Excerpts from Some Supporting Authors
APPENDIX I (Reference: p. 37).
This Appendix contains extracts from the works of authors not listed in Chapter 1, chiefly because they merely affirm what others have said and, with two exceptions, did not publish their views until the issue between the Bible and modern Geology had already become a serious one. Most of them can only be quoted as being among those who adopted the alternative rendering because they were impressed by the geological evidence as then interpreted. Many of them were recognized Hebrew scholars. Included among these extracts are also a few cases where admissions are made in favour of my thesis by scholars who nevertheless do not support it - for example, a note from Snaith.
The names are listed chronologically according to the original author of the quotation rather than the secondary author who happens to have supplied us with it - for. example, Gleig's statement is listed under his own name although my sole source of reference was from Hoare and not from the author himself.
At the end we have included three lists of scholars who wrote in favour of this alternative, of whom I have very little information but thought it worthwhile to list with my source of reference, for the sake of those who may be in a position to examine their works at first hand.
Episcopius, Simon (1583 - 1643) of Holland, according to the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (in Vol.III, page 302, article by O. Zockler, "Creation and Preservation") is said to have been the first to render verse 2, "And the earth became waste and void".
Rosenmuller, J. G. , a German Lutheran, 1736 - 1815, in his Antiquissima Telluris Historia, published in Ulm in 1776, wrote the first serious scientific defence of this view, according to the New Schaff- Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol - III, P.302.
Chalmers, Thomas, in his original Lecture in Edinburgh in 1814:
The detailed history of creation in the first chapter of Genesis begins at the middle of the second verse; and what precedes might be understood as an introductory sentence, by which we are most appositely told, both that God created all things at the first, and that, afterwards, by what interval of time it is not specified, the earth lapsed into a chaos, from the darkness and disorder of which the present system or economy of things was made to arise. Between the initial act and the details of Genesis, the world, for aught we know, might have been the theatre of many revolutions, the traces of which geology may still investigate". Quoted by Edward Hitchcock, The Religion of Geology, Collins, Glasgow, 1851, p. 52.
Eadie, Dr. John, Professor of Theological and Biblical Literature in Divinity Hall of the United Presbyterian Church, Glasgow, (quoted by Dr. T. Fitzgerald in the Transactions of the Victoria Inst.., Vol. LXX, 1938, p. 86): Dr. Eadie, writing in the early part of the last century, observed: "The length of time that may have elapsed between the events recorded in the first verse (of the first chapter of Genesis) and the condition of the globe, as described in the second verse, is absolutely indefinite. How long it was we know not; and ample space is therefore given to all the requisitions of geology. The second verse describes the condition of our globe when God began to fit it up for the abode of man. The first day's work does not begin until the third verse.... This is no new theory. It was held by Justin Martyr, Origen, Theodoret, and Augustine - men who came to such a conclusion without any bias, and who certainly were not driven to it by an geological difficulties".
Bush, George, Professor of Hebrew in New York City University. in his Notes, Critical and Practical on the Book of Genesis, published by Ward, London, 1838, (p. 25 f.), treated the subject at some length. On page 27 he wrote: "As there is no distinction of past, perfect, and pluperfect tenses in Hebrew, we are to be governed solely by the exigency of the place in rendering any particular word in one of these tenses or the other. 'Was', therefore, in this instance, we hold to be more correctly translated by 'had been' or, perhaps, 'had become' - ie., in consequence of changes to which it had been subject in the lapse of ages long prior to the period now alluded to....
"It has, indeed, been generally supposed that it describes the rude and chaotic state which ensued immediately upon the creating command; but this we think is contrary to the express declaration of Jehovah himself, Isa.45.18: 'For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself, that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not desolate (T0HU)' - ie. , the action described by the word 'created', did not result in the state denoted by the word TOHU but the reverse - he formed it to be inhabited".
Smith, J. Pye, Lectures on the Bearing of Geological Science upon Certain Parts of the Scriptural Narrative, London, 1839.
"A philological survey of the initial sections of the Bible, (Gen. i, 1, to ii, 3) brings out the result:
1. "That the first sentence is a simple, independent, all-comprehending axiom, to this effect: that matter, elementary or combined, aggregated only or organized, and dependent, sentient, and intellectual beings have not existed from eternity, either in selfcontinuity or succession, but had a beginning; that their beginning took place by the all-powerful will of one Being, the self-existent , independent, and infinite in all perfection; and that the date of that beginning is not made known.
2. "That at a certain epoch, our planet was brought into a state of disorganization, detritus, or ruin, (perhaps we have no perfectly appropriate term) from a former condition.
3. "That it pleased the Almighty, wise and benevolent Supreme, out of that state of ruin to adjust the surface of the earth to its now existing condition, the whole extending through the period of six natural days.
"I am forming no hypothesis in geology; I only plead that the ground is clear, and that the dictates of the Scripture interpose no bar to observation and reasoning upon the mineralogical constitution of the earth, and the remains of organized creatures which its strata disclose. If those investigations should lead us to attribute to the earth and to other planets and astral spheres an antiquity which millions or ten thousand millions of years might fail to represent, the divine records forbid not their deduction". From his Lectures on Scripture and Geology, London, 4th ed. , p. 502, as quoted by Edward Hitchcock in his The Religion of Geology, Collins, in Glasgow, 1851.
Harris, John, The PreAdamite Earth: Contributions to Theological Science, Ward and Co., London, no date, p. 354: "On the whole, then, my firm persuasion is, that the first verse of Genesis was designed, by the Divine Spirit, to announce the absolute originination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator; and that it is so understood in other parts of Holy Writ: that, passing by an indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet immediately prior to the Adamic creation; and that the third verse begins the account of the six days' work.
"If I am reminded that I am in danger of being biassed in favour of these conclusions by the hope of harmonizing Scripture with Geology, I might venture to suggest, in reply, that the danger is not all on one side. Instances of adherence to traditional interpretations chiefly because they are traditional and popular, though in the face of all evidence of their faultiness, are by no means so rare as to render warning unnecessary. The danger of confounding the infallibility of our own interpretation with the infallibility of sacred text, is not peculiar to a party.
"If, again, I am reminded, in a tone of animadversion, that I am making science, in this instance, the interpreter of Scripture, my reply is that I am simply making the works of God illustrate his word, in a department in which they speak with a distinct and authoritative voice, that 'it is all the same whether our geological or theological investigations have been prior'; and that it might be deserving consideration, whether or not the conduct of those is not open to just animadversion, who first undertake to pronounce on the meaning of a passage of Scripture irrespective of all the appropriate evidence, and who then, when that evidence is explored and produced, insist on their a priori interpretation as the only true one.
"But in making these remarks I have been conceding too much. The views which I have exhibited are not of yesterday. It is important and interesting to observe how the early fathers of the Christian church should seem to have entertained precisely similar views: for St. Gregory Nazianzen, after St. Justin Martyr, supposes an indefinite period between the creation and the first ordering of all things. St. Basil, St. Caesarius , and Origen, are much more explicit. To these might be added Augustine, Theodoert, Episcopius and others . Whose remarks imply the existence of a considerable interval 'between the creation related in the first verse of Genesis, and that of which an account is given in the third and following verses'. In modern times, but long before geology became a science, the independent character of the opening sentence of Genesis was affirmed by such judicious and learned men as Calvin , Bishop Patrick . and Dr. David Jennings. And 'in some old editions of the English Bible, where there is no division into verses, and in Luther's Bible (Wittenburg, 1557), you have in addition the figure 1 placed against the third verse, as being the beginning of the account of the creation of the first day'. Now these views were formed independently of all geological considerations. In the entire absence of evidence from this quarter - probably even in opposition to it , as some would think - these conclusions were arrived at on biblical grounds alone.
Geology only illustrates and confirms them. The works of God prove to be one with this preconceived meaning of his word. And there is no ground to expect that this early interpretation will gradually come to be universally accepted as the only correct one."
A footnote gives the references for the quotes in the above as being from Dr. S. Davidson's Sacred Hermeneutics; Principal Wiseman's Lectures on the Connexion Between Science and Revealed Religion; and Dr. J. Pye Smith's Scripture and Geotogy.
Gray , Rev. James , in his book The Earth Is Antiquity in Harmony With the Mosaic Record of Creation (referred to by William Hoare in a footnote on p. 145 of his book Veracity of the Book of Genesis), takes the view (Chapter IV 2 p. 211, 2nd. edition) "that the first verse in Genesis is not to be understood according to the currently entertained notion, as merely giving a summary account of the after-recorded work of the six days, but is an independent proposition enunciating THE CREATION , primordial as to time, - the reference being retrospective rather than prospective". In a subsequent footnote on p. 151, Gray is again quoted (p. 120 and 144 of his work) on Gen. 1. 2 as follows: "Such a disturbed condition of terrestrial things is here narrated, as we should naturally conclude would be found after the violent action of one or another of those grand disturbing agents, either of fire, by earthquakes, or of water by deluges, which we know to be Nature's ordinary mighty destroyers and rennovators on the earth......a state following upon the last catastrophe anterior to the period of its divinely recorded re-organization as the abode of man".
Hoare, Willam H., Veracity of the Book of Genesis, (Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, London, 1860), has this statement ina footnote on p.143: "Episcopius and others thought that the creation and fall of the bad angels took place in the interval he has spoken of: and misplaced as such speculations are, still they seem to show that it is natural to suppose that a considerable interval may have taken place between the creation related in the first verse of Genesis and that of which an account is given inthe third and following verses".
Gleig, the Rt. Rev. George, Bishop of Brechin and Primus of the Scots Episcopal Church (quoted by W. H. Hoare, Veracity of the Book of Genesis, etc. p. 179): "Moses records the history of the earth only in its present state. He affirms indeed, that it was created, and that it was without form and void when the Spirit of God began to move on the face of the fluid mass; but he does not say how long that mass had been in a state of chaos, or whether it was or was not the wreck of some former system which had been inhabited by living creatures of a different kind from those that occupy the present.
"We read in various places of Scripture of a new heavens and a new earth to succeed the present earth and visible heavens, after they shall again be reduced to chaos by a general conflagration, and there is nothing in the books of Moses positively affirming that there was not an old earth and old heavens, or, in other words a former creation....
"There is nothing in the sacred narrative forbidding us to suppose that they are ruins of a former earth deposited in the chaotic mass of which Moses informs us that God formed the present system. How long it continued in such a chaotic state it is in vain to enquire. . . ."
Jameison, R. Commentary: Critical and Expository: Genesis - Deuteronomy, (Nisbet, London, 18 71, p. 3): the author notes that in many Hebrew manuscripts a mark indicating a pause occurs after Gen. 1. 1. "This break between Gen. 1. 1 and 1. 2 is observed even where no verse division exists".
Browne, the Rt. Rev. E. Harold, Lord Bishop of Ely, Genesis: Or the First Book of Moses (Scribner, New York, 1873, p.32), writes, under comment on Gen. 1. 5: "Literally, 'and it was (or became) evening, and it was (or became) morning, day one'" thereby bearing out the more precise translation of the verb hayah. Under verse 2 he merely acknowledges that this may be a picture of either primeval emptiness or "desolation and disorder succeeding to a former state of life and harmony .... " He feels the issue cannot be settled conclusively but he does say that the two words tohu and bohu "express devastation or desolation!', listing several passages in which the meaning of tohu is clearly this: viz. , Job 12.24; 26.7; Isa. 24. 10; 34. 11; and Jer. 4. 23.
Garland, G. V. Genesis With Notes (Rivingtons, London, 187a, p. 3): With reference to Gen. 1. 1 and 2: "The first of these verses declares that the universe, and particularly that portion of it the earth', of which the second verse specially treats, as being the future habitation of man, was originally created by God. The second verse then proceeds to describe the condition of the earth at the period when God made ( , Gen.2.), or framed, or readjusted it ( Heb. 11. 3), out of the then existing materials for the use of man".
Reusch, Dr. Fr. H. , Nature and the Bible: Lectures on the Mosaic History of Creation In its Relation to Natural Science, (translated from the 4th edition by Kathleen Lyttelton, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, Vol. 1, 1886, p. 120). He says: "Those who hold this theory - with its many individual modifications - are men of no little authority, they are, among men of science and philosophers, Jacob Bohme, Friedrich Schlegel, Julius Hamberger, Heinrich von Schubert, Karl von Raumer, Andreas Wagner; among theologians, Kurtz, Baumgarten, Dreschler, Delitzsch and others among Protestants; Leopold Schmid, Mayrhofer, and Westermayer among the Roman Catholics". In a footnote he adds this information: "Kurtz, Bible and Astronomy, Delitzsch, Genesis; Dreschler on Delitzsch; and Keerl, Schopfungsgesch; Raumer, Kreuzzuge; Hamberger in the Jabrh. fur Deutsche Theol; Wolf, Die Bedeutung der Weltschopfung, Mayrhofer, Das dreieine Leben; Westermayer, Das Alte Test".
Exell, J. S. , Pulpit Commentary on Genesis,(Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, London, 1897, p.4). Exell in commenting on verse 2 mentions Delitzsch's view of this verse as signifying "the ruin of a previous cosmos" and adds that he attributed the ruin to the fall of angels basing his view on Job 38.2 - 7). He gives as reference Biblical Psychology, Section 1, p. 76, in Clark's Foreign Theological Library.
Edersheim, Alfred, The World Before the Flood and the History of the Patriarchs (Religious Tract Society, London, no date, p. 18,19): "Some have imagined that the six days of creation represent as many periods, rather than literal days, chiefly on the ground of the supposed high antiquity of our globe, and the various great epochs or periods, each terminating in a grand revolution, through which our earth seems to have passed before coming to its present state, when it became a fit habitation for man. There is, however, no need to resort to any such theory.
"The first verse in the Book of Genesis simply states the general fact that 'in the beginning (whenever that may have been) God created the heaven and the earth'. Then, in the second verse, we find the earth described as it was at the close of the last great revolution preceding the present state of things: 'and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep'.
"An almost indefinite space of time and many changes may therefore have intervened between the creation of heaven and earth as mentioned in verse 1, and the chaotic state of our earth as described in Verse 2. "
Pember, G. H. , Earth's Earliest Ages, which title is extended to read as: and Their Connection with Modern Spiritualism and Theosophy (Hodder and Stoughton, 1901, 9th ed. , 494 pp.). The author's thesis is that Gen. 1. 2 pictures a world brought into ruin as a result of the judgment of God against the rebellion of the Angels who under Satan had been responsible for the government of the Old World while it was being prepared for man, but had thought to become independent of Him. Satan was cast out of heaven along with the Angels who had followed him, and they have since tried in various ways to bring God's reconstituted world order, including man, into a like state of chaos. He believes these Angels to be, to a large extent, still free to intrude into human affairs and to act upon man's will - always with a view to making him disobedient to God.
Their increasing activity in the present age Pember believed to be a sign of the nearness of the second great judgment to be brought on the World, of which the Flood of Noah's time was the first.
Pember does not present his thesis as a Hebrew scholar, but rather as a student of ancient and present day forms of spiritism and demon worship.
Anstey, Martin, The Romance of Bible Chronology; (Marshall Brothers, London, 1913, p. 62 and 63 - with his emphases): "The opening verse of Genesis speaks of the Creation of the heavens and the earth, in the undefined beginning. From this point we may date the origin of the world but not the origin of man. For the second verse tells of a catastrophe - the earth became a ruin and a desolation. The Hebrew verb hayah ('to be') here translated 'was'), signifies not only 'to be' but also 'to become', 'to take place', 'to come to pass'. When a Hebrew writer makes a simple affirmation, or merely predicates the existence of anything, the verb hayah is never expressed. Where it is expressed it must always be translated by our verb 'to become', and never by the verb 'to be', if we desire to convey the exact shade of meaning of the original.
"The words  (tohu wa bohu) translated in the Authorized Version 'without form and void' and in the Revised Version 'waste and void' should be rendered 'a ruin. and a desolation'. They do not represent the state of the heaven and the earth as they were created by God. They represent only the state of the earth as it afterwards became - a ruin and a desolation.... or better still 'had become', the separation of the waw from the verb being the Hebrew method of indicating the pluperfect tense....
"Gen. 1. 2 does not describe a stage in the process of creation, but a disaster which befell the created earth: the original creation of the heaven and the earth is chronicled in Gen. 1. 1. The next verse, Gen. 1. 2, is a statement of the disorder, the ruin, and the state of desolation into which the earth subsequently fell. What follows in Gen. 1. 3-31 is the story of the restoration of a lost order by the creative word of God".
Fitzgerald, Dr. Thomas (in The Transactions of the Victoria Institute, London, Vol.LY_X, 1938) lists the names "of several scholars of high repute who can be cited in support of the translation which Dr. Hart-Davies finds it impossible to accept. The whole question has been very thoroughly argued in the works of John Harris, D.D., The Pre-Adamite Earth and Primeval Man: The Principles of Geology, by Rev. David King, LL.D. (2nd. edition, -enlarged and revised): The Bible and Modern Thought, by Rev. T. R. Birks, M.A.: Neology Not True, by Rev. Charles Herbert, M.A. (2nd edition): Daniel the Prophet, Rev. E. B. Pusey, D. D.,Rcgius Professor of Hebrew, Oxford: and Jameison, Fausset and Brown's Commentary - Genesis. There is also a valuable paper.onthe subject by Rev. A. I. McCaul, M.A., Lecturer in Hebrew at King's College, London, published in The Transactions of the Victoria Institute, London, Vol. IX. On p. 150 of that volume, the Rev. A. I. McCaul states his belief that the Septuagint intended by its rendering that the earth was "invisible" because in darkness, and "unfurnished" because its life had been destroyed.
Smith, Professor T. Jollie, in a Paper in The Transactions of the Victoria Institute, Vol. LXXVIII, 1946, p. 29, wrote: "I think that verse 1 and verse 2 in Genesis 1 may be legitimately separated.....Hayah does generally mean 'became' or 'came to pass'.. Its use as a mere copula is most extraordinary".
Snaith, Norman H. Notes on the Hebrew Text of Gen.I- VIII (Epworth Press, London, 1947, p. 8 and 9), has the following against Gen. 1. 2 and 3: "verse 2.  , 3 f. s. pl. qal. of  (verb 'to be', though more often it means 'to become').
"Verse 3:  , 3 m s. jussive qal shortened from 3 m s. imperfect
qal ( ) of  (let there come to be, ie. , become ).
 - Pronounce wa-ye-hi (with every short for shema). "And there came to be (ie. , there became). Thus - he indicates the admissability of rendering  as "became" or some equivalent in English.
Sauer, Erich, Dawn of World Redemption (Revell, New York, 1953) on p. 35 says: "About 1000 A.D. Edgar of England espoused (the interpretation). In the 17th century it was especially emphasized by Jacob Boehme, the mystic....
"Many German upholders of this teaching.... as for instance the Professor of Geology Freiherr von Heune (Tubingen);.... from the Catholic point of view there are Cardinal Wiseman and the philosopher Freiderich von Schlegel".
Ramm, Bernard, in his Christian View of Science and Scripture (Eerdman's, Grand Rapids, 1954, p. 196) has a footnote in which he gives the following information: "Dr. Anton Pearson sets forth the history of the gap interpretation as follows: 'It was first broached in modern times by Episcopius (1583-1643), and received its first scientific treatment by J. G. Rosenmuller (1736-1815) in his Antiquissima Telluris Historia (1776). It was also used by theosophic writers in connection with notions suggested by Bohme, e.g. F. von Meyer and Baumgarten. It was picked up by such theologians as Buckland, Chalmers, J. P. Smith and Murphy. (An Exegetical Study of Gen. 1. 1- 3, Bethel Seminary Quarterly, 11. 14 - 33, November, 1953).
"This theory was also defended by J. H. Kurtz, Bible and Astronomy, (3rd. German edition, 1857) and in the footnote of p. 236 it is traced from Edgar, King of England in the tenth century, to modern scholars as Reichel, Stier, G. H. von Schubert, Knieivel, Dreschler, Rudelback, Guericke, Baumgarten and Wagner".
Other men listed include Adam Sedgewick, Discourses on the Studies of the Universe, Cambridge, President of the Geological Society (England); and Pratt, Scripture and Science Not at Variance.
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