Genesis 1:3
Hebrew Bible
2 Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was hovering11 over the surface of the water. 3 God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light! 4 God saw that the light was good, so God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” There was evening, and there was morning, marking the first day.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Jubilees 2:2
Pseudepigrapha
2 For on the first day he created the heavens that are above, the earth, the waters, and all the spirits who serve before him, namely: the angels of the presence; the angels of holiness; the angels of the spirits of fire; the angels of the spirits of the winds; the angels of the spirits of the clouds, of darkness, snow, hail, and frost; the angels of the sounds, the thunders, and the lightnings; and the angels of the spirits of cold and heat, of winter, spring, autumn, and summer, and of all the spirits of his creatures which are in the heavens, on earth, and in every place. There were also the depths, darkness and light, dawn and evening which he prepared through the knowledge of his mind. 3 Then we saw his works and blessed him. We offered praise before him regarding all his works because he had made seven great works on the first day.
Date: 150-100 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Here Jubilees addresses a classic exegetical problem: how could God have created light on the first day (when He said, “Let there be light,” Genesis 1:3) if the sun, the moon, and the stars—the heavenly bodies that transmit light were created only on the fourth day? One interpretive tradition suggested that the light created on the first day was a special light that allowed God to see all of His creation from end to end. By contrast, Jubilees suggests that light was created on the first day in the sense that God conceived of it then, “He prepared [it] in the knowledge of His mind,” even though He would only create the light-bearing heavenly bodies later. That would also explain how the Torah could designate the end of each of the first three days of creation with the words, “And it was evening and it was morning”; there was no actual evening or morning since the sun did not yet exist, but God had prepared the length of time that evening and morning would take “in His mind” and when that time had passed, He ended each day ..."
Kugel, James L.
A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation
(p. 30) Brill, 2012
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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