“The Mythological “Gap Theory”
By Dr. Peter S. Ruckman:
In a recent publication called The Gap Theory, by Kent Hovind and Stephen Hawwell, we have a denial of thirty-one verses in Genesis 1 on the basis that the “Institute for Creation Research” (El Cajun, California) believes in correcting the King James Bible anywhere its “constituents” cannot understand it. In this case, Dr. Kent Hovind, who taught Stephen Lawwell how to correct the Bible “with the original Hebrew,” as all Alexandrians have done since 1800 (to the tune of 30,000 changes in the Old Testament).
The alibi for perverting the first chapter in Genesis (as the Scofield notes did in verses 6 and 16 to make them fit “modern, scientific research”) is that a “gap theory” was invented in the early 1800s to blend the belief in a 6,000-year-old earth with a 2,000,000,000 year old earth, as taught by evolutionists. The teaching, therefore, that Genesis 1:2– 3 refers to a catastrophe that took place AFTER God created the original earth is said to be a “godless theory” (Kent Hovind). The denial of this Biblical truth , in the book we are examining, is something so precious that it is “dedicated to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for His unchanging grace and mercy,” blah, blah, blah.
Typical, pious Fundamentalism in the Laodicean apostasy. Here is what is in this pamphlet ( The Gap Theory —no date or publisher on the pamphlet).
Page 2: The writer assumes that every Christian who believes in the first chapter of Genesis, AS IT STANDS (see below), thinks that “billions of years passed between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.”
They believe nothing of the kind. If you want the time it would be about 2,000 years, making an even 7,000 years between the first creation (2 Pet. 3) and the second creation (Rev. 21), in case Israel had accepted John as Elijah and the Rapture had taken place in Acts 7, ushering in Daniel’s Seventieth Week—which it did NOT.
You see, at the root of the denial of Genesis 1:2–3 causing a necessary “recreation” is pure ignorance of both Testaments. This is always the case in every case of scholarly, Christian scholarship that messes with the King James Bible; not one exception since 1800.
Then you are sidetracked for five pages with a “history” of the supposed invention of a “theory” (Chalmers, Hutton, Lyell, Darwin, Scofield, Larkin, Billy Graham, John Hagee, et al.) to prove that if any Christian discovers a Biblical truth that the highly educated Christian scholars have not found, it cannot be a genuine revelation; it has to be a heresy.
All Alexandrians have done this for 300 years; they continue to do so in regards to more than forty-five revelations which came from the AV Bible, AFTER 1950, that none of them were able to find in any Hebrew or Greek text since those texts were written. (See The Unknown Bible, The Mythological Septuagint, ISRAEL: A Deadly Piece of Dirt, and the Bible Believer’s Commentaries on Genesis, Exodus, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Acts, Hebrews, The Minor Prophets, and Revelation.)
All apostate, Laodicean Nicolaitans have one desire: to drag YOU down to their level of ignorance.
Page 7: Now your time is taken up with the word “replenish” (Heb. “male”) with TWO meanings; one being “to fill AGAIN.” The apostate Fundamentalists tell you that God made an error here and should have used the Hebrew word “shana” if He had intended to “refill” instead of “fill.” Typical Bible correcting by a gnat-straining nothing, as you will see in a moment.
Page 8: “Gap theorists frequently quote Jeremiah 4:23–24 to prove their point.” Not at PBI, sonny, Not once in thirty-eight years. Anyone can see the “birds” in verse 25 and the Tribulation references (vss. 20, 26), which liken the catastrophe in Genesis 1:2 to the earth in the future.
You are to reject the King James text in 2 Peter 3 on the grounds that “there are good reasons to believe that Peter is referring to the flood of Noah” in verse 6. No text of 2 Peter 3 implies such a reference; verse 4 states the time of the flood to which Peter refers.
“And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Pet. 3:4).
Now watch how the Lord destroys the minds of Christians like Hovind, Lawwell, and Jim Tedder as they seek to destroy both Testaments (Gen. 1 and 2 Pet. 3). They say that the phrase “willingly are ignorant of” has to refer to a flood about which everyone knew, so it had to be Noah’s flood. Then to cinch
their case, they take the word “heavens” out of the context (see vss. 5, 7, 10, 13) and claim that if “the world” perished in the flood of Noah (Gen. 7:23) that fulfills the requirements of “the heavens and the earth” (2 Pet. 3:7) and “the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).
Typical Laodicean “Fundamentalist” scholarship by Biblical illiterates who mess with the AV text: absolutely typical.
To get rid of the THREE heavens and earths that are listed in 2 Peter 3, Hovind and Lawwell grab a verse out of Revelation 21 to refute them. This verse (vs. 1) was simply comparing the new heavens and new earth (AND New Jerusalem— they forgot that one! ) that had just vanished away. There was no Jerusalem, new or old, in Genesis 1:1.
“The first” in Revelation 21:1 is NOT a doctrinal reference to the history of the earth since Genesis 1:1. Second Peter 3 is a history since Genesis 1:1.
Now notice that. Notice it carefully. Observe the same “Scriptural ignorance” of Curtis Hutson and John R. Rice when dealing with Acts 10:43 to prove that everyone in the Old Testament under the Law got forgiveness of sins through the name of Jesus Christ; His blood atonement was preached by all of the Old Testament prophets (Acts 10:43). IT WASN’T.
They didn’t. Not one prophet in the Old Testament talked about salvation “through the name of Jesus Christ.” Not one of them. Acts 10:43 said they did, just like Revelation 21:1 said the
New Heavens and New Earth came right after “the first” ones. Note another example in the “one baptism” of Ephesians 4, which would indicate no others exist. But there are seven of them; they are listed in any version of a King James Bible. The trick is to quote and use Ephesians 4:5 as a “proof text” to prove a lie. That is why Hovind and Lawwell quoted Revelation 21:1.
Note! All Biblical illiterates can find “proof texts” with which to teach a lie if they lack the spiritual discernment (or the zeal) to “search the scriptures” instead of “history” (pp. 4–7) or Hebrew and Greek words (pp. 7–9). Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in all Laodicean colleges, seminaries, and universities.
Now, Exodus 20:11 is quoted to prove that nothing existed before Genesis 1:3. No angels, no cherubim, no seraphim, etc. Unfortunately, angels were present in Genesis 1:1, before God made the earth. The apostates forgot Job 38:4, 7 (“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding . . . When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”) in their anxiety to make a liar out of the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:2–3.
Finally, to undermine your faith in the word of God completely, these apostates tell you that if you believe what Clarence Larkin, E. Bullinger, Cornelius Stam, C. I. Scofield, Gabelein, Frank Norris, Jack Hyles, Oliver Green, Pember, et al., believed about Genesis 1:2 you have “ denied the purpose of the cross.” That would make you a Christ-rejecting infidel. The Mythological “Gap Theory”
Note: this is the exact position of all Dry Cleaners (“Bereans”) when teaching 1 Corinthians 1. They link verse 14 with verse 17 so that if you teach that a convert of Jesus Christ should follow Him (and Paul!) in water baptism you are denying the efficacy of THE BLOOD ATONEMENT.
Typical bigoted, ignorant, Biblical illiteracy in the twentieth and twenty-first century. Absolutely uniform from all quarters.
In their deluded madness Hovind and Sawwell cry out, “If death existed prior to Adam’s sin then would it be the RESULT of sin?” (p. 17).
Simple, you silly asses (and I say that with “charity” of course! Of course!): who said anything about any man or animal dying before Genesis 3? Straw dummy. It couldn’t have been Satan, for he is alive and well before Genesis 1:2 as a cherub (Ezek. 14), and he is alive and well AFTER the mythological “gap” (Isa. 14), and he is still alive and running the world in the twenty-first century. The angels were “cast down” (2 Pet. 2), not killed, and are in a pit (Jude) of fire. Those angels were drowned in the days of Noah long AFTER Genesis 3.
What is the matter with Hovind and Sawwell? Nothing that hasn’t been a standard order of procedure for more than 300 years with EVERY Christian scholar who messed with the King James text (any edition of any revision). God messes with his mind. Now! Let me show you why we call these great, good, “godly,” scholarly men “twinkies,” “cloned robots,” “goofballs,” and “programmed jackasses.” Look at Genesis 1. This time read it and dot each
verse. Have you done it? Got thirty-one dots, do you? If not, do it. You do not need a third-grade education to do it: do it.
Do you see the word “and” at the beginning of verses 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, etc. to the end of the chapter? You do not need a thirdgrade education to see it. Only a Greek or Hebrew scholar would fail to see it. So let us, for the sake of “argument,” pretend for a moment that we are highly-educated, scientific, godly Christian “researchers” bent on “enlightening” the Body of Christ and saving them from the awful heresy of “the Gap Theory.” Let us “go to the original Hebrew” and see what this word “and” should be!
Oops! It is “waw consecutive” (“VAU” in some texts), the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It pops up thirty times in thirty-one verses, beginning with verse 2. Guess what it means!
It means “AND”! “And” is an addition. Not once in thirty verses does it refer to anything that happened in a verse BEFORE it. Every time “and” occurs in Genesis 1 it is an additional statement of something that takes place AFTER the previous verse. Not one time— not one out of thirty times —does any verse in Genesis 1 describe what took place, in time, BEFORE the “waw consecutive.” What does this mean? It means that verse 2 can no more have any reference, in time, to what took place in verse 1 than it would have a reference to John 3:16 or Romans 8:28.
There has never been a gap “THEORY.” The “gap” was a Scriptural fact confirmed thirty times in the very chapter in which it appeared. Any second-grade student could see it. apostate Biblical illiterate could fail to see it. We have the “winners,” don’t we, baby?!
I hate to keep saying “note,” but if you don’t “note” it, these fake “Bible teachers” will keep right on pulling the wool over your eyes till the Rapture: and it is 80 percent cotton at that. Here, an entire chapter in the Bible has been sacrificed to prove a LIE, and any simpleton, without referring to ANY Hebrew word or ANY Greek word (LXX version), should have into such nonsense as “replenish” and “fill” in Hebrew, or “tohu” and “became,” etc., are NOT RELEVANT to any system of interpretation or exposition.
These are just typical “dodges” and “distractions” to call to your mind that the destructive critic is more highly educated than you are, so you need HIM and his opinions or “researches” to understand a verse with which no one would have any trouble if they read the chapter.
Verse 24 does not describe how God carried out verse 22. Verse 22 does not describe how God carried out verse 21. Verse 20 takes place BEFORE verse 21; verse 17 takes place BEFORE God decided to let the lights “rule” and “divide light from darkness”; in verse 15 He decided to do this before He did it in verse 16, which took place before he “set them” in verse 17. Is that clear?
God did not see the quality of His light (vs. 4) before He spoke it into existence (vs. 3). He did not speak it into existence (vs. 3) till “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (vs. 2). Verse 2 is not a description of anything God did in verse 1. Verse 1 precedes verse 2. Get it? The “waw consecutive” shows the chronological order thirty times in thirty-one verses.
Hovind and Lawwell, being just as confused as Bob Jones III or Arlin Horton trying to explain Hebrews 6 (or Clarence Sexton or Lee Roberson trying to explain Heb. 3), pretended that verse 2 was telling you HOW God carried out the previous verse: not one time in thirty verses, NO.
Note (!!) that Exodus 20:11 is not a doctrinal statement on the history of creation. If it was, it would be false. There are three heavens after Genesis 1:2. Didn’t you read the New Testament (2 Cor. 12)? DO, they didn’t.
Exodus 20:11 and 31:17 is explaining WHY a Sabbath rest was given to Israel. It is not a chronological account of creation as given in Genesis 1 by the Holy Spirit via Moses. It is the present heaven and earth about which Exodus 20:11 and 31:17 are talking, exactly as Revelation mentioned the earth that was PRESENT in Revelation 20, before Revelation 20:11. Simon Peter, giving a doctrinal account of the history of the HEAVENS and earth (see 2 Pet. 3), clearly locates and describes three different combinations of “heavens and earth.” 1. The heavens and earth that WERE (vss. 5–6). 2. The heavens and earth that ARE (vs. 7). 3. The heavens and earth that “shall be” (vs. 13). The earth, in the heavens and earth “which are now” were not “standing out of the water and in the water” and it was not “overflowed with water.” It was RAINED out (Gen. 6–8). That isn’t all. The heavens and earth that “WERE” were “from the beginning of the creation.” Genesis 1:1 is the “beginning”— not the six days of creation that follow (vs. 2). The “BEGINNING.” Note: “FROM” the beginning.
Try the “King’s English” from 1611. It is vastly superior to Hebrew and Greek scholarship of any profession in 2002.