catherine wrote:Well, you learn something new every day. Has anyone come across this belief? Basically it claims that Lucifer and a third of the angels were involved in a revolt and were cast down to the pre-Adamic earth and the earth was 'destroyed' or laid to waste because of God's judgement against them?
Hi catherine, the most common term for this is The Gap Theory with the "gap" being a gap between
Gen.1:1 and
Gen. 1:2. This period is also called the Antechaotic Age-the Dispensation of Angels.
Part of this theory is based on a reference to
2 Pet. 3:5-7 a supposedly overthrow of
the world that then was. refering to a pre-Adamite world that existed before Satans fall. Gap theorists have been around for quite some time and most have based the theory from the King James version of our Holy Bible.
The Hebrew word
bara was translated to mean create or bring to being which was used seven times in
Gen 1:2 and is part of the crux of the argument where as all other places "made" and "make" (Hebrew word asah) are used and "earth" is translated as
dry land.
Moreover, the use of the word "and" is used 153 times to separate the 102 recorded independent acts of GOD making v.2 independent of v.1. Verse 1 refers to the whole universe being created and inhabited in the dateless past while verse 2 refers to chaos because of sin (lucifer's, see
Ezk 28:16-19) ). (This makes for a bit of common ground with OEC'ers.)
In day 2, according to the theory, the "earth" was restored (V. 3-8) and the Hebrew word
asah is defined as made out of existing materials in
Gen. 1:7.
Furthermore, Adam and Eve being told to
Go forth and re-plenish the earth is used as "proof" that the world was once before populated using the prefix
re as meaning to "plenish" again.
I hope this helps