i have a question for all. i have discussed this with a couple of bible scholars i know. i believe that there was another population of people that lived on earth before the start of our bible. i believe they had their own bible to go by. it was pre adam years. undoubtly god destroyed that people and the earth was void until he made man again.in genesis 1-28 he told adam and eve to replenish the earth. i think this has been done before and before and before. that is why they say we are thousands of years old but there is no record of it in the bible. this is not the first bible. anybody have any op on this? please tell me i'm not crazy.

Yes there were people who predated the Bible by a few million years. Cain married one of them.

There is an indication of this in Genesis. God tells Adam to "replenish the earth", hence it was "plenished" prior to this. The record of Gen 1:2 in Hebrew cites that the earth "became" without form and was void, not that it was originally created that way. For your study purposes I have found that Finnis Jennings Dake has the most information regarding the "pre-Adamic" race. I do agree that there was a race prior to Adam. The fossil records prove this as well.

This is my favorite subject, unfortunately I'm having second thoughts about some of the aspects of this theory...

Why was the pre adamite world destroyed?

Where is the scientific evidence of this destruction?

I've been by this topic for a while now. And you got me interested. I wanna know about this.

In broad strokes, it's called the "Gap Theory".

Basically it interprets the 1st two verses of Genesis in a way that allows us to account for the age of the earth, billions of years.

It also allows us to account for the fossil evidence and the idea that Genesis is actually much older than anyone can imagine.

The earths existence is divided into epochs or ages, and we are merely living in the latest of many ages. We don't know how many.

The idea is that genesis is the literal restoration and not creation of mankind and the earth.

Well that aint right.....

Doesn't the book of Enoch, and Jubilees go into this in some detail?

There is a theory, the Earth was smacked by a Mars size planet which knocked enough material out to make the moon. Some say there may have been life on the first Earth.

moondoggy is right on with this explanation... it is one that i personally believe myself... and to further add to what was already said...

"For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else." Isaiah 45:18

the word vain is that same word (BOHU) translated as void...
the Hebrew word for "without form" is TOHU - means to lay waste, desolate... (Genesis 1:2)

one has to question why God would emphasize that He didn't originally create it void...
what happened to make it become void?

also... the word create... in Hebrew is BARA - means to create out of nothing (Genesis 1:1)
the word form in Hebrew is YATSAR - means to mould into form like a potter

this is a very good topic because many people aren't aware of a lot of the things in the Bible... especially this belief in particular... for some reason... people assume that all Christians believe in a 6,000 year old earth...

Thank you, Jor-el. I might be coming back to the thread.

Unfortunately for the people who accept this theory it would also mean that the entire planet would have lost not only it's oceans, but also its atmosphere. The crust of the earth would have liquified into lava and that would have been the end of the matter. Permanently!!!

Well, when you do come by, throw us a few questions, it's alot easier to get the ball rolling that way...

Of course there was, and in the times before that, and beyond as well. Mankind is just the latest type of near human that has been designed. There would'nt be any refference in the bible, the ones who made it up and wrote it, wanted everyone to believe their way and people were the only one's.

Though you all reffer to what has done this as a god, which they are not{though because of what they can do, most of you would} because of the information that was destroyed, so you have no refference. Which is what they wanted.

You would never believe that you yourself actually lived through these changes, and all you have to do is work at a finding these memories within yourself.

Good post jor-el.

Being a christian who knows his bible, I regretfully have to say that I wasn't there to have lived through those changes. We only live once, our souls are eternal and once they leave this physical body, they move on to other things. We don't come back and get to do all again.

To clarify: are we are talking about an existence of life that was here well before the famous 'seven day creation' known in the bible?

Yes, that's what we're talking about.

The 7 days of creation, are not the beginning of creation but merely a restoration, or in more scientific terms, a recovery period in earths history after it was decimated by some event that wiped out the majority of life on the planet.

Well, i tried. And that is why you and your people{religious} are going to be the one's destroyed when it all comes down. The balance reguires that your kind recieve what you have given.

Death, prej. hate, and war. The extermination of you all comes from what your kind did to those races in the past. Their extermination that made your kind{religious} possable.

That you and the rest of them, refuse to aknowledge what is in front of you, despite all the clues given, have determined your kinds fate. That you refuse to see what has been shown, and call it demonic presence or possesion, is only an indication that they cannot move on. Those in the future do not want them.

Religious mis-interpitation and the cruelty that has inspired, has sealed your fates, you are not wanted.

Sorry if i bothered you, i won't do so again. Chuse

I have a simple question for you, since you know so many "details" relating to past ages on the earth, please share your thoughts on what exactly happened without having to resort to "your kind" as if I were a wild animal or something.

I see.
I remember reading where it describes the earth as a "watery deep" before God created the land, or continents. I have often wondered about this "deep" and often wondered if anything existed within this "deep" before. You know what they say "where there is water, there is life" but it was only an assumption.

I personally am more inclined nowadays to take the literal text of Genesis with a pinch of salt. I believe it to be the truth as seen through the eyes of witnesses who lived through the event and found this way of describing what they saw. Since they couldn't explain things in a scientific language, they resorted to a mystical approach.

God used this as the beginning of a new era and the end of the old age that predated it.
I believe in God as creator and restorer of our world, I also accept his divine creation of humanity in Adam and Eve. What I don't accept is that there was no life on earth after the catastrophe. In other words, he didn't create the animals, plants and fish, many of which survived the cataclysm.

i cant believe how much this sounds like a fairy tale. sorry i dont mean to question your religion but i couldnt just sit here and read this.

Is there any solid proof for this? I'm not being a skaptic. Just wondering.

O_o

proof for which part?

we are just discussing what the Bible alludes to...
it doesn't directly say it in the english... but in the Hebrew it's very clear...

if you are asking for proof that it actually happened... i'll put it this way...
can you prove that you picked out your clothes yesterday morning and someone else didn't do it for you?

what we know is that we exist... what we don't know is why... and what was here before us... on that, we can only speculate or look for other ancient texts that explain what we are looking for...

as everyone has said many times on many threads... there isn't much solid proof for anything that mankind believes in...

Sorry, The Phantom. ^^; My bad.

Shutting up now.

Check out the Hebrew rendering in Gen. 1:2 there are interesting commentaries on it, especially Bullinger and Dake. The verb "was" is "became in Hebrew, hence the Earth became this way. The Spirit of God "moving" is a term that indicates a restorative act not a creative act. Most Theologians that connect with this theory is that Satan's overthrow is what destroyed the world that then was. It is an Impossibility for the age of the Earth to date to the days of Adam even if you gave another 100,000 years to it. Genesis 1:1 is the original creation. However, there is a huge amount of time between verse one and verse two. From verse two on is a restorative act. Also besides Bullinger and Dake, C.I. Scofield has a lot of commentary on the subject as well. This theory does not discredit God's creative act at all, it simply pushes the timeline farther back and indicates that something of a cataclysmic nature occured to the original earth and it's inhabitants.

Possibly the Yucatan incident?

the head of the catholic church is actually a bunny.......saint peter...rabbit!

You may or may not be familiar with the story of creation in Genesis, but what you should also understand is that new ways of seeing old things are brought up all the time. The bible is no different. What I've said can be substantiated by the bible and corrobrated by science.

Does this mean that all will agree with this idea?

Not a chance!!

I know, what I have stopped accepting though is that this cataclysm was caused by the fall of Satan. I also have stopped accepting the idea that nothing was left alive after the cataclysm as is accepted by Dake and others.

Too far back in the past to conform with fossil evidence. It would have had to be something within the last 3 million years.

Well, I could write out the whole schpeel for you to read at leisure, but unfortunately I don't have the time to sit here and write for a few hours. Why don't you come around and see if anythings peeks your interest every so often.

Or you could just ask a few questions, you deem pertinent...

I'm just curious but say if there was a life on earth before the seven days of recreation i'm wondering if this would tie into the hollow earth theory and supposed other civilizations beneath the surface? I'm at least a little open minded towards this since if there was intelligent beings on earth before us couldn't they have figured out a way to survive through something catastrophic say like a meteor impact and maybe survive to this day? I'm not saying that i believe this but wouldn't rule out the possibility.

I've heard of these ideas you're mentioning, but in the case of this particular topic, it isn't related. This topic is specifically related to a novel way of interpreting biblical scriptures, specifically Genesis, the creation account.

do you believe that the people of the pre-adamic time had their own bible like we do?

This is my problem with the Bible ,it is supposed to be inerrant ,yet here you are interpreting it to suit your argument "A denial of inerrancy starts one down a slope that is slippery and ends in even greater error."

True, if you interpret the bible out of context and to your own purposes. The specific interpretation of Genesis though can be handled in different ways, satisfying innerrancy as well as scientific knowledge.

A little question for you though. How do you think Genesis came about into existence, as it now stands, through Moses?

Do you believe that God told him the story?

I really wouldn't know, I wasn't there. I just know that they existed but what type of culture of civilization they had is unknown.

No I don't .I must admit I have problems with the whole genesis story .I just can't swallow it

That is exactly why I found it necessary to look at the bilcal scripture from a different perspective yet not forgetting that the bible is innerrant.

Therefore how can we look at Genesis and try to find a different approach?

Here's one way...

The bible states:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty(a), darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

(a) Please note that "formless and empty" here almost seems to have a subtle connection to chaos

The NIV Bible states that "WAS" in this verse could possibly be substituted with"BECAME".
Does that change anything for you?

So in conclusion, we can interpret this to mean that:

1. 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2. Something happened to this earth, a great destruction due to Divine Judment.
3. Verse 2 states how we find the earth at the time that he stepped in to put order back to the earth.

So what we really have in the Genesis account is what one could call a Reconstruction and not a Creation.

Please notice how the days go by and how God speaks:

Day 1 - And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
Did he create it or did he make it reappear since everything was in darkness? Cloud cover or dust dissipates and allows the sun to shine again.

Day 2 - And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky."
It seems this is a continued effect from Thick cloud cover that darkened the sky, with rain falling continuously. The rain stops as dissipation takes place thus now we have the sky visible where before nothing was visible.

Day 3 - And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas."
As the water runs off after the rains so land now becomes dry and livible again. The waters gather at low points creating lakes and "seas".

Day 4 - "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds."
A natural after-effect after the land becomes dry enough to allow vegetation to grow.

Day 5 - And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.
It would seem that as the sky clears one would again be able to see the stars, moon and sun.

"Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.
It would seem that the word create here has been used to state specifically that God repopulated the world again with all animals and fish. Does this mean that no animals and fish existed before the "Divine Judgement" of verse 2. So it is highly likely that he didn't invent new species but used existing "molds" to repopulate the world.

Day 6 - Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so.
Same as above.

"Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
Finally we see that man was created on the 6th day after the animals.

Only when God created the marine and terrestial life including man did he actually create. The rest was reconstruction.

Now think of Noah and you have the same essential story repeated in a different context. It is also interesting that God equates Noah with Adam. This seems to be sending us a message that there are and have been great cycles at work in the bible.

Finally, There is absolutely no way that the days are periods of time as has been suggested, they are in fact physical days of 24 hours each. Why complicate things when the simplest interpretation is most likely correct and no errors have been made.

It is also necessary to state that there is also no way to know how much time passed between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. or even how many cycles there have been but I do know that we didn't "evolve" from the apes as the saying goes

Enjoy!

and dont forget genesis 1-28
and got blessed them, and god said unto them, be fruitful, and mutiply, and replinish the earth.

the key wod is replinish.

You see, here is the actual hebrew word for replenish...

male' {maw-lay'} or mala' (Esth. 7:5) {maw-law'}

1) to fill, be full

a) (Qal)

1) to be full

a) fulness, abundance (participle)

B) to be full, be accomplished, be ended

2) to consecrate, fill the hand

B) (Niphal)

1) to be filled, be armed, be satisfied

2) to be accomplished, be ended

c) (Piel)

1) to fill

2) to satisfy

3) to fulfil, accomplish, complete

4) to confirm

d) (Pual) to be filled

e) (Hithpael) to mass themselves against

Note how not one of those possible meanings means to fill again or replenish. Bad translation of the KJV.

This means that humans didn't exist before. They were the only newly created species in this reconstruction.

My personal theory is that even though there may have been human-like beings (hominids) before, they were not human.

Somehow that rings a bell with me when I think of evolution.

No one knows for sure, but it does remain a possibility.

Very well done!