Some thoughts on Genesis 1&2

[RickD]

Abelcainsbrother,

The problem you're making, and it's a huge one, is you're interpreting מָלָא as "replenish", or "refill". Maybe someone more knowledgable in Hebrew can chime in here(Jac), but I believe "fill" is a much better translation. The NASB gets it better IMO:

Genesis 1:28 NASB
28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the [a]sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Once the bad translation is fixed, biblically, your gap theory falls flat on its face.

[PaulSacramento]

The term used in Genesis 1:28 is male/mala and means to fill, to be full, to be accomplished, to be full in abundance.
It is used in many other passages in Genesis of course:
Here you go:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lex ... 390&t=NASB

[RickD]

The term used in Genesis 1:28 is male/mala and means to fill, to be full, to be accomplished, to be full in abundance.
It is used in many other passages in Genesis of course:
Here you go:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lex ... 390&t=NASB

Yes Paul, that's how I understand it too. I just don't see the justification to say it means replenish in the sense of refilling something that was once full but now is empty.

[Jac3510]

Actually, this isn't a Hebrew problem at all. It's an English one. The KJV uses the word "replenish," but that is because in old English, the word "replenish" did not mean "to fill again" but rather "to stock fully" or "to perfect." It's an archaic meaning that we just don't use anymore. In fact, if you look at all 55 instances of the Hebrew word in question (as per y'all's link), everywhere the English word "replenish" is used we can just as easily put in the word "fill" and get the same meaning. That, by the way, is exactly why no modern translation ever uses the word "replenish" to transate mala. You can see that for yourself at blueletterbible.org. At the same link we have there, just change the search feature to the NIV or the NASB or the ESV or anything. Then do a search for the word "replenish." You'll see it just isn't there.

In short, the Hebrew word mala just does NOT mean "to fill again." If you want to say that in Hebrew, you would have written umil'u 'owd (pronounced "oom-eel-oo ohd")--which would mean "and fill up again" or the modern "replenish." For an example of a very similar construction, see the first three words of Gen 4:25 (click here).

[B. W.]

Gen 1:28 the Hebrew word translated fill simply means to - fill up to completion - Fill up the land...

Nothing much to the word other than - filler up...

The KJV uses the word replenish in the verse and when it was written in the 1611 edition it meant - fill up. Over time, words changed meaning and replenish took on more depth and that depth was read into later interpretations of the text as Jac mentioned.

Gen 1:28 1611 KJV, "And God blessed them, and God said vnto them, Be fruitfull, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and haue dominion ouer the fish of the sea, and ouer the foule of the aire, and ouer euery liuing thing that mooueth vpon the earth."

The Complete Jewish bible renders the verse as follows which shows that along with the NASB the word is correctly rendered FILL as opposed to replenish:

Gen 1:28 CJB "God blessed them: God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth."

One point is being said that humanity was to fill (populate) the land until this reaches a completion only know to God. In the light of Rev 21:1-27 that makes sense...
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[abelcainsbrother]

Abelcainsbrother,

The problem you're making, and it's a huge one, is you're interpreting מָלָא as "replenish", or "refill". Maybe someone more knowledgable in Hebrew can chime in here(Jac), but I believe "fill" is a much better translation. The NASB gets it better IMO:

Genesis 1:28 NASB
28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the [a]sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Once the bad translation is fixed, biblically, your gap theory falls flat on its face.

I gave 5 reasons for reading Genesis 1 from a perspective of God restoring both the heavens and the earth to create this world and replenish is the only example you can refute?What about God creating the plants,trees,animals,life in this world after their kind or after his kind? If a former world existed then this makes sense why God created the life in this world after their kind?I have heard young earth creationists make Jeremiah 4:23-28 a future prophecy but they forget that not all life dies during the tribulation as lions will lay down with lambs when Jesus returns so Jeremiah is looking back not forward and this is why it lines up with Genesis 1:2 saying the earth was without form and void and no sunlight,the heavens became black.All life would perish with no sunlight as it did.The sun was shining the whole time during Noah's flood but not Lucifer's flood.In Luke 10 Jesus said I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.

[Jac3510]

What about God creating the plants,trees,animals,life in this world after their kind or after his kind? If a former world existed then this makes sense why God created the life in this world after their kind?

How do you get preexistent kinds from the phrase "after their kind"? It just means that the verb is question is associated with the particular kind of animal. So plants produce seed or fruit according to their kind. God created sea creatures according to their kind. What . . . are we to suggeset that there was only one sea creature that God created, or only one species of sea creature? Of course not. The text says plainly that God created creatures--both in the sea and in the air and on the ground--in accordance with their kind, their various species. But beyond all that, my question still stands. How the heck do you get a preexistent creation from the phrase "according to their kind"? If that's not a stretch, I don't know what is.

And by the way, whether or not you made four other points, the fact remains that your replenish argument is refuted. And that is something you need to deal with.

[abelcainsbrother]

Let me say this if I am wrong about the Gap theory I want to be shown biblically why I am wrong but I do not in no way think I am wrong biblically right now.I will repent if I'm shown wrong as I have been wrong before and have changed my mind.Young earth creationists have spread false things about the Gap theory but I could easily refute people like Ken Ham who have spread false things about the gap theory and it is wrong.I do not have to get into Hebrew or Greek to do it either and the Gap theory does in Noway effect Ken Ham's Noah's ark as no Gap theorist rejects Noah's flood,so what is their problem with the gap theory?It is not that hard at all to prove scientifically a global flood happened regardless of what atheists say.NOAA is all I need,I don't need AIG to defend Noah's flood and I don't need evolution to tell me what the evidence in this earth proves because it proves there was a former world full of life that died and this is all the evidence proves,dinosaurs lived in the former world until they died millions of years ago.Yes we as Christians have to defend Lucifer's flood and Noah's flood and we have the evidence in this earth to do it.

[abelcainsbrother]

What about God creating the plants,trees,animals,life in this world after their kind or after his kind? If a former world existed then this makes sense why God created the life in this world after their kind?

How do you get preexistent kinds from the phrase "after their kind"? It just means that the verb is question is associated with the particular kind of animal. So plants produce seed or fruit according to their kind. God created sea creatures according to their kind. What . . . are we to suggeset that there was only one sea creature that God created, or only one species of sea creature? Of course not. The text says plainly that God created creatures--both in the sea and in the air and on the ground--in accordance with their kind, their various species. But beyond all that, my question still stands. How the heck do you get a preexistent creation from the phrase "according to their kind"? If that's not a stretch, I don't know what is.

I don't get a preexistent creation from just reading Genesis 1 and I'm not sure anybody would see it or get it from just reading "after their kind"or "after his kind" or Genesis 1 instead you've got to to read other parts of the bible in both the old and new testaments to first understand it,then when you read Genesis 1 you understand why God created the life in this world "after their kind"or after his kind"the bible uses both phrases and they make sense in line with other passages in both the OT and the NT it is like you can finally see it.How do you overlook how Jeremiah 4:23-28 is the same picture we see of the earth in Genesis 1:2?We cannot just ignore it for it points us to Genesis 1:2 then we can understand why God created the life in this world after their kind or after his kind.If we want to see that this was a flood more severe than Noah's flood then we read 2nd Peter 3:5-7 to see that both the heavens and the earth were flooded in this flood,then we already know that this flood was different from Noah's flood because the heavens were not flooded in Noah's flood only the earth was.So we cannot stick Noah's flood here and it tells us the former world perished in water,so then we blend Jeremiah 4:23-28 into this flood Peter describes that reveals the earth was floating in water like a bobber in water as it is described in the text of Peter,this was not Noah's flood because this world has not perished even in Noah's flood this world was spared so that Jesus could be born.God has always been in control and is always outsmarting Satan.

And by the way, whether or not you made four other points, the fact remains that your replenish argument is refuted. And that is something you need to deal with.

In light of all of the biblical evidence I have given and the KJV translators using the word replenish for Adam and Eve and the word replenish after Noah's flood too it is more evidence to back up a former world existing that perished even if you don't like the KJV translation it is not good to make this a battle over translations.

[Jac3510]

You're moving goalposts, ACB.

RE: "after their kind," you asked how we dealth with that. I answered that. We can talk about other verses, too, but before we do that, I want to suggest that you might have a general problem with your model of interpretation. You can't take a verse here and a verse there and "blend" them to get a doctrine. Each text needs to be allowed to make its own point within its own context. Otherwise, you can say silly things like this:

1. Judas hanged himself (Matthew 27:5). 2. “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37). 3. “That thou doest, do quickly” (John 13:27).

I assume you aren't about to go run off and kill yourself. You would rightly point out that those verses don't have anything to do with each other. But how do you know that? Because you look at the context of each one. And that's what you have to do with verses like Jer 4.

And just as an aside, your appeal to Jer 4 isn't even the best argument you can make. If you are going to attempt to defend the GT, a much better passage to cite would be Isa 45:18.

2. RE: translation problems - I'm not making this about translations. With all due respect, you are. I'm fine with the word "replenish," so long as you understand that replenish does not mean to fill up again. It never did. It didn't mean that when the KJV translators chose the word. When they chose it, it meant "to fill up completely" or "to perfect." AGAIN--the word "replenish" DOES NOT MEAN "TO FILL AGAIN." So when you use the KJV in defense of your position, you are, in fact, not taking the KJV translators. You are, in effect, putting words in their mouth in attributing to them ideas that they never held.

The bottom line is that the KJV and all modern translations understood and said in their translations that the animals and humans were to FILL the land, not REFILL the land. That, in and of itself, doesn't disprove the GT. You could very well FILL the land after it had been decimated. But that's a matter of context and NOT a matter of semantics (that is, it's rooted in the surrounding text, not the meaning of the word). So long as you try to use the word "replenish" in defense of the GT, you are actually being dishonest, and that's bad for two reason: first, it's just wrong ot be dishonest. You ought not do that. It amounts to telling a lie. And second, it makes the people you are trying to convince think that you are not being serious, and that means you are actually HARMING the very position you are trying to defend. If the best argument you have is something that we all know is spurious and you use it anyway, then that tells us that you have no evidence in favor of your position after all. Think about how you feel when atheists use stupid, discredited arguments against God's existence. Does that make you respect them and their atheism more or less? Whether you want to admit it or not, when you use the "replenish" argument, the same thing you feel about atheism is how you are making others feel about the GT. I'm sure that is not your intention, so I'm offering you some pastoral advice: for the sake of your own testimony and for the importance of the position you believe to be true, stop using spurious arguments to make your case. It harms your credibility.

fdit:

I don't know why you are talking about Ken Ham. No one has brought him up, and no one has used him as a source. And I promise you this, no one on this site takes him very seriously (not even me, and I am YEC). At best, you are raising an unrelated point--that's called a red herring. At worst, you are attributing to those who disagree with you positions they don't hold--that's called a straw man. I would encourage you to interact with what we are actually saying to you and be sure that we interact with what you are actually saying, not with unrelated points that no one actually believes or has made anyway.

[abelcainsbrother]

You're moving goalposts, ACB.

RE: "after their kind," you asked how we dealth with that. I answered that. We can talk about other verses, too, but before we do that, I want to suggest that you might have a general problem with your model of interpretation. You can't take a verse here and a verse there and "blend" them to get a doctrine. Each text needs to be allowed to make its own point within its own context. Otherwise, you can say silly things like this:

1. Judas hanged himself (Matthew 27:5). 2. “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37). 3. “That thou doest, do quickly” (John 13:27).

I assume you aren't about to go run off and kill yourself. You would rightly point out that those verses don't have anything to do with each other. But how do you know that? Because you look at the context of each one. And that's what you have to do with verses like Jer 4.

And just as an aside, your appeal to Jer 4 isn't even the best argument you can make. If you are going to attempt to defend the GT, a much better passage to cite would be Isa 45:18.

2. RE: translation problems - I'm not making this about translations. With all due respect, you are. I'm fine with the word "replenish," so long as you understand that replenish does not mean to fill up again. It never did. It didn't mean that when the KJV translators chose the word. When they chose it, it meant "to fill up completely" or "to perfect." AGAIN--the word "replenish" DOES NOT MEAN "TO FILL AGAIN." So when you use the KJV in defense of your position, you are, in fact, not taking the KJV translators. You are, in effect, putting words in their mouth in attributing to them ideas that they never held.

The bottom line is that the KJV and all modern translations understood and said in their translations that the animals and humans were to FILL the land, not REFILL the land. That, in and of itself, doesn't disprove the GT. You could very well FILL the land after it had been decimated. But that's a matter of context and NOT a matter of semantics (that is, it's rooted in the surrounding text, not the meaning of the word). So long as you try to use the word "replenish" in defense of the GT, you are actually being dishonest, and that's bad for two reason: first, it's just wrong ot be dishonest. You ought not do that. It amounts to telling a lie. And second, it makes the people you are trying to convince think that you are not being serious, and that means you are actually HARMING the very position you are trying to defend. If the best argument you have is something that we all know is spurious and you use it anyway, then that tells us that you have no evidence in favor of your position after all. Think about how you feel when atheists use stupid, discredited arguments against God's existence. Does that make you respect them and their atheism more or less? Whether you want to admit it or not, when you use the "replenish" argument, the same thing you feel about atheism is how you are making others feel about the GT. I'm sure that is not your intention, so I'm offering you some pastoral advice: for the sake of your own testimony and for the importance of the position you believe to be true, stop using spurious arguments to make your case. It harms your credibility.

fdit:

I don't know why you are talking about Ken Ham. No one has brought him up, and no one has used him as a source. And I promise you this, no one on this site takes him very seriously (not even me, and I am YEC). At best, you are raising an unrelated point--that's called a red herring. At worst, you are attributing to those who disagree with you positions they don't hold--that's called a straw man. I would encourage you to interact with what we are actually saying to you and be sure that we interact with what you are actually saying, not with unrelated points that no one actually believes or has made anyway.

Moving goal posts? No I explained why God created the life in this world "after their kind"or "after his kind" both phrases are used for different life in Genesis 1 and it says this because God created the life in this world after the life that was in the former world,then I give Jeremiah 4:23-28 which describes the same thing Genesis 1:2 describes and yet you can't seem to see it.Why not? The earth is without form and void in Jeremiah 4:23-28 and Genesis 1:2 with no light,the heavens are black and the earth is flooded too and all life has died.We do this in bible prophecy putting scriptures together from both the old and new testaments to get a better picture.You seem to imply this is dangerous.There are many scriptures in both the old testament and new testament that backs it up,but Jeremiah 4:23-28 and 2nd Peter 3:5-7 are the bread and butter scriptures for the GT.Think about the context you think about when you read "after their kind" or "after his kind" it says this for a reason and should not be skimmed over and it makes much better biblical sense that God created the life in this world after their kind- pointing to the former world full of life that existed that perished. You must get it biblically first before we can examine evidence in and around this earth.

It seems to me that you do think the KJV translators were wrong for translating that Hebrew word to replenish instead of fill.
I brought up Ken Ham because of critics of the Gap theory like him have put out false information about it whether knowingly or not they have.

[Jac3510]

edited

NM. Look, I'm just going to leave this where it is ACB. Suffice it to say that I don't think you understand the GT as well as you think you do. What bothers me about your defense of the matter is that you don't seem to have an appreciation for, much less an understanding of, the textual issues at play here. I've studied the Hebrew in detail behind these issues, and it just doesn't impress me anymore. And yet you're content to just proof text stuff and you wonder why people can't just see what is obvious to you. And add to that the fact that you actually seem to think the KJV is in your corner . . .

I just don't really want to play that game. So all the best to you.

[abelcainsbrother]

I'm just skimming the surface right now but if you are a young earth creationist or old earth.When did God create angels in the 6 days of creation?Where do you stick angels being created if you think Genesis 1:1,2 and 3 are all the first day of creation?

The bible clearly teaches about angels and Lucifer and a third of the angels rebelled against God but I don't see how you can fit the creation of angels into any of the 6 days of creation in Genesis 1.Have you ever taken the time to read Isaiah 14 and Ezekeial 28 about Lucifer who was once a very good angel until he rebelled?

Angels are apart of the bible and God created them.I would think if you are a young earth creationist you'd have to put the creation of angels in creation day 4 but it does not mention angels being created and you only have about two 24 hour days until Lucifer rebelled totally overlooking his history as a good angel at one time.It is important to understand Lucifer and where he was and what he did before he rebelled against God.

Again Jesus said in Luke 10 I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.Lucifer went to war and tried to overtake heaven where God is but was kicked out.Lucifer's rebellion ties into the gap theory and this is why the former world perished.Ezekiel 28 tells us Lucifer was in Eden and it was on this earth before God restored the heavens and the earth and created this world with the life we have in this world. We find God restoring things althroughout the bible also including us who have been saved by Jesus,we are being restored back to a perfect state through Jesus.So why is so hard to believe God could restore the heavens and the earth too?It was created perfect in the beginning.

[abelcainsbrother]

edited

NM. Look, I'm just going to leave this where it is ACB. Suffice it to say that I don't think you understand the GT as well as you think you do. What bothers me about your defense of the matter is that you don't seem to have an appreciation for, much less an understanding of, the textual issues at play here. I've studied the Hebrew in detail behind these issues, and it just doesn't impress me anymore. And yet you're content to just proof text stuff and you wonder why people can't just see what is obvious to you. And add to that the fact that you actually seem to think the KJV is in your corner . . .

I just don't really want to play that game. So all the best to you.

Hey this is an important issue to discuss and iron out as Christians.You bring up Hebrew but nobody needs to understand the Hebrew to see how the scriptures reveals a gap of time between the former world that perished and this world that has not perished yet but will one day,then it will be restored again and we'll have a new heaven and earth again except forever this time.

[Jac3510]

On angels, this (esp 1 & 3) and this (esp 5 & 6).

And yes, I've read Isa 14 and Eze 28 in detail (do you really think that I'm unfamiliar with that material?). I wonder if you are aware that the identification with Satan in those passages is problematic. I would point you to Keil and Delitzch's remarks on those passages, as their work is in the public domain but still appreciated today. It's not too hard to find them for free online. There's plenty more to say, but that's a fair start.

Once again, I'm afraid that if you understood the theory as well as you say you do that you wouldn't ask these kinds of questions.

edit:

You bring up Hebrew but nobody needs to understand the Hebrew to see how the scriptures reveals a gap of time between the former world that perished and this world that has not perished yet but will one day,then it will be restored again and we'll have a new heaven and earth again except forever this time.

Yes, you do need to see the Hebrew. As a GT proponent, I have to believe that you have read Arthur Custance's Without Form and Void, which is considered one of the strongest defenses of the theory available even now. You should know that he spent the bulk of his book as well as thirteen appendices arguing over the Hebrew grammar behind the interpretation of Gen 1:2 to prove his point.

So when you say that you don't need to look at the Hebrew, it just proves to me that you haven't even studied in any real detail the theory you are actually defending. If you did, you would know that not only is the Hebrew important, but that it decisively refutes any possibility of the GT, since Gen 1:2 is related to Gen 1:1 via a waw-disjunctive and is composed of three circumstantial clauses, which means that it is literally impossible to see any gap there.

I mean, honestly . . . I'm afraid that you just don't know what you are talking about, my misguided friend.