It was my first year teaching biology in a Christian high school. I was also to teach Genesis in Bible class. I knew the gap theory of creation. But a time gap at Genesis 1:2, with a first creation of life then its destruction, is not in the Bible. The “gap” in the gap theory was all wrong.
I realized I did not know how to integrate biology and Genesis. And I was the teacher! Then Henry Morris lectured in my city on young earth scientific creationism. His insightful theory was almost right, but one claim did not match the Bible.
Later, in seminary, I heard Hugh Ross’s lectures on old earth creationism. He detailed remarkable evidences of God’s precise design of the universe. But one of his claims did not match the Hebrew of Genesis 1 that I was studying under John Sailhamer, the originator of the historical land creationism theory. And one of Sailhamer’s claims did not fit the Bible well either.
I decided to study in Hebrew and Greek the over one hundred Bible creation texts. A two-stage creation began to emerge. In my doctoral dissertation, I reviewed ten notable creation theories, listening to what each had to say. Together their most Biblical insights return to what some ancient Biblical creationists have said all along—creation in two stages.
The first book, Two Stage Biblical Creation – Uniting Biblical Insights Uncovered by Ten Notable Creation Theories, summarizes the claims of these ten notable creation theories and compares their claims to the Bible creation texts. Then the most Biblical claims are gathered into an eleventh theory. Finally, all eleven theories are tested against the Bible by four diagnostic questions with the goal of coming closer to a fully Biblical creation theory.
The second book, Two Stage Biblical Creation from the Bible – Uniting Over One Hundred Bible Creation Texts into a Biblical Creation Theory, will, God willing, derive the two stage Biblical creation theory from the five major and over one hundred shorter Bible texts on creation.