Dear Gino,  I've not answered yet because I am trying to figure out what it is you are questioning.   Are you saying there was not a period of time prior to Genesis 1:2 ( that was separate from the creation that God did in those six days and then rested on the seven) that included a race other than the human race that began with Adam?  If so, you are correct.  There was no human race prior to that time.   I understand what you are saying about the fact God can choose to create earth and man in any manner He wants; it certainly isn't within our scope of understanding of why He did things as He did.  The Bible doesn't give us much information about who/what occupied this earth but it does suggest that there was a war between Satan and his fallen angels and God punished them by no longer allowing them their former privileges or positions.  Satan did continue to have the opportunity to come before God to make accusations against man.    And,  because  Satan did receive  owner-ship over earth, we know that he had the authority to  even tempt Jesus to bow down and worship him and Satan would hand over his whole kingdom?  "And said unto him, All these things will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me."  Matthew 4:9   No one seems able to really be able to understand why there are dinasour foot-prints with man's foot-prints, that have been found,  encassed inside the dinasour foot-print that suggest that both were on the earth at the same time and frozen in time. I don't believe dinasours were part of Adam's world, were they, except that the Fallen Angels caused things to become very large?  I can't find any evidence for that, yet we have skeletons of these varieties of animals and also some type of man that is referred to as the Cave-men whom looked not quite human but a mixture of something not quite all animal either that fuels the controversy of Evolution, which we know is just God-less thinking.    In fact, in the Book of Job, chapter 1:7,  "And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, "From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it."  It shows that Satan had every freedom and right to walk about earth, showing that it was his  to do so.    When the Lord was speaking to Job and asking him if he was there when He created all that he created, starting in chapter 38, He describes so much that man just could not know the answer.  He asks Job if he can bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? and on He goes asking Job if he knows the ordiances of the heavens or fix their rule over the earth.  Then in Chapter 40:15,-18  "Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron."  KJV  God clearly tells Job, just like he created Job, he also created this huge beast.   The Hebrew word that is used ( bəhēmōth ) is the augmentative plural form of the word for “beast” or “animal.” Normally, bəhēmōth would translate as the plural noun “beasts,” but as it is used to describe a singular being, the interpretation is that of a mighty or monstrous animal.   But before that in Job 38:4-7 it asks the question, "Where were you when I laid the foundation  of the earth?........and all the sons of God shouted for joy."  There were no humans around at that time.  We know that there was the rebellion of Satan in which he took 1/3 of the angels with him.  That rebellion seems to answer much in regard to the origins of cosmic warfare.  Those Fallen angels committed horrible astrocities with the animals, plants and even themselves.  Now, if they were caste down to earth, it stands to reason that their footprints are those that are seen within the "Behemouth" footprints frozen in time because of some huge catastrophe.    So, Gino, it is not just picking up the Bible and opening the first page and getting all of this filled out for us first but placed through-out God's Word for us to piece together.  That was the purpose of my posting that article to show the reality of these events and that God started anew, after that initial rebellion by Satan, by twarting his plan when He created human and woman.  Satan and his angels were already on earth (in the Garden?)  Course, we know that Satan and his angels were very quick to try to stop that plan to bring the Saviour for Mankind by trying to destroy the human DNA, the perfect DNA that Noah possessed and which was saved in the flood thus bring about the lineage of Yeshua HaMashiac.    Gino, so much of what you say is so true.  So much of what I presented is also so true in light of the Bible references and history.  I believe, that what is in happening in the heavens now, which Yeshua told us to be looking for as they happened last in the Days of Noah, wll inlcude  a repeat of some cosmic warfare again, in which the body of Jesus Christ will be saved and those that reject Him, will suffer the outcome of that judgement by fire.   I pray that we go up as Satan and his angels that are now free to inhabit the first heavens, are thrown down completely.    Thank you Gino, gerlinda                                                           _____________________________                                                                     Gino (23 Apr 2012)      "RE: Gerlinda: FiveDoves: 04.21.12: how, why and when the story began"                                                 http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/apr2012/gino423.htm Gerlinda, Genesis 1:1 ¶ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Some years back, I was taught that the LORD first created a fully formed and filled earth, which later "became" without form and void, due to judgment upon a pre-Adamic earth. And that this is what Jeremiah wrote about that judgment, culminating in: Jeremiah 4:23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. However, it was not a judgment, but rather the manner of the creation, and what the LORD teaches us by that. There is nothing impossible with God, and he is Almighty (omnipotent). Therefore, the LORD could have made everything in one instance, but he didn't. In fact, Genesis chapter 1 teaches that the LORD spread the creation out over six days. He didn't need that much time to do it all, again, he could have done it all in an instant. Why did he do it in steps? Like when he healed the blind man in Mark 8:22-26 in two steps - Jesus didn't need to take two steps to heal anyone - he chose to do it that way to show something. When the LORD made man in Genesis 1:26-27, as is detailed in Genesis chapter 2, it was in a similar stepped pattern as the earth: Adam started out as the dust that the LORD had previously created earlier in chapter 1. When he was but dust, Adam was without form, but then the LORD formed him: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7) Though formed, yet at this point, Adam was still void, but then the LORD filled him: and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7) Adam went from being "without form and void", to being formed but still void, then to finally formed and filled. II Peter 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. In lines 5 & 7, Peter mentioned the earth, but in line 6 he mentioned the world. The earth is the planet, but the world is the collective family of man living upon it, sometimes referring to the entire system involving man on the earth. Man was created in Genesis 1:26, not in Genesis 1:1. The world of man was overflowed with water in Noah's day. Peter is speaking about that first judgment upon the whole world, by water, in Noah's day. Peter had previously referred to Noah's day in I Peter 3:20, and then in II Peter 2:5. The second judgment upon the world will be by fire, II Peter 3:7,10-12. The world is made up of men, not angels, as seen in John 3:16. The Father gave his only begotten Son because he loved the world. The Son was not given for the angels to be redeemed, but only for man. If II Peter 3:6 spoke of the world as a pre-Adamic race of angelic beings upon the earth before Genesis 1:2, then John 3:16 would have included those angelic beings, but that did not happen. Gino