The Earth‑Moon System and the Breaking‑Forth Seas of Job. “Who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?” (Job 38:8).

The Bible is the book of God’s revealed word. God’s creative work is written in the book of the stones of nature. Reflection on the record of these two very different books should lead reasoning minds to acknowledge that they share one and the same author — our wise Heavenly Father. Clearly, there have been misunderstandings of the two very different recorded texts by able readers examining both of these books. For example, there are those recognizing the Bible as God’s revealed word, yet are confused when they insist that each of the Creative Days was 24 hours, arguing that the Creative Week was followed by the 24-hour Sabbath as a remembrance of the original act (Exodus 31:17). They reason incorrectly, each of the geological periods identified as a “day” was also 24 hours as is the Sabbath of remembrance. Such misunderstandings have created what Pastor Russell calls “unnecessary controversy” in the Photodrama of Creation.

How faith strengthening when the Bible and science support each other! For us whose faith is fully established in the Bible, such concurrence makes our faith in the written word stronger. It arms us for discussions with those who waver in faith through confusion and doubt.

Job 38:8 makes a very definite statement about the geophysics of the earth’s deep waters breaking forth. This must be prior to the opening words of Genesis 1:2, where we read, “the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep [waters].”

Let us consider two questions based on Job: Does our current geophysical science support Job? Does this detail in Job really make any difference? The answers are: Yes! And Yes, indeed it does!

FORMATION OF THE EARTH-MOON SYSTEM

Nearly sixty years ago the Apollo mission fulfilled one of man’s dreams and Astronauts walked on the moon. Samples of lunar rock returned to the earth were analyzed and established one thing. The crust of the ancient earth and the rocks of the moon were so similar in composition that reasoning had to conclude that the crusts of ancient earth and our moon were formed from the same minerals and at the same time. Later, in 1969, a reflective sensor set on the lunar surface permitted the direct measurement of the rate at which the moon recedes from the earth, finding that it is receding at 3.83 cm, or 1.5 in/year. It is now estimated that the slow receding of the moon in our current day loses 70% of its energy from the friction of ocean tides as they wash over shallow continental shelves.[1],[2]

Public museum exhibits from the pre-Apollo days were retired. These exhibits set forth what had been reasonable, but now abandoned, theories. The Photodrama set before the public in 1914 by Pastor Russell posited that the rocky disk of materials closer to the early sun coalesced into the four inner rocky planets. It was then theorized that a rocky ring collected around the Earth that coalesced into the Moon. A very reasonable theory, but now set aside by Apollo.

After pondering the Apollo data, a consensus theory that best harmonizes the evidence emerged. In this theory a planet the size of Mars (one-tenth the Earth’s mass), and whimsically given the name Theia, collided with the proto-Earth, tilting the orbit so that Earth would have seasons (Figure 1). This would make the Earth much more favored for the growth of crops in the distant day when man would be given the stewardship of this loving gift from God.

Moon forming from a planet the size of Mars impacting proto-Earth (Science, Volume 348, Issue 6232, April 17, 2015)[3]

There have been speculations amongst the brethren, that in the Messianic Ages of Ages, the tilt in the Earth’s axis would be reversed. However, God clearly promises that seasons will continue, hence, the earth will have a tilt, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

In this moon-forming collision, some of the crust that splashed off beyond the zone where it would be recaptured and fall back to the Earth (the Roche limit) coalesced to form our moon, which is critically important to life on Earth (but that is not our subject here).

A recent lecture by a Miller Research Fellow working at the University of California, Berkeley summarized the ongoing status of the last sixty years of scientific studies examining the formation of the Moon and its relation to Earth.[1] Quoting a portion of the lecture abstract, Dr. Farhat writes:

“Ever-since the Moon formed close to the Earth, it has been forced by tidal interactions to drift away [from the earth] … Consequently, the evolving Earth-Moon dynamics, over geological timescales, have impacted the Earth’s past climate, leaving behind archival traces in the geological strata. … However, a complete theoretical reconstruction of the lunar orbit … presents a 60-year-old problem in astronomy known as the timescale problem of the Lunar origin.”

This “timescale problem” to which Dr. Farhat refers may best be answered by adopting a history for Earth as set forth in Job 38:8! The science community has done this, although none so far have claimed to have gained this insight from considering the book of Job. Without revelation, how did this important detail of the Earth’s history end up in Job?

BEFORE GENESIS 1:2 UNTIL THE 3RD DAY

Some recent graphics on the development of our Earth are reproduced here.[4]

Magma Ocean, followed by Water Ocean covering the entire earth (Science, Volume 348, Issue 6232, 17 April 2015) [4]

Before the oceans “broke forth” (Job 38:8) the early molten Earth with its thick blanketing atmosphere but no sea would held the moon in a closer orbit from which it receded at a rate much more rapidly than today. During this time, the rapid drift of the Moon from the Earth “would also be amplified with an early less viscous mantle [at] higher temperatures.”[5](Editor Note: for “viscous” think of warmed honey as contrasted with thick non-flowing honey left in a cold place.)

The “breaking forth” of a liquid ocean covering all the earth would amplify the cooling of the earth as the Moon moved towards its divinely intended position of sixty earth diameters away. The emerging ocean would then slow down the rate at which the Moon recedes. Without reviewing the extensive scientific literature on this important subject, the hypothesis that our oceans formed from chemical production of water deep within the earth appears to explain some additional elements of our Earth’s geophysics.[6] This hypothesis is consistent with Job and further refinements should prove to even better support the record of the Bible.

Formation of continents follows after the formation of the ocean (Science, Volume 348, Issue 6232, 17 April 2015) [4]

The earth’s tectonic plates, our land continents, later emerged from our planetary blanketing ocean. Again, this supports the Genesis account, for the 3rd Creative Day, but that is a further story!

— Br. Richard Doctor

 

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[1] Farhat, M., “The Dynamical History of the Earth-Moon System: a Telltale of a Tidal Waltz,” University of Chicago, Geoscience Seminar, January 31, 2025.

[2] Farhat, M., et al., “The Resonant Tidal Evolution of the Earth-Moon Distance,” Astronomy and Astrophysics, 665, L1, 2022.

[3] Hand, E., “Moon-Forming Impact Left Scars in Distant Asteroids,” Science, Volume 348, Issue 6232, April 17, 2015, page 271.

[4] Marshall, M., “Geology’s Biggest Mystery: When Did Plate Tectonics Start?,” Nature, Volume 632, August 15, 2024, page 490.

[5] Farhat, M., “Doctoral Thesis: Dissipation in the Earth-Moon System,” Astrophysics. Sorbonne Universite, 2023. English. NNT: 2023SORUS127, page 105.

[6] Young, Edward D., et al., “Earth Shaped by Primordial H2 Atmospheres,” Nature, Volume 616, 13 April 2023, page 306.

 

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