Day 4 - Appearance of the Celestial Bodies 1.9 Ga
Genesis 1:14-19
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Proverbs 8:29b
29 when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
 Job 38:12
12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
      or shown the dawn its place,
Psalm 104:19
19 The moon marks off the seasons,
      and the sun knows when to go down.
Based on the 4 biblical accounts of Creation, the main result of Day 4 was that the celestial bodies could be used to mark seasons, days, years, and the foundations of the earth. In “Biblical Difficulties for a Young Earth - Part 3: The sun is not in the sky“, I showed how the Genesis 1 account of Day 4 resulted in clearing up the earth’s cloud cover (a haze actually), hence making the celestial bodies visible from the earth for the first time in the Creation account. But, when did this happen? According to science, an atmospheric haze (which included H20 and other gases) cleared up around around 1.9 billion years ago. This resulted mostly from the development of plant life (spawned on Creation Day 3) which decreased the CO2 in the atmosphere, and replaced it with Oxygen.
Something to notice about the Bible’s 4 Creation accounts is that none of them speak to the direct creation of the celestial bodies. In “Biblical Difficulties for a Young Earth - Part 3: The sun is not in the sky“, I discuss why Genesis 1 only requires the clearing of the sky for Day 4. For the other accounts, this is even more obvious.Â
- Proverbs 8:29b records the marking of the earth’s foundations, which requires seeing the earth from the sun.Â
- Job 38:12 records the precise marking of every dawn, which requires seeing the sun from the earth.Â
- Psalm 104:19 records the ability to see the moon from the earth, for marking off seasons.Â
Do these mean that the sun, moon, and stars definitely existed already? Taken by themselves, no. However, every day of Creation describes an actual event recorded in science, and if the science is true, then the celestial bodies already existed on Day 4, when God made them visible to the earth.