Get a reputable Bible... Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Where is the SUN?
verse 2 of Genesis 1 continues with A N D the earth became without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.....
Please note NO date or time stamp given, verse 3 begins the description of what I term the grandest environmental clean up this earth has ever had. And the clean-up took more than 6 literal in our time 24 hour days.
And NO I do not believe in the darwinist fairy tale, old Darwin was ticked off at God and decided to strike out on his own.
According to the longest running English interpretation of the Bible, it reads:
Genesis 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. KJV
The NIV is not substantially different.
Youa also wrote: Please note NO date or time stamp given, verse 3 begins the description of what I term the grandest environmental clean up this earth has ever had.
As you prepare to defend the "gap" theory that allegedly resides between verses 1 & 2, consider Exodus 20:11 11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
The burden is upon you to prove the Bible does not simply mean what it simply says, God did it all in only 6 days, just like the plain reading of the text implies. One must also consider the reading of 2 Peter 3:5 (KJV) 5For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Or, if you prefer NIV 5But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water.
The forcing of the "was" (KJV, ASV, NIV, YLT, et al) in "became", which from my brief understanding of Hebrew is permissable, does not change the reading when compared in the context of Exodus 20:11. Why force it to read as if the earth existed for a long period of time before it underwent the "grandest environmental clean up" as you called it? Only to allow for Billions of years as asserted by so called "science".
Since you entitled to disagree, you must agree that this assertion is a 20th century development. If not, please a pre-20th century source (ante-nicene, apostloic, middle age commentary, etc.) that supports the "gap" assertion.