Due Sep 2
Sun, Crops, Life: Daily, Monthly, and Yearly Cycles
Introduction to the Scientific Method (observation and theory) and to Naked Eye Astronomy. The apparent motions of the Sun and Moon. The phases of the Moon. Megalithic temple design: Newgrange and Stonehenge.
Astronomy Lesson
- Carl Sagan, “Science as a Way of Thinking”: link.
- Openstax Astronomy (pdf | online), Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.1.
- Fabian Patterns In the Sky, selections: link.
Arts Assignment: Two Creation Stories
Click here for the story of creation from the Hebrew Bible and the Eskimo story of Sun Sister Moon Brother. (Trigger warning: the latter involves both a rape and an act of self-mutilation.) Then write a short (1-2 ¶) response to ONE of the following prompts:
- In the Genesis story of creation, God creates “day” and “night” long before creating the sun. How might we make sense of this?
- The text of Genesis repeatedly uses the verb “divide” to describe certain stages in the seven-day creation. What does this tell us about the ancient Hebrews’ conception of the heavens and of creation more generally?
- Use the apparent motion of the sun and moon in the arctic sky (described on p29 of Patterns in the Sky) to better explain the myth of Sun Sister Moon Brother.
- The bloody action of Sun Sister Moon Brother invites comparison to the Greek myth of Cronus, the Titan who ate his children in a vain attempt to stave off the prophecy of a son (Zeus) who would depose him—and offers a marked contrast to the seven-day creation in the Hebrew Bible. What’s at stake in these differing conceptions of the world’s origins?
Post your response below by clicking “Reply” under the appropriate heading. (Note: for best results, include two ¶ breaks between your ¶s.)
Existence of Night and Day before the Sun’s Creation
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In Genesis, God creates “day” and “night” before the sun appears on the fourth day (expressed through the lines “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also”). This suggests that the Hebrews did not view light and darkness as dependent on the sun itself, but as primal existence conditions created by God’s command. The sun and moon are not creators of light but rather “divide the day from the night” and be signs “for seasons, and for days, and years.”
This reflects a central theology that creations do not rely on natural forces but originates from God’s will. Unlike other myths, the sun, moon, and stars are not worshiped as gods but created tools by God’s orders.
We might make sense of this by simply looking at day and night as being first separate from the Sun and Moon. God uses day and night to signify the passage or cycle of time, highlighting it’s importance as a cycle rather than just as lights in the sky. The changes between morning and evening create a rhythm that is easily interpreted from a human perspective. People will experience the day/night cycle everyday, regardless of their knowledge on the mechanics behind it. In a similar way, the Sun and Moon appear later as tools to mark what God has already created.
The creation of day and night prior to the sun in Genesis is designed to highlight that the the power to control time and light is solely governed by the command and authority of God, instead of being dependent on the sun. The sun doesn’t create day and night; God does. By separating light from darkness Himself, God demonstrates that He is the fundamental source of all order, and the sun is just a tool to manage the cycle he already invented.
This demonstrates that God’s ultimate power in comparison with the nature. While some other cultures worshipped the sun as a god, this story says that the sun is just another one of God’s creations, and everything—even the sun—is under His complete control.
In Genesis, in the beginning, light/darkness were separated, while the Sun/Moon don’t appear until the fourth day. From this, we can reasonably infer that Hebrews did not view light as physical light but rather as the divine light of God’s presence. The idea is that God establishes day/night cycles before he creates the physical bodies that sustain those, emphasizing God’s supremacy over natural forces, day and night exist because they are just instruments created by God’s commands.
In Genesis, we can interpret the word “day” not as a literal 24 hour period but more of a marker of order or phase in God’s creative work. The “days” before that cannot be interpreted in the typical solar sense because the sun itself does not emerge until the fourth day. Rather, they emphasize structure and sequence above clock time, signifying discrete phases or eras in the development of creation. The early “day and night” are theological markers that indicate how God ordered the universe, demonstrating that creation proceeds with divine purpose and rhythm even before the sun and moon, which are natural timekeeping devices, are installed.
I believe that the reason that God is said to have created light and dark and sun and moon seperatley is to show two different things. With the Sun and the Moon, God is trying to express the creation of time in the cycle of day and night. And with the creation of light and dark, God is trying to show the fundamental concepts in his world of some level of a light and dark that exists to have things defined under light or dark. For the celestial bodies however, while they can be associated with light and dark they are not necesarily the representation of both concepts.
In the Genesis story of creation, it is interesting that “day” and “night” are introduced before the sun is created. One way to make sense of this is to see that the text is not trying to describe the universe in scientific terms but in symbolic ones. The separation of light from darkness could represent the idea of order emerging from chaos, with the physical sources of light (sun, moon, stars) appearing later as tools to mark time. For the ancient Hebrews, this sequence may have emphasized God’s power to establish meaning and structure in the world independent of natural objects, reinforcing the belief that creation itself was intentional and purposeful
Since “day” and “night” are formed before the sun and moon in the Genesis story, it is implied that light and darkness are seen as cosmic entities separate from their physical origins. This framing, as opposed to being restricted to naturalistic explanations, highlights God’s ability to define and order existence itself. The passage indicates that time, rhythm, and order are divinely instituted by introducing light before the sun. The sun and moon are then provided as tools to control what God had already decreed. To put it another way, Genesis emphasizes God’s omnipotence over the universe and serves as a reminder that, unlike other ancient mythologies, heavenly bodies are made instruments that serve divine order rather than being gods.
This perspective also underlines the symbolic function of light and darkness beyond physical illumination. Whereas “darkness” connotes disorder or division, “light” stands for heavenly goodness, order, and clarity. The Hebrews elevate light/darkness to a religious principle—before the natural mechanics of astronomy—by situating their creation at the very beginning. Therefore, the myth is more about conveying a worldview in which God is the ultimate source and everything in creation, including the sun, draws significance from His will than it is about following a scientific order.
Day and night before the sun as seen in Genesis references the knowledge of light as well as time. The “Hebrews” understand this as Gd, not from the constellations. This idea before the sun and moon shows Gd is independent from objects and the sun/moon are his.
The sun and moon as seasons and signs as opposed to being something belonging to creation and Gd leads to the idea that time and light first come from something divine, not from sun or moon worshipping as the other cultures believed.
The creation of ‘day’ and ‘night’ before the sun or the moon represent God’s creation of the phenomenons long before he created the instruments to divide them. As said in Line 18: ‘And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night’. Both phenomenons are light-bearing, with the “greater light” ruling the day and the “lesser light” ruling the night. Therefore, the sun and moon were seen as tools to separate and mark these phenomena, not as the causes of them as we understand today.
I think day and night go hand in hand, they aren’t necessarily two separate things. For example, the stars only shine because of the darkness, similarly night only has meaning because of the day. “Day” and “night” are created before the sun and moon because they are not just tangible timings but rather a part of the divine nature. Since the moon, sun, and stars were created after “day” and “night”, this suggests that time never began or ceased to exist, but rather it was just always flowing as a part of God’s divine powers, and not from the stars, moon, or sun. Even without the sun, time would continue to pass, my grandfather would always say to me, “Time doesn’t stop for anyone”, this is true regardless of the existence of the sun, time would continue to pass.
In the Genesis story, creation is described again and again through acts of division: God divides light from darkness, water above from water below, and land from sea. This shows that the Hebrews saw the world as super chaotic and unformed. By separating and assigning these different boundaries, God was shaping a livable and ordered world for humans to live in.
Creation here is less about inventing new material and more about giving structure. Each division gives this world more purpose, preparing it for life. The emphasis on dividing and setting limits reflects a belief that order itself was sacred, and that creation was the process of turning confusion into harmony.
God creates the concepts of day and night before creating the Sun on the 4th day. We can take this to mean that the concepts of day and night aren’t necessarily tied to the movement of the Sun. It’s a cycle unique to each person instead of a cycle dictated by the movements of cosmic bodies. People develop their own understandings of day/night. Some people are only awake and do their work when the sun’s down and sleep when the sun is up, so their day/night cycle is the reverse of others.
Compared to the ordered genesis tale in Genesis, the myth of Sun Sister Moon Brother is far darker and more chaotic. The Inuit narrative starts with violence and trauma—the brother attacks his sister, and she flees by running into the sky, chopping off her breasts to toss at him—whereas the Bible portrays a calm, methodical creation governed by a strong and good God. This demonstrates a very different perspective on the origins of the world. According to the Inuit story, the world—particularly the sky and its patterns—was formed by suffering, survival, and the urge to flee danger rather than by purpose and harmony. This reflects the harsh Arctic environment where life is difficult, and the line between safety and threat can be thin. It’s not just a story about the sun and moon, but about how people make sense of suffering and change in the world around them.
Creation by Means of “Dividing”
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I believe that the repetitive use of the word “divide” in Genesis shows that the Hebrews see this as a clear as of ordering. God has given order by dividing the light from the dark; dividing the land from the sea. God worked to create order and fruitfulness in the world. Divide has a larger amount of connotation than separated and other synonyms. The tasks come off more deliberate when divide is used. This shows the unique powerful nature of God while also showing the semblance of order that was created throughout the 7 days of creation.
In Genesis, the repetitive use of the verb “divide” in the texts describing certain stages in the seven-day creation indicates that Hebrews in such time although not yet understand the scientific phenomenon behind the origin of the world, they tended to think there are certain clear stages or orders during the formation process. The use of “divide” also implies that Hebrews believe that each part of the Heavens and Earth serves its own distinct purpose and has its own functionality.
Altogether, these probably suggests that Hebrews thought the Heavens and Earth were shaped and divided based on certain boundaries or orders from the initial formless void rather than being created from no where.
In Genesis, the verb “divide” is used to show how God brings order to creation. By separating light from darkness, sky from water, and land from sea, the ancient Hebrews understood the heavens and the earth as structured by clear boundaries. They saw creation as organizing chaos into something structured, stable, and good.
Along with the reasons of order and boundaries as described by peers, another implication of the word “divide” is that God has the authority, control, and sovereignty to make a clear distinction between heaven and the created world. The division by God further relays a more purposeful, ordered, and good world, rather than a hostile, chaotic beginning of life. Additionally, heaven appears as a separate realm, rather than simply the sky or beyond the sky. Therefore, the repetitive use of “divide” includes a theological and structural emphasis that ancient Hebrews may have believed.
I believe that the word “divide” is not only mentioned to bring order to his creations, but also to signify a hierarchy of beings. For example, it is mentioned that God tells humans to “have dominion” over the beings of the earth and all that inhabit the earth. This can be considered a divide of power or a divide of status and importance.
The basics of life and the most important aspects of life can be said to have been created first, like the day and the night, the sun and the moon, water, etc. So I see the divide as a division of power and importance.
In the Genesis creation story, the repeated use of the verb “divide” highlights a central aspect of the ancient Hebrew conception of creation: it is not primarily about producing matter from nothing but about bringing order to chaos. God divides light from darkness, waters above from waters below, seas from dry land. Each act of division establishes boundaries that make the world intelligible and inhabitable. This suggests that the Hebrews viewed creation as a process of differentiation, where the cosmos emerges from the formless void by being structured into distinct realms with their own functions. In this sense, creation is less about material generation and more about the organization of reality into a moral and physical order that reflects God’s sovereignty.
In the Genesis creation story, the word “divide” appears repeatedly, as God separates light from darkness, waters from waters, and land from sea. This repetitive language emphasizes that creation was understood as the ordering of chaos into a more structured world. For the ancient Hebrews, the act of dividing gave each part of creation its own purpose and boundaries, making the world habitable and balanced. I think that the repitition of the word divide highlights that creation was an intentional process of organization and reflected a worldview where structure and distinction were essential to the world/cosmos.
The repeated use of “divide” in Genesis suggests that the ancient Hebrews understood creation primarily as an act of ordering and separating. Creation was not about producing matter out of nothing but about giving shape and structure to what was originally chaotic and “formless and void.” God establishes boundaries that bring function to the world. By diving light from darkness, there was day and night. By gathering and separating the waters under heaven into one place, the sea is created and dry land called Earth appears. This reflects an ancient cosmology that envisioned creation in spatial layers. More broadly, creation is seen not as material production but as the establishment of order, roles and distinctions. The repeated emphasis on division indicates that the Hebrews viewed creation as God’s act of bringing order out of chaos, shaping a cosmos in which everything has its proper place under God’s rule.
By using the word “divide” shows how the Hebrews saw the origin mostly as God bringing order to the caos that was already existing. No creating everything out of nothing, but having that matter already there and giving it shape and form. God made the world possible by dividing light from darkness, water from the land, and the day from the night. God made clear boundaries, therefore giving order by dividing what was already there.
The sky was believed to be a solid dome, that divided the waters from the land below. By dividing God again made the world livable. They probably also believed that heaven was separated by a force, something that could only made tangible by God.
I believe the use of the word divide is used to represent that whatever is being split is being perfectly partitioned. The use of divide is to create a binary, there is only night and day, the time between is merely a transition between the two. In the context of creating heaven, the only way to reach heaven is through death. Therefore it is impossible to exist between the binaries of the Earth and heaven. I believe the strict binaries also play into the worship of God because if there are limits on possibilities, then there can potentially be limits on anything. If God has illustrated that He has the will for heaven & Earth to always be separate, He also has the will to dictate commandments.
Insight from Fabian into Sun Sister Moon Brother
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In the Arctic Sky, as described by Patterns in the Sky, the sun is below the horizon for 46 days, called “The Great Darkness”. This parallels the sister’s period of being unaware in the dark within the singing house, where she could not see and the brother, or the moon, was active. The following 66 days of constant presence can represent her strong reaction to the actions of the dark and her fleeing with the burning lamp wood. The sun never nearing the zenith reflects closely the idea of pursuit and a chase instead of a cycle of rising and setting; the sister is in constant flight from her brother instead of rising and falling daily. “The Great Darkness” being feared is logical as it was a fearful period for the sister within the tale, and poor hunting and dangerous travel coincide with the brother’s unsuccessful pursuit of the sister due to his lamp flame weakening.
In conclusion, the Arctic’s perspective of the sun’s path reflects the constant chase/hiding of the Sun Sister and Moon Brother in their dynamic of desperate flight and passionate pursuit when characterized with the personalities of the siblings.
Fabian’s description of the Arctic sky helps explain the Inuit myth of Sun Sister and Moon Brother: in the far north, the sun’s motion is extreme as it may circle without setting for weeks or vanish entirely, while the moon, by contrast, appears faint and unreliable. The myth encodes this stark asymmetry: the sister’s torch stays bright as she flees, becoming the powerful, enduring sun, while the brother’s flame falters, making him the weaker moon who forever trails after her. In this way, the myth translates the observed imbalance of celestial motion and brightness in the Arctic into a human drama of pursuit and transformation, giving cultural meaning to the contrasting roles of sun and moon.
The astronomical patterns of the Arctic sky reveals why the Sun Sister and the Moon Brother myth resonates so deeply with Inuit cultural understanding of celestial dominance and seasonal survival. In the extreme north, the sun’s behavior during the midnight sun period creates 66 days of continuous daylight where it never sets, directly mirroring the sister’s transformation to the more powerful celestial being after her violation & revenge. This astronomical reality validates the myth’s depiction of the sister’s ultimate triumph because the sun literally dominates the arctic sky during the summer months. when hunting and travel are possible.
The Myth also reflects the harsh reality of Tauvikjuaq or, the great darkness, where the sun disappears for 46 days while the moon continues its cycles. During this time, the moon brother has the sky to himself, but this happens during the most dangerous period when Inuit communities needed extra protection and did so through rituals. The sister’s song shows she acknowledges his presence even when she’s absent, but the cycle ensures her return brings celebrations whenever the sun reappears in January. The myth works both as a moral story about justice and a way to remember the extreme seasonal changes that determine survival in the Arctic.
Contrasting the Genesis Story with Sun Sister Moon Brother
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Both creation stories offer contrasting responses to the world’s origins. In the Eskimo myth of the Sun Sister Moon Brother, as well as the greek myth of the titan Cronus, both stories seem to portray creation as results from violence and sacrifice. The stories suggest that human nature is inherently brutal and violent and that our existence itself is the result of our darkest sides. This would explain the reality of our world, which has been constantly filled with suffering and the imperfect balance of good and evil.
This is in stark contrast with the Hebrew Bible, which believes that the universe was created deliberatly. It states that creation was unfolded as a form of blessing, where everything was judged as being “good”.
What’s at stake here is the dilemma that the world is being defined in two completely different ways. Onee being a cruel and violent birth and the other a structured manifestation of goodness. These differing stories reflect different cultural views of human life, without any true verdict in the play
To me, the two stories had some similarities. I think in both stories, the sun and the moon are described as coming from the same place. Obviously in Genesis, it is God that is the creator, creating the Sun and Moon to guide the day and the night. In the Inuit myth, the Sun and Moon are siblings, raised from the same mother. I think this understanding that their source was the same has interesting implications, as it seems that historical cultures saw the connections between the Sun and the Moon.
The Inuit myth describes the division between the sun and the moon as more violent. The sister takes back her autonomy from her brother, who will always be the lesser light, or the moon. In this sense, the Inuit myth offers a more feminist view than Genesis. The sun and moon also are humanized in the Inuit myth, where as they are objects of God’s creation in the Genesis story. It is not the sun or the moon that is powerful in this story, but God. These differences show the differences in how different religions perceive their connection and relationship to space, the sun, and the moon.
In Genesis, in the beginning, light/darkness were separated, while the Sun/Moon don’t appear until the fourth day. From this, we can reasonably infer that Hebrews did not view light as physical light but rather as the divine light of God’s presence. The idea is that God establishes day/night cycles before he creates the physical bodies that sustain those, emphasizing God’s supremacy over natural forces, day and night exist because they are just instruments created by God’s commands.
In the Genesis story of creation, God creates “day” and “night” long before creating the sun. How might we make sense of this?
In the story the creation of “day” and “night” does not necessarily mean there had to be light from the sun as we know today. God may have decided that he had wanted to create and divide time into segments which were decided to be “day” and “night” before knowing exactly what those periods entailed. It could also be possible that there was light from a source other than the sun which is not directly mentioned, such as God themselves energy or possibly there were other starts not mentioned.
For example, maybe there was light traveling through the darkness (which I will assume to be space) from other stars in other galaxies which made its way to our planet during gods creation, and eventually god decided we would need a sun of our own to have a more consistent. It’s probably more likely that Gods energy was mentioned as the light and it was not thought of as a term to describe energy from the sun.
In today’s world, we have a fairly clear understanding of how our solar system operates. We understand that from a scientific point of view that the sun is the center of the solar system, and is the source of all energy, especially light energy. Today we know that the “Day” and “night” are phenomena that are directly tied to the earth’s relation to the sun, without the sun there would be no change.
In the early stages of humanity, science had not yet developed, however humans looked up into the sky and had to be impressed by the biggest change in their daily lives. The big difference between light and dark. This had to inspire imagination, it also makes sense because day and night were simply more important than the sun that was a mere object that appears during the day every morning. This difference hints at the idea that the sky is a tremendous source of inspiration for creativity.