What did God create on what days?

Question

Wiki User · Answer

Day 1: lightness, darkness, day, night

Day 2: the sky and water

Day 3: land, seas, grasses, plants, fruit-bearing trees

Day 4: Sun, moon, stars

Day 5: all swimming and flying animals

Day 6: beasts, livestock, reptiles, humans

Day 7: the 7th day

NOTE: The creation of what was created first and last in each day is disputed between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

Wiki User · Answer

Day by day, God created the universe and its contents (Genesis ch.1).God created the universe out of nothing (Exodus 20:11, Isaiah 40:28; Rashi commentary to Genesis 1:14; Maimonides' "Guide," 2:30).Note that the Torah, in describing the Creation, deliberately employs brevity and ellipsis, just as it does in many other topics. See the Talmud, Hagigah 11b.

On day 1: God created the universe in general, light, and this Earth. The light was not the same as that of the sun. Rather, it was light that God created before the sun, and which emanated from a point in space without any physical source; like what we might term a "white hole."
On day 2: God created the separation between the Earth and the upper atmosphere.
On day 3: God separated the continents from the oceans, and created plants.
On day 4: God created the sun, moon, and stars.
On day 5: God created birds and fish.
On day 6: God created animals and people.
On day 7: God ceased creating, thereby creating the concept of rest.

See also:

Is there evidence for Creation?

Can you show that God exists?

Seeing God's wisdom

The Torah states that it was written in its entirety by one author, Moses (Deuteronomy 31:24), to whom it was dictated by God (Exodus 24:12), including earlier events.

The Torah has one creation-narrative, which takes the form of a summary (Genesis ch.1) followed by an in-depth recap (Rashi commentary, Genesis 2:8).
When we see a newspaper whose opening headline is paraphrased in the detailed story, we don't ascribe the repetition to different writers.

But this kind of literary device, which the Torah employs to enrich its text, has been used by Bible-critics in an attempt to reassign and divide up its authorship.

The Jewish sages, based on ancient tradition, identified many of the literary devices used by the Torah, which include:

- recapping earlier brief passages to elucidate,

- employing different names of God to signify His various attributes,

- using apparent changes or redundancies to allude to additional unstated details,

- speaking in the vernacular that was current during each era,

and many more. While Judaism has always seen the Torah as an intricate tapestry that nonetheless had one Divine source, some modern authors such as Wellhausen (the father of modern Biblical-criticism, 1844-1918) have suggested artificially attributing the narrative to several unknown authors, despite the Torah's explicit statement as to its provenance (Exodus 24:12, Deuteronomy 31:24). This need not concern believers, since his claims have been debunked one by one, as archaeology and other disciplines have demonstrated the integrity of the Torah. No fragments have ever been found that would support his Documentary Hypothesis, which remains nothing more than an arbitrary claim:

Refuting the JEPD Documentary Hypothesis

The creation-narrative in Genesis (a Christian author)

The authorship of the Hebrew Bible