What was the first light in Genesis 1?

For those that believe in the "Gap Theory", there was a long interval between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. The universe was created billions of years ago, and when Lucifer, the archangel in charge of this world rebelled against God, the Earth was physically destroyed. The "seven days of creation" occurred much more recently, and they describe the restoration of the Earth.

What is commonly translated as "without form and void" is "tohu and bohu" in the original Hebrew.

Isaiah 45:18 says "For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain ...". The same Hebrew word translated here as "in vain" is "tohu", so we know that the Earth wasn't originally created "tohu" ("without form"); that desolate state was the result of Lucifer's rebellion.

The Earth was enshrouded by clouds and dust, and the first day's "fiat lux" indicates that the sun's light was finally able to penetrate to the surface. By the fourth day, the atmosphere was clear enough that the heavenly lights were directly visible.

You appear to be misreading the Scriptures.

Genesis 1:3 and 4 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Here we are told that the light and the darkness existed simultaneously, until God separated them. That light was not a sun.

Genesis 1:14 through 16 KJV And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

At this juncture it must be noted that the sun and moon are not light. The sun gives off light and the moon reflects the light from the sun. It is also notable that those lights were placed in the firmament of Heaven, which is a reference to what we know as space. Far different from the Heaven, which is Gods abode.

John Gill defines it as follows:

and God divided the light from the darkness: by which it should seem that they were mixed together, the particles of light and darkness; but "by what way is the light parted", severed and divided from darkness, is a question put to men by the Lord himself, who only can answer it, Job_38:24 he has so divided one from the other that they are not together at the same place and time; when light is in one hemisphere, darkness is in the other (l); and the one by certain constant revolutions is made to succeed the other; and by the motion of the one, the other gives way; as well as also God has divided and distinguished them by calling them by different names,

Genesis 1:4 and 5 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

In the above scripture is where the 24 hour day is initiated since it is the rotation of the earth which distinguishes the movement from light to darkness, which no longer exist simultaneously.

Hope this helps.

The first light is rather puzzling I will admit. I don’t pretend to know what it is but I’ll share some things nonetheless which make sense to me. I hope they are well received for what they are worth.

When I read Genesis 1, I have to think Biblical cosmology. That instantly rules out modern day thinking that the earth was a Big Bang consequence and that it’s inside a galaxy one of countless other galaxies, in a seemingly endless vacuum of space.

The ancients and even up until recently in history believed in a flat circular earth with a firmament dome that kept the waters above and below from coming in and obviously waters within the “snow globe” terrarium were contained within. The sun moon and stars were localized. Basically it wasn’t as vast and endless as modern day space. If occupied a limited defined space.

In verse 2 without getting technical about the Hebrew because I’m merely trying to share an idea not be dogmatic, the waters over the face of the deep to my mind is saying all the material ingredients that will ever be used for Creation are present in the water and are the contents inside the waters. However this matter or these ingredients or these raw materials have not been worked yet, it’s all in raw form, like an unmixed cake batter that has not been cooked. They are just sitting there.

“The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Elohim was hovering over the face of the waters.” ‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1:2‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Whatever we think of the earth in its final form after day six of Creation at this point it was a soup of matter suspended in water. But it seems that in order to make sense of anything and to provide the energy to separate, cook, create, bind, there was something else that was needed, namely LIGHT or energy. So obviously the Creator spoke Light into existence.

Considering even today no one knows what light actually is, though we know how it behaves in some instances like a particle and others like a wave, and we can harness its power, we still don’t know what it is. What we refer to as light is a very tiny portion of the electromagnetic spectrum called the visible spectrum. I feel that this Light was the whole electromagnetic spectrum.

So when it says let there be LIGHT, I believe the electromagnetic spectrum was created, this includes UV light, radio, microwave, gamma, and so on. It was basically introducing energy to the otherwise dark and energy-less pile of matter sitting in water.

Then the Creator using the electromagnetic spectrum or The Light began to separate and create. This light was the energy on which life would function in Biblical Cosmolgy.

Where it gets confusing is

“And Elohim saw that the light was good. And Elohim separated the light from the darkness.” ‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1:4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

We know that darkness was created

“I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.” ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭45:7‬ ‭ESV‬‬

So there is a distinction between the electromagnetic spectrum or light and it’s absence. He separates the two. They initially don’t mix. Put differently darkness is not needed in Creation

“Elohim called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” ‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1:5‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Now try to visualize day as daytime and night time but not with sun and moon and stars but simply splitting the hemisphere (the dome) of Biblical Cosmology into two and putting Light on one side and darkness on the other side. And just to be clear He adds the phrase evening and morning, the first day. This is repeated throughout and therefore indicates that even though there were no markers to determines time yet, the same time elapsed on all days. This doesn’t allow for gap theories.

By separating the Light to one side and calling it day even before the sun was created I think alludes to when and in what conditions Creation was and could be created. It could not be or at least it was not created in Light’s absence but in its presence. I draw from something the Creator Himself says

“We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” ‭‭John‬ ‭9:4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

While this verse is speaking of spiritual things I would say that all the creating and separating were done in the light or daytime portion of the day and not in its absence.

Obviously by the end of Creation this Light permeated both the day and the night parts of the Cosmolgy but initially Light and darkness were separated.

So that’s my answer, the Light was the electromagnetic spectrum energy needed to cook and work the raw materials to give rise to Creation. Order out of chaos. None of which would be possible without the Light.

In the Hebrew there is a distinction between this Light and the lights created afterwards.

The First (or third) thing God creates, before the sun, moon, and stars, which were the 4th day, is light. (some people interpret Genesis 1:1 of being a summary of creation, and others as the initial act of creation.) The Bible tells us that before this, "the Earth was formless and void." The Bible is not clear as to what this light was. It could not be any celestial body we know of, as it predates the creation of these. It is not clarified anywhere else in the Bible what it actually is, however, it is my opinion that this light could be 1 of 3 things:

1. Symbolic.

   The "light" in this sense could refer to many things. It could refer to knowledge itself, which would make sense considering this metaphorical usage is common. One example is the parable of the light under the basket, which allows people to know the truth in Luke 8:16-17, or the "light unto my path", which guides us in knowing what to do throughout our life in Psalm 119:105. It could also refer to "goodness" in general. The separation could refer to separation of the simple binary concept. That is the idea of "yes" and "no" or "good" and "evil." Or otherwise quite simply "existence" and "nonexistence."

2. Literal.

   The verse could mean that God literally created photons in the beginning. It makes sense that this would be one of the first things He creates, since all matter depends on light and the electro-magnetic force to exist. I don't think there was a "second sun." The scripture doesn't say this so we shouldn't assume it. I would imagine that the light was just a vague ambience, not centralized from any one location, and after the separation of this light it existed on only one half of the globe. Of course I wasn't there at the creation of the world, so I don't know.

3. Both

   Both figurative and literal meaning can be derived from many verses of the Bible, just for instance Christ's death and resurrection. I don't see why this should be an exception.

Sources: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=NASB https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+8%3A16-17&version=NASB https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+119%3A105&version=NASB