The Other Flood: Genesis 1:1-1:2
Genesis starts out in the following manner (translated literally):
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the land. 2And the land became chaotic and a mess. And darkness is upon the faces of the deep. And the Spirit of Elohim brooded over the faces of the waters. 3And Elohim said, “Be, light!” And light was.
This simple beginning gives information that requires much thought. Please consider this with me as I express thoughts that I had. (Feel free to challenge all or any part of those thoughts.)
Beginning
The term beginning is unspecified. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t specific. Its timing is most certainly specific, but Yehovah did not give that information in this text. The reader therefore must consider the question, “What beginning is this?” It was the beginning of the heavens and the land, of course. The Bible refers to land as one of two types: a specific area of habitable (or inhabitable) soil not including any seas or oceans (like the Land of Israel), or the entirety of habitable (or inhabitable) soil on the planet. Thus, land doesn’t include what is on Mars or the moon. Planet earth is in mind.
While the heavens and the land began at this time, that still doesn’t explain the beginning, because a beginning describes a series of events, not a series of objects. I have thus far concluded that this was the beginning of the plan of Yehovah for humans; I haven’t yet found evidence to change this perspective.
Creation
I next considered creation. This word means to cause something to come into existence. It can including making and forming things, but it normally indicates a finished product’s new existence. (Texts would specify if anything created were unfinished.) Thus, Elohim caused the heavens and the land to exist where they previously did not.
Was and Became
The next verse starts, “And the land became chaotic and a mess.” The verb I rendered became normally means to be (including was, will be, is, are, am, etc.). Lot’s wife was not a pillar of salt before she peered after her; she became a pillar of salt (the text uses the same verb). I therefore saw that this verb can indicate a change of state. That doesn’t prove that it does. I needed more evidence before arriving at that conclusion.
The same word translated chaotic (Tohu) is used in a related text:
Isaiah 45:18 For so said Yehovah Creator of the heavens─He is the Gods, and the Former of the land and her Maker. And He ‘foundationed’ her. He didn’t create her chaotic. He formed her to dwell.
I knew from this that Yehovah didn’t create her (the land) chaotic. Thus, I knew that Genesis 1:2 was not describing the form of the land at the beginning, but something that it became. Thus, I had what was proof for me. My connections with Isaiah 45:18 were the following:
- Both spoke of the Creator creating.
- Both spoke of the creation of the heavens.
- Both spoke of the land.
- Both spoke using chaotic—the very same word.
Thus, I had four points of reference, and I knew that both texts referred to the same event.
Darkness
I thus considered the darkness. I did not disregard verse 3 and the only event that Yehovah did on Day 1: He caused the light to be. (Verse 4 states that He saw the light; it does not mention the heavens and the land. Thus, I knew that the creation of the heavens and the land were not on Day 1.) I therefore concluded that He did not appreciate that darkness that was upon the faces of the deep. I now had three negatives: chaos, mess, and darkness. I could tell that Elohim was not pleased with the situation in verse 2.
Brooding
I now encountered a fourth negative: “The Spirit of Elohim brooded over the faces of the waters.” I was curious about the meaning and flavour of this term. According to William Gesenius, the brilliant (and rarely incorrect) lexicographer, the word mrakhefet “is used of birds which brood over their young; of a mother cherishing her infant; of Elisha cherishing the dead body of the child; also of a voice descending from heaven and hovering in the air; also to pity.” I thus saw emotion in this word, not merely a positioning (as in hovering). Elohim reacted to what He saw, and His reaction was listed in the rest of the chapter. He determined to change what He saw into something else: something alive.
No Land
I also noted that no land was visible. (I looked ahead to verses 9 and 10.) Only later did land appear. Yet, land had been there in verse 1. I therefore concluded that verse 2 described a flood.
Violence
Since I knew about another flood (in Genesis 6), I began connecting both together to obtain a reason for this first flood. Yehovah hates violence, and He reacts to rampant violence. He killed every land animal and human in Noah’s flood. I noted that He killed every land animal (except those that went into the Ark). He didn’t kill the animals because they sinned, but to instruct man.
I saw fossilized bones of extinct animals. (I also saw reconstructions of bones, skin, hair, etc. that were from man’s imaginations.) I could not ignore the fossilized bones. Yehovah left them there for a record and for a warning. (The stars also are a record and a warning, and the firmament will also be.) Archaeologists found victim’s bones inside the jaws of larger creatures in some of their digs. Those records show a type of violence that seems like what one would expect from a wolf that attacks a sheep, but that isn’t the case. There is a difference between killing and obtaining food, and just killing. I could not prove this, but I noticed it.
Extinction
I also noted that many animals became extinct. They were extinct before the flood of Genesis 1:2. (They would have had to survive that flood had they been alive afterward, or they would have had to be created in one of the days listed in the rest of Genesis 1.) Elohim makes things right. Why were they extinct? The only way all of the land animals would be extinct at one time, while the sea life was not extinct, would be Yehovah doing what He did in Genesis 6.
Some have held that all the land dinosaurs were represented on Noah’s Ark along with the other species present today. They obviously did not do the measurements. The Ark was three stories tall. Some dinosaurs have been at least that tall. Some of those same persons have held that babies of all the animals were on the ark. Babies eat quite a bit, some more than their parents while they grow, and the animals were on the Ark for a little over one year. The volume of animal matter would far exceed the Ark’s volume if prehistoric species are included. Then those who hold such ideas would have to have a mass extinction after the animals left the Ark. This would show Yehovah as having little sense, since humans would not bring the extinction of most species, but would instead use them for various work animals.
No Fish Extinction
As I noted above, no fish were harmed in the flood in Noah’s day. Scientists found fossils of sea creatures, and they studied them for their ancient designs. Then a man caught one of these extinct sea creatures (the coelacanth) off of Africa; it was enjoying life, quite alive: “The coelacanths, which are related to lungfishes and tetrapods, were believed to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period, until the first Latimeria specimen was found off the east coast of South Africa, off the Chalumna River in 1938.” (Wikipedia) Yehovah made a distinction between sea life and land life in Noah’s flood, and I was now convinced that the same was true in the Genesis 1:2 flood.
Time
I therefore considered the amount of time that elapsed between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. If Genesis 1:2 described a flood and its destruction, I knew Yehovah would wait to do this since He always waited in Biblically described destructions. Time would also be required for His peaceful creation to become entirely violent (since entire violence alone is enough for Yehovah to destroy a place). I had no way to tell how long this would be. I do not believe in Carbon Dating, since that assumes a certain initial quantity of radioactive carbon, and I don’t care for data drawn using assumptions. Since fossil records can be plentiful, I considered that many years would have passed. When scientists speak of multiple millions of years, I don’t have reason to argue. I know that the stars, sun, moon, humans and other things created in the six days of Genesis 1 are only about 6,000 years old, and that Yehovah created the stars’ lights already arriving to the earth. (Otherwise, we would not be able to see stars that are more than 6,000 light years away.)
Evolution
Some equate dinosaurs with evolution. In their views, if one believes in dinosaurs, one espouses evolution; and if one believes in evolution, naturally that person believes in dinosaurs. I am not of these perspectives. I know there were dinosaurs. I know that scientific evolution that involves species turning into completely different species is not true. Species can adapt to new environments.
I hope these considerations have been helpful. Yehovah has always given man warnings, and has sometimes used animals for that very purpose. Wise humans will study animals (living and extinct) to obtain these warnings.