I don't think scripture tells us that God began creating the earth "in the beginning". It does not say when that beginning was. To understand what scripture tells us we need to trace back to the original Hebrew that the first men who heard God spoke in, and what those words meant to them.
Genesis 1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
In the beginning our earth was described by the Hebrew word choshek. This word means lifeless, dark, chaotic. It does not tell us there was nothing there when scripture lists the days of creation, but that the earth was dark and forbidding.
When scripture describes the first day of creation, it tells us that “owr” was created. This is a Hebrew word always translated as light, it means enlightenment, joy, life, and good. Physical light was not created until the fourth day. Owr is a Godly light. On this day God created light as we as human think of it.
On the fourth day the light created was called maor, or the plural of that is maorof. This is a name for objects that illuminate. Translators used our word light for both of these very different Hebrew words.
Ancient Hebrew was first written in pictograph, then without vowels.
We know that God is in a dimension different from ours because God is eternal. Time is part of the dimension humans live in, eternity puts God in a different dimension. Scripture tries to explain that dimension to us.
Scientist do not know what God knows about us for God created what scientist try to discover. But often they discover the truth of what we have misread scripture about. That happened about "the four corners of the earth". People said the earth was square, but scientist told them what that scripture meant. I think it is the same with the age of our earth.
Genesis 1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
In the beginning our earth was described by the Hebrew word choshek. This word means lifeless, dark, chaotic. It does not tell us there was nothing there when scripture lists the days of creation, but that the earth was dark and forbidding.
When scripture describes the first day of creation, it tells us that “owr” was created. This is a Hebrew word always translated as light, it means enlightenment, joy, life, and good. Physical light was not created until the fourth day. Owr is a Godly light. On this day God created light as we as human think of it.
On the fourth day the light created was called maor, or the plural of that is maorof. This is a name for objects that illuminate. Translators used our word light for both of these very different Hebrew words.
Ancient Hebrew was first written in pictograph, then without vowels.
We know that God is in a dimension different from ours because God is eternal. Time is part of the dimension humans live in, eternity puts God in a different dimension. Scripture tries to explain that dimension to us.
Scientist do not know what God knows about us for God created what scientist try to discover. But often they discover the truth of what we have misread scripture about. That happened about "the four corners of the earth". People said the earth was square, but scientist told them what that scripture meant. I think it is the same with the age of our earth.