Can someone explain me Genesis 1:2 ?

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Is it possible to transelated "became" insted of "was" ? i

If not so why should God created the world in such confussion and ruined mass, some said that maybe between vers 1 and vers 2 some terrible catastrophe took place, perhaps the fall of satan ?

What do you think ?

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* Ralph Wilms (7-10-1974)
* Church : Christengemeente Roermond (The Netherlands)
* 1729 Goat Yard Declaration of Faith & 1646 Baptist Confession of faith

"To our mind, either everything or nothing must be held in subjection to the will and providence of God. Even the wickedness of ungodly men is restricted by predestination, so that the wrath of man shall praise God, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain." - GILBERT BEEBE (1800-1881)

Why didn't the Lord simply say "let all be" and have the Earth spring into existence out of nothing, completely formed? Why did He take 6 days? The Word simply describes what God did.

I'm also not sure it's our place to say that God's working in this way left something that was "ruined" - I don't know why "without form and void" is a bad thing, which you seem to imply. Many have gone there before, and do assert, as you suggest, some "re-creation" myth (and many put Satan's fall there). If God "recreated" the world, then He'd have told us that Himself.

We're also not told when God created the angels, Satan included, apparently because it's not important for us to know when God created the angels. We're also not told when Satan fell because, I believe, it is unimportant WHEN he fell. We do, though, know He has been fallen "from the beginning" - not that he was created evil, but that he fell very early, and certainly before day 6. This is all the Bible tells us, however, and it's not profitable to go much further than that.

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Todd K. Pedlar
member, First Congregational Church, (CCCC) Cresco, IA
http://inprincipiodeus.solideogloria.com
http://puritanwisdom.blogspot.com

"As God did not at first choose you because you were high, He will not now forsake you because you are low."
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The term you used "ruined mass" cannot be supported by scripture. And indicates your support for this Gap theory. We should be careful to let scripture say what it says. and avoid specualtion about what it does not say. When you do you get silly ideas like the gap theory.

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Pastor Mark A. Mitchell
Senior Pastor/ Second Chance Baptist Church
SBC Affiliated
Wauchula Florida

see Jeremiah 4.22-25, this should assist you

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John
Evangelical Free Church, no offices held
Langhorne, PA

[B]δός δοξαν τῳ θεῳ.[/B]
[B]ιδου ποιω τα εσχατα ως τα πρωτα.
הבל הבלים[/B]

That quotation should assist whom?

There have been attempts, since the advent of the Darwinian era, to find room for evolutionary scale in Genesis--i.e. harmonization with "known facts of science." Rather than get sidetracked, I simply stipulate here that evolution is a philosophical, not a scientific position, and many of the "know facts" alluded to have long since been abandoned as "known errors."

Room was "found", therefore, between vv1&2 of Gen1. Two creations, the first which would give allow for an unknown history (so far as the Bible gave information), except it might put Satan's fall inside of cosmic history, and give it a corporeal stage. So, then, starting at verse 2, history could start, a re-creation, genealogies accepted, etc. And all the evolutionary scale of things, uncritically accepted, relegated to verse 1.

Later attempts have been made to correlate the Gen account to other ANE "creation myths" which include details having to do with god-battles and the like, as part of their cyclical world-view and chain-of-being ontology. This, of course, brings Genesis down into the realm of man-made literature, and sunders it from a truth-telling discourse meant to relate real events over against pagan myths. But it is precisely what might be expected as the outgrowth of earlier accommodation (less obvious perhaps) to pagan origins-mythology. Evolution is at least as old as pre-Christian Greek philosophy.

Exegetically, there is no basis for inserting an alternative copula ("be" verb) into the text at v1. Some other view has to be driving that train to make it plausible.

V1 is an all encompassing, introductory statement. If it describes anything at all temporally, one might be able to detect the calling into being of the "stuff" of creation--i.e. matter where there was no matter, the ex nihilo of creation. Which unformed and unfilled, waste and void (tohu v bohu), God then imposes order on.

See, then, the order of creation: 1) nothing; 2) matter; 3) matter ordered and regulated.

[edit: and see my additional note below for a continuation, re. tohu v bohu, and Jer4]

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


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I can't speak for Synd., but I understand the Jeremiah passage as teaching that God's judgments will be as a "creation reversal," that is in the abolition of Judah the feeling that should come upon people is that the cosmos is coming apart, and God's order is being undone, by himself of course.

In fact, Genesis 1:1 and 2 makes VERY clear the fact that there was literally NOTHING, and then God spoke, and there was "stuff". God did not make the universe out of pre-existing matter, but he made that, too. I have used the illustration with my kids in discussing how things get made - that we never truly "make" anything, but we use the raw materials that God has given us to make the things we use. God didn't need that - for he created every atom, every particle by His very word, and produced the universe from what he had called into existence.

The following article should be helpful. It specifically interacts with Bruce Waltke's views from his book Creation and Chaos.

It is titled "Genesis 1:1-2: Creation or Recreation"
http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_...1Pt1-BSsac.pdf

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Jim
1689 LBCF
Independent Bible Church
North Texas, USA

Thomas Chalmers introduced the novelty of the Gap Theory in the first years of the 1800s. It rapidly became a default position for those who were struggling with reconciling the emerging uniformitarian geology with scipripture. Most competent Hebrew scholars and commentaries will demonstrate the extreme improbability if not actual impossibility of the interpretation.

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Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
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Actually, it can. Isaiah 24:10 uses "tohu", the first of those two terms in Gen. 1:2, to describe the utterly ruined and broken down state of the city of man (termed the City of Chaos, here by Isaiah). The context of the larger passage of 24:1-13 within the Isaianic Apocalypse of chapters 24-27 clearly makes this translation of the word the right choice, although the term is often used elsewhere in Scripture to describe a state of emptiness or vanity.

I do not think that the fall of Satan must necessarily be read into the passage because of this, but you cannot rule out that translation as being unsupportable by Scripture on lexical grounds alone.

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Adam J. Myer
Slated for the Jan. 10th Chaplains Basic Officer Leadership Course
Estacada Christian Church
Sandy, Oregon

Soli Deo Gloria

A very old conversation dealing with this: http://www.puritanboard.com/f60/lucifer-s-fall-910/

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Dad
Christ Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCGA
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It is God that multiplies our sorrows.... God, as a righteous Judge, does it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are, we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God, as a tender Father, does it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from the world by all our sorrows; and the good we get by them, with the comfort we have under them, will abundantly balance our sorrows, how greatly soever they are multiplied. - Matthew Henry

Again, while not necessarily supporting the theory itself, it must be affirmed that the perfect form of "hayah" (what is here translated as "was") may indeed possess a fientive and progressive, rather than a stative and completed, verbal aspect. What this means is that, yes, you could translate that verb as "became" rather than "was". This is a less frequent use, and it is much more often found that the imperfect form of that verb is used to describe a state of "becoming", but it can be found in Scripture.

You can look up a few good examples of this in Genesis 2:10, 47:26; Exodus 9:24; Psalm 114:2, 118:22; Isaiah 1:21, 22, and 31.

There are more, but those are enough to establish the usage elsewhere in Scripture.

Actually it cannot. While the word "bohu" can be used as ruin it is clearly used in the contexts of "void" or "emptiness". The context of the ch is set in v.1 "In the begining". Bohu is therfore correclty translated "void", "empty", or "emptiness". The translation "ruin" sets up the false notion of creation having been destroyed and in need of rebuilding. Context is King. If it is not in context then scripture no where supports it.

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Benjamin P. Glaser, M. Div, Licentiate, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church
Member Fairmount ARP Church
Pittsburgh, PA

Deo Vindice

1. I was discussing the term "tohu".

2. "Bohu", which you were discussing, only occurs twice in Scripture, both times in conjunction with the above term, both times speaking in a creational context, and both times describing emptiness (whereas tohu is used for ruin on occasion).

3. You ignored the discussion of Isaiah's apocalypse, and its use of that term to describe a ruined waste.

4. I've taken time to write exegetical papers upon, and prepare sermons from, those chapters in Isaiah from the Hebrew. There are scholarly articles and several standard Bible translations that speak the opposite to what you have asserted. If you still think that your opinion is correct, I cannot help you on that, but please realize that there are competent Hebrew scholars and commentators on Isaiah who would tell you that you are wrong.

Just to make clear, for those of you who may be confused on this, I am posting these corrections in defense of a better understanding of Hebrew grammar and lexicography for those on this board who have no training in this area, and not because I care one way or another about the theory under discussion.

It would be preferable for those who have no formal academic training in semitic languages to refrain from making absolute statements regarding how Hebrew grammar and translation works. It sets forth both a poor understanding and unhelpful assertions to those who may be listening to what you are saying. There is a great deal of flexibility in how verbal aspect and contextual lexicography can be interpreted in many cases, and black and white statements without appeal to particular grammatical arguments, broader lexical usage, and better commentators and scholars is rarely helpful in obtaining the most sound interpretation of a passage.

[quote=Archlute;399423]


I did adress the wrong one.



It isnt relevent to this discussion. The context of the Isaiah passage is not "In the begining". Just because any particular word is used in one context in another passage doesn't even imply its usage in this passage. As if the Isaiah passage is the standard for how it should be used everywhere. Such a n otion could be used in reverse as well I suppose.

Even Hebrew scholars can have an agenda.

I prefer my translation of Genesis 1.

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Rev. Lane Keister
Teaching Elder, PCA, North Dakota (working out of bounds in a CRC and an RCA church)
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Some may in some passages, but it must be proved. I really see no reason why anyone would have an agenda with this term in Isaiah. Especially not the conservative, evangelical scholars whom I also have read.

The passage in Isaiah is relevant in as much as it shows a semantic range for the word, and therefore opens up the possibility for this word to mean a state of ruin in other passages. It does not necessitate it, but allows for that possibility. I would say that its use in Genesis 1:2 could still mean "ruin" apart from our notion of the moral negativity of that term in the English language in as much as it denotes a state of disorder and chaos, which is clearly understood to be the case from what follows, namely God's bringing order to the earth out of a disorderly and unformed state. Satan's fall is not required to see the preformed earth as being in a state of "ruin". The "wasted" or "ruined" city in Isaiah 24 has also been termed the City of Chaos by other commentators, which would fall in line with a state of pre-formed chaos in Gen. 1:2, although the chaos and ruin in the universal City of Man found in Isaiah comes mainly from God's leveling of it. Regardless of how the earth or the city came to be in that state, they are still both the same at that point - in disorder, chaos, and unsuited for habitation.

I never saw this in the context of moral negativity. And the use of the term ruin isnt supported in the context of this passage. Ruin implies there was once order and then a fall. Creation "In the begining" has not been created prior to this moment. So ruin is not possible and certainly doesnt fit in this context. Again context is King.

Keep on throwing that phrase out there to win a debate if you'd like, but context, while important, is not a trump card. Serious exegesis requires study of a number of other areas besides, some of which I have already mentioned.

Again, I could care less about a discussion regarding the gap theory, but you need to take semantic range and other areas with seriousness in your exegesis. In all politeness I'd like to ask you if you attended a well-run seminary that sought to equip you in your theological and exegetical endeavors before you entered the pastorate?

I'm not a moderator, nor a linguistic scholar....however, I'm sure the English translation conveys enough of the meaning of Paul's Greek when it says, "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." (Eph. 4:2)

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Joel Batts
Christ Presbyterian Church (PCA) - Memphis, TN

I believe that many would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand. - CS Lewis

The only thing you have mentioned is that it is used in another passage in a completely different context. I am very aware of word studies my friend. But you have not provided enough material to prove your point. In the end context is the main indicator of the nature of the word in use.

I have not questioned your training although it has occured to me. Do not question mine.

And you find that asking simple questions regarding exegesis and training fall outside of the bounds of Paul's admonition how, exactly?

You are being silly here. I asked you a simple question, and you take offense. If you'd like to question my education that's fine, I graduated from Westminster Seminary in California.

I think that you have been completely missing the point of several things that I have said, and which are more important than simple word studies. I am unsure that you are able to engage in a profitable discussion of these things, and so will leave it at that. If you haven't received training that would enable you to fruitfully interact on that level there is no need to be ashamed of it, just recognize where you may have stepped outside the purview of your capabilities and training thus far.