A Theological Defense of "Gap Theory"

which would NOT be the topic of this thread, ray.

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אָרַח

while the bible does not seem to indicate creation ex nihilo, i don't think it's right to assume that there was anything before "the beginning"

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while this is true, it's also good to remember that the best lies are clothed in truth. what the serpent said essentially was true -- their eyes were opened, and they didn't die that day, because of it.

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that's a reference to an extremely out of context verse in ezekiel.

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Eze 28:14 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.

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read the surrounding verses, especially the one two verses prior.

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what randman is saying is that the lie was in the subtlety, the insinuation that god didnot have their best interests at heart, but was trying to keep something from them with deceit.you have to kind of read between the lines for this one.

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... take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus....

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exactly. no, i don't mean to imply that this has nothing to do with the genesis story. it's clearly comparing the king of tyre to a figure from earlier mythology, and one that PROBABLY appears in the hebrew story, too.in fact, genesis does mention that the garden is gaurded by, guess what, cherubim.

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Gen 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

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... after man gets kicked out.

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why not?i'm a firm believer in literalism, but something is lost if we only read it literally. we miss the subtlety and meaning.i mean, we can look at it go "haha, god lied!" but what's the point? it was written that way for a reason, and i'm fairly sure it wasn't to be used as ammo against the religion. why did god lie, in the story? was it a lie, or mercy in punishment? did god mean as a warning (ignorance?) or a punishment? was the serpent implying that god would not punish them? if so, was he being deceptive? is it obey god at all costs, even when he's wrong? is god wrong? was the tree a blessing or a curse? what did the people who wrote this mean by it?these are questions that really aren't answered until we engage a little bit of subjectivity and analysis. they're not literally there for us in the text. if we cut it down to "yes" and "no" or black and white we really lose the meaning of the story. i don't think the people who wrote it were simplistic fools, or trying to subvert the authority of their own religion. probably so, but like to have some worthwhile discussion between the fundamentalist ramblings here.

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i wasn't trying to drag this off-topic, really. i just wanted to explain what they were talking about. the fall and serpent and all that really have very little (nothing) to do with this. but the gap bit is actually a difficult point to argue.based on an educated reading of the text, genesis 1 indicates that the earth existed prior to creation. although a lot of physical properties of the universe (like light) had to be created, the only thing that REALLY says there wasn't anything before it is "b'reshit," in the beginning.genesis 2+3 is an unrelated unrelated story, concerning strictly the birth of the first hebrew patriarch. there is no timeframe given for the story -- it could be contemporary to the other creation story, or a million years later. trying to line them up is kind of silly, because they really don't have anything to do with each other, but if one DID, they could find lots of room to fit a gap, one either end of genesis 1, as big as they wanted. sure, it's an ad-hoc justification for the text in a scientific world, something i think is extremely bad taste, and it's probably not what the authors intended, but i don't see it as out of the realm of plausible theology. i don't think i'm picking a side on this one. i think it's silly and goes against the intended meaning of the text, but my position is just as shaky as their's.

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i'm not sure if you know why you're correct. anything that god uses to test man, or anything that leads man astray is a satan. "satan" is just a hebrew word. it's a strange form of hayah (heytah?) but nearest i can tell "became" is never translated from a variant of hayah. i can't find another match for it. but i don't see any reason to translate it as "became" when not a single translation does this. because "plenish" is not a word.here's the hebrew phrase in question: וּמִלְאוּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ or v'meleua et-ha-eretz. "and fill the earth"here's the same verb, 6 verses earlier: וּמִלְאוּ אֶת-הַמַּיִם or v'meleua et-ha-mayim. "and fill the water"check to see that genesis 1:22 is translated that way. i'm fairly certain nearly every translation renders it that way. why is the SAME verb, used in the same way, rendered different a few verses later?here's a few other versions, courtesy of blue letter bible. 7 for "fill"

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NLT - Gen 1:28 - God blessed them and told them, "Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters over the fish and birds and all the animals."

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NKJV - Gen 1:28 - Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

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NASB - Gen 1:28 - God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

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RSV - Gen 1:28 - And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and ill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

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Young - Gen 1:28 - And God blesseth them, and God saith to them, `Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that is creeping upon the earth.'

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Darby - Gen 1:28 - And God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over every animal that moveth on the earth.

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HNV - Gen 1:28 - God blessed them. God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the eretz, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the eretz."

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and 3 for "replenish"

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ASV - Gen 1:28 - And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the eart

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Webster - Gen 1:28 - And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living animal that moveth upon the earth.

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KJV - Gen 1:28 - And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

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so most translations render it "fill" and there's no sense of "re-" in the hebrew. why base something on such a subjective translation? well then have a look at the hebrew text.the phrase in jeremiah: וְהִנֵּה-תֹהוּ, וָבֹהוּ or v'haneh-tohu, v'bohuthe phrase in genesis: הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ or hayetah tohu v'bohu.it's not the same verb. irrelevant to this thread.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 12-13-2005 12:30 AM

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jay: i was just trying to explain to ringo what you were talking about. it's way off-topic here, but if you want start a thread and we'll discuss.

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i can honestly say i've never heard of those.although, two seem to be from the 1800's. the english language has had significant change in usage since then. and the other is listed on a cult-watch pages. by other christians, i might add. the surely he would know that the proper way to say "became formless and void" would be היתה לתהו ולבהוit's missing the lamed that say "to-" it doesn't render well in english, but "was to-formless and to-empty." i still don't understand the tense of the verb (not pretending to) but look at how "became" is rendered in 2:7:

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וַיְהִי הָאָדָם, לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה

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v'yehey ha-adam l'nefesh chayah.

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and-was the-man to-animal living

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and the man became a living being

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here it is again in verse 10:

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וְהָיָה, לְאַרְבָּעָה רָאשִׁים

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v'hayah l'arba'ah ra'oshym

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and-is to-four heads

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and becomes four heads.

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i've bolded the "become" bits for you. now, how can הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ mean "became shapeless and empty" without the lamed's in front?This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 12-13-2005 02:09 AM

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אָרַח

well, i don't mean to be dishonest here. i don't either. i know a little bit of modern hebrew which is somewhat different than biblical hebrew. i can puzzle out a few things here and there -- but like i said, i have no idea what the tense of that verb is.also, the bible is not written in ancient hebrew. it's written in biblical hebrew. ancienct hebrew is very, very different, and disappeared about the time of the exile in babylon. when the jews returned, they adopted a more aramaic-influenced script and dialect, and designed that blocky-style we see today. i follow the strict judaic PaRDeS tradition. the literal is the foundation on which all interpretation should be based. i think trying to force the literal into a prefered reading is dishonest.but this is a fairly basic grammatical issue. if i wanted to indicate a change, i'd say m'something l'something. from-something to-something. without even the to- bit, i fail to see how it's indicating a change.maybe it's in the verb tense -- see if you can find something on that.

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emphasis mine.cherubs are not earthly creatures. i'm not certain he is. but he's pretty clearly invoking SOME earlier myth. my point was merely that it if it does fit into the eden story, it's post-"fall" not in some gap before it.

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well, you shouldn't neccessarily expect everything in the bible to line up perfectly. sections are written by different people at different times. and there's no real evidence that ezekiel is refering to a HEBREW myth. he could well be using a myth from tyre that we don't know about.but even so, what would forbid an angelic musician, prior to human musicians? well, that's in a section of ezekiel that was god's revelation/prophecy/whatever to ezekiel. the part in question here is ezekiel's message to the king of tyre. he would deliver them a message they could understand, and they probably didn't have a copy of the torah lying around. just similar myths. well, that's irrelevant, really. god's message to the phoenecians need not be in terms of hebrew scripture they've never heard of. satan is the hebrew word for anything that is adversarial, or temptation. calling peter satan doesn't mean that christ was talking to ha-satan himself. similar, muslim fundamentalists call us over in the US "the great satan." or it could just be simple metaphor. ridicule by flattery is quite common in the hebrew scriptures. it's supposed to be ironic. they bible kind of requires a sense of humor. the king of tyre is clearly human, however. thus the irony.of course, there seems to be an earlier tradition in which a king was called a "son of god" (see psalm 2, where david is called god's son, begotten the day of his coronation. no, it's not about jesus, i promise). the sons of god in genesis 6, and in job might also be read this way. however, they don't NEED to be. it's subject to some interpretation.

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why not? shouldn't what god has to say make sense? should the bible be able to stand some analysis if it is the word of god?you might be suprised by this, but i am a christian, not an athiest or an agnostic. i don't see the need, personally, for dependence on a 2000 year old book to know my god. i do feel the bible is important and interesting, however, otherwise i wouldn't be learning hebrew, would i? well, the problem is that the detail doesn't seem to have been given by moses. the books commonly attributed to moses show 5 distinct literary styles and voices. a rational belief might be that moses could have written one, but not all 5 of the sources. what pattern do you expect to see in a myth? don't very many myths claim divine revelation? hebrew myth in particular quite frequently draws from other culture's mythology, but make changes, often claiming "this is the real truth" in the process. why should we not see these passage as political? a keen analysis of the bible yeilds a lot of political and often racial motivation for things. clearly the tyre bit here is political. why couldn't it be drawing from phoenocian myth, just like babel draws from babylonian myth?i think it utterly deprives the bible of meaning when we pretend that it's all one thing, and it all says the same thing, and it's all written by the same person. it's a library of books, and some of the books are collections. i'd rather treat the bible according to what it is than try to squeeze it into some belief system about what people say is in it.

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