Recap on Genesis 1:1
Martin Luther, the great protestant reformer commented concerning Genesis 1:1, “The very simple meaning of what Moses says, therefore, is this: Everything that is, was created by God.” Today, that does not seem so “very simple”! If you measured simple by the tangled web of scholarly debate, the meaning of the opening words of the Bible is anything but simple.
Two Views on the word Created
Previously we reviewed the lexicon meanings of key words in verse 1 and found that each key word had various meanings depending on the context. We found the word “created” where the root bārā˒ has the basic meaning “to create.” It denotes the concept of “initiating something new” in a number of passages. The ambiguity of the Hebrew grammar in this verse gives rise to two alternative translations that are held by two highly respected, early church fathers.
Saint Thomas Aquinas (b. ca. 1225; d. 7 March, 1274) He was an Italian Catholic priest in the Dominican Order, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of the Thomistic school of philosophy and theology.
Augustine of Hippo (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430) He was the bishop of Hippo Regius, also a philosopher and theologian. Augustine, as a Latin Church father, was one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity.
The first view would imply that God's first act of creation (out of nothing) was heaven and earth, and is often referred to as "creation ex nihilo" -- that God created the Earth and the rest of the universe out of nothing. This is the historical Christian interpretation of the first Genesis creation story and is grounded on St. Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologiae," and on other early Christian writings.
The second possible view is that "heaven and earth" already existed in a "formless and void" state, to which God brings "form and order:" and is called "creatio ex materia." God is seen as having formed the universe out of pre-existing material, perhaps by bringing order out of chaos. Augustine appears to have adopted this position. St. Thomas Aquinas commented that "Augustine uses the word creation in an equivocal sense, according as to be created signifies improvement in things; as when we say that a bishop is created."
We clearly understand that the universe is God’s creative work perfectly expressed by the statement “God created the heavens and the earth”. The word bārā’ (“created”) may express creation out of nothing, but it certainly may not be limited to that as indicated by the different views held by well respected scholars. Rather, it could be stressing that what was formed was new and perfect. The word is used throughout the Bible only with God as its subject.
Genesis 1:2 and Chaos?
Now we read 1:2 which appears to describe a chaos: there was waste and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. It was a chaos of wasteness, emptiness, and darkness. Could such conditions be a result from God’s creative work (bārā’)? Perhaps they are symptomatic of sin and are coordinate with judgment. Many scholars have seen a “gap” between the first two verses, allowing for the fall of Satan and entrance of sin into the world that caused the chaos.
Let’s pull out our trustworthy lexicon and begin examining the key words in verse 2 where we read:
Genesis 1-2 (New International Version)
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Here is lexicon information for formless.
8414 תֹּהוּ [tohuw /to•hoo/] n m. From an unused root meaning to lie waste; TWOT 2494a; GK 9332; 20 occurrences; AV translates as “vain” four times, “vanity” four times, “confusion” three times, “without form” twice, “wilderness” twice, “nought” twice, “nothing” once, “empty place” once, and “waste” once. 1 formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness. 1a formlessness (of primeval earth). 1a1 nothingness, empty space. 1b that which is empty or unreal (of idols) (fig). 1c wasteland, wilderness (of solitary places). 1d place of chaos. 1e vanity.
And here is the entry for empty.
922 בֹּהוּ [bohuw /bo•hoo/] n m. From an unused root (meaning to be empty); TWOT 205a; GK 983; Three occurrences; AV translates as “void” twice, and “emptiness” once. 1 emptiness, void, waste.
“The earth was tōhû wābōhû.” The meaning of bōhû itself is uncertain (it appears elsewhere only in Isa 34:11 and Jer 4:23, both times in context with tōhû), although it apparently signifies “emptiness”.
Therefore, the phrase tōhû wābōhû in Gen 1:2a has been variously understood as meaning “a formless waste”, “absolutely nothing whatever”, “void and vacancy” However in the traditional rendering, “without form and void” is ably defended by W. H. Griffith Thomas in Genesis—A Devotional Commentary, p. 29, where he writes that “the adjectives ‘formless’ and ‘empty’ seem to be the key to the literary structure of the chapter. The record of the first three days refers to the heaven and earth receiving their ‘form,’ and the record of the last three days to the filling-up of their ‘emptiness.’
The Gap Theory
The “gap” or “interval” theory, theorizes that there is a millennia-long period of time implied by or in Gen 1:2 and which usually translates verse 1:2a by the less likely “but the earth became without form and void,” has come into increasing disfavor in recent years.
Its main exegetical support, Isa 45:18, reads “(God) did not create (the earth) tōhû,” and has been interpreted to mean that therefore an original creation (described briefly in Gen 1:1) was destroyed; that the geologic ages ensued (during the “gap”); and that the new creation portrayed in Gen 1:3ff. was built on the wreckage of the old.
But Isa 45:18, after the phrase quoted, goes on to say that God “formed (the earth) to be inhabited,” thereby assuring the reader that tōhû was not his ultimate purpose in creation.
The word tōhû in Gen 1:2, likewise, refers not to the result of a supposed catastrophe (for which there is no clear biblical evidence) but to the formlessness of the earth before God’s creative hand began the majestic acts described in the following verses. As Jer 4:23 indicates, the earth always has the potential of returning to tōhû wābōhû if God decides to judge it.
But as difficult as tōhû is to define, it is even more difficult for us to conceptualize it. Augustine, in his Confessions, admitted his failure to grasp it visually, so it’s not difficult for us to admit the same.
In Closing
I suppose that it isn’t strange, that when we read the first chapter of Genesis we see what we deem problems. We pose questions we want answered. We can easily glaze over God’s great affirmation about Himself and our universe to pose the query, “But God, there appears to be a gap. What about those 24-hour days? And, when did Creation really take place?”
Somehow, Genesis does not seem concerned with the kind of questions we like to raise. It is enough for the writer of Genesis to affirm God. It is enough for the writer to show us that we human beings live today in a universe that can only be understood when we too affirm God.
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