Yes, I would like to see a creationist argue honestly for once.
The "Gap" may not have been refuted because there is not "There there." I have never seen the so called Gap laid out in what it claims. If no one bothers to say exactly what the Gap is it is not possible to debunk it.
For example if I claim that I can fly across the street but give no evidence nor tell how I would do it you would not be able to debunk that claim. If I said I could do it by flapping my arms you could debunk it. If I showed a small portable helicopter that I owned you might even admit that it was possible.
Without details no one can debunk your nonsense.
Where have you been? Where did you go?
I will try again..
The GAP understanding in creation is one showing that this world we now live in is not the first created world ever to have covered the surface of this planet. That there had been prehistoric worlds that were destroyed by God and buried beneath us.
Here it is again:
Genesis 1:2
Now the earth was desolate and empty, darkness
was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God
was hovering over the waters.
The translation
... desolate and empty,;... is mild compared to what the ancient Hebrew speaking reader saw in the text. It speaks of something much more severe.
God would not originally (in the beginning = Gen 1:1) create the world as some destroyed chaotic mess. Not one of manifested in wreak and ruin, also having an eerie sense of emptiness draped over it, giving a feeling of an aftermath of a burned out Hiroshima after the atomic explosion had settled down.
The earth was created by God in the *beginning.* (Genesis 1:1) At some undetermined time later on (Genesis 1:2) we find that it had become something that it was not created as being. It lay in a massive ruin, and in desolation.
Jeremiah gave that kind of warning! Rebellious Israel's warning about God's pending destruction of the apostate Jews. Those rebellious Jews had been saturating themselves in forbidden pagan sex rituals (which included the sacrificing of their children into fire).
God was angry with Israel. Jeremiah as God's spokesman, spoke to them the same exact Hebrew words that are to be found in Genesis 1:2. Genesis 1:2 was not speaking about a simple act of creation. It was about judgment. Judgement of the severest kind.
The Jews grew up being taught the Torah from their youth. They knew that full implication of Genesis 1:2. It was giving them a panoramic view of an utterly destroyed earth after judgment. It was a sign of what can happen as a result of God's anger. The prior creation had been judged.
The Hebrew words Toho wabohu [
desolate and empty] appear only together two times in the Torah. In Genesis 1:2. And, Jeremiah 4:23. Its no coincidence.
Jeremiah 4:23-24
I looked at the earth,
and it was desolate and empty; (Genesis 1:2)
and at the heavens,
and their light was gone. (Genesis 1:2)
I looked at the mountains,
and they were quaking;
all the hills were swaying.
Jeremiah prophesied to warn them of how they were teetering on the precipice their own destruction. To show them how serious it was, Jeremiah took them right back to Genesis 1:2! Genesis 1:2 was about what the creation had become. Not about how it was originally created to be. That would be like saying a car that came off the assembly line looked like a total wreck. Its not how it was originally made!
Proponents of young earth creationists for the large part, sad to say, are notoriously weak in the original languages of Scripture. They lean upon the King James or some other generic mainstream translation. It is one reason they remain young earthers. They can not connect with what Jeremiah was saying. Most likely because they were never taught much about Jeremiah!
Back then the Jews in Jeremiah's day intimately knew Hebrew. They certainly did. Genesis 1 was Sunday school teaching for them. They all knew it. Interestingly, Jeremiah had to add something after his warning taken from Genesis 1:2. He had to tell them, unlike what took place in Genesis 1:2. That God would not utterly and completely destroy them. For in Genesis 1:2 the earth lay in total destruction. They knew from the Hebrew what had taken place in Genesis 1:2.
Therefore, Jeremiah added...
Jeremiah 4:27
For thus says the Lord,
“The whole land shall be a desolation,
Yet I will not execute a complete destruction.
The Jews understood the severity of the warning Jeremiah was giving them. For, he had referred to Genesis 1:2. That is why Jeremiah had to add an addendum. Telling them that unlike the the earth found in Genesis 1:2, in their case; God this time would not utterly destroy all of them as a people. That some Jews as a race would survive to perpetuate their people.
Genesis 1:2, speaks of a destroyed planet. Not creation.
Genesis 1:2 enters into a scene showing a state of the aftermath of a complete and utter destruction of a previous creation.
A creation that had been on the face of the (prehistoric) earth. That is why we find such different types of lifeforms in the fossil evidence. Yet, also as found in the fossil remains, God worked with the same kind of genetic structuring and building blocks for biological life. He continued to use the same model for this present creation.
The prehistoric world included a humanoid type creature. One that Jeremiah alluded to in another passage. Such a humanoid is what we commonly refer to today as a cave man. All those humanoids were wiped out in the prior judgment. It was a very high order of animal, possibly the highest to date. One major difference. It had not been created in God's image as man is today. Man today has a soul that will exist forever.
What I just presented is found in Scripture. Been there for a very long time. It was there long before Darwin was born. So the Bible was not re-written to accommodate the theory of evolution as some claim when trying to block the GAP understanding.
What I just presented is only a tip of the iceberg in understanding prehistoric life.
