How old do you think the universe is?

[mfblume]

Notice these verses, and realize that the Hebrew word for WITHOUT FORM is the same Hebrew word for VAIN.

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 in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
(Isaiah 45:18 KJV)

That's the same thing as saying...

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 without form, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
(Isaiah 45:18 KJV)

Then we read :

"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."
(Genesis 1:2 KJV)

If earth was not without form when it was created in verse 1 (according to Isaiah), why does verse 2 says it was without form?

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Why then should we not go to rabbis or others who speak Hebrew to get the answer?


All these claims about what the Hebrew says or does not say, and yet it seems I'm the only one wanting to deal with lexicons and definitions?

I haven't found ANYONE holding to a "gap" theory interpretation of verse 2 prior to the 1800s. No Jews appear to have understood their own language to be suggesting a gap until the Rabbi I quoted in a previous post.

I have a hard time believing a bunch of people reacting to the claims of atheistic fools falsely called scientists have discovered the meaning of a Hebrew text when NOBODY PRIOR had any such ideas????

I mean, if it was just so obvious because the Hebrew means what it means, then why didn't ANYBODY besides a 19th century rabbi and Thomas Chalmers (1830) understand it, including all the Jews, all the Christian scholars skilled in Hebrew, the translators, etc?

In fact, this point seems an almost insurmountable objection to the whole theory, the more I think about it.

As for appealing to lexicons and dictionaries, I have no problem with them at all. But the "exegetical fallacy" is a real danger. It has been a near universal standard of hermeneutics that "usage determines meaning". In fact, that is how all lexicons (dictionaries) derive and identify definitions: by usage. Etymology alone does not solely determine meaning, otherwise the SPCA would be lobbying to ban hotdogs.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Notice these verses, and realize that the Hebrew word for WITHOUT FORM is the same Hebrew word for VAIN.

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 in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
(Isaiah 45:18 KJV)

That's the same thing as saying...

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 without form, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
(Isaiah 45:18 KJV)

Then we read :

"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."
(Genesis 1:2 KJV)

If earth was not without form when it was created in verse 1 (according to Isaiah), why does verse 2 says it was without form?

The earth was created by God to be inhabited by creatures and by man. In Genesis God created the heavens and earth, and in six days He had creatures, and man, living in it.

Isaiah is correctly translated as "not in vain" which means "not without a purpose". The word tohu does NOT mean "formless" in EVERY CASE, it is translated over a dozen different ways. And in the verse in question, "vain" is correct.

The verse is saying God did not create the earth for no reason, He did it to be inhabited. And the Creation (summarized in Gen 2:4) culminated in being populated by plants, animals, and mankind. Gen 2:4 identifies ALL previous actions from v1 to His blessing the seventh day as part of the Creation. Jesus confirmed this when a referencing the 6th day creation of Mankind as happening at "the beginning". Gap theory claims man was created millions and billions of years AFTER the beginning. Therefore, it's looking more and more like a failed attempt to fit the Bible into the pontifications of atheistic fools who claim to be "expert scientists" with their billions and billions and billions of years, uniformitarian dogma, and evolutionary fantasies.

[mfblume]

Everything's been done here except get an actual Hebrew speaking person to share what the words mean.

I have no concern over trying to fit science with the bible. I am solely here for truth. If truth fits current science, or if it doesn't, the point is truth is truth and I want to know it.

We may not be against dictionaries, but a lot of claims are being made here by folks who do not know the language, and there's not enough reference to actual definitions.

[Amanah]

Originally Posted by Amanah

http://custance.org/Library/Volume6/.../Chapter2.html

..In the second verse the usual Hebrew construction to express continuous development would have been, as Hebraists are aware, the imperfect with Waw Conversive, i.e., (wat-tehi ha-a-rets) which would be correctly translated "and the earth was," etc. The fact, however, is that the narrative goes out of the usual to say (weha-a-rets ha-yethah), the Waw being separated from its verb, the usual way of expressing in Hebrew the pluperfect. When we turn to the third chapter of Genesis, verse 3, we find the same peculiarity in the narrative. The "Serpent" used as the embodiment of the power of evil is spoken of thus: (Wehan-naghash ha-yah). "Now the Serpent had become," etc., not "was" as in our translation.
..........We now have this:

IN A FORMER STATE GOD PERFECTED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH; BUT THE EARTH HAD BECOME. . .

"Without form and void. . . ."

..........We come therefore to a consideration of the words, "without form and void" ( -- tohu wa-bohu). From the outset we can say unequivocally that both words, whether occurring together or singly, are used throughout Scripture in connection with something under God's judgment. Tohu is used of something which has been laid waste (Isaiah 24:10; 34:11; Jeremiah 4:23) or has become desert (Deuteronomy 32:10) or of anything which is the object of false "worship" and therefore displeasing to God, as in Isaiah 41:29, etc. With the Hebrew preposition (lamedh) it becomes an adverb, (Isaiah 49:4) and means "wastefully" or "in vain." In Isaiah 45:18 it is possibly an adverbial accusative of the noun, although the form is identical with the noun itself. We shall have occasion subsequently to examine this particular passage more carefully. Gesenius and Tregelles in their respective lexicons both define the meaning of the noun as "waste-ness; specifically that which is wasted or laid waste."

Custance (the author above) has an MA in Hebrew, but he also has a vested interest as a scientist, so, I'm leery of his interpretation. From what I understand he wrote the first Academic paper on the subject, so he is a primary reference, and one that The Anti Gap proponents target with rebuttals.

Scripture and science should be compatible unless there is a error in scientific method or biblical interpretation.

The other issue is that words have various meanings so that you can look at Strong's and pick the meaning you like best, so just looking at words by themselves when you are looking through the filter of your world view isn't helpful.

Even though Hebrew is a dead language, if the discourse over Hebrew words has continued, can't the meaning of the words still be subject to change?

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Amanah

Scripture and science should be compatible unless there is a error in scientific method or biblical interpretation.

Amen.

[mfblume]

Here is something I observed on this thread.

Some believe the earth APPEARS ancient, but actually is not because God made it MATURE just as God made Adam a man and not an infant. This view is somewhat acknowledging science and admitting science is correct in the estimation that the current matter comprising the earth is ANCIENT. These people would never have known the earth APPEARED ancient if it had not been for science making that claim and providing the evidence of its method of dating. So, the young earth people who claim God made the earth LOOK OLD ALONE, when it actually is not old, are influenced by science as much as it is alleged that gap adherents are solely trying to fit theology with science.

If young earth people were not trying to fit theology in with science they would not accept the claims of science to make them respond and say God made the earth APPEAR old.

[good samaritan]

Originally Posted by mfblume

A dead language is not a language no one knows any more. It means it is dead in that it is not changing and evolving because it is not actually in use any more except by scholars who study it and its texts. It can be learned with the assurance the words won't change meaning.

Why is there so many different lexicons? I don't think that the Hebrew language is changing at present, but instead that it has changed during its writing. No doubt the law, the history, the prophets are written when Hebrew wasn't a dead language. Therefore the meaning of a word in Genesis could possible have slightly changed in usage from Genesis to Malachi. The OT was not written in one setting but was written over hundreds of years, and Hebrew was not dead then. I would think that it would be possible that Abraham's speech could have sounded to Isaiah, like old English does to modern English speaking Americans.

There are a lot of variables to consider in all of this. I typically use a strong's concordance because that is what I was introduced to when I began studying the Bible. It seems to me that the Strong's illustrates the usage of a word rather than a definition. A definition of something is definitive and that means that it is absolute and doesn't change function. If we took every Hebrew word and by a single definition tried to translate the entire OT we would probably have a mess.

I like to do word searches for extra clarity in the English translated scriptures. When people take the Hebrew and Greek words and use them to change our English Bible they are destroying the platform on which they stand. This is why I am somewhat KJV only. Although the Hebrew language is dead, the lexicons or definitions are not always the same. The word of God is not changing, but the interpretations that man has of it is. How many times must we rewrite the English Bible. Instead of becoming more accurate it seems we are becoming more unstable in the faith once delivered to us.

[Aquila]

What if it's a divine myth? What if it is more about God being creator, creating things in stages, creating from the earth itself, and Adam and Eve being symbols of mankind? We also see the atonement in their fall (what would be our fall) in that God slaughtered an animal, made coats of skins, and clothed them.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Everything's been done here except get an actual Hebrew speaking person to share what the words mean.

I have no concern over trying to fit science with the bible. I am solely here for truth. If truth fits current science, or if it doesn't, the point is truth is truth and I want to know it.

We may not be against dictionaries, but a lot of claims are being made here by folks who do not know the language, and there's not enough reference to actual definitions.

Tons of people who actually know the language HAVE shared what the words mean, as seen in the results of their translations of the Hebrew into English. Not one single english Bible translation that I know of translates the Hebrew the way you have proposed it should be translated. Why? Don't they know hebrew?

Not enough reference to "actual definition"? Here we go:

H8414

תֹּהוּ
tôhû
to'-hoo
From an unused root meaning to lie waste; a desolation (of surface), that is, desert; figuratively a worthless thing; adverbially in vain: - confusion, empty place, without form, nothing, (thing of) nought, vain, vanity, waste, wilderness.
Total KJV occurrences: 20

The word has numerous significations. Exegetical fallacy is the error of simply taking one definition (that one prefers) and sticking it where they think it fits best without regard for the context. For example, when saying the passage in Isaiah must mean "without form", or the passage in Genesis must mean "in vain", in order to get a match. When the truth is, context often requires the same word in one language to be understood different ways in English.

Isaiah 44:9 KJV They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.

The word "vanity" here is tohu. Are those who make graven images without form and void? Are they empty places?Wastes? Wildernesses? Or are they VAIN?

Isaiah 45:19 KJV I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.

Here is the very next verse after the "gap text" in Isaiah, and the word tohu appears again. In this verse, is God saying "I did not say seek me in without form"? Or "I did not say seek me in the wilderness"? Or is God saying "I did not say seek me in VAIN"?

So this PROVES YET AGAIN that "usage determines meaning". It shows that a term can have a range of meanings, and not all meanings apply in each and every occurrence of the term. Thus, Isaiah has been translated correctly, as follows in everyone's Bible:

Isaiah 45:18 KJV 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 in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

God did not create the heavens and the earth IN VAIN, He did for a PURPOSE: that it might be inhabited. And in Genesis we see exactly that: God creating the heavens and the earth, and filling the earth with plants, animals, and man. When in Genesis is says "and the earth was without form and void" it simply means it had not yet been formed and filled. God created the basic raw material of the earth, and it was at that point unformed and empty. He immediately began to form it (separating the waters, causing the waters to gather together, causing the dry land to appear, etc) and to fill it (whales, herbs, animals, man, etc).