Chrisentheism, a new way forward

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

(@Troy: Is this adequately on topic? Your call.)

@adamjedgar had no reply in the other thread where he was tagged:

@Dale

You’re missing something. By an ex-YEC heretic (he has three earned doctorates, btw):

As I studied these first three verses of the Bible, a serious problem arose for me as a young earth creationist. Now equipped with biblical Hebrew, I noticed that Genesis 1:2 was the opening scene in the six-day account of creation in Genesis 1. The grammar made that undisputedly clear, and there was no debate about that whatsoever.9 In fact, my Old Testament professor Bruce Waltke had proven that this was the correct translation of the original Hebrew in a series of classic papers.10 In the NIV and all variations of the NRSV, there is a dark watery earth already in existence with no mention of when it was created. This is termed the “pre-creative state.”

It is this biblical fact of the existence of a pre-creative state in Genesis 1:2 that destroyed my belief in young earth creation. I could no longer date the earth because the Bible did not reveal when the earth was created. More specifically, it was not possible to add up the genealogies in Scripture and use them to determine the age of the earth. Genesis 1:2 simply states that the earth was already in existence when God began the six days of creation.

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9 Genesis 1:2 begins with a disjunctive waw. This made Genesis 1:1 either the title of this creation account or Genesis 1:2 a parenthetical clause.
10 Bruce K. Waltke, “The Creation Account in Genesis 1:1–3” Bibliotheca Sacra 132 (1975), 25-36, 136-44, 216-28; 133 (1976), 28-41

Struggling with God & Origins: A Personal Story, Denis O. Lamoureux, p.123-24