There seem to be a lot of Christians out there who believe in what is called The Gap Theory. This theory suggests that a gap of an indeterminate amount of time exists between Genesis chapter 1 verses 1 and 2. While I personally do not subscribe to this belief in the least, there are some aspects of it that merit some thought provoking consideration. The first half of this article will be written presenting the more valid arguments of the theory (almost like a defense). The last half of the article will be the commentary of two renowned Hebrew scholars. So, without further adieu...
Just because there could have been a Gap between verses 1 and 2 does not mean that all of the teachings of all Gap Theorists are correct. We need to make sure that we are not throwing the baby out with the bath water. Chew the meat and spit out the bones. It is erroneous to take the wildest speculations of Gap Theorists and lump them together as “The Gap Theory” and then use them to ridicule all aspects of the Gap Theory to show how ridiculous it is. False concepts of the “Gap Theory” are as follows:
The “Gap Theory” does not insist that animals and fossils had to exist on a pre-Adamic earth. In fact, it is doubtful that there were any animals in a pre-Adamic world. During the flood of Noah’s days, the water animals were still alive; but in the Genesis account God is filling the waters with the animals. Gap Theorists believe Noah’s flood gave us the fossils we have today. Yes, there are some Theorists who have tried to include various ideas of evolutionary “science” into the Gap, but Gap Theorists deny these.
Gap Theorists affirm that Lucifer was anointed (just as kings are anointed) and that he was the original ruler of Eden, and that his fall and judgment were because of his original sin (the first sin). We know his rule was on the Earth because the Bible says “you have been in Eden,” and he said he would “ascend into heaven...above the heights of the clouds,” and it was said that he would be “brought down to hell.” We may read of Satan in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28.
Satan was the first being to sin. Whether he sinned between verses 1 and 2 in a Gap or after day six, if we are honest we will admit that his sin did not bring death into the world. When he approached Eve, he was already fallen, yet Adam and Eve still had life. Death came by man because of man’s sin (see 1 Corinthians 15:21 and Romans 5:12)—not the angels’ sin. Angels do not die. A pre-Adamic world inhabited by angels and judged by God would not present death before sin. It seems as though the Earth was only an abode for Lucifer and the angels.
Some will argue that there was nothing created before God created the heavens and the earth. I challenge them to explain God’s pressing question to Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth … when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God (angels) shouted for joy?” (Job 28:4-7). The angels, of whom Lucifer was one, rejoiced at the laying of the foundations of the world. So they were obviously created before it was. It has been pointed out that on the second day God did not look at His creation and see it as “good.” It has been proposed that this had already become Lucifer’s domain after his fall and judgment (Ephesians 2:2 – “prince of the power of the air”; Ephesians 6:12 – “in high places”).
The entire universe bears evidence of life, yet it is in complete ruins. Mars bears evidence of once having water by its erosion marks. In our universe, objects continually collide with other objects—comets, asteroids, etc. God is not the author of confusion, so why are all these objects floating around untethered in confusion with the danger of possibly colliding with the Earth?
James Montgomery Boice notes: “Arthur C. Custance, who has written an excellent book in the theory’s defense, traces it to certain early Jewish writers, some of the church fathers, and even to some ancient Sumerian and Babylonian documents. It crops up in the Middle Ages as well.” (GENESIS, Vol. 1, p.57)
The Jewish scholars who wrote the Masoretic Text incorporated “indicators” to guide the reader to correct punctuation. One such mark is called “Rebhia,” which is classified as a “disjunctive accent” intended to notify the reader to pause before proceeding to the next verse because there is a break in the narrative between v1 and v2. The initial “waw” which introduces verse 2 should be rendered “but” rather than “and,” and dis-junctive rather than a con-junctive, because the last word of verse 1 is separated from verse 2 by means of the disjunctive accent Rebhia, which implies that we are to let our thoughts dwell upon it before passing on to verse 2.
It is also quite interesting that in Genesis 1:28 we find the same command spoken by God to Adam as we later see Him speaking to Noah in Genesis 9:1 after the flood: “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.”
However…
1 Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, 28-30.
Just because there could have been a Gap between verses 1 and 2 does not mean that all of the teachings of all Gap Theorists are correct. We need to make sure that we are not throwing the baby out with the bath water. Chew the meat and spit out the bones. It is erroneous to take the wildest speculations of Gap Theorists and lump them together as “The Gap Theory” and then use them to ridicule all aspects of the Gap Theory to show how ridiculous it is. False concepts of the “Gap Theory” are as follows:
- billions of years
- evolution taking place
- geologic column and strata
- a race of pre-Adamic humans who died (seeing that Adam was the FIRST man)
- the angels being a race of pre-Adamic man
The “Gap Theory” does not insist that animals and fossils had to exist on a pre-Adamic earth. In fact, it is doubtful that there were any animals in a pre-Adamic world. During the flood of Noah’s days, the water animals were still alive; but in the Genesis account God is filling the waters with the animals. Gap Theorists believe Noah’s flood gave us the fossils we have today. Yes, there are some Theorists who have tried to include various ideas of evolutionary “science” into the Gap, but Gap Theorists deny these.
Gap Theorists affirm that Lucifer was anointed (just as kings are anointed) and that he was the original ruler of Eden, and that his fall and judgment were because of his original sin (the first sin). We know his rule was on the Earth because the Bible says “you have been in Eden,” and he said he would “ascend into heaven...above the heights of the clouds,” and it was said that he would be “brought down to hell.” We may read of Satan in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28.
Satan was the first being to sin. Whether he sinned between verses 1 and 2 in a Gap or after day six, if we are honest we will admit that his sin did not bring death into the world. When he approached Eve, he was already fallen, yet Adam and Eve still had life. Death came by man because of man’s sin (see 1 Corinthians 15:21 and Romans 5:12)—not the angels’ sin. Angels do not die. A pre-Adamic world inhabited by angels and judged by God would not present death before sin. It seems as though the Earth was only an abode for Lucifer and the angels.
Some will argue that there was nothing created before God created the heavens and the earth. I challenge them to explain God’s pressing question to Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth … when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God (angels) shouted for joy?” (Job 28:4-7). The angels, of whom Lucifer was one, rejoiced at the laying of the foundations of the world. So they were obviously created before it was. It has been pointed out that on the second day God did not look at His creation and see it as “good.” It has been proposed that this had already become Lucifer’s domain after his fall and judgment (Ephesians 2:2 – “prince of the power of the air”; Ephesians 6:12 – “in high places”).
The entire universe bears evidence of life, yet it is in complete ruins. Mars bears evidence of once having water by its erosion marks. In our universe, objects continually collide with other objects—comets, asteroids, etc. God is not the author of confusion, so why are all these objects floating around untethered in confusion with the danger of possibly colliding with the Earth?
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But (ו, wa) the earth became (תית, haya) desolate (תהו, tohu) and empty (בהו, bohu)...”Renowned Hebrew scholars have indicated that the word “was” in verse two can also be translated as “became,” implying that between the first two verses of Genesis 1 some sort of catastrophe must have occurred causing the earth to fall into the desolate and empty state of which the latter part of verse 2 makes mention. Isaiah 45:18 says, “He created it not in vain (tohu – without form, ruined, desolate, confusion, waste, desert, uninhabitable) , He formed it to be inhabited.” 1 Corinthians 14:33 tells us that God is not the author of confusion, yet tohu means precisely that—confusion. So why would God create the earth in confusion (tohu – without form, ruined, desolate, confusion, waste, desert, uninhabitable) and then embark on creating it in six days? Each day of creation begins with “God said” and ends with “And the evening and the morning were the # day.” The first two verses precede the six days of creation.
Genesis 1:1-2
James Montgomery Boice notes: “Arthur C. Custance, who has written an excellent book in the theory’s defense, traces it to certain early Jewish writers, some of the church fathers, and even to some ancient Sumerian and Babylonian documents. It crops up in the Middle Ages as well.” (GENESIS, Vol. 1, p.57)
The Jewish scholars who wrote the Masoretic Text incorporated “indicators” to guide the reader to correct punctuation. One such mark is called “Rebhia,” which is classified as a “disjunctive accent” intended to notify the reader to pause before proceeding to the next verse because there is a break in the narrative between v1 and v2. The initial “waw” which introduces verse 2 should be rendered “but” rather than “and,” and dis-junctive rather than a con-junctive, because the last word of verse 1 is separated from verse 2 by means of the disjunctive accent Rebhia, which implies that we are to let our thoughts dwell upon it before passing on to verse 2.
It is also quite interesting that in Genesis 1:28 we find the same command spoken by God to Adam as we later see Him speaking to Noah in Genesis 9:1 after the flood: “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.”
However…
1:1 “IN THE BEGINNING God created the heaven and the earth.” –Heaven and the earth have not existed from all eternity, but had a beginning; nor did they arise by emanation from an absolute substance, but were created by God. This sentence, which stands at the head of the records of revelation, is not a mere heading, nor a summary of the history of creation, but a declaration of the primeval act of God, by which the universe was called into being. That this verse is not a heading merely, is evident from the fact that the following account of the course of the creation commences with ו (and), which connects the different acts of creation with the fact expressed in v. 1, as the primary foundation upon which they rest. בּראשׁית (in the beginning) is used absolutely, like εν αρχη in John 1:1, and מראשׁית in Isa. 46:10. The following clause cannot be treated as subordinate, either by rendering it, “in the beginning when God created…, the earth was,” etc., or “in the beginning when God created…(but the earth was then a chaos, etc.), God said, Let there be light” (Ewald and Bunsen). The first is opposed to the grammar of the language, which would require v. 2 to commence with ותּהי הארץ; the second to the simplicity of style which pervades the whole chapter, and to which so involved a sentence would be intolerable, apart altogether from the fact that this construction is invented for the simple purpose of getting rid of the doctrine of a creatio ex nihilo, which is so repulsive to modern Pantheism. ראשׁית in itself is a relative notion, indicating the commencement of a series of things or events; but here the context gives it the meaning of the very first beginning, the commencement of the world, when time itself began. The statement, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, not only precludes the idea of the eternity of the world a parte ante, but shows that the creation of the heaven and the earth was the actual beginning of all things. The verb בּרא, indeed, to judge from its use in Josh. 17:15, 18, where it occurs in the Piel (to hew out), means literally “to cut, or new,” but in Kal it always means to create, and is only applied to a divine creation, the production of that which had no existence before. It is never joined with an accusative of the material, although it does not exclude a pre-existent material unconditionally, but is used for the creation of man (v. 27, ch. 5:1, 2), and of everything new that God creates, whether in the kingdom of nature (Num. 16:30) or of that of grace (Ex. 34:10; Ps. 51:10, etc.). In this verse however, the existence of any primeval material is precluded by the object created: “the heaven and the earth.” This expression is frequently employed to denote the world, or universe, for which there was no single word in the Hebrew language; the universe consisting of a twofold whole, and the distinction between heaven and earth being essentially connected with the notion of the world, the fundamental condition of its historical development (vid., ch. 14:19, 22; Ex. 31:17). In the earthly creation this division is repeated in the distinction between spirit and nature; and in man, as the microcosm, in that between spirit and body. Through sin this distinction was changed into an actual opposition between heaven and earth, flesh and spirit; but with the complete removal of sin, this opposition will cease again, though the distinction between heaven and earth, spirit and body, will remain in such a way, however, that the earthly and corporeal will be completely pervaded by the heavenly and spiritual, the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, and the earthly body being transfigured into a spiritual body (Rev. 21:1, 2; 1 Cor. 15:35f.). Hence, if in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, “there is nothing belonging to the composition of the universe, either in material or form, which had an existence out of God prior to this divine act in the beginning” (Delitzsch). This is also shown in the connection between our verse and the one which follows: “and the earth was without form and void,” not before, but when, or after God created it. From this it is evident that the void and formless state of the earth was not uncreated or without beginning. At the same time it is obvious from the creative acts which follow (vv. 3-18), that the heaven and earth, as God created them in the beginning, were not the well-ordered universe, but the world in its elementary form; just as Euripides applies the expression ουρανος και γαια to the undivided mass (μορφη μια), which was afterwards formed into heaven and earth.The more valid arguments in favour of the Gap Theory may appear convincing until you closely examine them and look to what Scripture teaches. If there was any doubt as to how Genesis 1 should be understood, it is quickly dismissed when one reads Exodus 20:11: "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day..." That puts the issue to rest. In six days it was all done. There is no gap between Genesis chapter 1 verses 1 and 2.
1:2-5. The First Day. –Though treating of the creation of the heaven and the earth, the writer, both here and in what follows, describes with minuteness the original condition and progressive formation of the earth alone, and says nothing more respecting the heaven than is actually requisite in order to show its connection with the earth. He is writing for inhabitants of the earth, and for religious ends; not to gratify curiosity, but to strengthen faith in God, the Creator of the universe. What is said in v. 2 of the chaotic condition of the earth, is equally applicable to the heaven, “for the heaven proceeds from the same chaos as the earth.”
“And the earth was (not became) waste and void.” The alliterative nouns tohu vabohu, the etymology of which is lost, signify waste and empty (barren), but not laying waste and desolating. Whenever they are used together in other places (Isa. 34:11; Jer. 4:23), they are taken from this passage; but tohu alone is frequently employed as synonymous with אין, non-existence, and הבל, nothingness (Isa. 40:17, 23; 49:4). The coming was at first waste and desolate, a formless, lifeless mass, rudis indigestaque moles, υλη αμορφος (Wisdom 11:17) or χαος.1
1 Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, 28-30.