MODERN OBJECTIONS

One of the remarkable things about this whole controversy has been the extraordinary vehemence of those who oppose the concept of a hiatus between verse 1 and 2 and it may be taken, I think, as an index of the amount of precise knowledge generally available. In order to give added force to their words, critics sometimes gather together all the peripheral ideas which happen to have become attached to the central thesis which they oppose and present this hodgepodge of miscellaneous opinions as if it were a quite essential part of it. They then proceed to demolish this artificial construct with the ease that one might expect. But adherents of the theory frequently do not subscribe to these more venturesome reconstructs at all. In this volume we have tried as far as possible to avoid any but the basic issues.
One particularly recurrent phrase in the New Testament which is often held to give strong support to our view of the significance of Gen. 1. 2 is dealt with in Appendix XIX. This is the reference to "the foundation of the world" which may possibly be better rendered "the disruption of the world". But I cannot underscore too strongly that such an argument is not the basis of this thesis. Interpreting this recurrent phrase in one particular way may strengthen one's conviction that this is indeed the true significance of Gen. 1. 2, but it does not, in my view, constitute an unequivocal proof. Yet, in spite of this disclaimer, it seems rather likely that some critic will set out to demolish the contents of this Appendix, thereby supposing that he has once for all disposed of the argument! But in the meantime, I should like to deal briefly with the comments and conclusions of some of those who have written against the position taken in this volume.
In 1946, as already mentioned, two Papers were published in The Transactions of the Victoria Institute (London), one by a Mr. P. W. Heward and the other by Professor F. F. Bruce.¹⁰⁸ Heward wrote in favour of the thesis presented here and Bruce against it. To my mind, both did an excellent job, neither being unfair to the other, nor exaggerating their own claims. In the discussion afterwards, several points were raised on both sides and answered fairly and well. Naturally, I read Heward's Paper with greater sympathy than that by Bruce, but I believe it is objectively true to say that there was no exaggeration and no mis-statement in Heward's review of the evidence. Of Bruce's Paper, which was courteous and just at all times, I believe there are, nevertheless, two criticisms of a minor nature that are valid. Bruce refers to Dillman's Commentary as essentially supporting his own position. However, as we have already noted previously, Dillman apparently changed his mind regarding the correct translation of

in Gen. 1. 2. I am sure that Professor Bruce was unaware of this or did not feel it really altered Dillman's basic position, for in spite of his later admission I do not think he wholeheartedly acceeded to the idea of a gap between verse 1 and 2.¹⁰⁹ This fact makes Dillman's admission as to the meaning of

in verse 2 all the more significant and in a very real sense nullifies the basis of Bruce's appeal to Dillman for support - at least, in so far as verse 2 is concerned.
The other point is in connection with his treatment of Jonah 3. 3b, a sentence which in its structure precisely parallels Gen. 1. 2. Bruce concludes that if Gen. 1. 2 is to be rendered "the earth became a ruin" after God had created it otherwise, then we must say that Nineveh became a metropolis after Jonah entered it. But I do not believe this is what the author intended - and neither does Professor Bruce. However, there are (as we have shown. See Chapter III) numerous instances where, in narrating a series of events, the Hebrew writer reverts back to a prior circumstance that bears on what is to follow. Suchsentences are best handled by translating the opening conjunction (waw) as "Now, etc. etc. ". Thus Jonah 3 3b would be rendered, "Now Nineveh had become.. ." That is to say, the writer never intended the reader to suppose that Nineveh became great just because Jonah entered it, but rather that it had already grown into a very large city by the time he arrived there. It should be mentioned in passing that Driver admits here the propriety of "become" in this passage. This rendering would, of course, be quite acceptable for Gen. 1. 2 also - although "But the earth had become.... " would be perhaps more appropriate than "Now the earth, etc.". I do not think Bruce's argument is logical in this case, but these are not very serious criticisms and certainly they are not criticisms of the style or toneof either Paper.
It is with some surprise, therefore, that one finds a reference to these two Papers in a work by F. A. Filby entitled Creation Revealed,¹¹⁰ where a footnote tells us that while Bruce's Paper is a scholarly piece of work and conclusively against our view, the Paper by Heward "contains a number of statements which are only partly true, interspersed with much padding and special pleading". I wonder which were the "partly true" statements? And I cannot find any evidence of "special pleading": but I suppose this depends upon one's initial bias.
In his book, Filby opens his summary review of the 'gap' theory with a general statement to the effect that it is to be attributed to "the Scottish Preacher, Dr. Chalmers", a statement which is far from the truth, as we have seen. He then sets forth the theory as he understands it and concludes that it is without foundation: ¹¹¹

"The contention that the verb in verse 2 means 'to become' waste and void rather than it 'was' so has been examined by scholars, and the judgment of the best Hebraists is that the text is most naturally translated 'was'."

So the subject is summarily dismissed with the observation:¹¹²

"The gap-theory is then unscriptural , unscientific, and unreasonable, and - rejecting it completely - we can return to the simple (sic) study of verse 2. "

Recently, I had occasion to see a small Paper by a Christian writer, well known and of some stature, entitled, The Length of the Creative Days, in which the issue is again given cursory notice and equally summarily dismissed. The author, referring to it as a "theory which we reject", says:¹¹³

"Our objections to this theory are (1) that it rests upon not one single grain of evidence, and (2) that it was invented in order to harmonize geology with Scripture and not simply to interpret Scripture as it stands.

Subsequently, he adds:

"It is true that the verb 'to be' in Hebrew is sometimes used to mean 'became' if the context demands it, but the verb as it stands is 'was' as anyone (sic) who has studied Hebrew will testify. There is not the slightest hint in the context that the unusual (my emphasis) meaning 'became' should be read. In fact, we should either find the preposition 'to' () before the descriptive adjective or noun if the word is to read 'become' (see Gen. 2. 7) or else we should find from the context that 'was' has some such meaning as 'was potentially'. Neither of these is the case."

In the light of what has been shown of the facts in this volume, it seems hardly necessary to make any comment on these observations.
Another very unfortunate effort at criticism of this view appeared in the Annual Volume of The Creation Research Society for 1965. Since this is a Journal which I have consistently found to be most valuable and which is always carefully documented, the article seems to me to have been even more out of character. Here the theory has very short shrift at the hands of one author who informs the reader that:¹¹⁴

"It is true that there are six instances in the Pentateuch where the verb is translated 'became' (Gen.3.22; 19.26; 21.20; Exod. 7. 19; 8. 17 and 9. 10). In each of these cases, however, the context clearly shows that a change of state has occurred.... Because Gen. 1. 2 lacks contextual support for translating this verb 'became' no English version of Genesis has ever translated it this way. "

One continually runs into this appeal to the absence of "contextual" support. But what is the context of such a passage as this if not the bias of the reader ? It is, after all, only the second verse of the Bible.. Can one establish a "context" in such a situation?
As for the statement that there are only six instances in the Pentateuch where the verb

is rendered "became", one can only hope that this was a printer's error. There are at least seventeen cases where

is rendered "became" in Genesis alone according to the Authorized Version (for a list of these, see page 55). Other English Versions, such as the Revised Standard Version, etc. , increase this total. So it is difficult to know how this list of six occurrences was arrived at. In any event, it is apparent that even this miscount is based on only a single translation, and an English one at that. What of other translations whether in English or any other language? What of the Vulgate with its thirteen occurrences in Genesis Chapter One alone: and what of the Septuagint with its twentytwo occurrences in Genesis One, and with some 1500 in the Old Testament as a whole ? It is sincerely to be hoped that the real facts of the case will in time become more common knowledge so that statements like this will not pass unchallenged, even by a Christian editor not trained as a Hebraist.
The same writer proposes that "became" is only proper for the Hebrew

when it involves a "change of state".¹¹⁵ Who is to say with any certainty that verse 2 does not indicate a change? This is really the whole point at issue. I believe there was a change, a breakdown in the originally created order. The writer's argument has no force whatever, for it simply begs the issue....
One of the earliest critics of this view was Professor M. M. Kalisch who had no sympathy with the ideas held by such scholars as Delitzsch, or Kurtz, or any other continental scholar of like mind. In his Historical and Critical Commentary of the Old Testament, published in 1858, he says:¹¹⁶ "It is inadmissible to translate Gen. 1. 2 'But afterwards the earth had become...'" Presumably he had Dathe in mind, for this was Dathe's rendering. But he states his opinion of those who shared Dathe's views as to the implications of Gen. 1. 2 in no uncertain terms. He says:¹¹⁷

"Now most of the modern followers of this opinion believe that an indefinite interval of time elapsed between the creation of matter recorded in the first verse and the formation of the world in its present admirable order, a period sufficiently extensive to account for the various and repeated changes both in the condition of the earth and the sidereal systems. So that the first chapter does not, in fact, fix the antiquity of the globe at all. But the supposition is absolutely untenable for the following reason: verse 2 evidently stands in very close connection with verse 1 which it qualifies and defines *. The connecting particle 'and' (waw) expresses here necessarily immediate sequence.... ; It is utterly impossible to separate the first two verses and to suppose between them an immense period of time."

His "proof text" is Exod. 20. 11. He assumes that this passage records the whole creative process as being completed in six days. He thus holds that since the sun was not "created" till the fourth day, the world as a scene of living things could not have existed before then. He is, however, overlooking the fact that Exod. 20. 11 does not say that God created the world in this period of six days, but only that He appointed it (

, 'asah) in a period of six days.
The verb used here is rendered "make" on numerous occasions of course, but it often has the sense of "appointing", just as the word is so used in the Greek of Heb. 6. 20, "made a High Priest"; or the English phrase "made a judge", for example. The work of the six days need not have involved the creation of the sun and stars at all. They were probably already in existence. See further on Exod. 20. 11 in Appendix XX.

* With this pronouncement one may contrast Driver's conclusion in his Hebrew Tenses (p. 84); where after giving a number of instances in which the usual Hebrew word order is departed from (as it is in Cen. 1. 2) in order to express a pluperfect., he says: "And each of these passages., by avoiding waw consecutive (the usual way to express continuing action,ACC) the writer cuts the connection (Driver's emphasis) with the immediately preceding narrative, and so suggests a pluperfect". Obviously Driver and Kalisch can hardly both be right. And in view of the fact that Driver's statement not only occurs in a scholarly but classic work on the Hebrew verb but is in this case based on a series of illustrative examples, I am inclined to accept Driver's word against the rather dogmatic statements of Kalisch.

He is also ignoring the fact that "and" (

) often opens a sentence or paragraph or even a chapter or a whole book with no connection whatever with what went before. Ezekiel opens with it, for example! With what does it here have a "necessary" connection? A new section, in I Chron. 11. 1, is begun after a seven year interval, and in Ezra 7. 1 after an interval of 58 years.... Further illustrations will be found in Appendix XIV. That the word is often dis-junctive must have been known well enough to Kalisch, so that one wonders how he can say that it must necessarily be interpreted conjunctively.
Kalisch is fully persuaded that the ideas of people like Delitzsch and Kurtz, who sought to supply the details of the events in the interval from other parts of Scripture, are quite worthless in themselves and unbecoming to scholars. He is quite ungracious in his references to them. On the other hand, Delitzsch was a man of very different temperament, gracious in his reference to those who disagreed with him and unhesitatingly giving credit to their soundness of scholarship (where this was due) even in his detractors. Delitzsch, as we have seen, held very firm and quite elaborate views respecting the circumstances surrounding the condition described in Gen. 1. 2 - but he did not base his views on the linguistic evidence, never actually agreeing that 'became' would be a more correct translation. This latter opinion of his is not infrequently quoted as proof of the unscholarliness of the "gap" theory (as it has been by Dr, Henry Morris¹¹⁸) but those who refer thus to Delitzsch's opinion are often not aware that he actually supported the view strongly, even though he did not base it on Gen. 1. 2.
Driver was much impressed by Delitzsch, both as a scholar and as a commentator, * and while in his Lexicon and in his Hebrew Tenses , Driver rendered Gen. 1. 2 as "and the earth was ... " whenever he referred to it, he neverthless frankly acknowledged that the view supported by Delitzsch and Pusey and others, though in his opinion improbably, was "exegetically admissible". # Like Kalisch, Driver felt that since the sun had not been "created" until the fourth day, it was "scientifically incredible" that a world could have supported the higher forms of life in a world without sunlight."¹¹⁹ This objection is based on a misunderstanding which again results from confusing the two verbs bara and asah, "to create" and "to appoint".

* Of Delitzsch., Driver wrote (Hebrew Tenses, p.xi., xii) "And by sobriety, fullness of information, and scholarship combined, Delitzsch has succeeded in making his commentary indispensible to every student of the Old Testament. "

# Driver does not always follow his own "rules". Thus although he wrote at length on both the use of as meaning "became" and the changed word order as signifying a pluperfect, he did not always commend his own views by adopting them himself to translate his own biblical illustrations. It seems that more often than not he gave the reference which was appropriate but merely reproduced the Authorized Version rendering as being most familar (or accessible) to his mad ers. Thus in dealing with the pluperfect, he chides Kalisch for rendering Gen.2.2 as a pluperfect (p.23), arguing that it is not an example, but then giving it elsewhere in the same work he renders it as one (P.22)! it appears that he has merely reproduced the Authorized Version in such cases. His rendering of Gen.1.2 as "was" may really be nothing more than another example of the Authorized Version being quoted for simplicity.

Driver's liberal views were shared by John Skinner who, while holding that the Bible was a remarkable enough document of antiquity, felt no qualms in challenging its accuracy. Skinner contributed the volume on Genesis in The International Critical Commentary of which Driver was one of the editors. In this volume, Skinner dismisses our interpretation with aplomb! Thus he writes:¹²⁰ "This view that verse 1 describes an earlier creation of heaven and earth which was reduced to chaos and then re-fashioned, needs no refutation". As F. F. Bruce rightly remarked when referring to this observation in his Paper in The Transactions of the Victoria Institute, this is "an excessively cavalier dismissal of a view which has been supported by men of the calibre of Pusey, Liddon, etc. ".¹²¹ It is indeed.
The curious thing is that Skinner virtually concedes the point he is dismissing here when, later on, he comes to deal with the words tohu wa bohu in his comments on Gen. 1. 2. He refers to Jer. 4. 23 f. where the words recur, but he is at pains to assure the reader that there is no real parallelism here. In a way, I agree. Jer. 4. 23 does not read in the Hebrew, "the earth became tohu wa bohu. but "the earth was.....", for the verb

is omitted. Unlike the situation in Gen. 1. 2, its use is not required since evidently we have a copulative sentence here. Apparently Skinner did not observe this fact. However, having said that no light is thrown upon the words tohu wa bohu as they appear in Gen. 1. 2 by their use in Jeremiah, he then adds, with a strange lack of consistency: ¹²²

"Our safest guide is perhaps Jeremiah's vision of chaos come-again which is simply that of a darkened and devastated earth, from which life and order have fled" (my emphasis throughout).

One wonders how more precisely he could have supported our view of the implications of Gen. 1. 2. Yet apparently he did not see the significance of his own words.
In his Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, Thorlief Boman writes at length and, to my mind, most convincingly to the effect that the Hebrew verb

seldom, if ever, appears as copula. Yet he still holds that it is copulative in Gen. 1. 2, though in a special way. Thus he says that the verse should not be rendered "the earth became" but "the earth was.... " ¹²³
Now his argument is a little difficult to summarize briefly but in essence it is thus. In such a sentence as, "the altar is wood", the verb is is quite redundant because the altar and the wood are equated. "The one inheres in the other", as he puts it."¹²⁴ Similarly, in the sentence, "God is graciousness" the verb is not needed because graciousness inheres in God. And so on. Yet I am not sure that he is really right. Not all altars are wood, and certainly there is plenty of wood that is not in the form of an altar. Perhaps graciousness and God do inhere, yet sometimes graciousness is found in man too - where it certainly does not inhere. The trouble is that the principle can be applied specifically, but cannot be stated as a generalization. He concludes that the verb

is omitted where inherence is involved, but it must be introduced where it is not. Hence he argues that in Gen. 1. 2 the verb is required because otherwise the earth and chaos are inherent in one another, ie. , the earth is chaos. But then he says that earth is the scene of human civilization, which to the Greek mind was the definition of Cosmos. And since Chaos and Cosmos cannot co-exist, the earth cannot inherently be identified with Chaos - for it is identified with Cosmos. Of course, in the New Testament the word for Cosmos is rendered "world" for this reason, because the earth is the habitation of man. Thus he says, because Chaos cannot inhere in the word "earth", we must introduce the appropriate form of the verb

. As he puts it:¹²⁵

"Here tohu va bohu (chaos) does not inhere in 'the earth' for the latter is always the region of civilization and humanity, which excludes the possibility on conceptual grounds. The predicate could not be equated in this sentence directly with the subject for that would result in the impossible meaning that chaos and cosmos are identical concepts."

But there is no need to say that the earth was both Chaos and Cosmos at once. It is quite sufficient to take the text to mean that what was created a Cosmos had now become a Chaos. It is hard to see why Boman objected to this so strongly. The text is then "satisfied" both conceptually and linguistically. Indeed, how else than by adopting the wording that exists could the Hebrew writer have expressed such a thought? By Boman's own reasoning, had the writer wished to say simply that the earth was a Chaos, he would have omitted the verb.
Indeed, this is precisely what Jer. 4. 23 does. Jeremiah's vision was a vision of a moment. He saw the earth as a Chaos. More than this, he saw a Cosmos as a Chaos, for he actually says that the evidence of civilization lay in ruins.... , men and cities had been overwhelmed. He was not concerned in reverting to the past in order to say that this scene of devastation had come about over a period of time by such-and-such a process.He merely says that when he saw it, it presented to his mind's eye a scene of devastation. It is almost as though the Author of Scripture had given us this passage in order to assist us in our understanding of Gen. 1. 2 which so nearly parallels it while at the same time differing from it in such an important detail - the introduction of

. At any rate, Jer. 4. 23 demonstrates clearly that Chaos can be equated with a scene which was once a Cosmos. And Boman's case, therefore, fails to stand.
I think Boman's work is most valuable, and my criticisms of his reasoning here does not make his study any less valuable. Yet it suggests that for some odd reason whenever the subject of Gen. 1. 2 comes up for study, normal vision becomes distorted. Somehow Gen. 1. 2 must be made to mean that when God created the world He began the process with a Chaos!
Those who happen to disagree are apt to have even their intellectual integrity challenged! Thus Professor J. Barr, in his Semantics of Biblical Language, says:¹²⁶

"It would be quite perverse (my enphasis) to insist on the meaning 'become' (in Gen. 1. 2)."

His argument is that the verb

must be accounted for in this sentence by assuming that the author meant "the earth was a waste but is no longer so". Thus it is proper to use the verb only when a situation being described was a temporary situation which has since been changed. Since the verb is used here, this must be the author's only reason for employing the verb

in this case.
But I think it very questionable that this is the author's meaning. Yet, as we have already seen in Chapter II, there are numerous occasions upon which a clear intention to this effect does not employ the verb. It will be recalled, for instance, that Job tells his "friends" that he was (once) a father to the fatherless, sight to the blind, and so forth.... He is clearly not one of these things now, at the time of speaking. If there was a straightforward rule such as Barr implies, this would assuredly be the place to apply it, and the verb

should be inserted. But it isn't. By contrast, it is often found where in the nature of the case there can be no "change" intended. Thus very frequently we find the phrase, "so-and-so was 150 years old and he died". The author does not mean that he was once of such an age, surely? But the verb is inserted. The simplest and surely the most satisfactory explanation is to assume that the man in question had become so many years old, ie. , had reached this age when he died. If Professor Barr is serious in making this suggestion, he should have given a few unambiguous illustrations. But he has not done so. His use of the word "perverse" is unfortunate.
We meet with the same odd insistence in Raymond F. Surburg's contribution to the volume, Darwin, Evolution, and Creation. As he puts it:¹²⁷

"Although held by many Christians today, this theory cannot be substantiated from the Bible.... The Hebrew text does not say the earth became, but the earth was waste and void. Even if it were possible to render Hayetha as 'became', the words 'waste and void' indicate an unformed state and not one resulting from destruction. In his Survey of Old Testament Teaching, J. Walsh Watts asserts 'In Gen. 1. 2a the verb is a perfect. It indicates a fixed and completed state. In other words, original matter was in a state of chaos when created: it came into being that way'."

To say that 'waste and void' means unformed in the sense of the Greek concept of Chaos might be reasonable if the Old Testament was a reflection of Greek mythology. In this case, the Septuagint translators would surely have adopted the Greek word

to translate Tohu. But they chose not to do so. It is, however, fairly clear that wherever the words "waste" and "void" occur elsewhere in Scripture they do NOT indicate an unformed state, they indicate something more positively undesirable. In many cases, especially when they occur together as in Jer.4.23, they mean a situation "resulting from destruction" and brought about by divine judgment. Would it not have been more accurate to state frankly that elsewhere the normal sense of the word here interpreted to mean "unformed" would be better rendered de-formed" or "desolated"? In blanket statements like this, most readers are at the mercy of the writer unless they are very familiar with the Old Testament and are aware of how these descriptive terms are employed in other passages.
Bernard Ramm is also rather cavalier in his treatment of the subject. He describes efforts to harmonize Geology and the Bible by this method as "abortive". He then says:¹²⁸

"The effort to make was mean became is just as abortive. The Hebrew did not have a word for became but the verb be did service for to be and become."

In point of fact, the reverse is much more nearly so. They did not need a word for "to be" in the simple sense, so made their word for become serve for to be and become. The modern lexicons bear this out by giving the meanings of

as "to become" (in various paraphrastic ways), and then also - and finally - as "to be". "To be" is not its primary meaning. Ramm continues:¹²⁹

"The form of the verb was in Gen.1.2 is qal, perfect, third person singular, feminine. A Hebrew concordance will give all the occurrences of that form of the verb. A check in the concordance in reference to the usage of this form of the verb in Genesis reveals that in almost every case the meaning of the verb is simply was."

Again, after what has been set forth of the evidence thus far, comment is hardly necessary. It maybe helpful, however, to recall that in a great number of cases, 1500 out of 3000 or more , the Septuagint substitutes the Greek "became" (in the appropriate tenses, of course), and that in another 25% of the cases the verb is used in the sense of living or existing, and is not copulative at all - and finally, that for every case where the verb is inserted in the original and rendered as was (whether correctly or otherwise), one can find ten cases where the copulative "was" is omitted entirely in the Hebrew. As we have seen, this is sufficient indication in itself that the Hebrew did NOT use

for "was" in the simple English sense. They actually felt no need for such a verb at all. Only when the sense was something other than the simple "was" did they insert a verbal form. Ramm's treatment of the subject is, therefore, in the final analysis, unworthy of a man of his scholarship.
His emotional involvement here is revealed by his next comment:¹³⁰

"Granted in a (my emphasis) case or two (!) was means became, but if in the preponderance of instances the word is translated was, any effort to make one instance mean became especially if that instance is highly debatable, is very insecure exegesis."

Allowing his premises, what he argues is perhaps not unreasonable. But his basic premise is surely in error. One does not need to "make one instance mean became "; one actually has to do the very reverse if the evidence presented in this thesis is sound. And I do not know how else one could approach the problem, nor how one could arrive at any other conclusion in the light of the facts than that the truth is really quite the reverse.
The Septuagint normally translated

(with or without the

)by the Greek

and not by the Greek

. And it is therfore important to note, as Thayer has done¹³¹, that

cannot be equated with

. Since, therefore,

obviously cannot be equated with both

and

, then

must be equated with

and must have the primary sense of becoming.
Again, Ramm observes:¹³²

"This whole matter was debated in the Journal of The Victoria Institute (London). P. W. Heward defended the Pember-Scofield-Rimmer interpretation of Gen. 1. 2 and F. F. Bruce defended the traditional interpretation. To the author, Bruce is easily (my emphasis) the winner of the debate."

Easily - in what sense I wonder? Ramm quoted E. K. Gedney who wrote to twenty Hebrew scholars in the United States asking them if there were any exegetical evidences justifying the interpretation of Gen. 1. 2 as having reference to a ruined earth.¹³³ They replied unanimously in the negative. But J. R. Howitt did much the same with respect to the meaning of the word "day" in Genesis Chapter One. Unanimously the answer was "a period of 24 hours"¹³⁴ Would Ramm accept this as final, I wonder ? So what really is proved by this kind of "appeal to opinion"? Can one be sure that any of these men who were questioned were aware of the background information that is now available on the matter ? They would, however, (as United States residents) presumably be reasonably well acquainted with the Fundamentalist position on the matter. And on this account, human nature being what it is, they may have simply dismissed the subject as quite unworthy of serious study. And in the matter of the meaning of the word "day", Ramm him self says, The case for the literal day cannot be conclusive.... "¹³⁵ So whether "weight of authority" is "conclusive" or not depends on one's own particular bias. subsequently, Ramm observes:¹³⁶

"We reject the literal interpretation (involving days of 24 hours) because by no means can the history of the earth be dated at 4004 B. C .... "

Thus in the final analysis the issue is really being decided for Ramm, not by exegetical methods at all, but by Geology, the Geology of "majority opinion".
I have been for years reading on both sides of the issue. I have accumulated a substantial (and very valuable) research library in order to give some "edge" to this reading. I have yet to see a really sound counter-argument to the view presented in this volume, but I have read innumerable attacks upon it, and the arguments presented in these attacks are atrociously repetitious. Few, if any, of its critics have really taken the trouble to study the evidence adequately. It is an unfortunate situation. When Surburg says that the Hebrew text does not say "the earth became...." but "the earth was .... ", he is speaking imprecisely.¹³⁷ The Hebrew says

. The Hebrew is Hebrew, not English! To say that it says "was" is simply begging the question: he is merely making it say "was". The reasoning is circular. If I render it "became", I could as easily prove I was right by pointing to my own translation! This kind of argument contributes nothing to our real understanding of the Word of God unless one says why one is rendering it in this way as opposed to either of the alternatives "became" or "had become".
Altogether, I do not find that any of the objections raised carries weight. They can all be answered either from the statements of other objectors or from Scripture itself. Certainly the basic objection on linguistic, grounds that the verb

only rarely means "became" is patently incorrect. But once it has become fashionable to dismiss a piece of evidence, it usually happens that the dismissal becomes more and more dogmatic as the writer has less and less factual knowledge of the evidence. Knowledge usually leads to caution - the hallmark of scholarship. It is ignorance that encourages dogmatism and it is usually indirect proportion to it. Let us hope that a spirit of open mindedness will yet prevail to permit a more dispassionate reconsideration of the matter.

What is the gap theory ?

Dansk side
Hvad er gap teorien ?

Hvad mener jeg med skabelse ?

Skabelse

Links

For danske artikler af mig, se:
Skabelse - gap teorien

New Email

Please link to me

The Gap theory blog

Sitemap

goto frontpage The gap theory page