What was the source of the light in Genesis 1:3-4 (cf. Gen. 1:14-19)?

Question

At the outset of the Book of Genesis, we read:

Genesis 1:3-4: "Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light. ⁴God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness."

We know that God is light from 1 John 1:5. However, this does not appear to be the source of light mentioned on the first day of Creation. Soon thereafter we read:

Genesis 1:14-19: "Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; ¹⁵and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth'; and it was so. ¹⁶God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. ¹⁷God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, ¹⁸and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. ¹⁹There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day."

All of the sources of natural light appear to have been created on the fourth day. (Note that I am not asking whether this "light" was literal or figurative since I take it literally.) How might we interpret this "light" and what would be its source?

Answer 1

You asked …. “How might we interpret this "light" and what would be its source?” - we interpret via John (below), and the ‘source’ of the ‘light’ is the ‘word’

JOHN 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

Answer 2

What was the source of the light in Genesis 1:3-4 (cf. Gen. 1:14-19)?

The source of the light was GOD.

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5, KJV)

Answer 3

There are two approaches to Genesis. First as a spiritual prophecy and then as literal history.

When viewing it as a literal history, trying to parse these cryptic passages is a difficult exercise, and you will get many different types of answers, all more or less speculating as they try to re-interpret genesis in the language of what is currently known about natural sciences.

One such possibility is that the first creation of "light", 'Or, refers to the separation of photons from the plasma of the early universe. Then, the sun and moon, which are referred to as me'orot, or light sources (e.g. like lamps) could refer to the sun and moon becoming visible from earth, thus they could begin to be suitable as signs for times and seasons. This could then be interpreted as the earth obtaining a sufficiently transluscent atmosphere to clearly make out the sun, moon, and stars with sufficient clarity to allow determination of times and seasons from astronomical observations and the various motions of the sun throughout the year as well as the phases of the moon. That would be our current atmosphere with lots of free oxygen, which necessarily required green plant life as a pre-requisite. E.g. prior to the earth's current tertiary atmosphere was a primary (result of volcanic activity) and then secondary (mostly methane gases) atmosphere. It is hypothesized that the primary atmosphere was blown away by solar winds, leaving the secondary, and in order to go from the secondary to the tertiary requires green algae and other bacteria to convert the atmosphere. Thus in Genesis the green plants were created before the light sources were given to us as signs and seasons. It was the green algae that allowed us to see the stars clearly and make out the path of sun through the heavens.

But all of the above is speculation, and tomorrow some new scientific discovery could disprove this speculation. That's the trouble with trying to harmonize science and scripture, especially when the latter is written in such an extremely terse style.

Alternately, one can interpret Genesis as a spiritual prophecy. In this case, light would be the divine light of revelation, which God created ex-nihilo, and then he created specific light sources, or sources of revelation for created life on earth to benefit from, by learning signs and seasons from these specific sources.