Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head

"The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.”[1]

This is the Biblical account of the origin of water on earth. First water is made, then within that canvas, God creates.

“God … separated the waters which were below the expanse (the oceans) from the waters which were above the expanse…” The expanse was “heaven.” The Hebrew word means the “visible arch of the sky.”[2] Some have called ‘the waters’ a vapor canopy… eerily almost like a womb, in which God created.

“Evidence of water ice on 24 Themis asteroid’s surface” read the headline in the Chennai, India newspaper a few days ago. Two scientific teams have found evidence for “a thin film of ice”[3] on the surface of this 120-mile wide asteroid. Measuring the spectrum of infrared light reflected by the asteroid revealed this ice. For the first time water ice was discovered on an asteroid. This is an exciting breakthrough.

The article continued,“This evidence supports the idea that asteroids could be responsible for bringing water and organic material to Earth.”[4] Scientists had previously classified asteroids as cold lifeless rocks. Comets were credited with bringing water. Comets are now ruled out because the isotopes for hydrogen in the comet's water do not match up with Earth’s.[5]

How did we get water on the Earth? Have asteroids continued to hit the Earth forming oceans? Seventy percent of our planet is water. If it was a random process, why wasn’t the entire earth covered with water? Or just 10% covered? Scientists Ward and Brownlee recognize our good fortune in having just the right balance of land and sea. “The critical question is why, on Earth, the volume of water was sufficiently large to buffer global temperatures, but small enough so that shallow seas could be formed by the uplifting of continents.”[6] The existence of some shallow seas, essential for marine life, provide the perfect environmental balance.

Filling the seas must have taken a lot of asteroids. A lot of big, big asteroids… almost like intergalactic water tankers. We only count the ones that hit us. Could 329 million cubic miles of water have been delivered from asteroids like 24 Themis? It puts a whole new meaning to "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head." A blogger commenting on this theory said, “It's certainly very likely that some water and organics arrived via asteroids, frankly the ridiculous improbability that ALL of it arrived via asteroids is too stupid for words.”[7]

If we take God out of the picture, we have to stretch to find a reasonable cause for Earth's abundant water. The Biblical version states, "You alone are the LORD. You have made …the seas and all that is in them.”[8] Friends, God did it. It wasn’t by asteroids pelting the Earth over billions of years.

[1] Genesis 1:2, 6,7 (NAS)
[2] Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Book House, 1985)
[3] “Evidence of water ice on 24 Themis asteroid’s surface,” The Hindu, Thursday, April 29, 2010
[4] Ibid.
[5] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17970-asteroid-isnt-just-a-dry-heap-of-rubble.html
[6] Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth (New York: Copernicus Books, 2000) 264
[7] http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/0459228/Lifes-Building-Blocks-Found-On-Asteroid-
[8] Nehemiah 9:6 (NAS)