13.8 & Genesis 1 & Psalm 8
In the beginning when ELOHIM created the heavens and the earth …. 2 And the earth was desolate and waste; and darkness was over the face of the deep waters, and the spirit of ELOHIM was hovering over the face of the waters —- 3 then ELOHIM said, “Let there be light”: and there was light. 4 And ELOHIM saw the light, that it was good; and ELOHIM separated between the light and between the darkness, 5. And ELOHIM call the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, day one.
For some years now, astronomy has told us that the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, give or take a couple hundred million; whereas the Sun is 4.6 billion years of age, developing as our Milky Way Galaxy formed from an immense cloud of gas; and Earth and other planets forming some 4.5 billion years ago from dust and gas that was moving around the Sun, and from collisions of heavenly bodies.
Expressed in Earth years by Earthlings, a basic human perception of Time, those numbers are meaningless in the universal scheme of things as galaxies speed away from each other, the Universe continuing its expansion into - - What?, itself.
A "year" is just an Earthling concept, we see Time in counting our little planet's revolutions around our little sun; which means that our aging the Heavens is not real but our perspective, a human construct. If there are other sentient Beings in the Universe - - likely, formations of dust like us (remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return) - - , those Beings have their own perceptions of Time, and their own notions of the origins and purposes of Life. Or they could be less sentient in our sense and more like ants or bees, task driven and protective of their living unit. They could be gigantic or minute compared to us in size, and struggling or masters of their sections of the Universe.
Might they also perceive an unseen or self-revealed Hebrew-speaking Deity that named and perceived self only as I AM or, from their perspective, HE IS?
Might such Beings confirm or disprove our religious beliefs, hopes and fears?
And what will be the End of our Universe? Slowing down as its expansive energy is spent, slowing to still, cooling, chilling, freezing, shrinking into nothingness and leaving no trace that it ever was.
And what of the Deity when the Universe disappears? Or might the Deity by then be otherwise focused, speaking other Universes into existence? Or, like each household in Abram's Time, might each Universe have its own Deity?
In the Genesis 1:1f verse above (from J Tabor's Transparent English Bible), inspired as he may have been in telling a story to call errant, simpler people away from worship of sun, moon, stars and the Earth to worship instead the Creator of all that is, the P Writer himself saw Earth as the center of Creation. He had no conception of Earth as a speck of a planet revolving around a speck of a sun star with its little solar system in a ring on the outer fringes of one galaxy of, the current scientific estimate is, two trillion galaxies.
2,000,000,000,000 galaxies?
In a countless array of Universes?
To the Chief Musician, on the instrument of Gath, a Psalm of David.
יְהוָ֤ה our Lord, how glorious is Thy name in all the earth! whose majesty is rehearsed above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou founded strength, because of Thine adversaries; that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
When I behold Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast established;
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou thinkest of him?
Yet Thou hast made him but little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet:
Sheep and oxen, all of them, yea, and the beasts of the field;
The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea; whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
יְהוָ֤ה our Lord, how glorious is Thy name in all the earth!