Review of lesson oneGod created everything in six days and rested on the seventh day (Six thousand years ago)

Adam and Eve sinned and the human race and creation are subject to the curse of sin

The first world became wicked and was destroyed by a worldwide flood (Forty four hundred years ago)

Session 2 – The Gap Theory

Also known as the ruin restoration theory (and other names)

What is the Gap Theory?

Genesis 1:1“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Genesis 1:2“2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over

the face of the waters.”

The Gap Theory then inserts a gap here

This is an attempt to fit millions of years inside the Bible

During this gap several things are supposed to take place

Order of events in the Gap Theory

God created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1:1 like the Bible says

There was a preadamic civilization that lives on the first earth

During the first earth, Lucifer rebelled and was cast out of heaven, and the first earth was destroyed because of it from

Lucifer's flood

After the first earth was destroyed, we come back in Genesis 1:2 when God is recreating the world that we live in now

Does the Bible support this view?

This idea of the gap theory can be traced back to the rather obscure writings of the Dutchman Episcopius (1583–1643)

Where did the Gap Theory come from?

It was first recorded from one of the lectures of Thomas Chalmers.

Chalmers (1780–1847) was a notable Scottish theologian and the first moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, and he was perhaps the man most responsible for the gap theory.

Rev. William Buckland, a geologist, also did much to popularize the idea.

Although Chalmers’ writings give very little information about the gap theory, many of the details are obtained from other

writers, such as the nineteenth century geologist Hugh Miller, who quoted from Chalmers’ lectures on the subject.

The most notably influential nineteenth century writer to popularize this view was G. H. Pember, in his book Earth’s

Earliest Ages,5 first published in 1884. Numerous editions of this work were published, the 15th edition appearing in 1942.

The 20th-century writer who published the most academic defense of the gap theory was Arthur C. Custance in his

work Without Form and Void.

Bible study aids such as the Scofield Reference Bible, Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, and The Newberry Reference

Bible also include the gap theory and have influenced many to accept this teaching.

The basic reason for developing and promoting this view can be seen from the following very telling quotes:

Scofield Study Bible: “Relegate fossils to the primitive creation, and no conflict of science with the Genesis

cosmogony remains.”

Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible: “When men finally agree on the age of the earth, then place the many years (over the historical 6,000) between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, there will be

no conflict between the Book of Genesis and science.”

“Evidences” for the Gap Theory

Genesis 1:2 for a Gap theorist “And the earth became without form, and void”

“Was” or “Became”

Genesis 1:2 “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was”

By reinterpreting the word “Was” as “Became” you give the impression that there was something existing before Genesis 1:2 (The preadamic civilization according to the Gap Theory)

Is this reinterpretation justifiable?

Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the

heavens and the earth.”

Genesis 1 and 13 grammatical comparison

Genesis 13:1: “Then Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and

all that he had, and Lot with him, to the South.”

Narrative begins in both of these verses

Genesis 1:2“The earth was without form, and void; and

darkness was[a] on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”

Genesis 13:2“Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver,

and in gold.”

Side step and description of object/person from the previous verse

Technically known as - Waw disjunctive/ parenthetical clause

Genesis 13:3“And he went on his journey from the South as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the

beginning, between Bethel and Ai,”

Genesis 1:3“Then God said, “Let there be light”; and

there was light.”

Continuation of narrative (Waw consecutive)

Grammatically the verses follow the same pattern, and we know in Genesis 13 that there is no gap

between the verses

Problem: The Hebrew word that is used ‘hayah’ is best translated to “was” and not “became”.

In all the standard translations of the Old Testament that is the way the verse is translated.

In some occasions with an unusual situation if the context requires it the word can be translated ‘Become’, but the

context in Genesis 1:2 and most other places do not support that translation

The earliest available manuscript of Genesis 1:1–2 is found in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the

Septuagint (LXX), which was prepared about 250–200 B.C. The LXX does not permit the reading of any ruin-reconstruction

scenario into these verses

The words tohu and bohu, usually translated “formless and void,” are used in Genesis 1:2.

Tohu and Bohu

Gappists claim that these words imply a process of judgmental destruction and that they indicate a sinful, and

therefore not an original, state of the earth.

Tohu and bohu appear together in two passages outside of Genesis 1:2 (Isaiah 34:11 and Jeremiah 4:23)

Gappists often look at these passages to show that those words refer to judgment and destruction

Though the expression “tohu and bohu” in Isaiah 34:11 and Jeremiah 4:23 speaks of a formlessness and emptiness resulting from divine judgment for sin, this

meaning is not implicit in the expression itself but is gained from the particular contexts in which it occurs. It is not valid

therefore to infer that same meaning from Genesis 1:2, where the context does not suggest any judgment.

An analogy would be a blank computer screen

It could be blank from being erased, or just

being started!

Isaiah 45:18 (often quoted by gappists) is rendered in the KJV

“he created it not in vain [tohu], he formed it to be inhabited.”

In the context, Isaiah is speaking about Israel, God’s people, and His grace in restoring them. He did not choose His people in order to destroy them, but to be their God and for them to

be His people.

tohu appears alone in a number of other places and in all cases simply means “formless.” The word itself does not tell us about the cause of formlessness; this has to be gleaned

from the context.

Isaiah draws an analogy with God’s purpose in creation: He did not create the world for it to be empty. He created it to be

formed and filled. Gappists miss the point altogether when they argue that because Isaiah says God did not create the

world tohu, it must have become tohu at some later time. Isaiah 45:18 is about God’s purpose in creating, not

about the original state of the creation.

Just as a ball of clay begins formless and void, the creation began that way! And over the

six days, we see the potter create a world from the

formless clay.

Gap Theorists to differentiate between the words Create (Bara) and made (Asah) inside your Bible

Genesis 1:1 uses the word Bara to talk about the whole heaven and earth, while Genesis 1:16 uses the word Asah to address God making the planets (Out of

what was already created)

This idea has several problems though when we examine scripture here in Genesis chapter one, and in

other areas of the Bible.

Asah and Bara?

Problem: Bara and Asah are used interchangeably

Genesis 1:26-27“26 Then God said, “Let Us make (Asah) man in Our

image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the

air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created (Bara) man in His own image; in the

image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

They are used interchangeably in the same verse!

The detrimental verse to this idea

Exodus (NKJV) 20:11A“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the

earth, the sea, and all that is in them”

Genesis 1:1 (NKJV) says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Both of these verses are referring to the same thing (God creating the heavens

and the earth) but use different words

Genesis 1:28 ”And God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it”

Did God say to replenish the earth?

Problem: Words can change meaning over the course of time, God promised to preserve his word but he did not promise to

preserve our English language

The word replenish did not mean “To fill again” until about 1632,

before that it simply meant to fill something… Even today you can

find two definitions in you’re dictionary

Do the events during the Gap match scripture?

When did Lucifer fall from heaven?

Two texts speak to Lucifer falling from heave:

Isaiah 14:12-15“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the

morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the

farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.

Ezekiel 28:13-15 “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets

and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth;

and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the

stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.”

The less popular text discussing Lucifer's fall gives us a hint as to when the fall occurred

Lucifer was in Eden (made on day six) until iniquity was found in him

Genesis 1:31 ”And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the

sixth day.”

“Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God… till iniquity was found in thee.”

Look at the order of events inside the verse

This is the only order of events that makes sense in light of other verses:

Everything would not be “very good”

The gap theory does away with the evidence for the historical

event of the global flood. If the fossil record was formed by

Lucifer’s flood, then what did the global Flood of Noah’s day

do? On this point the gap theorist is forced to conclude

that the global Flood must have left virtually no trace. To be consistent, the gap theorist would also have to defend that

the global Flood was a local event.

Lucifer's Flood?

We will deal with the Biblical evidence for the

worldwide flood in a different session

of this class

If Lucifer's flood created the fossil record, that

means death and disease already existed before

Adam and Eve fell

This is the biggest doctrinal problem in the

Gap Theory, if it was true, death existed before

sinned enter the world

Death before sin?

Are we on the second earth? Revelation 21:1

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away”

There is no scriptural support for the Gap Theory! And much scripture opposing it!

Memorization verse:

Revelation 21:1“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away”