The Source and Mode of Solar Energy Throughout the Universe

by Isaac W. Heysinger

The radiant light and heat of the sun were not made until the fourth day, while the introduction of vegetable life dates from the long antecedent third day of creation. Prior to the development of the sun’s thermal light there could have been, as we have already shown, no free oxygen in the terrestrial atmosphere; and it is a remarkable circumstance that vegetation, which is the only form of organic life which could have existed and propagated its species in an atmosphere composed of carbonic, nitrogenous, and aqueous vapors, devoid of oxygen, is that particular form of life which has been selected for this purpose, and its advent placed prior to the making of the sun. It would have been far more reasonable (previous to our present knowledge of these things) to have placed the formation of the sun in advance of the introduction of life; it is surprising that this was not done, unless we give to these “ancients” a knowledge of the principles of natural science far beyond anything hitherto attributed to them.

In the same connection there is described a stage preparatory to and leading up to the simultaneous development of the sun’s light and heat, and the sifting out of hydrogen around the solar core, and of oxygen in the terrestrial atmosphere, which is equally remarkable. The “separation of the waters” described in verses 6 and 7 has never been fully rendered into English, or even understood in the original, as the words seemed meaningless in their literal sense until correctly interpreted by the facts set forth in the present work.

We must first note that the separation of the waters of space to two opposite foci, with an intervening space of attenuated matter, and their condensation there into two entirely different bodies, was the work of the second day, while the formation of the terrestrial rain-clouds and seas, as connected together, was a work of the third day, and was not accomplished until then, which was long afterwards. These entirely different operations—different in time, place, character, and circumstance—have always been confounded with each other; but one is in reality systemic and the other merely local.

In verse 6 there was decreed an expanse or thinning (an attenuated region) in the center of the waters, and a separation was made by the formation of two “spots” (verse 7), one under the expanse and the other above the expanse; the expanse was space, interplanetary space. Professor Arnold Guyot, in his book on Creation, says, “It is to be regretted that the English version has translated the Hebrew word expanse by the word firmament…. The difficulties they [the commentators] have created for themselves arose … from depriving it of its cosmogonic character and belittling it by reducing the great phenomena there described to a simple modification of the terrestrial atmosphere …. They forget that this thin covering of clouds is but a temporary and ever-changing one, and that the clouds are in that heaven rather than above it …. They forget that this is not the true heavens in which are spread the sun and moon and stars …. This grand day, so dwarfed and misunderstood, is the one in which are described the generations of the heavens, announced by Moses, which otherwise find no place in the narrative of the creative week.”

The two foci of waters were the solar and terrestrial; around these bodies were gathered by the attraction of gravity, and there condensed, the aqueous vapors from the attenuated intervening matter of space; the earth by its rotation generated the enormous electrical currents which still continue; when these made their mighty leap across to the sun, the diffused auroral light around the earth gradually disappeared, hydrogen and oxygen began to be evolved at the opposite poles—the sun and the earth—from the condensed envelopes of aqueous vapor which surrounded them, the sun’s hydrogen atmosphere was pierced, as in the pail-of-water experiment described in an earlier chapter of the present work, by the planetary electric currents, the sun became incandescent, and pari passu the earth became fitted, by the development of oxygen, for the abode of animal life. As taking part in this great mechanical transformation, the sun was said to have been “made;” it did not “come into being.”

Just prior to the introduction of vegetable life—during the same creative epoch, in fact, and for the support of which life it was necessary—the waters under the expanse were condensed into rain-clouds and seas, and there is a curious reference (verse 9) to the appearance of the earth’s dryness “as produced by the action of an internal fire;” the gradual cooling of the earth by the radiation of its internal heat of condensation into space would account for this appearance, and, in connection with the diffused auroral light throughout the whole sky, would doubtless have sufficed for the support of vegetable life.

In verse 16 the fixed stars (the suns of other systems) are referred to, but in a parenthetical statement—almost deprecatory, in fact—that “the dim and almost extinct lights” the same forces created also, but when they were created is not stated in the record. The occasion for this incidental remark is to be found in the preceding statement that the two new luminaries, the sun and moon, were the two “superior bodies in size of the starry lights.” Having mentioned the stars in this comparison, the author feels called upon to add that the latter also had been similarly created,—that is, that they were not original existences, and of course they are not, but they were not created at that epoch, and are not said to have been.

In chapter ii. verse 4, which opens the second narrative (quite a different history, by the way), Jeove appears Himself, joined with the Aleim, and henceforth this personal connection is maintained; the English version translates this composite word “The Lord God,” which means the Master God; the correct reading is, however, the “God of gods,” or what we call the “God of the forces of nature,” or the “God omnipotent.”

In the whole Mosaic cosmogony there is nothing which can even suggest a gradually closing nebulous mass; the element of rotation is absent (and it would not have been understood by the people even if presented); but, with this exception, the processes of development are substantially in accord with what must really have taken place, and in the order described. But it is, as before stated, absolutely essential to understand the root-meanings of all the more important words used in the original. A superficial translation is not only meaningless, but misleading; whereas, when accurately understood, the record is one of the most remarkable ever presented to human intelligence. The words used were selected deliberately for their specific shades of meaning, and, unless these are properly rendered, to the uninformed the narrative will present a simple succession of startling phenomena, while to the educated student each of these changes carries within its verbal index its origin, its mode, and the knowledge of the forces at work. To the one it is a dramatic spectacle performed on the stage in front; to the other it is the same work as seen behind the curtain, with all the intermoving mechanism (the author’s manuscript the sole guide), the interplay of complicated forces, the triumphant successes, the rapt attention, and even the sudden applause extorted at each wondrous climax from the skilled actors themselves, who are at the same time unceasingly engaged in working out the mighty drama of creation. One might readily believe that the original author of this record was thoroughly acquainted with the processes involved in the development of a solar system like our own from the diffused primordial matter of space, substantially as we have endeavored, in the present work, to deduce them from the most recent investigations and discoveries of science.

Of the watery vapors condensed above the expanse of space many of the ancient writers had a far more correct knowledge than had those who translated these chapters from the original into the various modern languages. In the Psalms we read, “Praise him, … ye waters that be above the heavens;” in the Song of the Three Holy Children, “O all ye waters that be above the heavens.” Theophilus speaks of the “visible sky as having drawn to itself a portion of the waters of chaos at the time of the creation.” Saint Augustine says that the firmament has been formed “between the upper and the lower waters,” and quotes [ Genesis i. 6 and 7], as his authority.