CHANGING THE TRANSLATION
Hugo McCord
A teacher, misled to believe that dinosaurs and human beings lived on this earth millions of years before the biblical "six days" (Genesis 1:1-31; Exodus 20:11; 31:17) of creation, and finding no supporting Scripture, has changed the translation of Genesis 1:2 to fit his doctrine. The translations of Genesis 1:2 put no life on this earth before the "six days," saying that "the earth was without form, and void" (KJV), "the earth was waste and void" (ASV), and "the earth was formless and empty" (NIV). The misled teacher has changed the "was" to "became," saying that "the earth became formless and empty," thus implying that previous life forms had all died out.
Moses would be embarrassed that an uninspired teacher makes his writing imply previous life on this earth before the "six days," because Moses believed that "the earth was formless and empty" of life, and that "darkness was upon the face of the deep" (Genesis 1:2). Then God spoke, "I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty, and at the heavens, and they had no light" (Jeremiah 4:23). So God said, on "day one" of the "six days," "Let there be light" (Genesis 1:3).
Moses believed that God, in planning for the earth to be "inhabited" (Isaiah 45:18), on "the second day," created an "expanse" (raqia`, Genesis 1:7) called the "heavens" (shamaim, Genesis 1:7-8), to separate the liquid waters on the earth from the vaporous waters in clouds above the expanse.
Moses believed that God, on "the third day," ordered that the liquid waters on the earth "be gathered in one place, and let the dry land appear," and it was so (Genesis 1:9), and then God ordered the dead earth to have life for the first time, in the form of "grass and vegetation, seed-bearing plants and seed-bearing fruit trees" (Genesis 1:11).
Moses believed that God, on "the fourth day, "made" the sun, the moon, and the stars "to give light upon the earth" and "to separate light from darkness" (Genesis 1:17-18).
Moses believed that God, on "the fifth day," furthering his plans for an "inhabited" earth (Isaiah 45:18), advanced from plant to animal life, with marine life in the "waters" and birds "in the expanse of the heavens" (Genesis 1:20).
Moses believed that God, on "the sixth day," created land animals and "the first man Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45) and the first woman Eve (Genesis 1:31). They were not babies mothered by apes but both were special works of God’s creative power, he from "the dust of the ground," and she from one of Adam’s ribs (Genesis 2:7, 22). Both were blessed with immortal spirits made in God’s own image, "male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:26-27; Ecclesiastes 12:7; Matthew 22:32).
Moses believed that God, "in six days," made "heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them" (Exodus 20:11). It follows then, if "all that is in" the "heaven and earth" and "the sea" came into existence in the "six days," that even on "day one" the earth still was lifeless.
It also follows that Paul would be embarrassed to hear an uninspired teacher say that people died on this earth long before Adam arrived, for he believed death did not exist until "through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin," beginning with "Adam" (Romans 5:12-14),
The teaching that agrees with Moses and Paul is that "in the beginning," when God created "the heavens" and "the earth," he "did not create it [to be] empty, but formed it to be inhabited" (Genesis 1:1; Isaiah 45:18).
3-29-99