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In the creation story of Genesis chapter 1, the dry land and the seas were pre-existing - they were not created. Most English language translations incorrectly attribute creation of the sea and the land to God, by saying "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." 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 ". E.A. Speiser, in Genesis (Anchor Bible series), goes further and translates the sentence as: "When God set about to create heaven and earth - the world being a formless waste, with darkness over the seas... God said, 'Let there be light.' And there was light." Robert Alter (Genesis Translation and Commentary) concurs, translating the first sentence as "When God began to create heaven and earth, and the water was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God's breath hovering over the waters ..."

Genesis 1:1 to 2:4a ( up to first sentence of 2:4) says there was a pre-existing watery chaos. The ocean was already present and a wind moved across the surface. The seas rested on the dry land, which appeared on day 3 when God gathered the waters together.

AnswerThe components which went into creating the sea and land were created on day one, but formed into seas and land and named on day three.
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15y ago

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