Creation Genesis 1 and the Gap Theory

The Gap theory. This is just one of a number of views held about Genesis 1:1-2.

            It is frequently attributed to some early Jewish writers, some early Church “fathers” and some even today hold this view. Some translations, such as the TEV are now suggesting it by the use of "when" in verse 1, academics like Michael Hieser also teach it or at least that verse 1 is a dependent clause.

At least four different arguments are mentioned in support of this view that there is a gap in time between verses 1 & 2.

1. It suggested that the word create doesn’t mean out of nothing but God took something and formed it from that. This latter notion just pushes the creation question of origin one step further back. Eg Where did the matter come from for God to form it? Sometimes the word “create” bara, and “made” are used at the same time, as in the creation of man from the dust of the earth, vs 27, so  the word create can be used for out of nothing and also from stuff already there the context makes it clear. READ Hebrews 11:3. What comes to pass out of nothing? “What is seen” ie the universe was “out of nothing”.

2. Some suggest that God made the earth as a place for the angels and that they left their abode and tried to usurp God, or at least some did, eg satan. This then suggests that what we have in Genesis 1 is a recreation. But the text is clear in the following verses that this creation is of the universe, the sun and moon, etc not just of this planet. Granted that angels and satan just enter the story unannounced in chapter 3, but the focus is not on them, but God and mankind.
3. Some argue that verses 1-2 have a possible translation[1] of “in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth” which is called a dependant clause.  Which means you expect further information to complete the sentence. So on this understanding verse 2 supplies that and the real down to business begins in verse 3. Illustration “when Carolyn and I got married in 1987.” This is illustrative that a dependent cluase needs further information to make the point. They say it must be a dependant clause because Ancient Near East Cosmologies such as Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish begins this way. And when Masoretes added vowels to Hebrew in 600AD they translated it as a dependant clause. But the Hebrews knew their Old Testament had dependent and independent clauses but saw fit not to translated it this way, not even between 300-200BC when they wrote the Old Testament into Greek [ The Septuagint ] they left it as an independent clause. 

     4.   Lastly some argue “empty and void” vs 2 suggest destruction. And so this was the way God had the stuff at the time of satan’s rebellion before he “remade” it. However empty and void more aptly means  uninhabited. God made the Heavens and the Earth to be filled, not left uninhabited. Additionally, we must consider that Genesis 1 has the refrain “good” and that at the Creation of light God says it was good. It is difficult  then to think that verse 2 refers to something bad and that God has not bothered to point this out in the  text which has God declare good as a dominant phrase.

---

[1] Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s true.




In Christ
Gary

Ben Carson, Evolution and Morality - Biology and the missing imperative

I just love the way some people write. They are truly gifted at being eloquent and succinct at putting the issues into perspective, something I fail at frequently to do.
Someone who does this is Richard Weikart over at World magazine. He recently wrote an article called 'Consternation over Ben Carson, evolution and morality.' It's a precise and to the point article that captures what is happening in secular academia and yet some in the christian family go off their rocker when one of their own calls into question evolutionary theory and points out the logical consequences in regard to morality if one adheres to macro evolution.
Have a read and see what is being said today. And don't forget to pray for Ben Carson and understand the issues so you will be equipped to bring these to the attention of your peers and children.
Slime just won't produce a grounding for love and it won't justify it as a moral imperative. If you look to society you won't find it there also.

God Bless,
Gary

A return to the Enlightenment - reinterpreting the Bible

There is a powerful reminder over at The Colossian Forum about man's endeavour to be his own arbiter of Truth. In a critique of The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins by Peter Enns. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2012.

James K A Smith brings back our attention to what really is at issue in so much of the Theology of Today. Just who is revealing Himself in the Bible. Is it merely man's opinions - in which case they may have some interesting things to say but we would take it with a bar of salt, or is it God himself? The Bible for starters explicitly declares the latter. The history of Christianity declares the latter.
If there is a critique that gets to the heart of so much modern scholarship it is seen in that of James K A Smith. It is a must read to awaken us from our slumber and laziness of thinking about what so many books and articles are saying these days. See what Smith has to say about Enns and Walton. He points
out that Enns’

project is very similar to John Walton’s proposal in The Lost World of Genesis One, situating Genesis as a book that reflects an ancient Near Eastern cosmology.

I for one found Walton's methodology disturbing in that is is a return to Enlightenment days where Christianity was to be studied as just another religion among many and it's character and meaning were decided upon by what was common to all religions. Such was the approach of autonomous mind, where REASON turned from being a tool to a legislative Authority in the hands of mankind.

Consider again Smith's drawing our attention to meaning and ( authorial ) Intention in understanding Scripture, something often remote from our own minds when reading such books as Enns.

While Enns affirms the inspiration and authority of Scripture, this sort of hermeneutical approach functionally naturalizes biblical interpretation. [3]  Because this sort of account of biblical meaning is tethered to the intent of human authors, there is no functional role for divine authorship in determining meaning—which is precisely why Enns treats these books and letters as discrete entities rather than parts of a whole canon (more on this below).

I find Smiths critique a wake up call. Go on Christian read it and be informed and ponder and ask questions and Think! What guys like Enns and Walton are doing is removing the supernatural from the bible. One day it will merely be a religion without Authority where every man does what is right in his own eyes, and it will also be a religion without power. Power to save, power to transform and power to live the life God offers.
This book by Enns, a guy who no doubt is winsome and captivating is being endorsed to some extent by the likes of Scot McKnight and Tremper Longman III. Of course the latter has some reservations, he wouldn't endorse all that Enns is saying, however he doesn't address the problems. At least we have the critique of James K A Smith to help us with the subtle error of the book.

God Bless
Gary

Confusion reigns on Genesis 1 & 2

Confusion today certainly reigns in the understanding of Genesis 1 & 2. A recent comment shows how many are thinking about what view is to be taken on Genesis 1 and 2. On the blog, First Things, Christopher Bensen wrote

I would like to see Wheaton open its range of acceptable options on the origin of human species, permitting scientists to endorse any of the following:
(1) reject the idea that Adam and Eve were created from pre-existing human-like creatures, or hominids”; (2) are neutral or “unsure” on the hominid theory; (3)affirm that “God gave a human spirit to a pair of pre-existing human-like creatures, or hominids”; or (4) deny the historicity of Adam and Eve and think of Genesis as a wholly “theological document.”

He was addressing what has been happening at Wheaten College, an evangelical college in the USA.
Consider the confusion involved in Bensen's enthusiasm for Scientists who would endorse any of points 1-4. The confusions involves people arbitrarily selecting from the text of Genesis 1 what they like against what offends their opinions. So many moderns are taking the approach that Genesis 1 is purely a literary piece given in figurative language so that Adam's evolving from some hominid is a possibility. However they still want to say that Adam and Eve were some creature that God breathed into at some point so that they became "a living being in the image of God." However the text of Genesis 1 clearly says that Eve was created from the rib of Adam, not from some hominid. Satan's questions to Eve, "Has God said" is alive and well. Deception in many claiming to be Christians are rampant. I am not making a judgment here about people's salvation but merely point out that this is happening frequently within the family of God.

And consider also point 4 a wholly nonsensical statement. To say that Genesis is wholly a Theological document is to state the obvious. It is a Theological statement, it's the Word of God. It is what God has revealed to us for our benefit. However being a Theological statement does not evacuate the text of truth nor historicity in the sense of it being an actual event that really happened.

In Christ,
Gary

Man evolving? Is He really

One of the famous cartoons of our era shows man evolving from and ape. But where is the evidence for this?
All around us in world we live in we see the opposite. We see decay, we see man acting immorally and with a corrupted mind. I don't deny the good acts that some people do sometimes, but the evidence of mankind plagued by sin is unavoidable.

If I neglect my garden the weeds soon appear, it doesn't evolve into a beautiful eden just by allowing more time, and it certainly won't become the manicured golf course of Augusta National in Georgia.

As we get older disease enters in and decay happens and our spine curves and shortens. You can ignore it for a time but face it you will.

Politicians are forever holding up education as the answer to mans problems, but education does not fix the problems of society or man, indeed it only makes man an educated sinner.

We daily are confronted with the young in our society who show such little regard for the life of others, where it becomes more common every day for some youth to kill and maime those around them. Is it no wonder when they have been raised on the religion of evolution, where they have been told that they have just arisen from the slime and are of no more value than dirt? If one has truly arisen from slime why worry that we return to slime?

It is the Creator God who gives meaning and value to everything, including you as a human being.

To God be the glory:
Gary