A Theological Defense of "Gap Theory"

Greetings,I intend here to respond to a thread dating months ago by Apostle in the Origins of Life - Examining Gap Theory.I have opened up a new thread for more capacity and because the previous discussion seems was started so long ago."Gap Theory" or "Destruction / Reconstruction" for me is a proper understanding of the Bible. What genuine problems exist, if I am convinced of them, I will admit. What many opposers to Gap Theory propose as problems we will see are not. And at the same time I will attempt to reveal some theological problems with some YEC views.This will be a theological defense. I will not be saying much about dating methods and such science techniques. I will try to resist such anyway.Stay tuned. I have a lot of cut and pasteing to do from Apostle's thread and will need some time to get going.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-09-2005 05:29 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-09-2005 05:33 PM

Thanks Admin.I am a lover of the word of God and of Jesus Christ its centrality. And sometimes I will sound like it. Exegisis of the Bible for me does not mean “Exit - Jesus.”This does not mean that if you don’t agree with me you necessarily don’t love God. It means to me that any study of the Bible purposely ignoring God’s economy and Christ’s salvation is, I think, a waste of time and an abuse of the Scripture.Apostle began with: True. Chalmers did use Destruction / Reconstruction as an apologetic. But Chalmers by no means was the first to have a Gap understanding of Genesis 1:1,1:2. And the records I have show that such a view predates the invention of geology or evolutionary theory.Second point. There is nothing basically wrong with Christians going back to the Scripture to examine carefully exactly what was said.Were there three wise men who came to visit the baby Jesus? Millions of Christians would give a resounding “Yes! We all know three wise men came from the east.” Then one day someone goes back to see for sure what the Scripture says. It says wise men (plural). That is all. They brought three gifts. Could two or seven or thirteen or sixteen wise men bring three gifts? Of course. Then the number of wise men is unspecified actually.So with Gap Theory. Not all returning to the Scripture to ascertain exactly what was written need be accused of “accomodation.” I haven’t read Chalmers. But of the several writings I have read on an Interval, none ever mentioned the phrase “Lucifer’s flood.”Young Earth understandings of the Bible go elsewhere in the Bible to pick up clues to help them to understand Genesis. By going outside of Genesis to other books of the Bible they determine that the serpent in the garden has something to do with Satan God’s enemy.In the same way some of us gather from other portions of the Bible that what is discribed as the condition of the earth - “without form and void” indicates previous divine judgement. Separately the words do not always indicate that. But used together elsewhere in the Bible they indicated a previous divine overthrow.The two words are found together only in two other places in Scripture. Both passages clearly express the ruin caused by an outpouring of God’a wrath.In the prophecy of Isaiah, after the fearful description of fall of Idumea in the day of vengence (Isa.34:11):

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“He shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones (or, as better Pember says should be tranlated - plummet) - of emptiness.”Now “confusion” and “emptiness” are, in Hebrew, the same words as those rendered “without form and void” in Genesis 1:2. The sense in Isa. 34:11 is that just as the archatect uses a line and plummet in order to raise a building with precise perfection, so will God exercise His skill to make an exacting and complete ruin of the sinful Idumea.The second passage where we see the Hebrew words used together in is the description of Judah’s and Jerusalem’s devastation:“I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and , lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled . the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by His fierce anger. For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end” (Jermiah 4:23-27).Here tohu signifies “desolation” or “that which is desolate”; and bohu signifies “emptiness” or “that which is empty.” This fearful scene of destruction might have even been a poetic parallel to destruction of the pre-Adamic world. I mean that Jeremiah may have been prophetically superimposing that previous pre-Adamic judgment on the scene of God’s wrath upon Judah and Jerusalem.A Jewish rabbi around the third century wrote of a Destruction / Reconstruction view of Genesis in The Book of Light or Sefer Hazzohar (also known as simply Zohar). This work is attributed by some to a certain Simon ben Jochai. He was a disciple of Akiba ben Joseph who founded the School Bene Barek and was himself executed in 135 A.D.At the end of the first century A.D. we have this opinion among Hebrew reading scholars of Genesis seen in Simeon’s ben Jochai’s comment on Genesis 2:4-6:“These are the generations (ie., this is the history of . ) of the heavens and the earth . And these are generations of the destruction of which is signified in verse 2 of chapter 1. The earth was Tohu and Bohu. These indeed are the worlds of which it is said that the blessed God created them and destroyed them, and, on that account, the earth was desolate and empty.”I don’t think that this writer was tying to accommodate the Scripture to popular geological theories of the 18th century. Nor is it likely that he was defending the Hebrew Bible from attacks of Evolutionary Theory.He sees in Genesis the divine destruction upon previous worlds which rendered the earth without form and void in Genesis 1:2. That is after God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning, some unspecified time before His reformation in six days and His further creative activity, He destroyed the pre-Admic world.Arthur Custance informs us that the Midrash is the oldest pre-Christian exposition of the Old Testament. It contains accumulated comments and explanations of the best Jewish teachers during and after the Babylonian Captivity over a span of 1500 years and well into the Christian era. Custance says that the Revized Edition of Chambers Encyclopedia states that an interval of unspecified duration interposed between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 was already found in the Midrash.Louis Ginsberg, in his work, The Legends of the Jews, put into a continuous narrative , as close as he possibly could using the phrases and terms the Jews used to pass down their sacred history in legends. Volume I covers the period between Creation and Jacob. And Ginsburgs narrative has this excerpt on Genesis 1:“Nor is this world inhabited by man the first of the things earthly created by God. He made several other worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all, because He was pleased with none until He created ours.”It is also interesting to me that a Psalm on God’s establishing of the earth seems to harmonize with the thought of Him causing the dry land to come up from underneath the waters. Psalm 104 seems very much a psalm on God as Creator and Provider:“Bless Jehovah, O my soul. O Jehovah my God, You are cery great. You are clothed with majesty and splendot . You stretch out the heavens like a tent curtain . He established the earth upon its foundations, So that it cannot be moved forever and ever. You covered it with the deep as with a garment; The waters stood above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled; At the voice of Your thunder they rushed away - The mountains rose, the valleys sank - To the place that You established for them. To the plave that You established for them. You set a border that they may not pass over, that they may not turn back to cover the earth.” (See Psalm 104:1-9).If this is a Psalm of God’s creative work in Genesis it does show Him rebuking and limiting the waters which cover the dry land. He sets a border and a boundary that the water is not to transgress.Latter we will see that in the new heaven and the new earth the abolishing of death is in conjuction with the abolishing of the sea. There is definetly something revelatory about God’s treatment of the sea which runs concurrent with His abolishing of death.As the Young Earth expositor gathers light on other passages concerning the serpent, because Genesis did not explicitly tell us of this serpent’s identity, so also the Destruction / Reconstructionist or “Gap Theorist” has light shed on Genesis 1:1-2 from other passages. There is no ground for the former to charge the latter with spurious explanations of things which are not altogether explicitly written in Genesis in detail. We "Gap Theorists" believe that the details both on the serpent and the pre-Adamic judgment are provided latter in the revelation of the Scripture. Much of this sounds like G.H. Pember’s Earth's Earliest Ages.I will latter develop plausible proofs of the following:1. The Scripture does show a class of beings elder to man and elder among the angelic beings from which an entity like Satan could arise.2. The scripture does show a class of beings who are the disembodied spirits of creatures who must have been previously judged by God.3. The Scripture does show a class of demonic beings which seemed to be kept in special confinement until their release at the end of the age. Nothing of their creation is remotely hinted at in Genesis.4. The mandate assigned the first created man seems to indicate that there was an opposition party and advasary to God in existence already even when God pronounced that the creation was “very good” in Genesis 1:31.Apostle goes on with a summary of typoical Gap Theory ideas: Not one of the several books or articles on Destruction / Reconstruction that I have studied refered to “Lucifer’s Flood.”They did talk about God’s judgment upon the pre-Adamic earth which was under the Anointed Cherub’s authority. And that being became Satan. And God created man afterward and said now “Let THEM have dominion . ” (emphasis mine). The dominion which was previously assigned to another being was transferred to man. And this creature man was also to harmonize with God’s desire to execute His enemies.God would not fight against His enemy alone. He would not be the Creator to fight against the creature. He would create another creature whose will being in harmony with the divine will, would coordinate with God in the destruction of Satan.In Isaiah’s prophecy we see that God longs for man to be one with His heart and will to the degree that man would even command God to act to carry out His will:“Thus says Jehovah, The Holy One of Israel and the One who formed him,

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Ask Me about the things to come concerning My sons, and concerning the works of My hands, command Me” (Isaiah 45:11).God here desires that man would ask and even command Him to do His will, man being so much in oneness with His desire. And we see the same matter in the New Testament:“If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.” (John 15:7).This is not frivolous asking. This is the petition of God that comes out of His people abiding in Christ and Christ’s word abiding in them. The principle is as old as Genesis. If man remains in obediance and cooperation with God, man has authority to ask God and even to command God.1.) First God has a will and desire.
2.) He has man on the earth who is one with Him
3.) Because of this oneness of His creature with Himself the desire of man echoes the desire of God.
4.) Man then asks or even commands, and God responds to fulfill His desire.Satan was pree-existent to Adam. And the created new creature was to guard God’s interests on the earth. I have no doubt that had Adam, in his mandate to guard the garden, would have eventually realized that a lying creature as seen in the serpent, had no place in God’s creation.God, who had commited to man His image and His dominion, waited for man to command God to destroy the ancient pre-Adamic Anointed Cherub, who had become Satan. God had given the sentence. God had created man to assist Him to carry out the execution.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-11-2005 07:27 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-11-2005 07:29 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-11-2005 07:34 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-11-2005 07:36 PM

Arachnophilia, Before we go to Ezekiel let's go to a Psalm on the creation of man.The Eighth Psalm is a psalm of God's creation of man and His purpose for doing so. And I will not quote the whole beautiful psalm here. But notice:"O Jehovah our Lord, How excellent Your name in all the earth, You who have set Your glory over the heavens!

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Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings You have established strength because of Your advasaries, to stop the enemy and the avenger,

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When I see Your heavens, the works of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is mortal man, that You remember him,

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And the son of man, that visit him? You have made him a little lower than angels and have crowned him with glory and honor.

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You have caused him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet ..." (Psa. 8:1-6)In this Psalm the writer says that God has created man to "stop the enemy and the avenger". Who is God's enemy? It is that ancient Anointed Cherub. Though he was created such a high creature and even perfect in beauty and wisdom, he corrupted his wisdom, sought to usurp God's authority and throne.This ancient enemy of God was obviously there in the garden of Eden. Every Bible reader must eventually ask himself or herself "Hey wait! If God created a Paradise then what on earth was this lying, subtle, slanderous, and deceitful serpent doing there ???"This surely must be one of the first great questions that any reader of the Bible must ask. That is if God created everything and saw that it was "very good (Gen.1:31) then why was this apparent ENEMY of God there to mess things up?Satan was the enemy. And because his kingdom was destroyed and taken from him and his legions, he became "the avenger". He lost his job. He was fired. He was judged. And he was not yet totally destroyed. And this dusty creature comes along from God's creative hand who is "made... a little lower than the angels". And is God now going to let this dustly little creature have the dominion?Satan was the "avenger" seething with vengence against His Creator.But man was created to stop the enemy and the avenger Satan. It is right there in Psalm 8. By being in harmony with God a triangular situation was created in the universe.You had God at one point, Satan at another point, and man at a third point with his freedom of choice. If man would be one with God Satan would be executed.Satan knew this and set a preemptive strike against the hated little dusty creature. But God created this man so that even the babes and sucklings of humanity would establish strength against the advasary of God.Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 shed further light on this matter in the way of the prophets uttering something of the prophetic past as they prophesy of contemporary events to thier time.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-12-2005 08:01 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-12-2005 08:02 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-12-2005 08:03 AM

In this Psalm on the creation of man who could be this enemy?This enemy is an "advasary." An advasary is one who opposes from within another's jurisdiction. This is like two employees of the same company in which one is in rivalry for the other's rightful position.Someone is an advasary to be stopped. He is an advasary to God from within God's realm.This advasary is also an enemy. He opposes the one with hateful attacks with whom he is in an advasarial relationship with.This one is also the avenger. There is something of an offense for this one to exact vengence for. He is out for revenge.The Psalm says that even the babes and sucklings were created to establish strength against this enemy, advasary, and avenger. This means that man in his intrinsic creation is designed to stop this enemy. From a baby man is created for the express purpose to deal with this enemy.This enemy must be the cosmic enemy of God the Creator. This is ruler of the air which now operates in the children of disobedience.

Continuing on first with Apostle's article: Destructrion / Reconstruction does not exist for this purpose. It also has been used to portray a much more acceptable view of the history of God’s enemy.The Young Earth expositors complain about “silence” in Genesis about a pre-Adamic rebellion of an arch-angel. Yet many of them insist that in somewhere in the neighberhood of Adam and Eve was a powerful being who in the first week of creation orchestrated the great cosmic warfare against God. I call this the “Brief Rebellion Theory.” It allows only a few days for a creature to convince one third of the heavenly hosts that God should be opposed and His throne usurped. All this is happening concurrent with the first week of creation.To many of us it makes more sense that Satan’s history of opposition to God had a much more ancient origin. Every form of Young Earth interpretation that I have seen so far portrays a very foggy picture of the history of church’s main enemy. Satan seems shrouded in a mist of uncertainty. Yet books like Barnhouse’s “The Invisible War” and Pember’s “Earth's Earliest Ages” strip Satan naked as to his origin and motive.Young Earth expositions of Genesis often seem more intent on defending a 6,000 year old "old creation" than exposing the enemy of God’s "new creation," the church.I believe that the creation of man was something of a divine reaction to the rebellion of the Day Star (Latin "Lucifer"). I do not believe that the two adminstrations of deputy authority over the earth, were establish concurrenty during the six days of Genesis. I think that previous to the six days Satan had a long history. He was essentially fired from his job, to put it in the vanacular.Man's creation was a divine reaction to the failure of the precious deputy authority, in my view. Think of what it means for a being to actually oppose God Himself. This is almost impossible for many Bible readers to imagine, that is a being who would oppose God the Almighty.My opinion is that such a universal and cataclysmic conflict fermented and developed over a longer period than four or five days. Angels, far superior in intelligents, or at least in knowledge of the divine things, had to be deceived. That is one third of them had to join Satan according to the symbolism of Revelation 12:4:"And his [The great dragon - Satan and the Devil] tail drags away the third part pf the stars of heaven, and casts them to the earth ..." (Rev. 12:4a)Could such a universal warfare ferment and develop in one week? Perhaps I cannot insist that it could not. But I don't believe that within hours after the Day Star's creation he massed such a host of deceived beings to actually oppose God Himself. His fall into rebellion, I think, had a more ancient pre-Adamic history.And God's nature requires that such a being be judged. If not totally destroyed he must be acted against by God. God is long suffering. But eventually He will judge. The judgment occured in pre-Admic ages and on that accound the earth was found "topsy turvy" (French) or "without form and void"The book of Revelation shows in addition to the angels a class of beings which are the 24 elders on thrones around the throne of the Creator God. Now we should all know that Revelation of Jesus Christ was made known to John “by signs.” So the symbolism should be significant.Who are the 24 elders around the throne of God in Revelation 4 and 5?”And around the throne there were twenty-four thrones, and upon the thrones twenty-four elders sitting clothed in white garments, and upon their heads golden crowns. (Rev. 4:4).

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The twenty-four elders will fall before Him who sits upon the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever; and they will cast their crowns before the throne saying, You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for You have created all things, and because of Your will they were, and were created” (Rev.4:10,11).Some people say that this is a sign of the elders of the Christian church. I doubt this very much. John was one of the original twelve disciples of Christ. He is not among them but is witness to them. If they are the elders of the Christian church surely the Apostle John, who was called and elder ( 2 John 1:1), should be among them.These elders apparantly represent elders of God’s creation. Of the living beings created by God these elders represent the eldest among them.Now I have no intention to identify them further. The main thing is that these elders furnish a class of beings who are the oldest among God’s created lives. And I submit that from this class of beings one became Satan. I do not say that Satan was one of these 24. I only suggest that this great cosmic enemy of God was a very old being participating in the governmental administration of God’s creation before Adam. These elders have crowns which speak of their deputy authority on behalf of God.Now I could not say that it is impossible that beings created perhaps five days before Adam would be elder to Adam. My opinion is that these elders are more elder than one week. But how long they are elder to Adam I have no idea. But a pre-Adamic era of ruling and crowned angelic beings are suggested here.They apparantly are witnesses of all of God’s creative work. And they know that God has created all things for His will. That means for His purpose and His plan. These elders are close to God and close to the knowledge of the desire of God.I think some being like this and with this authority and knowledge rebelled and became Satan the Devil in ages prior to the creation of man.He was there in the garden when Adam was there. And latter I plan to demonstrate that he existed at the time when God pronounced His creation “very good” in Genesis 1:31.That Satan existed was not very good. But that all things created were under the dominion of Adam - THAT is what was very good. Unfortunately Adam stepped out from under the authority of God and under the illegal authority of Satan against God’s plan. My concern here will be with the theological only.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-12-2005 11:31 PM

It will take some more time to respond to a few contributions which I would like to address.Howver, if some of you could be patient - dealing with Apostle’s comments first: I don’t know about a soulless race. But a pre-Adamic indication of death and disease is discribed in some Destruction / Reconstruction interpretations.In Revelation we are told that the sea gave up its dead at the last judgment at the great white throne:”And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, each of them, according to their works” (Rev. 20:12)Death and Hades gave up its dead in addition to the sea giving up its dead. Now why isn’t it enough for John to say that Death and Hades gave up its dead? Surely, all those who have perished in the sea among human beings should be included in Death and Hades. All dead humans are said to be departed immaterial spirits in Hades. So dead sea goers who have drowned in the water should also be the dead given up by Death and Hades.So the dead given up by the sea must be another class of dead beings beside human beings. I maintained that these are the demons of today. They are the disembodied spirits of the creatures who lived in a pre-Adamic earth. What they were I do not know.I believe that Adam was the first man. So they were not human. But the were judged and assigned that their immaterial part would remain in the sea.These are the dead given up by the sea. They are demons.Now there is further things to consider in this interpretation. The Lord Jesus said that the demons wander about in “waterless places” seeking to demon possess some human sinner’s body.Why do they wander from ”waterless places?” It is because their assigned place is in the sea of water. But they rebel against this confinement and wander about out of the water to the land. There they find the bodies of human sinners to possess. In pre-Adamic times they lost their own physical bodies. The torment of dissembodiment they seek to relieve. So they come out of the water, wander in waterless places and seek to demon possess the bodies of fallen human beings.Jesus explains some of these things here:” When the unclean spirit goes out from the man, it roams through waterless places, seeking rest, and does not find it.

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Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came out. And it comes and finds it unoccupied, swept, and decorated.

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Then it goes and takes along with itself seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter in and settle down there. And the last state of that man becomes worst than the first.” (Matt. 12:43-45).The unclean spirit brings other demonic spirits to make sure that it can hold that sinner’s body for its home. This is deadful.Now the demons are not the same as the fallen angels. The Pharisees knew this. And they said of Paul in the one recorded instance when they did defend him - “We find nothing evil in this man. And what it a spirit has spoken to him, or an angel” (Acts 23:9)“[A] spirit, OR and angel” the Pharisees said. This shows that they realized that the angels were one class of beings and the spirits were another class. They might not have been too clear that the spirits are all evil spirits - demons. But they knew that there was a distinction.So the angels were heavenly creations. And the demons or evil spirits are the disembodied beings from the pre-Adamic age who come up out of the watery grave and look to rest in bodies not their own. The demon possess human sinners.The demons choose to have their own bodies back. This is impossible. So the next best thing is for them to have a human body which they enter into to possess to the torment of the poor human being. Now if by the power of God they are expelled from the human body they seemed to have desired even an animal body. Second to last they will return to the sea - the watery place. And last of all they hope to postpone as long as possible their etenal damnation in the judgment of God.Here is how I know this. When Jesus approached the man possessed by a legion of demons, they begged Jesus that He would not torment them before the assigned time. They know that they cannot avoid forever eternal punishement. But they did not want to go there before the time. Then the demons entreated that the Son of God would allow them to inhabit the bodies of pigs. And He allowed them to do that. Then having possessed the pigs the animals rushed down into the sea and drowned. This is all recorded in Matthew 8:28-34 which includes the words -”And the demons entreated Him, saying, If You cast is out, send us into the herd of hogs. And He said to them, Go! And they came out and went into the hogs. And behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep slope into the sea, and theu died in the waters.” (Matt. 8:31,32).For some reason the demon possessed hogs ran down and drowned rather than tolerate demon possession. The demons then were released back into the watery place where they are condemned to stay anyway.Now we saw that as Hades is the container for the departed spirits of human beings, the sea is the container for the departed spirits of the pre-Adamic beings.Both Hades and the sea are no longer needed as recipticals of the dead in the new heaven and the new earth because all death is abolished and all the sinful beings are judged.So we see that God does away with two matters: death and Hades and the sea. Here is where He discards death and Hades:”And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire, This is the second death” (Rev. 20:14)And here is where we see that God has abolished the sea, no longer needing a confinement area for the demons: [b]”And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea is no more” (Rev. 20:1).In Genesis, this remainder of the pre-Adamic judgment is limited. This means that death was limited. The sea that covered the dry land was commanded to recede and the dry land appeared on the third day.God therefore holds back partially the remnant of death in the universe. But in the new heaven and the new earth after all the wicked are cast into the eternal perdition, whether those rejecting Christ or those demonic spirit, the sea is totally abolished. And John sees the sea no more. Death and Hades are no more for there is no more need to hold the disembodied human beings. And the sea is no more because the disembodied demonic beings are all judged and made to perish.

Arachnophilia Rotherham's Emphasized Bible - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth had become waste and wild, and darkness was on the face of the roaring deep ..."Recovery Version Bible - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. But the earth became waste and emptiness, and darkness was on the surface of the deep"August Dillman's Translation of Genesis 1:1,2 - "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But (then) the earth became waste, etc"Check also the Concordant Literal which I believe also says the earth "became" something.August Dillman was a prominant Hebrew language scholar, you may already know.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 01:25 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 01:26 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 01:30 AM

This Post was overwritten by accident. It is being re-posted: Destructrion / Reconstruction does not exist for this purpose. It also has been used to portray a much more acceptable view of the history of God’s enemy.The Young Earth expositors complain about “silence” in Genesis about a pre-Adamic rebellion of an arch-angel. Yet many of them insist that in somewhere in the neighberhood of Adam and Eve was a powerful being who in the first week of creation orchestrated the great cosmic warfare against God. I call this the “Brief Rebellion Theory.” It allows only a few days for a creature to convince one third of the heavenly hosts that God should be opposed and His throne usurped. All this is happening concurrent with the first week of creation.To many of us it makes more sense that Satan’s history of opposition to God had a much more ancient origin. Every form of Young Earth interpretation that I have seen so far portrays a very foggy picture of the history of church’s main enemy. Satan seems shrouded in a mist of uncertainty. Yet books like Barnhouse’s “The Invisible War” and Pember’s “Earth's Earliest Ages” strip Satan naked as to his origin and motive.Young Earth expositions often seem more intent on defending a 6,000 year old universe than exposing the enemy of God’s new creation, the church.The book of Revelation shows in addition to the angels a class of being which are the 24 elders on thrones around the throne of the Creator God. Now we should all know that Revelation of Jesus Christ was made known to John “by signs.” So the symbolism should be significant.Who are the 24 elders around the throne of God in Revelation 4 and 5?”And around the throne there were twenty-four thrones, and upon the thrones twenty-four elders sitting clothed in white garments, and upon their heads golden crowns. (Rev. 4:4).

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The twetny-four elders will fall before Him who sits upon the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever; and they will cast their crowns before the throne saying, You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for You have created all things, and because of Your will they were, and were created” (Rev.4:10,11).Some people say that this is a sign of the elders of the Christian church. I doubt this very much. John was one of the original twelve disciples of Christ. He is not among them but is witness to them. If they are the elders of the Christian church surely the Apostle John, who was called and elder ( 2 John 1:1), should be among them.These elders apparantly represent elders of God’s creation. Of the living beings created by God these elders represent the eldest among them.Now I have no intention to identify them further. The main thing is that these elders furnish a class of beings who are the oldest among God’s created lives. And I submit that from this class of beings one became Satan. I do not say that Satan was one of these 24. I only suggest that this great cosmic enemy of God was a very old being participating in the governmental administration of God’s creation before Adam. These elders have crowns which speak of their ruling authority on behalf of God.Now I could not say that it is impossible that beings created perhaps five days before Adam would be elder to Adam. My opinion is that these elders are more elder than one week. But how long they are elder to Adam I have no idea. But a pre-Adamic era of ruling and crowned angelic beings are suggested here.They apparantly are witnesses of all of God’s creative work. And they know that God has created all things for His will. That means for His purpose and His plan. These elders are close to God and close to the knowledge of the desire of God.I think some being like this and with this authority and knowledge rebelled and became Satan the Devil in ages prior to the creation of man.He was there in the garden when Adam was there. And latter I plan to demonstrate that he existed at the time when God pronounced His creation “very good” in Genesis 1:31.That Satan existed was not very good. But that all things created were under the dominion of Adam - THAT is what was very good. Unfortunately Adam stepped out from under the authority of God and under the illegal authority of Satan against God’s plan. My concern here will be with the theological only.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 08:44 AM

Arachnophilia,If you read and write ancient Hebrew you certainly have my respect. I don't have that skill.The arguments on the linguistic side against Destruction / Reconstruction, as far as I can ascertain with my limited education, are still debated. Arthur Custance was a scholar at a number of ancient languages including Hebrew. And perhaps I will submit some comments from him on your translation issues. But I can't venture further than what technicalities I can somewhat grasp.Custance, probably like yourself, always felt that the debate must be settled on grammatical grounds first. Others feel that the theological argument should be settled first. I am one of the latter opinion. I think the theological case is stronger.Please continue your submissions though.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 08:57 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 08:58 AM

August Dillman, author of Genesis Critically and Exegetically Expounded translated by W. B. Stevensen Clark, Edinburgh, 1897That is all I have at the moment.F.F. Bruce is a more recent scholar of biblical Hebrew. And although he is not entirely sympathetic to Gap Theory he stated that it could not be cavalierly dismissed on grammatical terms.He remarks this in a Paper in The Transactions of the Victoria Institute."an excessive cavalier dismissal of a view which has been supported by men of the calibre of Pusey, Liddon, etc..."This was written by F.F. Bruce in response to a comment of John Skinner that "This view that verse 1 describes an earlier creation of heaven and earth which was reduced to chaos and then re-fashioned, needs no refutation." (From The International Critical Commentary - Genesis) to which Skinner made submissions.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 09:16 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 09:17 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 09:18 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 09:35 AM

Arachnophilia, Aside from what I offered as proof of some authority in Critical exposition on Genesis I only have these comments from Arthur Custance's book Without Form and Void."“And if there were any question, it would be sufficient for most people who know the meaning of the word ”scholar’ to note that S.R. Driver unhesitatingly recognized Pusey as an authority. It is doubtfulif Driver has an equal as a Hebraist - certainly not, I venture to say, in the matter of the use of the Hebrew verb. And Pusey himslf notes that Dilitzsch, who in earlier editions had argued against his own view, ”subsequently embraced it’. It is also worth noting that another scholar of equal stature with Delitzsch, namely, August Dillman, likewise wrote against the view and subsequently changed his mind - on linquistic grounds alone, In his Commentary on Genesis published in 1897, Dillman renders Gen. 1:2, ”But then was the earth waste, etc.’, and he expresses the view that ”became’ would be incorrect. However, before the two volume work was actually published he had changed his mind, for on page x under Corrigenda, he notes that the above rendering should be altered to read: ”But then the earth became . ’ It was not a matter of indifference to Dillman, therefore, but of sufficient importance to justify two Corrigendum notices. S.R. Driver resisted this translation to the end - even, as we shall see, at the price if a certain inconsistency. But Driver did admit in his The Book of Genesis that it was ”exegetically admissible.’ "Without Form and Void, page 36.S.R. Driver refers to Dillman as an authority in ancient Hebrew grammer in this excerpt from one of his publications sited by Custance:“All that a careful scholar like Mr. Wright (Lectures on the Comparative Grammer of the Semitic Languages, 1890) can bring himself to admit with refenrece to the pluperfect sense of any other construction than that of word order inversion, is that while ”no clear instances can be cited in which it is distinctly so used’, there are cases in which ”something like and approximation to the signification can be detected’. And it is rejected unreservedly by Bottcher, Quarry, Pusey, and Dillman.”Withour Form and Void, page 69F.F. Bruce refers to August Dillman as noteworthy in his agreeing with Bruce on some grammatical matter on Genesis 1:2. I do not have Hebrew fonts on my PC and will leave references to Hebrew characters as blanks.“Of Bruce’s Paper, which was courteous and just at all times, I believe there are, nevertheless, two criticisms of a minor nature that are valid. Bruce refers to Dillman’s Commentary as essentially supporting his own position. However, as we have already noted previously, Dillman apparently changed his mind regarding the correct translation of ___________ in Gen. 1:2. I am sure professor Bruce was unaware of this or did not feel that it altered Dillman’s basic position, for in spite of his later admission I do not think that he wholeheartedly acceeded to the idea of a gap between verse 1 and 2. This fact makes Dillman’s admission as to the meaning of _________ in verse 2 all the more significant and in a very real sense nullifies the basis of Bruce’s appeal to Dillman for support - at least, in so far as verse 2 is concerned.”Without Form and Void, page 94This is all I can present to you at the moment for my assumption that August Dillman was a Hebrew translator of note among peers in that discipline.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 10:45 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 10:47 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 10:48 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 10:51 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 10:52 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 10:57 AM

ConsequentAthiest There is nothing sneaky going on CA. I simply went to the back of the book and quoted every instance where Dillman was discussed in the book. Naturally I quoted as much as I thought presented the context in which various supposed experts were related in a peer relationship.If I don't have his bio what else should I do?If you are not satisfied with these references as an indication of his authority to discuss Hebrew Grammer then don't receive him.I do not think the entire matter of whether there was an Interval of unspecified time rests solely on whether the English reads "became waste... etc" or "was waste ..." I don't disregard any modern translation except I might not take too seriously one which is obviously a very loose paraphrase.Quote the rendering that you suggest that I consult please.My favorite version of the Bible has "became" there but that is atypical.The Emphasized Bible reads " had become" and it is a very grammatically notated technical version. The inside page reads:The EMPHASIZED BIBLE -A Translation Designed to set Forth the Exact Meaning, The Proper Terminology, and the Graphic Style of the Sacred OriginalBy Joseph Bryant RotherhamRotherham's note on toho wa - vohu reads "Evidently an idiomatic phrase, with a play on the sound ("assonance"). The two words occur together in Is. XXXIV.11; Jer. IV.23: examples which favour the conclusion that here also they describe the result of previous overthrow. Tohu by itself is found in several other texts (Deu. XXXII.10; Job XII.24; Ps. CVII.40; Is XXIV.10; XXXIV.11; etc.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 01:50 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 01:51 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 01:52 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 01:53 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 01:54 PM

CA, That is true. I assume that the discussion in the book included Dillman as someone of note on opinions of translation of Genesis. I agree.Now do you do the same by concluding that he only has the right to weigh in on things pertaining to Coptic Ethiopian versions of Genesis? I have seen some of that thread and read some of it. I have not read it all but want to go back and do so. Thanks for your considerable labors there. I will get to read more of it.I think Custance did refer to one translation you sited of Genesis 1:1 in his book. (If I am thinking of "in the beginning of God's creating ...?"). Something like that you wrote?Now I am going to continue with Apostle's comments if I might for now.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 02:57 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 02:58 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 03:00 PM

I would comment here that the scope of the phrase ”the world” is key.Let’s look at the matter of sin. Romans 5:12 says that through one man Adam sin came into the world. But I would ask was the lie of the being who deceived Eve a sin? The serpent directly contradicted the word of God that she would die. If that lie was a sin then sin was somewhere in the universe if not in ”the world” yet through Adam.We know from the rest of the Bible that Satan has his legions of evil angels. Where were they when Eve was being deceived. If they were not in the world they were somewhere. There had to be sin somewhere before there could be a Satanic spirit.It is interesting that when God looks on the things He made it records that He saw that it was good, except no such pronouncement is made about the upper firmament:1.) ”And God saw that the light was good . ” (verse 3 on Day #1)
2.) “And God called the expanse heaven . ” (verse 8 on Day #2)
3.) “ Seas; and God saw that it was good” (verse 10 on Day #3)
4.) “seed in them . and God saw that it was good” (verse 12 on Day #3)
5.) “light... and God saw that it was good” (verse 18 on Day #4)
6.) “every - animal;God saw that it was good” (verse 21 on Day #5)
7.) “cattle . and God saw that it was good” (verse 25 on Day #6)
8.) “everything that He had made,..very good” (verse 31 on Day #6)Notice that on everyday of the six days except the second day, God saw something that was good. Only concerning the spatial air above the earth does it not say that He saw that it was good.Now this could be insignificant or a coincidence. Or it could be an indication that something about the air above the earth was not altogether good.Satan is called ”the ruler of the authority of the air, . the spirit which is now operating in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2).An unemployed Satan and his unemployed legions of evil angels were probably in the air. They were deprived of their principality in the pre-Adamic age. And they were sullenly looking on to see how God would commit the earth to this new dusty creation man. I believe that for the serpent to be in the garden opposing God with a slanderous lie indicates that the Devil and his hosts were lurking nearby in the air. This may explain why God withheld the pronouncement on Day #2 that He saw that the firmament of the air was good.If Satan and his legions had previously sinned then sin was lurking nearby already though it had not yet entered the world through Adam until he too fell to its temptation. So the scope of the phrase ”into the world” must be considered in Romans 5:12.Now what about death? I would not resort to scientific evidences of ancient death. But I would ask those who say no death could be in the world before Adam's disobedience to explain the pitch in Genesis 6:14.”Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make rooms in the ark and shall cover it within and without with pitch”I am told that the tarish pitch is related to fossil fuels. This is an indication of death and decay. Since this pitch was to coat the ark it was found in the ground prior to the great flood. Could this not then argue for an indication that death and decay was present at some ancient time on the planet?So the world into which Adam permitted sin to enter, has its scope. It may not include all previous ages. And the sinful acts of Satan to seduce man indicate that sin was in existence somewhere close enough to lurk for an opportunity to flood into Adam’s world.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 03:06 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 03:10 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 03:12 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-13-2005 03:13 PM

Herepten,I am sorry that I have not had time yet to respond to what was a very interesting post from you. I hope you can submit other insights. That was a pretty fresh way of putting the matter.