I tend to agree mainly because of the tense of H1961"hayah". I could be mistaken on that, but it doesn't affect my salvation in the least or my faith in Yahweh/Christ and the Bible.
If scientists are right about the earth being billions of years old along with fossils being millions of years old, then the gap theory would make sense.
According to the ISA Scripture4All Hebrew interlinear, the translation "
she-became/had-become-to-be" is used in
68 verses of the OT, thus implying a past earth that had become flooded [perhaps because of a previous judgement and flood?] and that particular
form of the word isn't used again until
Genesis 36:12.
Scripture4All - Greek/Hebrew interlinear Bible software
The tense is "indicative preterite" according to this site [never heard of that tense until now]:
Conjugation became | Conjugate verb became | Reverso Conjugator English
Indicative
Preterite
became
Genesis 1:
1 In a-beginning Elohim created the Heavens and the Earth.
2 and the Earth,
she-became<1961> waste and void, and darkness on surface of submerged chaos,
and a spirit of Elohim fluttering over surface of
the waters..........
1961 hayah haw-yaw a primitive root (Compare
1933);
to exist, i.e. be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary):--beacon, X altogether, be(-come), accomplished, committed, like), break, cause, come (to pass), do, faint, fall, + follow, happen, X have, last, pertain, quit (one-)self, require, X use.
In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Is There a Large Gap of Time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2?
Why then do some believe in the gap theory?............................
Rather than start the creation week at Genesis 1:1 as most Bible scholars do, gappists start that week at Genesis 1:3. Therefore, they believe that before Genesis 1:3, a vast length of time existed—as they state, “whatever geologists demand.”
To justify this, they propose nontraditional translations of several verses.
They believe that Genesis 1:2a should be translated “the Earth
became formless and void,” instead of the more widely accepted translation “the Earth
was formless and void.” I know of no record, before 1800, of anyone advocating such a translation.
While the Hebrew word “hayah” can be translated “became,” it is usually translated “was.” In the 4,900 times “hayah
” occurs in the Old Testament, almost 98% are translated as “was.” Hebrew grammarians and linguists have almost uniformly rejected the translation “became” or “had become.”...............
,
.
