Saturday, July 1, 2023

Bruce K. Waltke vs. “The Initial Chaos Theory” (“circumstantial clause”) Reading of Genesis 1:2

  

This view interprets verse one as a declaration that God created the original mass called heaven and earth out of nothing, and verse 2 as a clarification that when it came from the hand of Creator it was unformed and unfilled. Looked at grammatically, verse 1 is construed as an independent clause. Verse 2 is seen as a series of three circumstantial clauses describing the condition of the earth when it first came into existence. Calvin commented: “For Moses simply intends to assert that the world was not perfected at its commencement, in the manner in which it is now seen than that it was created an empty chaos of heaven and earth.” Some who hold this view regard verses 1 and 2 as a chronological unity separated by a gap in time from the first day of creation described in verse 3, whereas most think of verses 1-5 as a chronological unity.

 

. . .

 

Objections. A critical reappraisal of the theory does not show this to be the plain and simple meaning. In fact, the theory faces such serious objections as to render it untenable.

 

In the first place this interpretation demands that we place a different value on “heaven and earth” than anywhere else in Scripture. Like tōhû wābōhû in verse 2, “heaven and earth” is a compound that must be studied as a unity. In connection with the compound in verse 2 Cassuto commended: “In language, as in chemistry, a compound may be found to possess qualities absent from its constituent elements. For example, any one who does not know what ‘broadcast’ denotes, will not be able to guess the connotation of the word from its separate elements ‘broad’ and ‘cast.’” (U. Cassuto, A Commentary on Genesis, trans. Israel Abrahamas, Part 1 [Jerusalem: The Magness Press], p. 22) Likewise, it will prove erroneous to study the word “earth” apart from the compound expression. Furthermore, in trying to decide the meaning of the compound, haššāmayim wəʾēt hāʾāreṣ, Cyrus Gordon noted that pairs of antonyms often mean “everting” or “everyone.” For example, in English, the expression “they came, great and small” means that “everybody came.” (C. H. Gordon, The World of the Old Testament [Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1958]) The Hebrew language is filled with such antonymic pairs called merisms. (Ibid.) For example, the Psalmist says that the blessed man meditates in God’s law “day and night”; i.e. “all the time.” So here, “heaven and earth” are antonyms to designate “everything,” and more specially “the organized universe, the cosmos.” In fact, Wisdom of Solomon uses the Greek word ho kosmos to refer to Genesis 1:1. (Wisdom of Solomon 11:17) This is undoubtedly the sense of the compound in the summary statement concluding the creation account: “Thus the heavens and earth were completed, and all their host.” (Genesis 2:1). The compound occurs again in this sense in the summary statement introducing the stories about man at the time of the creation of the universe: “This is the account of the heavens and earth when they were created.” (Genesis 2:4) the meaning of disorderly chaos but always of an orderly world. (Brevard S. Childs, “The Enemy from the North and the Chaos Tradition,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 78 [1959] 31) Likewise Skinner said: “For though that phrase . . . is a Hebrew designation of the universe as a whole, it is only the organized universe, not the chaotic material out of which it was formed, that can actually be do designated.” (John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1910], p. 14) If this understanding, based on its extensive and unambiguous usage in the creation account itself and elsewhere, is allowed, then verse 2 cannot be construed as a circumstantial clause. Logic will now allow us to entertain the contradictory notions: God created the organized heaven and earth; the earth was unorganized. Plessis rightly asked: “If the heavens and earth signified the organized universe, how, then, can it denote heaven and earth in a formless state?” (Joseph Plessis, “Babylone et la Bible,” col. 716 in Supplement au Dictionnaire de la Bible [Paris: Letouzy, 1928])

 

Commentators in the past have gone wrong here for they insist that the phrase refers to the primeval material from which the universe was developed. Calvin, for example, said: “There is no doubt that Moses gives the name of heaven and earth to the confused mass which he shortly after (verse 2) denominates water.” But this is nothing more than a pontifical pronouncement without lexical support. In answer to Calvin and Aalders who share the same opinion, Young simply noted: “Elsewhere the phrase . . . designates the well ordered universe, ho kosmos.” (Edward J. Young, Studies in Genesis One [Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing House, 1964], pp. 9f., n. 17)

 

Michael J. Gruenthaner proposed getting around the problem by suggesting that “heaven and earth” may have received this appelation proleptically, because of its destination. He called attention to the proleptic use of man in Genesis 2:7 where the clay statue is called Adam, although it is devoid of life. (Michael J. Gruenthaner, “The Scriptural Doctrine on First Creation,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 9 [1947], 54) But this is a far-fetched and desperate attempt not imbibed by anybody else I have read. Perhaps we can see how bold the attempt is by substituting “House” for “heaven and earth.” The text would then read: “God created the house.” Now would any normal reader think this meant that the word “house” was used proleptically, and in reality it means that God created the unorganized materials from which he made the house? The expression in Genesis 2:7, moreover, is not an apt analogy, for here the man is in his completed form lacking only the breath of life. In any case, it clearly does not mean that God formed the material from which we would make the man.

 

Boyer and Koenig (Eduard Koenig, Die Genesis [Gueterslok: Bertelsmann, 1925], pp. 136ff.; Carolus Boyer, S. J., Tractatus de Deo Creante et Elevante [Roma: Unv. Greg., 1933], pp. 22-25) proposed that the heavens designated the completed upper heavens, including the angelic realm, in contrast to the heaven visible to the human eye, and that the earth refers to the chaotic earth described in verse 2. Koenig tried to support his thesis by noting that whereas in verse 1 the article is present in “the heavens,” in verse 8 the article is missing in “Heaven.” Hence, he concluded that they must be distinct. He found further confirmation in verse 14 where the text speaks of the “firmament of the heavens.” Here he said that the genitive is partitive and therefore the firmament, or lower heaven, is part of the upper heaven. He argued further that “the heavens” are not mentioned again in the chapter, whereas the equipment of the firmament, the visible heaven, is described as length.

 

But this argument is also unconvincing. In verse 10 the dry land is named simply “Earth,” without the article, because it is a proper name. Consequently, in the parallel passage, verse 8, the firmament is called “Heaven” because it, too, is a proper name. Moreover, the genitive in verse 14 is normally construed as an attributive genitive. Thus the alleged distinction between haššāmayim and šāmayim becomes more than questionable.

 

Not only does the compound haššāmayim wəʾēt hāʾāreṣ militate against taking verse 2 as a circumstantial clause with verse 1, but also the statement by Isaiah that God did not create the earth a tōhû argues against this interpretation. Those holding to an imperfect first stage of creation understand Isaiah to mean that the LORD did not form the earth for the purpose of being a waste. O. T. Allis concluded from the parallelism: “Isaiah xlv. 18 should be rendered, ‘He did not create it to be a waste, for inhabiting it he formed it.’” (O. T. Allis, God Spoke by Moses [Nutley: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1958], p. 156) the double accusative after verbs of making normally do not have this sense. The normal sense would be that found in almost all translations: “The LORD did not create it formless.”

 

Then, too, we have seen from Jeremiah 4:23 and Isaiah 4:11 that tōhû wābōhû denotes the antithesis of creation. To take verse 2, therefore, as a circumstantial clause presents the contradiction: he created . . . and the earth was uncreated.

 

In addition, we note that elsewhere in Scripture it is said that God created everything by His word. In a psalm ln a psalm of praise, for example, we hear: “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host . . . For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast.” (Psalm 33:6, 9) The writer of Hebrews said: “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God . . .” (Hebrews 11:3) But no mention is made anywhere in Scripture that God called the unformed dark and watery state of verse 2 into existence.

 

Finally, it is significant that in the new and perfect cosmos to come, there will be no sea (Revelation 21:1) and in the new Jerusalem associated with it, there will be no darkness (Revelation 21:25). This revelation about the new cosmos suggests that the deep and darkness in verse 2 are less than desirable and were not called into existence by the God of order and goodness.

 

We conclude, therefore, that though it is possible to take verse 2 as a circumstantial clause on syntactical grounds, it is impossible to do so on philological grounds, and that it seems unlikely it should be so construed on theological grounds, for it makes God the creator of disorder, darkness, and deep, a situation not tolerated in the perfect cosmos and never said to have been called into existence by the Word of God. (Bruce K. Waltke, Creation and Chaos: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Biblical Cosmogony [Portland, Oreg.: Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1974], 25-28)

 

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