Question:,I recently went to the Museum of Science in Boston, and was fascinated to find how closely their presentation of how the earth was created matched that in Genesis. My one question is, the biblical account explains that the stars and the moon were created after the earth. I can see the moon being created from the earth (that was theorized in the MOS), but weren’t the stars created first? What’s you take? Was it that the stars became visible from earth at a later point?,Answer:,This is a fairly common question. It is a good sign that you noticed this detail. It means that you read carefully and think–a good combination. ,Actually, Genesis One does not say that God created the sun, moon and stars after he created the earth, although I will admit that this is a relatively natural assumption from the first read of the chapter. I assume that Genesis One is written from the point of view of an observer on the surface of the earth. On the first “day” night and day already existed. This means that the sun (and presumably the moon and stars as well) was already in place, and the earth was spinning. Scientists will tell you that almost all models of the history of the atmosphere on the earth include a large amount of methane, water, ammonia, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and other molecules in the early earth atmosphere. The thick clouds were such that it was not possible to see the heavens from the earth. In fact, an observer on Venus today will never see the sun, moon or stars. After life came to exist on the third “day,” it immediately began to change this atmosphere. Once photosynthesizing life appeared (was created), the atmosphere really began to change. By the fourth “day” the atmosphere had been sufficiently changed that an observer could see the heavenly bodies. This order is predicted by scientific model and is preserved in the Genesis text.,I am not the final word on this, to say the least, but this is how I see it.,John Oakes