Wednesday, April 3, 2024

When Did The Seasons Start

 

When Did The “Seasons” Start?

Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI

Biblical Authority Ministries, April 3, 2024

There was a time when people thought that the seasons didn’t begin until the Flood of Noah. At that point, it was suggested that the violence eruptions (e.g., springs of the great deep per Genesis 7:11) and changes on the earth (e.g. mountain building per Genesis 8:4-5, etc.) during the Flood shifted the earth to have a roughly 23-degree tilt.

It is this tilt that is largely responsible for the seasons as we go around the sun. The portion of earth that is tilted toward the sun is Summer and the portion that is tilted away from the sun is in Winter. As the earth goes around the sun, we have solstices (peak amount of daylight in Summer and peak amount of darkness in Winter) and equinoxes twice a year (Spring and Fall/Autumn) where we have the same amount of darkness and light on a given day.  Of course, in the Southern Hemisphere, their Winter and Summer is reversed regarding daylight and darkness.


Image Credit: NASA

However, when we start with God’s Word, we find that seasons existed prior to the Flood.

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. Genesis 1:14 NKJV (emphasis added)

Because of Genesis 1:14, we have good reasons to believe that an axial tilt was in place from creation. With the exception of Mercury, the other planets in our solar system have an axial tilt. So, there is no reason to assume that God couldn’t have created earth with an axial tilt right from the start.

Is it possible that the seasons became more extreme after the Flood? It is possible; but then some of these factors could be the results of new weather patterns, new continental schemes, higher mountains and range patterns that resulted from the Flood, not necessarily an axial tilt.

Psalm 104:19[1] (which starts off pre-Flood, transitions to the Flood and then moves to Post-Flood events) relates seasons with the moon cycles (months). And rightly so, we use the moon to divide up the seasons into three parts. There are essentially 3 moon cycles per season, so there is a relationship between moon cycles and the four seasons (it is a bit more intricate than this). Nevertheless, this in no way affects that seasons were around prior to Flood.



[1] He appointed the moon for seasons; The sun knows its going down. (Psalm 104:19 NKJV)


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