HARLEY HITCHCOCK
PO Box 310 Mt Ommaney
Australia 4074
Is there a
time gap between the first two verses of the Bible?
As always,
we’ll let the plain English of the Authorized Bible, to tell
us what it means as we study to show ourselves approved to no-one but
God
himself (2Tim2:15).
Which of
the following is
correct?
And the
earth WAS without form, and void; and
darkness was upon the face of
the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Gen 1:2)
or
And the
earth BECAME without form, and void; and
darkness was upon the face of
the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
A major
argument of the gap theorists is that the second is correct. Of
course, this means that they must change the clear and plain reading of
the
Authorized Bible – the King James, to fit their doctrinal position.
As we have
stated in a previous tract, the second verse of the Bible
begins with the Hebrew conjuctive waw which
is a disjunctive, and that means,
the second verse is simply a description
of the first verse.
On this
evidence alone, there is no
room whatsoever, for sequential action of a becoming
to occur in verse two.
In fact
the three uses of the word ‘and’ in And the earth, and darkness and And the Spirit of God in this verse, are all, and only,
descriptions
of Gen 1:1.
Verse two
is simply describing the condition of the earth after it was
created.
But the
Hebrew word
“hayetha” can be translated various ways can’t it?
Correct,
but this doesn’t mean that it should be. Let’s look at the
possibilities:
“Strong’s
Number 1961 hayah –
a primitive root - was, come, to pass, came, has been, were happened,
become,
pertained, better for thee”.
In writing
a Master’s Thesis on the topic of Christianity and Evolution,
E.K. Gedney surveyed twenty leading
Hebrew scholars in the USA, and ask them if there was any grammar
evidence that
would support the gap theory of Gen 1:2.
They all
said there wasn’t – they all said that the word ‘hayetha’ is
correctly translated ‘was’ not
‘became’.
‘Hayetha’ is normally and
simply translated as ‘was’, such
that, of the 264 times the Hebrew
word ‘hayetha’ is used in the OT, it is translated as ‘was’ in 258 occurrences.
The other six clearly show
why the context demands why ‘hayetha’ must be translated as ‘became’.
(a) Examples
of ‘hayetha’ translated as ‘was’
The same
grammatical construction of ‘hayetha’ being translated as ‘was’
is found in the following:
Gen 2:25
And they were both naked, the man and his wife,
and were not ashamed.
Adam and
Eve were already
naked, they didn’t become naked.
Gen 3:1
Now the
serpent was more subtil than any beast of the
field which the LORD
God had made.
And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said,
The
serpent didn’t become more subtil, he was already.
Jonah 3:3
So Jonah
arose, and went
unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD.
Now Nineveh was an exceeding great
city of three days' journey.
Obviously,
when Jonah went unto Nineveh, it was already an
exceeding great city. It did not become a great city
after Jonah had entered it.
Gen 41:56
And the
famine was over all the face of the earth: And
Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the
famine
waxed sore in the land of Egypt.
By the
time Joseph opened all the storehouses, the famine was
already in the land of Egypt – not
after his opening them.
Ex 1:5
And all
the souls that came
out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was
in Egypt already.
Judges 9:51
But there was a strong tower within the city, and
thither fled all the men and women, and all they of the city, and shut it to them, and gat them up to the
top of the tower.
There was already a strong
tower in the city to which they fled.
Zech 3:3
Now Joshua
was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the
angel.
When
Zechariah saw Joshua,
he was already clothed – he didn’t
become clothed.
(b) Six
examples of ‘hayetha’ translated as ‘became’.
Gen3:22
… God
said, Behold, the man
is become as one of us, to know good
and evil:…
Gen 19:26
But his
wife looked back
from behind him, and she became a
pillar of salt.
Clearly,
Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt after she looked
back. She wasn’t already a pillar of salt before
she did.
Gen 21:20
And God
was with the lad;
and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became
an archer.
Ex 7:19
And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say
unto Aaron,
Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, …
that they
may become blood; …
Ex 8:17
… for
Aaron stretched out
his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man, and in beast; all
the dust of the land became lice
throughout all the land of Egypt.
Ex 9:10
And they
took ashes of the
furnace,…and Moses sprinkled it up toward heaven; and it became
a boil breaking forth with
blains upon man, and upon beast.
Text
without context is
pretext
With Gen
1:2, there are no immediate words in the surrounding text that
would even hint at the suggestion, that the word ‘hayetha’ should be
translated
‘became’.
As verse
two is the description of verse one, the use of the word ‘was’
allows the text to flow smoothly and without interruption, and is
one, that
does not represent
a change of condition of the earth.
For the
gappists to use the word ‘became’, simply highlights the old
adage, that a verse out of context is pretext.
The Greek
Game
Those
familiar with the Greek Game, will recognize this version of it,
whereby you can look up the different meanings of a word in the back of
a
concordance and select the appropriate one for you. Of course, this
will entail
your substituting the King James word already in use.
In this
case, the gappist, in order to support the theory of a gap
between Gen 1:1–2, simply inserts the word ‘became’ for ‘was’.
The NIV
has ‘became’
If we need
any reminding as to the incorrect translation of ‘hayetha’,
we need look no further than the NIV. In true satanic style of posing a
question, the foot-note attached to the word ‘was’ in Gen 1:2 reads as
follows:
“Or possibly became”
There we
have it folks, straight from the mouth of the enemy.
CONCLUSION? … There
is no gap!
And
doesn’t satan just hate
the plain reading of the Authorized Bible!
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The
evidence is legion as to why there is no gap between Gen 1:1-2.
You the
need the following tracts on:
1. Freemasonry, Gnosticism
and Hindu Cosmic Cyles being at the
heart of the Gap Theory
2. The use of
the word ‘and’ as a waw disjunctive
beginning Gen 1:2 that merely describes
the Gen 1:1
3. The use of
the words ‘create’ and ‘made’ as
synonynms
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