Gap creationism

Long before the modern study of geology, early church writers have examined the biblical text and considered the idea that between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2 was an indeterminate period when the created world fell into chaos. Often it is linked with the idea that the angelic realm was originally entrusted with power over the earth which concluded with a betrayal of that trust when a number of them followed Satan in rebellion against God. Papias of Hierapolis (c. 60 - c. 130 AD) wrote, "To some of them [angels] He gave dominion over the arrangement of the world, and He commissioned them to exercise their dominion as well... but it happened that their arrangement came to nothing."[4] Twentieth Century Cardinal Jean Danielou explains, "Andreas of Caesarea tells us that Papias taught that God had conferred on certain angels the task of administering the Earth, and that they betrayed that trust."[5] In the 3rd Century, Origen of Alexandria (c. 184 - c. 253) taught in his Homily on Genesis that there were two creations in Gen. 1:1 and Gen. 1:2, and a time gap between the two; the first was a spiritual realm, the second a physical realm, though he was not exactly sure what the prior creation was.[6] St. Jerome (c. 347 - 420) wrote that Origen taught that a world existed before our own, and another will exist thereafter, and so on, in constant succession.[7]

By the Medieval period it was apparently a familiar issue. Flemish Catholic writer Hugh of Saint Victor (1097 - 1141) wrote in reference to Gen. 1:1 and 1:2: "perhaps enough has already been debated on these matters thus far, if we could add only, how long did the world remain in this disorder before the regular ordering of it was taken in hand? But how long it continued in this state of confusion scripture does not clearly show."[8] St. Thomas Aquinas analyzed these verses in his Summa Theologica and wrote, "It seems better to maintain the view that the creation of the heavens and the earth was prior to any of the days, literally before the days.", i.e., there was first the creation of the earth, and then the enumerated "days of creation."[9]

French Jesuit theologian Denis Petau (1583-1652), referring to the time gap implied between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2, wrote, "The question of how great an interval there was, it is not possible, except by inspiration, to obtain knowledge of it."[10] Catholic philosopher Benedict Pereira (1535-1610) wrote, "even though before the last day, the heavens and the elements were made subsequent to the substance, nevertheless, they were not perfected, completely furnished until the period of six days. However long that darkest day of the world lasted, whether it lasted one day or more than one day or less than one day is not clear to me or any other moral, unless one is divinely made so."[11]

In Jewish writings, the Genesis Rabbah states, "other worlds were created and destroyed before this present world was decided on as the permanent one"[12] and the Zohar comments on Genesis 2:4 and connects it with the Hebrew tohu va bohu (without form and void) found in Genesis 1:2 and states, "And these are the generations of the destruction 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."[13]

Gap creationism became increasingly attractive near the end of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries, because the newly established science of geology had determined that the Earth was far older than common interpretations of Genesis and the Bible-based flood geology would allow. Gap creation allowed religious geologists (who composed the majority of the geological community at the time) to reconcile their faith in the Bible with the new authority of science. According to the doctrine of natural theology, science was in this period considered a second revelation, God's word in nature as well as in Scripture, so the two could not contradict each other.[14]

From 1814,[14] gap creationism was popularized by Thomas Chalmers,[15] who attributed the concept to the 17th-century Dutch Arminian theologian Simon Episcopius. Chalmers wrote,

"My own opinion, as published in 1814, is that it [Genesis 1:1] forms no part of the first day, but refers to a period of indefinite antiquity when God created the worlds out of nothing. The commencement of the first day's work I hold to be the moving of God's Spirit upon the face of the waters. We can allow geology the amplest time...without infringing even on the literalities of the Mosaic record."[16]

Chalmers became a divinity professor at the University of Edinburgh, founder of the Free Church of Scotland, and author of one of the Bridgewater Treatises. Other early proponents included Oxford University geology professor and fellow Bridgewater author William Buckland, Sharon Turner and Edward Hitchcock.[14]

It gained widespread attention when a "second creative act"[17] was discussed prominently in the reference notes for Genesis in the influential 1917 Scofield Reference Bible.[14]

In 1954, a few years before the re-emergence of young Earth flood geology eclipsed Gap creationism, influential evangelical theologian Bernard Ramm wrote in The Christian View of Science and Scripture:[14]

"The gap theory has become the standard interpretation throughout hyper-orthodoxy, appearing in an endless stream of books, booklets, Bible studies, and periodical articles. In fact, it has become so sacrosanct with some that to question it is equivalent to tampering with Sacred Scripture or to manifest modernistic leanings".

This book by Ramm was influential in the formation of another alternative to gap creationism, that of progressive creationism, which found favour with more conservative members of the American Scientific Affiliation (a fellowship of scientists who are Christians), with the more modernist wing of that fellowship favouring theistic evolution.[18]

Religious proponents of this form of creationism have included Oral Roberts, Cyrus I. Scofield, Harry Rimmer, Jimmy Swaggart,[19] Perry Stone, G. H. Pember, L. Allen Higley,[14] Arthur Pink, Peter Ruckman, Finis Jennings Dake, Chuck Missler, E. W. Bullinger, Charles Welch, [20] Victor Paul Wierwille,[21] Donald Grey Barnhouse, Herbert W. Armstrong, Garner Ted Armstrong, Michael Pearl and Clarence Larkin.[22]

Gap creationism

Some gap creationists may believe that science has proven beyond reasonable doubt that the Earth is far older than can be accounted for by, for instance, adding up the ages of Biblical patriarchs and comparing it with secular historical data, as James Ussher famously attempted in the 17th century when he developed the Ussher chronology.

For some, the gap theory allows both the Genesis creation account and geological science to be inerrant in matters of scientific fact. Gap creationists believe that certain facts about the past and the age of the Earth have been omitted from the Genesis account; they hold that there was a gap of time in the Biblical account that lasted an unknown number of years between a first creation in Genesis 1:1 and a second creation in Genesis 1:2-31. By positing such an event, various observations in a wide range of fields, including the age of the Earth, the age of the universe, dinosaurs, fossils, ice cores, ice ages, and geological formations are allowed by adherents[23][24][25][25] to have occurred as outlined by science without contradicting their literal belief in Genesis.

Because there is no specific information given in Genesis concerning the proposed gap of time, other scriptures are used to support and explain what may have occurred during this period and to explain the specific linguistic reasoning behind this interpretation of the Hebrew text. A short list of examples is given below:

• The Masoretic text contains a small mark at the end of Genesis 1:1, referred to as a rebhia, which acts as a "disjunctive accent", indicating that the reader is to pause before proceeding to the next verse. It is one indication, among others, that the waw which introduces verse 2 should be translated "but" rather than "and".[26]
• The word "was" in Genesis 1:2 for some adherents is more accurately translated "became". Such a word choice makes the gap interpretation easier to see in modern English.[24][27][28]
• God is perfect and everything He does is perfect, so a newly created earth from the hand of God should not have been without form and void and shrouded in darkness. Deuteronomy 32:4, Isaiah 45:18 1 John 1:5[23][24][28]
• The Holy Spirit was "renewing" the face of the earth as he hovered over the face of the waters. Psalms 104:30[24][28]
• Angels already existed in a state of grace when God "laid the foundations of the Earth", so there had been at least one creative act of God before the six days of Genesis. Job 38:4-7[24]
• Satan and his angels caused war in Heaven (Revelation 12:7-9) and had fallen from grace (Isaiah 14:12) (Luke 10:18) "in the beginning" which, since the serpent tempted Adam and Eve, had to have occurred before the Fall of man. Isaiah 14:12-15, Ezekiel 28:11-19, John 8:44[23][24]

• Answers in Genesis
• Dating Creation
• Yom

• Chafer, Lewis Sperry (1964). Satan: His Motive and Methods (reprint ed.). Zondervan. ISBN 0-310-22361-X.
• Custance, Arthur C. (2008). Without Form and Void: A Study of the Meaning of Genesis 1:2 (reprint ed.). Classic Reprint Press. ISBN 978-1934251331.
• Gaebelein, Arno (1991). The History of the Scofield Reference Bible (reprint ed.). Living Words Foundation. ISBN 0-9628169-0-6.
• Larkin, Clarence (2005). Dispensational Truth (reprint ed.). Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 0-7661-8427-7.
• Numbers, Ronald (November 30, 2006). The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, Expanded Edition. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-02339-0.
• Pember, George (1987). Earth's Earliest Ages (reprint ed.). Kregel Publications. ISBN 0-8254-3533-1.
• Pink, Arthur (2007). Gleanings in Genesis (reprint ed.). Filiquarian Publishing, LLC. ISBN 1-59986-741-9.
• Thieme, Robert (1974). Creation: Chaos and Restoration. Berachah Tapes and Publications.

• Sailhammer, John, Genesis Unbound (Multnomah Books, 1996, ISBN 0-88070-868-9).