Dr. Ted Hildebrandt, Old Testament History, Lecture 5, Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, Days of Genesis 1

[derektaylor]

Thank you for making this available Dr. It is much appreciated.

[siradamthebombdiggity]

*LECTURE 5 NOTES, PART 1*

_The Relationship of Gen. 1:1 to Gen 1:2_

Gen. 1:1 - "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth;" There was a beginning. Some cultures say that there was no beginning and that it cycled over and over, but the Bible is clear about this.

Gen. 1:2 - "And the earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the face of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said 'Let there be light..."

_Three Views of These Verses_

1) *Gap Theory* - says that the beginning was recorded in Gen. 1:1, then the earth "became" darkness in Gen. 1:2 when Satan fell from heaven and created dinosaurs and other chaos on earth. And then in Gen. 1:3, God called light into existence to reset order. Recap: God made things good, and then things "became" darkness, formless, and void, but God called for light and had 7 days of RE-creation.

This theory settles when Satan went bad since he already seemed bad in the garden. Isaiah 14 supposedly clarifies this, as well as Ezekiel 28. Ezekiel 28 has a better shot at explaining. This view is further supported by Jeremiah 4:23, which uses the same term from Genesis, "tohu va-vohu, " which means "formless and void/empty" in both cases, but is used in Jeremiah as a judgment against sin.

NOTE: Satan often tries to duplicate the works of God, and this idea supports the view.

This theory is detracted from by the fact that Genesis doesn't mention sin or the serpent (Satan) until chapter 3, and neither are the point of the first two chapters. It seems out of context. Also, the translation should read "was" formless instead of "became" formless.

This theory allows for an old earth and gives a place to the dinosaurs. This theory came out in the 1950s and '60s in the Scofield Reference Bible.

2) *Dependent Clause View* - Some translators translate it as, "When God BEGAN to create, the earth was without form..." The first verse is dependent on the second. When God began to create, the earth was already there to be shaped. This leads to the idea that the heavens and earth are eternal and just had to be shaped by God. It changes the meanings of the text so that God is no longer the creator of the heavens of the earth, and that they, too, are eternal.

3) *Independent Clause Theory* - In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. The second verse is a negative circumstantial clause and shows that when God "wham-bammed" the earth, the earth was initially without form and empty. Then in the 7 days of creation, he formed, shaped, and filled it. The main clause is that God created light.

Hildebrandt holds this view over the others. People write with a certain style, and this fits Moses's style of writing. And Moses says in the next chapter that "this is an account of the heavens and earth when they were created, " and gives negative circumstantial clauses about God not having YET sent shrubs, plants, and rain.

Chapter one differs from two. The first chapter is God working with the universe altogether, but the second is about human beings.

NOTE: Nobody really holds the Gap Theory anymore. It was discredited by Weston Fields in a 200-page book that put it to rest. It doesn't fit the grammar, contradicts the literary structure, and doesn't help with understanding Satan.



Creation argues for the existence of God. Psalm 19 says "The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day they pour forth speech; night after night they pour forth knowledge."

*Modernity* - People said there was no room for God because everything could be explained by rational and natural causes and effects, and the universe is a closed system without miracles.

Problem with Modernity - Existence of miracles, like the parting of the Red Sea.

*Post-Modernity* - Miracles are fine, because everyone has their "own truth." But God doesn't fit within their own stories.


_Parallels_

Where did Moses get his material? Sometimes God comes down and speaks, like to Jeremiah. Sometimes it's even audible. But what do you do with the Babylonian creation account, the Enuma Elish?

*Gilgamesh Account* - From many hundreds of years before Moses; couldn't have been copied from Moses. Utnapishtim goes out, the gods come down and tell him to build a boat and all these animals and his family board it. A flood comes and drowns the people. This was because the people were too loud and it upset the gods. In the boat, Utnapishtim sends out birds to find out that it's okay to come out. Did Moses know about this?

*Enuma Elish Account* - Also before Moses. Includes a divine spirit and primeval chaos. Light emanates from the gods. A firmament, dry land, and man are all made, with the man being made last. The basic structure is the same as Genesis. Did Moses copy?

Hildebrandt admits that he cherry-picked similar parts from those accounts, and they're very dissimilar in many ways. Babylonian Enuma Elish says warring Gods made the ancient world by having a war and cutting Tiamat in two, making the earth from her body and the sky from her blood. Enuma Elish promotes Marduk, not our God.

_Possible Solution_

Before Moses, stories would be told orally. Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth got off the boat and probably told the kids what happened. Their kids would be able to talk to Noah to confirm the account. But after a few generations, the story would migrate. The beauty and problem with oral stories is that they can change from generation to generation if the facts aren't immediately written down to be preserved.

Hildebrandt's example is of his son telling a war story to his son's kids, and everyone laughed. His son then told the story again, with full details, to his parents which left them sad and in tears instead. Same story, different details.

Hildebrandt also mentions a Jazz musician who plays the same song, but never quite the same way. The music is fluid to some extent, as are the stories told by mouth. They can be manipulated to suit the circumstances.

Hildebrandt suggests the possibility that the Gilgamesh Epic was a retelling of the Noahic flood, but with details corrupted over generations. God told Moses what really happened, but the other people still had the shell of the story from it being passed down to them. Something major like a worldwide flood would almost certainly be passed down. This accounts for the similarities AND the differences.

There are thousands of years between Noah and Moses. In Jericho, there's a tower that dated from 8000 B.C., meaning Noah had to come before that. From 8000 B.C. down to Moses in 1400 B.C., is 6000 years... a lot of time for the story to change. The Gilgamesh Epic was from 2000 B.C., so that's at least 5000-7000 years for the story to change, but likely much longer. Can't be shorter, though, because you have to account for towers and city of Damascus.

Caution: Genealogies in Genesis chapters 5-11... Don't add them up for the earth's age because they have holes in them. Example from Jesus's genealogy in Matthew 1:1 - "Jesus Christ, the son of David [1000 B.C.], the son of Abraham [2000 B.C.]..." "Son" can mean "descendant" and "father" can mean "ancestor." Noah has to be before 8000 B.C. Many generations fit between them.

Was Moses aware of other creation stories? Likely. Moses was trained in Egypt as Pharoah's daughter's son. The Egyptians were exceedingly literate and brilliant. There was Egyptian wisdom literature 1400 years before Moses. Mesopotamia traded with Egypt, too, through the fertile crescent; he could have known their stories, too. Moses may have borrowed and adapted from these stories. Pagans are sometimes correct about things, and some Pagans' words have been used in the Bible because they were true and useful. Even a donkey spoke usefully in the Bible.

*Toledoth* - This is the "account of". There are ten Toledoths, or "accounts of" in Genesis. This was Moses's divider. Moses didn't know how many chapters we have in Genesis, because there were none then. Those chapters were added by a bishop around 1200 A.D., and sometimes in the wrong places. Example: Genesis 1 and 2 have the wrong chapter division. Chapter 1 is the 7 days of creation. The 7th day is included in chapter 2. The 7 days should be together. (Hildebrandt's other examples were too muddled for me to understand and document. Likely would be clarified by another reading of those chapters and verses.)

People wrote on mud tablets in Mesopotamia with mud, which was then dried. Paper and Papyrus would have been destroyed too soon, unless in Egypt because of its lack of humidity. Mud tablets were better because they were put in boxes, and when temples were burned, it hardened and preserved them better. Rocks were good for preservation, too.

History and Genealogies oscillate in scripture, likely because it fits the form of writing on the tablets which had history on the front and genealogies on back. Moses's style fit that form, but this being the reason for his form is conjecture.

Moses used literary patterns and language, both of his day. Moses wrote in Hebrew. The Hebrew language is a CANAANITE DIALECT. They got their language when Abraham moved into the land of Canaan, around 1800 B.C. and was then passed down. Abraham would have had a Mesopotamian language until he came into the land of Canaan. Moses would write in the styles of the people of his day and location. Styles change over time, and in different contexts: we write differently on Facebook, Twitter, Email...

Deuteronomy is the exact style and form, with few modifications, of a Hittite treaty. He also used terms shared by other cultures. They'd speak in terms of the earth being flat. "Four corners in the earth" (Isaiah 11:12). Does that mean the earth is flat? No. Some Christians argue for flat earth from this verse. We use this term today, though, meaning cardinal directions. The Bible isn't wrong there but misunderstood.

[danielpech]

Subtext can be a thematic undercurrent, and involve multiple layers of meaning. The undercurrent, or subtext, even can drive the explicitly form of the text. Given what Genesis 1 is as the Inspired Prime Account of Origins, it seems we ought to allow the text to have a subtext of the most meaning possible kind about all the Creation. Does the following qualify?

1. The general, (or 'masculine') cosmos and the special (or 'feminine') Earth (Genesis 1:1).
   2. The Earth, as its own general subject, implying that which we all intuit is most valuable about the Earth unto itself in all the cosmos: its abiding maximal abundance of open liquid water (Genesis 1:2).
     3. all that water and its special relation to the Sun's light, hence the water cycle (vs. 3-10);
       4. The water cycle and its special beneficiary and member, biology (vs. 11-12);
         5. biology and its special category, animal biology (plant/animal/mineral = animal) (vs. 20-22, 24-25);
           6. Animal biology and its special category, human (vs. 26-28);
7. The general man and the special woman (Genesis 2:21-23).

...So it is not mere happenstance that there are exactly five things that Genesis 1 reports that God names, and that these five things seem to be the five basic non-biological factors of Earth's water cycle? I don't think this is mere happenstance:

Names 1 and 2: binary cyclically distributed thermal regulation ( v. 4-5 );
Name 3: radiologically mediative atmosphere ( vs. 6-8 );
Names 4 and 5: binary thermal surface distribution system ( vs. 9-10 )