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Preface Introduction Chapters Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Appendices Appendix I Appendix II Appendix III Appendix IV Appendix V Appendix VI Appendix VII Appendix VIII Appendix IX Appendix X Appendix XI Appendix XII Appendix XIII Appendix XIV Appendix XV Appendix XVI Appendix XVII Appendix XVIII Appendix XIX Appendix XX Appendix XXI Indexes References Names Biblical References General Bibliography |
MODERN OBJECTIONS. One of the remarkable things about this whole controversy has been the extraordinary
vehemence of those who oppose the concept of a hiatus between verse 1
and 2 and it may be taken, I think, as an index of the amount of
precise knowledge generally available.
In order to give added force
to their words, critics sometimes gather together all the
peripheral ideas which happen to have become attach- ed to the central thesis
which they oppose and present this hodge- podge of miscellaneous
opinions as if it were a quite essential part of it. They then proceed to
demolish this artificial construct with the ease that one might
expect. But adherents of the theory
freq- uently do not subscribe to
these more venturesome reconstructs at all. In this volume we have tried as far as
possible to avoid any but the basic issues. One particularly recurrent phrase in the New Testament which is often held to give strong
support to our view of the significance of Gen. 1.2 is dealt with in
Appendix XIX. This is the reference
to "the foundation of
the world" which may possibly be better rendered "the disruption of
the world". But I cannot under score too strongly that such an argument is not
the basis of this thesis. Interpreting this recurrent phrase in
one particular way may strengthen one's conviction that this is
indeed the true significance of Gen.l.2, but it does not, in my view,
constitute an unequivocal proof.
Yet, in pg
1 of 15 spite of this disclaimer, it seems rather likely that some critic will set out to demolish the
contents of this Appendix, thereby supposing that he has once for all
disposed of the argument! But in the
mean- time, I should like to
deal briefly with the comments and conclusions of some of those who have
written against the position taken in this volume. In 1946, as already mentioned, two Papers were published in The Transactions of the
Victoria Institute (London), one by a Mr. P. W. Howard and the other by
Professor F. F. Bruce. Heward wrote
in favour of the thesis
presented here and Bruce against it.
To my mind, both did an
excellent job, neither being unfair to the other, nor exaggerating their own
claims. In the discussion
afterwards, several points were raised
on both sides and answered fairly and well. Naturally, I read Howard's Paper with
greater sympathy than that by Bruce, but I
believe it is objectively true to say that there was no exaggeration and no
mis-statement in Howard's review of the evidence. 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 re- garding the correct
translation of Professor Bruce was unaware
of this or did not feel it really altered Dillman's basic position,
for in spite of his later admission I do not think 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 nullifies the basis of
Bruce's appeal to Dillman for support - at least, in so far as verse 2 is
concerned. The other point is in
connection with his treatment of Jonah 3. 3b, a sentence which in its
structure precisely parallels Gen. 1.2. Bruce concludes that if Gen. 1.2
is to be rendered "the earth became a ruin" after God had created it
otherwise, then we must say that Nineveh became a metropolis after Jonah
entered it. But I do not believe this is what the author
intended - and neither does Professor Bruce. However, there are (as we
have shown*) numerous instances where, * See Chapter III.
in narrating a series of events, the Hebrew writer reverts back to a prior circumstance that bear son what is to follow. Such sentences are best handled by
translating the opening conjunction (waw) as "Now, etc. etc.". Thus Jonah 3.3b would be rendered,
"Now Nineveh had become.. ." That is to say, the writer never
intended the reader to suppose that
Nineveh became great just because Jonah entered it, but rather
that it had already grown into a very large city by the time he arrived
there. It should be mentioned in passing that Driver admits here the
propriety of "become" in this passage. This rendering would, of
course, be quite acceptable for Gen. 1.2 also - although "But the
earth had become...." would be perhaps more appropriate than "Now
the earth, etc.". I do not
think Bruce's argument is logical in
this case, but these are not very serious criticism sand certainly
they are not criticisms of the style or tone of either Paper. It is with some surprise,
therefore, that one finds a reference to these two Papers in a work
by F. A. Filby entitled Creation Rev- ealed, where a footnote tells
us that while Bruce's Paper is a scholarly piece of work
and conclusively against our view, the Paper by Heward "contains a
number of statements which are only partly true, interspersed with
much padding and special pleading".
I wonder which were the
"partly true" statements? And I cannot find any evidence of
"special pleading": but I suppose this depends upon one's initial bias. In his book, Filby opens
his summary review of the 'gap' theory with a general statement
to the effect that it is to be attributed to "the Scottish
Preacher, Dr. Chalmers", a statement which is far from the truth, as we have
seen. He then sets forth the theory as he understands it and
concludes that it is without foundation: "The contention that the verb in verse 2 means 'to become' waste and void rather than
it 'was' so has been examined by scholars, and the judgment
of the best Hebraists is that the text is most naturally
translated 'was'." So the subject is
summarily dismissed with the observation: "The gap-theory is
then unscriptural, unscientific, and unreasonable, and -
rejecting it completely - we can return to the simple (sic)
study of verse 2." Recently, I had occasion
to see a small Paper by a Christian writer, well known and of
some stature, entitled, The Length of the Creative Days, in which the issue is
again given cursory notice and equally summarily
dismissed. The author, referring to
it as a "theory which we
reject", says: "Our objections to
this theory are (1) that it rests upon not one single grain of
evidence, and (2) that it was invented in order to harmonize
geology with Scripture and not simply to interpret Scripture as
it stands." Subsequently, he adds: "It is true that the
verb 'to be' in Hebrew is sometimes used to mean 'became' if
the context demands it, but the verb as it stands is 'was' as
anyone (sic) who has studied Hebrew will testify. There is not the slightest hint in the
context that the unusual
(my emphasis) meaning 'became' should be read. In fact, we should either find the
preposition 'to' (
read 'become' (see Gen. 2.
7) or else we should find from the context that 'was' has
some such meaning as 'was potentially'. Neither of these is the
case." In the light of what has
been shown of the facts in this volume, it seems hardly necessary to make any comment on these observations. Another very unfortunate
effort at criticism of this view appeared in the Annual Volume of The
Creation Research Society for 1965. Since this is a Journal
which I have consistently found to be most valuable and which is
always carefully documented, the article seems to me to have been even
more out of character. Here the
theory has very short shrift at
the hands of one author who informs the reader that; "It is true that there
are six instances in the Pentateuch where the verb is
translated 'became' (Gen. 3.22; 19.26; 21.20; Exod.7.19; 8.17and
9.10). In each of these cases, however, the context
clearly shows that a change of state has occurred.... Because Gen. 1.2 lacks contextual support for translating this verb
'became' no English version of Genesis has ever
translated it this way." One continually runs into
this appeal to the absence of "contextual" support. But what is the context of such a passage as this if not the bias of the reader? It is, after all, only the second verse
of the Bible. Can one establish a "context"
in such a situation? As for the statement that
there are only six instances in the Pent- ateuch where the verb
that this was a printer's
error. There are at least seventeen
cases where
Authorized Version (for a
list of these, see page 55). Other
English Versions, such as the
Revised Standard Version, etc., increase this total. So it is
difficult to know how this list of six occurrences was arrived at. In any event, it is apparent that even this
mis- count is based on only a
single translation, and an English one at that. What of other translations whether in
English or any other language? What of the Vulgate with its thirteen
occurrences in Genesis Chapter One alone:
and what of the Septuagint with its twenty- two occurrences in Genesis
One, and with some 1500 in the Old Testament as a whole? It
is sincerely to be hoped that the real facts of the case will in time
become more common knowledge so that statements like this will
not pass unchallenged, even by a Christian editor not trained as a
Hebraist. The same writer proposes
that "became" is only proper for the Hebrew
with any certainty that
verse 2 does not indicate a change ?
This is really the whole point
at issue. I believe there was a change, a breakdown in the
originally created order. The writer's argument has no force whatever, for
it simply begs the issue.... One of the earliest
critics of this view was Professor M. M. Kalisch who had no
sympathy with the ideas held by such scholars as Delitzsch, or Kurtz, or
any other continental scholar of like mind. In his Historical and
Critical Commentary of the Old Test- ament published in 1858, he
says: "It is inadmissible to translate Gen. 1.2 'But afterwards
the earth had become...' " Presumably he had Dathe in mind, for
this was Dathe's rendering. But he states his opinion of those who shared
Dathe's views as to the implications of Gen. 1.2 in no
uncertain terms. He says: "Now most of the modern followers of this opinion believe that an indefinite
interval of time elapsed between the creation of matter recorded in the
first verse and the formation of the world in its present
admirable order, a period sufficiently extensive to account for
the various and repeated changes both in the condition of
the earth and the sidereal systems.
So that the first chapter
does not, in fact, fix the antiquity of the globe at all. But the
supposition is absolutely untenable for the following reason:
verse 2 evidently stands in very close connection with
verse 1 which it qualifies and defines . The connecting particle
'and' (waw) expresses here necess- arily immediate
sequence....; It is utterly impossible to separate the first two
verses and to suppose between them an immense period of
time." His "proof text"
is Exod.20.11. He assumes that this
passage records the whole creative
process as being completed in six days. He thus holds that since
the sun was not "created" till the fourth day, the world as a scene
of living things could not have existed before then. He is, however, overlooking the fact that Exod.20.11 does not say that God created
the world in this period of six days, but only that He appointed it (
The verb used here is rendered "make" on numerous occasions of course, but it often
has the sense of "appointing", just as the word is so used in the Greek of
Heb.6.20, "made a High Priest"; or the English phrase "made
a judge", for example. The work of the six days need not have
involved the creation of the sun and stars at all. They were probably already
in existence. See further on Exod. 20.11 in Appendix XX. He is also ignoring the
fact that "and" ( * With this pronouncement
one may contrast Driver's conclusion in his Hebrew Tenses (p. 84);
where after giving a number of instances in
which the usual Hebrew word order is departed from (as it is
in Gen.1.2) in order to express a pluperfect, he says:
"And each of these passages., by avoiding waw consecutive (the
usual way to express contin- uing action, ACC) the
writer cuts
the connection (Driver's emphasis) with the
immediately preceding narrative, and so suggests a
pluperfect". Obviously Driver and
Kalisch can hardly both be right. And in view of the fact that Driver's statement not only occurs
in a scholarly but classic work on the Hebrew verb but is in
this case based on a series of illustrative examples, I
am inclined to accept. Driver's word against the rather
dogmatic statements of Kalisch.
or paragraph or even a chapter or a whole
book with no connection whatever with what went
before. Ezekiel opens with it, for example! With what does it here have
a "necessary" connection?
A new section, in I Chron. 11.1,
is begun after a seven year interval, and in Ezra 7.1 after an
interval of 58 years.... Further illustrations will be found in Appendix
XIV. That the word is often dis-junctive must have been known well
enough to Kalisch, so that one wonders how he can say that it must
necessarily be interpreted conjunctively. Kalisch is fully persuaded that the ideas of people like Delitzsch and Kurtz, who sought to supply
the details of the events in the interval from other parts of
Scripture, are quite worthless in themselves and unbecoming to scholars. He
is quite ungracious in his references to them. On the other hand,
Delitzsch was a man of very different temperament, gracious in
his reference to those who disagreed with him and unhesitatingly
giving credit to their soundness of scholarship (where this was due) even
in his detractors. Delitzsch, as we have seen, held very firm and quite
elaborate views respecting the cir- cumstances surrounding the
condition described in Gen. 1.2 – but he did not base his views on
the linguistic evidence, never actually agreeing that 'became'
would be a more correct translation.
This latter opinion of his is
not infrequently quoted as proof of the un- scholarliness of the
"gap" theory (as it has been by Dr, Henry Morris) but those who refer thus to
Delitzsch's opinion are often not aware that he actually supported
the view strongly, even though he did not base it on Gen. 1.2. Driver was much impressed
by Delitzsch, both as a scholar and as a commentator,* and
while in his Lexicon and in his Hebrew Tenses, Driver rendered Gen. 1.2
as "and the earth was..." when- ever he referred to it, he
nevertheless frankly acknowledged that the view supported by Delitzsch
and Pusey and others, though in his opinion improbably, was
"exegetically admissible".# Like Kalisch, Driver felt that since the
sun had not been "created" until the fourth * Of Delitzsoh, Driver
wrote (Hebrew Tenses, p.xi, xii) "And by sobriety,
fullness of information, and scholarship combined, Delitzsoh has
succeeded in making his commentary indispensible to every
student of the Old Testament." # Driver does not always
follow his own "rules".
Thus although he wrote at length
on both the use of
meaning "became"
and the changed word order as signifying a
day, it was "scientifically
incredible" that a world could have supp- orted the higher forms of
life in a world without sunlight.
This objection is based on a
misunderstanding which again results from confusing the two verbs bara
and 'asah, "to create "and "to appoint". Driver's liberal views were
shared by John Skinner who, while holding that the Bible was
a remarkable enough document of antiquity, felt no qualm sin
challenging its accuracy. Skinner
contributed the volume on Genesis in The
International Critical Commentary of which Driver was one of the
editors. In this volume. Skinner dis- misses our interpretation
with aplomb! Thus he writes: "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". As F. F. Bruce rightly
remarked when referring to this observation in his Paper in The
Transactions of the Victoria Institute, this is |
