But Au Contraire........the Bible says [Genesis 1:2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The word I underlined (but) in the Hebrew is "hayah" and this is its Hebrew meaning: 1961. hayah (haw-yaw) to exist, i.e. be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary)
A better translation of the verse would thus be: And the earth became without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
This word "hayah" is translated correctly in [II Samuel 7:24] For thou hast confirmed to thyself thy people Israel to be a people unto thee for ever: and thou, LORD, art become (hayah) their God.
The fact that this is a past tense word implies a previous creation because [Genesis 1:1] says this: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. In verse two we learn that there is already an Earth, Waters, the Deep and Darkness (not to mention the heaven of verse one). These five things already exist before God said "let there be light".....!
Now, this in no way implies that this was a creation of light. God just says: "Let there be light"....as if it already existed.....and had just been turned off for some reason.
Genesis 1:3 is simply the starting point of a restoration of the already existing Earth back to what it may have been before.....and is called the first day. There quite possibly may have been billions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.........
wrong, but thanx for playing our game.
Correction: paragraph two. The word I underlined is “was”....not “but”.
It's more likely that Genesis 1:1 is an "executive summary" and what follows later are merely various perspectives on God's creation of the universe, earth, and its inhabitants.We modern, western readers too often forget the poetic aspects of Hebrew. In Hebrew, poetry is usually expressed by repetition. And, for you YECs, by calling the Genesis account poetry, I am not dismissing the reality behind the poetry.