Cosmic origins (2)
The next verse says:
The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God's Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.
Taking 'the earth' as shorthand for the material universe we can see that there is a clear indication that the beginning of time was also the beginning of a progression from 'formless' to shaped. This is extremely important, in the attempt which is being made here to align scientific observation with a revelation of purpose.
To believe that the Genesis stories are actually useful does not make anyone need to contradict what scientific cosmologists are pretty sure about. The creation myth contains no dates, and there is no need to interpret 'days' as periods of time. So we can read this myth as having reference only to progression and purpose, and not to any particular span of time.
There are three elements in the verse just quoted. Lack of form, darkness, and water. The issue of darkness, the absence of light, is dealt with next. And it is assumed by biologists that water is an essential to the life of flora and fauna.
That these three elements should be presented as the initial building blocks of the material universe is an insight that, given the antiquity of this pre-scientific myth, should at least make us begin to sit up and take notice. How could something that is certainly older than the speculations of the classical Greek philosophers like Aristotle be so insightful?
We note also the antithesis between 'the Spirit of God' and the material 'earth'. The spiritual, by definition the unseen, brings shape to the physical, the seen. Another insight that is significant.
So here is a proposed restating of the meaning of verse 2:
"Initially everything material, especially the liquid, was at a primitive stage of development, with no light even, and the spiritual was set to mold the physical."