What did God create on the first day?

Answer 1

On the first day, God created the Heaven And Earth. He also created light, which he divided among the two of them. Finally, he created water, to make the seas flow the next day.
First may I give the meaning of create? According to Word Web it means "To bring into existence". Might I suggest that "Organise" might be a better word to use. The reason I suggest this is that to create usually is interpreted to mean to make something from nothing, which even God cannot do. But He can organise matter which is already in existence to make the earth, the earth being the first to be organized. I am sorry if the answer is somewhat long winded but I thought some explanation might be in order.

One the first day of creation God created light, and seperated the light from the darkness. Therefore creating night and day.
and god said "let there be light"

Answer 2

We need to know what the Hebrew words are in the creation account, and what they mean, not just read the traditional English language translation. Since the early centuries of the Common Era, tradition has held that Genesis 1:1 says "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." But as long ago as the eleventh century CE, the influential Jewish scholar, Rashi, said that Genesis 1:1 should be read, "When God began to create" or "In the beginning of God's creation ". Rashi probably believed that God created the earth, but he saw nothing in the text to say this was so. In the Book of Genesis, God did not create heaven and earth: on the first day he created light. This was the light of day but not the light of the sun, which God created on the fourth day.

There is a second creation story in Genesis, beginning at verse 2:4b (the second half of verse 4). This account says that the first act of creation was the creation of Adam. This means that God created a man on the first day. However, the creation of Eve was to wait until the end of creation.

For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation

Answer 3

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 against Evolution?

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

Answer 4

On the first day of Creation, God made light and dark, then separated them from one another. He named the darkness 'night' and the light 'day'.