Interplanner
Well-known member
1: section titles
2: the heavens
3, 'formless and void.' This Hebrew expression is only used one other time in the OT and it is about the destroyed Jerusalem. This is how we find the earth after the section title. It is the setting, just as 5:2 or 6:1 or 6:11 are settings and the new action has not yet been stated.
Therefore, there is a case that things were going on here that God did not approve of.
In the Bible's statements about the origins of evil, we learn that some angels rebelled against the King and these were sent to blackest darkness to be imprisoned and will be judged. When Peter speaks of this, he doesn't hesitate to compare it to what happened to the evil Titans who were likewise imprisoned in the Greek myths about them on Tartarus. Tartarus maybe subterranean—deep in the core of our earth. But Peter uses the term. We assume it is for effect, for familiarity for Gentiles. Paul likewise quotes a few Greek authors.
Another angle of 'formless and void' which must be discussed is that the transformation of 'formless and void' to formed and filled speaks to the neighboring nations. All of them believed in a similar condition about the original earth before someone fixed it all. Sometimes the earth is said to be the former body of a huge sea-monster. The neighboring nations would be surprised to read or hear that it was Yahweh (the LORD) who was creator. But they would not be surprised to find that there was a stage where it was 'formless and void.' Among the options the nations had for creator were divine kings, other gods and other forces.
Again, another angle is that among the legends from the nations, the material for earth came from a huge lizard or sea-monster. This creature was evil and was destroyed by the divine king/god/force so that the earth could be reformed into the habitable shape and conditions it now has. A few OT texts have traces of this element. It mattered as much to the ancient Hebrews that God was victorious over leviathan as he was over the Egyptians.
2: the heavens
3, 'formless and void.' This Hebrew expression is only used one other time in the OT and it is about the destroyed Jerusalem. This is how we find the earth after the section title. It is the setting, just as 5:2 or 6:1 or 6:11 are settings and the new action has not yet been stated.
Therefore, there is a case that things were going on here that God did not approve of.
In the Bible's statements about the origins of evil, we learn that some angels rebelled against the King and these were sent to blackest darkness to be imprisoned and will be judged. When Peter speaks of this, he doesn't hesitate to compare it to what happened to the evil Titans who were likewise imprisoned in the Greek myths about them on Tartarus. Tartarus maybe subterranean—deep in the core of our earth. But Peter uses the term. We assume it is for effect, for familiarity for Gentiles. Paul likewise quotes a few Greek authors.
Another angle of 'formless and void' which must be discussed is that the transformation of 'formless and void' to formed and filled speaks to the neighboring nations. All of them believed in a similar condition about the original earth before someone fixed it all. Sometimes the earth is said to be the former body of a huge sea-monster. The neighboring nations would be surprised to read or hear that it was Yahweh (the LORD) who was creator. But they would not be surprised to find that there was a stage where it was 'formless and void.' Among the options the nations had for creator were divine kings, other gods and other forces.
Again, another angle is that among the legends from the nations, the material for earth came from a huge lizard or sea-monster. This creature was evil and was destroyed by the divine king/god/force so that the earth could be reformed into the habitable shape and conditions it now has. A few OT texts have traces of this element. It mattered as much to the ancient Hebrews that God was victorious over leviathan as he was over the Egyptians.
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