Behemoth & Leviathan

Was Behemoth an elephant or a hippo?  Was Leviathan a crocodile?  The Lord describes these creatures in Job 40 and 41.

The 1959 scifi movie The Giant Behemoth from the UK got it right – this creature was a dino!  The film can be seen here.  In the story, paleontologist Dr. Samson says, “I knew these creatures [dinos] were alive somewhere.”

The Apologetics Study Bible suggests that Behemoth may have been a buffalo, dino, rhino or hippo, but says that the hippo is the “most likely” identification. [1]  It even points out the tail being like a cedar!  This reference Bible favors the crocodile as being the Leviathan.

The NIV Study Bible claims that the description of Leviathan’s fire-breathing abilities (Job 41:18-21) is “highly figurative, exaggerated poetic imagery.” [2]  In contrast, we read this account from 1685 with the title A True Relation of the Dreadful Combat between More of More Hall and the Dragon of Wantley [3]:

The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK) says the following about the Behemoth:

Perhaps an extinct dinosaur, maybe a Diplodocus or Brachiosaurus, the exact meaning is unknown. Some translate as elephant or hippopotamus but from the description in Job 40:15-24, this is patently absurd.

Carl Sagan (d. 1996), host of the PBS Cosmos series, made this startling admission:

Is it possible that dragons [dinos] posed a problem for our protohuman ancestors of a few million years ago, and that the terror they evoked and the deaths they caused helped bring about the evolution of human intelligence? … Could there have been manlike creatures who actually encountered Tyrannosaurus rex?  Could there have been dinosaurs that escaped the extinctions in the late Cretaceous Period?  Could the pervasive dreams and common fears of “monsters,” … be evolutionary vestiges of quite adaptive baboon-like responses to dragons and owls? ... [4]

Sagan’s last interview may be found here.

Here are fascinating firsthand accounts of Mkele Mbembe (a small dino) from the History Channel.

There’s nothing on this earth quite like him [Leviathan], not an ounce of fear in that creature!  He surveys all the high and mighty - king of the ocean, king of the deep!  Job answered GOD:  I’m convinced:  You can do anything and everything. Nothing and no one can upset your plans (Job 41:33 – 42:2, Message).

Notes:

1)  The Apologetics Study Bible ed. by Ted Cabal (Holman, Nashville, TN, 2007), p. 781.
2)  The NIV Study Bible ed. by Kenneth Barker (Zonderven, Grand Rapids, MI, 1995), p. 770.
3)  British Dragons by Jacqueline Simpson (Wordsworth Editions, London, 2001, orig. pub. 1980), pp. 147, 150.
4)  The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan (Ballantine Books, NYC, 1977), pp. 150, 151.

Ross is Boss? – Noah’s Flood

Once upon a deep time there was a Wise Man from the land of Roz.  Little Hank wanted to know where babies come from and sought out the Wise Man of Roz.  The Wise Man said babies come from the cabbage patch and are delivered to eager families by storks.  Hank understood from the Bible the children were a blessing from God that came after a husband and wife “knew” each other (Ge 1:24, 4:1, 25; cf. 2 Sam. 11:3-5, 26, 27).  The Wise Man had read the Big Book of Science and suggested that Hank had misread the Scriptures.  Psalm 127:3-5 compares children with arrows.  Well, arrows have feathers at the end – could they be stork feathers?  The word for “lovingkindness” in Ps. 51:1 is hesed – the root of this word relates to a stork which is very kind and compassionate to its young.  Psalm 51 is David’s prayer of repentance regarding his immoral relationship with Bathsheba.  Maybe the stork really did bring the baby! …   

Hugh Ross of Reasons To Believe (RTB) thinks that the traditional view regarding the Global Flood is wrong since he uncritically accepts the supposed hundred of millions of years of the Geologic Column.  RTB has been rebuffed by certain Christian colleges because they “accept the scientific evidence for the age of the Earth …” [1]  Ross claims that traditional creationists are “demeaning science.”  Ross should reject mainstream dating methods and Old Earth Fallacies (OEF).  Cheng Yeng Hung, who has been published in Transactions, Geophysical Union, has proposed a dating model that takes into account the affect of the groundwater stream.  Based on Hung’s adjustment, the Uranium-Lead dating of the earth should be 220K years. [2]  

According to Flood Geology opponent Davis Young, paleontologist Timothy Heaton “interprets Ross’ mixture of empirical data and Scripture as an arbitrary blend of science and religion …” [3]  Young observes, “… the scientific approach to knowledge is invariably and unavoidably subservient to each scientist’s religious worldview” [4]  Ross is stuck in OEF and refuses to see the validating evidence for Young Earth Science (YES).

Ross has a new video on the Global Flood, In the Days of Noah, where he makes the case for a local flood.  He presents a map of the Roman Empire to show that “the world” does not mean the entire globe (note:  he misses Hadrian’s Wall and has Ireland under Roman control):

This actually defeats his purpose.  A flood that would cover the Alps and Mt. Ararat would undoubtedly be global (cf. Ge 7:19)!  Ross even admits that, “The Roman World [Empire] … would establish a maximum limit for the extent of the Flood of Noah.” [5] 

Ross makes a number of errors in this video:
Ice Cores represent annual layers
Eden was located in the Persian Gulf (cf. 2 Peter 3:6)
All mainstream geologists disparage a global flood [6]
Psalm 104 refers to Creation Week, Day 3, not the Flood [7]
George McCready Price started Flood Geology
Noah may have lived 55K years ago! [8]

Ross emphasizes the limited judgments of Sodom and Jericho, but fails to see the actual parallel between the global destruction of Judgment Day and Noah’s Flood (Lk 17:26, 27; 2 Peter 3:3-7). Ross claims that the Flood covered the Persian Gulf and surrounding regions:

The Ross Flood did not even cover Jerusalem!!  This flood is only 300 miles wide.  In London, on October 20th, 2002 Oleg Kharitonov walked/jogged 100 miles in just 11 hours, 28 minutes and 3 seconds.  Noah’s contemporaries could have escaped the Flood if it were so small.  Besides, humanity would have gone global by the time of Noah.

Ross completely misses the fact that global flood legends point to a Global Flood.  Terry Mortenson has written an excellent piece showing that Jesus' teaching supports the Young Earth (Mk 10:6; Mk 13:19, 20; Lk 11:50, 51). [9]  Other than the nice graphic presentation, there are few positive points in Ross’ new video on the Global Flood.                 

Notes:

1)  RTB support letter, July 2011.
2)  “Reevaluation of Earth Age Using Hung’s Dating Model” by Cheng Yeng Hung, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 48, Summer 2011, pp. 59-62.
3)  “For the Rock Record” (book review) by Davis Young, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Vol. 62, No. 4, Dec. 2010, p. 296.
4)  Ibid., p. 297.
5)  In The Days of Noah (DVD) by Hugh Ross (Reasons to Believe, Glendora, CA, 2011).
6)  Introduction to Geology by William Stokes and Sheldon Judson (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1968), p. 296.
7)  The Genesis Flood by John Whitcomb and Henry Morris (Presbyterian and Reformed, Philadelphia, PA, 1961), p. 122.
8)  “Do the Genesis 5 and 11 Genealogies Contain Gaps?” by Travis Freeman in Coming to Grips with Genesis ed. by Terry Mortenson and Thane Ury (Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2008), pp. 315-346.
9)  “Jesus’ View on the Age of the Earth” by Terry Mortenson in Coming to Grips with Genesis ed. by Terry Mortenson and Thane Ury (Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2008), pp. 315-346.

Perfectly Clear Podcast - Junk Science (Dan Agin)

On today's Perfectly Clear Podcast we take a look at Dan Agin's book Junk Science.
You can find it here.

References:
Science Week (ed. by Dan Agin)
Junk Science website (opposes Global Warming hysteria), not affiliated with Agin
Szent-Gyorgi quote
Augustine quote
Sacred Cows In Science (No Objectivity Allowed)
Moon Rocks 10K
Round Earth
Bible Astronomy
James Irwin (creationist astronaut)
Mortimer Adler, see Persuaded by the Evidence by Doug Sharp and Jerry Bergman (Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2008), pp. 283-288.
Books on the Age of The Earth (BATE)     ;-)

Evolution – A to Z

Atom-to-Adam
Bacteria-to-Braniacs
Cells-to-Cave Men
Diatoms-to-Dentists
E. coli-to-Einstein
Forams-to-Faraday
Germs-to-Granny
Hydras-to-Historians
Ions-to-Intellectuals
Jellyfish-to-Jezebel
Kelp-to-Kings
Laminaria-to-Language
Molecules-to-Man
Nanoplankton-to-Newton
Organics-to-Opera
Particles-to-People
Quarks-to-Queens
RNA-to-Reagan
Snails-to-Saints
Trematoda-to-Techies
Unicellular-to-Urey
Volvox-to-Verne
Worms-to-Webster
Xenusion-to-X-Files
Yeast-to-Yiddish
Zooflagellates-to-Zeno

Evo-Zombies

Who are the Evo-Zombies?  They are the walking dead (Rom. 4:17) who have lost the skill of critical thinking and blindly (Mt. 15:14) follow the dictates of Big Science.  They feed on the minds of young children and keep them from denying Darwin.  Evo-Zombies are mindless followers, origins agitators and support the biased media and darwiniac academia.  For Evo-Zombies, morality is relative.  Evo-Zombies are not scientific – they’re darwintific.

Evo-Zombies follow Darwin because of feelings, not fact.  Isaac Asimov said, “Emotionally I am an atheist.  I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.” [1] Avoid the emotional seizure of origins apostasy and believe Genesis 1-11 (G111).

Evo-Zombies buy the BigBang and anything Stephen Hawking is hawking.  Sir Hermann Bondi (d. 2005), mathematician and astronomer, said, “… theories of the origin of the Universe have been disproved by present day empirical evidence as have various theories of the origin of the Solar System.” [2]

Evo-Zombies don’t believe in the SOUL.  In The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul, Mario Beauregard (Ph.D. Neuroscience) and Denyse O'Leary (ID activist) defend the view that man has a non-material part.  We are more than "computers made of meat." 

Evo-Zombies don’t debate; they attack!  In 1986, The Huxley Memorial Debate tackled the topic 'That the Doctrine of Creation is more valid than the Theory of Evolution' at the Oxford Union.  Arthur E. Wilder-Smith (3 earned doctorates) and Edgar H. Andrews (Ph.D. Theoretical Physics) supported creation and Clinton Richard Dawkins and John Maynard-Smith defended Darwin.  Dawkins attacked Wilder-Smith’s faith, rather than sticking to the science and violated the agreed upon format.  Dawkins urged the voting members not to give one vote for the creationists! [3]  The final score was,

So, in spite of the Evo-Zombies in the crowd, the voting members voted 43% in favor of the creationists!!

Evo-Zombies think life came about by chance!  Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle (d. 2001) said, “The notion that … that operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.” [4]

What is the cure for Evo-Zombies?  They need gospel-powered transformation.  Also, they should see Ben Stein’s movie EXPELLED (see video here).  In the leader’s guide for EXPELLED we find this:

The suppression of new scientific ideas … presents today’s students with a one sided argument in the court of public opinion. It’s as if they’re a jury being shown evidence for only ONE SIDE of the case. All evidence from the opposing side is being thrown out of court … It’s suppression at its worst … [5]

Hopefully, Ben Stein will focus on Young Earth Science (YES) in his sequel to EXPELLED.

Evo-Zombies deny the Global Flood of Noah’s day.  In contrast, Geology Professor James Zumberge (d. 1992) was the president of several schools:  Grand Valley State University, Southern Methodist University and the University of Southern California and considered Flood Geology a “viable option.” [6]  He was also the Director of Earth Sciences at the University of Arizona.

Catfish soft parts have been found in “ancient” rock.  The Mt. Saint Helens explosion of 1980 has demonstrated catastrophism in action.  Many mainstream geologists endorse “episodic” events.  Radiocarbon increase implies a 30K year old earth.  Radiometric dating of recent lava flows give false dates (way too old).  Uranium in the sea gives a limiting age of 1.3M years.  Some Darwinists claim that 50B humans have existed, but where are the graves? [7]  Russell Humphreys has provided 14 evidences for a young world.  Analytical chemist Frederic Jueneman said prophetically in 1982: 

… radiodecay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences.  And this could mean that the atomic clocks are reset during some global disaster, and events which brought the Mesozoic to a close may not be 65 million years ago but, rather, within the age and memory of man. [8]    

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:1, 2).

He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.  But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes (1 Jn. 2:10, 11).

Escape the Evo-Zombie menace and learn the latest daring discoveries on the Age of the Earth.

Notes:

1) quoted in The Biblical Basis for Modern Science by Henry Morris (Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2002 ed.), p. 91.
2) Ibid., p. 152.
3) The Time Dimension by A. E. Wilder-Smith (The Word for Today, Costa Mesa, CA, 1993), pp. 19-23.
4) Morris, p. 216.
5) Expelled Leaders Guide, p. 2.
6) Morris, p. 283.
7) Ibid., pp. 322-324, 305, 243, 250, 245, 395.
8) Ibid., p. 246.

***

Google “Young Earth Science” and you get 274K hits.
E.V.O. = Evidence? Variation! Observation?
Special thanks to Francis Hall for the Darwin and Ben Stein pics.

God's Wisdom for Man

God's Wisdom for Man by Norbert Smith and Jay Hall provide a complete topical treatment of Proverbs and James. Smith and Hall categorize all of the proverbs and all the verses from the book of James. God’s Wisdom provides the context for wise thinking in its Introduction and Conclusion. If you are looking for a guided tour through the divine wisdom of Proverbs and James, you will find this volume most helpful. The potent maxims of Proverbs and James impart a profound wisdom that is urgently needed in today’s confused world. Do the righteous thrive and the wicked suffer in general? Read this book and find out.

The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom,
and humility comes before honor. (Pr 15:33, ESV) 

Get wisdom - it's worth more than money;
choose insight over income every time. (Pr 16:16 Msg)

Francis of Assisi rightly said:

Where there is charity and wisdom,
there is neither fear nor ignorance.
Where there is patience and humility,
there is neither anger nor vexation.
Where there is poverty and joy,
there is neither greed nor avarice.
Where there is peace and meditation,
there is neither anxiety nor doubt.

Mark Fitzmaurice - End of Christianity

Mark Fitzmaurice, a physician from Australia, wrote the Foreword to William Dembski’s The End of Christianity where Dembski claims that the effects of the Fall were retroactive.  Fitzmaurice spent 12 years in a rural hospital in Papua, New Guinea and supports Intelligent Design (ID).  I have evaluated The End of Christianity here and here.

Kudos to Fitzmaurice for this admission:

It was natural for me to opt for a plain reading of the Bible. And what could be plainer than the teaching of Genesis on creation? A young-earth perspective therefore seemed to me the only viable approach to anyone who took the Bible seriously.

Fitzmaurice seems to overlook the noetic effects of sin and that non-Christian scientists may come to anti-biblical conclusions (cf. Lk. 11:23):

I never intended to depart from a plain reading of Genesis. It was forced upon me with great pain and with tears. … To question a young-earth reading of Genesis was to question the entire Bible and to place one’s faith in jeopardy. … I was compelled by the scientific evidence:  stars are a long way off and very old; the earth and its landforms seem clearly the result of millions of years of normal processes …

There are a few options for explaining distant starlight.  According to Tom Siegfried, editor in chief of ScienceNews, “No cosmic clock governs time’s flow for the whole universe …” [1] 

We challenge the millions of years for earth’s features.  Let’s take coal for instance.  Even mainstream geoscientists Marshall Kay and Edwin Colbert in their textbook on Stratigraphy admit that polystrate fossils in coal beds indicate rapid deposition [2]: 

One coal seam can be traced from Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky!  [3] Such a widespread formation (260,000 sqr. km) makes more sense in the Flood Model.  The 80 m thick anthracite seam in the Hongai coalfield of Vietnam speaks of catastrophic conditions, not a peat bog. [4]  Andrew Snelling observes, “Some coal seams when followed laterally are found to spit into two seams, separated by strata consisting of transported marine sediments.” [5]  Thus, the whole sequence must have been transported.  Marine fossils have been found in coal as well as boulders as heavy  as 73 kg (164 lbs) - both point to catastrophy and not peat bogs. [6]  Derek Ager, author of The New Catastrophism, has this to say:

Broadhurst and Loring … recorded standing trees up to 10 m high in the Lancashire coalfield of north-west England. … Obviously sedimentation had to be very rapid to bury a tree in a standing position before it rotted and fell down. … we cannot escape the conclusion that sedimentation was at times very rapid indeed and that at other times there were long breaks in sedimentation, though it looks both uniform and continuous. [7]

Or, could they be “uniform and continuous” because their burial was part of the Flood Event?

If Fitzmaurice doubts Young Earth Science (YES), then he can go to a local coal mine in Australia where he lives and have a sample dated by radiocarbon. I predict that the sample will be dated in the 40K-60K range and not millions of years old.  You can see how AlphaNova did this in Ohio here.

Fitzmaurice rejects the view that, “… a young earth is the only way to be biblically sound and theologically faithful.”  I would recommend the following to help change his mind:

Refuting Compromise (2nd ed., 2011)

Coming to Grips with Genesis (theological and historical)
In the Beginning by Joel Heck (short)
The Genesis Flood (foundational)
The Young Earth (2007)

Fitzmaurice has some issues with YES:

YEC [Young Earth Creationism] has significant issues when it comes to the age and nature of the universe, the dating of the earth, and galaxies, and stars. There are problems with geological history, biogeography, and the high rate of evolutionary change needed to fit with the limited time available since Noah's flood. Population geography and archaeology also present significant challenges to YEC. [8]

Galaxy Age >>
Spiral arms show that the Milky Way is young.  When you stir cream in coffee the swirls quickly disappear.  Crikey!

GeoHistory >>

Please read fellow Aussie Andrew Snelling’s Earth’s Catastrophic Past (Vol. 1 & Vol. 2, 1566 pp.)

Earth Dating >>

Precambrian feldspar has been dated at 5100 years old (+3000, -2100) based on Argon diffusion rates! [9]

Biogeography >>
Here’s how the animals went global after the Flood - kangaroos in Australia, kiwis in New Zealand, etc.

No Time for Change >>

Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart wrote The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma in 2005 and proposed the theory of Facilitated Variation. [10]  Modular regulatory mechanisms (switches) allow quick changes to occur.

Archaeology >>
John Ashton and David Down have shown in Unwrapping thePharaohs:  How Egyptian Archaeology Confirms the Biblical Timeline that the evidence fits with a more recent Egyptian history.  Many dynasties overlap. 

Dembski states that ID is based on “a rigorous information-theoretic underpinning” – so is YES. [11]  Genetic Entropy & The Mystery of the Genome by John Sanford (PhD in Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Wisconsin—Madison) has shown that there is not enough time for a supposed primate ancestor to evolve to man.  The genome is degenerating too rapidly.  Mutations are mostly neutral or harmful and natural selection does not “sanitize” the DNA.  Genetic meltdown would have already occurred if life is so many millions of years old.  Mutations reduce information – evolution needs new info.  Man was perfect and then Fell, thus Genetic Entropy!  Here is an excellent video on Sanford’s book.

Dembski expects that ID will supersede Darwinism by 2025. [12]  We predict that he will adopt YES and reject Old Earth Fallacies (OEF) by 2013.  He has already accepted the Global Flood and even the Father of ID, Phillip Johnson, has warmed up to Recent Creation.  May Fitzmaurice follow their lead.

If Fitzmaurice wants to know the truth about the age of the earth I would recommend the words of scifi time traveler Doctor Who:  “Why didn’t he ask someone who saw it [the origin of the universe] happen?” [13]  The Lord Jesus Christ is the Creator (Col. 1:16, Heb. 1:2) and said, “From the beginning of the creation [not billions of years later], God made them male and female” (Mk 10:6).

The following Origins programs are relevant:

World Wide Flood (Parts 1,2,3) – Andrew Snelling
Evidence for a Young World (Parts 1,2) – Russell Humphreys.

The smart money is on YES!  If ID is True, who is the Intelligent Designer?  Check out the bold and fresh new book, YES - Young Earth Science: 

Notes:

1) “Anniversaries Inspire Timely Ruminations” by Tom Siegfried, ScienceNews, Sep 13, 2008, p. 2.
2) Stratigraphy and Life History by Marshall Kay and Edwin Colbert (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1965), pp. 259, 261.
3)  Earth’s Catastrophic Past (Vol. 2) by Andrew Snelling (Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX, 2009), p. 551
4)  Ibid., p. 552.
5)  Ibid., p. 553.
6)  Ibid., p. 554, 555.
7) The New Catastrophism: The Importance of the Rare Event in Geological History by Derek Ager (Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 49.
8) Science and the Christian Mind by Mark Fitzmaurice, p. 4, audio here.
9) “Both Argon and Helium Diffusion Rates Indicate a Young Earth” by Larry Vardiman, Acts & Facts, Aug 2011, pp. 12, 13.
10) summarized in “Facilitated Variation: A New Paradigm Emerges in Biology” by Alex Williams, Journal of Creation, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2008, pp. 85-92.
11)  “Mechanism, Magic and Design” by William Dembski, Christian Research Journal, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2000, p. 46.
12)  Ibid.
13)  “Destiny of the Daleks” Doctor Who w/ Tom Baker (BBC, 1979).

Unshackled Apologetics

Unshackled! is a radio drama series produced by Pacific Garden Mission, in Chicago, Illinois, that first aired in 1950.  It is the longest-running radio drama in history (sorry, Johnny Dollar).

Well known evangelist and creation supporter Ray Comfort (and friend of Kirk Cameron) had his conversion story featured on Unshackled! 

WayneSpencer (M.S. Physics), who writes extensively on astronomy topics, had this to say:

The truth of Christianity is … born out in the real life experience of Christians who live by it.  Christian faith has a long track record for over 2000 years now of making positive changes in the personal lives of people.  So the reasons for having faith in the Bible are not merely intellectual, but also revolve around people experiencing God changing their lives and making life more meaningful for them.  It is usually the life of a Christian lived out with integrity that is more persuasive to most people, when it counts, than a logical argument.

C. E. M. Joad (d. 1953) was the head of the Philosophy Dept. at the University of London and was a long time critic of Christianity, but finally said, “I now believe that the balance of reasonable considerations tells heavily in favor of the religious, even of the Christian view of the world.”  Joad had appeared on BBC radio attacking Christianity in the 1940’s, but later wrote The Recovery of Belief in 1952.

Bishop John Subhan came to Jesus from a Muslim background.  When he read the Gospel the second time he came to see that is was the true Injil.  He was convinced that it was God’s Word and divine revelation.  He saw a dramatic difference between reading the New Testament and the effect of reciting the Qur’an. [1]

Have you ever heard a new convert say, “I wonder if Genesis One through Eleven is really true?”  The lost, who do not know Jesus, have not experienced regeneration and don’t have the assurance through the Holy Spirit that the Bible is true.

R. C. Sproul states, “The Scripture objectively gives evidence that it is the Word of God.  The Spirit … gives us the quiet assurance that the evidence is certain.” [2]  The Westminster Confession concludes, “… our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts. (ch. 1, sec. 5).  Sproul, Gerstner and Lindsley proclaim, “… the Spirit of God persuades and assures us of the infallible truth and divine authority of the Word of God.” [3]

For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake.  And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit …  For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth … (1 Thes. 1:5-8).

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom. 8:15, 16).

How does God give us assurance of our adoption?  Through the Bible!

These things [the book of 1 John] I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. …  And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life (1 Jn. 5:13, 20).

Glenn Beck and other Mormons claim to have had a dramatic conversion experience.  Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? by Cowdrey, Davis and Vanick, provide strong evidence that the Book of Mormon was based on a work of historical fiction, A Manuscript Found.  The Book of Mormon has been changed many times.  Beck’s evidence for Early American Jewish influence is better explained by Phoenecians traveling to the New World.

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things (Phil. 4:8).

How can we think on what’s true if we don’t know the true truth?

Frank Turek, while debating Christopher Hitchens at Virginia Commonwealth University, on the topic of theism said, “I’m giving a probability argument … you can’t prove beyond any doubt that there’s a God.  I’m giving probability …  I’m giving cosmological, teleological, moral, consciousness, reason, mathematics [arguments].” [4]  Turek should have stated that as Christians we know God is there and Jesus is Lord (cf. Jn. 7:17).

Notes:

1)  Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Vol. 1) by Josh McDowell (Here’s Life Pub., San Bernardino, CA, 1979), p. 351.
2)  “The Internal Testimony of the Holy Spirit” by R. C. Sproul in Inerrancy ed. by Norman Geisler (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 1980), p. 342.
3)  Classical Apologetics by R. C. Sproul, John Gerstner and Arthur Lindsley (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 1984), p. 171.
4)  See this debate at 1:14:00.

John Lennon: God, Hell & Evolution

John Lennon (1940-1980) on God:

If I’m going to be a monk with nothing, do it. … People got the image I was anti-Christ or antireligion.  I’m not at all. I’m a most religious fellow. I’m religious in the sense of admitting there is more to it than meets the eye. I’m certainly not an atheist.

Yes Virginia, there is a Hell – just imagine what John Lennon might say (& did):

The idea of being a rock‘n’roll musician sort of suited my talents and mentality, and the freedom was great. But then I found I wasn’t free. I'd got boxed in. … a physical manifestation of being in prison. … Rock ’n’ roll was not fun anymore.  So there were the standard options in my business:  going to Vegas and singing your greatest hits - if you're lucky - or going to hell, which is where Elvis went. [1]

John Lennon had some choice words regarding evolution:

Nor do I think we came from monkeys, by the way.  That’s another piece of garbage. What the [**/% is] it based on? We couldn’t’ve come from anything - fish, maybe, but not monkeys. I don’t believe in the evolution of fish to monkeys to men.  Why aren’t monkeys changing into men now?  It’s absolute garbage.

Lennon was critical of Young Earth Science (YES), but also recognized the limitations of Big Science and the dominance of Sacred Cows inScience:

[Evolution is] absolutely irrational garbage, as mad as the ones who believe the world was made only four thousand years ago [sic, Y6K], the fundamentalists. … I don't buy it [Evolution]. I've got no basis for it and no theory to offer, I just don't buy it. Something other than that. Something simpler. I don't buy anything other than "It always was and ever shall be." [fixity of Kinds?] I can't conceive of anything less or more. The other theories change all the time. They set up these idols and then they knock them down. It keeps all the old professors happy in the university. It gives them something to do. I don't know if there's any harm in it except they ram it down everybody's throat. Everything they told me as a kid has already been disproved by the same type of "experts" who made them up in the first place.

Fred Seaman, who worked with Lennon from 1979 till his death, said that Lennon would vote for Reagan and that Lennon, “did express support for Reagan, which shocked me.”  Raymond Damadian, a YES supporter, was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1988 by Ronald Reagan and in 1989 was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for inventing MRI.

John Lennon as prophet:  “The biggest prize is when you die - a really big one for dying in public. OK: Those are the things we are not interested in doing.”  Lennon was assassinated by Mark David Chapman in NYC in 1980. [2]

If you want to see John Lennon “alive” today you need to go see a Beatles tribute band.  The-Fab-4 , Lennon is far right, celebrated the Fourth of July in Big Spring, Texas this year (photo courtesy Francis Hall).

Did Lennon believe the Good News about Jesus Christ before he died?

For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life (Jn. 3:16, AMP).

See my contact info in my profile (“About Me” top right).

Possibly The-Fab-4 could add this song to their repertoire:

Evo Submarine

In Shrewsbury where he was born,

Lived a man who sailed with gust
And he told us of his life,
In the land of Galapagos,

So he sailed on to the sun,

Till we found the finches mean,
And we lived beneath the waves,
In our EVO submarine,

We all live in a Darwin submarine,

EVO submarine, UCA* submarine,

And our fossils are all aboard,

Many more of them live next door,
As we live just as we please
Idols all and live for greed
Sky of blue, and sea green
In our EVO submarine

*UCA = Universal Common Ancestry

Notes:

1) quoted in All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono by David Sheff (St. Martin's Griffin, 2000), p. 6.
2) Ibid.

Search for the Historical Adam

Was Adam real? Can we go to his tomb now? Our prior post dealt with survey results of Christian schools and the truth of Genesis. One pillar of Bible truth under attack is the existence of an historical Adam. Richard Ostling, former religion writer with Time, has written the cover article “The Search for the Historical Adam” for the June 2011 issue of Christianity Today.
Christianity Today has made a neat video on this topic. Thankfully, Wheaton College supports the statement "God directly created Adam and Eve, the historical parents of the entire human race."
In The Language of Science and Faith, Francis Collins (Human Genome Project) and Karl Giberson deny that Adam and Eve were the first couple in a historical sense. Giberson, Physics Professor at Eastern Nazarene College, claims that this is "a secondary or peripheral disagreement that shouldn't cause us to hurl accusations of infidelity at one another." We have responded to some of Collins’ errors here.

Collins claims that humanity came from a group of 10,000 ancestors around 100,000 to 150,000 years ago. That is, mankind came from a group and not Adam and Eve. Elizabeth Mitchell comments, “Search the Christianity Today article much as you will, it never explains how the conclusion that there had to be 10,000 original people was reached. Oddly enough, neither does the BioLogos website.”

According to A. Gibbons, writing in Science, “… researchers have calculated that ‘mitochondrial Eve’ - the woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living people—lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old.”

Ostling rightly points out what is at stake, “… Christian doctrine on original sin and the Fall, the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, and, perhaps most significantly, Paul's teaching that links the historical Adam with redemption through Christ (Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:20-23, 42-49; and his speech in Acts 17).” Orthodox Protestants who take Genesis as Historical Narrative (OPGHN, “opgane”) present “one option” according to Ostling. It is not one option, but is actually the Bible option:

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Ge 2:7).
All flesh would perish together, And man would return to dust (Job 34:15).
The first man [Adam] was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man (1 Cor. 15:47-49).
Genuine humanity was from made from dust, not a prior hominid (Lucy, Lucky or anyone else). Rather than refer to specific scholars who work with Answers In Genesis, many with Ph.D.’s, Ostling uses the nebulous term “writers with Answers in Genesis.”
Ostling tries to put James Montgomery Boice (d. 2000) into the anti-Genesis camp – this is a mistake. Boice, though not holding to all the tenets of Flood Geology, held that much geologic data “must be explained by a flood of worldwide dimensions.” He also said that, “a flood of that duration [377 days] is not a local flood!” Boice wrote a whole chapter on Flood Traditions and concluded that, “Hundreds of flood stories abound throughout the world in various cultures and are therefore evidence not merely of the historicity of the flood but of its universal extent.”

Ostling points out that Genesis doubters assume that starting with two people, “… would have required God's miraculous intervention to increase the genetic diversity to what is observable today.” Maybe Ostling does not know about Marc Kirschner’s and John Gerhart’s book The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma (2005) who proposed the theory of Facilitated Variation. [1] Modular regulatory mechanisms (switches) allow quick changes to occur.

C. John Collins (not related to Francis) has written Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? and takes a more conservative view. He points out that human language poses a serious problem for Darwiniacs. Evolutionary linguist Mark Seidenberg freely admits, “Humans acquire and use natural languages, and lower primates do not.” [2] Fred Field (Ph.D. Linguistics) points out a further problem with assuming that true humanity started many thousands of years ago: “… it is curious how writing could have suddenly emerged after 30 to 100 millennia of speech. And , if writing had been in existence prior to that of the Sumerians, where is the evidence?” [3]
Consider these powerful words from Lita Cosner, who is working on her M.A. (New Testament) at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and who was awarded the Carl F.H. Henry Scholarship (their highest award):

Scripture itself does not allow Adam to be taken non-literally; many passages in Scripture require Adam to be a historical individual. Among them is Romans 5:12 -21, where a historical Adam is contrasted with the historical Jesus. … Paul’s argument [in Rom. 5:12-21] depends completely on a historical individual man called Adam, who committed a real sin bringing real death. Otherwise, why believe in a real historical Jesus who brought justification from sin? No, it is clear from this passage, and many others in both the Old and New Testament, that Scripture itself takes Adam to be a historical person, and the Fall to be a historical event.19 Without these historical facts, the Gospel itself has no foundation (cf. Psalm 11:3).

Tim Keller, who spoke at a BioLogos workshop, provided counterpoint, “[Paul] most definitely wanted to teach us that Adam and Eve were real historical figures. … If Adam doesn't exist, Paul's whole argument … falls apart. … If you don't believe what he believes about Adam, you are denying the core of Paul's teaching."
The Ica Stones, made famous by Peruvian physician Javier Cabrera, provide a strong indication that man and dinos co-existed. The Travel Channel made a great video on this. Surely, the Darwinist timescale is wrong. Adam may have had dino pets. Doubt Darwin! Don’t Deny Divine Revelation!

If Adam was an actual figure from real history, what conversations did he have with the Intelligent Designer and what did he think about the age of the Earth?

Notes:
1) summarized in “Facilitated Variation: A New Paradigm Emerges in Biology” by Alex Williams, Journal of Creation, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2008, pp. 85-92.
2) quoted in “The Language Faculty: Following the Evidence” by Fred Field, Journal of Creation, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2008, p. 75.
3) Ibid., p. 74.