Here are some comments on the Genesis cosmology.
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Along with the "heavens" (it isn't clear what that means), the Earth seems to have been the very first thing created. The Earth has existed for as long as anything else in the universe.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
That looks like a reference to earlier Mesopotamean cosmological myth, in which "waters" represented primordial chaos. Water has no shape or form of its own and takes the shape of whatever container it's in. It also had the annoying tendency to erode the Mesopotameans' mud-brick structures back into formlessness. Floods were the great danger in Mesopotamia and the primary source of their ancient disasters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.
4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morning the first day.
We seem to have not only light, but day and night, before the Sun, Moon or stars were lit.
6 And God said, Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.
7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.
8 God called the vault sky. And there was evening, and there was morning the second day.
Apparently the ancient Hebrews imagined the sky to be a giant dome over creation (the Earth), with "waters" (chaos) above and below.
9 And God said, Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear. And it was so.
10 God called the dry ground land, and the gathered waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good.
The Earth was already stable enough to have a solid surface and oceans, before the Sun was lit.
11 Then God said, Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. And it was so.
So the very first life to appear on Earth, even before the Sun was lit, were seed-bearing and fruit-producing plants and trees. This life appeared on land and not in the oceans.
12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
13 And there was evening, and there was morning the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years,
15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so.
16 God made two great light the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.
Only at this point do the Sun and Moon appear. (They seem to be imagined as if they were lights up on the sky-dome.) And only now do all the rest of the stars simultaneously appear. (They seem to have been imagined as little lights too.)
17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth,
18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
19 And there was evening, and there was morning the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.
Only now does sea-life appear. Apparently the appearance of sea-life is simultaneous with the appearance of birds, which seem to be the first land-animals.
21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
22 God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.
23 And there was evening, and there was morning the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind. And it was so.
The first land-animals, apart from birds, that appear seem to include "the livestock", presumably meaning mammals.
25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
It's a nice story and it probably tells us a lot about how the ancient Hebrews imagined their world. But it seems kind of foolish to try to read it as if it was a scientifically accurate account of how the universe, the Earth and life came to be.
I'm not sure how literally even the ancient Hebrews took a story like this. I'd guess that many of them recognized that there was a great deal of 'poetic license' there.
