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Table of Contents

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

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX I

(Reference: p.37)

 

Excerpts from Some Supporting Authors.

 

 

 

This Appendix contains extracts from the works of authors not

listed in Chapter 1, chiefly because they merely affirm what others

have said and, with two exceptions, did not publish their views until

the issue between the Bible and modern Geology had already become

a serious one.   Most of them can only be quoted as being among

those who adopted the alternative rendering because they were im-

pressed by the geological evidence as then interpreted.   Many of

them were recognized Hebrew scholars.   Included among these

extracts are also a few cases where admissions are made in favour

of my thesis by scholars who nevertheless do not support it - for

example, a note from Snaith.

The names are listed chronologically according to the original

author of the quotation rather than the secondary author who happens

to have supplied us with it - for example, Gleig’s statement is listed

under his own name although my sole source of reference was from

Hoare and not from the author himself.

At the end we have included three lists of scholars who wrote in

favour of this alternative, of whom I have very little information but

thought it worthwhile to list with my source of reference, for the

sake of those who may be in a position to examine their works at

first hand.

Episcopius, Simon (1583 - 1643) of Holland, according to the New

 

pg 1 of 11       


Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (in Vol.III,

page 302, article by 0. Zockler, "Creation and Preservation") is said

to have been the first to render verse 2, "And the earth became waste

and void".

Rosenmuller, J. G., a German Lutheran, 1736- 1815, in his

Antiquissima Telluris Historia, published in Ulm in 1776, wrote

the first serious scientific defence of this view, according to the New

Schaff- Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. III, p.

302.

Chalmers, Thomas, in his original Lecture in Edinburgh in 1814:

"The detailed history of creation in the first chapter of Genesis begins

at the middle of the second verse; and what precedes might be under-

stood as an introductory sentence, by which we are most appositely

told, both that God created all things at the first, and that, afterwards,

by what interval of time it is not specified, the earth lapsed into a

chaos, from the darkness and disorder of which the present system

or economy of things was made to arise.   Between the initial act

and the details of Genesis, the world, for aught we know, might have

been the theatre of many revolutions, the traces of which geology may

still investigate". Quoted by Edward Hitchcock, The Religion of

Geology, Collins, Glasgow, 1851, p. 52.

Eadie, Dr. John, Professor of Theological and Biblical Literature

in Divinity Hall of the United Presbyterian Church, Glasgow, (quoted

by Dr. T. Fitzgerald in the Transactions of the Victoria Inst.,

Vol. LXX, 1938, p. 86): Dr. Eadie, writing in the early part of the

last century, observed: "The length of time that may have elapsed

between the events recorded in the first verse (of the first chapter of

Genesis) and the condition of the globe, as described in the second

verse, is absolutely indefinite. How long it was we know not; and

ample space is therefore given to all the requisitions of geology.

The second verse describes the condition of our globe when God

began to fit it up for the abode of man.   The first day's work does

not be gin until the third verse.... This is no new theory. It was

held by Justin Martyr, Origen, Theodoret, and Augustine - men who

came to such a conclusion without any bias, and who certainly were

not driven to it by an geological difficulties".

Bush, George, Professor of Hebrew in New York City University,

in his Notes, Critical and Practical on the Book of Genesis,

 

     pg.2 of 11      


published by Ward, London, 1838, (p.25f.), treated the subject at

some length.   On page 27 he wrote: "As there is no distinction of

past, perfect, and pluperfect tenses in Hebrew, we are to be governed

solely by the exigency of the place in rendering any particular word

in one of these tenses or the other.    'Was', therefore, in this

instance, we hold to be more correctly translated by 'had been' or,

perhaps, 'had become' - ie., in consequence of changes to which it

had been subject in the lapse of ages long prior to the period now

alluded to....

"It has, indeed, been generally supposed that it describes the

rude and chaotic state which ensued immediately upon the creating

command; but this we think is contrary to the express declaration of

Jehovah himself, Isa.45.18: 'For thus saith the Lord that created the

heavens; God himself, that formed the earth and made it; he hath

established it, he created it not desolate (TOHU)' - ie., the action

described by the word 'created', did not result in the state denoted

by the word TOHU but the reverse - he formed it to be inhabited".

Smith, J. Pye, Lectures on the Bearing of Geological Science

upon Certain Parts of the Scriptural Narrative, London, 1839.

"A philological survey of the initial sections of the Bible, (Gen.

i, l, to ii, 3) brings out the results

1. "That the first sentence is a simple, independent, all-com-

prehending axiom, to this effect: that matter, elementary or com-

bined , aggregated only or organized, and dependent, sentient, and

intellectual beings have not existed from eternity, either in self-

continuity or succession, but had a beginning; that their beginning

took place by the all-powerful will of one Being, the self-existent,

independent, and infinite in all perfection; and that the date of that

beginning is not made known.

2. "That at a certain epoch, our planet was brought into a state

of disorganization, detritus, or ruin, (perhaps we have no perfectly

appropriate term) from a former condition.

3. "That it pleased the Almighty, wise and benevolent Supreme,

out of that state of ruin to adjust the surface of the earth to its now

existing condition, the whole extending through the period of six

natural days.

"I am forming no hypothesis in geology; I only plead that the

ground is clear, and that the dictates of the Scripture interpose no

bar to observation and reasoning upon the mineralogical constitution

of the earth, and the remains of organized creatures which its strata

disclose.  If those investigations should lead us to attribute to the

 

     pg.3 of 11      

 

earth and to other planets and astral spheres an antiquity which

millions or ten thousand millions of years might fail to represent,

the divine records forbid not their deduction".   From his Lect-

ures on Scripture and Geology, London, 4th ed. , p. 502, as quoted

by Edward Hitchcock in his The Religion of Geology, Collins, in

Glasgow, 1851.

Harris, John, The PreAdamite Earths-Contributions to Theol-

ogical Science, Ward and Co., London, no date, p.354: "On the

whole, then, my firm persuasion is, that the first verse of Genesis

was designed, by the Divine Spirit, to announce the absolute origin-

ination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator; and that it

is so understood in other parts of Holy Writ: that, passing by an-

indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet

immediately prior to the Adamic creation; and that the third verse

begins the account of the six days' work.

"If I am reminded that I am in danger of being biased in favour of

these conclusions by the hope of harmonizing Scripture with Geology,

I might venture to suggest, in reply, that the danger is not all on one

side. Instances of adherence to traditional interpretations chiefly

because they are traditional and popular, though in the face of all

evidence of their faultiness. are by no means so rare as to render

warning unnecessary. The danger of confounding the infallibility of

our own interpretation with the infallibility of sacred text, is not

peculiar to a party.

"If, again, I am reminded, in a tone of animadversion, that I am

making science, in this instance, the interpreter of Scripture, my

reply is that I am simply making the works of God illustrate his word,

in a department in which they speak with a distinct and authoritative

voice, that 'it is all the same whether our geological or theological

investigations have been prior'; and that it might be deserving con-

sideration, whether or not the conduct of those is not open to just

animadversion, who first undertake to pronounce on the meaning of

a passage of Scripture irrespective of all the appropriate evidence,

and who then, when that evidence is explored and produced, insist

on their a priori interpretation as the only true one.

"But in making these remarks I have been conceding too much.

The views which I have exhibited are not of yesterday.    It is

important and interesting to observe how the early fathers of the

Christian church should seem to have entertained precisely similar

views: for St. Gregory Nazianzen. after St. Justin Martyr, supposes

an indefinite period between the creation and the first ordering of

 

     pg.4 of 11      


all things. St. Basil, St. Caesarius, and Origen, are much more

explicit. To these might be added Augustine, Theodoert, Episcop-

ius, and others, whose remarks imply the existence of a considerable

interval 'between the creation related in the first verse of Genesis,

and that of which an account is given in the third and following verses'.

In modern times, but long before geology became a science, the

independent character of the opening sentence of Genesis was affirm-

ed by such judicious and learned men as Calvin, Bishop Patrick, and

Dr. David Jennings.   And 'in some old editions of the English

Bible, where there is no division into verses, and in Luther's Bible

(Wittenburg, 1557), you have in addition the figure 1 placed against

the third verse, as being the beginning of the account of the creation

of the first day'. Now these views were formed independently of all

geological considerations. In the entire absence of evidence from

this quarter - probably even in opposition to it, as some would

think - these conclusions were arrived at on biblical grounds alone.

Geology only illustrates and confirms them.    The works of God

prove to be one with this preconceived meaning of his word.   And

there is no ground to expect that this early interpretation will grad-

ually come to be universally accepted as the only correct one."

A footnote gives the references for the quotes in the above as being

from Dr. S. Davidson's Sacred Hermeneutics; Principal Wiseman's

Lectures on the Connexion Between Science and Revealed Rel-

igion; and Dr. J. Pye Smith's Scripture and Geology.

Gray, Rev. James, in his book, The Earth's Antiquity in Harm-

ony With the Mosaic Record of Creation (referred to by William

Hoare in a footnote on p. 145 of his book Veracity of the Book of

Genesis), stages the view (Chapter IV, p. 211, 2nd. edition) "that

the first verse in Genesis is not to be understood according to the

currently entertained notion, as merely giving a summary account

of the after-recorded work of the six days, but is an independent

proposition enunciating THE CREATION, primordial as to time, - the

reference being retrospective rather than prospective".     In a

subsequent footnote on p. 151, Gray is again quoted (p. 120 and 144

of his work) on Gen. 1.2 as follows: "Such a disturbed condition of

terrestrial things is here narrated, as we should naturally conclude

would be found after the violent action of one or another of those

grand disturbing agents, either of fire, by earthquakes, or of water

by deluges, which we know to be Nature's ordinary mighty destroyers

and renovators on the earth..... a state following upon the last

catastrophe anterior to the period of its divinely recorded re-organ-

 

     pg.5 of 11      


ization as the abode of man".

Hoare, Willam H., Veracity of the Book of Genesis, (Long-

man, Green, Longman, & Roberts, London, 1860), has this statement

in a footnote on p .143: "Episcopius and others thought that the creation

and fall of the bad angels took place in the interval he has spoken

of; and misplaced as such speculations are, still they seem to show

that it is natural to suppose that a considerable interval may have

taken place between the creation related in the first verse of Genesis

and that of which an account is given in the third and following verses".

Gleig, the Rt. Rev. George, Bishop of Brechin and Primus of the

Scots Episcopal Church (quoted by W. H. Hoare, Veracity of the

Book of Genesis, etc. p. 179); "Moses records the history of the

earth only in its present state.   He affirms indeed, that it was

created, and that it was without form and void when the Spirit of God

began to move on the face of the fluid mass; but he does not say how

long that mass had been in a state of chaos, or whether it was or was

not the wreck of some former system which had been inhabited by liv-

ing creature sofa different kind from those that occupy the present.

"We read in various places of Scripture of a new heavens and a

new earth to succeed the present earth and visible heavens, after

they shall again be reduced to chaos by a general conflagration, and

there is nothing in the books of Moses positively affirming that there

was not an old earth and old heavens, or, in other words a former

creation....

"There is nothing in the sacred narrative forbidding us to suppose

that they are ruins of a former earth deposited in the chaotic mass

of which Moses informs us that God formed the present system. How

long it continued in such a chaotic state it is in vain to enquire...."

Jameison, R., Commentary: Critical and Expository: Genesis

- Deuteronomy, (Nisbet, London, 1871, p. 3); the author notes that

in many Hebrew manuscripts a mark indicating a pause occurs after

Gen. 1.1.  "This break between Gen. 1.1 and 1.2 is observed even

where no verse division exists".

Browne, the Rt. Rev. E. Harold, Lord Bishop of Ely, Genesis:

Or the First Book of Moses (Scribner, New York, 1873, p. 32),

writes, under comment on Gen. 1.5: "Literally, 'and it was (or

became) evening, and it was (or became) morning, day one'", thereby

bearing out the more precise translation of the verb hayah. Under

 

     pg.6 of 11      


verse 2 he merely acknowledges that this may be a picture of either

primeval emptiness or "desolation and disorder succeeding to a

former state of life and harmony...."   He feels the issue cannot

be settled conclusively but he does say that the two words tohu and

bohu "express devastation or desolation", listing several passages

in which the meaning of tohu is clearly this: viz.. Job 12.24; 26.7;

Isa.24.10; 34.11; and Jer.4.23.

 

Garland, G. V., Genesis With Notes (Rivingtons, London, 1878,

p. 3): With reference to Gen. 1.1 and 2: "The first of these verses

declares that the universe, and particularly that portion of it 'the

earth', of which the second verse specially treats, as being the future

habitation of man, was originally created by God. The second verse

then proceeds to describe the condition of the earth at the period when

God made (   , Gen. 2.), or framed, or readjusted it ( 

Heb. 11.3), out of the then existing materials for the use of man".

Reusch, Dr. Fr. H., Nature and the Bible: Lectures on the

Mosaic History of Creation In Its Relation to Natural Science,

(translated from the 4th edition by Kathleen Lyttelton, T. & T. Clark,

Edinburgh, Vol. 1, 1886, p. 120). He says: "Those who hold this

theory;- with its many individual modifications - are men of no little

authority, they are, among men of science and philosophers, Jacob

Bohme, Friedrich Schlegel, Julius Hamberger, Heinrich von Schu-

bert, Karl von Raumer, Andreas Wagner; among theologians, Kurtz,

Baumgarten, Dreschler, Delitzsch and others among Protestants;

Leopold Schmid, Mayrhofer, and Westermayer among the Roman

Catholics". In a footnote he adds this information: "Kurtz, Bible

and Astronomy, Delitzsch, Genesis; Dreschler on Delitzsch; and

Keerl, Schopfungsgesch; Raumer, Kreuzzuge; Hamberger in the

Jabrh. fur Deutsche Theol; Wolf, Die Bedeutung der Weltschopfung,

Mayrhofer, Das dreieine Leben; Westermayer, Das Alte Test",

Exell, J. S., Pulpit Commentary on Genesis, (Kegan Paul, Tren-

ch, Trubner, London, 1897, p. 4). Exell in commenting on verse 2

mentions Delitzsch's view of this verse as signifying "the ruin of a

previous cosmos" and adds that he attributed the ruin to the fall of

angels basing his view on Job 38.2 - 7).   He gives as reference

Biblical Psychology, Section 1, p. 76, in Clark's Foreign Theol-

ogical Library.

Edersheim, Alfred, The World Before the Flood and the His-

     pg.7 of 11      


tory of the Patriarchs (Religious Tract Society, London, no date,

p. 18,19); "Some have imagined that the six days of creation repres-

ent as many periods, rather than literal days, chiefly on the ground

of the supposed high antiquity of our globe, and the various great

epochs or periods, each terminating in a grand revolution, through

which our earth seems to have passed before coming to its present

state, when it became a fit habitation for man. There is, however,

no need to resort to any such theory.

"The first verse in the Book of Genesis simply states the general

fact that 'in the beginning (whenever that may have been) God created

the heaven and the earth'. Then, in the second verse, we find the

earth described as it was at the close of the last great revolution

preceding the present state of things: 'and the earth was without

form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep'.

"An almost indefinite space of time and many changes may there-

fore have intervened between the creation of heaven and earth as

mentioned in verse 1, and the chaotic state of our earth as described

in verse 2."

Pember, G. H., Earth's Earliest Ages, which title is extended

to read as: and Their Connection with Modern Spiritualism and

Theosophy (Hodder and Stoughton, 1901, 9th ed., 494 pp.).    The

author's thesis is that Gen. 1.2 pictures a world brought into ruin

as a result of the judgment of God against the rebellion of the Angels

who under Satan had been responsible for the government of the Old

World while it was being prepared for man, but had thought to become

independent of Him.   Satan was cast out of heaven along with the

Angels who had followed him, and they have since tried in various

ways to bring God's reconstituted world order, including man, into a

like state of chaos.   He believes these Angels to be, to a large

extent, still free to intrude into human affairs and to act upon man's

will - always with a view to making him disobedient to God..

Their increasing activity in the present age Pember believed to

be a sign of the nearness of the second great judgment to be brought

on the World, of which the Flood of Noah's time was the first.

Pember does not present his thesis as a Hebrew scholar, but

rather as a student of ancient and present day forms of spiritism

and demon worship.

Anstey, Martin, The Romance of Bible Chronology; (Marshall

Brothers, London, 1913, p. 62 and 63 - with his emphases): "The

opening verse of Genesis speaks of the Creation of the heavens and

 

     pg.8 of 11      


the earth, in the undefined beginning. From this point we may date

the origin of the world but not the origin of man.   For the second

verse tells of a catastrophe - the earth became a ruin and a desolation.

The Hebrew verb hayah ('to be') here translated 'was'), signifies not

only 'to be' but also 'to become', 'to take place', 'to come to pass'.

When a Hebrew writer makes a simple affirmation, or merely pre-

dicates the existence of anything, the verb hayah is never expressed.

Where it is expressed it must always be translated by our verb 'to

become', and never by the verb 'to be', if we desire to convey the

exact shade of meaning of the original.

"The words   ( tohu wa bohu) translated in the Authorized

Version 'without form and void' and in the Revised Version 'waste

and void' should be rendered 'a ruin; and a desolation'. They do not

represent the state of the heaven and the earth as they were created

by God. They represent only the state of the earth as it afterwards

became - a ruin and a desolation.... or better still 'had become', the

separation of the waw from the verb being the Hebrew method of

indicating the pluperfect tense....

"Gen. 1.2 does not describe a stage in the process of creation, but

a disaster which befell the created earth: the original creation of the

heaven and the earth is chronicled in Gen. 1.1.    The next verse,

Gen. 1.2, is a statement of the disorder, the ruin, and the state of

desolation into which the earth subsequently fell.   What follows in

Gen. 1.3-31 is the story of the restoration of a lost order by the

creative word of God".

Fitzgerald, Dr. Thomas (in The Transactions of the Victoria

Institute, London, Vol. LXX, 1938) lists the names "of several

scholars of high repute who can be cited in support of the translation

which Dr. Hart-Davies finds it impossible to accept.   The whole

question has been very thoroughly argued in the works of John Harris,

D.D., The Pre-Adamite Earth and Primeval Man: The Principles

of Geology, by Rev. David King, LL.D. (2nd. edition, -enlarged and

revised): The Bible and Modem Thought, by Rev. T. R. Birks,

M.A.: Neology Not True, by Rev. Charles Herbert, M.A. (2nd

edition): Daniel the Prophet, Rev. E. B. Pusey, D. D., Regius

Professor of Hebrew, Oxford: and Jameison, Fausset and Brown's

Commentary - Genesis.    There is also a valuable paper on the

subject by Rev. A. I. McCaul, M.A., Lecturer in Hebrew at King's

College, London, published in The Transactions of the Victoria

Institute, London, Vol. IX.   On p.150 of that volume, the Rev,

A. I. McCaul states his belief that the Septuagint intended by its

 

     pg.9 of 11      


rendering that the earth was "invisible" because in darkness, and

"unfurnished" because its life had been destroyed.

Smith, Professor T. Jollie, in a Paper in The Transactions of

the Victoria Institute, Vol. LXXVIII, 1946, p. 29, wrote: "I think

that verse land verse 2 in Genesis 1 may be legitimately separated

....     Hayah does generally mean 'became' or 'came to pass'..                                           ..    Its use as a mere copula is most extraordinary".

Snaith, Norman H., Notes on the Hebrew Text of Gen, I - VIII

(Epworth Press, London, 1947, p. 8 and 9), has the following against

Gen.1.2 and 3: "verse 2.  , 3 f. s. pl. qal. of   (verb 'to

be', though more often it means 'to become').

"Verse 3:   , 3 m s. jussive qal shortened from 3 m s. imperfect

qal (   ) of   (let there come to be, ie., become).

   - Pronounce wa-ye-hi (with -e very short for shema). "And

there came to be (ie., there became).     Thus he indicates the

admissability of rendering   as "became" or some equivalent in

English.

Sauer, Erich, Dawn of World Redemption (Revell, New York,

1953) on p. 35 says: "About 1000 A.D. Edgar of England espoused

(the interpretation). In the 17th century it was especially emphas-

ized by Jacob Boehme, the mystic....

"Many German upholders of this teaching.... as for instance the

Professor of Geology Freiherr von Heune (Tubingen);.... from the

Catholic point of view there are Cardinal Wiseman and the philoso-

pher Freiderich von Schlegel".

Ramm, Bernard, in his Christian View of Science and Scrip-

ture (Eerdman's, Grand Rapids, 1954, p. 196) has a footnote in which

he gives the following information: "Dr. Anton Pearson sets forth

the history of the gap interpretation as follows: "It was first broached

in modern times by Episcopius (1583-1643), and received its first

scientific treatment by J. G. Rosenmuller (1736-1815) in his Antiq-

uissima Telluris Historica (1776). It was also used by theosophic

writers in connection with notions suggested by Bohme, e.g. F. von

Meyer and Baumgarten.   It was picked up by such theologians as

Buckland, Chalmers, J. P. Smith and Murphy. (An Exegetical Study

of Gen. 1.1-3, Bethel Seminary Quarterly, 11.14-33, November,

1953).

"This theory was also defended by J. H. Kurtz, Bible and Astron-

 

     pg.10 of 11      


omy, (3rd. German edition, 1857) and in the footnote of p 236 it

is traced from Edgar, King of England in the tenth century to

modern scholars as Reichel, Stier. G. H. von Schubert, Knieival

Dreschler, Rudleback, Guericke, Baumgarten and Wagner".

Other men listed include Adam Sedgewick, Discourses on the

Studies of the Universe, Cambridge, President of the Geological

Society (England); and Pratt, Scripture and Science Not at Var-

iance.

 

 

 

*   *   *

     pg.11 of 11     

 

 Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights reserved 

 

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