Light
The next passage is:
God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light "day", and the darkness he called "night". There was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Ask a physicist what light is and you will get a lot of humming and having. It can be thought of as a wave, and as particles. It is a sort of energy: if you light a candle you get light and heat as a result. For greater clarity here is the Wikipedia definition:
"Visible light (commonly referred to simply as light) is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight.
Visible light is usually defined as having a wavelength in the range of 400 nanometres (nm), or 400×10-9 m, to 700 nanometres - between the infrared, with longer wavelengths and the ultraviolet, with shorter wavelengths. ... In common with all types of EMR, visible light is emitted and absorbed in tiny 'packets' called photons, and exhibits properties of both waves and particles. This property is referred to as the wave- particle duality. The study of light, known as optics, is an important research area in modern physics."
The definition brings into focus electricity, magnetism, and radiation. These are the very foundation of our modern understanding of what everything material is made of, in atomic terms.
I find it amazing that a myth of such great antiquity could have had the insight to express the very elements that make up all matter as the first stage of the progression of the material universe. So here is a 21st century restatement of the quoted verses:
"The first stage of the progression of the material universe was the bringing into existence of light as electricity, magnetism, and radiation. This was given independent existence, in contrast to the absence of light; it was just the right beginning."