The discovery of pristine Oxygen on a comet, has puzzled scientists. The
problem that the ESA probe, Rosetta, has now posed, is how oxygen can exist in
a virgin state when it is so renowned for combining or oxidizing just about
every possible element in the periodic table.
Originally the earth acquired its oxygen via photosynthesis, hence
plants had to precede animal life, just as Genesis 1 confirms. Plants could
feed on the carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere and reproduce oxygen, but it
evidently took a long time for the earth to acquire enough oxygen to support
life.
Actually, the original producers were not plants per se, but cyanobacteria,
a kind of green, pond algae. Plants still coopt cyanobacteria to do the work of
synthesizing carbon-dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen.
Prior to cyanobacteria, primitive microbes existed anaerobically,
consuming carbon dioxide without producing oxygen, but that changed after the
big oxygen event – an event that is evident from rusted iron deposits dating
back to that era and estimated to have happened about 2.7billion years back.
It occurred when iron deposits in the sea, so-called oxygen sinks, could
no longer absorb oxygen.
That triggered the oxygenation of the atmosphere, the biosphere
we now live in.
It took another billion years for there to be enough oxygen to support
biological and animal life, a period called the “boring billions”.
Eventually,
thanks to tectonic plate movements and volcanic activity, the oxygen levels on
earth settled at 21% of the atmosphere and stabilized there. Any more, starts
to become poisonous and excessively corrosive, any less de-energizes organic
life and can lead to death.
Now, I am no biologist, I just am amazed that the pattern of events so
faithfully tracks the sequence of events found in Genesis 1.
I am oft-bemused by the assertion that the earth was made in 7 calendar
days, when the concept of day and night only emerged on day 4. Yet God said of
days 1-3 that “the evening and morning was the nth day”.
He clearly did not
speak of a sunset and sunrise as we know it, but rather an “event horizon”, as
Einstein would have put it.
Light would certainly have been the first evidence of the universe, as the
big bang expanded at a rate greater than the speed of light, from what we call
the singularity: an infinitely dense concentration of matter and energy that
birthed all matter as we know it.
The brightness of that event is somewhat understated
by Genesis 1, as in “let there be light and there was light”. It was the most
notable feature of a massively bright event.
Day 2 saw the separation of our atmosphere from space, a necessary and
logical next step. That atmosphere was dense enough and also constantly lit
(there was no day and night at that stage), to make day 3 possible.
That
resulted in a massive growth in vegetation. The earth was a veritable
greenhouse.
The apparent reason for a continuous day was the suspension of hydrogen
in the upper atmosphere, which at extremely low temperatures becomes like
metal, able to reflect light from the sun to ensure light on the “dark side”.
Perhaps also, the earth had yet to settle into an orbital path and its own
rotation.
So then, day 4 confirms a normalization of our habitat, resulting in
days and nights, but evidently the atmosphere also thinned and clarified as
temperatures on the surface stabilized, so stars, the moon and the sun, all
became distinct to observers on the earth surface (if there were any).
Then came day 5. As already indicated, ocean life preceded land life.
Birds also took to flight.
Finally on day 6, when the biosphere was ready for it, animals emerged,
followed by man.
I have been reading how some new earthers claim that Jesus confirmed a
six day event. Hardly, but what’s worse is that in doing so they make exegetic
errors that take the body of scripture of out of context. However, I can’t go there
now – another day.
Suffice to say for now, that at least both new and old earthers agree that
the phases of creation are consistent with science, even if the timing thereof
is disputed.
I just find it remarkable that a book written thousands of years ago by
a relatively primitive man, could so accurately trace what is a complex
scientific phenomenon. That is just one way the bible validates itself.
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