About nine billion years may have passed between Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 1:3.

The Biblical account of creation is seen from the perspective of earth. The universe is about fourteen billion years old, the sun about five billion, and the earth about four-and-a-half billion.

Because of intense heat, the earth was vaporized and gaseous ('formless and empty') for most of its existence.

'Darkness was over the face of the deep' because light cannot penetrate intense heat. Eventually, a crust (face) started to form over the molten rock.

'The spirit of God was hovering over the waters.' God was getting ready to do something special on planet earth. The earth was cooling, and steam was condensing into pockets of water on the crust.

Now the earth is ready for God to begin His six creative stages of shaping and populating the earth.

God's first creation was light. Light is the primary requirement for life. Light is so amazing that it cannot be defined by anything other than itself. See the list here showing 14 attributes of light, both physically and spiritually.

As the temperature cooled on the earth's surface, the thickening crust (floating on molten rock) began cracking, shifting, and buckling. At God's command, huge parts of the crust (tectonic plates) were thrust above water to form dry land.

Eventually light began to glow through the dense cloud cover and support simple organic life.

The Biblical account of creation is seen from the human perspective of land on earth. First life on earth was tiny organisms like bacteria, about four billion years ago. Then came simple vegetation at the edges of water and land.

Ancient people would not have understood microorganisms and biological processes, so the Bible skips directly to vegetation they knew, but this happened over a very long period of time.

All celestial bodies were created from the Big Bang, starting as formless spinning gasses, too hot for light to penetrate. It took billions of years for them to merge, cool, solidify and achieve stable orbits.

Eventually, there were breaks in the thinning cloud cover so that the sun, moon, and stars became visible from the human vantage point.

Light existed since Day 1, but the sun had been obscured by dense cloud cover and unable to provide the photosynthesis needed for the rapid growth of large plants trees and the visibility for bird migrations, human navigation, and schedules.

Now we usually have clear skies, and the earth's surface is exposed to direct sunlight.

For centuries the Bible's creation order was used by critics as irrefutable proof that the Bible is not trustworthy. They said it's impossible to have light (Day 1) and organic growth (Day 3) before the sun (Day 4).

But now that we understand the Big Bang – that early organic life on earth was under extremely dense perpetual cloud cover – the biblical creation order makes sense. No writer three thousand years ago could have possibly known this modern science without some direct knowledge from the Designer/Creator.

With direct sunlight, vegetation proliferated, especially in water, and became an abundant food source for new categories of life – fish and birds – which God created about 500 million years ago.

The above verses in Genesis do not preclude the likelihood that there were already some very simple forms of marine and avian life (as plankton and flying insects). The main point here seems to be that God created an enormous number of new creatures – large complex creatures – all with the capacity to move about freely, unlike the stationary life of prior life forms, and God caused them to proliferate rapidly.

This is what scientists call the Cambrian explosion, the quick appearance of a massive amount of new life forms. Darwin said that the Cambrian explosion is his biggest problem with his own theory of evolution. He was perplexed to acknowledge that so many new species of life could appear almost at once.

About 250 million years ago, a new kind of creature appeared, what we call dinosaurs. We know from archaeology that there were more than 700 species of dinosaurs of all sizes and types – from five pounds to fifty tons – some swam, some flew, some also walked – and they dominated the earth for 175 million years.

Scientists now believe that modern birds are descendants of small avian dinosaurs that escaped a mass extinction 66 million years ago. All non-flying dinosaurs and three-fourths of all other species of life on earth were killed in that extinction, thought to be caused by an enormous meteorite about six miles wide crashing into the ocean near the Yucatan Peninsula, resulting in scorching fires throughout the earth, radioactivity, volcanic eruptions and the sun hidden for years by dust.

Various kinds of dinosaurs were the dominant part of God's creation in Day 5, but the Bible never mentions them, probably because they went extinct and no one in Bible times could comprehend the timeframe or believe that these creatures actually existed. It wasn't until modern archaeology that people were able to see and believe these creatures.

Modern taxonomy classifies all dinosaurs as reptiles.

On Day 5, there was extensive proliferation and evolution of fish and bird species, including reptiles, throughout the earth, expanding the food chain, getting ready for animals and humans in the next stage of life.

In each successive stage, God created new life forms of increasing complexity: In Day 3, life from seeds ... in Day 5, life from eggs ... in Day 6, life from live births.

Shortly after the great extinction 66 million years ago, God created a new kind of creature – animals – adapted to the new environment.

Then, several million years ago – very recent in geological time – God created a very unique kind of intelligent bipedal creatures known as hominids and hominins, with a physical form very similar to today's apes and humans, all having 95-97% identical DNA.

The last known hominin population (Neanderthals) was in Europe and vanished suddenly about 30,000 years ago.

The Bible never mentions hominins, probably because they went extinct and because few people in Bible times could comprehend a time span of millions of years or believe that soulless creatures (before Adam) looking somewhat like humans actually existed. The Bible account goes direct from animals to humans.

Archaeological digs reveal the first evidence of humans about 40,000 years ago. Hominins and humans may have coexisted at one time, and apparently, there was some interbreeding because today Europeans and Asians have approximately 2% Neanderthal DNA, but other groups have little or none. This low percentage is further evidence that humans did not evolve from hominins. Humans are a special creation.

God said: 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move upon the ground.'

The concluding act of the six stages of creation was God's creation of humans, made in the likeness of God, not evolved, created with the capacity to have a relationship with God, rule the earth, and have eternal life – the crowning jewel of God's creation!

A concluding statement is used to end each of the six days of creation – 'And there was evening, and there was morning – the [number] day' – but not used for the seventh day of rest, meaning that this day has not yet ended. We are still in the seventh day (stage).

God is not making new creations during this pause, but procreation and evolution within categories continues. God has equipped humans with a unique body, mind, and soul to rule the earth and do creative work to further fashion life on earth.

Other portions of the Bible tell us that in a future day (stage), God will take back rule of the earth from humans and will resume creative work ... a new heaven and a new earth ... (Revelation 21:1-5, 2 Peter 3:10-13, Isaiah 65:17-19, and more).