How the Earth Was

Do you ever think about what the earth was like before humans?

It sounds wonderful to me: the oceans were teeming with whales, North America was full of forests and unbroken plains and mammoths and giant sloths and so many other amazing creatures that we can only imagine, and it just sounds so wonderfully beautiful and pristine. Dangerous, too, but breath-takingly gorgeous, and a wonderful testament to God's creative powers.

Photo source

It's hinted at in Scripture, too:

How many are your works, Lord!
    In wisdom you made them all;
    the earth is full of your creatures.
²⁵ There is the sea, vast and spacious,
    teeming with creatures beyond number—
    living things both large and small.
²⁶ There the ships go to and fro,
    and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

                             ~Psalm 104:24-26 (NIV)

When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

                             ~Psalm 8:3-4 (NIV)

(see also Job 37-39, which was too long to put here)

All of these verses speak of God and His creative power. He created the earth, and He loved it ("And He saw that it was good" repeated over and over in Genesis 1). And His creation must have His fingerprints all over it--the creation always tells you so much about the artist.

Obviously, it's pointless to wonder what could have happened, and the past is behind us and can't be regained. But I still wonder sometimes.

Sources:
Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society blog
North America During the Last 150,000 Years
Science Daily article