This same Spirit "moved" or brooded upon the face of the waters, to impregnate them, as an hen upon eggs to hatch them, so he to separate the parts which were mixed together, and give them a quickening virtue to produce living creatures in them.
This sense and idea of the word are finely expressed by our poet . Some traces of this appear in thenouv or mind of Anaxagoras, which when all things were mixed together came and set them in order ; and the "mens" of Thales he calls God, which formed all things out of water ; and the "spiritus intus alit", &c.
of Virgil; and with this agrees what Hermes says, that there was an infinite darkness in the abyss or deep, and water, and a small intelligent spirit, endued with a divine power, were in the chaos : and perhaps from hence is the mundane egg, or egg of Orpheus : or the firstborn or first laid egg, out of which all things were formed; and which he borrowed from the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and they perhaps from the Jews, and which was reckoned by them a resemblance of the world.
The Egyptians had a deity they called Cneph, out of whose mouth went forth an egg, which they interpreted of the world : and the Zophasemin of the Phoenicians, which were heavenly birds, were, according to Sanchoniatho , of the form of an egg; and in the rites of Bacchus they worshipped an egg, as being an image of the world, as Macrobius says; and therefore he thought the question, whether an hen or an egg was oldest, was of some moment, and deserved consideration: and the Chinese say , that the first man was produced out of the chaos as from an egg, the shell of which formed the heavens, the white the air, and the yolk the earth; and to this incubation of the spirit, or wind, as some would have it, is owing the windy egg of Aristophanes .
(Thomas Chamlers (1780-1847) in 1814 was the first to purpose that there is a gap between verse 1 and 2. Into this gap he places a pre-Adamic age, about which the scriptures say nothing. Some great catastrophe took place, which left the earth "without form and void" or ruined, in which state it remained for as many years as the geologist required.
This speculation has been popularised by the 1917 Scofield Reference Bible. However, the numerous rock layers that are the supposed proof for these ages, were mainly laid down by Noah's flood. In Ex 20:11 we read of a literal six day creation.
No gaps, not even for one minute, otherwise these would not be six normal days. Also, in Ro 5:12 we read that death is the result of Adam's sin. Because the rock layers display death on a grand scale, they could not have existed before the fall of Adam.
There is no direct evidence that the earth is much older than six thousand years. However, we have the direct eyewitness report of God himself that he made everything in six days. Tracing back through the biblical genealogies we can determine the age of the universe to be about six thousand years with an error of not more than two per cent.
See Topic 8756. Editor.) "Quem dixere chaos, rudis indigestaque moles", Ovid Metamorph. l. 1. Fab. 1. htoi men protista caov &c. Hesiodi Theogonia. Orphei Argonautica, ver. 12. Martin. Sinic. Hist. l.
1. p. 5. Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 7. Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 2. c. 10. p. 33. Laert. in Vita Thaletis, p. 18. Cicero do Natura Deorum, l. 1. Strabo. Geograph. l. 15. p. 491. Metaphysic. l. 1. c.
3. Zohar in Gen. fol. 107. 3. and fol. 128. 3. Bereshit Rabba, fol. 2. 4. and 6. 3. Vajikra Rabba, sect. 14. fol. 156. 4. Baal Hatturim in loc. Caphtor Uperah, fol. 113. 2. tpxrm "incubabat", Junius, Tremellius, Piscator, "as a dove on her young", T.
Bab. Chagigah, fol. 15. 1. ----and, with mighty wings outspread, Dovelike satst brooding on the vast abyss, And mad'st it pregnant.---- Milton's Paradise Lost, B. 1. l. 20, 21, 22. The same sentiment is in B.
7. l. 234, 235. Laert. in Vita Anaxagor. p. 91. Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 10. c. 14. p. 504. Cicero de Nat. Deorum, l. 1. Lactant, de falsa Relig. l. 1. c. 5. Apud Drusium in loc. Hymn. protogon, ver.
1, 2. Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 3. c. 11. p. 115. Apud Ib. l. 2. c. 10. p. 33. Saturnal. l. 7. c. 16. Martin. Sinic. Hist. l. 1. p. 3, 4. In Avibus. Ian Taylor, p. 363, 364, "In the Minds of Men", 1984, TEF Publishing, P.
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