The Missing Gap in Genesis

[StanJ]

When was the gap theory first taught? Pre Darwin or post Darwin?
Case closed son

I first heard it in 1972.

 

[intojoy]

I first heard it in 1972.

So the origin of the doctrine began in America!
Got it

 

[Interplanner]

Illogical and unscriptural. There was nothing except God before time.




Your treatment of Job 38 is unscriptural.

Looking through several commentaries I find nothing remotely close to your belief system that God could only form the earth after He sent Satan and His followers away.



No... take God's Word. He tells us how He formed and filled the earth over six days.



But those are not the facts. You are adding in secular / wordly opinions to God's Word. It says nothing about "local lighting'.



Again... the spin you put on scripture is secular ideas of deep time.

2 Peter 3 and Job 38 support the creation account of Genesis 1... As does Jesus when He refers to male and female from the beginning of creation.... Not a 2nd creation.... not thousands or millions of years after "the beginning".

I don't understand a total human time frame less than 20K from the data, and I don't understand what you are worried about if there is one that long. It is just the data of Gen 1. It is not secular timing, and it does not disturb the basis of Christian faith like a 'closed system of natural causes and effects' does. I'm nowhere close to T. Huxley.

I would say you are worse than Huxley. Huxley outright rejected the gospel. You are like a wolf in sheps clothing teaching compromise. The problem with you adding time, has been explained over and over...

Your belief system adds physical death before sin. If death was part of God's "very good" creation, and not a result of sin, then Christs death on the cross becomes meaningless. Also, you belief system encourages young people to question, or even reject what God plainly says. If original sin from first Adam is not the cause of physical death..... then the physical death of Last Adam becomes pointless... and the gospel is destroyed.

There's beginnings and then there's beginnings. Many times the Bible is only referring to that which ties to the redemptive news of what has been made available in Christ. It does not provide much information about time between the beginning of the universe and earth in its present form, because what use is that to the redemptive news? All we get is the final imprint, that what was there was the final stage of F&V.

Just compare it to the total account of Israel before its destruction in the 6th century when Jeremiah used F&V about that. It is the final stage of an involved account that had been going for 1400 years at that point, right?

 

[StanJ]

So the origin of the doctrine began in America!

I have no idea. My pastor taught it and he was at least 20 years my senior. I have no idea where he learned it from.

 

[6days]

Re. Genesis 1...Formless and void...

It does not provide much information about time between the beginning of the universe and earth in its present form,

"According to the most natural reading of the Hebrew text, the land was simply an “uninhabitable” or “inhospitable” stretch of “wasteland.” The land was not a “formless and empty chaos.” When God made the world, the land was not yet a place where human beings could dwell (Genesis 1:2). It had not yet been prepared for their habitation. That, of course, is quite a different sense than the phrases “formless and empty” (NIV) of “without form and void” (RSV) might imply! The Hebrew expression _tohu wabohu_ refers simply to a “wilderness” that has not yet become inhabitable for human beings. It is the “wilderness” for example, where the Israelites wandered for forty years, waiting to enter the land (Deuteronomy 32:10). Such a meaning for the Hebrew expression gifts quite well into the context of Genesis 1. Throughout this chapter God is depicted as preparing the land for mans’ habitation. Through the hand of God, the “wasteland” is about to become the “promised land.” The immediate context of Genesis 1 (1:2, 9) suggests that the land was described as “formless and empty” primarily because “darkness” was upon the land and the land was “covered with water.” For those reasons the land was “uninhabitable.” The general context of chapter 1 would indicate that the author meant the terms _tohu wabohu_ to describe the condition of the land before God made it “good.” Even a quick reading of the Hebrew text reveals an obvious wordplay between the terms _tohu_ (“deserted”) and tob (“good”). Before God began His work, the land was “deserted” (tohu); then God made it “good” (tob). In this sense, the description of the land in 1:2 is similar to the description of the land in 2:5-6. Both texts describe the land as “not yet” what it shall be. Having described the land as uninhabitable, the remainder of Genesis 1 portrays God as preparing the land for the place of man’s dwelling. The description of the land as _tohu wabohu_ in verse 2a,then, plays a central role in the creation account. It describes the condition of the land before God’s gracious work prepared it for man’s dwelling place. "
http://thenaturalhistorian.com/2011...ew-–-part-4-the-meaning-of-formless-and-void/

 

[StanJ]

Re. Genesis 1...Formless and void...

"According to the most natural reading of the Hebrew text, the land was simply an “uninhabitable” or “inhospitable” stretch of “wasteland.” The land was not a “formless and empty chaos.” When God made the world, the land was not yet a place where human beings could dwell (Genesis 1:2). It had not yet been prepared for their habitation. That, of course, is quite a different sense than the phrases “formless and empty” (NIV) of “without form and void” (RSV) might imply! The Hebrew expression _tohu wabohu_ refers simply to a “wilderness” that has not yet become inhabitable for human beings. It is the “wilderness” for example, where the Israelites wandered for forty years, waiting to enter the land (Deuteronomy 32:10). Such a meaning for the Hebrew expression gifts quite well into the context of Genesis 1. Throughout this chapter God is depicted as preparing the land for mans’ habitation. Through the hand of God, the “wasteland” is about to become the “promised land.” The immediate context of Genesis 1 (1:2, 9) suggests that the land was described as “formless and empty” primarily because “darkness” was upon the land and the land was “covered with water.” For those reasons the land was “uninhabitable.” The general context of chapter 1 would indicate that the author meant the terms _tohu wabohu_ to describe the condition of the land before God made it “good.” Even a quick reading of the Hebrew text reveals an obvious wordplay between the terms _tohu_ (“deserted”) and tob (“good”). Before God began His work, the land was “deserted” (tohu); then God made it “good” (tob). In this sense, the description of the land in 1:2 is similar to the description of the land in 2:5-6. Both texts describe the land as “not yet” what it shall be. Having described the land as uninhabitable, the remainder of Genesis 1 portrays God as preparing the land for the place of man’s dwelling. The description of the land as _tohu wabohu_ in verse 2a,then, plays a central role in the creation account. It describes the condition of the land before God’s gracious work prepared it for man’s dwelling place. "
http://thenaturalhistorian.com/2011...ew-–-part-4-the-meaning-of-formless-and-void/

Correct, formless and void means it was a big ball of water covered earth. Gen 1:9-10 shows God forming the dry land and seas.

 

[intojoy]

I have no idea. My pastor taught it and he was at least 20 years my senior. I have no idea where he learned it from.

If the Gap theory was a doctrine before Darwin's time, what was it?

 

[StanJ]

If the Gap theory was a doctrine before Darwin's time, what was it?

Don't know and don't care, it's irrelevant. I'm sure you can find that info on Wiki or some other site.

Apparently the 1917 Scofield Reference Bible had some comment on it, and I had one gifted to me in the 70s, but as it was KJV and I didn't like the KJV, I never used it.

 

[JosephR]

Most people think it was a matter of days only since it seems the children were born after Eden.

I have heard the Jews take one as summary and one as narrative. Then there is the gap theory....

 

[aikido7]

Every time you see the term "Holy Spirit" in Genesis, use the phrase "Holy Process" instead. You will find that it begins to resemble a physics text.

 

[intojoy]

Don't know and don't care, it's irrelevant. I'm sure you can find that info on Wiki or some other site.

Apparently the 1917 Scofield Reference Bible had some comment on it, and I had one gifted to me in the 70s, but as it was KJV and I didn't like the KJV, I never used it.

Sorry for playing around.
The original doctrine of the Gap had to do with the fall of Satan. According to the teaching, God flooded the Eden of God causing the earth to be without form and void. I can swallow this. I cannot agree with those who desire to change the Gap theory for dinasour space.

Our world began with Adam about 6k years ago.
The Eden of God may not have been in existence for a very long time before the Garden of Eden either. It perhaps was very short.

The issue for me is that those who preach a Gap for dinasour space are losing the war against the world. The world would have man believe that the Scriptures are not accurately describing the creation.

 

[intojoy]

The problem with anti Gap folks is that they fail to research the original teaching concerning the gap and ignore the scriptural evidence that supports a gap from this perspective. They rely on lazy students that assume the Gap theory was invented by evolutionist sympathizers. That be tokens unworthy scholarship. Even if the Gap theory theologians are in error one must first take their scriptural evidences and prove them wrong!

 

[StanJ]

Every time you see the term "Holy Spirit" in Genesis, use the phrase "Holy Process" instead. You will find that it begins to resemble a physics text.

No thanks...how about we just use the words that are there?

You're always trying to change the impetus of the Bible.

 

[StanJ]

Sorry for playing around.
The original doctrine of the Gap had to do with the fall of Satan. According to the teaching, God flooded the Eden of God causing the earth to be without form and void. I can swallow this. I cannot agree with those who desire to change the Gap theory for dinasour space.

Our world began with Adam about 6k years ago.
The Eden of God may not have been in existence for a very long time before the Garden of Eden either. It perhaps was very short.

The issue for me is that those who preach a Gap for dinasour space are losing the war against the world. The world would have man believe that the Scriptures are not accurately describing the creation.

Never heard that and as I have dismissed what I did learn of the GAP, and believe in the LITERALNESS of Gen 1, I have NO desire to entertain any other theories.
"Let God be truth and EVERY man a liar"

 

[StanJ]

The problem with anti Gap folks is that they fail to research the original teaching concerning the gap and ignore the scriptural evidence that supports a gap from this perspective. They rely on lazy students that assume the Gap theory was invented by evolutionist sympathizers. That be tokens unworthy scholarship. Even if the Gap theory theologians are in error one must first take their scriptural evidences and prove them wrong!

IMO it was an attempt to justify what Darwinians were trying to assert.

If one could articulate what they did believe about the GAP theory it would be easy to address it, but most of them that I encounter cannot or will not. Those that do say the same exact thing I was exposed to.