Would the sun, moon and stars be included in each of these paintings? Genesis states that the 4th day is when they were created. Which begs the question: Sun up- sun down. That would be how a day is measured. That wasn’t created till the 4th “day” Perhaps “day” is just a period of time, not 24 hrs. All will be revealed when we pass from this world.
We are dealing with very, VERY old text that has been modified many times over the millennia. The general concept may have survived, but many things changed. It would be like a guy today taking a manuscript from 1950 about China and changing Peking to Beijing. That sort of thing really happened regarding many OT manuscripts.
When the bible says, “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”, that could have been billions of years ago, but the six days of OUR age’s creation began about 6,000 years ago. And when God said “let there be light”, is that because he created the sun on that day, or he “pulled back a curtain” on that day?
I have a tag line at a christian site where I ask, “Did the rooster crow once, or did the rooster crow twice?” The bible says both. So which is correct? The correct answer is that it only took until the next morning for Peter to deny Christ three times. The number of rooster crows is irrelevant.
And a lot of the numbers in the Pentateuch are gross exaggerations because, to be frank, that is the way such books of the day were written. The readers of the day understood those numbers in a different way than we do. And here’s the kicker. Those books were written TO them, not us. We simply use it for historical reference to better understand the personality of God. It was written for us to see, but we don’t have the full cultural understanding of the context of the books that they had.
It would be like saying, in a book today, that a guy was “bad”, and someone thousands of years from now thinking the writer meant the guy was a bad person. But in the modern vernacular it can mean the exact opposite.
The point is that God in fact did create everything and he is all powerful. We can trust him.
The sun, moon and stars were created, whenever, Genesis 1:1 took place. The Bible does not say how long ago this was. Genesis 1:2 describe the Katabolé – καταβολή (Overthrow) of Lucifer. Christ and Paul both point to this action, and it got translated 'before the foundation of the world'.
Example: Ephesians 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Ezekiel 28:12-19 and Isaiah 14:12 -32 describe the why of Genesis 1:2. The casting down, overthrow of Lucifer.
Isaiah 45:18-19 States God Himself That formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it NOT in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: "I am the LORD; and there is none else.