gluadys said:
This is unclear and a bit self-contradictory. I get the impression this is a question you have not considered before.
That is not the case. I simply do not know how to classify the humanoid creation. For if it was the same as ours, then Jesus would have to die for their souls. But, these were not a part of this world. Jesus only died for the sins of this world.
"World" in the Bible quite often speaks of all mankind that exists in this creation.
But it is an important question. As I understand it gap theory contends that the geologic record shows the remnants of earlier creations and the fossils are of the species which existed in those earlier creations. You also state that at least in the creation immediately prior to ours there were "humans" like us in all respects but not made in the image of God.
Professor Stan Ashby (Ancient Languages, Harvard) who after retirement taught at a Bible College, taught on the word used by Jeremiah.
"People", he explained, was a generic term used for men.
Jeremiah 4:24-25 niv
" I looked at the mountains,
and they were quaking;
all the hills were swaying.
I looked, and there were no people;
every bird in the sky had flown away."
Like the word "cat" can be used for a tom cat and a mountain lion, this term was used for mankind. Has there been any time in our history that mankind was wiped out? If, yes? Then how could we be here now?
Jeremiah spoke the same words used in Genesis 1:2! The world was a mess, not just some nation!
23 I looked at the earth,
and it was formless and empty;
and at the heavens,
and their light was gone.
That sounds like it must have just preceded what we find in Genesis 1:2. For, that is what how we found this planet just before God refurbished the earth with this latest creation.
The geologic record does show times of global catastrophe and mass extinction -- five in all with the sixth occurring today. The problem is that it shows no mass extinction which completely wiped out all life on earth. One (snowball earth) destroyed 98% of all species living at the time, but 2% survived into the next non-catastrophic period.
Even in the next creation certain known species will exist along with new ones. The lion will eat like the ox. The ox will appear to be the same.
It also does not show any mass extinction occurring at any time during human existence even if we include very early Homo species like H. habilis or H. rudolfensis. Not until we get to the 20th century when the current mass extinction was set in motion by our own destructiveness of species and their natural habitat.
Mass extinctions may have not have always come from God's hand. Satan when he fell lost his perfection. And, like when Adam fell, the existing creation fell with him.
My belief is that Satan may have been trying to prove himself worthy of not being condemnable by God, but he lost control over an imperfect world that revealed that he was flawed. He at his fall thought he could replace the Lord, and here he was being shown to be an impotent leader! I can not go into details at the moment, but Satan had the power for executing such mass extinctions. In a fury of temper, I believe there were times he wiped out large parts of creation that were making him look the fool. For he thought he could replace God. And, now he was shown to be powerless to control what was fallen like himself. Fallen creation reflected his own imperfection and his megalomaniacal pride reacted in a violent rage against what he was to have dominion over, but could not run perfectly.
I didn't say perfecting, I said learning, as in learning a craft or skill. That is what this citation implied to me:
God never learns. He already has told us what is to be.
He made several other worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all, because He was pleased with none until He created ours."
That was not the word's we find in the Bible. God was pleased, or he would not have created them. They served as teaching tools. Just like we graduated from one grade, and moved on to the next.... Each consecutive creation was the next grade up in education for the angels.
The very fact that creation started out very simple indicates this. It was the proverbial "first grade" for angels. It kept progressing along in greater complexity. It appears the last creation before ours is when Satan and his angels reached a dead end. Not more lessons in that manner. They lost dominion over the planet and God replaced the headship with Adam. This creation was to serve a new purpose all together. For now man and angels both are recipients of learning from God things of Eternal value. In the past what ever creation was destroyed, its purpose ended right then.
Sounds like someone who is learning to do something by trial and error and destroying the first attempts because of the errors in them.
Nope. You are making God into a superman. Not, God. He always knew you would think that at this moment. If God did not know all things he could not have imputed all your personal sins on Jesus on the Cross. If God did not know all there is to know about you long before you were born, he could not have saved you. For every sin you ever commit in your lifetime Jesus had to pay for. Mine, too. And, the entire worlds! That would give any super creature a big headache! Impossible to do if he had to learn anything.
God does not have thoughts like we do. God does not figure out anything. God does not solve problems for himself. He does not learn.
But these are not your words, so I won't hold you to them if you disagree with them.
Correct, They were not my words. Those ancient Jewish scholars just did not know how to put together what they could see. They do like many do today. They guess based upon what can be known. They were able to see that other creations did exist before this one. That much they could deduce from Scripture.
Grace and peace, GeneZ
