Why So Much Confusion About -- "In the Beginning ..."?

The Plain Truth
April, 1964


Why So Much Confusion About -- "In the Beginning ..."?

Read here why some have never understood what Genesis 1:1 really
means!

by Robert E. Gentet


SOME believe the Bible says the heavens and the earth were
created only about 6000 years ago. Even many scientists assume
this is what the Bible teaches. And they scoff.
But is this really what Genesis 1:1 teaches?
The truth is plain. Without realizing it, some have been
believing a FABLE that sprang from the dark ages -- when people
knew little about the Bible except what was taught to them by
churchmen, who themselves were ignorant of what the Bible really
taught!
Will you notice what the Bible DOES say? You will be
surprised.

What Genesis 1:1 Says

Genesis 1:1, in the King James translation, says: "In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
First, notice what it does NOT say. It does not say "About
6000 years ago ..." -- or "in 4004 B.C., God created the heaven
and the earth." It says: "In the BEGINNlNG God created the heaven
and the earth."
WHEN was "the beginning"? GENESIS 1:1 JUST DOESN'T TELL US!
And there is a reason.
What Genesis 1:1 does reveal is that the heaven and the
earth had a beginning. This scripture makes it plain that the
universe was created. Genesis 1:1 emphasizes WHO (in the
beginning) created the heaven and the earth! It points us to GOD,
as Creator of the universe.
Genesis 1:1 has been universally misinterpreted. Here is how
it happened.
"... Archbishop Ussher ... in the years 1650 to 1654,
published a chronology {supposedly} based upon the biblical
record. His dates were accepted for nearly two centuries, though
geologists reading the record of the rocks were early convinced
that he had seriously erred when he stated that the earth had
been created in the year 4004 B.C., on the 26th of October, at 9
o'clock in the morning!" (H. E. Vokes, "How Old is the Earth?"
from "The Illustrated Library of the Natural Sciences", Vol. II,
p. 1155.)
Notice how Ussher tried to establish not only the date, but
the time of day of creation -- WHICH HE DID NOT GET FROM THE
BIBLE.
The same author further states: "The date 4004 B.C. was
inserted in the margin of the reference editions of the King
James version of the Bible by some unknown, and rapidly gained
acceptance, particularly among those people who believed that
every word in their Bible was the result of divine inspiration,
no matter how that word came to be there" (Ibid.).
Notice! People read MARGINAL REFERENCES that first appeared
in Bibles about 300 years ago, and henceforth ASSUMED these
man-made references were a part of inspired Scripture.
Genesis 1:1 just does NOT tell us the specific date of the
earth's creation. Instead, this verse points us to God as being
there "in the beginning" -- even BEFORE the earth was (see John
17:24). That is the vital significance of Genesis 1:1.
Men have set an iron-clad date on Genesis 1:1 that God never
intended. God nowhere tells us exactly when -- at what time -- He
created THE EARTH, or the heavens.

What Ussher Didn't See

Ussher, and many others, ASSUMED that Genesis 1:1 and 1:2
are speaking of the same time. Ussher ASSUMED that the world was
created just before man was created. Ussher, like many others,
thought God said: "In the beginning God created Adam." But this
is not what the Bible says! Genesis 1:1 doesn't tell us how long
God waited before He created Adam. Biblical chronology DOES,
however, reveal there have been about 6000 years since the
creation of ADAM. Not understanding this vital key, men have
confused the creation date of Adam with the unknown time element
of Genesis 1:1 and thought Genesis 1:1 was also speaking about
the time shortly before Adam's creation.
But it is not!
The Bible clearly reveals a TIME LAPSE between the first two
verses of Genesis. Genesis 1:1 could not possibly have occurred 6
days before the creation of man!
This fact is clearly shown when we compare Genesis 1:2 with
Isaiah 45:18.
Genesis 1:2 tells us: "AND THE EARTH WAS WITHOUT FORM, AND
VOID; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters."
Isaiah 45:18 records: "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."
The shock comes when we study the Hebrew texts of the Bible
which the King James translators were using as they translated
these verses into the language of their day. The HEBREW texts
reveal an amazing truth. The King James translators rendered the
same Hebrew word "tohu" as "without form" in Genesis 1:2, yet in
Isaiah 45:18 the same word was rendered as "in vain." Think what
this means!
Isaiah 45:18 says God did NOT create the earth in "tohu".
Yet Genesis 1:2 clearly tells us the earth was in tohu. Is this a
discrepancy?
Most assuredly not!
A great event occurred between the first and second verses
of Genesis -- which caused great destruction, or tohu, on the
earth! Genesis 1:2 is not continuing the description of the act
of creating the heaven and the earth. It is describing what the
earth BECAME after a great battle for control of the universe.
To understand WHY the earth became "tohu" (chaotic and
void), write for an eye-opening article entitled "Did God Create
a Devil?" Thousands have read this article and have had their
eyes opened to an astounding revelation from the pages of God's
Word!
But why has this truth been so long hidden?

The Great Conspiracy

Let us draw back the curtain of time and understand the
beginning of a dark-age superstition which is still haunting the
present century! When we do, we will understand WHY so many have
TAKEN FOR GRANTED a medieval superstition which the Bible does
not teach at all. Notice what was happening in the world about
450 years ago.
The astronomer Copernicus had just advanced the astounding
idea -- with abundant proof -- that the sun and other heavenly
bodies do not revolve around the earth. This teaching was so
opposite from the dogma of the Catholic Church which had a great
influence on the world's scientific teachings at that time that
Copernicus' theory was allowed to be taught only as a
"mathematical guess." It would have been heresy to have taught it
as fact! To do so would constitute sin, and such an act would
bring the wrath of the church fathers.
So, as long as Copernicus did not press the issue, the
church was contented. Galileo, as we shall see later, was not so
fortunate in his dealings with the church.
The newly emerged Protestant movement was not silent about
Copernicus' thesis. Martin Luther himself said: "This fool
[Copernicus] wants to change the whole science of astronomy."
But Copernicus' gem of truth attracted now-famous followers
who began to liberate the world from still more errors of the
dark ages. Galileo was one of them.

True Science Not Wrong

Galileo made an amazing discovery about 75 years after
Copernicus' famous announcement that the universe did not revolve
around the earth. Turning his newly found discovery -- the
telescope -- to the sky, he proved beyond a doubt that Copernicus
was right. The church's teachings about astronomy were now proven
absolutely wrong!
And no wonder. For the Bible doesn't say anywhere that the
heavenly bodies revolve around the earth. God wanted man to use
his mind and discover the mechanics of the universe.
God inspired wise King Solomon to write: "It is the glory of
God to conceal a thing: but the HONOUR of kings is TO SEARCH OUT
A MATTER. The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the
heart of kings is unsearchable" (Prov. 25:2-3).
Notice that God said He purposely conceals such matters so
we will search them out! In the process, we will come to see the
glory of God, if we believe that: "In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth."
But God has already told us we would be unable to COMPLETELY
search out what He has created. The astronomer has been unable to
find the bounds of the universe. The geologist has been unable to
explore first-hand the interior of the earth. The psychiatrist
has been unable to understand how the human mind functions in all
its many ways.
Scientific research bears out the fact that only the
existence of an Almighty God could account for all the wonder,
beauty and clockwork precision of the universe around us.
In having us search out His creation, God places a challenge
before us and makes us use our minds. God's way is the way of
thinking, planning, and building. It is CONstructive rather than
DEstructive. Why do men seem so bent on using their minds to
build devices which destroy? God's way would lead man to
everything good for him, if he would only heed!
The Biblical teaching about the universe was suppressed and
withheld from those men -- such as Galileo. It was considered
heresy to even consider that the universe did not revolve about
the earth.
For this reason, Galileo's triumph with his telescope was
soon to meet the challenge of the Catholic Church.

-------------------
PHOTO CAPTION: Galileo Galilei, who searched the sky with his
newly found telescope. He correctly said: "... I do not feel
obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with
senses, reason, and intellect has intended to forgo their use and
by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by
them."
-------------------

Churchmen Refuse to Learn

Notice how Galileo's threat to the church's hold on the
minds of men is graphically described by one authority: "The
nearly 100 years of Protestantism had been marred with cruel wars
between the two religions, and the leaders of the Roman Church
were resolved to stamp out any new innovations that would have a
tendency to undermine the faith that had been taught for {almost}
1600 years. Their undeviating belief was that Holy Scripture
taught a stationary Earth and a moving Sun... . And for Galileo
to teach the reverse was rank heresy, of which the Holy See must
take notice ....
"Late in 1615 Galileo again returned to Rome in a supreme
endeavor to convince the Church authorities of the truth of the
Heliocentric system, as proved by his telescope. But all the
arguments and facts he could advance fell upon deaf ears, for
Cardinal Bellarmine and Pope Paul V had decided that the doctrine
of a stationary Sun and a moving Earth was not only unscriptural,
but constituted one of the gravest perils to the Catholic
religion" (Norton Wagner, "Unveiling the Universe", p. 33)
Instead of following scripture, professing Christianity
continued to follow past error in order to retain their influence
on men. "Truly, they [the Catholic Church fathers] failed to take
unto themselves the spirit of the specific injunction of the
great Apostle to the Gentiles, which they themselves taught, to
'PROVE ALL THINGS AND HOLD FAST TO THAT WHICH IS GOOD.'
"And thus Christian Opinion, founded upon what they
mistakenly believed to be true interpretations of the Scriptures,
controlled and disquieted the thoughts of men throughout the long
silent centuries of the sword-swept dark ages of Europe" (Ibid.,
p. 21).
BECAUSE OF GROSS MISREPRESENTATION OF SCRIPTURE AND THE
VIOLENT SUPPRESSION OF THE TRUTH -- EVEN BY THE SWORD -- A
GROWING MOVEMENT AGAINST RELIGION BEGAN IN ALL FIELDS OF SCIENCE.
"The idea that present conditions {in contrast to the clear
Biblical statement that God, created the heavens and the earth}
furnish the safest basis for thinking about the past emerged as a
REACTION against the time-honored and almost UNIVERSAL belief
that the earth and its physical features are products of
mysterious supernatural events.
"A great deal of weight was placed on a strict
interpretation {actually a strict MISrepresentation} of
Scripture, which limited the existence of the physical world to a
relatively short time and required the compression of universal
creation and other tremendous events into a few thousand years"
(Stokes, "Essentials of Earth History", p. 31 -- Emphasis ours
throughout the article).

Scientists Ignorantly Reject God

Notice! The movement which began against religious teachings
about 400 years ago was NOT actually against the teachings of the
Bible. The real teachings of the Bible were not even known! It
was the MISINTERPRETATION of Scripture that scientists were
fighting. They were fighting a medieval superstition that had its
origin in pagan wretchedness, not in the Bible.

-------------------
PHOTO CAPTION: This is how the universe was envisioned during the
Middle Ages. It pictured a SOLID sky with the sun, moon, and
stars rotating around a FLAT earth! Behind the "sky" was
supposedly a complicated mechanism which moved the heavenly
objects! This and other fables from the Dark Ages still affect
certain beliefs about the Bible. The belief that God created the
heavens and the earth about 6000 years ago is one of these
fables.
-------------------

Realizing the error in Catholic and Protestant teachings,
scientists organized to thrust out of men's minds the knowledge
they assumed to be the Bible's teachings. Since these churchmen
all said they got their scientific beliefs from the Bible, the
scientists ASSUMED THEY were fighting the Bible.
And, getting God out of the picture also meant men could now
rationalize they did not need to obey their Creator. Evolution
and spontaneous generation were taught as truth in place of God's
Word.
Let's understand. Both the professing Christian churches and
the scientists were in error.
Churchmen said they had the Bible's teaching about the
earth's history and place in the universe. Yet they REJECTED the
Bible's teaching and the knowledge God wants us to discover for
ourselves! They called the truth HERESY! Some today reject clear
knowledge -- still preferring to live in the dark ages and to
call truth heresy.
Scientists had the facts God wants us to learn by exercising
our five senses, but they interpreted all the facts through the
eyeglass of evolution and uniformity, fulfilling the prophecy
that ungodly men in the end times would teach that "... all
things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation"
(II Peter 3:3-7). They were unwilling to retain God in their
knowledge (Rom. 1:18-23).
Neither the professing Christian church nor the scientists
checked to see what the Bible actually says! Churchmen ASSUMED
the Bible agreed with their superstitions and scientists who
heard these teachings ASSUMED the Bible taught silly, childish
fables they knew to be untrue.
It's time to stop assuming and check up! Why follow
medieval, dark-ages superstitions? Why not be willing to "prove
all things"?
Scientists, instead of turning to God "FELT IN THEIR BONES
that there must be a natural explanation for organic as well as
geological change, but the method was not easily to be had"
("Scientific American", Aug. 1959, p. 102).
Is it truly scientific to reject the proof of God's
existence on the basis of a "feeling in one's bones"? Admittedly,
it was a difficult task!

Why Such Utter Confusion?

What a ridiculous spectacle! Men -- both in religion and
society -- each going his own way. One claiming to teach the
Bible, and in reality teaching traditions of men. The other,
openly rejecting the Bible and, "feeling in his bones" that a
natural explanation could -- and must -- be found.
When geologists say "Early geologists fought to free people
from the myths of Biblical creation" ("Geotimes", August 1957, p.
12), they are only saying that men fought to replace one ERROR
with another.
Now, the Catholic Church has accepted the evolutionary
concept of the earth's origin and life upon it. Numerous
Protestant churches have also taken the evolutionary concept into
their teachings, justifying their actions by saying the Bible was
never meant to be a book on science.
This line of reasoning denies II Timothy 3:16 which says
that ALL -- not just a part -- of Scripture is given by
inspiration of God. This modern approach makes God's Word a mere
book of traditions of men.
The Bible plainly tells us that either ALL of the Bible is
given by inspiration of God or NONE of it is. It is not part
tradition -- or "stories" -- of men and part inspiration of God.
It stands as ONE UNITY. When the Bible does speak about history,
geology, astronomy, etc., it agrees with scientific facts.
Of course, in some few cases one needs to understand that
the Bible records conversations of men. In so doing it accurately
records what THEY said. But that does NOT automatically mean that
what the men said was of God.
For a simple example, Job 1:16 accurately records a message
given to Job by one who said a fire from "God" destroyed Job's
servants and sheep. But earlier in the chapter the Bible makes it
clear that it was Satan -- not God -- who sent this destruction!
Read it in Job 1:12. We should read the scripture as it is, and
NOT read our meaning into it.
The Bible tells us: "THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING
OF WISDOM: A GOOD UNDERSTANDING HAVE ALL THEY THAT DO {KEEP} HIS
COMMANDMENTS ..." (Ps. 111:10).
And, "THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE:
BUT FOOLS DESPISE WISDOM AND INSTRUCTION" (Prov. 1:7).
It's time to quit assuming, and to start obeying and fearing
God!
Because the truth about the earth's history has been buried
under a trash heap of medieval pagan superstition and ignorance,
men have assumed all of chapter one of Genesis is speaking of the
same time. Some have been unwilling to admit that "in the
beginning," in Genesis 1:1, is not speaking of Adam's creation,
but of a time long before Adam.
Man's 6000 years of reasoning himself astray, of being led
into deception by Satan the Devil, are rapidly nearing a climax.
You need to write for our free, highly illustrated booklet
entitled "1975 in Prophecy" to understand the prophesied events
which are to literally SHAKE this earth in the next few years.
Events which will bring to completion man's tragic 6000-year
history of wars and suffering and usher in the WONDERFUL WORLD
TOMORROW!