Light before sun? Explanation 3: Vapor Canopy--not

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. Genesis 1.14-15 NIV

Oops.  I was thinking that young earth creationist John Whitcomb argued for a water vapor canopy that blocked the sun from the earth from day 1 to day 4 of creation.  Apparently I misunderstood.  It seems the canopy theory was rather to explain the Genesis flood.  It further seems that this theory has now been largely abandoned even by its former proponents. My mistake.

In looking for canopy information though, I found an on-line encyclopedia with over 8,000 articles developed by and for young earth creationists:  creationwiki.org.  Here are a few other ideas mentioned, not necessarily accepted, in the First Light entry of creationwiki.org.

Invention vs. Application

Some interpret the activities on day one to be those of an inventor who developed the reactions to produce light. Then on day 4 that invention was applied to the creation of the solar bodies that provide light today.

Universe Was Filled With Light

Cosmologists working with 'Big Bang' calculations indicate that a massive presence of photons would have crossed the entirety of the universe during the initial seconds of universal expansion. This would in fact have 'lit up' the entire universe, all at once. "...and there was light."

Sonoluminescence

Sonoluminescence is the process by which acoustic energy is turned into light. This is done by introducing a frequency to water while a air bubble is present. The light produced actually comes from this bubble. Light could have been accomplished this way during the creation week when the earth was just a sphere of water before land appeared.