Therefore, the first half of the creation week does not necessarily proceed along the lines which some insist. The only solution to this difficulty would be to interpret the text as saying that the Sun appeared on the fourth day, but that it had actually been created on the first and was therefore the source of the light which separated day and night. This is something which the adamantly literal interpreters refuse to do. In critiquing Hugh Ross for suggesting such an arrangement, Terry Mortenson of Answers in Genesis explicitly argues that the Sun, Moon, and Stars were not created until the fourth day, advancing his argument along several lines. 14 Likewise, other Answers in Genesis contributors insist upon the Sun’s actual creation on the fourth day,15 as do the
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Also, they feature evening and morning, though the duration and nature of these phenomena are not elaborated upon, perhaps because it was not integral to the author’s purpose, a topic which will be discussed later. (The same arguments made above concerning the meaning of day also apply to the meaning of ‘evening and morning;’ the state of the earth as presented in the text shows that ‘evening and morning’ here mean something else than in other passages.) We are not told the source of the light which distinguishes day and night. Some maintain that God himself is the source, noting that he is described as being present over the earth (v.2), and is elsewhere portrayed as present in creation (even immediately after the Fall; 3:8). If the earth was in fact rotating at the first (as some claim17), and if God was still hovering above it (as in v. 2), this would seem probable at first glance, though it would not commend an interpretation of the day as being of regular duration (for the reasons discussed
Also, they feature evening and morning, though the duration and nature of these phenomena are not elaborated upon, perhaps because it was not integral to the author’s purpose, a topic which will be discussed later. (The same arguments made above concerning the meaning of day also apply to the meaning of ‘evening and morning;’ the state of the earth as presented in the text shows that ‘evening and morning’ here mean something else than in other passages.) We are not told the source of the light which distinguishes day and night. Some maintain that God himself is the source, noting that he is described as being present over the earth (v.2), and is elsewhere portrayed as present in creation (even immediately after the Fall; 3:8). If the earth was in fact rotating at the first (as some claim17), and if God was still hovering above it (as in v. 2), this would seem probable at first glance, though it would not commend an interpretation of the day as being of regular duration (for the reasons discussed