The Earth became? formless and empty

[Guest]

Reading some posts here, I ran across the following:

One final comment about Gen. 1:2;

The King James Version says; And the earth was

[Guest]

God Created It

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Genesis 1:1

For Sure

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him;

and without him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:1-3

For Sure

In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created,

that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers:

all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Colossians 1:14-17

No Doubt Remains In My Being That The Father And The Son And The Holy Ghost Created All Stuff

And That The Son Holds It All Together

And Shortly He Will Let It Go

And Will Create Again

Whither I'm Right Or If I'm Wrong

I Will Trust In The LORD God

For There Is No Other

And He Is Good

Alway

[Guest yod]

It could be much simpler than that.

The hebrew word for Earth is the same word for "land".

So, it could be that the text is saying God created land (before there were planets) but the "eretz" (land) had not been formed into a solar system or universe yet.

[RebekahDavid]

Reading some posts here, I ran across the following:

One final comment about Gen. 1:2;

The King James Version says; And the earth was

[kross]

Reading some posts here, I ran across the following:

One final comment about Gen. 1:2;

The King James Version says; And the earth was

[nebula]

My conclusion is that every theory out there is flawed.

Yod makes a valid point though, the Hebrew word eretz meant "land, the ground" and not "Earth the planet."

In English, we call our planet "Earth" after the word "earth" which refers to the soil, the ground, the land.

So when the passage speaks of the eretz either being or becoming or whatever the word should be translated, it is referring to "terra firma", not the globe as a whole.

[RebekahDavid]

LOL Neb i agree Yod's post was very insightful. i am learning too thanks for this post Oman.

love your sister in Christ,

Rebekah David

[Guest]

Thank you all for being so kind as to read this and reply. Many are missing the point of my question, or are at the very least are answering a question I never asked.

I did not ask anything about the word earth, or about the words like empty, formless, void etc. Let me restate my question with more clarity.

Gen 1:2

Now the earth was formless and empty - New International Version

And the earth was formless and void - New American Standard Bible

And the earth was without form, and void - King James Vesrion

the earth hath existed waste and void, - Young's Literal Translation

Those version, and others, indicate that before there were sea, before there was light, before there were the Sun, the Moon, and the stars, and before God populate the earth with trees and fishes and cattle and Adam, there earth and the heavens were there, created in Gen 1:1:

Gen 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. NIV

Now, there are those, many of them good and well maeaning brothers and sisters, who believe that in between verse one and verse two, there is an unspecified length of time. This un-mentioned timespan could account for the vast amounts of time scientist say existed between today and the creation of the Earth. If the earth had been previously populated, that could also account for fossils of dinosaurs etc. - just left overs from the previous lifeform on Earth. It is speculated, that perhap a pre-Adamic race existed, and that the a previous judgement of God, wipe out the inhabitants of His prevous creative work.

Now, there are a whole lot of problems with this theory. Right of the bat, we have no license to speak of what God has done, said, or thought, unless He has revealed that to us. Where the Bible is silent, we should probably be also. There is also the fact that if this is an attempt to justify the scientific view that the Earth is billions of years old, we are still left with thye problem that scientist belive that the stars in our sky, are way older than the Earth, yet Genesis say the earth was here and the Stars, Moon, and Sun we added later.

We could get into ideas about how old the stars are, whether they are new creations or from a previous one etc. - this could be kicked around in all sorts of directions. I did not start this thread to discuss all of that, the age of the Earth, details of Creation, or any related topics. I stated the thread for one, very spcific and narrow topic, all centers on one word in our English bibles - watch for the bold text.

Gen 1:2

Now the earth was formless and empty

There are those that that word "WAS" could have or should have been translated to say:

Now the earth became formless and empty

The was/became question, is what my question is about. There are those on the boards here, who hold the belief that the Hebrew justifies the "became" idea. The notion is that if it became empty, then it must not have been empty before verse 2. As I previously pointed out, there actualy is not word in the Hebrew text in this verse, regarding the emptyness of Earth in a timing sense. In other words, if the translators had not inserted words there for readability, it might have read:

1 First God created the heavens and the Earth, 2 the Earth formless and empty.

Notice I did not have "Now the Earth" or "AND the

Earth" and there was no "the Earth was" or "the Earth became"

Those word bolded above, do not exist in the Hebrew, they are added into English. So finally, here is my actual question again:

Is there any justification for rendering the verse "the the Earth BECAME empty". The corrolarry question is is there and justification for ruling that rendering out.

Thank you all, feel free to kick ideas around as you like, but I am looking for someone to adress my actual question. Thanks

[Guest yod]

if you can accept that "eretz" is not necessarily speaking about any planet (including Earth) then my interpretation of the verse solves the problem for you.

God created a substance called "eretz" (which gets translated as "earth" in the bible) but had not actually filled the universe with planets made of "eretz" yet. This "eretz" was formless and void in space somewhere until God told it what to do.

I've heard about the battle of Lucifer and his angels before Earth (capital E) but I'm not interested in making or proving any "pre-earth" scenarios. Yet this interpretation would allow for that to also be possible and still a literal reading of the text.

[Guest shiloh357]

The was/became question, is what my question is about. There are those on the boards here, who hold the belief that the Hebrew justifies the "became" idea. The notion is that if it became empty, then it must not have been empty before verse 2.

The word "hayah" in the Hebrew as it is used here refers to a present state of being. In other words it is written as an onlooker sees it in the current state in which he finds it. There is no justification to make it "became."

There is another problem as well. Those who say that the earth was formerly populated and then destroyed (thus explaining the dinosaurs) have the problem with Adam's sin. The Bible tells us that death for all creation (not just mankind) is the result of Adam's sin. The entire creation, according to Paul is groaning under the curse of the fall.

Death did not exist before Adam's fall, so it precludes dinosaurs and sinful beings (humanoid, I guess) existing in a former earth.