Joe Abrahamson, June 2025
Short answer: No. Not at all.
This study is for Pastor James Preus. Pr. Preus in his Bible Study podcast, “Episode 40: Is Genesis Literal History?” [starting at about minute 37] correctly reacted against apologists who made the following assertion.
The claim: Genesis 1:1-2 has a different kind of verb from Genesis 1:3 and the following verses. The apologist asserted that this difference in the types of verbs means that a long time could have taken place between the two phrases. This apologist actually asserted more, he claimed that the differences in verbal form demonstrated that there was an indefinite period of time between the events of verses 1-2 and verses 3 and following.
This claim is surprising to many readers because in the English translation the natural reading is that the first couple of sentences are simply introducing the time in which the ensuing events took place.
In truth, however, the claim made by the apologists is not supported by the verbal forms. In fact, an evidence based examination of Genesis shows many examples which demonstrate the natural reading as correct. The first couple of sentences are actually setting up the context of when the narration took place.
The Hebrew verb forms this claim points to are the Perfect and the waw-consecutive Imperfect. These are labeled as P and w-c-Imp in the translations below.
The Verbal Forms in Genesis 1:1-5
At the start of this narrative, in verses 1 and 2, two Perfect conjugation verbs are used
בָּרָ֣א “He [God] created” and
הָיְתָ֥ה “it [the earth] was”
From verse 3 to verse 5 there is a chain of Imperfect verbs which are linked with a special form of the conjunction which is often called the waw-consecutive.
וַיֹּ֥אמֶר “And He [God] said”,
וַֽיְהִי “And there was”,
וַיַּ֧רְא “And He [God] saw”,
וַיַּבְדֵּ֣ל “And He [God] divided”,
וַיִּקְרָ֨א “And He [God] called”,
וַֽיְהִי “And it was”,
וַֽיְהִי “And it was”.
The claim states that because the Perfect is used here and the waw-consecutive-Imperfect begins the next passage “And God said” therefore there is an indefinite amount of time that could occur between verse 2 and verse 3.
But the use of Perfect conjugation verbs to introduce a narrative chain of waw-consecutive Imperfect verbs does not carry this kind of meaning. And this can be easily shown from other chapters in Genesis.
The Verbal Forms in Genesis 3:1-4
Genesis 3:
It is clear from the context that the use of the Perfect conjugation preceding the waw-consecutive Imperfect does not mean:
“Long ago some ancient and indeterminate time ago the serpent was crafty, and God made him some super-long indeterminate time ago.”
What these verbs do is introduce the relevant characteristics of the serpent which it has at the time the narrative begins. The important characteristics that the serpent has are that it is crafty and it is a created thing.
The Verbal Forms in Genesis 4:1-3
The fourth chapter begins with a Hebrew Perfect conjugation describing the circumstances that are the immediate cause of the following narrative. Again, the verbal forms do not indicate a long, unspecified, or indefinite time period. This context makes it quite clear that the shift in verbal forms does not carry the meaning made in the original claim.
Evidence from this context, within just a few chapters of Genesis 1 shows that asserting the shift from Perfect to waw-consecutive Imperfect must or may imply a long, undefined period of time is not only inaccurate, but ridiculously so. The change in verbal tenses obviously does not mean:
“Some undetermined time ago, could be millions of years, Adam knew Eve, his wife. And we begin our narrative much later with Eve conceiving.”
In verse 2 we also see a Perfect conjugation subordinated to the waw-consecutive Imperfect because it 1) does not advance the narrative event chain but rather 2) adds a detail of context that is important for the coming narrative.
The Verbal Forms in Genesis 5:1-4
The same pattern of larger verbal structures continues in the next narrated event. Genesis 5 recounts the births of generations using a sequence of narrative waw-consecutive Imperfects. But the narrative stretch is preceded by two Perfect verbs which introduce the necessary information for the ensuing narrative. In this context the essential information is that God made mankind in His image. And this mankind was made of male and female. So they have children.
Evidence from this context also demonstrates that the original claim listed at the beginning of this study has no standing. The verbal forms do not require an indefinite disconnection of time between the use of Perfect and waw-consecutive Imperfect. This genealogy does not allow for that interpretation, nor have any of the contexts permitted the interpretation of an indefinite period of time between the Perfect verbs and the narrative waw-consecutive Imperfect verbs.
The Verbal Forms in Genesis 6:8-12
The introduction of Noah is given in contrast to the wicked generations preceding and surrounding him.
Noah is introduced using three Hebrew Perfect conjugation verbs. The narration of his life and work follows in the form of waw-consecutive Imperfects. There is no distance of time between the opening perfects and the ensuing narration. This context again shows us that this arrangement of verbs is used to introduce the setting and relevant characteristics or situations for the narrative that follows immediately.
If the verbs meant what the original claim states then we could read:
“Some indeterminate time ago, maybe thousands of years, Noah found grace, was perfect in his generation, and walked with God. Later on, possibly millions of years later Noah begot sons, the world became corrupted, humanity became violent, and God finally saw what was going on.”
Recall that the claim made by the apologists is that the use of the Hebrew Perfect conjugation followed by the waw-consecutive Imperfect conjugation is the proof that the first two verses of Genesis 1 could have occurred a long time before the events of the narration that began in Genesis 1 verse 3.
We are now up to the Sixth chapter of Genesis and we already have four examples which demonstrate conclusively that the claim made by the apologist has no merit at all.
Examples can easily be multiplied.
Summary
The claim was that the verb conjugations in Genesis 1:1-3 demonstrate that there is an unknown amount of time, and indefinite time, that took place after verses 1-2, which use the Perfect conjugation; and before verse 3ff, which use the waw-consecutive Imperfect narrative verbs.
This pattern of verb use we examined is not rare in Biblical Hebrew. We took an evidence based approach to the issue and looked at 4 other examples in just the first 6 chapters of Genesis. What we observed is that this larger sequence of verbs is used to present contextually relevant and necessary information. The Perfect can be used to set the time, the location, and can be used to inform about many other relevant characteristics that will be the focus of the narrative that immediately follows.
The examples above are given to demonstrate ways that the Perfect is commonly used in Hebrew narrative. They are not meant to describe all the narrative uses of the Hebrew Perfect or all the ways Biblical Hebrew narrative may be introduced. Hebrew narrative does not need to begin with Perfect conjugations preceding waw-consecutive Imperfect verbs. Another very common way a Hebrew narrative begins is with the waw-consecutive Imperfect of וַֽיְהִ֖י “to be.” Among other uses the Perfect conjugation can also be used to introduce the setting for narrative speech verbs. In those contexts the use is often similar to what we have looked at in the examples above.
These examples from the immediate context of Genesis demonstrate quite the opposite of the claim made by the apologist who argues that the verb forms indicate an indefinite time gap.
