Question
What is your understanding of the ‘gap theory’?
Response
Although I know of a number of grace folks and teachers who do subscribe to the ‘gap theory’, personally I do not believe that it is true. And even though I have had occasions in the past to talk to some people about why I do not think it is true, and to tell them what my understanding is, I have not done this either on tape or put it in print. So this is why we are not able to send you any materials specifically on this.
However, in view of not having anything to send to you about it, and not wanting to simply say that I do not believe it to be true, I will briefly and simply tell you a few of the reasons why I do not think that it is true. And what I am going to say is going to be very simply put. I just want you to know that I do have reasons why I do not think that the ‘gap theory’ is true. But this will not be either a full or detailed presentation of my reasons at all, nor will it be a defense of them.
So then first of all to me the ‘gap theory’ is contrary to the natural reading and presentation of the information as it is set forth in Genesis chapter 1. As I read what God sets forth in verses 1 and following, and as I just let what He says in those verses be what forms my understanding, to me there is nothing in what God says that causes me to understand anything more than the activities of six literal days being described right from verse 1. Consequently, as I said, I find the notion that I am supposed to recognize a gap of significant time between what is said in verse 1 and what is said in verse 2 to be contrary to the natural reading. Likewise, for example, I also find unacceptable both the notion and/or the arguments that the King James Bible Translators mistranslated the word “was” in verse 2, and that it should be translated “became”; or if the word for “was” was not actually mistranslated, it ought to be thought of by us with the sense of “became”. Both the notion and the arguments along this line are strained and faulty to me. For the same reason I also find unacceptable the teaching that the word “foundation”, as it is used later on in the expressions “foundation of the world”, should have been translated ‘overthrow’, or that some similar word indicating a catastrophe or a judgment should have been used, and that this refers to the event that made the earth become “without form, and void”.
Now I know that many of the arguments that are set forth to support the ‘gap theory’ come from verses and passages in other places in the Bible, e.g. Isaiah 45:18. And I know that from these other verses and passages we are told that we are supposed to understand that such a ‘gap’ must exist between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 in order to account for what these other verses and passages say. However, I find the arguments and teachings that are based upon these other verses and passages to be weak at best. And I find that the interpretations that are applied to these verses and passages are not very faithful to the contexts in which they occur. In fact, to me many of them clearly seem to violate the contexts in which they occur. Therefore, I do not find support for the ‘gap theory’ in these other verses and passages at all.
Moreover, in my understanding of Genesis 1, and elsewhere, I am able to fit into the natural reading of Genesis 1 all of the things that the ‘gap theory’ says are supposed to have occurred during the ‘gap’. Therefore, the idea that a ‘gap’ is needed in order to explain certain things, or that one is necessary in order to adequately provide for the occurrence of certain things, or that having a ‘gap’ is the best explanation of things, to me is not true at all.
So then without having described anything in any detail, nor having analyzed any argument for or against the ‘gap theory,’ this is the gist of my main reasons for not believing in the ‘gap theory’. Simply stated, from the moment I begin reading God’s testimony in Genesis 1 I do not see any need for, or any indication of, a ‘gap’ existing; nor do I see anything in what God says later on that causes me to have to go back to Genesis and insert a ‘gap’ between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.
I am sorry that we do not have any literature to send you that specifically deals with this issue in detail. But this at least lets you know what my understanding is on this matter.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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