Sunday, October 5, 2014

Bereshit 1:1-19 (Bereshit): Some thoughts on concordism: Days one through four

Chapter one of the book of Bereshit records the creation of the world in a very orderly, succinct manner. On the whole the order of the Torah accords with the modern science's understanding of the development of the world, as for example, both agree that humankind was created/ developed at the end of the creation/ development process.  Yet, modern science has raised several questions regarding chapter one in Bereshit, such as, how could the sun have been created (day four) after there was already vegetation (day three) and how could there have been birds (day five) prior to terrestrial animals (day six)?
Religious people have responded to these questions in various ways. One way is to argue that science and religion deal with different realms, that science deals with what is in the world, while religion deals with ethics, how people should act.  This distinction is true, but in the case of the first chapter of Bereshit this approach is unsatisfactory since here the Torah deals with what is. Thus, religious Jews who ignore questions from science in their understanding of the first chapter of Bereshit are living their lives with a cognitive dissonance since the person accepts science in all aspects of his/ her life and then denies its relevance when dealing with the Torah.  A second approach to dealing with the questions from science is to deny the viability of science in general, or just to deny the theories of science in reference to the development of the world. Here the person is being more honest with themselves, but it is foolhardy to deny science, even if some scientific theories are later found to be false.  A third approach is to try to reconcile the differences between science and the Torah, and this approach has been labeled concordism.  (See Shatz, 2008, for a discussion of this genre of exegesis.) We will follow this approach and argue that the supposed contradictions are based on incorrect understandings of the biblical text.  
          I know that some people (generally adherents to the first approach) view with disdain the idea of discussing the Torah in light of modern science since scientific theories change and many times the simple reading of the Torah is stretched to fit into science.  These people prefer to live with their cognitive dissonance, but I think the danger of ignoring modern science is greater than the cost of incorporating modern science into the study of the Torah.  If a person ignores all questions from science and argues that the Torah does not have to accord with science, then this makes the Torah a piece of literature and not the word of G-d.  Is the use of science in explaining the Torah different from interpreting the Torah based on archaeology or ancient Semitic languages? It is true that scientific theories change, and this could then mean that one has to change one’s interpretation of the text, but maybe some insights will remain. Even if no insights remain, still this is the process of interpretation, new ideas are suggested, some are accepted and some are discarded. 
         
          Our claim is not that one can learn science from reading chapter one, but that in all cases where there appears to be a contradiction between science and the Torah, one should not run away from the problem but try to resolve the contradiction.  I believe this approach accords with the Ibn Ezra's approach. Amos Funkenstein (1993, p. 125) in his discussion Ibn Ezra's methodology writes:

The story of creation, according to Ibn Ezra, is not a cosmology….The Genesis-story does not of course contain wrong cosmological information; it just tells us as little of it as necessary to understand the place of humans in their sublunar realm, and that which is told is told "in the language of humans."   
On day four, we will see one example of Ibn Ezra's attempt at concordism, where he explains 1:16 due to a question from scientists in his day.  
We will follow the narrative order of the Torah and attempt to integrate scientific theories (as I understand them) into our explanation of the verses.  We will follow the division in the Torah of a six day creation process, but our understanding is that each day does not refer to our 24 hour days.  Instead, each day signifies a unit of time, an epoch, in which some act or acts in the creation process transpired.  The lengths of each day are not equal or even related in some way to the other days, but are determined by the creation process that transpired in the particular period.  The use of the term day follows our convention to divide time into twenty four hours, but in chapter one it only refers to dividing time and not to a twenty four period.  With this understanding, the term day in chapter one is similar to other cases in the Torah (for example, Bereshit 8:21 and Shemot 14:31) where we do not follow the literal meaning of the words, but follow their figurative connotation.   

Day One: The creation of the universe
What exactly was the creation process on day one depends on how one understands the relationship between the first three verses of the Torah.  According to Rashi (on 1:1), the first two verses are subordinate to the third verse, which means that the sole creation on day one was the light described in verse three and the mayim referred to in verse two existed prior to the creation of light. (This interpretation would seem to deny the concept of creatio ex nihlio, but Rambam, Moreh, II:13,25 writes that this is theologically possible.)  This explanation is slightly varied by Ibn Ezra and can be found in the JPS translation (Sarna, 1989), Everett Fox (1995) and Robert Alter's (2004) translations of the Torah.  For example, JPS’s translation is, “When G-d began to create heaven and earth- the earth was being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from G-d sweeping over the water- God said ‘Let there be light’ and there was light.”
Ramban (on 1:1) rejects Rashi’s approach since he claims that if the crucial idea was the creation of light, then verse three, which records the creation of light, should have been recorded before verse one.  Cassuto (1961) also rejects Rashi’s approach since he argues that the phrase of verse two “and the land was” begins a new subject, which means that verse one is an independent sentence.  The King James translation of verse one, “In the beginning G-d created the heaven and the earth” follows this understanding.  
If 1:1 is "independent" of 1:3, then there are two approaches to understanding 1:1. Ramban explains that 1:1 refers to the creation of matter from which all of the universe would develop.  On the other hand, David Hoffmann (1969, p. 20) and U. Cassuto (1961, p. 20) suggest that 1:1 is an introductory verse that does not refer to any specific act of creation. With this approach, the second verse is a description of the world prior to the creation of the light, similar to Rashi's explanation.  (Of these four commentators, the Ramban attempts to relate his explanation to Greek science, and Hoffmann (p. 21) makes a brief reference to incorporating his explanation with science, which indicates their approval of concordism.)
In recent years, two scientists, Natan Aviezer (1990) and Gerald Schroeder (1990, 1997), have attempted to interpret chapter one of the Torah based on the "Big Bang" theory.  This theory proposes that approximately 13.8 billion years ago there was a great explosion, which was the beginning of the universe, and since then the universe has been cooling down and expanding. Aviezer (p.15) writes that “the passage ‘let there be light’ (1:3) may be understood as designating the creation of the primeval fireball – the Big Bang- that signals the creation of the universe.”  This could accord with Rashi's, Hoffmann's and Cassuto's approaches to 1:1-3, and then verses 1:2 would refer to the time before the "Big Bang."  According to the Ramban's approach to 1:1, 1:1 could be referring to the "Big Bang," and then 1:2,3 are referring to events after the "Big Bang."
The question of whether 1:1 or 1:3 refers to the "Big Bang," affects our understanding of 1:2. If 1:3 is referring to the "Big Bang," then 1:2 cannot contradict science since according to science existence and time begins with the "Big Bang," and nothing is known of what was beforehand.  However, according to the approach that 1:1 refers to the Big Bang, we need to make some attempt to understanding 1:2.
1:2 is a difficult verse since many terms are unclear.   What does it mean tohu va-vohu? Chaos? Kister (2007, p. 231), writes that "etymologically it is rather plausible that tohu means desolate and vohu means empty."  Also what does it mean tehom (the deep?), and merahefet (G-d hovering?).  The term, mayim, usually means water, but what water was around at that time?
We start with the term mayim, which also appears in 1:6,7.  Aviezer (1990, pp. 21-27 and 2009, p. 39) suggests that mayim in 1:6,7 refers to ice in space, which potentially could also apply to 1:2.  However, a more promising approach is from David Hoffmann (1843-1921, p. 30, footnote 31) who quotes anonymous scholars (in his time) who suggested that the word mayim means gases to accord with the theory (then relatively new) that initially all the bodies in space were made of gas.  Hoffmann writes "that if this theory is true, then it would not be difficult to match up the science with the Torah since it is possible that the primordial water was gas."  Similarly, Avraham Korman (1980, p. 54) also writes that initially mayim means gas or steam. 
We will follow this approach for all references to mayim in day one and day two, and then 1:2 means something like "matter was in a disorganized state consisting of gases."  This explanation could be a description of the universe after the "Big Bang," where "according to the Big Bang theory, the early universe was filled with hot plasma – a cauldron of protons, electrons and photons, with a smattering of other particles," (Loeb, 2006, p. 24). 
What is the darkness referred to in 1:2? If 1:3 is referring to the "Big Bang", then maybe 1:2 is telling us that the world was dark prior to the "Big Bang," but if 1:1 is referring to the "Big Bang," then 1:2 is stating that after the "Big Bang" there was a period of darkness.  In fact, there was a period called the "Dark Ages" from approximately 400,000 years after the "Big Bang" until 100 million years after the "Big Bang" or even longer until one billion years after the "Big Bang," when the universe was dark (Loeb, 2006) and then 1:2 could be referring to this period.
Finally, the meaning of the end of 1:2 depends on how one understands the phrase the, "wind of G-d was hovering over the mayim." We understand the term wind of G-d to mean the force of G-d and hovering to mean non-interfering, that G-d was letting the gases be.
1:3 records the creation of light. As explained above, this could refer to the "Big Bang," but if 1:1 is referring to the "Big Bang," then what was created in 1:3? One possibility (Chagigah 12a, quoted by Rashi on 1:14) is that verse is referring to the creation of the sun.  Another possibility is that the verse is referring to the creation of the first stars, whose formation peaked approximately 9-10 billion years ago, (Loeb 2006, pp. 24,25).
1:4 records that G-d saw that the light was good, and that G-d separated the light from the darkness. If one understands that 1:3 refers to the "Big Bang," then this verse can be understood as referring to the events right after the "Big Bang." Following this approach, Schroder (1990, p. 89) writes that the verse refers to electrons binding with hydrogen and helium, which allowed photons to break free and become visible.  Aviezer (1990, p. 16), writes that 1:4 "may be understood as referring to the decoupling of the light from the dark fireball-plasma mixture."  Or, maybe the verse is not referring to any specific physical act but is just noting the change that resulting from the creation of light in 1:3 as opposed to the darkness in 1:2.  1:4 would then be marking the differentiation between the areas that were lit by the light recorded in 1:3 and those areas unaffected by the light, which remained dark.  This understanding could accord with the approach that 1:1 is referring to the "Big Bang."     
1:5 records that G-d called the light day and the darkness night. According to the understanding that the days in chapter one are 24 hours periods, then this verse would seem to be providing definitions of the terms day and night, and would accord with the idea that 1:3 recorded the creation of the sun. Yet, if the sun was not yet created, what can it mean day and night?  One possibility is that if 1:3 refers to the "Big Bang," then the darkness referred to in 1:5 could be to the period of the "Dark Ages" that occurred after the "Big Bang." A different possibility is that the verse is not referring to any physical process.  Instead, the terms day and night are a way of expressing in human terms the change from one period to another period.  With this understanding, the term day in chapter one means an epoch, and 1:5 means that the creation of light marked the first epoch.  The reference to the darkness, would be to a period where there was few or no acts of creation and that would be called night.  This dual process of creation and then a pause would then mark off one total period, a full day.    

1:6-8- The creation of our galaxy and/ or the beginning of the solar system:
1:6 records that G-d said that there would be a rakia in the midst of the mayim to separate between the mayim and mayim, and 1:7 records that G-d created this rakia.  
In order to understand what was created on day two we need to know what is meant by the term rakia? A common interpretation of rakia is firmament, an extended solid surface or dome, but what does that mean?  Daniel Boorstin (1983, p. 294) notes that "the Greeks developed the notion that the earth was a sphere on which man lived while the heavens above were a rotating spherical dome that held the stars and moved with them." This appears to be the basis for the traditional interpretation of the term rakia, but modern science suggests a different interpretation.
Ibn Ezra (on 1:6, see also Sarna, 1989, p. 8) notes that the root of the word rakia is the same as in va-yeraqu in Exodus 39:3 (also see Bemidbar 17:3), which records how the gold was hammered out into sheets by the making of the priestly garments.  Accordingly the meaning of the word rakia is some type act of flattening, and if mayim means gases, as discussed above, then 1:6,7 would be referring a type of flattening of the gases. 
This flattening suggests two processes. One, Ward and Brownlee (WB, 2000, p. 27) write, "Our galaxy is a spiral galaxy… Spiral galaxies are disk shaped (round, but flat if viewed from the side) with branching arms when viewed from the top. But viewed from the side they are quite flat." Furthermore, our sun is in a very propitious area of the galaxy since it is not too close (25,000 light years) from the center where the star density is low, which would not have allowed life to exist, and it is not on the edge of the galaxy, where "the abundance of heavy element is probably too low to form terrestrial planets as large as earth," (WB, p. 29).  Thus, the flattening could be referring to the creation of the galaxy and the positioning of the sun (our solar system) within the galaxy.  I think this idea accords with Schroeder's (1997, p. 67) explanation that the verses are referring to the creation of the "disk of the Milky Way, and the sun."
A second possibility is from Aviezer (1990, pp. 23-27) that the verses are referring to the development of our solar system and this too involved a flattening process according to the nebular theory of the origin of the solar system.  WB (pp. 44-48) explain:
The formation process began when a mass of interstellar material became dense and cool enough to grow unstable and gravitationally collapse into itself to form a flattened rotating cloud – the solar nebula.  As the nebula evolved, it quickly formed the form of a disk-shaped distribution of gas, dust, rocks orbiting the proto-sun, a short lived juvenile state of the sun when it was larger, cooler, and was less massive and was still gathering mass.  The planets formed from this nebula, even though the nebula existed for only about ten million years before the majority of its dust and gas either formed larger bodies or was ejected from the solar system…
As the nebula evolved dust, rocks and larger solid bodies separated from the gas and became highly concentrated, forming a disk-like sheet in the mid-plane of the solar system, in some ways resembling the rings of Saturn.
One of the fundamental processed that led to the production of planets was accretion, the collusion of solids and their sticking to one another to form larger and larger bodies….The accretion process was responsible for unique and very important aspects of Earth….If natural processes in the nebula had acted in a different way, a radically different Earth might have resulted.
The arrival of the "biogenic elements" on Earth is a matter of considerable speculation, but it is likely that most of them came from the outer regions. In the coldest outer regions of the nebula, water and nitrogen and carbon could condense to form solids. Presolar interstellar solids carrying the light elements were also preserved in the region.
The formation of the giant outer planets is thought to have been particularly effective in scattering volatile-rich plantesimals from the outer regions of the solar system into the inner solar systems, the realm of the terrestrial planets…..These materials carry not only carbon, nitrogen, and water but also relatively large amounts of organic material, as was first proved when extraterrestrial amino acids were discovered in Murchison meteorite that fell in Australia in 1969.  Life on Earth formed from organic compounds, and it is possible that prebiotic compounds from the outer solar system stimulated the first steps toward the origin of life on Earth.

Thus, maybe 1:6,7 are describing the beginning process of the creation of our solar system through a flattening of the gases within a nebula, approximately five billion years ago.  The separation of mayim or gases referred to in 1:6,7, would either be to the separation of gases within our galaxy and other galaxies, the separation of our solar system within our galaxy or the separation of gasses within our solar system during the forming of planetesimals, the proto-planets.  The other gases would be the gases outside of our galaxy, outside of solar system or outside of our planets, and from the Torah's point of view, this vast area is somewhat inconsequential, and will not be further discussed.
Cassuto (1961, p. 33) argues that the separation of mayim that is recorded in 1:7 was not done by the rakia but was another act of G-d.  This would mean that there were two acts of creation on day two.  One, the creation of the rakia, could refer to the creation of the galaxy/ and or the beginning of the our solar system and the second creation, the separation of mayim, could refer to one aspect within this process.
Another possibility is that according to the nebular theory of the origin of the solar system the force causing the contraction of the inner center of the nebula was equalized by gravity, which stopped the nebula from imploding.  The second creation in 1:7 could then mean that G-d introduced the gravitational pull to stop the contraction process within the nebula, and then there was a separation from the inner center and the outer gases of the nebula.  Planets, including earth, would eventually form from theses outer gasses, and from their perspective they are below the center of the nebula that would eventually become the sun.  For example, we perceive that we are below the sun.
Another possibility for the second creation referred to in 1:7 is based on the idea that mayim means literally water.  WB (2000, p. 208, also see p. 261) write, "Earth is about one half of 1% water by weight. Much of the water arrived amongst the planetesimals that took part in Earth's formation and accretion." Thus maybe the second half of 1:7 is referring to water "coming" to the proto-Earth, from the outer regions in the solar system or other galaxies during the formation of the solar system.       
1:8 records that the rakia was called, shamayim, the heavens, and this could refer to the galaxy or to the solar system or even both. Rashi (on 1:7, see also Genesis Rabbah, 4:6) notes that 1:8, the concluding sentence of the second day, does not state "and it was good," which Rashi explains was because the creation on the second day was not completed.  This explanation accords with the idea that the creation on day two was the beginning of the solar system since the solar system was not competed until day four.   

Day three: The creation of the first life on the planet
1:9 records that G-d gathered the mayim into one place, and there appeared yabasha. Afterwards, 1:10 records that the yabasha was called eretz, land, and the mayim which had been gathered together was called yamim, seas.  The simplest explanation is that these verses are referring to the formation of the planet earth, that it was divided between land and waters (seas).  (This would not be continents, just that there existed a land mass, maybe completely covered by water or gasses.) With this new name, the term mayim in the remainder of the Torah has been changed from gas to water.
WB (pp. 52,53) write, "the atmosphere was formed by outgassing from the interior, a process that released volatiles originally carried to earth in plantesimal bodies as well as by delivery from impacting comets….The oceans are a byproduct of outgassing and the formation of the atmosphere.  When the atmosphere was very hot, a great deal of it was composed of steam. Gradually, as the early Earth cooled, the steam condensed as water and formed the vast oceans we still see today."  This process could be the reference to 1:9.  Also, the appearance of land is also propitious since if the depths of the oceans were less than they are today (shallower), then the whole planet would have been covered by water.
However, the existence of seas appears to have occurred after the Earth was already formed which would be after day four. WB (p. 58) write that "perhaps this process began 4.4 billion years ago.  Yet, for my chronology here, I would need to argue that the process, of separating gasses from the matter to form the oceans began even earlier at the plantesimal stage, but the process was a slow one, so that the development of seas was much later, after the events recorded in day four. 1:9 would then be referring to just the beginning of the process.
A different possibility is that the gathering of the water is not to the seas that we think of above the surface, but to underground water, and this could have occurred even during the proto-Earth stage.  For example, in April 2014, it was announced that scientists had discovered that there exists a large lake or sea within one of Saturn's moons, see Chang (2014).    
The next two verses, 1:11,12 ostensibly refer to the creation of vegetation.  There are two problems with these verses. One, how could there be vegetation, if the sun was not yet created? Two, 1:12 seems to be redundant after 1:11 already records that vegetation came into existence.
With regard to the first question, various answers that have been proposed to explain the existence of vegetation before the existence of the sun.  As mentioned above, according to the Talmud (Chagigah 12a, quoted by Rashi on 1:14) the sun was created on the first day but only placed in its final position on the fourth day, and hence there could have been vegetation on the third day.  Ramban (on 1:14) follows this idea that the sun was created on the first day but he thinks that initially the sun was above the heavens and did not light up the earth, and it was only on the fourth day that it began to illuminate the earth.  According to this idea, there remains the problem how could there be vegetation on the third day and he explains (on 1:11) that the plants did not grow on the third day, but that G-d gave the earth the potential to grow plants. A third answer is from Cassuto (1961, p. 44) who suggests that while the light on the first day was not the sun still it was sufficient to enable the plants to grow.
Several new solutions have been proposed based on the idea that day four does not refer to the creation of the sun. Aviezer (1990) argues that the sun was created on the second day, before the vegetation, and then on the fourth day, G-d fixed the position of the sun and moon.  This is a variation of the answer in the Talmud.  With this approach, the sun again was present on day three to enable the vegetation to grow.  Schroeder (1990, pp. 130,131, 1997, p. 67) also explains that the sun was created on day two, while on day four, G-d made the sun, moon and stars visible, a variation on the Ramban's idea.  He explains that on day three, the "the atmospheric vapors transmitted radiant energy. The atmosphere, however, was translucent, not transparent. Therefore individual luminaries were not distinguishable.  It was this diffuse light that provided energy for this initial plant life."  Andrew Parker (2010, p. 21) follows the idea that the sun was present on day three with all its usual strength, and instead suggests that on day four eyes began to evolve on organism on the earth (approximately 521 million years ago) which enabled them to see the luminaries.  (He explains that the animals referred to in day five are not the first organisms, but are the animals that appeared in the Cambrian explosion, 520 million years ago, which he argues occurred because organism began to see.)   These suggestions are difficult since the term create in 1:16 implies that the sun did not exist before the fourth day.
Other possible solutions are that the Torah was not following the chronological order of events, as really the sun was created before the vegetation but its creation was recorded afterwards.  Why would the Torah record the creation not in its chronological order? Strauss (1997) suggests that delaying the recording of the creation of the sun until the fourth day creates a parallelism in the process of creation, see above our discussion, "Chapter one: A literary pattern?" With this idea, the literary pattern was more important than the chronological order.  One could also claim that this was another miracle in the Torah that G-d created the vegetation without the sun, though then would have to explain why G-d did this miracle. 
The idea that the second day only describes the beginning of the development of the solar system in conjunction with a new discovery suggests another possibility.  In 1977, hydrothermal vents were discovered deep in the ocean, where tube worms and clams lived by these vents in total darkness. (For a discussion of the discovery and its implication at the site: http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/ventcd from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.  See also the Economist, 2011, which reports that Dr. Tina Treude found that deep seems in the ocean have worms and clams that live based on methane gas coming up from the earth.  Furthermore, shark eggs and even fossil shark eggs were found in the worms, which suggests that sharks live and lived off these worms. On August 6, 2014, I visited the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, and saw a video explaining how life developed in these vents without sunlight.)
WB (2000, pp. 3-7, 70) write,
The finding of bizarre tubeworms and clams was completely unexpected, but even this life is conceivable to us, for it exists in the warmest waters around the volcanic vents.  What was not expected, however, was that life could live not only around but amid, the vents. Within these scalding cauldrons of superheated water, a rich diversity of microbial entities grow and thrive at temperatures far too hot for any animal… Life does exist in the hydrothermal vents of the deep sea, just as it does in other seemingly sterile habitats where organism have recently been discovered, such as deep underground in cold basalt, in sea ice in hot springs and in highly acidic pools of water.  Because of where they live, the microorganisms in these uninviting places have been dubbed extremophiles "creatures that love the extreme:"… Extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme pressure and darkness….The extremophiles derive their energy from the breakdown of compounds such as hydrogen sulfide and methane, which fuels their metabolism.  Furthermore, these organisms evolved early in earth history, and this suggests that the earliest life on our planet may be chemically fueled rather than powered by light...
Although some of them (extremophiles) fall within the taxonomic group formally called Bacteria, the majority of these extremophilic microbes belong to the taxonomic group Archaea…..Most archaeans are "anaerobic"; they can live only in the absence of oxygen.  This characteristic makes them prime candidates for the first life on Earth, because the newly formed Earth had no free oxygen…. Although many types of archaeans have been found in hot-water settings, it is clear that they can live in other subterranean settings, including within solid rock itself….
Most views of Earth's surface at the time of the first formation of life paint a very bleak picture. Lethal levels of ultraviolet radiation polluted the surface, and the impact of giant comets with Earth periodically vaporized the planet's oceans.  The boiling of the seas would have repeatedly sterilized Earth's surface.  But what about beneath the surface, in the subterranean regions now inhabited by the extremophilic archaeans and bacteria? These deep Hadean environments may have served as bomb-shelter like refuges, protecting deep extremophiles from the fury at the planet's surface. Could the deep subsurface have served not only as refuge but also as cradle of life early in Earth history? New analyses of the "Tree of Life" or phylogenetic history of life on our planet support this possibility.     
Accordingly, maybe the reference to grasses and seeds in 1:11 is referring to these types of extremophilic organisms which lived without any light and oxygen and hence they could live before the existence of the sun.  These extremophiles can even be before the archaeans and bacteria as BW (2000, p.74) note that there were even earlier common ancestors.  Furthermore, since it is possible that these earliest forms of life came from the outer planets in the solar system, then the verse may not even be referring to life on Earth.
With this idea and following our chronology, one would have to claim that these extremophiles existed on earth (or on other planets) even during the plantesimal stage before the solar system was fixed on day four.  WB (p. 51), note that at present "there is no direct information about Earth's early history because no rocks older than 3.9 billion years have survived" the bombardment of Earth from the large objects that hit the earth from between 4.5 billion year ago to 3.9 billion year ago. I am proposing that these extremophiles existed even prior to this period.
1:12 refers to a second development (after va-yehi ken in 1:11).  The verse va-tosei in 1:12 means that the vegetation would come forth on its own, see Ramban on 1:11. The idea being that 1:11 refers to the creation of the most basic life as a onetime event, and then 1:12 tells us that from those microorganisms, vegetation would eventually develop through natural processes without G-d intervening. The "seeing" of G-d in 1:12 is that G-d "saw" that the process was beginning. 
The fact that the Torah records the existence of organisms prior to the sun accords with Leo Strauss' (1997, p. 383, also see Friedman, 2008-2009) contention that "the most striking characteristic of the biblical account of creation is its demoting and degrading of heaven and the heavenly lights."  

Day four- The creation of sun, moon and stars
1:14-19 seems to record the creation of the sun and the moon, though neither are named, and the cochavim.  Following the idea that day two recorded the creation of planetesimals, then day four can be understood as referring to the final stage in the creation of the solar system, when the sun and the moon were fully formed, approximately 4.6 billion years ago, and 100-200 million years after the gases in the nebula started to contract. The moon is believed to have been formed soon after earth was formed (30-100 million years), and can be included in this epoch.
One difficulty in the description of the creation on this day is the cochavim in 1:16 since cochavim are stars, but there is only one star in our solar system, the sun.  Maybe the verse is referring to G-d ensuring that no other stars would come into our solar system since a multiple star system would stop advanced life from existing on our planet. (BW, 2000, pp. 24,25, note that "approximately two thirds of solar type stars in the solar neighborhood are members of binary or multiple star systems.") Another possibility (see Ibn Ezra on 1:16) is that the word cochavim can mean planets, as the ancient Greeks called the planets, wandering stars as opposed to the fixed stars, and this is how they are understood in modern Hebrew. (I thank Daniel Billig for pointing this out.) Bemidbar 24:17 also implies that cochavim can move, which again suggests planets. Silbermann and Rosenbaum (1934, p. 205), write that Rashi in his explanation of the verse 24:17 "evidently understood the term cochav as referring to a meteor."  The parallel term in the verse 24:17, shevet, can also be understood as a meteor, see Altar, 2004, p. 814, which means that 1:16 could also be referring to meteors. This definition of cochav as a planet accords with the idea that day four records the completion of the solar system. Otherwise, one would have to understand cochavim as referring to stars that were created outside the solar system but are visible on earth.
Ibn Ezra quotes a question from science concerning the size of the moon and of the planets.  He notes that that according to science the planets are bigger than the moon, so how could the Torah refer to moon as being one of the two big lights (1:17)? He answers that the word "big" does not refer to the measurements of the planets but to the light and from man's perspective on planet earth, the moon gives more light than the other planets. 
Another difficulty in the description of the creation of the luminaries is that 1:14,15 seem to record the creation of all the luminaries, and then 1:16-18 repeats this information just in respect to the sun, the moon and the cochavim?  Why are the sun, the moon and the cochavim not included within 1:14,15?  Maybe 1:16-18 are not referring to another creation process, but they are to stress that G-d created the sun, the moon and the cochavim in order that people should not worship them. If this is true, then 1:14,15 is a more general statement of the creation of the luminaries and 1:16-18 is more specific.
A second possibility is that 1:16-18 refer to the creation of the "final touches" of the solar system, and this is what made the earth into a habitable zone for complex organisms. The extremophiles (from day three) could live anywhere, but complex life needs numerous very specific conditions.  Some of the conditions are that the earth with its ellipse had to be the right distance from the sun, not too close and not too far, the mass of the sun had to be stable for a long enough period that life could evolve, and the sun could not radiate too much ultraviolet light.  (For a full list of conditions, see WB, 2000, pp. xxvii, xxviii.) All of these factors were set on the fourth day, and then on the fifth day complex life could evolve from the simple life of the third day.