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Thank you so much for your reply!

Please understand that I do not agree with Schroeder on everything. Right off the bat, he is Jewish and I am Christian. I do however agree with his point vis-à-vis relativity and inflationary theory and thus that both statements are true: God created the physical universe in a week (as seen from the inception space/time coordinates) - and also the physical universe is approximately 15 billion years old (from our space/time coordinates on earth).

My leading in the Spirit in reading Genesis chapters 1-3 is that it is speaking to creation and events not only of the physical realm but the spiritual realm as well. In other words, it is not merely a description of physical cosmology but rather is a description written by God, the Creator, Himself about all of His creation – heaven and earth, spiritual and physical.

Thus I read with the language of Scripture before the language of science. To take the first few passages…

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

The Spiritual leaning I have received is that ‘waters’ is not literally H2O - but rather spiritually the metaphor for language as in the water of life, the words of God :

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. – John 4:14

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. – John 6:63

And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. – Rev 22:1

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, [and] hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. – Jer 2:13

And likewise, the words ‘light’ and ‘darkness’ have a spiritual meaning:

Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. – I Thess 5:5

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. – 2 Corinthians 4:6

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. – I John 1:5

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. – John 8:12

I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. – John 12:46

BTW, if Genesis 1 were a physical cosmology textbook, the order would have been light before water.

Until 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe “was so hot that matter and radiation were entangled in a kind of soup in which sound waves (pressure waves) could vibrate. The CMB is a relic of the moment when the universe had cooled enough so that photons could ‘decouple’ from electrons, protons, and neutrons; then atoms formed and light went on its way.” Paul Preuss, “The Universe May Be Flat But It Is Nevertheless Musical,” Science Beat, Berkeley Lab (June 5, 2001)

I further assert that those who are stumped by the plants being created before the solar system ought to take note of Genesis 2:4-5 --- that the plants were created before they were in the earth. This also points to Genesis 1-3 dealing both with creation of the physical realm and the spiritual realm. That assertion is further supported by Genesis 2:9 and Rev 2:7. Namely, that the tree of life is in the center of the garden of Eden and Paradise, i.e. spiritual realm.

I also assert the intersection of the spiritual and physical realms - not only the types, such as the Temple and the Ark, but in appearances of Christ after the resurrection, the transfiguration, visitation of angels - and something to which we can all testify: the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (John, Romans 8, I Cor 2, etc.)

As another point you might find interesting, some Jewish mystics do not see the firmament as a location in space/time but rather a boundary between the physical realm and the spiritual realm. IOW, it’s not “there” but everywhere. Further, they propose the boundary is the speed the light.

I agree with them about the firmament being a boundary and not a location, but I have no leading in the Spirit whether the boundary is dimensional (space/time itself) or the speed of light.

Oh, and the word “void” has a particular significance in cosmology. All cosmologies whether inflationary theory, multi-world, multi-verse, Ekpyrotic, cyclic, imaginary time, etc. - require a beginning because they rely on geometry for physical causation.

One form of causation is if not for A then C would not be. If not for time, events would not occur. If not for space, things would not be.

But there is no space, no time, no energy, no mass, no physical laws, no physical causation, no qualia – nothing – in the void. I repeat there is no physical causation in the void.

Again with the Jewish mystics … their term for God in the beginning is Ayn Sof which means “no-thing” — One without end from which all being emerges and into which all being dissolves. God alone is “before” the beginning, transcendent, existing, all powerful and the only possible uncaused caused of all that there is, both physical and spiritual.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.