This is supplemental to my Fall of Lucifer post.
The Hebrew phrase translated in Genesis 1:2 "without form, and void" simply means it was unformed and unfinished. In Genesis 1:1 God Created all Matter as well as both Time and Space, but in verses 3 on He refined and perfected the details.
Chuck Missler likes to say the Gap Theory comes from Isaiah 45:18 "he created it not in vain" saying the "in Vain" part is one of key words in Hebrew of "without form and void". This is merely referring to when the 6 days are over however. When " God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good". To me that assessment would be absurd if Satan had already fallen and there had already been death.
Chuck also likes to claim that phrase is an expression of Judgment, but that's only based on later usages in different contexts.
Jeremiah 4:23-26 is however the real linchpin of the Gap Theory view of that phrase.
The Hebrew phrase translated in Genesis 1:2 "without form, and void" simply means it was unformed and unfinished. In Genesis 1:1 God Created all Matter as well as both Time and Space, but in verses 3 on He refined and perfected the details.
Chuck Missler likes to say the Gap Theory comes from Isaiah 45:18 "he created it not in vain" saying the "in Vain" part is one of key words in Hebrew of "without form and void". This is merely referring to when the 6 days are over however. When " God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good". To me that assessment would be absurd if Satan had already fallen and there had already been death.
Chuck also likes to claim that phrase is an expression of Judgment, but that's only based on later usages in different contexts.
Jeremiah 4:23-26 is however the real linchpin of the Gap Theory view of that phrase.
| I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger. |
The
word for 'man" used here is "Adam" so they take it as meaning
Pre-Adamic, so there was a Pre-Adamic civilization. But all "there was
no man" means here is these cities are now uninhabited because they've
been judged and their populations are dead or gone.
Those who want to see this as being about some Ancient Pre-Adamic cataclysm are ignoring the rest of the Prophecy, which mentions, Jerusalem and Judah and Ephraim and Dan. This is an End Times prophecy about the future Judgment upon our Age. All the destructive imagery here is parallel to things said in Revelation.
Another issue is the use of the term "refill and replenish". We today are used to the prefix "re" meaning doing it again or doing it over, but it didn't always mean that in 1611. But more importantly that's not what the Hebrew says, the Hebrew phrase simply means to "fill and populate", no Hebrew equivalents to the "re" prefix are used.
My objection to both the Gap Theory and the Extended Day Theory and any Old Earth model is not simply about anything in Genesis, it's primarily New Testament.
Romans 5:12 "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned"
I Corinthians 15:21 "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead."
Meaning as I said when discussing Satan's fall, nothing bad ever happened before Genesis 3.
On the subject of the Extended Day theory, there are also those who like to suggest using all kinds of technical facts about the relativity of Time, (like that time has been slowing down) to claim that all the supposed Old Earth evidence from Secular Science is in fact completely compatible with a literal interpretation of Genesis.
There may indeed be some good insights to learn from studying those issues. But what's important to keep in mind is two things.
1. The claim made by secular science about history is different in more then just how much time passes, even the order things were created is different. The Big Bang Theory claims the Sun must've existed before The Earth. Also the development of Life on this Planet is incompatible, life didn't start in the ocean Biblically. And Genesis even says the Moon was created before the Sun.
I personally get really annoyed when people making Extended Day Theory arguments go all "how could it be a 24 Hour Day if the Sun and Moon weren't there the first few days?". But even more annoyed when people who aren't even Christians say that just to mock Young Earth Creationists, because it betrays their own principles.
The Sun, Moon and Stars are only part of how we measure a Day, what a Day actually is is the Earth's rotation. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." I believe right on Day One The Planet Earth existed, was already a sphere and was already spinning. If anything I might accept that days were shorter originally as the Earth's rotation has been slowing.
Some of you might want to argue this just means the Earth as in the element, and not specifically our planet. But Hebrew had different words for Earth (so did Greek and Latin actually), the Earth element is Adamah, which Adam was made from. Genesis 1:1 uses 'erets. Erets can be used of Land as in land masses in addition to the planet. But not of the element.
2. Really derives from 1, and I'd already talked about it anyway, but it's worth repeating. Any interpretation of how to fit Genesis with Science that has anything human or animal die before Adam's Sin is heretical. Meaning if your going to believe that Dinosaurs went extinct long before Man came into existence, your view is UnBibical.
To me all the supposed Evidence for Millions or Billions of years is all B.S. anyway, I honestly don't think I'd buy it even if I wasn't a believer. But addressing those things is for others more scientifically educated them myself. I recommend Kent Hovind and Ken Ham, and also Creation Wiki.
Those who want to see this as being about some Ancient Pre-Adamic cataclysm are ignoring the rest of the Prophecy, which mentions, Jerusalem and Judah and Ephraim and Dan. This is an End Times prophecy about the future Judgment upon our Age. All the destructive imagery here is parallel to things said in Revelation.
Another issue is the use of the term "refill and replenish". We today are used to the prefix "re" meaning doing it again or doing it over, but it didn't always mean that in 1611. But more importantly that's not what the Hebrew says, the Hebrew phrase simply means to "fill and populate", no Hebrew equivalents to the "re" prefix are used.
My objection to both the Gap Theory and the Extended Day Theory and any Old Earth model is not simply about anything in Genesis, it's primarily New Testament.
Romans 5:12 "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned"
I Corinthians 15:21 "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead."
Meaning as I said when discussing Satan's fall, nothing bad ever happened before Genesis 3.
On the subject of the Extended Day theory, there are also those who like to suggest using all kinds of technical facts about the relativity of Time, (like that time has been slowing down) to claim that all the supposed Old Earth evidence from Secular Science is in fact completely compatible with a literal interpretation of Genesis.
There may indeed be some good insights to learn from studying those issues. But what's important to keep in mind is two things.
1. The claim made by secular science about history is different in more then just how much time passes, even the order things were created is different. The Big Bang Theory claims the Sun must've existed before The Earth. Also the development of Life on this Planet is incompatible, life didn't start in the ocean Biblically. And Genesis even says the Moon was created before the Sun.
I personally get really annoyed when people making Extended Day Theory arguments go all "how could it be a 24 Hour Day if the Sun and Moon weren't there the first few days?". But even more annoyed when people who aren't even Christians say that just to mock Young Earth Creationists, because it betrays their own principles.
The Sun, Moon and Stars are only part of how we measure a Day, what a Day actually is is the Earth's rotation. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." I believe right on Day One The Planet Earth existed, was already a sphere and was already spinning. If anything I might accept that days were shorter originally as the Earth's rotation has been slowing.
Some of you might want to argue this just means the Earth as in the element, and not specifically our planet. But Hebrew had different words for Earth (so did Greek and Latin actually), the Earth element is Adamah, which Adam was made from. Genesis 1:1 uses 'erets. Erets can be used of Land as in land masses in addition to the planet. But not of the element.
2. Really derives from 1, and I'd already talked about it anyway, but it's worth repeating. Any interpretation of how to fit Genesis with Science that has anything human or animal die before Adam's Sin is heretical. Meaning if your going to believe that Dinosaurs went extinct long before Man came into existence, your view is UnBibical.
To me all the supposed Evidence for Millions or Billions of years is all B.S. anyway, I honestly don't think I'd buy it even if I wasn't a believer. But addressing those things is for others more scientifically educated them myself. I recommend Kent Hovind and Ken Ham, and also Creation Wiki.
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