Not disagreeing with you, just throwing out a popular theory. In that case, decipher when Peter speaks of the world “then” that was standing out of water and the old Heavens and Earth. Remember, Noah’s flood did NOT destroy the Heavens. Just food for thought.Genesis 1:1-2says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
I have heard the gap theory before. With all due respect, all that’s happening here in verse two is a statement of the conditions as God creates the heavens and the earth. I have heard of the belief that there was some long period of time in between the two verses but again verse 2 is just a statement of the existing conditions just before He spoke light into existence.
If you consider the implications of huge periods of time in between the verses it lends to a belief of another created order of things which lived and died before Adam and Eve’s sin. The problem with this is that there was no death until sin. Genesis 1:31 upon completion of His creation says, “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” Creation was “very good” until sin.
Romans 5:12 says, "Therefore just as through one man sin entered the world,and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned-’ We know that the ground was cursed as a result of sin from Genesis chapter 3, and that the “whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now” from Romans 8:22.
Be careful of any theory that promotes the idea of death before sin, they are unbiblical.
What is the GAP theory?What do you guys think of the GAP theory between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 that could’ve lasted millions of years?
See Jeremiah 4:23, Isaiah 14 and even Ezekiel as it “may or not” refer to this. Interesting stuff.
Why do you believe there were great intervals in time?I dont dogmatically follow any systematic theory on creation, but I do believe there were great intervals of time, and not literal 24 days. I believe that the days are used metaphorically for humans through the centuries to somewhat grasp the complex order that God created the universe.
Actually day one has evening and morning, but the sun was not created until the fourth day. In my the Aquinas Study Bible I quoted Aquinas and St. Ephrem,Then why did the writer include the words “and the evening and the morning were the third (fourth, etc.) day.” Why is that in there?
At this point, I’m leaning toward Special Creation, with no connection at all to any human-like creatures or hominids.
Peace,
Ed
This leads me to believe that the Creation story is historical, but it was complex enough to have some things written in simple terms with metaphors for humans to comprehend.The light was not the sun but was like a bright mist over the face of the earth. Perhaps it was like the dawn or like the pillar that gave light in the wilderness to the people in Exodus. (St. Ephrem the Syrian) Or that the light was the sun’s light, formless as yet, being already the solar substance, and possessing illuminative power in a general way, to which was afterwards added the special and determinative power required to produce determinate effects. (St. Thomas Aquinas)