The Record of Creation

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Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 10

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In our previous post we were considering the tremendous heat being generated by our new planet and how many of the base elements composing the early earth converted to vapor or gas would expand and rise into the newly forming atmosphere.

A molten earth spinning on fixed axis would tend to bulge outward at the fastest moving portion, the equator, and to flatten the ends of the axis, the poles. The diameter of the equator is 7926.677 miles where the axis is 7899.988 miles, a difference of 26.689 miles. After the earth had solidified its crust, this spinning motion would not have had so much effect, so we are assured that the points of the axis were fixed while the earth was still molten, and since they are still in the center of the flattened areas, we are also assured that they have never been changed.

When the surface of the earth was molten, and that surface now generally lies many miles below the present surface, neither water nor any of the substances later added to earth’s crust were on that surface, and therefore must have been above the earth. The entire mass above the surface must have turned with the earth and at the same rate of rotation, just as the atmosphere of today. There are some scientists that claim that at that period the earth revolved at a much faster rate than at present, probably completing a revolution every 4 to 5 hours.

Most geologists are agreed that much of the material of the crust of the earth must have been in suspension in the atmosphere at the time of this igneous period. Some recent writers have ignored this logical conclusion and have all of earth’s materials including water out of the atmosphere at the beginning of this period. They explain that since the surface of the earth was so hot the water could not possibly have been there, it much have been inside the earth, for it certainly was somewhere (meteorites, comets and etc.?). But we will accept the more general view since it agrees with natural law. It is true that the water could not have remained on the surface, since had it fallen there it would have immediately been flung back into space as vapor, and taken with it any material soluble in water, it might have assimilated.

In canvassing the various estimates and appraisals of the depth of the vaporous canopy we find that a depth approximately 200,000 miles to be a general conception. Our own calculations based on present deposits and their respective gas expansions lead us to believe that it was somewhat under this figure. For our calculations let us take only half that amount. This would give us a diameter of twice 100,000 miles, plus the diameter of the earth, a total of 208,000 miles, or a circumference of 653,553.

At the equator then this circumference was traveling at a speed in excess of 27,000 miles per hour. But we have already noted that any mass traveling at 17,000 miles per hour would be free from gravity and over that speed would be thrown away from the earth moving outward until the centrifugal force and gravity were equal. (A point in space at which a particle experiences no net gravitational force. In theory, a unique neutral point would exist between any two static bodies. In practice, when two objects, such as Earth and the Moon are orbiting each other, there are five points, known as Lagrangian points, at which gravitational and centrifugal forces are exactly in balance.)

But it will be noted that this figure does not take into consideration one factor, namely that attraction lessens by the square of the distance, So that moving out from the earth’s surface the pull of gravity would lessen the farther out in space that matter would move. The farther away from earth’s surface any matter moved the greater would be the velocity of rotation, the greater the centrifugal force, and the less the pull of gravity.”

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The effect then upon a mass of vapors around a revolving earth would be to throw the outer vapors into rings above the equator and since the equatorial portion was moving out in space the polar portion would flow toward the unoccupied space to be in its turn thrown outward into the revolving belt or rings. This would be true of all the mass down to the point where gravity was equal to centrifugal force. Since centrifugal force lessens as we approach the poles such of the vapors as remained in canopy formation would approach the earth closer in Polar Regions, resulting in marked oblation that is a polar flattening of what otherwise would be a globular body. (This is somewhat noticeable in the picture below of the top of Saturn).”

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The illustration below is what the earth may have resembled in this early period as it began to cool and liquid water began to collect upon its surface, of course this would not have been visible to the eye as this process would have been taking place beneath the canopy which shrouded the planet.

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From the outside it is possible the early earth may have resembled Venus or possibly even Saturn that is had it had the time to fully develop. The atmospheric pressure and heat being generated beneath this canopy would most likely have been similar to that which Venus presently experiences.

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Continued with next post.

P.S. keep in mind that in this study we are only attempting to harmonize science with the scriptures, much of which is speculative at best. We are merely trying to envision what may have taken place prior to the beginning of the Creative week as narrated in the Genesis account beginning at Verse 2 when the Lord began his work preparing the earth for the arrival of man. The scriptures are quite adamant that the "earth was" that is it existed prior to the first day of this creative week.
 
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Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 11

How hot is Venus?

“Venus has the distinction of being the hottest planet in the solar system, and the fault lies solely with its atmosphere.”

A warm blanket

Venus is the planet most similar to the Earth in terms of size and mass, but its atmosphere causes huge differences in the temperatures between the two planets. The distance to Venus from the sun plays only a small role in the cause of its elevated heat wave.

The atmosphere of Venus is made up almost completely of carbon dioxide, with traces of nitrogen (as well as clouds of sulfuric acid). Much of the hydrogen in the atmosphere evaporated early in the formation of Venus, leaving a thick atmosphere across the planet. At the surface, the atmosphere presses down as hard as water 3,000 feet beneath Earth's ocean.

The average temperature on Venus is 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius). Temperature changes slightly traveling through the atmosphere, growing cooler farther away from the surface. Lead would melt on the surface of the planet, where the temperature is around 872 F (467 C).

Temperatures are cooler in the upper atmosphere, ranging from (minus 43 C) to (minus 173 C).

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Balmy all year-round

Temperatures on Venus remain consistent over time. For one thing, the planet takes 243 Earth days to spin just once upon its axis (and it spins backwards, at that; on Venus, the sun rises in the west and sets in the east). The nights on Venus are as warm as the days.

Venus also has a very small tilt of only 3.39 degrees with respect to the sun, compared to 23.4 degrees on Earth. On our planet, it is the tilt that provides us with the change in seasons; the hemisphere slanted closer to the sun feels the heat of spring and summer. The lack of tilt means that even if Venus got rid of its overheated atmosphere, it would still have a fairly consistent temperature year round.

The lack of significant tilt causes only slight temperature variations from the equator to the poles, as well.”

(How hot is Venus? By Nola Taylor Redd)

“Presently (that is as the earth exist today) as solar winds rush outward from the Sun at nearly a million miles per hour, they are stopped about 44,000 miles (70,800 kilometers) from the Earth when they collide with the giant magnetic envelope which surrounds the planet called the magnetosphere. Most of the solar wind flows around the magnetosphere, but in certain circumstances it can enter the magnetosphere to create a variety of dynamic space weather effects on Earth.”

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“The shape of the Earth's magnetosphere is the direct result of being blasted by solar wind. The solar wind compresses its sunward side to a distance of only 6 to 10 times the radius of the Earth. A supersonic shock wave is created sunward of Earth called the Bow Shock. Most of the solar wind particles are heated and slowed at the bow shock and detour around the Earth in the Magnetosheath. The solar wind drags out the night-side magnetosphere to possibly 1000 times Earth's radius; its exact length is not known. This extension of the magnetosphere is known as the Magnetotail. The outer boundary of Earth's confined geomagnetic field is called the Magnetopause. The Earth's magnetosphere is a highly dynamic structure that responds dramatically to solar variations.” (Earth's Magnetosphere)

“Venus (depicted below) has no such protective shield, but it is still an immovable rock surrounded by an atmosphere that disrupts and interacts with the solar wind, causing interesting space weather effects.” (“Space weather: explosions on Venus”).

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“Venus is known not to have a magnetic field. The reason for its absence is not clear, but is probably related to the planet's slow rotation or the lack of convection in the mantle. Venus only has an induced magnetosphere formed by the Sun's magnetic field carried by the solar wind. This process can be understood as the field lines wrapping around an obstacle—Venus in this case…Due to the lack of the intrinsic magnetic field on Venus, the solar wind penetrates relatively deep into the planetary exosphere and causes substantial atmosphere loss.” (Atmosphere of Venus)Over all Earth's atmosphere is about 300 miles (or 480 kilometers) thick, but most of it (75-80%) is found within the first 10 miles in the Troposphere, in contrast Venus atmosphere is only about 42 miles (70 kilometers) thick; however its atmosphere is 90% more dense than the earth’s. Whereas most of the clouds found on Earth are found in the Troposphere on Venus the cloud deck reaches almost to the top of the atmosphere 30-40 miles up.

Some critics of the Canopy Theory have argued that the early earth could not have been surrounded by a large canopy of clouds due to its close proximity to the sun and solar winds; however the fact that Venus is still cover by a canopy of clouds even unto this day proves otherwise.

Nevertheless if our planet had been allowed to continue on in the same path as that of Venus with runaway greenhouse effects heating up its primordial atmosphere life here on earth would never have been possible, but alas a cataclysmic event was about to take place which would change all this.

Continued with next post.
 
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Harvest 1874

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All nice and dandy, but most of it goes over my head.
Good thing I have a Bible. :)

Don't despair my brother a lot of it is Greek to me too, nevertheless we ask your patience as we will soon be getting to the part of this study where you can start utilizing that bible of yours in this study.
 

Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 12

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In our previous post we had hinted at a cataclysmic event which was shortly to take place which we believe would rectify (that is for the time being) the runaway greenhouse effect that was overtaking our newly forming world. Now as stated before some have suggested that the early primordial atmosphere could not have been as thick as we have suggested due to its close proximity to the sun and its solar winds, note the following remarks as taken from “Early Earth’s Magnetic Field Was a Weakling” by Andrea Thompson, https://www.space.com/8006-early-earth-magnetic-field-weakling.html

“A recent study suggests that “the protective magnetic field shrouding the early Earth was likely only half as strong as it is today.” In truth little is known about the magnetic field as it existed just after the Earth formed, around 4.5 billion years ago. It is the magnetic field which keeps solar particles from eating away at the molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere.

In the past, not only was the earth’s magnetic field weaker, the sun was likely rotating more rapidly and therefore spinning off a stronger solar wind and a magnetopause that was likely much closer to Earth. Today it is at a distance of about 10.7 Earth radii, but then it would likely have been around 5 Earth radii out (Earth’s average radius is about 4,960 miles, or 6,370 km).”

“That means that the particles streaming out of the sun were much more likely to reach Earth. The implication of that situation is that “it’s very likely the solar wind was removing volatile molecules, like hydrogen, from the atmosphere at a much greater rate than we’re losing them today… the loss of hydrogen implies a loss of water as well.

In turn, if a lot of water was stripped away early in Earth’s history, to get the amount of water that we have now (not to mention the amount that completely covered the earth at the beginning of day one of creation), the planet must have started “with either a fairly robust inventory of water,” and or it was possibly being continuously replenished by further impacts from comets and asteroids, as well as small planetesimals.”

Mars minuscule atmosphere is one example of what happens when a planet lacks a significant magnetic field to protect itself from the sun’s radiation. However as someone said, Observation, the final judge of scientific truth proves some things are not always as expected. As discussed in our previous post Venus which completely lacks a magnetic field, at least none which has been discovered as of yet defies this assumption, and retains its atmosphere.

AS FOR THE MOON

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Pictured above is a depiction of a small planetesimal possibly Theia on approach impacting the early earth’s atmosphere.

According to another study, the moon came into existence after several planet-size space bodies (planetesimals) smashed into the nascent Earth one after the other, with the final one actually forming our satellite, while several impacts repeatedly blew off our planet’s atmosphere.

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Until now, scientists thought it was unlikely that the early Earth could lose its atmosphere because of a giant moon-forming impact. But the new research, based on recent studies showing that at its infancy our planet had magma oceans and was spinning so rapidly that a day was only two or three hours long, argues that this may have been possible.”

Research conducted by planetary scientist Sarah Stewart, a professor at Harvard University along with several of her fellow colleagues argued that the moon is actually a giant merger of bits and pieces of our own planet, partially destroyed by a catastrophic collision with a space body 4.5 billion years ago.

Back then, the Earth had a two- or three-hour day, she said, and the impact made it throw off enough material to coalesce into what became our satellite, making it the Earth’s geochemical twin. This ultra-rapid spin is one of the important conditions necessary to make the atmospheric loss theory work, Stewart said. The other criterion is the presence of terrestrial magma oceans — and this hypothesis has now got support thanks to new data obtained from volcanoes.

Volcanic Memory

Two of her colleagues, who presented their work at the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March, sampled elements from volcanoes in Iceland, which have rocks that are among the oldest on Earth and thus retain the geo-chemical signatures of the Earth’s so-called lower-most mantle, closest to the planet’s core. They also looked at elements found in volcanoes that sample the upper mantle, such as mid-ocean ridge basalt’s at the bottom of the Atlantic. They found that elements in the deep mantle that retain a very ancient chemistry, from the times of the Earth’s formation, are very different from those in the upper mantle we see today.

In particular, the presence of two noble gases, helium and neon, is very different today from what it used to be, Stewart said. Both these gases are very rare on today’s Earth, but they are found in the solar system in abundance. And as “documented” by the deep Earth, when our planet was just forming it contained much more helium and neon as well.

“The implication is that [the lower-most mantle] hasn’t been completely overprinted by subsequent evolution, and it’s helping us pinpoint events that had to happen to lead to the planet we see today.

So how and why did these gases disappear?

While helium is not gravitationally bound to the Earth, neon is, and it needs a powerful “kick” to escape. “For such a dramatic change to happen you can’t do that with just open loss off the top (as suggested in our first study concerning the early earth’s weak magnetic field) — instead, you need to eject the whole atmosphere in a catastrophic type of event, a giant impact.
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Besides atmospheric loss caused by impacts that melt all rock to create magma oceans, to get to the present-day neon-to-helium ratio Earth would have to suffer multiple impacts. In other words, the Earth probably (formed and) lost its primordial atmosphere multiple times, and the magma oceans were melting more than once. The final impact, led to the creation of the moon, and resulted in the ratio of the gases we have today. “One single impact is not sufficient, there had to be at least two, probably more, to make that work.”

No Mixing?

The idea that stages of Earth’s growth are recorded in chemistry is relatively new. Previously, researchers argued that during our planet’s formation (known as accretion) with a moon-forming impact, the proto-Earth was melted and mixed to the point that it “forgot” its growth — all the data was erased. “But now what we’ve learned is that data wasn’t erased, and it’s exciting because now we have clues to the stages of growth,” Stewart said. She added that the next step would be to calculate exactly under what impact conditions the early atmosphere actually might have been blown off.

But if the early atmosphere disappeared due to an impact, how did the Earth get its atmosphere back and how did it finally evolve into the one we have today?

Continued with next post.​
 
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Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 13

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“The currently accepted idea for how the moon was formed involves the impact or accretion of a Mars-size object with or by the proto-earth. When two objects of this size collide, large amounts of heat are generated, of which quite a lot is retained. (The amount of heat that can arise through simple accretionary processes, bringing small bodies together to form the proto-earth, is large: on the order of 10,000 kelvins about 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit). This single episode could have largely melted the outermost several thousand kilometers of the planet…In other words there was no shortage of heat in the early earth, the planet’s inability to cool off quickly would once again result in out-gassing and in the production of another primordial atmosphere similar to the last.”

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The Giant Impactor Theory (sometimes called The Ejected Ring Theory): proposes that a planetesimal (or small planet) the size of Mars struck the Earth just after the formation of the solar system, ejecting large volumes of heated material from the outer layers of both objects. A disk of orbiting material was formed, and this matter eventually stuck together to form the Moon in orbit around the Earth. This theory can explain why the Moon is made mostly of rock and how the rock was excessively heated. Furthermore, we see evidence in many places in the solar system that such collisions were common late in the formative stages of the solar system.”

Stewart says that after the last giant smashup that finally formed the moon, the Earth continued to form, accreting planetesimals — mountain-size space rocks that stuck to it, making it bigger. “These planetesimals delivered some of Earth’s *volatiles,” she says, eventually bringing the atmosphere to the state it is in today. Volatiles are elements able to escape very easily.

Ian Crawford of Birkberk College, University of London, who was not involved in the study, said that the theory sounded plausible “because multiple impacts are expected to happen in the context we think the solar system was put together.” “It’s true that each time you have a giant impact you expect a magma ocean to form. And the early planets are expected to have a transient atmosphere, so it is possible that the atmosphere would be released if the magma ocean solidified.”

*In planetary science, volatiles are the group of chemical elements and chemical compounds with low boiling points that are associated with a planet or moon’s crust or atmosphere. Examples include nitrogen, water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen, methane and sulfur dioxide.

(Giant Impact That Formed the Moon Blew off Earth’s Atmosphere by Katia Moskvitch, http: //www.space.com/23031-moon-origin-impact-earth-atmosphere.html)

Returning once again to our previous question, if the early atmosphere disappeared due to an impact, how did the Earth get its atmosphere back and how did it finally evolve into the one we have today? As stated the processes which created the previous atmospheres would once again begin anew, viz. outgassing’s, volcanic activity, impacts and etc. in fact not long after the moons formation another (hypothesized) cataclysmic event which was taking place millions of miles from earth would have a direct (and beneficial) affect upon the earth.

“About 4 to 3.8 billion years ago a period of intense comet and asteroid bombardment is thought to have peppered all the planets including the Earth. Many of the numerous craters found on the Moon and other bodies in the Solar System record this event. One theory holds that a gravitational surge caused by the orbital interaction of Jupiter and Saturn sent Neptune careening into the ring of comets in the outer Solar System. The disrupted comets were sent in all directions and collided with the planets. These water-rich objects may have provided much of the water in the Earth’s oceans. The record of this event is all but lost on the Earth because our planet’s tectonic plate system and active erosion ensure that the surface is constantly renewed.” (“The Late Heavy Bombardment Ends”, http: //www.bbc.co.uk/science/earth/earth_timeline/late_heavy_bombardment)

With these continuous disruptions and impacts the heat generated by the earth would once again turn most of the volatile elements to a gaseous state which would then begin to form a thick canopy of clouds about the earth, only this time having acquired the added mass and cores of the various planetesimals especially the last great impact from Theia the earth’s gravitational as well as its magnetic field would be greatly increased the latter protecting it further from the sun’s solar winds.​

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During the igneous (Azoic) period those vapors coming closer to the earth, and being drawn by gravity, were still held off the surface by great heat, but as the earth cooled, and these vapors were allowed to condense, the masses increased in weight and there would be falls from the upper masses to the cooling surface. Undoubtedly at first the water was changed to steam and returned to the atmosphere. Deluge after deluge would follow from the enshrouding mass, and slowly the earth’s surface became plastic, depressing under impact and accumulations here, with resulting rises over there, and liquids flowing into the depressions. Slowly the plastic condition firmed until the surface could support the further deluges from aerial sources, and the water would remain to collect in the lower depressions (Most likely as boiling caldrons).”

One after another these were precipitated upon the earth’s surface. These deluges from descending “rings“ would naturally reach the earth from the direction of the two magnetic poles, where there would be least resistance, because farthest from the equator, the center of the centrifugal force of the earth’s motion.

The breaking down of these “rings,” long periods apart, furnished numerous deluges (floods), and piled strata upon strata over the earth’s surface. The rush of waters from the poles toward the equator would distribute variously the sand and mud and minerals, the water strongly mineralized thus covering the entire surface of the earth, just as described at the beginning of the narrative of Genesis. (Compare Gen 1:2 and 1:9)

In our next post we will jump ahead only God knows how many millions of years to Day One of the creation.


 
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Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 14

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In our previous post we had mentioned that as the shrouded world began to cool the various vapors comprised of waters and minerals held in suspension above the earth would begin to condense and as their mass increased would naturally be drawn to the point of least resistance, the two magnetic poles, here the deluge of waters and minerals would rush down one after another until they had completely covered the earth in waters.

During each of these longdays,which we contend were of seven thousand years each, a certain work progressed, as told in Genesis; each possibly ending with a deluge, which worked radical changes and prepared the way for still further steps of creation and preparation for man. This Vailian Theory ( or “Annular System” as referred to by its author Prof. L N. Vail) assumes that the last of these “rings” was freest from minerals and all impurities–pure water; that it had not yet broken and come down in the day of Adam’s creation, but that it completely overspread the earth as a translucent veil above the atmosphere (in other words by this time the last of the various rings circling the earth had disappeared, the last spreading out both north and south until it finally eloped the entire earth). Gen 1:7 It served, as does the whitened glass of a hot-house (greenhouse), to equalize the temperature–so that the climate at the poles would be little, if any, different from that at the equator. Under such equable conditions, tropical plants would grow exponentially everywhere, as geology shows that they did; and storms, which result from rapid changes of temperature, must then have been unknown; and for similar reasons there could then have been no rain. The Scriptural account agrees with this; declaring that there was no rain on the earth until the deluge; that vegetation was watered by a mist rising from the earth–a moist, or humid, hot-house-like condition. (Gen 2:5, 6)

Following the deluge in Noah’s day came great changes, accompanied by a great shortening of the span of human life. With the breaking of the watery veil the hot-house condition ceased: the equatorial path of the sun became hotter, while at the poles the change must have been terrific–an almost instantaneous transition from a hot-house temperature to arctic coldness.

Corroborations of this sudden change of temperature have been found in the arctic region: Two complete mastodons were found embedded in clear, solid ice, which evidently froze them in quickly. Tons of elephant tusks have been found in the same frozen Siberia, too inhospitably cold, within the range of history, for elephants, mastodons, etc. An antelope was found similarly embedded in a huge block of ice in that arctic region. That it was suddenly overwhelmed is clearly demonstrated by the fact that grass was found in its stomach undigested, indicating that the animal had eaten it only a few minutes before being frozen to death–and that in a location where no grass could now grow.

This sudden downpour of water–this sudden breaking of the envelope which held the warmth of the earth and sun equably–produced the great ice-fields and ice-mountains of the arctic regions, from which every year hundreds of icebergs break loose and float southward toward the equator. So far as we can judge, this has been the procedure for centuries, but is continually growing less. Here we see the Ice Age, or Glacial Period, of the geologists, when great icebergs, borne by swift currents, cut deep crevasses throughout North America, distinctly traceable in the hills; northwestern Europe, too, bears the same testimony in its hills. But not so southeastern Europe, Armenia and vicinity– the cradle of our race, where also the ark was built, and near which, on Mount Ararat, it finally rested.

The testimony in general would seem to imply that the ark floated in a comparatively quiet eddy, aside from the general rush of the waters. This is indicated by the exceedingly heavy alluvial deposit declared to be present in that entire region. Evidently waters from the North and South Poles deluged the whole earth, while the cradle of the race was specially dealt with by first depressing, and then at the proper time elevating it.

Knowing the end from the beginning, the Lord so timed the introduction of man upon the earth that the last of the rings came down in a deluge just at the proper time to destroy the corrupted race in Noah’s day, and thus to introduce the present dispensation, known in the Scriptures asthis present evil world.”

In this particular instance we note the scriptural account as taken from the Ferrar Fenton Paraphrased Translation.

For this they willfully forget: that by the intention of God the skies (the firmament or atmosphere) existed from of old, and the earth with water above (that is, above the atmosphere) and water below (below the earth, i.e. under-ground), arranged for the purpose of God, by means of which the then existing world (age or epoch) perished, by the water having rushed down.” (2 Pet 3:5, 6)

The removal of the watery envelope not only gave changing seasons of summer and winter, and opened the way for violent storms, but it also made possible the rainbow, which was first seen after the flood, this because previously the direct rays of the sun could not so penetrate the watery canopy as to give the rainbow effect. Gen 9:12-17

Gen 1:2
continued, “Now the earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”

Explain what is meant by theface of the deeptheface of the waters?

Possible explanation
:

What is meant here by “the deep” and “the face of the waters“? Without a doubt there were waters ABOVE the earth and waters UPON the earth. This is obvious from the Genesis statement. The great deep, therefore, must have particular reference to the waters above the earth — waters that could have been held up only by reason of the fact that they were revolving rapidly in an orbit about the earth. As soon as they would become inactive they would necessarily fall to earth. The lighter one of these rings would necessarily be farthest out from the earth and nearest the sun.

The time came when the spirit of YEHOVAH God, that is to say, His power, moved upon or took action upon the face of the waters, and the light penetrated this great deep or canopy that surrounded the earth. What this really means is that YEHOVAH God caused the sun’s rays to shine upon the face of the waters or great deep, ILLUMINATING THEM. YEHOVAH pronounced the light good, and the light YEHOVAH called day and the darkness he called night, and YEHOVAH divided the light from the darkness. That was the beginning of the division of day and night. So far as the Bible discloses, such constituted the work of the first creative day, and concludes with the words: “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” There is NO evidence to warrant the conclusion that at this time the light had penetrated to the earth. (Hope of Israel Ministries, Ecclesia of YEHOVAH)

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As illustrated in the diagram above it is important to understand that the “deep” consisted not only of those waters in a liquid state, those found upon the surface of the earth, but likewise those waters found above the earth those in a vaporous or gaseous state, together these waters comprised “THE deep”. Now in considering the statement “darkness was upon the face of the water(s),” surely one would not suggest that the sun’s rays i.e. light had never shown upon the outer surface of these waters.

No, in this instance we are to consider “the face of the waters” as taken from God’s perspective beneath the canopy, as his spirit hovered over the deep (over the ocean of liquid waters, yet beneath those which were suspended above them, those in a gaseous state). It is here where no light was visible that the Lord made the statement,Let there be Light”.

With this general view of creation before our minds, we will with our preceding posts turn to the Genesis account, and endeavor to harmonize these conjectures with its statements.
 
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The Record of Creation, Part 15

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The First Day

The creative days of Genesis were actually epoch days consisting of geologic periods, most logically of equal lengths. It is unnecessary to insist that these days were only 24 hours since the same word for “day” (Hebrew “yom”) is elsewhere used to denote longer periods also termed a “day”: Note Psa 95:8, “the day (yom) of temptation in the wilderness” (40 years); Gen 2:4, “in the day (yom) that … God made the earth and the heavens” (covering all six epoch days, 42,000 years), Acts 17:31, “He has appointed a day (yom) on which he will judge the world in righteousness…”(the millennial day, 1000 years).

Having we hope proven from our study of the True Bible Chronology that the seventh day of creation is to last 7000 years until its completion, and with the understanding that order is heavens first law it is but reasonable to assume that the previous six creative days were of likewise length. Since we know that Adam was created at the very end of the sixth creative day in 4128 B.C. we simply add 42,000 years to this and we have the date of the first creative day 46,128 B.C.

Let us now return to the Genesis account and first day.

VERSE 3-5And God said, let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided between the light and the darkness, and God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, THE FIRST DAY.” (The end of the first 7000 year day, brings us to the year 39,128 B.C.)

The nature and physical cause of light is as yet but imperfectly comprehended–no satisfactory solution of the query, what is light? Has yet appeared we do know, however, that it is a prime essential throughout nature; and we are not surprised to find it first in the divine order when the time came for divine energy to operate upon the waste and empty earth to prepare it for man.

The nature of the divine energy represented by “brooding” would seem to be vitalizing, (empowering) possibly electrical energies and lights such as the aurora borealis, or northern lights, or possibly, the energy brought down some of the heavy rings of aqueous and mineral matter, and thus the light and darkness, day and night, became distinguishable, though neither stars nor moon nor sun were in the slightest degree discernible through the heavy canopy (mist) and rings, which still enveloped the earth.

“God’s spirit “hovering” or “brooding” upon the face of the waters is a very intriguing description of his very first act in this epoch. This was Divine Energy radiating outward upon the primitive seas, producing what only Divine Power can accomplish — the appearance of the earliest forms of life. It is gratifying to note that science agrees with this sequence that earliest life stemmed from the oceans! However, these earliest marine creatures were not crude or partially developed, as some would portray them, but were complex wonders in their own right.”

Young-earth creationists claim “day” (yom) accompanied by the phrase “and there was evening and there was morning” indicates the creation days were normal 24-hour days. However, there is lack of unanimity on this point. For example, The Wycliffe Bible Commentary states “These are not ordinary days bounded by minutes and hours, but days of God... The beginning of each act of creation is called morning, and the close of that specific divine act is called evening.”

In biblical Hebrew, “evening” (‛ereb) has several meanings, including “sunset,” “night,” or “at the turn of evening” and conveys a “sense of gradual cessation or diminishing of activity.” “Morning” (bōqer) also has several meanings, including “the point of time at which night is changing to day... the end of night, daybreak, dawn” or “beginning of day” and conveys a sense of a “new starting of creative activity.” Thus, neither term restricts the meaning of “day” to a 24-hour period.

Much of the confusion comes from the King James Version, which combines evening and morning togetherAnd the evening AND the morning were the first day.” As Collins notes, “Grammatically, the AV [Authorized King James Version] compresses the two events into a sum, namely, the evening plus the morning were a day.” This is incorrect. A more accurate translation is found in the NASB and ESV: “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” Note the time period from “evening” to “morning” brackets only the night. As Collins states: “This means that any effort to find this as defining [24-hour] days runs counter to the author’s [Moses] own presentation.”

That “evening and morning” can be used to represent long periods of time is evident in Psa 90, which is attributed to Moses, the writer of Genesis. In the Psalm, “morning” defines the beginning of life and “evening” the end of life. Thus, “morning and evening” brackets the entire human lifespan. As Hebrew scholar Gleason Archer states, “Concerning the recurring [evening and morning] formula at the end of each creative day... there were definite and distinct stages in God’s creational procedure... it serves as no real evidence for a literal twenty-four-hour day concept on the part of the biblical author.”

According to Professor Nathan Aviezer of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, this is consistent with the way early Talmud scholars approached Genesis 1. He states, “A statement must be made at the outset about biblical chronology of the six days of creation. Any attempt to correlate the biblical text with scientific knowledge must necessarily understand the termdayto mean a phase or a period in the development of the world, rather than a time interval of twenty-four hours...” (Excerpts taken from the article “The Days of Creation: A Closer Look at Scripture” by Jon W. Greene)

In regards to the statement above citing that “evening” conveys a “sense of gradual cessation or diminishing of activity,” and that “morning” conveys a “new starting of creative activity,” we would suggest the reverse, note closely that each day begins with the “evening”, not with the “morning”.

“As with the Hebrew solar days, so also with these epoch-days, the evening came first, gradually accomplishing the divine purpose to its completion, when another 7,000-year day, apportioned to another work, would begin darkly, and progress to perfection (light). This period, orday,is scientifically described as the Azoic, or lifeless period, also dubbed the inorganic era.

Continued with next post.
 

Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 16

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Rotherham’s suggests the “light” of this first day was diffused, in contrast to the more distinguishable light afforded on the Fourth Day. (Opaque Cloud Opacity: This describes thick clouds which do not allow light to pass directly, although light can diffuse through them. Such thick clouds often look gray. At such times it is almost impossible to tell where precisely the Sun is. The sun being concealed from view nevertheless illuminated the Canopy, which diffused its light to Earth’s surf. Although the picture above is most likely thick fog or midst it gives somewhat an idea as to what we are describing.) This is consistent with the *Vailian or Canopy theory, which visualizes the earth as a flaming mass shortly after creation, a glowing waste, which vaporized the waters and other minerals into bands or canopies that encircled the earth.

Likewise alluded to in Job 38:9 where the Lord in reference to the creation of the earth states, Where were you, “when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band “ As the various rings or bands cooled, they fell back to earth in layered deposits, allowing the atmosphere to gradually clear.

Note the following definitions as given by Strong’s

#6051
, “clouds” as covering the sky

#3830, “garment” clothed with

#6205, “thick darkness” from #6201 to droop; hence, to drip, drop down, gloom as of a lowering sky

#2854, “swaddling band” a swathing cloth, figuratively swaddling band

Note the definition of “swaddle” as taken from the New Oxford American Dictionary, to wrap someone (or something) in garments or cloth. Now also the word “swaddling clothesnarrow bands of cloth formerly wrapped around a newborn (or possibly a new world?).

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The analogy given here in Job appears to confirm that at one time the earth was covered in darkness by a thick layer of clouds consisting of waters and minerals, which had risen up as gases due to the extreme heat of the earth, and that these encompassed the earth in an impenetrable canopy extending for miles around the earth in every direction. Pictured above is Venus, the earth at one time may have resembled this, shrouded in a garment of clouds as it slowly cooled and its rings one by one fell to the earth.

Note: a distinction should be made between “rings and bands”, i.e. layers of clouds consisting of various gases, minerals and water forming the atmosphere, and “rings” as in those which are found circling several of the gas giants. These outer rings are made up of dust, rock (minerals) and ice. Although it is possible as alluded to in one of our earlier posts that the early earth may have had such rings especially in its infancy when forming its first primordial atmosphere, barring the fact that it was a much hotter world and spinning at a much faster rate days lasting a mere 2-5 hours, nevertheless we would assume that by day one of creation due to its much cooler temperature (still hot, but now able to form a much more solid surface), this and its much slower rotation speed due in part to the size and gravitational friction of its new moon, that if there were any rings circling the planet they would have long since disappeared most likely having rejoined the clouds circling the earth.

*The author of the Vailian Theory, Isaac Newton Vail, a Quaker, was born in Ohio in 1840, where he taught school, later becoming an oil and gas prospector. In 1874 he published a pamphlet called “The Waters above the Firmament”, now although we believe the general premise of his theory appears to be sound and in harmony with the record of creation as it is depicted in the Bible, we nevertheless understand it to be only atheory”, not all of which we are in agreement with nor agrees with known science. However it does seem rather coincidental that this particular view or “theory” should be published when it was (in A.D. 1874).

Likewise consider the fact that it is clearly stated that the sun, moon and stars did not appear until the fourth day (Gen 1:14-19), and since logically the sun and the moon had already existed prior to this even from the beginning when God first created the heavens and the earth then obviously something was obscuring these “two great luminaries” from view.

We shall examine the second “day” or epoch in our next post.
 

GerhardEbersoehn

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Exactly. And that is why EVERY ENGLISH TRANSLATION has "In THE beginning..."
New International Version
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
New Living Translation
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
English Standard Version
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
New American Standard Bible
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
King James Bible
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Holman Christian Standard Bible
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
International Standard Version
In the beginning, God created the universe.
NET Bible
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
GOD'S WORD® Translation
In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
Jubilee Bible 2000
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
King James 2000 Bible
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
American King James Version
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
American Standard Version
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Douay-Rheims Bible
In the beginning God created heaven, and earth.
Darby Bible Translation
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
English Revised Version
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Webster's Bible Translation
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
World English Bible
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Young's Literal Translation
In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth --


There is only ONE BEGINNING for this universe, this earth, this world, and the human race. Therefore "In THE beginning..." is both theologically and logically correct.

Thank you, Enoch111!

Did you see the true reason for this pretentious 'learned' treatise? Post #4 above, Q~1) First there was and always will be God.

2) Then came the very first beginning, our Lord, the first born and only direct creation of God through whom all subsequent things were to be made, but not by means of His own power or by His own authority, but by the power and authority of the Father, the author of all creation.

3) Following this came the future abode or dwelling place for the various angelic orders soon to be created,~Q
 

Naomi25

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Maybe a Powerpoint presentation? I surely did like all those pictures, but friend, I could not read all that, sorry.
 

quietthinker

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lotsa words, lotsa pretty pictures and quiet a cobbling exercise but we are good at that! Why do you think God didn't tell us this? Surely he would have know we are a curious bunch of vegemites. I mean, who'd wanna believe that God put all this together in a few days just by telling it to step to. Perhaps we have more clues than God, maybe even smarter than God? In any case, all that scientific research and study can't be wasted merely by believing that God created the heavens and the earth with a few words.

Ahhhh, yes, its a good story to tell children just like Santa and Easter Bunny and did you forget about the tooth fairy? but once we've arrived at the age of wisdom we put that stuff behind us.
Oh the conceit and pride of man! How could he ever understand that Jesus walked on the water and was raised from the dead? We won't even mention feeding thousands with a few loaves and fishes or making the vigilantes drop to the ground just by asking them who they were looking for. These things don't fit into our enlightened paradigm.
 

Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 17

The Second Day (The Year of the World 39,128 B.C.)

Then God said, “Let there be a firmament [atmosphere] in the midst [between] the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament [the ocean] from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament *Heaven. So the evening and the morning were THE SECOND DAY.”

“The English translation, “And God said... And it was so,” imparts a sense of immediacy. However, the Hebrew phrase translated “and it came to pass” or “and it was so” is a waw-consecutive (or vav-consecutive) form of the imperfect verb “to be,” which merely signifies a completed action. As Whitefield points out, this indicates the commands have been completed and does not imply the action was completed immediately. Thus, although God commanded the establishment of an atmosphere and water cycle, there is no textual requirement it occurred within a literal 24-hour period.” (Whitefield, Reading Genesis One: Comparing Biblical Hebrew with English Translation, 72, 95.)

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In this era or second epoch-day of 7,000 years, God created the firmament, the atmosphere or “expanse,” suggesting something thin or spread out over the earth, like a blanket or tent. (See Isa 40:22) The wisdom and expertise of a Divine Chemist were needed to bring about the critical combination of gases such as oxygen and nitrogen that were required for higher forms of life that were to follow.

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Up until this point, there evidently was no clear separation between the vapors above and waters below. The photo above illustrates what it would be like beneath the canopy as God’s spirit hovered upon the face of the waters prior to the first appearance of light. The transition between those waters in a liquid state and those composed of vapor and gas would be near impossible to distinguish in this thick dark atmosphere. This was the “DEEP”.

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Following the first presence of light in this dark and gloomy world, came the creation of the firmament or expanse which acted as a buffer between those waters in a liquid state, and those comprised of ice, water and gas which circled the earth above the firmament, this new expanse would be distinguish by the first truly visible horizon line. At this time the earth was truly a “Water World” completely covered in water.

The “firmament” was probably developed in a perfectly natural way, as are most of God’s wonderful works, though nonetheless of his devising, ordering, creating. The fall of one the various “rings” of water and minerals, which enabled light to penetrate through the dense canopy to the earth during the first epoch-day, reaching the still heated earth and its boiling and steaming surface waters, would produce various gases which, rising, would constitute a cushion, a firmament or atmosphere, all around the earth, and tend to hold up the remaining waters of the “rings” off from the earth.

Another thought is that:

“All the rings formed by the rising vapors surrounding the earth necessarily contained great quantities of water — as well as carbon and other mineral substances. These revolved with greater rapidity near the equator and gradually spread out like an envelope toward the poles until they enveloped the earth as a canopy. As these rings neared the poles their motion was slowed, and both the weight and the slowing velocity caused them to fall. As each one fell, great pools of water or bodies of water were rained down upon the earth. All the mineral substances taken up in solution were brought down at the poles and were rushed on toward the equator.

There would then, of course, be water upon the earth and waters above the earth. David backs up this conclusion in the Bible when he says: “Deep [above] calls unto deep [below] at the noise of your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me.” (Psa 42:7); “You who laid the foundations of the earth, so that it should not be moved forever, you covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.” (Psa 104:5, 6; Prov 8:27, 28; Job 38:9-11). By the falling of these aqueous rings or canopies the oceans were formed, and these great bodies of water on the earth were separated from the deep above the earth by the firmament. The firmament was not holding up the water — the great deep above the earth was held there by virtue of the fact that it was rapidly revolving in its orbit.” (Hope of Israel Ministries, Ecclesia of YEHOVAH)

This “day,” so far as Scriptures show, would also belong to the Azoic, or lifeless, period; but geology objects to this, claiming that the rocks appropriate to this time show worm-trails and immense quantities of tiny shellfish, the remains of which are evidenced in the great beds of limestone. They denominate this the Paleozoic age of first life—the Silurian period. This is not at variance with the Biblical account, which merely ignores these lowest forms of life.

Evening and morning, Day Two, ended with the full accomplishment of the divine intention respecting it; the separation of the clouds and vapors, etc., from the surface waters by an atmosphere.

Continued with next post.
 
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Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 18

The Second Day continued.

It is apparent that a significant part of the problem with respects to this issue has been the failure to distinguish between the various heavens mentioned in the scriptures.

Throughout the scriptures reference is made to the heaven(s). The scriptures speak of different types of “heavens”, those which are LITERAL, and those which are SYMBOLIC.

There are in fact three types of “Literal heavens” made reference to in the scriptures.

The first of these literal heavens mentioned, is that which the Genesis account designates as the “firmament”, (Strong’s # 7549, Hebrew, “raqiya”, raqia, properly, an expanse, i.e. the firmament or (apparently) visible arch of the sky [supposedly that in which the atmosphere would be contained]: — firmament. Gen 1:6

The Lord himself designates this “firmament” as the heaven(s), “And God called the firmament Heaven” (Strong’s # 8064, Hebrew shamayim, the sky aloft, the visible arch in which the clouds move [i.e. the atmosphere], as well as to the higher ether where the celestial bodies revolve: air, heaven(s) Gen 1: 8 compare with Verse 20

This word “firmament” also stands in regards to the starry “heavens” of the universe, i.e. the expanse of space, wherein the celestial bodies revolve as was alluded to by the foregoing Strong’s number, this we designate as (The second literal heavens) Compare Gen 1:14-18 and Psa 19:1

The third literal heavens mentioned in the scriptures is in reference to the physical heavens, the dwelling place of the Most High, Jehovah God, the place of his throne or (supreme ruler-ship), the abode of all the holy hosts. (See Revelation Chapters 4 and 5, although this is a symbolic picture the implication is clear that this is in regards to the physical heavens where Gods throne dwells).

I have noted that many critics of the canopy theory seem to be under the impression that those who advocate the canopy theory are inferring that the “firmament” is the canopy, however this is not so, the firmament is that portion of the atmosphere or sky containing breathable oxygen, the Troposphere, it is above this expanse or heavens (in the upper atmosphere) where once the canopy laid. It was the “waters which were above the firmament” which constituted the canopy, NOT the firmament itself.

He made darkness his secret place; his canopy around him was dark waters and [the] thick clouds of the skies.” Psa 18:11

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The “firmament” or expanse which the Lord created was situated “in the midst of the waters”, that is it extended in such a fashion so as to divide the waters, those under the firmament would naturally be in reference to the waters which covered the earth, liquid waters, in the beginning all the earth’s surface was covered by these waters, later following the emergence of land these waters consisted simply of the various oceans, seas, rivers and etc., those waters above (the firmament) would most likely constituted a vast blanket [or canopy] of water vapor above the troposphere and possibly above the stratosphere as well, in the high-temperature region now known as the ionosphere, some 50 to 250 miles above the earth’s surface and extending far into space.

These particular waters spoken of could not have been in reference to the clouds of water droplets which now float in the atmosphere (the Troposphere, which has a ceiling height of 4 to 11 miles high depending on latitude), an expanse in which nearly all clouds form and weather conditions manifest themselves, in which birds can both breath and fly (Gen 1:20) The Scriptures clearly state these waters were found “ABOVE this firmament”.

Simply points to ponder.

We shall examine the third “day” or epoch in our next post.
 
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Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 19

The Third Day (The Year of the World 32,128 B.C.)

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And God said: Let the waters under the heavens be collected unto one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth [soil — surface of the ground] and the reservoir of the waters called He Seas, and God saw that it was good. And God said: Let the earth bring forth tender sprout-age, the herb yielding seed after its kind and the tree yielding fruit whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so … and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the Third Day.” (Gen 1: 9-13)

Geology fully corroborates this record. It points out to us that, as the earth’s crust cooled, the weight of the waters would tend to make it kink and buckle–some parts being depressed became the depths of the seas, other portions forced up constituted mountain ranges–not suddenly, but gradually, and one range following another. We are not to suppose that all these changes took place even in the seven thousand years of this third epoch-day; but, rather, that it merely witnessed the beginning of the work necessary as preparatory to the beginning of vegetation; for evidently geology is correct in claiming that some great changes of this nature are of comparatively recent date.

Even within a century we have had small examples of this power: and we shall not be surprised if in the future we shall witness further paroxysms of nature; for we are in another transition period–the opening of the millennial age, for which changed conditions are requisite. (Climate change being one of those requisites changes in preparation for the new age).

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In the first photo above we have an example of land emerging from the sea as an underwater volcano erupts; magma from within the mantle pushes up the earth’s crust resulting in the formation of an undersea volcano. Over time the volcano emerges from beneath the sea, and an island is born as seen in the picture below.

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The photo below taken off Papua New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean is of a nearly 3.5 mile oval-shaped, reef-fringed island known as Baluan. The island emerged from the sea as a stratovolcano or “composite volcano” of Pleistocene age (supposedly dating anywhere from 2.6 million to as recent as 11,700 years ago), rising to a height of 833 feet above sea level at the rim of the half mile wide Saboma Crater (the egg shaped depression at the center of the island). The thickly wooded slopes are generally smooth, but are broken on the northeast by a pyroclastic cone known as Batapona Mountain (492 feet). Warm springs occurring at various coastal locations are the only signs of geothermal activity at the present time.
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As the waters drained off into the seas, vegetation sprang forth–each after its own class or kind, with seed in itself to reproduce its own kind only. This matter is so fixed by the laws of the Creator that although horticulture can and does do much to give variety in perfection, yet it cannot change the kind. The different families of vegetables will no more unite and blend than will the various animal families. This shows a design-not merely of a Creator, but an intelligent one.

The account does not say that God made so many different kinds of vegetation, but that under divine command the earth brought forth these various kinds, nothing in the account would interfere with an evolutionary theory as respects vegetation.

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Geology agrees that vegetation preceded the higher forms of animal life. It agrees, too, that in this early period vegetation was extremely rank–that mosses and ferns and vines grew immensely larger and more rapidly then than now, because the atmosphere was extremely full of carbonic and nitrogenous gases–so full of them that breathing animals could not then have flourished. Plants, which now grow only a few inches or a few feet high even at the equator, may then have attained a growth of forty to eighty feet, and sometimes two or three feet in diameter, as is demonstrated by fossil remains. Under the conditions known to have then obtained, their growth would not only be immense, but must also have been very rapid. (Fossilized trees lacked growth rings signifying that the climate was stable and unchanging.)

Young-earth creationists contend God caused dry land to appear and then created mature forms of all the plant life on the Earth all within in a 24-hour period. John MacArthur expresses this viewpoint succinctly: “There is no doubt beautiful waterfalls and canyons and other features... were all made in one day... Vegetation of every kind appeared instantly at His word... He created fully mature vegetation with seed already in it, ready to be dispersed... God created plants, not merely seeds.” According to their view, the light necessary for plant life came from a non-solar source, because the sun wasn’t created until “day” four.

Old-earth creationists contend God caused dry land to emerge from the water-covered earth over eons of time through plate-tectonics and other geological processes. Then, once the conditions were right, God caused plants to sprout, grow, and develop “after their kinds.” According to their view, different generations of plants appeared over time according to God’s timetable each perfectly matched to the environment and the increasing sunlight as the atmosphere continued to gradually clear.

We are inclined to agree with the Old-earth creationist as far as plant life is concerned, but disagree with the idea that it took eons for land to emerge from the waters. According to the scriptures if we hold to the 7000 year day model, land first started to appear on the third day, 14,000 years into creation, which means dry land did not take eons to appear but is of a much more recent occurrence, the first land appearing a little over 34,000 years ago.

Exegetical Support

The text does not say God supernaturally created (bara) mature plants. The command is in the Hiphil verb form, indicating the land was to be the agent causing the sprouting. The Hebrew “brought forth” (yatsa’) is a completed action (i.e., imperfect verb with a “waw” prefix). This indicates the plants germinated from seeds and grew into mature plants, a process requiring months or years. Some young-earth creationists claim God caused plants to grow supernaturally fast, so that they sprouted and bore fruit in 24 hours. However, that would require that we interpret the words differently than their usual Hebrew meanings and there is no textual evidence to support that assertion.

Gen 2:8-9 also speaks of plant growth. It states: “And the LORD God planted a garden... And out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow [tsamach] every tree...” Tsamach means to “sprout or grow,” natural processes that require more than 24 hours to produce a mature tree. Although God caused plants to appear on the Earth and governed the growth processes (i.e., germination, sprouting, seed-production and fruit-bearing), compressing the events of the third day into a 24-hour time period distorts the Hebrew word meanings of both Gen 1:11-12 and Gen 2:8-9.” “The Days of Creation: A Closer Look at Scripture”, by Jon W. Greene

Continued with next post.
 
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Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 20

The Third Day continued.

The fact that plants were able to survive at this time gives evidence that although there was yet no direct sun light as of yet, the canopy still obstructing a direct view of the heavens, nevertheless enough light filtered through to produce photosynthesis necessary to the growth of vegetation.

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Note the diffusion of light which has filtered its way through the immense canopy of clouds surrounding Venus. In the first photo above a filter was probably employed thus the yellow tint, the second photo below however is a better approximation of conditions.

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Whereas on earth the highest cloud tops can reach up to 7.5 miles on Venus the cloud ceiling reaches up to 43.5 miles above the surface. The first 20-25 miles of the atmosphere is relatively clear and consists mostly of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid haze above that the cloud mass thickens extending another 15-20 miles, choking off direct sun light.

At this period, geologists claim, our coal beds were formed: plants and mosses, having a great affinity for carbonic acid gas, stored up within themselves the carbon, forming coal, preparing thus our present coal deposits while purifying the atmosphere for the animal life of the later epoch-days. These vast peat bogs and moss-beds, in turn, were covered over by sand, clay, etc., washed over them by further upheavals and depressions of the earth’s surface, by tidal waves and by other descending “rings” of the waters above the firmament. Practically the same procedure must have been oft repeated, too; for we find coal-beds one above another with various strata of clay, sand, limestone, etc., between.

As plants thrived in the tropical climate they began to produce lignin, a bark-like substance that gave them the structural support needed to grow to gigantic proportions. Yet lignin posed a perplexing problem for the environment. Because it was a new substance and a very tough one at that, there were no microbes that could consume it. The normal mechanisms of decay were thrown out of sorts. As trees died or were toppled in storms, their trunks and branches collected on the forest floor, the pile becoming deeper and deeper as millions of years rolled by (?) with no method for breaking down the lignin. Buried by time and compressed by tectonic forces, these layers would become the vast coal deposits that would later bring about the industrial revolution and our modern age; thus the period acquired its name, carboniferous, meaning “coal bearing”.

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Oxygen reached its highest level of any age: 35% compared to modern day measurements of 21%, while in contrast Carbon Dioxide was the lowest in history (until modern times). The vast amounts of vegetation pulled CO2 from the air and it remain locked in their stalks and stems even upon death. The microbes crucial in the process of decay were overwhelmed, the plants did not decompose and huge amounts of CO2 remained trapped within the plant matter. As the plants were turned into coal, the CO2 would remain buried for ages until released in our modern age by the burning of coal.” (The Carboniferous Period”, J.E. Morris July 2010)

“Plants in this early period thrived under ever-increasing levels of carbon dioxide (plants require CO2 for photosynthesis). As plants spread upon the landscape they produced oxygen as a byproduct of their metabolic processes. Throughout the Silurian the oxygen levels continued to increase, causing problems for plants which suffer when oxygen levels are high. By the Middle Silurian, the CO2 levels began to fall and the plants began to endure stresses which forced them to either adapt (possibly shrink in size, growth) or perish.” (“The Silurian Period”, J.E. Morris July 2010)

Evening and morning, the third 7,000-year epoch-day (21,000 years into creation), accomplished its part in preparing the world, according to the divine design.

Here we must diverge from the common or orthodox view as respects the carboniferous era and the production of coal. As stated orthodoxy holds that the great coal fields found throughout the world are the product of vegetation, and that this process (which supposedly took millions of years to accomplish) took place roughly 300 million years ago, this of course would put it at variance with the Word of the Lord, which (in conjunction with the 7000 year day model, which is based upon the true bible chronology) implies that the creation of vegetation is of a much more recent era, not something which took place 450-700 million years ago as our evolutionary friends would have us believe, but rather 30,000+ years ago.

It is our belief that the production of coal had little to do with vegetation, and is likewise of a much more recent occurrence. We hold that all the necessary elements prerequisite to the production of coal (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and Sulfur), were all to be found in sufficient quantities in the canopy which encircled the early earth and that these were deposited as a result of the breaking down of various layers of this canopy over time.

In our next post we will elaborate a bit further on this issue.
 
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Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 21

The Third Day continued.

The next 4 segments deal more with scientific matters, specifically with the origins of coal deposits in an attempt to harmonize known (?) science with the narrative of the creative days as outlined in the scriptures. It is presented mostly to help establish our prospective of the creative days, the canopy theory and etc. and is intended simply for those more scientifically inclined. You are free to skip this part if you are not so inclined. We will be posting on the fourth “day” shortly.

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According to orthodoxy, most of the coal existing in the world today formed approximately 300 million years ago, from the remains of trees and other vegetation. These remains were trapped on the bottom of swamps, accumulating layer after layer and creating a dense material called peat. As this peat was buried under more and more ground, the high temperatures and pressure transformed it into coal. The three essential elements necessary to the production of coal are, heat, pressure, and time.

“Since we have peat beds today, and they contain carbonaceous matter derived from vegetation, and such matter can be made to produce many of the products that can be made by distillation of coal, it sounds very reasonable that coal could be the solidified remains of ancient peat bogs, but not necessarily just from peat moss, but also from the remains of trees, ferns, and other vegetation as suggested. The evidence seems all but conclusive so much so that the scientists today never even question the accuracy of these findings.”

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Since the history of mankind points out that true progress has been made, not by those inclined to think along the lines of the orthodoxy, that is holding to the opinion of the majority, but rather from those views found to be at odds or contrary to the thinking of the many, and that were accepted at the first by only the few (for example the once predominate view that the earth was flat, that it was at the center of the universe the sun, moon and stars revolving around it), perhaps it would be well now for someone to take an iconoclastic view and question the accuracy of this deduction as well.

Certainly no harm can result from asking a few questions! A short time ago, a graduate geologist was conducting some sight-seers through the Chicago Museum of Natural History (Field’s Museum). The group was paused before a diorama depicting the forests of the carboniferous age, and the geologist described how such forests accumulated vegetable debris which over immense periods of time became coal. The diorama presented a beautiful scene, with the great trees almost dwarfing the dinosaurs roaming in the forest’s shade. Then one of the group asked a question.

Would not these trees, as tall as they were supposed to be, have very deep, or widespread roots in order for the tree to stand upright?

Why certainly, all trees must be held up by their roots.”

And the soil would have to be fairly deep for the support of such trees?

Of course, why do you ask?

Oh, I just want to know who took the soil out from under the coal beds, after that forest turned to coal.”

The geologist looked startled for a moment. “I see what you mean. I had never thought of it.”

You see that is a very hard question for a geologist to answer, for rarely, if ever, do we find soil under coal, but we do find clay, slate, shale, limestone, sandstone, even *glacial till, all water-laid.

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*Glacial till is formed when a glacier carries materials such as boulders, gravel, sand and clay from one area and deposits them in another area. Material carried in the glacier’s base and deposited under it is called basal till, while material carried on or near the glacier’s surface and deposited when the glacier melts is called ablation till.

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If the vegetation theory is true, how can we account for “peat bogs” forming on the top of porous gravel and boulder beds, and as such developing the necessary “mass of decaying vegetable matter,” sufficient to make up the coal beds, then removing the soil necessary for the growth of vegetation, and then covering the coal bed with more glacial till? And how do we account for thisluxuriant growthin the midst of a glaciated area, as indicted by the glacial till both under and over the deposit of coal? These are surely legitimate questions and should have a reasonable answer in harmony with natural law! (Note both above and below the size of the Coal Seams found in Antarctica).

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Now if coal is from vegetation as so emphatically stated by practically all geologists, where would we expect to find it most abundantly? The logical answer to that question seems to be that coal would be most abundant where vegetation grew most abundantly, and that would be between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, the equatorial region, since no glaciation was ever known there except on one occasion.

At the present time there is no real winter there except on mountain tops, and along the Congo, the Amazon, and the Orinoco, we have some of the heaviest growths ever known to man, and for thousands of years (if not millions according to orthodoxy) we have a history of uninterrupted growth, and fens and bogs are fed all the yearlong with rich decaying vegetation. Let us see how fast coal is being made here under such favorable conditions. But we look in vain! In all these many thousands of years not one single crystal of coal has been produced! Not even a trace! Why is this? As every Future Farmer of American can tell you, these conditions produce humus not coal, compost, black, cozy, rich fertilizer for the soil. Will it burn? Very probably if the moisture is dried out of it. If used like peat turf, it should have enough fuel in it to produce some heat and enough admixtures to produce lots of ash.

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No, strange as it seems, there is very little coal to be found in the tropics, but there are tremendous deposits in Alaska, Siberia, Australia and the Antarctic, and much of the coal mined today was laid down in the ocean or inland lakes, or in connection with glacier movement. There is some coal in India, and it was visited with a glacial period moving up from the equator. The larger beds and the better quality are in the Polar Regions, and rapidly lose in quantity as we move toward the equator until seemingly they play out entirely when we reach the tropics. This seems exactly the opposite of what we should expect if the vegetation theory were correct.

Continued with next post.
 
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Harvest 1874

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The Record of Creation, Part 22

The Third Day continued.

Of course the vegetation theorists employ another one of their commonly held theories known as continental drift to attempt to explain this. The theory goes that at one time Antarctica resided in the midst of the southern super-continent of Gondwana. This continent consisted of Antarctica, South America, Africa, Madagascar, Australia-New Guinea and New Zealand, as well as Arabia and the Indian subcontinent, which are in the Northern Hemisphere. Gondwana is thought to have formed roughly 510 million years ago.

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“During the late Paleozoic, Gondwana extended from a point at or near the South Pole to near the equator. Across much of the super-continent, the climate was mild, which contributed to the formation of the late Paleozoic Gondwana sedimentary sequence that is the source of much of the mined coal.

Now if as suggested at one time the present day continents were actually situated where they are depicted in the above diagram, one would suppose that there would be found large coal deposits both in North America and in the northern half of South America as well as North and Central Africa. Antarctica and Australia unfortunately would not fare as well, and yet accept for North America as was depicted in diagram of the Major Coal Deposits of the World (see previous post), everything appears to be in reversed. Australia located outside the tropics is the fourth leading coal producer in the world while Africa, not North or Central, but rather South Africa ranks as the seventh leading coal producer, what happened in North and Central Africa, where’s the coal?

During the Mesozoic, the world was on average considerably warmer than today. Gondwana was then host to a huge variety of flora and fauna for many millions of years. But there is strong evidence of glaciation during Carboniferous to Permian time, especially in South Africa.”

“Antarctica remained connected to South America and Australia until about 35 million years ago and, up to that time, retained a diverse flora. At the end of the Eocene, both Australia and South America pulled away northwards allowing the South Circumpolar Current to develop – an ocean current that maintains a continuously flowing pool of cold water around Antarctica. Once this cold-water current was established, it trapped Antarctica in a frigid grip. Ice caps began to develop on the highlands then rapidly linked up to form an extensive ice sheet. The ice has advanced and retreated many times with changes in the global climate and hardy plants such as the southern beech trees (Nothofagus) managed to linger on in isolated Antarctic refugia until as recently as five million years ago. However, intensified global cooling since that time has eliminated all woody plants and the ice sheet is now four kilometers (nearly 2 ½ miles) thick at its center.” (See “Fossil forests in the freezer”)

The Continental drift theory like the vegetation theory has its own problems, for more on this please see, “Plate Tectonics: A Paradigm under Threat” by David Pratt

Those who so glibly assert that coal is of vegetable origin have apparently ignored the fact that the coal, even if it reached the coal beds as a deposit of decaying vegetation, had to have a previous origin, and that origin must provide that carbon as fuel carbon, so the question becomes, did nature go to all the trouble of routing the carbon through vegetation or did it deposit it as a crystallized carbon without processing it through vegetation?

We will not take longer to indicate that there are very strong reasons for believing that the current conception of the process of coal formation is in reality, a misconception, and certainly subject to grave questioning. Whatever the process was, the conditions we find must be entirely harmonious with the events. Our trouble has been that the deductions made from the facts, were not in harmony with all the facts, and although apparently explaining some, for some facts may point strongly to the orthodox conception, there are other facts that as strongly contradict it.

Continued with next post.
 
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