| What
is the Gap Theory?
QUESTION: Please
explain the "gap" theory Of Genesis 1:1 and 1:2
RESPONSE: The gap theory postulates that between
Gen. 1:1 and 1:2
there was an entirely different creation which, some claim, was wiped
out by a "Satan's Flood," and after which the earth was re-formed
and the six days of Genesis creation commenced. The gap is said to have
involved great eons of time. This gap theory was formed in response to the
uniformitarian idea of long ages first applied by geologists in the
nineteenth century. The gap theory is contradicted by the Bible itself on a
number of counts.
1.
Genesis 1:2 gives us a list of three
qualities: the earth was formless and empty; darkness covered it; and the
Holy Spirit was hovering, or vibrating (same word in the Hebrew) over the
waters. No Hebrew historical narrative starts with a list of qualities. The
explanation ALWAYS follows the general statement of where the history
starts or is headed. Thus, Genesis
1:2 would be rightly seen as an
explanation of the earliest moments following the creation of the
time/space/mass continuum in Genesis
1:1.
2. 2 Pet. 3:5 states clearly that the earth
was formed out of water and by water. No reference is made to land
preceding that, which is what the gap theory proposes.
3. Ezekiel
28:12-17 is generally considered a
"double" passage containing a parenthetic pertaining to Satan as
well as an address to the king of Tyre. In it, the being referred to was in
Eden as a blameless guardian cherub. If you cross reference this passage to
the passage that is clearly regarding Satan in Isaiah 14:12-15, you will
see a parallel structure which really cannot be denied. There are a series
of "I will's" in Isaiah answered by the corresponding actions of
the Lord in return in Ezekiel. This being the case, Satan, or Lucifer as he
was originally, could not have been in rebellion before Eden was formed and
therefore there was no "Satan's Flood' which could have destroyed a
world he had corrupted in some sort of gap between Genesis
1:1 and 1:2.
4. In the Fourth Commandment, Exodus
20:11, it is
clearly stated that the heavens, the earth, the seas, and all that is in
them were created in six days.
So the gap theory does not hold where the rest of
the Bible is concerned. Geologically and archaeologically this would not be
valid, either, for the world destroyed in the "Satan's Flood"
would NOT be the fossilized world the gap theorists often postulate. The
fossil strata we know would have been utterly destroyed by NOAH's flood had
they been from an earlier time.
Helen Fryman
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