The Gap Theory of Genesis

You limit God by saying there could be no definite days without the movement of heavenly bodies.

 

So, basically, those who believe the gap theory are questioning "Did God REALLY say/mean a day when he said "day?" That's dangerous. That's what Satan did in the garden of Eden to cause Eve to stumble. He's been doing it ever since and has succeeded in making people doubt creation as written.

If we cannot believe that the evening and morning were the first day, why should we believe the rest of the Bible? It's either all true or not. When the Bible says the Israelites marched around Jericho once a day for seven days, we don't add time to that and call it years or a long day. We take the Word at face value. When God's word says Jonah was in the belly of the fish 3 days and 3 nights, we believe it without doubting the time.

See, it's ONLY with creation that people have a problem with understanding a literal 24-hour day. That's because Darwin and others have convinced people to doubt God's word.

 

No I question the time period of the days not he days themselves. Light and Dark are the only measuring rods at that time and who knows how long or little that was? Certainly God but not you nor I. For instance on our world the rotation of the earth happens in approximately 24 hours. The same rotation on Mar is 24 hours and 39 minutes. Who knows how long light with out celestial bodies existed before darkness? And ask your self this how did the darkness appear since its the absence of light? Many things you aren't even considering. Yet you act certain of your translation. I don't really think it matters all that much as long as you get the point. However, that does not exclude scientific discoveries as you've suggested.

 

No basically your wrong.

 

No, sir, it is you who are doubting the clear language of scripture and teaching others to do so as well. "We can't know how long a day was." Nonsense. What point was there is God telling us it was a day then? Why not tell us it was an age? What you are saying is God put language in the bible that would lead people to believe that He created the world in 6 literal 24 hour days, but then pulled the rug out from under us. If God says the evening and morning were the ___ day, then I believe Him, take Him at His word, believe He is not the author of confusion, and say that is a literal 24 hour day just exactly as the term is used elsewhere in scripture. To believe anything else is to charge God with hopelessly miring His children in uncertain scriptural language.

 

Exactly. What they are also saying is noone before modern science (falsely so called) could understand the bible. While true science and true history illuminate the bible, they aren't essential to understanding the bible. Everything essential to understanding the bible is inside the bible. Otherwise the bible is not a thorough furnisher.

 

The only thing that Illuminates the Bible is the Holy Spirit.

 

Amen Sister....this was worth reposting! :thumbsup:

 

What I meant was those things, true science and history, add further corroboration to the bible. For instance, studying the rise of the Grecian Kingdom under Alexander serves to further enlighten the bible reader who has read the prophecies of him in Daniel. However, these things should not be used to set aside the clear teachings of the bible and are not necessary to understand the bible.

 

RAdam:Again, death came about as a result of man's sin in the garden of eden. You can refuse to accept that if you want, but you are taking the word of man over God. Let God be true but every man a liar. I'll take God's word.

Yes, death came to THIS age by the sins of A&E, but it came to past worlds by some other venue.

The nation of India contains 1/6 of the world's population, but it's not mentioned in Scripture whatsoever. Does that mean it doesn't exist? There were no men created in God's image in prehistoric days, so God doesn't mention those times in Scripture. But He has left us TANGIBLE, EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that earth is very old, and contained life long before He made the current arrangement.

 

No, that's another theory besides the "gap theory"... The gap theory refers to the supposed "gap" between Gen. 1:1 and Gen. 1:2. It says that there can be billions of yrs between God creating the Universe and the original Earth, and God creating the Earth as we see it today. It is what Scofield promoted... Here in the Scofield Study Bible:

and here on Gen 1:2:

As I understand it, in the gap theory, a day is still a 24 hour time period.

 

Also from the Believers Bible Commentary:

Notice it is a conservative view... Not a liberal view.

 

No, you are wrong on several counts. I've already suggested I don't hold to gap theory. So you are wrong to lump my views in with Gap theorist. Secondly I hold to a simple translation only in that God expresses whats important for us to know with in that simple view. Thirdly, I hold that God has not informed us in the creation account of how he created the world but that he did so. Fourthly I show scientific problems with the creation account that any fifth grader could point out. Such as darkness is not a substance but the absence of light. 24 hour days are measured by heavenly bodies in motion. Apart from that God does not explain that there was light (without light source) and then there was darkness ( the absence of light what did God go away?) the period of time this incorporates since the only measuring rod is not the motion of the earth but when God turns off the light. Nor does this account take into account the radiant or radiation portion of light. Fifthly, God doesn't anywhere in the creation account say that a day = 24 hours. You can only summize that by the time the heavenly bodies were made that 24 hours became instituted but according to your interpretation of the account God had to fall into your later grove of 24 hours during a time when the only distinction of time was light then dark. Light then dark on Mars last 24.39 hours are you suggesting that while God was making earth before he placed the sun in the sky that mars also had 24 hours? On jupiter light then dark last approximately 10 hours. So before God created the stars he had differing times on different planets? That would have to be your assumption. The truth is that you weren't there you have no Idea how God did it and you translate what he told you into a mythology limiting the age of the earth to 6,000 years and the creation of the universe (where by time is a constant in your view of 24 hours throughout the universe). Which we can show you is not true. So instead of being honest you claim your interpretation is the only right one and thus you are no different than the scribes Ezra established when he created the Ha-Kenessett which later became known as the Sanhedrien in Greek. You've created a tradition that according to you cannot be broken because in your mind you believe its the literal translation which does not take everything into account even in the account given. And you insist we make our children ignorent to truth discovered by processes which disagrees with you hypothesis of the bible and what it means. Sorry dumbing down christians has been a historical blunder. I am reminded of a Pentecostal preacher in the mountains of Tennessee who believed the problem with christians were education. He would have us believe since the plain translation of the bible suggest that snake bites and poison won't affect believers; believers should constantly test their faith by handling snakes and drinking small amounts of arsnic.

 

Amen. And didn't our lord say the truth shall set you free. Not an interpretation of scripture that cannot be corroberated by facts.

 

Not true! This is how doubt gets the ball rolling.....one "Uni"verse at a time.

 

In 1st Kings it says that david had 1700 horses in 1 chronicals it says he had 17000. Which is correct?

I'm not saying scriptures should take a back seat to facts I am saying something may be wrong with your interpretation if the facts don't corroberate it. Such as Joseph Smith holds that Jesus Came to the North American Continent and taught a lost tribe of Israel about himself. Just because Jesus is in the bible and Jesus rose from the dead are we to believe Joseph smiths intepretation of what happened after? There is no corroberating evidence for it.

 

What kind of "empirical evidence" did God leave those who lived before the discovery of carbon dating?

I guess the only empirical evidence they had was the simple reading of God's word. Silly people. If they only knew what science knows today.......

 

Amy, we are becoming more enlightened today.. Christians today know more about Christianity than the early Christians did...

For instance, it took centuries for the early church to define the Trinity, or to describe the incarnation.

God has allowed us humans to gain knowledge.

The early church thought the earth was flat... we know different.
Because of empirical evidence...

YES, those people were silly to our standards.. . They talked about the four corners of the Earth.. and to them those terms would have been tied to a flat earth concept.

The Hebrews thought there was a dome over the flat earth in which the sun, moon and stars moved. We know better..

The Hebrews interpreted in Joshua's time the Sun to stand still.. .which today we would explain it by saying the Earth stood still.

Science has enlightened us so that we can see more of God's glory!

Ignoring the obvious, and holding to an interpretation of a scripture just because it is what we have been taught is being silly.

It would be like saying.. I don't believe the Earth is spinning... because the Sun is moving across the sky!... The Sun moves.. .see it! And the Bible says the sun "stood still"... so it must move!...

Good Biblical Hermenuetics depends on studying all aspects of life.
True Science points toward God. Don't be afraid of Science, and what it reveals.

 

Well said Tinytim. I couldn't and didn't put it any better but you are spot on.

 

That's flat out wrong. It didn't take the early church years to define the Trinity. They understood the Trinity as well as we do.

If people believed in a flat earth it is because they didn't read the bible close enough. The bible points towards a spherical earth.

I've encountered this argument about the sun moving across the sky until I am sick of it. That information was given from our perspective, not an absolute perspective. From our perspective the sun rises in the morning, sets in the evening, and moves across the sky. These are all expressions we use today, because we are talking about our perspective. That doesn't mean that the bible was leading people to believe the sun rotated about the earth.

I'm not afraid of science, so long as it is true science built of true scientific principles. The problem is much of the modern so called science isn't built on scientific principles. Furthermore, to say a child of God needs something outside the bible to understand the bible is to say that the bible is not a thorough furnisher, which is what Paul said it was. Too bad Paul didn't have modern science, eh.