Genesis does not tell us about the method God used to make the separation of the "waters from the waters," other than at His command. There are ll verses elsewhere in the Old Testament that say something about the method, and the context is often associated with the laying of the foundations of the earth at creation time. The phrase is that God stretched out the heavens, where the Hebrew natah is used. Young's indicates that the KJV translates this Hebrew word as "stretch out" (65 times), other "stretch" words (22 times), "spread" (six times), plus many minor definitions. Here is the list of texts using the phrase: Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2b, 3a; Isaiah 40:22b; Isaiah 42:5a; Isaiah 44:24b; Isaiah 45: 12b; Isaiah 48: 13a; Isaiah 51:13a; Jeremiah 10: 12b; Jeremiah 51:15b; and Zechariah 12: 1b,which reads, "Thus says the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundations of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him."

These 11 passages are consistent in their action - God stretched out the heavens. Modern astronomers see some evidence for an expanding universe, though they are reluctant to confirm what God has declared He did. Instead, many modern astronomers side with the Big Bang idea, whereby the universe expanded from a tiny point to beyond what we can now see with our best telescopes. However, the theoretical version of the Big Bang assumes that there is no center or origin in the universe and no outer boundary; it is everywhere of the same consistency.

In contrast, modern theoretical creationary explanations published in books by Drs. Humphreys and Hartnett start with a finite, bounded universe with a unique center for its expansion, with the earth being near that center. Relativity theory then specifies an event horizon inside of which time progresses very slowly compared with clocks outside. Their works seek to explain an outer universe that seems billions of years old while the earth has aged only several thousand years according to Creation science and biblical history. Hartnett's version accomplishes this without appealing to the Big Bang's need for unobservable dark matter and dark energy. While a complete grasp of the relativity theory manipulations of Humphreys and Hartnett might be beyond the ability of most readers, at least know that faithful work is being done that seeks to answers many objections to the Creation model of history and the universe.