Gap Theory

That is a really interesting question. Yes, ther eare some theologians who believe that there is a gap of time between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2. I've heard really good arguments on both sides.

People in favor of it argue that "the earth was without form and void" is interpreted to mean that the earth became without form and void. They argue that it is not within God's character to create something that is formless and empty, so they argue that the earth somehow became that way, and this is what happened between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2.

I used to subscribe to this theory, but then someone pointed out something very interesting to me. In the Hebrew, the word and in Gen. 1:2 is actually conjunctive, and doesn't really indicate that there was any gap in time. It would be sort of like someone saying "He made a table, and it was brown."

So, then, I guess my answer would be that I really don't know at this point. I used to believe the Gap Theory made perfect sense, but hearing the explanation about the Hebrew origins, I'm really not sure.

If the gap theory is correct, though, I do believe that this would explain when dinosaurs existed.

Beloved Branch
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Ps. 108:13 Through God we shall do valiantly, for it is He who shall tread down our enemies

Funny thing is that satan was present in paradise before Adam and Eve's fall. The question is, at what time did he arrive? Ezekiel 28 may give you some clues. Esaias 14.
Everything was created before the curse of mortality so I guess there was no sense of time or change. Only Evnings and mornings. Nothing aged or died. In this state of existens the ide of time would be as stupid to them (A&E)as the ide of eternity would be to the cursed, fallen, sinfull man.
Eternity is sort of tuff to explain. A day can be like a 1000 years and a 1000 years can be like a day to the Lord. Notice, it can be like, does'nt necesery mean that it is. Have you ever had the feeling when you went away for a few day's and returned home, you felt like you've been away for week's, month's or year's. When you sleep and have really sweet dream, the same feeling many times apear. I allso experience it when in deep prair. Gods presence fills me and makes everything else insignificant. God gave us the time-curse as a reminder of death.
I belive that Creation timetable is outside our ability to grasp because it all was created during eternity. Theory's can be fun tho, as long as one does'nt make it into a teaching.
In Gen. 1:v2, the hebrew word translated into "was" is eight other places in the OT translated into "became". I guess thats one of the "gap-theology cornerstones"

God bless
Benzen

Genesis 1 verse 28: And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the Earth.

The following verse appears to support the notion of a gap theory. The other argument would be why would God create something with form and void? I don't believe that he would.

James 5:11 We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

In the BEGINNING .... how long did the beginning last? It was'nt till He created the Light(Sun)and divided it from darkness He counted the first day. Without light no evening and mornig. I'm just speculating. ;-} If you read revelation he's creating new Heaven and earth. That event strikes me as a pretty fast deal.(Maybe he prepered them during the millenial reign)Who knows!
He just "roll" the old ones together like a map and then rolls out a new ones. Thinking about this makes me rather dissy. ;-}

Onw way to look at it is to think about how anything that is finite whether it be 6ooo or 60 billion is nothing compared to infinity. There is a huge difference to us but it's a drop in the bucket to God. Whether God took 6 literal days or 6 billion years matters not. It's a grain of sand to his beach.

Are you talking about Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2?
Or are you talking about Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? There seems to be confusing here about that.

Genesis 1 chronicles the creation, then Genesis 2 says, "So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. By the seventh day, God completed His work...and rested..." The sabbath was being established here.

Whereas Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Genesis 1:2 "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters."

We know that God only creates life and good things, so the fact that it says the earth was formless and empty and darkness was hovering would seem to point to the presence of satan, since he is the ruler of the kingdom of darkness and his purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy.
If you look up the words in the concordance, you will see that in verse 2, "was" can also be translated as "became". "Formless" can mean "to lie waste or desolation". "Void" can mean "ruin or empty". All these descriptions point to satan.
We know that in Isaiah 14:12-17 it talks about satan being cast out of heaven down to earth (v. 12). And I'm curious if this relates to Revelation 12:7-9:
"And there was a war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough (hallelujah!), and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven (yay!). And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and satan, who deceives the whole earth; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him."

Whether there was a gap in time from the first verse and the second with the presence of satan and his kingdom of darkness coming to destroy what God was beginning to make, starting with the waters...only God Himself really knows.

While I'm on this topic, I did think it was interesting in Revelation 12:15-16 that says, "The serpent poured out water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth."

Let me see if I can link scriptures right here to explain my point about satan's river....In Jeremiah 2:13 God says He is the spring of living water. John 1 says Jesus is the Word. He is the manna from heaven. He quotes from Deut. 8: 2-3, "man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of the mouth of the Lord." I guess I'm trying to say that just like God speaks His word out of His mouth, living words of life (Spring of living water), while satan the counterfeit and deceiver, also spews out words from his mouth, words of deceit and evil and destruction; hence, he poured out water like a river out of his mouth, meaning evil words. Does this make sense to anyone?

Blessings,
Tonya

"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine!...I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;...You are precious and honored in my eyes, and I love you...do not be afraid, for I am with you." (Is.43:4-5)

I can find no reason at all to think that.
I'm sorry if I sound a bit crude, but this just sounds like an excuse to agree with evolution or something.
When the bible itself doesn't imply a gap like that it probably means there is none.
But as Tonya already stated it's a bit unclear what you mean.
Between Genesis 1 and 2 or Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 or maybe between Genesis 1 and 2:5 maybe?
Please clarify.
Other then that I think you should check out why they felt the need to create that theory in the first place.
I don't know about you, but I don't think something's missing when I read these chapters, so any point they try to make probably has to do with things outside the bible, and usually there's no excuse to try to "add" your personal beliefs to the bible or to reading it trying to prove your point, instead of just reading what it really simply says.

Why would God create the earth formless and void?
I guess to shape it... It's obvious that Genesis gives us the structured account of creation.
When you go and make a pot, you first have to get a "formless and void" piece of clay right?
It's just God's starting point where He can put anything He wants on it.

And Tonya,
I think it's interesting what you asked yourself.
It sounds like a decent theory, but when I read the verses after "and the serpent...after the woman" (rev 12:15) it sounds too vague if you interpret it like "words/lies", because it says "flood" (a flood of words sounds too cryptic to me) and the earth opens up swallowing the river. It makes good sense when you take it literally. If you look at "river" as being "words" it sounds too cryptic I think. It makes it very hard to explain what the earth is, and how it "swallowed" those lies etc. Do you see what I mean?

I have clarified my question sorry for the mistake. I meant Genesis 1:1 and Gen 1:2.

James 5:11 We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

I do understand what you mean about the flood interpretation. It is all to easy to rely on our own understanding about things whether things make sense (I'm including myself here!). Some things in the bible are to be understood literally, some things have hidden meanings that can be interpreted by other scriptures, others must be revealed to us by God. I was just posing the question and some day will have to ask God to help me understand what it means.
One thing that you can consider about the flood thing, is how satan's purpose is not only to lie, deceive, but also to have us think/hear/believe negative things that cause us to be so discouraged and in despair and fear, etc. So in essence, we can be overwhelmed, or "flooded" with satan's evil influence. But the earth opening up and swallowing it...admittedly, I don't know about that yet. It does sound similar to the Old Testament story where God opened the earth to swallow up the rebellious Israelites who were arguing against Moses. Honestly, I just need to study on it more and ask the Holy Spirit to teach me the truth from God's perspective.

I have other things I need to focus on first, like how to truly KNOW God and experience His love and to be rooted and grounded in His love and having a genuine relationship with Him.

But I do think we all should encourage each other to seek wisdom from God thru the Holy Spirit, that is His job to teach us. We should do this rather than going back and forth trying to figure it out ourselves and debating who is right.

I do agree with you that sometimes we christians may tend to read between the lines too much or try to add or subtract things in scripture or find a way to fit explanations of things.

"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine!...I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;...You are precious and honored in my eyes, and I love you...do not be afraid, for I am with you." (Is.43:4-5)

Hey, benzen;

Ya, I know what you're saying, but also remember that God created light three days before He created the sun. He created light, then separated the light from the darkness....the same darkness that was on the face of the deep. Some equate this with spiritual darkness, but I'm not quite sure.

Anyhow, He would have had to create light on the first day, because the plants and life that He created afterwards wouldn't have been able to survive without light.

Beloved Branch
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Ps. 108:13 Through God we shall do valiantly, for it is He who shall tread down our enemies

Hey, Vincent;

I don't think that the Gap Theory necessarily supports evolution.

Those people who believe in theistic evolution, that God used evolution to bring forth creation, argue that the six days of creation aren't literal 24-hr. days, but are actually longer periods of time in which evoltion occurred. I don't believe that at all, and Scripture certainly doesn't supports it. On the other hand, the Gap Theory just says that there was a gap in time between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2. Evolution wouldn't even come into play, because it wouldn't have begun until after verse 2.

If what everyone is saying is correct, about the word was, then the Gap Theory might in fact hold water...but I also know people who don't believe it, and they have very sound reasons for not believing it. If the Gap Theory was true, though, it would certainly account for all of the dinosaur fossils that we see, and their age.

Beloved Branch
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Ps. 108:13 Through God we shall do valiantly, for it is He who shall tread down our enemies

Thanks for clarifying!

Well, it seems to be a very useless theory.
Why would God go through the trouble of creating everything and then destroying it again (letting it become formless and void), ignoring it 100% in scripture and then get into full detail about the "second creation".
I'm sorry, but it doesn't make any sense to me.
You can really create any kind of theory and fit it in between coherent verses, but I think you should let scripture speak for itself.

Hi Beloved Branch,

I just read these first verses again and I can imagine why all the translations I know say "now the earth WAS formless and empty".
Look at the very first word of that verse: Now.
I don't know how to correctly translate the original Hebrew and where "now" came from, so please recognize where this argument stands. However, to be speaking more universally through all translations I think we can see this word as making explicit, what is implicit in the feel of the text.
Having that said, it seems to me that "now" was put there to give us a little perspective on when it was, i.e. to mean "in this time".
The opening statement of Genesis gives us the very beginning of creation and thus time, and it seems to me that after that action where time was put into motion God directly gives us a point of reference, sort of introducing us to time.
So God speaks the earth into existence and the statement immediately after that has implications on that creation in the very first breath of its existence.
With that in mind you can hopefully see it makes more sense to say "in this time the earth was" instead of "in this time the earth became" because "now" points at one certain point in time, not a progression of time (where became would be more likely). Became would be more in its place when it would've said "in this process the earth became".
I hope I made my point clear here. Any thoughts?

I never dreamed that my post would stir up such a hornets nest. Anyhow, I found a website for any interested in learning about more the gap theory and its quite interesting. From what I gleamed from reading Satan served God from an indeterminate of time and became a better narcissus than the one described in Greek mythology. He became prideful in his beauty and wanted to usurp God and take over Heaven.

Wow, talk about mission impossible. Lucifer offered the angels the one thing that they really wanted and that was the ability to possess corporeal beings. Something that God would not allow. So, a percentage of the angels threw in their lot with Satan. Old Scratch falsely believed God would simply give him his throne if the devil found enough angels to follow him. Of course, he was wrong.

In closing, another interesting fact that I learned is that the oceans and darkness are the result of sin. Well, I already knew about the ocean thing. Also, why else would it say in Revelation Chapter 21 verse that the only bodies of water during the Millennial reign of Christ is small areas of water like lakes, rivers, and streams. Here's the link www.ichthys.com/Satanic-Rebellion-Home-Page.htm

Lastly, my information came from My Expositor's Study Bible offered exclusively by Jimmy Swaggart. Incidentally, its the King James Version

James 5:11 We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

Hehe, I'm not trying to be a hornet here!
I just want to know how well justified this theory is, and from what I've heard it isn't.
A point of critique I get when I read that site you linked is that the author makes the distinction between one one hand the first sentence's (in beginning) being the first action in creation, and on the other hand (in THE beginning) its being a summery of the seven days of creation.

I don't think that is a logical distinction. You can read Gen 1:1 as "in the beginning", where this author says it points forward and therefore is a summery, just as easy with the idea that it was (and in my opinion is) the first action in the chain of actions of creation.
It seems that this distinction he made is pretty much the only thing holding up his argument,
while I think he has no reason at all to create that distinction in the first place.

In other words: This author seems to make his point on the backdrop of the summery theory, but that one theory isn't even close to being the only way you can interpret the first verse when you have "preconceptions" about the words "in the beginning".
Also he's now saying that the "and" is clearly a "but" in literal Hebrew. Well, if it is that obvious, then why don't the translators and hebrew experts say that? I rather trust those people than someone who's bending scripture to fit a certain theory.

The thing with different translations of certain words is that you look at the context.
Genesis 1:1 and genesis 1:2 are not in contradiction at all, so why would you translate it as a contradiction when the same letter for "but" is used for "and"?
Now if you would have a good reason (you let scripture interpret scripture, so maybe if there would be a passage that suggests that genesis is actually the second creation) to think Genesis 1:1 is the first creation and Genesis 1:2 is the second, then you would have a decent back-up for a theory like this. But as far as I know there's absolutely nothing at all in the bible that suggests something like that, so we simply translate those first sentences as how they would logically be translated when you look at what the rest of the bible says. Simple as that.

I find that a bit annoying about these theories. They base the entire theory on translating some word(s) to its/their other meaning, while there's the vast amount of Scripture that they completely ignore. I think it's fine for discussion and everything, but seriously, as christians I think we must believe that God's grace is active in the commonly accepted translations and that He will not hide the entire truth of a passage in one word that's supposedly mistranslated. There are no hidden truths in the bible and you shouldn't apply extrabiblical theories to the bible. When you simply take what the bible says this theory wouldn't even possibly have risen. I can only imagine it has to do with either science "proving" that the earth is millions of years old, and christians then go trying to apply this extrabiblical "truth" to the bible, or maybe people feel they have to accept the evolution theory or something and want to apply that to the bible. And that's where you have to come up with vague theories like this, because you have to try to get around the simple logical answer that completely disproves the theory.

Sorry if I stang, but I feel this theory does injustice to the Word of God, and I want to tell my opinion about it.

No,harm done...nothing wrong with lively banter.

James 5:11 We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

Good, that's a relief. If otherwise please just tell me. I might get carried away and maybe insult people by my "style"

"Why would God go through the trouble of creating everything and then destroying it again (letting it become formless and void), ignoring it 100% in scripture and then get into full detail about the "second creation".

One of the theories is because until God created time Satan and his angles did not have the capacity to change, and thus never rebelled while within eternity. The gap would have been the period of Satan and his demons being cast out of heaven.

Similarly, after the thousand year reign and the final judgment at the end of time, God will create a new heaven and a new earth but not necessarily a new time. No time would also equate to no capacity for change, which would explain why souls in hell can never have another chance at salvation. They won't be able to change. the believers wouldn't be able to fall again either.

There are indeed many theories out there, but dwelling on this with little information given us wastes time better speant delivering the love of God to those who are hurt and lost.

Until about a month or so ago I had never even heard of the Gap Theory, I grew up in a church that could best be described as luke warm at best...but when Jack Van Impe talked briefly on this subject I figured it deserved some investigation on my part to see if it held water or not.

Anyhow, I wound up getting the DVD The Startling Truth of Angels & Demons and after watching it twice I began to think that this might be true. Dr. Jack uses the bible to support everything that he says and he doesn't manipulate scripture to fit his needs. And no, he does not believe in evolution because man was made in God's own image and he doesn't look like an ape.

James 5:11 We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

Could you please take a little time in posting some theories with biblical back up or links to webpages that talk about it?
I like to see what claims are actually made to get some insight in these theories.

Hi Phogg,
Okay. This sounds fair enough, but I don't think it is in favor of a gap theory.
The gap theory has a far bigger impact than just putting a little gap of time in between Gen 1:1 and 1:2. It seems to state that there was already a world created before this one, which was then made formless and void, after which the biblical descriptions kick in, describing the second creation as it were. Satan and his angels could've been kicked out of heaven any given moment from Gen 1:1 'till the creation of Adam and Eve, it doesn't necessitate a gap of time between the first two statements in the bible.
And again, if somehow God created a world prior to the creation account for satan and the demons to mess up (question: why would He?), then why would it be completely ignored in Scripture?
So I agree that it seems to be a waste of time to create such theories without anything to base it on.

Here's another link, which is a lot more straight forward and addresses many of the arguments against the Gap Theory.

James 5:11 We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

I'm sorry, but I can't see a link in your post.
Could you maybe pm it? Maybe this forum blocks links

Sorry about that I had to step out for a moment. Here's the link gospelcenterchurch.org/Gaptheory.html One more thing if I thought that I was adding to the word of God I would drop this immediately because I don't want to spend my eternity in Hell!

James 5:11 We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

Thanks!
Haha, don't worry about that.
We're free to speculate about everything that Scripture could possibly mean.
As long as we don't add the contents of the supposed gap we're talking about to the original bible we're safe to speculate!

The RCC allows for belief in theistic evolution, just as you'll find among any christians, belief is all over the place in regards to our origin among Catholics. I've kind of waivered on this, kind of like I do w/everything!, but what I believed a long time ago is what I believe today; God created in literal six days, man was created out of the dust on the literal 6th day. I found "Answers In Genesis" to be helpful in this, also John MacArthur's book; "Battle for the Begining."

Aaah!
It's wonderful you have these resources. I think you can trust them with God's Word.
John Macarthur is basically the fundament of pretty much all of my knowledge about christianity!
Can I also suggest a incredibly useful site: gotquestions.org
It's a site where pretty much any question about christianity that you could ever deal with is answered biblically.

...or here;

http://www.equip.org/

Hey, Vincent;

In my NKJV, the word and is used instead of now. It reads "and the earth was without form, and void." From what I understand, the word and here is a conjunctive term, used to elaborate on the first verse. Sort of like if someone were to say "Sam made a table, and the table was brown." The and in verse 2 indicates that the formlessness and emptiness is the state of the earth in verse 1.

Another interesting thing to ponder is that, if you look at the entirety of Gen. 1, God is not just recreating the earth, but the entire universe. Yes, the earth was without form, but then again, it appears that the universe was also in a state of disorder, and empty, since God had to separate the light from the darkness, and create the heavenly bodies.

Also, if you read the Genesis passage literally, wouldn't it seem as though the sun and moon were created after the earth? Think about it....in Gen 1:1 and 1:2, you have the Spirit moving over the waters of the earth, which was already in existence, then in Gen. 1:14, He creates the sun and moon.

Beloved Branch
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Ps. 108:13 Through God we shall do valiantly, for it is He who shall tread down our enemies

I don't think that God owes it to us to reveal everything that happened throughout eternity past, prior to our own creation. I find it hard to believe that nothing was going on prior to our own creation, or the creation of heaven and earth. I find it hard to believe that God was just sitting up in heaven doing nothing.

Obviously, there was a whole other reality in existence prior to the creation of time. God reveals nothing of that to us, nor should He be expected to, so I wouldn't find it so impossible to believe that the earth may have existed prior to our inhabiting it, of course, I don't know this for sure. It's all just speculation.

2 Peter 1:3 says that God has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Jesus Christ. It is this knowledge that the Bible was written for, and the only knowledge that we need, in order that we may know God. I am sure that there is so much that he has not revealed to us...nor should He have to.

Beloved Branch
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Ps. 108:13 Through God we shall do valiantly, for it is He who shall tread down our enemies

Thanks for the clarification. I think "and" also completely adds to the logic that there was no gap, because it simply defines the state the earth was in when it was created.

I don't think it's plausible to say genesis also describes the re-creation of the universe.
When the Bible says "in the beginning God made the heavens and the earth" it doesn't describe the earth in its fullness with everything in it we see today, just as I don't think it describes it describes the heavens as being filled with stars and planets and everything.

It's all so logical. What do you expect to be the first chapter in the book where God reveals Himself as Creator and Lord? The beginning of everything sounds fair to start with right? How would you describe that then? By beginning at the very beginning.
The first thing God logically created is the heavens and the earth. Everything that exists, ever existed and ever will exist, exists either on/in the earth or in the heavens.
When the Bible says God created the heavens and the earth it sort of gives us the blank canvas on which God will paint everything that will be created. ("in the beginning" Time, "God" Force, "made" Action, "the heavens" Space, "and the earth" Matter. These are the scientific categories in which you can organize everything that is)
I think you do not understand the logic of creation when you say the very first verse of scripture actually describes a different universe. God WANTS us to understand how He created everything so we can rationally accept Him as Creator. To come with a theory that greatly confuses the order of creation and therefore the perfectly logical order of Scripture and how God works is to me perverting Scripture.

http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=a33f7e0b0851819fff0a&utm_source...

That's awesome.