1 15 Reasons to Take Genesis as History

Part 2

3. Genesis was written as real history

A. Waw Disjunctive and Waw Consecutive
2 Genesis 1:1-3 ESV, (ASV, BBE, DRB, ISV, JPS, KJV, NET, NIV, RV)
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the
deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
The way this passage is translated makes it possible for people to speculated that:
Maybe God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning and then went
on a holiday.
When He returned some time later, He saw that the earth was in need of some
TLC and proceeded to complete His creation.
Thomas Chalmers, hailed as "Scotland's greatest nineteenth-century churchman"
was also a mathematician, a chemist, an amateur geologist and a philosopher.
It concerned him that scripture said thousands and science said millions for the
age of the earth and universe.
So in 1815 he invented the gap theory to harmonize science and scripture.
His book, published in 1817, sold over 20,000 copies in the first year.
His theory may even have influenced Charles Darwins rejection of the bible.
The gap theory says that Gods original creation was complete and perfect (v.1)
But it was destroyed by a war which erupted in heaven when Satan fell.
God defeated Satan by destroying the whole earth with a flood which produced
all the fossil bearing rocks we find in the earth today.
The ruined earth was then reconstructed by God in six literal days about 6,000
years ago. (v.2ff)

Cyrus Ingerson Scofield published his Scofield Study Bible about 100 years later.
In his notes he says:
3 The first act (verse 1) refers to the dateless past, and gives scope for all the
geologic ages. . . .
3a The face of the earth bears everywhere the marks of such a catastrophe.
There are indications which connect it with a previous testing and fall of angels.
3b Relegate fossils to the primitive creation, and no conflict of science with the
Genesis cosmogony remains.
Scofields bible of 1909, became the best selling version for the next 90 years,
It influenced millions of people to believe in an ancient earth and universe.
Finis Jennings Dake was the pastor of the AOG Christian Assembly Church in Zion,
Illinois, in 1937 when he pleaded guilty to breaking the Mann Act,
He served 6 months in prison for transporting a 16 year old girl across state
borders for immoral purposes.
In 1963 he published his Dakes Annotated Reference Bible.
4 In his bible notes he says:
When men finally agree on the age of the earth, then place the many years
(over the historical 6,000) between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, there will no
longer be any conflict between the Book of Genesis and science.
As an American Pentecostal minister in the AOG church, Dake has had a huge
influence on the beliefs of Pentecostal and Charismatic church members.
Benny Hinn
A creation ministries speaker in Britain, one night, spoke against the gap theory.
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Afterwards, two ladies said, There must be a gap between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2,
The speaker used both science and scripture to explain the problems again.
They looked at him quizzically for a little while, and then asserted:
5a But there must be a gap, Benny Hinn says so!
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So what, really, is the problem here? Why did the gap theory even get started?
6 Genesis 1:1-3 ESV, (ASV, BBE, DRB, ISV, JPS, KJV, NET, NIV, RV)
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the
deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
6a It is this full stop.
It is present in almost every major version and it allows you to place indefinite
amounts of time between verse one and verse two.
Now look at Youngs Literal Translation:
7 Genesis 1:1-3 YLT
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,
2 and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of
the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters,
3 and said God, "Let there be light," and there was light,
How many full stops are there in this passage? None!
Almost every version allows for a gap between v.1 and v.2, Youngs does not.
Which one is right?
Suppose I was to make the following statements:
8 The car came around the corner.
8a The car was a Holden Commodore.
8b The car crashed into the fence.
Are these statements related?
Was it the same car or different cars that I saw?
Were these events consecutive or separated by time and/or space?
Written this way, in English, you cannot tell.
8c But if I said: The car came around the corner, it was a Holden Commodore and
it crashed into the fence.

It is obvious that each statement refers to the same incident.

The separate statements have been combined by using conjunctions (joiners).
and is a conjunction and the comma also acts as a conjunction.
The conjunctions show that the statements are continuous, with no time gaps.
Biblical Hebrew uses conjunctions a lot.
9 The Hebrew letter waw can mean and, but, now or then
And when it is attached to another word it becomes a conjunctive.
(Similar to the way s added to a word denotes plurality in English)
The waw disjunctive
When waw is attached to a non-verb (noun, adjective etc) it is called a waw
disjunctive.
9a Eg. Abram (noun) + and (waw) = and Abram
It means that what comes after the conjunction is describing whatever the and is
attached to, and which was also mentioned in the previous phrase.
10 Genesis 13:1-2 KJV
1 Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot
with him, into the south.
2 And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.
A junction is a joining together of roads or ropes or whatever.
So a dis-junction is a separation of something into two (or more) pieces.
The waw disjunctive separates a story in order to insert more information.
11 Genesis 13:1-3 KJV
1 Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot
with him, into the south.
2 (waw disjunctive) And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.
3 And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the place
where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai;
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The waw disjunctive separates the story of Abrams journey into two sections in
order to include some details about Abram. (like using parentheses in English)
You can remove v.2 totally and the journey story still makes perfect sense.
There is no time gap between v.1 and v.3 except the time taken to complete each
journey.
Therefore, v.2 must be describing Abram at the time he left Egypt in verse 1.
The waw consecutive
As an emphasis to this conclusion waw can also be attached to a verb.
12 Eg. he went (verb) + and (waw) = and he went
In this form it is known as the waw consecutive.
13 Genesis 13:1-3 KJV
1 Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot
with him, into the south.
2 (waw disjunctive) And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.
3 (waw consecutive) And he went on his journeys from the south even to
Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between
Bethel and Hai;
When used in this way it joins two phrases together into a chronological sequence.
A time sequence where one thing comes after another.
Normally translated as and, it can accurately be understood to mean and then.
14 Genesis 13:1-3 KJV
1 Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot
with him, into the south.
2 (waw disjunctive) And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.
3 (waw consecutive) And then he went on his journeys from the south even to
Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between
Bethel and Hai;
The waw consecutive joins two phrases into one chronological sequence.

It does not join v.2 and v.3 because a description and an action cannot logically be
a chronological sequence.
Therefore, we must go back further to v.1 to find an action phrase to join to v.3.
So v.1 and v.3 are chronologically consecutive.
Abram did this and then he did that,
The Hebrew grammar does not allow any time gap to exist at all.
So lets use what we have learned to analyze Genesis 1:1-3
15 Genesis 1:1-3 YLT
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,
2 and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of
the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters,
3 and said God, "Let there be light," and there was light,
16 v.2 begins with a waw disjunctive - waw is joined to a non-verb.
Therefore, v.2 is describing the earth as it was in the beginning ie. v.1.
So there cannot possibly be a time gap between v.1 and v.2.
Hebrew grammar does not allow it.
17 v.3 begins with a waw consecutive - waw is joined to a verb.
v.3 cannot be chronologically consecutive with v.2, a description, so we have to go
back to v.1.
Therefore, v.1 and v.3 are chronologically consecutive.
Thus, Hebrew grammar does not allow a gap between v.1 and v.3 either.
18 And then God said
The gap theory is as dead as a doornail just on these facts alone.
But gappies are a resilient lot.
19 They say, But was in v.2 can be translated as became.
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Genesis 1:1-3 YLT

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,
2 and the earth became without form and void, and darkness was over the
face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the
waters,
3 and said God, "Let there be light," and there was light,
Refutations
1. We have already said that the Hebrew grammar used in Genesis 1 totally
precludes a gap between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2.
So there is no time available for the new creation to become anything.
2. 20 The Hebrew word is hayah (haw-yaw') and according to Hebrew authorities

it certainly can mean become/became.

20a Strongs Concordance (H1961)

A primitive root (compare H1933); to exist, that is, be or become, come to
pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary): - beacon, X
altogether, be (-come, accomplished, committed, like), break, cause, come
(to pass), continue, do, faint, fall, + follow, happen, X have, last, pertain, quit
(one-) self, require, X use.
Was does not even appear in the list,
But was is the simple past conjugation of the verb to be. I was, I am, I will be.
So hayah can be translated as either was or became, depending on context.
21 This word hayah occurs 3,502 times in the OT
21a translated was over 2,000 times 21b and became only 106 times.
Of those 106 lets look at just the first 5 and see whether they fit Genesis 1:1-2.
22 Genesis 2:7 ESV
then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
(slow and gradual or rapid and catestrophic?)

22a Genesis 2:10 ESV

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and

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became four rivers.

22b Genesis 19:26 ESV
But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
23 Genesis 20:12 ESV
Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the
daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.
23a Genesis 21:20 KJV
And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and
became an archer.
None of these becames involve massive time spans, they are instantaneous,
or within the time span of a mans life.
ie. Ishmael became an archer before he starved to death.
A hayah type of becoming is never a massively extended period of time.
3. 24 In the rest of the Old Testament, whenever a waw disjunction (waw + a

non-verb) is combined with hayah (as it is in Genesis 1:2)

24a It is always translated, was (over 2,000 times),
24b It is never translated became.

4. Suppose we translated

25 Genesis 13:1-3 KJV as:

1 Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot
with him, into the south.
2 And Abram became very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.
3 And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the
place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai;
Did Abram acquire all his wealth during his journey from Egypt to Hai.
That makes no sense.
It is foolishness.
But to be consistent, that is the way gappists must translate it if they wish to
translate Genesis 1:2 in that way.

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Conclusion of the Waws

The waw disjunctive and the waw consecutive as used in Genesis 13:13 show
conclusively that the passage is a historical narrative.
That is the way that Hebrew history is written.
If Genesis 13:1-3 is historical, then so to is Genesis 1:1-3 because their style, the
words they use, and their grammar are identical.
But what about the rest of Genesis 1?
26 The whole of the creation week account is peppered with both waw
disjunctives and waw consecutives.
There are 103 waws crammed into 34 verses in that passage of the bible.
Of the 34 verses in this passage, 31 of them begin with waw.
And with each waw disjunctive referring to a previous phrase in the record,
and each waw consecutive making adjoining phrases chronologically continuous,
and both types of waw making time gaps impossible,
Genesis 1 has to be an accurate historical record
of the creation of this whole universe and everything in it
within a time frame of 7 literal, 24 hour, earth days,
with no time gaps and no long days,
by our all powerful and all knowing,
loving Saviour, Jesus Christ.
I started this section by saying that the full stop at the end of v.1 was the problem
regarding the gap theory.
In truth, if creation week was to be translated literally and accurately there would
be no full stops at all in the whole of the passage, just one long sentence.
The gap theory did not arise due to good, solid, bible study.
It was the direct result of arrogant men trying to correct the Word of God.

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