IN THE BEGINNING

Gen1v1to2

It is very important to be clear what the earth was like according to the Genesis account before day one of the creation process.

The primitive earth

The earth's surface was covered with water. There was no land. The surface was in complete darkness. There were no clear boundaries between the water on the earth's surface, the saturated "atmosphere" above and the clouds at a higher level still.

It seems to me that this picture of the earth is compatible with scientific opinion.
(a) The water covering the earth was produced by millions of years of volcanic activity during a hot phase in the earth's history.
(b) There are no rocks on earth older than 4000 million years yet the earth is 5000 million years old. The continental crust is a later addition.
(c) During the hot phase oceanic crust was continuously created and destroyed by vigorous convection currents in the upper mantel.
(d) In this period the oceans were heated from below. The temperature was the same everywhere on earth except possibly where submarine volcanoes were active. The general circulation of the atmosphere did not exist, as we know it. The oceans were evaporating rapidly into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other volcanic gases above. The evaporation was so rapid that no visible boundary existed between the liquid phase and gaseous phase.
(e) At this stage there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. There was no tropopause cause by ozone absorbing short wave radiation from the sun. No upper limit to convectional activity existed. The mixture of water vapour, carbon dioxide and water droplets probably extended upwards to a high level.
(f) No sunlight was able to penetrate this thick layer. So the "surface" of the ocean was dark. The only illumination would have come from any basaltic shield volcano that managed to grow above the oceans.

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