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acknowledged Hebrew poetry” (Strong); and (3) this narrative is inseparably connected with the
succeeding history, and is therefore most naturally regarded as itself historical.
b. The mythical theory of modern philosophy.
Modern philosophy has advanced beyond the
preceding position. It rejects not only the historical narrative of creation, but also the idea of
creation, and regards the contents of Genesis 1 as a myth embodying a religious lesson. There is
no intentional allegory here, it is said, but only a naive mythical representation with a religious
core or nucleus. This is also contrary to the fact that Gen. 1 certainly comes to us with the
pretension of being a historical narrative, and in the cross references, referred to above, it
certainly is not regarded as a myth.
c. The restitution theory.
Some theologians attempted to reconcile the narrative of creation
with the discoveries of science in the study of the earth by adopting the restitution theory. It
was advocated by Chalmers, Buckland, Wisemann, and Delitzsch, and assumes that a long
period of time elapsed between the primary creation mentioned in Gen. 1:1 and the secondary
creation described in Gen. 1:3-31. This long period was marked by several catastrophic changes,
resulting in the destruction supposedly described in the words “waste and void.” The second
verse should then read, “And the earth became waste and void.” This destruction was followed
by a restitution, when God changed the chaos into a cosmos, a habitable world for man. This
theory might offer some explanation of the different strata of the earth, but it offers no
explanation of the fossils in the rocks, unless it is assumed that there were also successive
creations of animals, followed by mass destructions. This theory never found favor in scientific
circles, and finds no support in Scripture. The Bible does not say that the earth became, but
that it was waste and void. And even if the Hebrew verb hayetha can be rendered “became,”
the words “waste and void” denote an unformed condition, and not a condition resulting from
destruction. Delitzsch combined with this theory the idea that the earth was originally
inhabited by the angels, and that the fall in the angelic world was the cause of the destruction
which resulted in the chaos referred to in verse 2. For some reason or other this view finds
considerable favor among present day dispensationalists, who find support for it in such
passages as Isa. 24:1; Jer. 4:23-26; Job. 9:4-7; II Pet. 2:4. But even a careful reading of these
passages is sufficient to convince one that they do not prove the point in question at all.
Moreover, the Bible clearly teaches us that God created heaven and earth “and all the host of
them” in six days, Gen. 2:1; Ex. 20:11.
d. The concordistic theory.
This seeks to harmonize Scripture and science by assuming that the
days of creation were periods of thousands of years. In addition to what was said about this in
discussing the days of creation, we may now add that the idea that the earth’s strata positively
point to long and successive periods of development in the history of its origin, is simply a