Updated Chart of Genesis 1 Parallels

Creation Day and Events

Genesis 1:1-2:4 (YLT)

Genesis 1 Parallels and Comments

Genesis 2:4 These [are] births of the heavens and of the earth in their being prepared, in the day of Jehovah God's making earth and heavens;

Summary statement of the whole work placed at the end in ancient texts. (Toldot theory)

Big Bang Elements Formed

Genesis 1:1In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth

Multiple generations of stars produce the full array of elements from which the Sun, Earth, and Moon formed. Formation of all types of galaxies, stars, planets, astroids, comets, moons, quasars, and blackholes.

Solar Ignition of the Sun

And God maketh the two great luminaries, the great luminary

2

Moon-forming impact

…and the small luminary

Ongoing star formation

-- and the stars —

Hadean (The Birth of the Deep)

the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness [is] on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters,

Light from the new Sun cannot penetrate the thick atmosphere of Earth created by the conditions of the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB).

Conditions

Earth formless, void, darkened

Heavens formed, filled, illumined

Late Heavy Bombardment

…and darkness [is] on the face of the deep…

DAY 1 Archean (The Birth of Day and Night)

[Ordained] `Let light be;’

Luminaries light the Deep and the Earthto give Light upon the Earth:’

1

and light is. 4 And God seeth the light that [it is] good,

to give light upon the earth,…

3

[Separated]and God separateth between the light and the darkness,

Luminaries separate Day and Nightto make a separation between the day and the night,…

1

[Called] 5 and God calleth to the light `Day,' and to the darkness He hath called `Night;'

for the rule of the day, … for the rule of the night;…

2

and to rule over day and over night,

3

and to make a separation between the light and the darkness;

Oxygenation Event

And there was evening and there was morning — day one.

DAY 2 Proterozoic (The Birth of the Protective Firmament)

And God saith,

Luminaries Appear in the Expanse

[Ordained] `Let an expanse be in the midst of the waters,…

`Let luminaries be in the expanse of the heavens,…

1

and let it be separating between waters and waters.’

[Fulfilled] And God maketh the expanse,

and they have been for luminaries in the expanseof the heavens,…

2

and it separateth between the waters which [are] under the expanse, and the waters which [are] above the expanse: and it is so.

[Called] And God calleth to the expanse`Heavens;'

and God giveth them in the expanse of the heavens

3

Snowball Earth

And there was evening and there was morning — day second.

DAY 3 Paleozoic Mesozoic (The Birth of the Continents and Seas and Plants)

And God saith,

And God saith,

`Let the waters under the heavens be collected unto one place,

`Let the waters teem with the teeming living creature,

1

and let the dry land be seen:'

and fowl let fly on the earthon the face of the expanse of the heavens.’

2

and it is so.

And God calleth to the dry land `Earth,'

`Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas,

2

and to the collection of the waters He hath called `Seas;'

and the fowl let multiply in the earth:'

1

and God seeth that [it is] good.

And God saith,

And God saith,

`Let the earth yield tender grass,

`Let the earth bring forththe living creature after its kind, cattle

1

herb sowing seed,

and creeping thing,

2

fruit-tree (whose seed [is] in itself) making fruit after its kind, on the earth:'

and beast of the earth after its kind:'

3

and it is so.

and it is so.

And the earth bringeth forth tender grass,

And God maketh the beast of the earth after its kind,

3

herb sowing seed after its kind,

and the cattle after their kind,

1

and tree making fruit (whose seed [is] in itself) after its kind;

and every creeping thing of the ground after its kind,

2

and God seeth that [it is] good;

and God seeth that [it is] good.

Fruit Trees Radiate

And there was evening and there was morning — day third.

DAY 4 Upper Cretaceous (The Birth of Signs, Seasons, Days, and Years)

`Let luminaries be in the expanse of the heavens,

Luminaries appear in the sky on Day 2.

1

to make a separation between the day and the night,

Luminaries separate day and night on Day 1.

1

[to signify signs, seasons, days, years]then they have been for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years,

God's providence in creating the luminaries and so ordering them to serve the needs of plant, beast, and man.

and they have been for luminaries in the expanse of the heavens,

The expanse of the heavens opened on Day 2, at which time the lumenaries shown forth.

2

to give Light upon the Earth:’

Refering the light-giving role of the luminaries as fulfilled since Day 1.

1

and it is so.

Now luminaries also serve as signs.

And God maketh the two great luminaries, the great luminary and the small luminary - and the stars -

In the beginning, God filled the heavens with lights.

2

The separation of day from night by the luminaries ordained on Day 1.

2

and God giveth them in the expanse of the heavens

Repetition highlights the poetic structure and underscores God is the One who did this when He formed the expanse on Day 2.

3

to give light upon the earth,

Ordained on Day 1

3

and to rule over day and night,

Ordained on Day 1

3

and to make a separation between the light and the darkness;

Ordained on Day 1

and God seeth that [it is] good;

God's signifies approval. Begun on Day 1, expanded on Day 2, completes on Day 4.

K-T Extinction

And there was evening and there was morning — day fourth.

DAY 5 Paleogene (The Birth of Modern Fish and Birds)

And God saith,

`Let the waters teem with the teeming living creature,

1

and fowl let fly on the earth on the face of the expanse of the heavens.'

2

And God prepareth the great monsters, and every living creature that is creeping, which the waters have teemed with, after their kind, and every fowl with wing, after its kind

and God seeth that [it is] good. And God blesseth them, saying,

`Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas,

1

and the fowl let multiply in the earth:'

2

E-O Extinction

And there was evening and there was morning — day fifth.

Oligocene (The Birth of Specially Endowed Plants)

giving of plants for mankind, beasts, birds, and every creeping thing The sudden appearance of 60 species of grasses, fruit trees, and other plants that utilized effecient C4 photosynthesis fueled the rapid ascendancy of mammals.

DAY 6 Neogene (The Birth of Cattle, Small Mammals, and Wild Animals)

And God saith,

`Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle

1

and creeping thing,

2

and beast of the earth after its kind:'

3

it is so

And God maketh the beast of the earth after its kind,

3

and the cattle after their kind,

1

and every creeping thing of the ground after its kind,

2

and God seeth that [it is] good.

And God saith,

`Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness,

and let them rule (3 dominions)

over fish of the

sea,

1

and over fowl of the

heavens,

2

and over cattle,

1

and over all the earth,

2

and over every creeping thing that is creeping on the

earth.'

3

3

27 And God prepareth the man in His image; in the image of God He prepared him, a male and a female He prepared them.

And God blesseth them, and God saith to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth (3-fold command)

and subdue it and rule (3 dominions)

over fish of the

sea,

1

and over fowl of the

heavens,

2

and over every living thing that is creeping upon the

earth.”

3

And God saith, `Lo, I have given to you (3 groups of plants; man plus 3 groups of creatures)

every herb sowing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth,

1

and every tree in which [is] the fruit of a tree sowing seed,

2

Quaternary (The Birth of the Human Race in Adam and Eve)

to you it is for food;

and to every beast of the earth,

1

and to every fowl of the heavens,

2

and to every creeping thing on the earth, in which [is] breath of life,

3

every green herb [is] for food:’

3

and it is so.

31 And God seeth all that He hath done, and lo, very good;

Special creation of Adam and Eve

Toba Volcano

And there was evening and there was morning — day the sixth.

DAY 7Anthropozoic (This Generation)

Genesis 2:1 And the heavens and the earth are completed, and all their host; 2 and God completeth by the seventh day His work which He hath made, and ceaseth by the seventh day from all His work which He hath made. 3 And God blesseth the seventh day, and sanctifieth it, for in it He hath ceased from all His work which God had prepared for making.

4 These [are] births of the heavens and of the earth in their being prepared, in the day of Jehovah God's making earth and heavens;

The Fall

The Flood

Abraham

Christ

The Church

The Harvest at the End of the Age

The Age to Come

The New Heavens and the New Earth

Kingdom of Light

Outer Darkness

agesofjoy.blogspot.com

© William D Rogers 2018, 2019

The Third Day

The Third Day

9 And God saith, `Let the waters under the heavens be collected unto one place, and let the dry land be seen:' and it is so.10 And God calleth to the dry land `Earth,' and to the collection of the waters He hath called `Seas;' and God seeth that [it is] good.11 And God saith, `Let the earth yield tender grass, herb sowing seed, fruit-tree (whose seed [is] in itself) making fruit after its kind, on the earth:' and it is so.12 And the earth bringeth forth tender grass, herb sowing seed after its kind, and tree making fruit (whose seed [is] in itself) after its kind; and God seeth that [it is] good;13 and there is an evening, and there is a morning -- day third. (YLT)

In the Ages of Joy Creation Model, the Third Day represents the transformations of the Earth's biosphere that began at the advent of the Phanerozoic Eon, which literally means the age in which visible life appears on Earth.  In the scientific definition, visible life refers to individual living organisms large enough to see without a microscope.  Prior to the Phanerozoic, life on Earth was visible in some sense: cyanobacteria would assemble in layer upon layer forming large stromatolite formations, but each individual member was a microscopic organism.  It appears that there were no, or extremely rare occurrences, of any larger organisms.

Currently, the transition from the Precambrian to the Phanerozoic is set at 541 million years ago, because of the sudden, abundant appearance of hard-body (shelled) Cambrian fossils at that time.  However, over the past decade or so, an earlier proliferation of life has been discovered by finding and examining a growing collection of soft-body Pre-Cambrian fossils.  The sudden appearance of shell-less animals constitute what is referred to as the Avalon Explosion or alternately the Ediacaran Biota.  The time frame for this is estimated to begin at 575 million years ago and marks the true beginning of the Phanerozoic.  Whether or not geologic naming conventions will be updated to reflect this is somewhat academic.

Because the text regarding the Third Day in Genesis 1 mentions seas, land and plants, the connection to the appearance of macroscopic (visible) life forms in the seas is typically overlooked.  They are not "land plants" after all.  However, the dramatic and sudden appearance of complex sea animals after three and  half billion years of only microbial life begs some serious investigation.

Why would God, in revealing His creative handiwork through "collecting waters in to one place", "letting dry land appear", and "bringing forth plants", not mention the proliferation of animal life in the seas and then later on land?  Sea and land animals, including birds, are of course associated with the Fifth and Sixth Days of Creation.  Is it the case that the order of events in the Bible simply doesn't line up with the sequence of events captured in the geologic record?  Here I will try to demonstrate otherwise.  Genesis 1 is an amazingly structured yet brilliantly succinct account of the history of life on Earth.  In order to keep the account succinct, God merely revealed the highlights of his creative handiwork that are most relevant to people throughout history.  On the other hand, by structuring Genesis 1 so brilliantly, we can draw parallels between what God did one Day of creation with what He did on other Days of creation.

First off, we know that God is the Creator.  We know that wherever and whenever life has appeared and flourished on Earth, God had His hand in it.  He is the One with the master plan in mind of just what kinds of life He wanted to appear, when, and for how long.  His ultimate goal was to populate Earth with human beings and everything He did along the way supported that objective.  Secondly, we know that He did this in stages.  There are six days of creation, not just one.  And each Day had many things happen, not just a single event.  Similarly, there many ways to subdivide the geologic record into larger or smaller sets of events.  There is no inherent conflict between God deciding to describe the history of the origin of life on Earth in Six Days and geologists pursuing a very fine-grained view of identifying as many geologic periods as possible.  Even geologists group the periods into a few larger periods of time.  At Ages of Joy, the goal is to group the geologic periods into a set of larger chronologically arranged periods that best correspond to the Days of Creation.

720 - 579 MYA	Snowball Earth	And there was evening and there was morning — day second.	Parallels to the Fifth and Sixth Creation Days	Cryogenian and Glaciations
		Day 3. And God saith,	Day 5. And God saith,
579 MYA	Melting glaciers drain into super-ocean enriching it with nutrients needed for life to flourish	`Let the watersunder the heavens be collected unto one place,	`Let the watersteem with the teeming living creature,	Avalon Explosion of soft-bodied sea animals	575 MYA
550 - 100 MYA	Super Continents of barren rock become rich with soil and plants.	and let the dry land be seen:'	and fowl let fly on the earth on the face of the expanse of the heavens.’	First flying bird-like creatures	160 MYA
		and it is so.
100 MYA	Modern continents are formed	And God calleth to the dry land `Earth,'	`Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas,	Seas teem with ancient fish and repiles
100 MYA	Modern oceans are formed	and to the collection of the waters He hath called `Seas;'	and the fowl let multiply in the earth:'	Ancient species of birds and pterosaurs
		and God seeth that [it is] good.
		And God saith,	Day 6. And God saith,
480 MYA	First land plants	`Let the earth yield tender grass,	`Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind,	Insects	480 MYA
319 MYA	First seed plants	herb sowing seed,	cattle and creeping thing,	First Herbivors	330 MYA
130 MYA	First Fruit Plants	fruit-tree (whose seed [is] in itself) making fruit after its kind, on the earth:'	and beast of the earth after its kind:'	Dinosaurs	233 MYA
		and it is so.	and it is so.
		And the earth bringeth forthtender grass,	And God maketh the beast of the earth after its kind,
		herb sowing seed after its kind,	and the cattle after their kind,
		and tree making fruit (whose seed [is] in itself) after its kind;	and every creeping thing of the ground after its kind,
100 MYA	Flowering Trees greatly diversify and spread	and God seeth that [it is] good;	and God seeth that [it is] good.
		And there was evening and there was morning — day third.
100 - 66 MYA		The Fourth Day	Earth's rotation slows to 24-hours per day.	Seasonal climates develop.
66 MYA	K-T Extinction Event	And there was evening and there was morning — day fourth.	Extinction of virutally all four-legged animals with adult sizes greater than 55 lbs in size. 75% of all species on Earth died out, including many kinds of fish, all the great sea monsters, and virtually all bird-like creatures.

Please observe the chart above carefully.  What it demonstrates is the parallels between the two phases of Day 3 and Days 5 and 6.  The first stanza of Day 3, regarding the formation of the seas and the land, parallels Day 5 in which the seas are populated with life and the land with birds.  The second stanza of Day 6, regarding the formation of three broad categories of plant life, parallels Day 6 in which God forms three broad categories of animal life.

The point of this parallel is that God always creates life to team in the environments which He forms. When He created the land and the seas, He also willed them to team with life.  Does this imply that Days 3, 5, and 6 actually occurred in parallel, chronologically?  No, not really.  What it does imply is that God's creative handiwork of Days 5 and 6 had an earlier parallel in which He also created the ancient life forms that filled the Earth in long ago Ages.  We don't know this directly from  Scripture alone, but we can infer it from the scientific record and from Scripture as follows:  where and when life exists, God is its Creator.

What can we learn about the plants of Day 3 in contrast to the fish, animals, and birds of Day 3?  During Day 3, God created mosses, seed plants, and fruit trees with which to bless the creatures He would form on Days 5 and 6.  At the K-T extinction event, 75% of all fish, animals and birds went extinct, including all dinosaurs.  All creatures with adult sizes greater than 55 lbs., other than crocodiles and sea turtles, went extinct.  This includes virtually all birds and bird-like creatures.  Day 5 would usher in a complete overhaul of the life that dominated the oceans.  In contrast to the complete change of fauna brought about by the K-T extinction, the flora, plant life, flourished.  The fruit trees that were the crown jewel of Day 3 expanded rapidly during Days 4, 5, and 6.

In other words, God highlighted the creation of plants on Day 3, because the major kinds of plants He created on Day 3 are still with us.  On the other hand, the kinds of animals He created on Day 3 are no longer with us.

Thus, we can see that there is no conflict between the geologic record of life during the Third Day and what Scripture reveals.  By seeing God as the prolific creator of all life, both ancient and modern, we can better see that Genesis 1 reveals the true history of life on Earth.