near it… Observations also indicate that we are in a galactocentric universe.”²⁴

D. Russell Humphreys notes: “The quantized redshift data imply that we are within about 100,000 light-years of the center, a very small distance compared to the diameter of all the matter in the cosmos, at least 40 billion light-years. The probability of us being so close to the center by accident is less than one out of a quadrillion, implying we are where we are as a result of purposeful design.”²⁵

Galaxies are moving away from the Earth in every direction. The CMBR comes to us from all directions. These strongly indicate that we are indeed in a central location.

God’s throne nearby?

As the Creator of the universe, God must have placed His throne at the very center of His creation. Ellen G. White, the 19^th century Seventh Day Adventist leader and prophetess, wrote about “suns and stars and systems, all in their appointed order circling the throne of Deity.”²⁶

Interestingly, according to the World Book, “radio telescopes and infrared telescopes have shown that a powerful gravitational force comes from the exact center of the galaxy… so strong that the mass responsible for it must be about 3 million times as great as the mass of the sun… packed into a volume of space smaller than our solar system.”²⁷ Could God’s throne be there? Earth is very near the center of the Milky Way.

No wonder the psalmist was inspired to write: “And He has exalted the horn of His people, The praise of all His saints -- Of the children of Israel, A people near to Him” (Ps 148:14, NKJV). The nearness may be more than just figurative, it may actually be physical.

Divine arrangement?

Did the arrangement of the solar system simply happen by chance? David sings of God arranging the celestial lights in the heavens: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place…” (Ps 8:3, NIV).

As any school-age child knows, the sun is much bigger than the moon. Yet, the sun and the moon, viewed from the Earth, appear to be of the same size. The impression is reinforced during solar eclipses when the moon covers the sun. That is because the sun, whose diameter of about 1,390,000 km, which is around 400 times bigger than the moon (3,480 km), is approximately 400 times farther away from the earth (149,600,000 km) than the moon (384,467 km). Incidentally, the size of the moon is just over ¼ that of the earth (12,756 km). Are not the ratios uncanny? (Notice the recurring number “4,” the Biblical number for the world. The numbers “4,” “40,” and “400” are associated with the Son of God, God’s hands-on co-Creator. Is it any wonder these numbers figure in the relationships among the Earth, the sun, and the moon?)

Moreover, the moon revolves around the Earth every 29.5 days. At the same time, it completes one rotation around its axis every 29.5 days. Thus, we always see the same side of the moon. How did the numbers happen to be identical to produce that extraordinary effect? It is too improbable to be simply the product of chance!

“Oddball” planet Earth. The distances of the seven major objects closest to the sun, excluding planet Earth, have an exponential ratio. Starting from Mercury, the distances from the Sun of Venus, Mars, the Asteroid Belt (materials that failed to become a planet), Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus approximately double from one object to the next.²⁸

In the table shown here, Earth is an out-of-place oddball in the solar system! It looks like it had been plucked from somewhere and inserted into the system’s arrangement.

(The two outermost objects, Neptune and Pluto, do not form part of the equation. They occasionally switch places, owing to Pluto’s eccentric orbit. Astronomers suspect an outside force had perturbed their orbits in the past. Pluto came closer to the Sun than Neptune in 1979 and stayed that way for the next twenty years.) 

⁹Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, 1993, p. 15

¹⁰Planets, World Book 2005 (Deluxe)

¹¹Planetary Science, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004

¹²“Why ‘Six Days’?,” Personal Update, November 2003, p. 12

¹³Walt Brown, Astrophysical Sciences, Internet

¹⁴Erik Asphaug, “The Small Planets,” Scientific American, Vol. 282, May 2000, p. 54.

¹⁵Ibid.

¹⁶Stephen G. Brush, A History of Modern Planetary Physics, Vol. 3, 1996, p. 91.

¹⁷Noah’s Flood --  Where did all the water come from?, ChristianAnswers.Net, Internet

¹⁸Dennis Petersen, Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation, 2002, p. 30

¹⁹ChristianAnswers.Net, op. cit.

²⁰Donald Cyr, “The Crystal Veil,” Stonehenge Viewpoint, Issue 106, 1995 

²¹Mitchell Waldrop, “Delving the Hole in Space,” Science, 27 Nov. 1981

²²Palestine, Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary,1986

²³“Three Days and Three Nights,” Las Day Ministries, undated

²⁴Carl Wieland, “Starlight and time – a further breakthrough,” June 26, 2009, Internet

²⁵D. Russell Humphreys, “The Battle for the Cosmic Center,” Internet

²⁶Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, 1990 Reprint, pp. 677-678

²⁷Milky Way, World Book 2005 (Deluxe)

²⁸Gerald Schroeder, The Science of God, 1997, p. 192

(Excerpted from Chapter 4, Primordial Planet Puzzles, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)