Hello Brethren,

I come to you in good cause. Before I begin this enlightening sermon I will like us to open our bibles to the first chapter of the book of genesis. And for those of us who do not know where that is , well it is the first chapter of the first book of the best selling piece of literature in the history of mankind. Now I will like you to please undertake the not too tedious task of reading it. I say this because it will make you understand why I think it contains arguably one of the most overlooked difficulties in the bible. In other words,you're probably going to overlook it.

Now we all know what happened in that chapter, God created the universe and he did it step by step, day after day. It all seems quite simple right? But why don't we take a closer look.

3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. (NKJV)

Okay, now you're probably thinking, what's the problem here? Truth is there is no problem, so far it all seems quite simple. God creates light and calls it day, he separates it from darkness which he calls night, and everybody seems quite happy on the first day. It's all simply right right? Well not quite, atleast not until you go down to verse 14:

14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.16 Then 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. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth,18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Are we now seeing the problem? Two different days people, in two different days God seems to have created light.

One of the most popular explanations I have been given to this is that there was only one light being talked about, only one light mentioned twice. But how? The two days of their creation are distinctly mentioned, the lights are clearly said to be created on different days. How and why should something be created twice? It makes no sense. Another explanation is that there are different lights created on those two dates. But again let us look at this claim closely. In both the first and the fourth day God creates light, he divides light from darkness, he calls light day and darkness night, in fact the passage in verse 14 - 19 just seems to be a longer version of that in verse 3 - 4, there is no difference. So how come there are different dates, different dates for apparently the same incident?

So far I have challenged a reasonable number of Christians outside Nairaland with this problem, but none have given me a satisfactory answer. Most ended up messing up their arguments and giving me evasive answers, and some others actually said that due to the editing the bible has gone through, there might have been some mistakes made, despite them still saying the bible is divinely inspired and wholly perfect - definitely no contradictions there.

And so I bring this up to my able minded Nairaland Christians. Will you agree with those who think it is the same light, those who think it's two, those who think it's a mistake, or will you just settle with my beautiful atheists who think it's all a load of bull?

The ball is in your court, let the discussion begin.