To me this examination of the first paragraphs of Genesis, and with one critical, empirical eye, reads that the Bible first states that God created the entire physical universe and in the beginning [of Earth's creation], the Earth was formless and empty with darkness over the surface of the Earth. The Earth did not preceed the Sun, so there must have been a screen between the Earth and the Sun, most likely gases in the atmoshpere blocking the sunlight. Impactions of the Earth during the early solar system could account for this atmosheric screening, as would the earlier formation of the Earth from leftover gases of the Sun's formation (Brum 426). Regardless, the Earth was dark. Eventually light broke through the screen and over a period of time the separation of "water from water (God 6)," or the creation of oceans from the vapors of the atmoshere happened. Condensation. The sky and oceans separated from the gases they were both part of.
So at one time the entire globe was gaseous, then separated in to sky and oceans and next the land masses arose, separating the oceans. Upon these land masses, life first appeared--as seed-bearing plants and trees. It wasn't until two "eras" later that life, as animals, appear in the oceans and this after an era when the Bible seems to say that the atmoshere cleared enough for there to be a distinction of day and night and clear enough for the stars to be viewable. Simultaneously or closely following the creation (evolution) of aquatic life, winged birds made their appearance. Within the next era, mammals and possibly reptiles seem to be indicated as to arrive on the scene. Man also appears in this era--in the image of God.
How much more did an ancient tribe of nomads need to know? Now how does this accounting of creation stand against an empirical whipping? I'd say it's pretty amazing that an ancient author could condense the story of creation with such eloquency and relative scientific backing without divine inspiration. Scientifically, the Earth was in darkness during its formation as it was a creation entirely from gases. And as the gases condensed and formed the core and mantle, the atmosheric gases thinned enough to allow the Sun to start filtering through, thus heat. Heat enough for the waters to begin evaporating into clouds, which became saturated enough to cause rain, thus the weather cycle begins, as well as the separation of clouds and oceans stated in Genesis. Scientifically, this is the Proterozoic Era and within this era the land masses form, as do the first vestiges of life in prokaryotic cells, simple cells which later evolve into more complex eukaryote cells. This was a long era of evolution but by the end of it, "members of all major animal phyla had appeared (Brum 429)."
The Paleozoic Era was a period of rapid evolution of plants and animals. Though primitive fishes preceeded the influx of seeded plants in this accounting, the Earth at the end of this period is believed to have gone through great change biologically and geologically (Brum 430). An event is believed to have happened where the majority of marine life disappeared, as well as much of the land animal life, allowing for reptiles to become dominant in the next era- the Mesozoic era.
Within the Devonian period of the Paleozoic era the first seed plants evolve (Brum 431), over 50 millions after the first vertebrate fishes, and simutaneous to amphibian development. Reptiles then later appear. Birds don't appear until the middle of the Mesozoic era--after the first mammals and into the age of dinosaurs. After the dinosaur go extinct and into the beginning of the present Cenozoic era, the rise of mammals begins, eventually evolving the modern homo sapien species.
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