although times have changed, let me tell you a little story that shows how the two lights were
"set".
I grew up in a small town and before Christmas at the main store on main street they would hang a curtain in the main store front window and coverup what was being prepared to show .
Then on an evening before Christmas they would pull back the covering and people could see for the very first time the things that the store had for sale this year that were new and interesting.
Now, it is true that when they pulled back the covering the things that were sitting in the window were new to the people looking.
But its not like the things just suddenly appeared there in that moment the curtain was pulled aside.
But it was the first moment that people were allowed to see what was behind the curtain.
The two lights are a bit like that in the Genesis story.
The "source" of all the lights talked about in Genesis is introduced early on with the words
"In the beginning God created the heavens..."
But we also had a world covered in darkness as we learned in the book of *** that I talked about in the comments before this.
So although we have plenty of source for light, and plenty of the sun's light burning brightly, the thick clouds of the book of *** have cast the earth in "darkness"
The story advances, and we get the
"Let there be light" and there is suddenly some light on the earth.
But notice it's not a lot of light.
Yes, if you look at the wordings here at this early part of Genesis all you can see as far as light goes is that there is a noticeable difference between "
day" and "
night" but not much else.
So we are able to tell the difference between "day"
But what does the word "day" mean?
The answer is: that you have a "day" when the part of the earth you are standing on, (or in this case the part of the earth the Spirit of God is hovering over) turns in the direction of the sun.
Same is true when the bible tells us that due to the thinning clouds we now can see when it is "night"
The reason we have something called a "night" is when the part of the earth we are standing on turns away from the sun.
So everything is in place to have normal days and nights, just like we have today!
We have an earth spinning in its rotation and orbit around the sun.
That is when we have days and nights, today as well as way back in the story of Genesis.
No need to invent weird "days" and weird 'nights" and weird reasons to have them before there was a sun.
The reason we see days and night in Genesis is the same reason we have them today.
In the book of *** we learned about the thick clouds that cast the earth seas in darkness at the time of Genesis, but we also know that in our age we dont see such clouds anymore.
What happened to the clouds?.....
the answer is that they thinned out and slowly allowed more and more of the sun's "Greater light" to be seen on the earth.
This is why the sun's light is talked about in a progressive way on the 4th day.
Notice that the things the greater amount of light show us on the 4th day.
Its a slowly clearing sky.....and finally even the dim light of the stars is able to be seen though the clearly sky.
and on that note, have you noticed that the story of Genesis does not say that the "sun" was made on the 4th day?
Do you know why it does not say that the "sun was made" on the 4th day?...
.it could not say that!
The sun was already made and burning brightly in the heavens from the beginning.
But on the 4th day that
amount of light is talked about.
This is like what is going on right now on other of our sister worlds.
While the inner planets around our sun are not covered in a blanket of thick clouds anymore, we yet still see that on the outer words there still is a covering of thick clouds around worlds like Neptune ( see
http://nineplanets.org/neptune.html )
The ground of that planet is likely cast in thick darkness as was the earth at one time too. (as talked about in Genesis)
And because the sun's solar wind has not yet stripped away the thick clouds you continue to have this darkness on the outer worlds.
But if you could slowly strip away the clouds around the planet Neptune what would you see?
The answer is: that at first you would be only able to tell the difference between day and night, as you started to be able to tell when the part you are standing on turned toward the sun and then turned away from the sun.
Later as more of the clouds thinned away you would be able to see the reflected light off of the many moons around Neptune, and also be able to tell when the tilt of the planet gave you different seasons, like winter and your summer.
You would be able to tell when a year on Neptune had happened.
the final thing you would be able to see and inform you that all the thick clouds have all thinned away would be that at night you would be able to see the stars.
Now, the day you are first able to make out the stars you might think that on that same day "
god made the stars today"...but that would be
wrong.
It might appear to you that the "stars are brand new", but thats not really the case.
the stars are billions of years old, but your being able to see them is brand new.
God has
"set" them before you for the first time....