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The Creation Answers Book

The Creation Answers Book

Lessons & Chapters

Lesson 1 Does God exist? (Chapter 1)

Lesson 2: Six days? Really? (Chapter 2)

Lesson 3 What about gap theories? (Chapter 3)

Lesson 4 What about carbon dating? (Chapter 4)

Lesson 5 How can we see distant stars in a young universe? (Chapter 5)

Lesson 6 How did bad things come about? (Chapter 6)

Lesson 7 What about arguments for evolution? (Chapter 7)

Lesson 8 Who was Cain’s wife? (Chapter 8)

Lesson 9 Were the ‘sons of God’ and/or the Nephilim extraterrestrials? (Chapter 9)

Lesson 10 Was the Flood global? (Chapter 10)

Lesson 11 What about continental drift? (Chapter 11)

Lesson 12 Noah’s Flood-what about all that water? (Chapter 12)

Lessons 13 & 14 How did all the animals fit on Noah’s Ark? and How did freshwater and saltwater fish survive the Flood? (Chapters 13 & 14)

Lesson 15 Where are all the human fossils? (Chapter 15)

Lesson 16 What about ice ages? (Chapter 16)

Lesson 17 How did animals get to Australia? (Chapter 17)

Lesson 18 How did all the different ‘races’ arise (from Noah’s family)? (Chapter 18)

Lesson 19 What about dinosaurs? (Chapter 19)

The Creation Answers Book Study Guide

by Dr Don Batten, Dr David Catchpoole, Dr Jonathan Sarfati, and Dr Carl Wieland

Lesson 3: What about gap theories?

Text: The Creation Answers Book, chapter 3

Supplemental materials:

Section: Gap theories

Discussion questions

  1. Overall, what is the ‘gap theory’ concept?

  2. What problems are the gap theories trying to solve?

  3. Specifically, what is the ‘ruin-reconstruction’ version of the ‘gap theory’?

  4. How does the ‘soft gap’ theory differ from the ‘ruin-reconstruction’ idea?

Section: The classical [or ‘ruin-reconstruction’] gap theory

Discussion questions

  1. How is the ‘gap theory’ similar to and different from the ideas of ‘theistic evolution’ and ‘progressive creation’?

  2. With whom and when did the ‘gap theory’ originate?

  3. What are the main reasons people adhere to positions such as the ‘gap theory’?

Section: Problems with the classical gap theory

Discussion questions

  1. What is ‘Lucifer’s flood’?

  2. How does acceptance of the ‘gap theory’ undermine the message of the Gospel?

  3. How are the Hebrew words bara and asah used in the Old Testament? Why should these words be considered largely interchangeable?

  4. How does the actual grammatical construction of Genesis 1:1–2 preclude a gap of time being inserted? (See also Morning has broken … but when?

  5. Why is it inappropriate to translate the Hebrew word hayetah as ‘became’ in the context of Genesis 1:1–2? (See also Can evolution’s long ages be squeezed into early Genesis? and The gap theory—An idea with holes?)

  6. How and why do those who accept the ‘gap theory’ translate tohu and bohu in Genesis 1:2?

  7. What is the proper translation of these two words? Why?

  8. If someone said to you, “The Lord commanded Adam and Eve to ‘replenish’ the earth, so there must have been a race of people before them, since they were to refill the earth”, how would you respond? (See also What does ‘replenish the earth’ mean?)

Section: Soft gap problems

Discussion questions

  1. What are some of the problems the ‘soft gap’ tries to avoid?

  2. Why is it inappropriate to translate the Hebrew word asah as ‘appeared’ in Genesis 1:16?

  3. What problems does translating asah as ‘appeared’ cause to the Gospel?

  4. What is a merism?

  5. Why is it correct to say that the merism of ‘heaven(s) and earth’ in Exodus 20:11 is not ‘broken’ and still refers to the whole universe?

  6. Describe some of the unique problems the soft gap theory creates.

Section: Conclusion

Discussion question

  • What effects has the gap theory had on the church?