You ask the same question I have been asking all my life! No one comes up with a satisfactory answer. Another question I ask is how could the earth be created before the rest of the universe when it is billions of years younger, 10,000 years old according to a lot of people. Or how the sun stood still - and actually backed up! That’s why I have given up on religion. I just believe in who Washington described as Providence - The Creator. That’s why I consider myself a Diest and reject revealed religion.
Are you asking why the earth is created before the sun moon and stars on Day 4?
Read a book called, “Genesis and the Big Bang” by Dr. Gerald Schroeder. He’s an astrophysicist, and also an Orthodox Jew. In the book (and there are follow-on books, if you’re interested), he claims that there is no dichotomy between science (as we understand it) and religion (as revealed in the Book of Genesis). Then he goes and proves it (well, at least as far as it CAN be proven).
FYI, he says that from G-d’s perspective, the world was created in 6 days. However, using the Theory of Relativity, he showed how the Universe is about 14.4 billion years old, from OUR perspective.
It is an interesting read, even if you don’t believe (or understand) every word. It’ll certainly enlighten anyone who is firmly on either side of the science vs. religion debate - because that was the very purpose of the book, to show the lack of difference between the two.
Many of science’s greatest lights not only believed in revealed religion but made it their life’s work...like these three priests:
Founder of modern stratigraphy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Steno
Came up with the Big Bang:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre
Father of modern genetics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel
Darwin considered Asa Gray one of his best advocates...Gray was a devout Christian and said “God himself is the very last, irreducible causal factor and, hence, the source of all evolutionary change.”
So make sure you read nice and widely before giving up on revealed religion.
The answer is there for the asking.
Interesting book “Starlight and Time.”
Dr. Russell Humphreys Ph.D, He has worked for General Electric and Sandia National Laboratories in nuclear physics.
I think any rational discussion of Genesis needs to start with a clear definition of the word "day". What if, in Genesis, a day was 500 million years in length?
But, yeah, there are a great many things I have questions about in Genesis. Like, who are the Nephilim? Were they angels sent to reproduce with the "daughters of men" in order to fix the genetic screw ups introduced byAdam, Eve, Cain and "Cain's wife"?