Continuing the discussion from The Genesis One Local Creation Theory:
This trips and falls on one word: תְה֑וֹם. Translated “the deep”, it signifies the state of the entire cosmos at the beginning of all things; as such it is common to all ancient near eastern cosmologies. So the וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים, the Spirit (of) God is hovering/meditating over the cosmos.
Yes. Commentators since the earliest times have noted that such expressions do not tell us where God or the Spirit was, but rather where His attention was – which in this case is the entire t’hom, “the deep”, which was the entire primeval cosmos.
Good grief no! “Useless and empty”, possibly, but there’s no “hidden” aspect of תֹ֙הוּ֙ – it’s just not there.
On the other hand, the phrase “heavens and earth” meant “everything that is”, and included the idea that there were lands beyond theirs. Modern categories do not apply, but you can’t change the meaning of ancient idioms to suit your conjecture.
Sorry, but that’s contrary to the Hebrew idiom – heck, it’s contrary to the entire ancient near east, where “heavens and earth” meant everything that exists.
And at that point the underworld was part of the heavens because they hadn’t been separated.
Nope. The תְה֑וֹם remains below the earth, indeed below the underworld, and nothing indicates it has a bottom. It was not the t’hom that was gathered into one place, it was the waters “under the heavens”, the waters that the heavens looked down on. This actually is a “local” event.
Wrong on both counts.
Have you had any actual Hebrew studies, or are you winging this based on the English?