GENESIS 1:1-2: THE GAP THEORY

Next let's look at what I consider to be one of the most outrageous example of addition to the Bible, the 

gap theory. It proposes that between the first two verses of the Bible there is a gap of millions to 

billions of years. The proponents of this belief state that the original earth was in the hands of Satan 

and he populated it with various hideous prehistoric creatures and hominoids and generally made a 

total mess of things. When God got around to seeing what Satan had done, he kicked him and his 

angels out of heaven and judged that particular earth by wiping out everything on it and then re-

creating it again according to the way He wanted it, as described in the rest of Genesis 1. 

 

Why did they come up with this scenario? The answer to that question is fairly clear: it is one way (but 

not the only one) to get the biblical account agree with the fossil record and approximate age of the 

earth. 

 

How do they come up with this scenario? First they have to re-translate Genesis 1:1 as “The earth 

became void” even though there is no justification in the Hebrew text for doing so. Next, they state that 

the phrase “without form and void” only appears in the context of God's judgment (Isaiah 34:1; 

Jeremiah 4:23-26), which is shading the truth a bit to say the least. And as the clincher, they cite Isaiah 

45:18 (“He is the God who formed the earth and made it. He established it and did not make it a waste 

place but formed it to be populated.”) in order to prove that God couldn't have created the earth 

originally as a void. As you clearly can see, this passage only says that it wasn't God's intention to 

leave the earth empty, but to populate it.

 

And where did they get the idea that this was the time period when Satan was kicked out of heaven 

before Genesis 1:2, even though other OT passages show that Satan was still in heaven in much later 

times? They quote, totally out of context, Ezekiel's poetic and sarcastic condemnation of the king of 

Tyre and apply it literally to Satan instead. “You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect 

in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you...I drove you in 

disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you by a guardian cherub from among the fiery 

stones...so I threw you to earth.” Ezekiel 28:12-17 Read the whole chapter and you will clearly see that 

a human being is being described, not Satan.

 

In reality, a great deal of the gap theory scenario is based more on John Milton's epic poem Paradise 

Lost than on the Bible itself.