From: Michael Roberts (michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk)
Date: Sat Oct 11 2003 - 15:49:36 EDT
George wrote being critical of first SDA interpretations and then the Gap
Theory.
>
> This is flatly wrong, as is shown by the fact that nobody started
promoting such
> "gap" theories until geological & other evidence for the antiquity of the
earth started
> emerging. Trying to put a gap between 1:1 & 1:2 is forced & unnatural &
no one would
> have done it if scientific evidence hadn't forced them to look for a place
in the
> creation stories to put millions of years. Of course traditional
interpreters knew
> about the questions of when the angels were created, when some fell, &c.
But they never
> thought they had to have millions of years to do it.
I am afraid I must take George head on and challenge him. Yes Chalmers did
introduce his "Gap Theory " in 1802 but it was not an original idea. What he
did was to modify the Chaos=Restitution interp which had been the dominant
view for 200 years. This is that God first created Chaos and then re-ordered
the created chaos in 6 days. There were inklings of it in the 16th century
and in the early 17th was held by such as Grotius (whom Chalmers claims to
base his ideas), Mersenne, Descartes and Bacon. Most commentators held it at
the end of the 17th cent and Patrick reckoned that chaos could have last a
long time. So far all the Theories of the Earth I have read adopt it, but
Whiston reckoned each day lasted a year.
Many held it during the 18th century and Buffon modified it with a period of
chaos followed by 6 very very long days, as did Whitehurst and others . By
the end of the 18th century some adopted a long day - de Luc and so what we
have is Chalmers modification of 1802.
This means that a form of Gap Theory was around before geologists put
forward millions of years in 1780-1800 (lots throughout Europe) and many,
including most evangelicals ( who were wise in thsoe days) adopted it as the
interpretation which made most sense of geologists findings AND was
basically the tradiotional understanding of the last 200 years.
As the Gap Theory developed at the end of the 19th century under Pember and
then Schofield it became very forced but it was not in its earlier forms
whether pre-geological from 1600-1800 or post geological 18001860 when for
all but proto-fundamentalists (whowere of course largely OE) it was replaced
by DAy-AGE or a poetic view.
My first fruits on this are in the Evangelical Quarterly for April 2002 and
can email copies.
Michael Roberts
>
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