We respond to every follow-up question submitted, but only publish selected ones.
In order to be considered for publication, questions must be on-topic, polite, and address ideas rather than
personalities.
Question: Does the 974 generations of man before creation (or remaking of earth) add any validity to the gap theory of creation? The theory that Lucifer was cast out of heaven onto the earth and G-d then destroyed the earth due to the corruption and millions or billions of years past between Genesis 1:1 and verse two and the remaking of earth and creation of man.
Answer: The idea of 974 generations before Adam is figurative and speculative. It is based on a thousand generations from the beginning to Moses. We know there were 26 generations from Adam to Moses and subtracting 26 from 1000 leaves 974 pre-generations.
There is no proper Scriptural support for this that I have ever seen. Understand that many things in Scripture are not literal but meant to convey a variety of messages via language arts, such as euphemism, analogy, and so forth.
If G-d wanted us to know the age of the world with certainty, he would have told us. Were the first few days 24-hour days, or billion-year days? The only thing I know for sure is that scientists make a lot of mistakes for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into here.
The gap theory, like evolutions punctuated equilibrium, is a man-made creation to invent a way things happened without biting the bullet and saying, “we don’t know.”
You mention Lucifer. You won’t find him anywhere in G-d’s Hebrew Scriptures, the name is not there. It too is a man-made invention based on Isaiah 14:12. In that Verse we read about a morning star “Hailail.” People woke up some mornings and saw all the stars had gone away except one, and the legend of the fallen angel Lucifer grew up from the one.
In actuality, Hailail was not a star at all, but the planet Venus, which sometimes remains visible in the morning hours. There is no fallen angel there and the idea of Lucifer stemming from this Verse is false. The Scriptural subject of Hailail is metaphorical and has to do with the fall of Babylon…again, not an angel – “Nebuchadnezzar, you were a bright star in the world, and see how you have fallen”
Regards,
Eliahu Levenson
