The 7 C&#039;s Of A Firm Foundation

Passage:

Introduction

Creation is a hot topic. In fact, the validity of everything recorded in Genesis 1-11 is a hot topic, though not a new topic.

The concept of some type of naturalistic explanation for the origin of the earth, universe and its inhabitants has been around since the ancient Greeks. But it did not affect mainstream life until a couple of scientists promoted their ideas through books in the 1800’s—Charles Lyell (who proposed that the earth was much older than what the Bible said it was) and Charles Darwin (who is known for pushing biological evolution as an alternative to creation).

Then in 1925, the brand new ACLU decided to target a law in Tennessee that demanded creation to be taught in school. They found a man willing to be the scapegoat—John Scopes—although he had only been a substitute teacher for 2 weeks in a biology class and had not really taught evolution. The message perpetuated by the ACLU throughout the trial was that science was the new source of authority and truth. The Bible was no longer relevant. It was simply the fallible work of humans. Christians must let scientists interpret anything that deals with origins.

What’s ironic is that every single piece of evidence produced in that trial has since been shown to be false. About 10 years ago, TIME magazine ran an article about its own senior editor, Charles Alexander, which said:

“In the years before he got into journalism, senior editor Charles Alexander taught science at two high schools in Tennessee. He told his students about early man and the origins of life and touched on the dinosaurs, ‘And, just about everything I taught them,’ he says, ‘was wrong.’” (TIME magazine, March 14, 1994, p. 4)

Knowing Where To Start

What is my point? You have to know where to start. Decide what will be your source of truth. Science is constantly changing. But, the Word of God remains unchanged.

Foundations For Our Trust In The Word To Be True:

There are 3 scriptures that are foundations for our trust in the Word to be true:

2 Timothy 3:16 says, “Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

1 Thessalonians 2:13 says this, “…when you received God’s message that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human message, but as it truly is, God’s message, which is at work among you who believe.”

In John 17:17, Jesus said, “Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth.”

Taking Captive Every Thought:

Knowing where to start, we can do what is said in 2 Corinthians 10:4b-5. “We tear down arguments and every arrogant obstacle that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to make it obey Christ.”

Think with me about the messages you are receiving to your thoughts through the media about this issue:

1) Science is the source of authority and truth.

2) Evolution is scientific fact. Untouchable. Not going away. Satan’s best counterfeit of creation.

3) The Bible is only a human work.

4) Christians, stay out of anything that deals with origins. Stick to religion.

So, how do we respond? To many, compromise is the only comfortable solution. Sadly, most religious leaders have done just that. In fact, many religious leaders are even holding science as absolute authority. This is most often because of 2 things: 1) the fear of being ridiculed as happened in the Scopes trial and 2) not knowing that true science has facts that support Scripture.

Half of us are probably not affected by this. The rest of us are split personalities. Just say,” believe Genesis” and our thoughts are going crazy on one side of our brains! Our minds fill with “yeah, buts”. And we think of every TV show, every book and magazine that teaches with confidence that this earth is billions of years old and man evolved from animals. We say to ourselves, “What do I do with those thoughts?”

In this study, we hope to help you take those thoughts captive so you can be whole again. We ask you to come to this study with an open mind. You will not get all your questions answered. Maybe not even half. However, you can ask the One who knows all to reveal to you some ways for you to believe that His record of beginnings is literally true.

Please Be Assured Of This…

You can still be a Christian and believe that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and evolution was the method by which you got here. Salvation is based upon faith in Jesus Christ alone. We only ask that you give the scripture a chance. We’ll do our best to provide information for you. We want to help you learn how to think for yourself about this issue.

Our Approach For This Course…

It is reasonable to consider the earth and universe to have been created in 6 days in a perfect state, affected by the curse and death after creation, then completely reshaped by a global Flood— all less than 10,000 years ago. What we see in God’s World agrees with what we read in God’s Word!

So, let’s get started!

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

1. CREATION: In The Beginning, God

There are literally hundreds of verses about God as Creator. We will only study a few each week!

“The first verse of the Bible is the most important and basic of all. ‘In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.’ When one really believes this verse, he will have little difficulty believing all the rest of God’s Word.” (Henry Morris, The Beginning of the World, p. 10)

Day One Study

Read Genesis 1:1.

1. What does this verse tell us about God and the reality (or truth) of the world around us? Read also Psalm 90:2.

2. Read Psalm 100. What does this psalm tell you…

· About God?

· About yourself?

3. The book of Job is full of discourses where Job and his friends try to figure out “why” Job is suffering and ultimately question God’s actions. Read God’s response to them all in Job 38:1-14. What does He say to Job and to us?

Day Two Study

4. What do the following verses say about God as Creator?

· Romans 1:18-21—

· Acts 14:15-17—

· Acts 17:22-31—

· Revelation 4:8-11—

5. In Genesis 1:1, the Hebrew word used for God is Elohim. El signifies the strong God; and what less than almighty strength could bring all things out of nothing? Elohim is plural. The verb, however, is singular, giving hint of the work of the Trinity—God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Read the following verses to see the part of each in Creation.

· Genesis 1:2—

· Genesis 1:26—

· John 1:1-5, 14-18—

· Colossians 1:13-20—

· Hebrews 1:1-2—

6. How does Jesus validate the authenticity of Genesis 1 in the following verses?

· Mark 10:2-9—

· Mark 13:19—

7. Read Job 40:1-2. Notice that God stops speaking and waits for Job’s answer. Read Job’s response in Job 40:3-5 and 42:1-6. To what conclusions does Job finally reach about God?

Appreciation Application:

8. After reading all these passages concerning God as Creator (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), what conclusions do you reach about God?

Think About It: When I come to the realization that God is God, and I am not; this is the beginning of true worship. I no longer limit God to my own understanding of Him and His works.

Day Three Study

“The Biblical account of creation is ridiculed by atheists, patronized by liberals, and often allegorized even by conservatives. The fact is, however, that it is God’s own account of creation, corroborated by Jesus Christ (Mark 10:6-8, etc.), who was there! We are well advised to take it seriously and literally, for God is able to say what He means, and will someday hold us accountable for believing what He says!” (Dr. Henry M. Morris)

Appreciation Assignment:

9. Watch a sunrise or sunset and read Psalm 19:1-6. Use any creative means to express what you see and how you respond (poem, song, drawing, craft, essay). Share your experience with your group.

10. Read and memorize Psalm 100 in your favorite translation or the one (NET) below:

“Shout out praises to the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with joy! Enter his presence with joyful singing!

Acknowledge that the Lord is God! He made us and we belong to him; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give him thanks! Praise his name!

For the Lord is good. His loyal love endures, and he is faithful through all generations.”

Deeper Discoveries

· Read “Creation Answers: Knowing Where to Start” following this lesson.

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org. SEARCH for “Genesis” or “Creation.” Select an article to read. There are several articles on the reliability of Genesis 1-11. Select an article to read or video to watch. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

Creation Answers: Knowing Where To Start

“In the Beginning, God”

The information below is adapted from resources found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org.

“We tear down arguments and every arrogant obstacle that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to make it obey Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Cynthia Heald in her book, A Woman’s Journey to the Heart of God, writes, “Years ago I discovered the freedom and power of making predecisions in order to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. There are several predecisions or principles that are the foundation for taking captive every thought we read, hear, and see to make it obedient to Christ regarding creation science.

Principle #1: In The Beginning, God.

God existed forever. God created everything. (Genesis 1:1; John 1:1-3; Revelation 4:11 and Hebrews 11:3) This world is real, not an illusion. It had to come from somewhere. We have only 2 choices:

· Nothing suddenly became something without a cause or

· God, who always existed, created something out of nothing.

There is no other choice. It is easier to believe that God always existed and then created something, than it is to accept that nothing created something. What does the song say? “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.” Proverbs 1:7 says that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Let’s be wise so that’s where we’ll start.

Principle #2: God Told Us What And How He Created

When it comes to this physical universe: God told us in audible and written form that He created what is and how He did it.

· Genesis 1—God described how He took six days to create everything in the universe and the earth.

· Exodus 20:11—God spoke audibly before more than 2 million people. “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.”

· Exodus 31:17-18—God repeated what He had previously said—first, audibly to Moses. Then, God wrote it Himself by His own finger on 2 tablets and handed that to Moses

· Exodus 34:28—God dictated the same information to Moses who wrote it down.

How many different ways did God use to communicate this fact about Himself to us? 5 ways. Yet many say Genesis 1 is a myth. God didn’t think people back then could take the whole truth. Let’s take captive our thoughts here. Why would the almighty yet personal creator God start out His entire revelation to man whom He created with intelligence and capacity for a trusting relationship with Him—why would He start this relationship with a story that isn’t true? Especially a God who cannot lie. That is illogical.

So, let’s not tell God that He was wrong, that He didn’t mean what He said every time He said it. That is presumption. God addresses that very thing in Job 38 when God asks Job, “Were you there when I laid the foundations for the earth?” (Job 38:4) What’s the answer? Of course not. So, who was there? God. Wouldn’t He know what He did? The Bible is true and the beginning source of truth—not man’s ideas.

Principle #3: The 7 C’s Of History

A creation apologetics ministry, Answers in Genesis, threads scripture together from beginning to end through an easy-to-remember series of words called the 7 C’s of History. The 7 C’s are Creation, Corruption (the original perfect creation altered due to sin), Catastrophe (the Flood), Confusion (spread of the populations after Babel), Christ (promises of the Messiah who would restore all things), the Cross (what Christ restored to believers), and Consummation (God’s restoration of His creation to perfection again). The theme of creation and restoration are consistent from Genesis to Revelation.

The first four are events that drastically affected earth history from a scientific or historical viewpoint.

· Creation—6 days, the celestial objects, land and sea, plants, animals, and man.

· Curse—ground, pain and death, food chain, poisonous and nuisance creatures, affected the whole creation according to Romans 8:20-22.

· Flood—affected the planet surface entirely for > 1 year, afterwards man’s diet changed to include eating meat; also the animals’ diet.

· Dispersion from Babel—the existing population was divided into language groups that spread out and repopulated the earth, taking the accounts of Creation, the Curse, and the Flood with them. This affects archeology.

Principle #4: True Science Is Repeatable, Testable, And Falsifiable.

As defined by the Supreme Court, there is a difference between operational science and historical science.

· Operational science is repeatable, testable, and falsifiable. It describes natural laws and how they work in our world such as televisions, medicine, cars, etc. It describes what you can observe and repeatedly test in the present.

· Historical science is not repeatable, testable, and falsifiable. It describes observations made in the present in order to make “educated guesses” about the past. It is more philosophy based on one’s personal belief system.

The two have become fused together into one term called “science.” That’s what really gets a stranglehold on us. A lot of us don’t know the difference.

Principle #5: Science Belongs To God

He is the one who designed the DNA of every creature, how minerals and crystals form as well as what makes a bird fly and the sun to produce light and heat. I can go to Him and ask for enlightenment on any issue. And, this is what I can trust: there are scientific answers out there that support what He said He did to create, curse and Flood this earth. It may not come today, but it very well be there tomorrow if I am looking. So…

Principle #6: Examine The Evidence, Ask Questions

We should evaluate everything we read and hear in light of the Scriptures. It’s remarkable what we find when we are willing to examine the evidence and look at facts. We can ask all the questions we want because God has left us enough clues to know that His Word, even in Genesis, is true.

· No one can prove creation or evolution. But, we can start with this: we look at the historical record given in the Bible and build a model. If the Bible is true, what would we expect to find? What do we find? We can examine facts in light of that model. Both evolutionists and creationists can look at the exact same facts but apply them to different models based on their philosophy.

· So, what are the facts? What are the facts in this news report? What are the assumptions? Separate the two. What did they really find? When what is presented as facts doesn’t agree with the model, there may be a problem with the model or the facts (how they were derived).

· We believe that God’s Word is true. So, if the facts to support it aren’t available yet, we are confident that they may one day be available. Scientists are constantly studying this planet finding out new things.

Conclusion

Know where to start. “In the beginning, God.”

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_01.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

/assets/pdf/Newton_7Cs_01notes.pdf

2. CREATION: The Six Days Of Creation, Part 1

Day One Study

Read Genesis 1:1-2:4 (middle).

1. What repeated words or phrases do you observe?

2. What can you learn about God from His spoken word (“And God said, ‘Let...’”) and his sovereign power (“And it was so”)?

Read Genesis 1:3-5 (first day).

3. Make a list of firsts or beginnings that occurred on Day 1. Example: “In the beginning” tells the beginning of time.

4. In verse 2, what information is given about the earth’s appearance on Day 1?

5. According to Scripture (Genesis 1-2:4), how many days were involved during creation?

6. Read Exodus 20:11, one of the 10 commandments which was spoken by God to Moses, then written by the finger of God on stone tablets (Exodus 31:18) and given to Moses. From the scriptural references, how does God define “day” so there would be no confusion?

From the Hebrew: The Length of a Genesis 1 Day — What does the Hebrew word mean? In the context of Genesis 1? In other contexts?

1). Yom (the Hebrew word translated “day”) always means an ordinary day when used with a modifying number (1, 2, 3, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) all 358 times elsewhere in the Old Testament. Why would Genesis 1 be an exception?

2). The defining phrase “evening and morning” is used 38 times outside Genesis 1 and always means an ordinary day. Why would Genesis 1 be the exception?

3). Exodus 20:11 tells us that God worked for 6 days and rested for 1 day to give us a pattern to follow. Making 1 day = millions of years makes no logical sense!

4). Yom is never used to mean a definite, long period of time, such as the geological ages.

5). Yamin (plural, “days”) is used 700+ times in the OT, always referring to a regular day.

6). God Himself distinguishes days from years in Genesis 1:14.

Why does it matter? Never allow the fallible theories of sinful men to dictate what the words in the Bible mean. Take God at His Word. If it is obvious from the words and their context what the meaning is, then accept this and do not try to interpret God’s Word on the basis of other’s opinions.

7. The fact of the day/night cycle is evidence of regular rotation of the earth. This does not contradict science but is mutually supported by scientific observation. God does not tell us the source of light on the first day since the sun, moon, and stars weren’t created yet. Light is given off by other physical sources such as radioactivity, crystals, volcanoes, rocks moving against one another, fire, gaseous clouds, etc.

a. Is it really significant that we know the exact source of the light?

b. Read Revelation 22:5. What will be our future source of light?

c. How does this verse help you understand Genesis 1:3-5?

Day Two Study

Read Genesis 1:6-8 (second day).

8. God spent the first 3 days separating and gathering to give the earth form. What was separated and gathered on Day 2?

9. a. God gives us more information about the expanse/firmament in Genesis 1:9, 20. What was the firmament/expanse?

b. What could be the meaning of the water under the expanse and the water above it?

c. So, how might the earth have looked at the end of Day 2?

Appreciation Application:

10. How aware are you of the created world in your everyday life? What in creation fills you most with a sense of God’s glory?

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

11. THINK about the amazing nature and provision of water. Dwell on its unique properties AND why these are so important to life. What do you like best about water? Where do you enjoy it the most?

Deeper Discoveries

· Read “Creation Answers: Theories of Origins” following this lesson.

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org. SEARCH for “Light,” “Days of Creation,” “Age of Earth,” or “Carbon-14.” Select an article to read or video to watch. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

Creation Answers: Theories Of Origins

The information below is adapted from resources found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org.

Christians today are ensnared in the trap of not thinking critically. In the Bible we read that God created all things in 6 days; but we’ve heard that all educated people know that evolution has been proven. We need to train ourselves to think, to recognize the difference between scientific facts that can be observed in the present and ideas about the past that are used to interpret those facts we see in the present.

Four Prevailing Theories

There are 4 prevailing theories regarding the origin of the universe, the earth, and life itself predominant in our culture—both secular and Judeo/Christian. Here is a brief exposition of each one.

1. Naturalism (Naturalistic Evolution)

Naturalism allows no place for God, miracles or divine intervention. Natural processes can explain everything. Evolution is based on naturalism.

2. Theistic Evolution

God created matter, and then everything else evolved with or without occasional help from God. Some say God directed the evolutionary process. It’s basically evolution with God added. This position denies the truth of Scripture.

3. Old Earth Creation Or Progressive Creation

The “days” of creation were long periods of time or ages during which God created the universe and all its contents. Evolution and the geologic column basically fit with the sequence of events of the creation week although you have to really twist and creatively interpret the text to make it do so. Unfortunately, many Christians have bought into this teaching because it sounds plausible. However, in Mark 10:6, Jesus combined Genesis 1 creation days with creation of man as happening at the same time, not millions of years later. Even evolutionists question why Christians would believe this position:

· Tom Mciver, writer of anti-creationist articles and books. “Each (‘day-age’ or ‘gap-theory’) involves critical compromises with the plainest, most literal reading of the Bible to force Scripture into concordance with scientific evidence regarding the age of the earth.” Creation/Evolution XXIV, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1988.

· Marcus Dods, an evolutionist and Hebrew scholar. “If, for example, the word ‘day’ in these chapters does not mean a period of twenty-four hours, the interpretation of scripture is hopeless.” The Book of Genesis, 1907, p. 4.

· J. Frank Cassel, evolutionist, wrote, “I still wonder whether he (the Christian who compromises with long ages) has given me more time because I demand it, or because it’s really there. The same question applies to the days of Genesis and to the universality of the Noachian flood.” Journal of American Affiliation, XII, No. 2, June 1960, p. 15.

4. Young Earth Creation Or Literal Creation

Young earth creationists adhere to the plain reading of the text. This position believes that God did His creating just as He told us in Genesis 1 and 2. This position is the easiest to describe and explain but the hardest for many to accept even when plainly understood.

Professor James Barr, Regis Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford and considered a leading Hebrew scholar, although he rejects Genesis as sober history, wrote in a personal letter dated 23 April 1984: “Probably so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to the readers the ideas that:

(a) Creation took place in a series of 6 days, which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience,

(b) The figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the Biblical story,

Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the “days” of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.”

Conclusion

So you ask, “What do I do? How am I supposed to decide what to believe?” Remember that we have the revealed Word of One who knows everything and who was there! Trust His Word, study it, consider what you would expect to find if it is true, and then examine the evidence. What we see in God’s World agrees with what we read in God’s Word.

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

3. CREATION: The Six Days Of Creation, Part 2

Definitions to know for this study:

· “Creation” is defined simply as the work of God in bringing all things into existence. Only God is eternal—everything else in the universe had a beginning. True creation is creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) and is not merely a reworking of materials already in existence.

· “Evolution” is defined, in its broadest sense, as the theory that all things have been derived by gradual modification through natural processes from previous materials. According to this concept, all forms of life have developed from earlier, simpler forms, and even life itself spontaneously came into existence through a complex organization of previously nonliving chemical molecules.

Day One Study

Read Genesis 1:1-19.

1. Reread Genesis 1:9-13 (third day). Through separating and gathering again, how does God give more form to the earth during the first part of Day 3?

2. What more information do the following verses give to us about His work?

· Job 26:7-10—

· Job 38:8-11—

· Psalm 104:7-9—

· II Peter 3:3-5—

So, how might the Earth have looked midway through Day 3?

3. After forming the earth and space, God began filling it to take away its emptiness. Describe what He did next.

4. Give some examples of the types of plants described here.

5. Why were plants created? See also Genesis 1:29-30 and 2:9a.

Scientific Insight: Plants do not generally grow on bare rock. When God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation,” whatever was necessary for plant life to grow occurred. Yet, the generation of soil from rock supposedly takes many years. If you could go back in time to this point on the third day of creation, the earth would appear to be very old. This appearance of age is required for a mature creation to be fully functioning from the beginning. Yet, it definitely skews “age-dating” methods that rely on observation of present processes and the rate at which soil is now being produced.

6. God repeated the phrase “after/according to their kinds” 10 times in Genesis 1. Any phrase repeated that often is repeated for emphasis. What could the phrase mean? What is God trying to tell us in terms we are supposed to fully understand and not get wrong?

Scientific Insight: According to evolution, seed plants didn’t “evolve” until after bacteria, invertebrates, fish, amphibians and some land animals. Once again, the Days of Genesis cannot be matched up with the theoretical Geological Ages.

Day Two Study

7. Read Genesis 1:14-19 (fourth day). With what does God fill the sky?

8. How and why did God create the lights in the sky? See what these verses say about it.

· Genesis 1:14-18—

· Psalm 33:6—

· Psalm 148:3-6—

· Isaiah 40:26—

· Jeremiah 31:35—

9. Considering pagan worship, why might God have waited until Day 4 to create the sun, moon and stars? See also Deuteronomy 4:19; 17:2-5.

Think About It: Did you know there is no scientific proof that the sun is billions of years old? “There is no evidence based solely on solar observation that the sun is 4.5-5 x 109 years old. I suspect that the sun is 4.5 billion years old. However, given some new and unexpected results to the contrary, and some time for frantic recalculation and theoretical readjustment, I suspect that we could live with Bishop Ussher’s value for the age of the earth and sun. I don’t think we have much in the way of observational evidence in astronomy to conflict with that.” (Dr. John A. Eddy, Astrogeophysicist, Solar Astronomer at the High Altitude Observatory at Boulder, CO)

Bishop Ussher (~1600 AD) calculated the earth/sun to be ~6500 years old based on Gen. 1-11.

Appreciation Application:

10. God didn’t do a halfway job. Everything mentioned thus far was fully formed and functioning, each ready to do its preordained job. We’re not going to get all our questions answered although most do have logical answers already supplied through Scripture. Using Hebrews 11:1-6, discuss the role of faith in reading about God’s creation.

11. If God’s work on Days 3 and 4 happened as written, what evidence in the world would you expect to find?

Think About It: Scriptural compromising does not impress evolutionists. T. H. Huxley, who actively labored for evolutionism and against creationism, sarcastically comments: “If we listen to many expositors of no mean authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in Genesis…as if great pains had been taken that there should be no possibility of mistake…is not the meaning of the text at all…A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand aside and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations.” (Quoted from God Spoke to Moses, by O. T. Allis, 1951, p. 158)

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

12. On a dark night, spend some time outside, perhaps lying on sleeping bags or blankets with the rest of your family, watching the stars while reading Psalm 104 by flashlight. Note for sky watchers: Meteor showers are fun to watch. Check with your local planetarium for the dates to watch these. If you like to study constellations, also read Amos 5:8.

13. Ponder the marvelous diversity and complexity of plant life in general as well as their many functions in serving us—food, shade, enjoyment, etc. What are your favorite plants and why? Meditate on the Creator’s loving hands fashioning these for you.

Deeper Discoveries:

· Read “Creation Answers: Age of the Earth” following this lesson.

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org. Enter and choose SEARCH. Enter a word or phrase from today’s passage such as evolution, plants, starlight, etc. Select an article to read or video to watch. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

Creation Answers: Age Of The Earth

“No Harm in Killing Time”

The information below is adapted from resources found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org.

Let’s address the biggest hot button first—the age of the earth and universe. We’re going to kill some time. There’s no harm in killing time. Where do we get the idea that the earth is billions of years old? Not from the Bible. But, from the world’s teaching, using man’s theories to reinterpret God’s word.

Remember that true science is repeatable, testable, and falsifiable. We have the revealed Word of One who knows everything and who was there!

· No one can prove creation or evolution.

· Anyone can look at the historical record & build a model. Then examine facts in light of that model.

· When what is presented as facts doesn’t agree with the model, there may be a problem with the model or the facts (how they were derived).

The Biblical Model

Three past events that affected earth history from a scientific viewpoint and one event that affected the history of the nations:

· Creation—6 days, the celestial objects, land and sea, plants, animals, and man

· Curse—ground, pain and death, food chain, poisonous and nuisance creatures, affected the whole creation according to Romans 8:20-22

· Flood—affected the planet surface entirely for > 1 year, afterwards man’s diet changed to include eating meat; also the animals’ diet.

· Dispersion from Babel—the existing population was divided into language groups that spread out and repopulated the earth, taking the accounts of Creation, the Curse, and the Flood with them.

Question #1: Is It Really Radical To Believe In A Young Age For The Earth?

A warning light goes off in your head. How can I believe in a young age for the earth? Haven’t scientists proven that the earth is very old—billions of years? What about all the evidence that the earth and universe are billions of years old? It’s just too radical to believe in a young earth.

This is the answer: what evidence? There is more verifiable evidence that the earth is less than 10,000 years than that it is very old. Did you know that? Here is some evidence that kills time. There’s no harm in killing time. But first…

Why is there such an insistence in the science world and media that the universe and earth are billions of years old? Think about it. If you eliminate God and any divine aspect to creation, then you depend strictly on naturalistic processes. And, there’s the key—TIME! Evolution, if true, needs a long time for it to take place. So, the evolutionary scientist looks for any way to “prove” lots of time has passed.

What’s the prevailing theory? About 15 billion years ago (BYA) compressed matter exploded with a Big Bang. As this explosion took place, the elements in the periodic table cooked their way into existence and were hurled outward. They began to condense and to cool, galaxies were formed as well as nebula. Out of one of these spiral nebulas, a solar system condensed and in this particular solar system, the planet earth spun out of a molten fireball about 4.6 BYA. Where do they get 4.6 BY for the age of earth? Meteorites! Supposedly the sun and its planets condensed at the same time. Some meteorites are thought to be remnants of a planet that broke up after condensing. Therefore, meteorites are the same age as the earth. That’s the pet theory of the majority of evolutionary scientists.

What questions should you ask? What did God ask Job in chapter 38? “Were you there?” How did that compressed matter suddenly appear out of nothing? We’ve already looked at what God said He did and how. The biblical model is easier to believe. That God created everything mature and fully functioning from the beginning.

Okay, let’s talk about the evidence that evolutionary scientists use to “prove” that the earth is very, very old. They use 2 things—rocks and fossils. Here are some things you need to know.

· Neither rocks nor fossils have birthdates stamped on them when they are collected.

· Fossils are dated by the false assumption of evolution. The idea of evolution demands old age.

There are two basic ways to date rocks: 1) by how evolved the fossils in them are and 2) by radioactive minerals present in the rocks.

Dating By The Assumption Of Evolution

Rocks with fossils in them are dated by the assumption of evolution. Remember, the idea of evolution of amoeba to man demands long periods of time for it to take place. Where does this fossil fit on the evolutionary development scale? Primitive or advanced? The answer to this question often depends on the rock in which it is found. Those at the bottom of a sequence are considered to be greatly older than those at the top of a sequence. Fossils in the bottom layer are assumed to be older in evolution than those at the top. So, it’s circular reasoning.

Dating By Process Clocks

You observe and measure a present process. Assume it acted the same way in the past. Calculate the time necessary to produce the present state.

Some Process Clocks Give A Younger Age For The Earth

There are about 100 “process” dating methods recognized. Nearly all of them (95%) suggest much younger ages for the earth and life than billions of years.

· Rate of decay of the earth’s magnetic field—Measured since 1829. The magnetic field’s strength decreases by half ~1400 years. Upper limit is ~20,000 years. Oops. Not enough time for evolutionists. Can’t use that one.

“Unless the earth’s magnetic field has been altered or energized by an unusual magnetic event in the past, about which we know nothing, the present decay rate yields an upper limit of 20,000 years or so for the age of the earth…Since this chronometer is based on worldwide measurements, monitored for a long time, and showing a dramatic trend, it perhaps represents the very best application of uniformitarian principles. The weight of the evidence is on the side of the young earth, not on the side of the old earth.” (Dr. John Morris, The Young Earth, p. 83)

· Counting supernova remnants—There’s not enough for an old universe. Only evidence for about 7,000 years worth. Evolutionists definitely can’t use that one.

· Measuring mud on the sea floor or salt in the sea—There’s not enough of either for a billions year old earth.

· History is too short—We only have written records spanning 4000-5000 years with fully functioning language from the beginning. The Biblical time scale is much more likely.

Radioisotope Dating As A Process Clock “Gives” An Older Age For The Earth.

The process clock that gives the oldest “time” is radioactivity. Method known as Radioisotope Dating. Only rocks that contain radioactive elements can be used for Radioisotope Dating. That’s usually rocks that were once molten—like lava or granite. Not usually those with fossils in them. Fossils can be used for a different type of radioisotope dating, but we’ll get to that later.

Before the discovery of radioactive minerals last century, there was already a belief in millions of years. But, the use of radioactivity to date rocks suddenly gave scientists “old ages” and “proof” that the earth is older than the biblical 6,000 years—billions of years older. The news media promotes this “proof.” So, let’s look at it more closely.

The radioactivity clock starts when the rocks are cooled and hardened. How many of you remember studying radioactivity in chemistry or physics or maybe earth science? This is what it looks like using the best-known example. Radioactive uranium (parent) decays to nonradioactive lead (daughter). Measure time it takes for half of the uranium to become lead. Called a half-life. The half-life for uranium is ~4.5 billion years. Find a rock. Measure the amount of Ur and the amount of lead. Figure out how long it has taken for that amount of lead to be produced from the uranium.

The radioisotope method for obtaining age of a substance formed in prehistory is theory but presented as fact. Four major assumptions are involved in the radioisotope method, assumptions that will lead to the conclusion that the researchers want. Each is questionable.

ASSUMPTIONS

1). Known Initial Concentrations—no lead was present in the rock when it was formed.

2). Closed System—neither uranium nor lead leached in or out of the rock over the years.

3). Constant Decay—that the decay rate was constant over time.

4). Enough Time to Produce Present State through Measured Processes— Evolution demands old age. An evolutionary scientist uses the dating method that gives the desired date for the sample.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THEM

1). Some lead occurs naturally in rocks when they are formed.

2). The uranium isotope can be leached out of, and the lead can migrate into, many rocks over the years.

3). The decay rate can perhaps be changed by neutrino bombardment and other causes.

4). Time is history, and history cannot be observed scientifically. There is no way for a scientist in the present to come up with an age for things of the past without written historical record!! Creationist or evolutionist.

How Does It Work?

Several different tests are performed on a sample rock. The results may look like this:

· Uranium-Lead Method says the rock is ~500 million years.

· Potassium-Argon Method says the rock is ~700 million years.

· Rubidium-Strontium Method says the rock is ~325 million years.

Once the results are returned to the researcher, dates are discarded that do not coincide with the expected “age” of the rock. This is how it works. We should not be concerned about such “proof.”

Conclusion: The radioisotope method for obtaining age of a substance formed in prehistory is theory. Rocks and fossils don’t come with birthdates on them. An evolutionary scientist uses the dating method that gives the desired date for the sample.

What’s The Evidence? What Do We Find?

Examples Of Radioisotope Failure On Rocks On Known Dates

We know that radioisotope dating does not always work because we can test it on rocks of known age. Someone actually watched these rocks form.

· 1986 Mt. St. Helens lava dome—a rock sample gave K (potassium)/Argon ages between 0.5 million and 2.8 million years old. Proves that significant Argon was present when the rock was formed. So, assumption #1 is wrong.

· Sunset Crater, Arizona—the volcano erupted 1065 A.D., lava flows dated by Indian records and tree-rings. Indian artifacts and relics are found within the rocks formed by the eruption. K/Ar method: 210,000-230,000 years old.

· Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand—the volcano erupted in 1949, 1954, and 1975. Rock samples from the lava flows dated at 0.27–3.5 million years old.

· Hualalai Volcano, Hawaii—the people on the island watched the rock form during a volcanic eruption in 1801. 12 dates were taken which ranged from 140 million years to 2.96 billion years. The average date was 1.41 billion. If this happens with known rocks, then why could this not also be the case for other dates?

· Mt. Kilauea, Hawaii—erupted recently. K/Ar method: 21 million years.

Here’s what a geologist says:

“It seems that whenever igneous rocks form today, they usually have daughter elements already present and already appear to be somewhat ‘old.’ If this assumption doesn’t work on those times when we can check it, how can we be confident that it works on those occasions when we cannot check it?” (Dr. John Morris, The Young Earth, page 56.)

Examples Of Radioisotope Failure On Rocks Of Unknown Age

Another form of dating called isochron dating involves analyzing four or more samples from the same rock unit. Instead of counting atoms, it uses ratios and graphs. It does not depend on the Initial Concentration being zero. Scientists using this method should be able to analyze the whole rock sample and the individual minerals within the rock and come up with the same age. Most often, they aren’t even close.

· Example #1: Scientists took samples from two lava flow formations in the Grand Canyon—the Cardenas Basalt and the western Grand Canyon lava flows. Researchers used the most current and accepted techniques, had them analyzed by several unbiased commercial labs that knew nothing of the source rocks. The one on the top repeatedly dated older (by 270 million years up to a billion years) than the one on the bottom. That’s impossible. Once again, the results call into question the technique. Something is terribly wrong.

· Example #2: Another interesting example that shows to what extent scientists will go to get the desired age for a sample: Apollo 11 brought back some moon rocks. The rocks were dated using 4 different methods at almost 4-billion years. Apollo 16 brought back some moon rocks that were dated at 18-billion years. To fix the problem they subjected those rocks to acid to melt out the lead and then re-dated and got 4.5 billion years. (Mike Riddle, quoting from Science magazine Jan 30, 1973)

R.A.T.E. Team Discoveries

There are hundreds of credible scientists who are not evolutionists. A team of very highly trained, very credentialed scientists, who also happen to be creationists, has been examining this issue for 10 years through something called the R.A.T.E. project. They examined every dating method for its validity without evolutionary bias. This is what else they’ve discovered:

Too Much Helium In Granite Rocks.

Most granites contain the black flakey mica mineral called biotite. Embedded within these black biotite flakes are tiny zircon crystals. Zircons are very hard and have a very high melting point so are pretty permanent once crystallized. The embedded zircon crystals contain radioactive uranium atoms. Over time, the uranium nucleus ejects an alpha particle (2 neutrons and 2 protons combined). When the zircon crystals are large, the alpha particles stay within them and become helium atoms. Uranium/Pb (lead) decay produces lots of helium because alpha particles are ejected 8 times. Helium wiggles through crystals and leaks through cracks easily. It bonds to nothing and heads for the atmosphere. The decay of U/Pb is a slow process. Since helium migrates out of rocks rapidly, there should be very little to no helium remaining in the granite. But, it’s filled with helium, and 58% of the helium still remains in the granite.

Lots of samples were taken from many locations deep within the earth up to the surface and analyzed by unbiased commercial labs. One explanation is that sometime in the past the decay rate was greatly accelerated so much that helium was being produced faster than it could escape. Here’s the conclusion:

“Based on the measured helium retention, a statistical analysis gives an estimated age for the zircons of 6000 ± 2000 years. This age agrees with literal biblical history and is about 250,000 times shorter than the conventional age of 1.5 billion years for zircons. The conclusion is that helium diffusion data strongly supports the young-earth view of history. (Donald DeYoung, Thousands…Not Billions, p. 76)

There’s Not Enough Helium In The Atmosphere.

Because of radioactivity, helium is being added to the atmosphere at 13 million atoms / square inch / second! Assuming no initial Helium in the atmosphere, the maximum age of earth could only be 2 million years. Not enough time for evolution.

Creation’s Tiny Mystery—Radiohalos.

When the zircon crystals are tiny, the alpha particles are ejected out into the surrounding biotite flakes. The ejected alpha particles are like tiny “bullets” which damage the surrounding biotite leaving discoloration outlining a beautiful, multi-ringed halo because it decays in a number of steps. Eight of the isotopes in this ‘decay chain’ emit alpha particles when they decay, forming eight rings. It’s a bit like a sequence of guns, each of different power, firing an eight-gun salute. When this salute or decay chain is fired millions of times in every direction, the bullets from the different guns make eight concentric rings. When you cut through that sphere and look at them, it looks like halos around the central atom. Granites around the world contain dark uranium halos. It has been determined that to fully form a dark uranium radiohalo requires a billion alpha particles or about 100 million years of radioactive decay at today’s present rate.

Next to the uranium halos are often found “orphan” halos from 3 daughter isotopes all Polonium—Po-210, Po-214, Po-218. In 1981, the Deputy Director of the USGS, Brett Dalrymple, described these in court testimony as “a very tiny mystery.” Here’s why: these 3 polonium isotopes only last from less than 1 second to 3 minutes to 138 days so they had to form very rapidly.

But, the uranium has to deliver 100 million years’ worth of alpha particles BEFORE there’s enough polonium to decay to form its own halos. So, at least 100 million years’ worth (at today’s rate) of uranium decay has to occur within days to form the polonium radiohalos. Coexisting uranium and polonium radiohalos in many granites around the world had to form at the same time and so are observable physical evidence that this abundant nuclear decay had to have occurred at an accelerated rate—in the past. And, the granites that host these radiohalos also had to form at the same rapid rate. The rock had to form almost instantly for the radiohalos to be preserved, basically created, whereas conventional geology maintains granitic rocks crystallized and cooled over millions of years. The evidence does not support that. There is no other satisfactory explanation.

These radiohalos prove two things: 1) in the past, nuclear decay rates were greatly accelerated and 2) rocks with radiohalos in them had to harden almost instantaneously, or within less than a year.

Conclusion: Radioisotope dating has not been disproved. It has been called into question, flaws in its foundation exposed, and its results shown to be inconsistent. According to John Morris, author of The Young Earth, radioisotope dating is in trouble, but it is still a very formidable concept in the minds of many. In fact, few labs are doing the K/Ar method anymore because its results are so wrong. Bible-believing Christians don’t need to be intimidated by rock ages of billions or millions of years supposedly proven by radioisotope dating.

Carbon-14 Dating

You may have heard about C-14 dating. Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon, also called radiocarbon. Cosmic rays from the sun bombard nitrogen in the upper atmosphere turning it into carbon with 2 extra neutrons—C-14. Ad lib about being radioactive. This mixes with the regular stable C-12 in the atmosphere and eventually finds its way into all living organisms. Once an organism dies, the clock begins.

The C-14 in the dead organism decays back into nitrogen. The isotope has a half-life of 5730 years. Meaning half the original C-14 decays to nitrogen in that time. After another 5730 years, only 1/4 of the original remains. After 60,000 years, no measurable C-14 should remain at all. That’s the theory. It can be used only on materials containing carbon—bones, shells, wood, and coal. Not used to date the age of the earth or rocks.

Radiocarbon dating measures the amount of C-14 in a fossil. Only the amount of C-14 changes over time. If a fossil has a lot of C-14, it’s young; if it has very little, it’s old. One still has to take into consideration the same kind of assumptions embedded in the other radioisotope dating methods:

1. Constant Decay Rate—This is testable and observed to be constant in the present. The half-life measures at 5, 730 years. In the present. Not testable for the past.

2. Closed System (no leaching in or out of C-14 or N)—Once again, this is not testable unless you are sitting there watching it.

Some recent anomalies found using the C-14 method on living creatures—

LIVING CREATURES

1) Freshly killed seal

2) Living clam shells

3) Snail shells

C-14 ANALYSIS OF “AGE”

1) It died 1300 years ago.

2) 2300 years old

3) 27,000 years old

Conclusion: Environmental conditions affected the C-12/C-14 ratio in these of known age. When testing a sample of unknown age from a largely unknown environment, how can we exclude similar sorts of effects?

3. Known Initial Concentrations of C-12/C-14—assumes the ratio of C-12/C-14 in the atmosphere and biosphere has always been the same throughout the years.

The assumption is that the amount of C-14 produced in the atmosphere is used up by organisms at the same rate. This is called equilibrium. This is a critical detail because it gives the starting amount of C-14 in the fossil. The current ratio of C-12 to C-14 is 1 trillion to 1. So, when an animal dies today, it has 1 trillion C-12 atoms for every 1 C-14 atom in its body.

But, there’s a problem: the inventor of the C-14 method (Dr. Willard Libby) discovered that C-14 is being created in the atmosphere 25 percent faster than it is being used up. He shoved this aside as experimental error. Years later, other researchers repeated his experiments and came up with the same conclusion. So, the basis for C-14 dating, consistent ratio between C-12 and C-14, is false. Assumption three is false. So, scientists have no basis to know the initial concentration of C-14 in any sample except a living sample today. And, even that doesn’t work.

4. Time—Anything older than 60,000 years on an evolutionary time scale should have no detectable C-14 at all. Anything over 1 million years in age should have not one single atom of C-14 in it. If it does, it’s good evidence that it is not millions of years old.

Some Recent Anomalies Found Using The C-14 Method:

· Example #1: carbonized wood from Glen Rose. Same layer as dinosaur footprints (99 million years old). The C-14 analysis showed the wood to be ~12,000 years old.

· Example #2: In May 1989, an Allosaurus was excavated near Grand Junction, CO. It was located in a rock layer supposedly 140 million years old. These bones, heavily blackened, contained 3% carbon and were tested to show a C-14 date of < 16,000 years.

· Example #3: An Acrocanthosaurus dinosaur found near Glen Rose, Texas dated at < 10,000 years ago. Yet, the rock in which it is found is supposedly ~99 million years old.

· Example #4: Skeletons from 11 ancient humans dated at ~5,000 years or less.

· Example #5: In 1993, scientists found trees buried in lava flows (69 feet deep) Wood was C-14 dated at 44,000 years. The lava was dated at 37 million years. Can’t be. Should agree.

R.A.T.E. Team Discoveries

· Fossils from every level of geologic time have measurable Carbon-14, even after all possible contamination from the current environment was eliminated. This discovery was already well documented in the standard scientific peer-reviewed radiocarbon literature before the RATE project even began. But, the general public is never given that information. Not only that, but all of the samples had about the same amount of C-14 in them. The C-14 is there, quite simply, because it hasn’t had time to decay yet. The world just isn’t that old! No harm in killing time, is there?

· Coal samples spanning a large fraction of the fossil record have similar amounts of measurable C-14 but should not have. Statistically, they saw no difference in the C-14 levels from the youngest to the oldest samples. This suggests the plants all grew on earth at the same time and were buried at the same time.

· Here’s one other bit of information: C-14 has been detected in diamonds; scientists say diamonds formed 1-3 billion years ago deep within the earth. Diamonds are practically impossible to contaminate. Not one atom of C-14 should be there unless the earth is young.

This is the conclusion of one radiocarbon researcher:

“The troubles of the radiocarbon dating method are undeniably deep and serious . . . It should be no surprise, then, that fully half of the dates are rejected. The wonder is, surely, that the remaining half come to be accepted…While the method cannot be counted on to give good, unequivocal results, the numbers do impress people, and save them the trouble of thinking excessively.” (R. E. Lee, “Radiocarbon, Ages in Error,” Anthropological Journal of Canada)

Conclusion: Archeology is also affected by C-14 dating. Some artifacts of known age have been measured and plotted on a calibration curve that extends back about 5000 years since that is the age of the oldest carbon-containing sample of independently know age: an Egyptian mummy. Scientist measures C-14 in sample, plots on curve then reads age in years of artifact. Unfortunately, C-14 dates on objects don’t often agree with historically derived ages. Many archeologists, therefore, prefer to date an artifact according to what he/she believes it to be historically rather than rely on C-14 results.

Here’s what you need to remember about C-14 dating:

· Three of the starting assumptions are false.

· Fossils from every level of the geologic record have measurable levels of C-14.

One more thing: Scientists speculate that it would take about 30,000 years for an atmosphere with no C-14 to reach equilibrium. Earth’s atmosphere is still 25% away from equilibrium. Could that also be an indication that the earth is young?

Doesn’t Distant Starlight Prove An Old Universe?

From The Text:

It is clear from the text (both Hebrew and English) that God began His creation of the sun, moon, and stars on Day 4 and finished them on that same day— “it was so.” Some try to translate the word “placed” in Gen. 1:17 as “cause to appear,” however, this is a twisting of the Hebrew word, and the context does not support such a translation. So, the stars were seen on the first day of existence.

· Actually, the creation of light before the sun is evidence of authenticity of Genesis 1. Only an eyewitness would dare to write such. Not likely to be contrived by later editors because it contrasted their own understanding of the world.

From Science:

· Regarding star distance, the astronomer’s task of assigning a distance to heavenly bodies from earth is a complicated one and not without assumptions that may have “old universe” ideology built right in. Always question how those distances were derived. Shorter distances are generally measured by triangulation, and the limit for accuracy is for stars up to only 200 light-years away. Greater distances may be determined by the presumed sizes and intensity of stars, something called “red shift,” and many other factors, some questionable.

· Regarding starlight, consider that the earth and universe were obviously created with the appearance of age and ready to function immediately according to design and need. The plants were brought forth from the earth mature with seed and fruit. The animals and mankind were capable of reproducing immediately. The heavenly bodies (the Hebrew word includes just about anything in space, including stars) were created with individual and collective functions—dividing the day from the night, serving as navigational aids, for illuminating the earth, determining the passage of time, to separate light from darkness. Notice “it was so” in Gen. 1:15. This means that even if the distances are correct, the stars would merely have given the appearance of having been here longer. Therefore, both the stars and the light beams connecting them visually to the Earth may have been created at the same time. Food for thought!!

· Then, there are supernovas (violent star explosions), some of which are hundreds of thousands of light years away in distant galaxies. Yet, these are observed from earth as an occurring event. How? This has no easy answer. On the other hand, since supernovas supposedly happen about once every 25 years, there should be the remnants of over 2000 in our galaxy if the universe is as old as claimed. Only 200 are actually observed. Fits the young earth model better.

· There are still a lot of questions about the speed of light in deep space, whether light has traveled at the same speed throughout the past, how light is affected by gravity of the heavenly bodies, etc. Scripture tells us that God stretched out the heavens in 15 passages (Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22; Jeremiah 10:12). Science also tells us that the universe is expanding. That would affect distances as well.

An early church father, Theophilus, had this insight for us today:

“On the fourth day the luminaries came into existence. Since God has foreknowledge, he understood the nonsense of the foolish philosophers who were going to say that the things produced on earth come from the stars, so that they might set God aside. In order therefore that the truth might be demonstrated, plants and seeds came into existence before stars. For what comes into existence later cannot cause what is prior to it.” (Quotation from Theophilus “To Autolycus,” 2.8, Oxford Early Christian Texts)

Conclusion

Five Facts To Remember:

1. The earth has not been scientifically proven to be billions of years old.

2. The Bible teaches a literal 6-day creation.

3. Many scientists believe in a literal 6-day creation about 6,000 years ago.

4. New evidence from nuclear decay supports a young earth model.

5. There are many scientific evidences for a young earth.

How To Interpret What You Read And Hear

Look for the facts. Discern facts from interpretation. Mark the facts. Then, mark the interpretations or assumptions. Question the assumptions used to derive the facts and/or interpretations. Consider the same facts with the assumption of Biblical history.

See “Creation Answers: Interpretation Practice” after the lesson “Creation: Humans, Home and Family, Part 2.”

Sources For Further Study

1. Thousands, Not Billions by The R.A.T.E. Project Team at Institute for Creation Research

2. The Answers Book (any volumes) by Ken Ham and associates

3. Dating Rocks and Fossils, video presentation by Mike Riddle

4. How Old Is the Earth? Eugene Sattler

5. “The Collapse Of ‘Geologic Time’”, by Steve Taylor, Andy McIntosh, and Tas Walker, Creation, September 2001

6. Radioactive ‘dating’ in conflict, Andrew Snelling, Creation, December 1997.

7. The Young Earth, Dr. John Morris

8. The Young Age of the Earth DVD

9. Starlight and Time, Dr. Russell Humphreys

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_03.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

/assets/pdf/Newton_7Cs_03notes.pdf

4. CREATION: The Six Days Of Creation, Part 3

Day One Study

Read Genesis 1:1-23.

1. Reread Genesis 1:20-23 (fifth day) and Isaiah 45:18. God formed the earth to be inhabited. All the materials necessary for animal life—water, air, light, plants, and the chemical materials of the earth—were now available. With what did God fill the earth on Day 5?

2. What does the phrase “living creature” mean in Genesis 1:20, 21? Why aren’t plants called “living creatures?”

3. Regarding the water creatures: name the types represented by the descriptions given here. Note particularly the first ones created.

From the Hebrew: It is possible that these “sea monsters (NAS), great whales (KJV), great sea creatures (NIV, NET)” actually included the great marine dinosaurs. The word in the original Hebrew is actually the same word translated “dragons” in later Scriptures. Remember that the term “dinosaur” wasn’t even invented until the mid 1800’s.

4. The Hebrew term translated “winged bird” denotes anything that flies. Name the types of creatures represented by this phrase.

5. Current evolutionary theories say reptiles (land animals) evolved into birds. Notice the order of creation in v. 20-21. What is distinctively missing from the Genesis account that causes it to conflict with current theories?

Day Two Study

Read Genesis 1:24-31 (sixth and seventh days).

6. With what did God fill the earth on Day 6?

7. Regarding the land creatures: name the types represented by the descriptions given.

8. What was the grand climax of God’s creative activity (v. 26-31)? [Note: We will study this more fully in the next lesson.]

9. What instructions were given regarding food (v. 29-30)? To which creatures? What are the biological and ecological implications of this?

Read Genesis 1:31-2:4 middle.

10. In v. 31, how does God evaluate His creation?

11. Why isn’t it logical that disorder, decay, suffering or death could have occurred or could be occurring in God’s world as described in Genesis 1?

12. What occurred on the 7th day? Why?

Deeper Discoveries for those who like research: Discuss the astronomical basis of the day, month, and year in contrast to the lack of such basis for the week. Why is this important? Do all countries have a day of rest? Did any cultures in ancient history besides the Jews have a 7-day week?

Appreciation Application:

13. God created a well-ordered, functioning world for man to enjoy.

a. According to Romans 1:20-25, what should be our response to God’s self-revelation in the created world?

b. What are the consequences for refusing to recognize God as Creator?

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

14. Read Exodus 20:11. Did God create man with a need for rest and relaxation from work? Have you stopped to rest for at least part of a day this past week? What did you do to rest?

15. Spend some time thinking about various animals. Perhaps visit the zoo or local pet shop with your family. Read Job 38:39-39:30 as God tells about the specialness of some He created. What are your favorite animals and why? Share with your group.

Deeper Discoveries:

· Read “Creation Answers: Creation, Not Evolution” following this lesson.

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org. SEARCH a word or phrase from today’s passage—dinosaurs, animals, ecology, eating plants, etc. Select an article to read or video to watch. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

Creation Answers: Creation, Not Evolution

“It’s All about Information”

The information below is adapted from resources found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org.

Let’s explore some of the other questions always asked about creation in Genesis 1 plus those that should be asked. Then, we’ll narrow our focus down to evolution itself.

What God Said He Did

When God first began His creating, the earth was described as “formless and empty.” Formless just means it needed shape. It was covered with water, the deep. Empty means just that, unfilled. God spends 2 1/2 days separating & gathering to give the earth form (1:3-10). God spends 3 1/2 days making & filling to remove the emptiness.

Some say a great span of time existed between Gen 1:1 and 1:2, allowing for an earlier time when the earth appeared somewhat like it is now, was destroyed because of Satan’s rebellion, and then was restored to the way it appears now. This is supposed to explain an old age for the earth plus layers of rocks & fossils but without evolution. The problem with this position is that any catastrophe that left the earth shapeless and empty would have destroyed anything as orderly as the continuous rock layers. So, it’s no longer considered a credible alternative to young earth creation.

What Is Separated And Gathered? What’s The Expected Evidence? What Do We Find?

· Day One—God created light so it is not Himself. He divided the light from the darkness; also, He refers to day and night and evening and morning. Because God is eternal, this also indicates the creation of time for the benefit of His creation. We are not told the source of the light if other than God Himself. God established a regular rotation of the earth. Expect to find evidence of day and night being continual and universal. This is what we find.

· Day Two—The waters above from waters below with an expanse in between, a curious phrase. Many think this ‘expanse’ was the atmosphere, because God placed the birds in the expanse to fly. This would put these waters above the atmosphere. Perhaps more water vapor in the atmosphere than at present. Expect evidence of worldwide tropical climate forming a greenhouse effect, lush vegetation, greater size and longevity of creatures due to shielding from incoming radiation. We do find tropical plants and animals all over the globe in every rock layer, at the poles and on top of the highest mountains including giant animals and plants. Humans living before the Flood lived ~900 years. We’ll cover this in a future article.

· Day Three—Dry land separated from the sea. From the text, it appears that the land was all in one land mass. This doesn’t preclude having rivers and lakes on the land, though, as described in Genesis 2. You would expect evidence of one large landmass with set boundaries between the ocean and the land. We find evidence of a supercontinent that has since split apart. Continental shelves and slopes are set boundaries between the ocean and the land.

What Is Made And Filled? What’s The Expected Evidence? What Do We Find?

· Day 3—ALL plant kinds—grasses, seed plants, fruit trees. Food for creatures filled the land surface that day. We would expect to find evidence of fully formed and functioning plants, fruit and seeds from the start of life on earth. We find just that. Pollen is found in some of the oldest rocks supposedly millions of years older than the first pollen-forming plants.

Are plants alive? The Bible makes a sharp distinction between plants & animals. On Day Three, God commanded the inanimate earth to “bring forth” plants while on Day Five, He “created...every living creature that moved.” At this point, and on Day Six to follow, He instituted the concept of giving “life” (Hebrew nephesh) to nonliving matter—something He did not do for plants. The Bible never refers to plants as living; they grow, flourish, wither, fade but they do not “live” or “die.” Plants do not have nephesh, nor “breath of life” nor “blood” (Lev. 17:11). They are biologically alive but not Biblically “living.”

· Day 4—Sun, moon, stars—notice the emphasis on separating light and darkness. Light filled the expanse that day. We would expect to find evidence that these were fully functioning in a mature state from the beginning. We find fully functioning from the beginning. Actually, the creation of light before the sun is evidence of authenticity of Genesis 1. Only an eyewitness would dare to write that.

· Day 5—ALL water creatures, ALL birds. Creatures filled the seas and sky that day.

· Day 6—ALL land creatures plus MAN and WOMAN. Creatures filled the land surface that day. Regarding days 5 and 6, expect to find evidence of all water creatures, birds, land creatures and man to be fully functioning in a mature form since the beginning. That’s what we find. More on that later.

Note: the creation order contradicts the proposed evolution of the universe and life on the planet at >20 points. Example: Marine creatures weren’t created until day 5, but evolution says that they came before the land plants. Seed plants didn’t “evolve” until after bacteria, invertebrates, fish, amphibians and some land animals, but creation says they came first. Bees “evolved” before flowers. You have to twist Genesis 1 to make it match up to evolution.

Creation Is Complete.

God told us how long creation took and how complete it was. God rested because He was finished. Nothing formless or empty remained. The biblical model reveals a fully functioning, mature creation:

· Continents with topsoil and rivers flowing from a source of water.

· Rocks with crystalline minerals in them—some already beginning the radioactive process to add warmth and other elements to our planet.

· Stars visible from earth.

· Plants bearing seed and fruit; bees pollinating flowers.

· Marine animals swimming; birds flying.

· Land animals creeping and running; adult Adam and Eve talking—all capable of reproducing.

What About Life? Did It Evolve Or Was It Instantly Created?

· Defining Creation—”Creation” is defined simply as the work of God in bringing all things into existence ex nihilo (out of nothing) and is not merely a reworking of materials already in existence.

· Defining Evolution—”Evolution” is the supposition that life spontaneously came into existence from previously nonliving chemical molecules and forms of life have developed from earlier, simpler forms by gradual modification through natural processes. This is what I am talking about when I say evolution. Particles to people. Amoeba to man. New information being added continually into the DNA of living creatures.

It’s all about information. Is this operational science or historical science? Examining biological life in the present is operational. Making conclusions about the prehistoric past is historical. Evolution is a worldview about the past and a way to interpret scientific data that exists in the present. Let’s look at the evidence from two sources: 1) life in the present and 2) life in the past.

Life In The Present

What Evidence From Life In The Present Would You Expect To Find If Evolution Is True?

· Life coming from non-life. This is the biggest problem for evolutionists. Like the nothing creating something concept. No one has ever produced life from non-life in a laboratory. It’s not occurring spontaneously anywhere on the planet, either.

· Beneficial Mutations that continually create new systems in every living creature observable in the present. Producing…

· Billions of transitional Forms—a hypothetical organism that is “between” evolutionary stages. We should have transitional structures for every part of every system of every living creature in the present.

· Things Getting Better—no death due to aging or disease

What Evidence From Life In The Present Would You Expect To Find If Creation Is True?

· Intelligent design in all living things

· Separate, distinct kinds of creatures with lots of variation within them.

· Death and disease because of the curse.

· Extinction of some creatures because of the flood.

What Evidence From Life In The Present Do You Find?

1. Intellligent Design In All Living Things Is Obvious.

Every time a student looks through a microscope or a telescope or looks at the real world in any way, he/she is bombarded with evidence for creation. Even the simplest single-celled organism is unthinkably complex. A virus, which isn’t even complete in itself, can baffle our best scientists and all our technology!

All of life is governed by the marvelously complex genetic code, which contains not only design and order, but what is equivalent to written information. This DNA code must not only be written correctly, the rest of the cell must read it and follow its instructions to live and reproduce. This code had to be present at the origin of life. How could it have written itself, and how could all the various parts of the cell learn how to read and obey it? IMPOSSIBLE!

A non-Christian, non-evolutionist scientist says, “The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together by some kind of freakish, vastly improbable event. Such an occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle.” (Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, p. 264)

Similarity is evidence of common designer, not common ancestry. You would expect single Creator using common design for similar function.

2. Separate, Distinct Kinds Are Evident; Transitional Forms Are Non-Existent.

For amoeba-to-man evolution to be possible there has to be a mechanism that adds new genetic information to the DNA recipe of cells—information that performs a new function that was not previously present. No such mechanism is known. The proposed mechanism is through a series of mutations that add new information to the DNA. Upward progress is made because of natural selection.

“Natural selection” means that the creature with the right stuff will: 1) have the best chance of surviving a given habitat, 2) beat out those who don’t have the right stuff, and 3) pass on their winning stuff to their offspring. According to evolution, the right stuff is beneficial mutations.

“Beneficial” Mutations ≠ Evolution

Mutations are inherited copying errors in the DNA ‘recipe’ of an organism. Evolutionary theory requires some mutations to go “uphill”—to add new information. The mutations we observe are either neutral (information not effectively changed) or go “downhill”—the parent genetic information is lost or scrambled.

In rare cases, a mutation may benefit a creature in a particular environment. It looks beneficial, but in every case these involve loss of information, even though it appears to give the organism a survival advantage. That’s where natural selection of creatures with the right stuff takes place.

· Example #1: Wingless beetles. A mutation prevents some beetles from growing wings. This defect is passed to all that beetle’s babies, so that it’s grandchildren will all be wingless. Here in Double Oak, such a beetle will have less chance to get away from beetle-eaters, so it’ll be eaten before it can leave babies. Fewer wingless beetles. But, on Galveston Island, the flying beetles tend to get blown into the sea, so the wingless ones have an advantage. More wingless beetles. Not gain of information. Loss of information. Those wingless beetles cannot produce beetles with wings again. It’s all about information.

· Example #2: Blind cave animals. Many animals in caves are blind, with shriveled eyes caused by a mutation. That would not harm the individual in the cave with no light to see by anyway. But in the light, such blind mutants would never survive to have babies. Result: more blind creatures in caves; more sighted creatures outside. Not gain of information. Loss of information. Those blind creatures can never produce sighted babies again. It’s all about information.

· Example #3: A common mutational defect carried by about one in 100 Europeans may help to protect against certain forms of AIDS. HIV gets into certain immune cells with the help of two receptor molecules, like ‘handholds’ on the outside of the cells. Researchers have found a mutated form of the gene that codes for one of these receptor proteins on these cells. The protein has lost the chemical ‘handles’ which the virus needs to get inside the cell. Beneficial against AIDS but what else should that protein provide for the cell? Loss of information. It’s all about information.

If evolution were true, we should find billions of transitional forms representing the progression from one creature to another in the present. Besides mutations, the examples commonly cited as “evolution happening today” usually involve variation or adaptation coupled with natural selection. Let’s look at these more closely.

Variation Within A Kind ≠ Evolution

God created plants to produce seed ‘after their kind’ and animals to reproduce ‘after their kind’. ‘After their/its kind’ is repeated ten times in Genesis 1, giving emphasis to the principle. And we take it for granted. When we plant a tomato seed, we don’t expect to see a geranium pop up out of the ground. Nor do we expect that our dog will give birth to kittens or that Aunt Betty, who is expecting, will bring home a chimpanzee baby from the hospital! Our everyday experience confirms the truth of the Bible that things produce offspring true to their kind.

But what is a created ‘kind’? God divided creatures up differently than we humans do. Linnaeus, a creationist scientist, tried to determine the created kinds so he defined a ‘species’ as a group of organisms that could interbreed among themselves, but not with another group, akin to the Genesis concept. We have since learned that the “species” division is too limiting. Should be much larger. New species have been observed to form. But this speciation is within the “kind,” and involves no new genetic information. In nature, we see variety within a species or “kind” such as the dog kind but no changes from one species to another—dogs are not changing to cat kinds so they can climb the tree after the squirrels. That would be plenty of motivation, wouldn’t it?

God placed within the DNA of creatures potential for variety in certain parts of the creature. Everyone gets 2 sets of genes—1 from mom, 1 from dad. So, lots of potential for variation in hair color, eye color, skin color. But, there are limits on natural genetic variability. Humans will always have hair rather than fur and two eyes rather than 10. Noses can change shapes but gills are never substituted for noses. Okay? Limited variety is present within every type of creature. There is variation in dogs, but they are still dogs; variation in cats, but they are cats; variation in humans, but we are still humans—and so on. Any variation we see today involves sorting and the loss of pre-existing information.

· Example #1: An example of forced loss of information. Similar to dog breeding (unnatural selection) —Choose the animals with the characteristics wanted then breed them. Thus the information for certain desired characteristics is concentrated in smaller selected populations. But the resulting breeds have lost the information for the characteristics not wanted. A Chihuahua has lost the information in its genes to give it the long legs and body of a Great Dane. Less information. It’s all about information.

· Example #2: Geographical populations—People who have lived in an isolated area for generations will eventually carry the same traits. Other traits will be lost.

· Example #3: Finches on the Galapagos Islands— In the 1800’s, Darwin saw big finches & little finches with big beaks & little beaks. Today, there are still big finches & little finches with big beaks & little beaks. In our group, you see big & little women with big & little beaks. Variation, not evolution!

· Example #4: England’s peppered moths—Before 1800, light and dark moths existed. Once pollution darkened the environment, light and dark moths existed. Today, light and dark moths exist. Throughout the entire observed period, both shades existed and comprised a single interbreeding species. No evolution here! Just the ratios changed. Variation within their own kind according to the wide variety of color combinations programmed into them by the Creator.

Natural selection assists in selecting optimal habitats and enables the best genetic information to be passed on. The trait must be there before it can be selected! It’s all about information!

Adaptation Of A Species ≠ Evolution.

Here’s another thing confused with evolution. Adaptation. Adaptation is a design feature in a plant or animal that makes it more suited to live in its environment by using pre-existing information to make the necessary adaptations to an environment. The trait must be there before it can be selected! There’s a great discussion of this issue in Chapter 22 of the book.

· Example #1: Northerners moving down south and vice versa—If you change your elevation from sea level to mountaintop or warm climate to cold climate, your body will produce more red blood cells to fuel your “engine” with oxygen and warmth. Adaptation with already existing ability. It’s all about information.

· Example #2: Antibiotic resistant bacteria—Some antibiotic resistance was already present in the bacterial population before the development of antibiotics (represented in blue). Antibiotics kill off more of the non-resistant red ones, so more of the blue are left to flourish and have bacteria babies. Bacteria found in the frozen bodies of explorers who had been lost over 150 years ago were already resistant to 6 different antibiotics that weren’t invented until 100 years later! Of the many cases of antibiotic resistance studied, none have involved the production of new functionally complex information, such as a new enzyme. Nothing new is produced. Bacteria can gain resistance through two ways: 1) by losing genetic information, 2) by using a design feature built in to swap DNA with another bacteria.

· Example #3: Insect resistance to pesticides— Evolutionist Francisco Ayala determined that houseflies resistant to DDT already carried the genetic information necessary to “be” resistant, not “become” resistant.

Which reminds me that things are not getting better. Creatures get sick, get old and die. Any evolutionary process that goes from amoeba to man would have solved this eons ago. It’s illogical to think otherwise. The bottom-line is this: evolution is not being observed in the present.

· Not through mutations, variation or adaptation.

· Not through pregnancy, either. A baby growing in the womb never has gill slits like a fish or a tail like a monkey.

· Parts of our bodies aren’t useless leftovers of our evolutionary ancestors. Those identified as such last century are now declared useful to the body in some way. Tonsils fight infection. The appendix activates the immune system before birth. If one of these parts “goes bad,” it may need to be removed, but this doesn’t prove they were “useless organs” any more than a necessary hysterectomy proves the womb is useless!!

Living Things That Defy Evolution

There are hundreds of living creatures that have systems so marvelously complex and symbiotic that they could not work until all parts work. These totally defy explanation by evolution. The butterfly, giraffe, bombardier beetle, and woodpecker are just a few.

Conclusion

God created all plants, animals, and man according to kinds with lots of room for variation and adaptation within kinds. Each was subsequently affected by the curse.

THERE IS A CREATOR!!

Sources For Further Study:

1. Living fossils Q & A: www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/living_fossils.asp

2. Creation kinds Q & A: www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/kinds.asp

3. Videos: Incredible Creatures that Defy Evolution, Vol. 1 and 2, by Dr. Jobe Martin; Living Fossils by Dr Joachim Scheven.

4. Refuting Evolution, Vol. 1 and 2 by Jonathan Sarfati. One particular chapter examines fossils used to prove evolution at www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter8.asp

5. Creation: Facts of Life, Gary Parker is completely online at http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/cfol/index.asp.

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_04.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

/assets/pdf/Newton_7Cs_04notes.pdf

5. CREATION: Humans, Home And Family, Part 1

Day One Study

Read Genesis 1:26-31.

1. What information is given about man’s creation in v. 26-27? Notice the use of the plural pronouns both here and in Genesis 3:22.

2. Image and likeness are synonymous in both the OT and the NT. What might being made in the “image of God” mean? Clues are in the following verses. Try to find other verses to support your answer.

· Genesis 1:26-31—

· Genesis 2:15-17, 19-20—

· Colossians 3:9-14—

Think About It: We are to be walking, talking, living, free representatives of the image of the living God.

3. How many times does God use the word “created” in Gen. 1:27? Why is this significant? What information is He trying to get across to us?

Read Genesis 2:4 (middle)-17.

Scriptural Insight: Genesis 2—Where Does It Fit? “The Lord Jesus, when answering the Pharisees’ question about marriage (Matthew 19:4, 5), quoted from both chapters (Genesis 1:27 and 2:24) in the very same sentence! He who was Himself the Creator (Colossians 1:16-17) regarded the records of both chapters as not only harmonious but also as divinely inspired Truth…The second chapter of Genesis gives information about the creation week which is supplemental, not contradictory to the outline record of Genesis 1.…Further information is given about man’s original environment, and this is of such detailed character and so different from present conditions as to suggest quite strongly that the account was originally written by an eye-witness.” (Dr. Henry Morris, The Beginning of the World, p. 35-36)

4. Describe the Garden of Eden as God prepared it for Adam. What is growing there? [Note: shrub/plant of the field are those requiring cultivation.] What is the temperature? What about the watering system?

On the previous days of creation God said, “Let there be . . .” But the creation of man is different. Genesis 2:7 says, “The Lord God formed (means to shape and mold with loving care) the man…and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (literally, lives).” The name used for God is YHWH, the personal God, and He gave Adam “the breath of life.” Animals also had the breath of life in them, but God personally gave it to Adam as mankind’s representative.

5. What does this tell you about God’s relationship to man as opposed to the animals and the rest of creation?

6. What does knowing this truth mean to you personally?

7. The phrase “breath of life (lives)” is an interesting one. Read Job 12:10 and Job 34:14-15. What further information is given to us?

8. Why do you think God both made man and provided him with paradise on earth? Read Leviticus 26:12 and Acts 17:24-28 for more information.

Day Two Study

Read Genesis 2:8-17.

9. The Tree of Life is mentioned in other passages as well. Glean information given about it in:

· Genesis 3:22-24—

· Revelation 2:7—

· Revelation 22:2, 14, 19—

Think About It: So, what was God’s intention by placing the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden? Although we don’t know it’s exact composition, we do know that it represented a choice. True love involves a choice. There has to be the possibility of rejection in order for there to be true love.

10. Discuss the location of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil among the other trees in the Garden of Eden. [We will study the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil more thoroughly next lesson.]

Appreciation Application:

11. God created man and woman with intellect, emotion and a will through which mankind can choose to love and serve God. Contemplate this “endowment” from the Creator. We are not puppets nor are we programmed to do the same things year after year as the animals do.

a. In what ways are you thankful for this ability to choose?

b. How does it inspire you to pray?

c. What does it mean to you to be created in God’s image? How should knowing this truth affect how you feel about yourself? Read Psalm 8. How is God mindful of your life (v. 4)? Share with your group.

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

12. God prepared a beautiful garden for the man and woman, one in which they would both work and enjoy. Spend some time in a garden setting this week—garden, yard, or park—where you can enjoy the trees, various shades of color in leaves and flowers, fragrances, etc. A garden can be an inspiring place. Ponder the beauty of God’s creation. God made all those wonderful plants for you!!! How does a beautiful garden inspire you?

Deeper Discoveries:

· Read “Creation Answers: The Fossils Says, No!” following this lesson.

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org. SEARCH for “human fossils” or similar phrase. Select an article to read or video to watch. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

· If God created man just as He said, what evidence would we expect to find? What do we find?

Creation Answers: The Fossils Say “No!”

“It’s Designed, Not Descended”

The information below is adapted from resources found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org.

Life In The Past

There are billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth represented by bones, shells, molds, leaves, teeth, skin imprints, footprints, dung. Scientists have been examining the fossils and the rocks in which they are found for almost 200 years now.

As a way of reconstructing evolution’s past history, scientists have set up a “Geologic Time Scale” where the rocks with the “most Primitive” fossils are assigned the oldest ages and the rocks with the “most Advanced” fossils are considered the youngest with various stages in between.

The “Geologic Time Scale” actually exists in only one place—textbooks. There is no place on earth where all the rock layers, with the kinds of fossils listed in the geologic time scale, are found in the sequence listed. The geologic time scale is a nice graphic, a way of explaining the past.

What Evidence From Life In The Past Would We Expect To Find If Evolution Is True?

· Fossils that show a progressive change from one organism to another—the Transitional Forms.

· Lines of descent from a few simple forms to the many complex forms of life that we see today.

What Evidence From Life In The Past Would We Expect To Find If Creation Is True?

· Each basic kind would appear in the fossil record complete, with no incomplete ancestors.

· Fossils similar to living forms, separate kinds possessing some variations.

What Do We Find In The Fossil Record?

1. Complex And Diverse Life Appears Abruptly In The Fossil Record.

So many kinds of organisms suddenly appear at the lowest level that it’s called the “Cambrian Explosion.” Thousands of very complex organisms suddenly appear in these rocks such as fish, sea urchins, and trilobites that have a segmented body and complex vision. No ancestral forms can be found for any of these. They appear in the fossil record fully formed and distinct.

No evolutionist can explain how this happened. They have dug deeper into “older” layers to hopefully find the “earlier stages of developing forms,” and it doesn’t get any better— for the evolutionist. Complex jellyfish and segmented worms were discovered. So, the evidence says, “It’s designed, not descended.”

2. Each Basic Body Style Has Been Present Right From The Start Including Vertebrates (With Backbones).

· No new body plans have appeared from the start. Shells look like shells; eyes look like eyes. Makes no sense if evolution did occur.

· For instance, clams are found in the bottom layer, the top layer, and every layer in between. There are many different varieties of clams, but clams are in every layer and are still alive today. There’s no evolution, just clams!! Designed, not descended.

· Living Fossils—The existence of many ‘living fossils’ also challenges the supposed hundreds of millions of years of ‘earth history.’ A living fossil is one that is the same in fossil and living form. And, some of these fossils are missing from intervening strata that supposedly represent many millions of years of evolutionary time, again indicating that there were no time gaps. For example: “530 million year old” starfish, jellyfish, and snails look like those living today. A German creation scientist, Dr Joachim Scheven, has a museum with over 500 examples of such ‘living fossils.’

3. Transitional Forms Are Absent.

Darwin predicted that the fossil record would show numerous transitional fossils, yet millions of fossils later; all we have are a few disputed ones.

Dr. Colin Patterson of the British Museum of Natural History, an evolutionist, said, “there is not one…for which you could make a water-tight argument.” (Answers to the 4 Big Questions, page 10, note 4)

It would be hugely inconvenient for the creature anyway.

But, evolutionists are desperate for transitional forms and so are those who support them—such as National Geographic which frequently publishes articles claiming the latest transitional form has been found, having a nice artistic drawing on the front only to have to retract their statements in a short sentence tucked away in the back somewhere a few months later. Beware of what you read in magazines such as National Geographic. Always separate the facts from the assumptions. For example:

· Horse evolution—Horses have always been horses. Evolutionists once believed that 3-toed horses evolved into 1-toed; small size evolved to big sizes today. Explain punctuated equilibrium. A NG photo inadvertently showed 1-toed and 3-toed horses had lived together in the past. Still have 1 and 3–toed horses today. Small and big horses in the past; small and big horses today. No transitions. No evolution. Just horses.

· Dinosaurs to birds—Are you tired of the dinosaurs to birds propaganda? Artists have a design in mind for a transitional bird and don’t mind using it, regardless of the facts. Scales on reptiles are folds in skin; feathers are complex structures that originate in a totally different way, from follicles inside the skin in a manner like hair. There has been no report yet of a fossil showing scales turning into feathers or a leg turning into a wing. Every suspected dinobird fossil turns out to be just a dinosaur or just a bird. We’ll talk more about dinosaurs in a later “Creation Answers” page.

· Fossil man—What about fossil man? Evolutionists are so anxious to discover the missing link that many hoaxes and misinterpretations have been publicized in the past 100 years. Some in the past few years as in “Lucy’s baby.” It’s an extinct ape. And, of the few bones actually found, most are used to build a hypothetical skeleton and model portrayed with bias as “primitive” to fit evolution’s expectations. I’ve given you some examples in your workbook. Man has always been man! Designed, not descended.

Psalm 100:1-3 says, “Shout our praises to the LORD, all the earth! Worship the LORD with joy! Enter his presence with joyful singing! Acknowledge that the LORD is God! He made us and we belong to him; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”

We’re going to cover true human skeletons when we get to the Ice Age in a few weeks. Sounds a lot cooler, doesn’t it? Remember one thing. All we find is bones. Sometimes skin. Not the flesh. Beware of what you see in Natural History Museums. Don’t assume the skeletons are real fossils. Many times complete skeletons are reconstructed from 1-2 bones. Then, flesh is put on that skeleton based upon the artist’s evolutionary bias.

4. Extinctions Have Taken Place But Not Because Of Evolution. We’ll Talk Some More About This In A Few Weeks.

Someone said, “Evolution is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links not seen. The fossils themselves are evidence of rapid burial not slow deposition.

What Else Would It Take To Discredit Evolution Based Upon The Fossil Record?

“Out of Place” fossils would falsify the Geologic Time Scale and, thus, the sequence of evolutionary development. There are over 2000 such examples!!! Here are some substantiated anomalies in the fossil record:

· An iron pot found in coal dated at 286 millions years old.

· Pine pollen is found in the Grand Canyon in the lowest strata (Precambrian). Such plants did not supposedly evolve until the Permian. Pollen and spores are found throughout the fossil record in the oldest rocks although plants producing such did not “evolve” for millions of years later.

· Fossil wood, dated by C-14 method to be 4000 years old, was found embedded in Precambrian rock in northern Canada. Likewise, fossilized palm wood, Tertiary “age,” was found in Jurassic rock in Utah.

· Cambrian and Mississippian layers are found to alternate back and forth twice in the Grand Canyon. Since time cannot alternate back & forth, the portion of the geologic time table bounded by those two time periods is invalidated by this discovery.

· Many examples also exist of entire formations of rock layers being out of place in the standard geological timetable. Precambrian rock is lying smoothly on top of Cretaceous rock on Chief Mountain at Glacier National Park in Montana, meaning that the alleged time span between the Precambrian and Cretaceous never existed. This is explained away by saying that the 300 square miles of rock was moved from one location to be placed on top of the younger rock by thrusting of the rock along a fault. Yet, the layers grade into one another smoothly.

· Out in Franklin Mountains, El Paso, fossils from supposedly 500 million years ago are resting right on top of fossils only 125 million years old. Over thrust explanation is given, but no actual physical evidence has been discovered to prove it. No fault line, no crushed rock.

Fossilized footprints are even better than bones to falsify evolution because they cannot have been redeposited. Consider the following finds:

· Prints that look identical to horse hoof prints are found in Devonian rock in the British Isles, 300 million years older than the horse’s supposed evolutionary appearance.

· Mammal tracks are found in Permian/Pennsylvanian rock. Mammals didn’t evolve until 100 million years later.

· A giant cat print found in the Cretaceous dinosaur layer at Glen Rose. It is not supposed to be there.

· A human footprint found in limestone “dated” Permian, 250 MYO, near Socorro, New Mexico in 1929. In April 1992, the footprint was verified as human by a scientific team. It is called the Zapata I/Shockey footprint.

· A human shoe print 10.5 inches long was found in shale of Cambrian age at Antelope Springs, Utah with trilobites imbedded in the heel and instep.

Evolutionist Albert C. Ingalls said, “If man, or even his ape ancestor’s early mammalian ancestor, existed as far back as in the Carboniferous Period in any shape, then the whole science of geology is so completely wrong that all the geologists will resign their jobs and take up truck driving! Hence for the present at least, science rejects the attractive explanation that man made these mysterious prints in the mud of the Carboniferous Period with his feet.”

Conclusion

It’s all about information and the evidence screams out “designed, not descended!”

Sources For Further Study:

1. Living fossils Q & A: www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/living_fossils.asp

2. Creation kinds Q & A: www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/kinds.asp

3. Videos: Incredible Creatures that Defy Evolution, Vol. 1 and 2, by Dr. Jobe Martin; Living Fossils by Dr Joachim Scheven.

4. Refuting Evolution, Vol. 1 and 2 by Jonathan Sarfati. One particular chapter examines fossils used to prove evolution at www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re2/chapter8.asp

5. Creation: Facts of Life, Gary Parker. Book is completely online at http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/cfol/index.asp.

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_05.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

/assets/pdf/Newton_7Cs_05notes.pdf

6. CREATION: Humans, Home And Family, Part 2

Day One Study

Read Gen. 2:4-25.

1. What activity did God provide for Adam after placing him in this perfect garden? Why? See also Genesis 2:5 and Ecclesiastes 2:24-25.

2. Read the command God gave to Adam in v.16. Man already had knowledge of “good.” All he had seen and experienced was “good.” Discuss God’s command regarding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—what it involved, what would be gained/lost, why choosing to eat from that tree would be so bad, . . .

3. By having access to the fruit of the Tree of Life, God showed that His will and intention for them was life—continual physical life. [See last lesson for discussion of the Tree of Life.] The results of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was death, best translated “dying, you shall die.” Why do you think the penalty was so severe for choosing to disobey?

4. Read Romans 16:19. What is God’s desire for us still?

5. God gave man the tools of intelligence, observation, and language. Discuss the task God gave to Adam in Genesis 2:18-20.

6. As God brought certain animals to Adam, what is soon determined? Read also Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.

7. Compare and contrast the timing and method of the creation of Adam to that of Eve. [For additional insight, see 1 Corinthians 11:8, 9, 12 and 1 Timothy 2:13.] What significance can you see to the similarities? What about the differences?

From the Hebrew: Although made in the image of God, a perfect handiwork, Adam was not complete. In fact, this is the first thing in creation that God calls “not good.” God decided that Adam needed a helper. The Hebrew word ezer means “one who assists another in reaching complete fulfillment.” It is used 19 times in the Old Testament: 4 times as equal to equal, 15 times as God to man, NEVER used as an inferior helping a superior. For example, see Isaiah 41:10 and Psalm 10:14.

8. Discuss Adam’s response to her. [Note: The Hebrew word translated “woman” (ishah) is the feminine form of ish, which is translated “man.”]

Day Two Study

9. Read Genesis 2:21-25 again. Notice the progression of “leave,” “cleave” and “unite.” Define these three words using a dictionary:

· Leave—

· Cleave—

· Unite—

10. So, what was God’s intention for Adam and Eve and their descendants? See also Malachi 2:15-16 and Jesus’ support of this in Matthew 19:4-6.

11. The first marriage was performed (“husband” and “wife” are used in Genesis 3). This was God’s institution. He invented it to be one man, one woman for life. Discuss Genesis 2:25. What does being naked without feeling any shame mean?

12. Review Genesis 1:28-31. Together, male and female, God gave them a function on earth that was equal in responsibility and accountability. What are their responsibilities?

13. So, what does God declare in verse 31 about His creation that would include “woman?”

Think About It: Could all the events recorded on the 6th day of creation really have taken place during a normal, 24-hour-type day? The Bible does not say that Adam named all the living creatures on that day, only those God brought to him from three groups—livestock (cattle), beasts, and birds. In the opinion of many researchers, the purpose of Adam’s task may have been to discover his unique aloneness. The number of animals would be determined by how long it would take Adam to fully get the point!! So, would the God who spoke everything into existence have difficulty creating the animals, creating Adam, planting a Garden, talking to Adam, bringing certain animals to Adam, waiting for Adam to name the animals and creating Eve—all in a day’s time? The answer is a definite NO!!

14. Appreciation Application:

If you are married—

· Meditate on these questions: How could you be more helpful to your husband? How could you deepen your companionship as a couple? Your romance? What can you do to better unite with your husband to become truly “one flesh” in your relationship?

· Plan to give your marriage priority this week over other relationships and activities—over children and their activities, church responsibilities, school, job, house, perfectionism, shopping, etc.

Think About It: “Marriage is the decision to identify with another person and adopt a ‘team approach to life.’ Identification is the building of a partnership. We must therefore ‘die to singleness in order to be alive to marriage.’” (Tim Stevenson, T.E.A.M. Training)

If you are single—

· In what ways can you help your male friends become the kind of man that God wants them to be?

· How can you improve your working relationship with males who are fellow servants of Christ to spread His gospel?

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

Read and think about the following quote.

“She is his (man’s) peer in capacities of intellect, moral worth and sensibilities. She can think, feel, imagine, reason; she can sell goods, plan buildings, make statues, diagnose diseases, construct philosophies or write epics. In a word, what is open to a man as a human being is open to her.” (Dr. Allen Ross, Hebrew Scholar)

We must understand who we really are as women, by God’s design, in order to have a proper view of our value as persons and our responsibility to function as God intended. God did not make either man or woman to be independent of one another nor did He make woman to be inferior to man—intellectually, emotionally, morally, or spiritually. Knowing these truths will free you to become the woman God wants you to be.

15. Spend some time thinking about your having been made a woman rather than a man. List all the benefits and blessings of womanhood. Use your creativity to praise your Creator for His marvelous design.

Deeper Discoveries:

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org. SEARCH for “human family,” “marriage,” “creation of woman” or similar phrase. Select an article to read or video to watch. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

· Do the “Creation Answers: Interpretation Practice” worksheet that follows this lesson.

Creation Answers: Interpretation Practice

“How to Interpret What You Read and Hear”

Interpretation Principles

For anything you read or hear, follow the steps below to separate the actual facts being presented from biased interpretations or assumptions being stated as fact.

1. Look for the facts. Discern facts from interpretation. Mark the facts. Then, mark the interpretations or assumptions.

2. Question the assumptions used to derive the facts and/or interpretations.

3. Consider the same facts with the assumption of Biblical history.

Example:

Original: “Chilled Crawfish” By Alexandra Witze, Dallas Morning News, 7/13/1998

Ordering crawdads on ice has a new meaning now that geologists have found the oldest fossil crawfish ever — in Antarctica. The discovery of the 280 million-year-old crustacean suggests that the climate around the South Pole was relatively balmy at the time—at least in the streams and lakes where crawdads live…

The scientists found just a fragment of the ancient crawfish in the Transantarctic Mountains in the central part of the continent. The fossil was a part of a claw that had been gnawed on by a predator, perhaps in search for a primitive etouffee. The researchers also found large burrows, dated to about 240 million years ago, that had been dug by crawfish in another part of Antarctica. The burrows indicate that crawfish had evolved their social activity much earlier than scientists had thought.

The fact that crawfish could live in the lakes of Antarctica at the time supports other evidence that Antarctica was experiencing a warming trend at the time, the scientists wrote.

Evaluated: Facts Are Marked In Bold Letters; Interpretations And Assumptions Are Italicized.

Ordering crawdads on ice has a new meaning now that geologists have found the oldest fossil crawfish ever — in Antarctica. The discovery of the 280 million-year-old crustacean suggests that the climate around the South Pole was relatively balmy at the time—at least in the streams and lakes where crawdads live…

The scientists found just a fragment of the ancient crawfish in the Transantarctic Mountains in the central part of the continent. The fossil was a part of a claw that had been gnawed on by a predator, perhaps in search for a primitive etouffee. The researchers also found large burrows, dated to about 240 million years ago, that had been dug by crawfish in another part of Antarctica. The burrows indicate that crawfish had evolved their social activity much earlier than scientists had thought.

The fact that crawfish could live in the lakes of Antarctica at the time supports other evidence that Antarctica was experiencing a warming trend at the time, the scientists wrote.

Conclusion:

What did researchers find? A portion of a claw identified to be from a crawfish in Antarctica. What are the assumptions? The age of this fossil piece, the social structure of the animals that it represents, and the presence of burrows. Structures identified as burrows may or may not be real. They could be escape attempts from creatures being buried by sediments in the Flood.

Interpretation Practice

In the articles below, mark the facts (underline, circle, colored highlighter, etc.). Then, mark the assumptions/interpretations with a different mark. Compare your evaluations with the ones given at the end.

#1 “Arctic Redwood” From GSA Today, January 2002

‘Spectacularly preserved’ Metasequoia wood has been found at the Fossil Forest site of Axel Heiberg Island (Canadian High Arctic). ‘Some of this stuff looks about like driftwood on the beach, but it’s 45 million years old,’ said one researcher. ‘These fossils are chemically preserved at a level you usually would expect to see in something that’s only 1,000 years old.’

#2 “Bees’ Nests Baffle Boffins” From Daily Telegraph (London), May 26, 1995

Ancient bees’ nests in Arizona’s Petrified Forest are baffling evolutionists. How, they ask, could the bees have survived for more than 100 million years before the evolution of the flowers they fertilize and depend on for nectar?

Paleobiologist Dr Stephen Hasiotis, from the US Geological Survey, discovered that fossilized logs in the Petrified Forest are riddled with holes which he believes are the nests of bees. The logs with the nests are dated at 220 million years old on the evolutionary time-scale, while the flowers that provide nectar for bees allegedly date from only half as long ago. Evolutionists are forced to conclude that either flowers appeared earlier, or the first bees did without flowers for a long time.

#3 “Evolution In Pollution?” From ANSTO, Www.Ansto.Gov.Au, 17 Sep 2002

Under a headline ‘Darwin’s theory holds true in Northern Territory,’ the media release from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation explained that, ‘thanks to 40 years of evolution,’ fish in Australia’s Finnis River have learned to live with copper pollution from mine wastes.

‘Each year a majority of rainbow fish were killed in the first flush of heavy metals downstream at the start of each wet season,’ said one researcher. ‘However, the few remaining fish passed their ability to survive onto their offspring.’ But the downside is that the adaptation to high levels of pollution ‘may have occurred at the expense of some other traits that are important for their survival.’

#4 “IIwis Reduce Their Bill” From Nature, Vol. 375, May 4, 1995

A Hawaiian bird is evolving a shorter bill, evolutionary researchers claim. They say that the iiwi (pronounced ee-EE-wee), a honey-eater with a long, down-curved bill, has changed its eating habits because its main food source, the lobelioid flower, has become rare.

The iiwi’s long bill is ideal for extracting nectar from the base of the deep corollas of lobelioids. But with the large-scale disappearance or extinction of several species of the flowers, the iiwi now feeds largely on the flowers of the ohia tree. Other honeyeaters that feed on ohia flowers have short bills, because these flowers lack corollas. Researchers who compared the size of living iiwis’ bills with the bills of museum specimens collected before 1902 show that the length of the iiwi’s bill has shortened 2-3 per cent. Other features have remained stable.

#5 “‘Superbug’ Did Not Evolve” From Nature, 1 August 2002, P. 469

A new strain of Staphylococcus aureus which is resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin has been found in a hospital patient in Michigan, USA. DNA sequence analysis revealed that the new strain did not ‘evolve’ resistant genes, but acquired them by gene transfer from relatively harmless gut bacteria called enterococci, carried by the same patient.

#6 “Evolutionary Back-Tracking” From Science, 10 May, 2002, Pp. 1112–1115

Fossil tracks from a sandstone quarry in Canada—made by a 30 cm (1ft)-long arthropod (a segmented animal with external skeleton, like a millipede)—have astounded experts because they are in Cambrian rock, allegedly 544 million years old. The date at which sea animals came ashore was once claimed to be the Silurian, which allegedly started 440 million years ago. Then it was the Ordovician, which started 490 million years ago, and now this evidence pushes it ‘back’ another 40 million years.

The date at which many-celled animals first arose has also been pushed back. Current theory says it was 600 million years ago. But now impressions in sandstone rocks of Western Australia that appear to be the trails of an earthworm-like creature have been ‘dated’ at over twice that age, from 1.2 to 2.0 billion years old. For evolution-believers, this leaves even less time for evolution to have supposedly wrought its work.

#7 “Living Fossil — No Evolution Of Budgies” From The Sydney Morning Herald, February 15, 1996.

The only known fossils of a budgerigar (bird) have been found in Australia by a museum scientist. They are identical to the bones of modern budgies. Three fossilized outer wing bones and a foot bone were found in the Rackham’s Roost site at Riversleigh in northwest Queensland.

Discoverer Walter Boles, from the Australian Museum in Sydney, believes the bones are about 4 million years old. He says they are ‘indistinguishable from a modern budgerigar’.

#8 “Japanese Researchers Find Dolphin With Remains Of Legs” From Fox News Television, November 5, 2006

Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of back legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land. One researcher said, “I believe the fins may be remains from the time dolphins’ ancient ancestors lived on land … this is an unprecedented discovery.”

Fossil remains show dolphins and whales were four-footed land animals about 50 million years ago and share the same common ancestor as hippos and deer. Scientists believe they later transitioned to an aquatic lifestyle and their hind limbs disappeared. “A freak mutation may have caused the ancient trait to reassert itself.”

How Well Did You Do?

Did you notice how much of each news article was based on assumptions and evolutionary theory rather than fact? These are some of the differences we saw in the articles.

#1 “Arctic Redwood” From GSA Today, January 2002

‘Spectacularly preserved’ Metasequoia wood has been found at the Fossil Forest site of Axel Heiberg Island (Canadian High Arctic). ‘Some of this stuff looks about like driftwood on the beach, but it’s 45 million years old,’ said one researcher. ‘These fossils are chemically preserved at a level you usually would expect to see in something that’s only 1,000 years old.’

Comment: The fossilized wood looks young but is given an old age because of evolutionary bias.

#2 “Bees’ Nests Baffle Boffins” From Daily Telegraph (London), May 26, 1995

Ancient bees’ nests in Arizona’s Petrified Forest are baffling evolutionists. How, they ask, could the bees have survived for more than 100 million years before the evolution of the flowers they fertilize and depend on for nectar?

Paleobiologist Dr Stephen Hasiotis, from the US Geological Survey, discovered that fossilized logs in the Petrified Forest are riddled with holes which he believes are the nests of bees. The logs with the nests are dated at 220 million years old on the evolutionary time-scale, while the flowers that provide nectar for bees allegedly date from only half as long ago. Evolutionists are forced to conclude that either flowers appeared earlier, or the first bees did without flowers for a long time.

Comment: Bees did not have to wait 100 millions years, because these vast ages are only interpretations of the evidence, not facts.

#3 “Evolution In Pollution?” From ANSTO, Www.Ansto.Gov.Au, 17 Sep 2002

Under a headline ‘Darwin’s theory holds true in Northern Territory,’ the media release from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation explained that, ‘thanks to 40 years of evolution,’ fish in Australia’s Finnis River have learned to live with copper pollution from mine wastes.

‘Each year a majority of rainbow fish were killed in the first flush of heavy metals downstream at the start of each wet season,’ said one researcher. ‘However, the few remaining fish passed their ability to survive onto their offspring.’ But the downside is that the adaptation to high levels of pollution ‘may have occurred at the expense of some other traits that are important for their survival.’

Comment: While the headline might shout that evolution is true, closer reading shows that it was not evolution but simply natural adaptation. Fish which already had the genetic makeup to survive copper pollution were present in the population, i.e. no new genes evolved. And in common with many similar examples of adaptation to some new harsh external factor, ‘at the expense of some other traits’ suggests a mutational loss of information.

#4 “IIwis Reduce Their Bill” From Nature, Vol. 375, May 4, 1995

A Hawaiian bird is evolving a shorter bill, evolutionary researchers claim. They say that the iiwi (pronounced ee-EE-wee), a honey-eater with a long, down-curved bill, has changed its eating habits because its main food source, the lobelioid flower, has become rare.

The iiwi’s long bill is ideal for extracting nectar from the base of the deep corollas of lobelioids. But with the large-scale disappearance or extinction of several species of the flowers, the iiwi now feeds largely on the flowers of the ohia tree. Other honeyeaters that feed on ohia flowers have short bills, because these flowers lack corollas. Researchers who compared the size of living iiwis’ bills with the bills of museum specimens collected before 1902 show that the length of the iiwi’s bill has shortened 2-3 per cent. Other features have remained stable.

Comment: A variation in beak size is not evidence of bird evolution. Such minor changes merely offer better survival advantage, but are no evidence that birds evolved from non-birds, as evolutionists claim.

#5 “‘Superbug’ Did Not Evolve” From Nature, 1 August, 2002, P. 469

A new strain of Staphylococcus aureus which is resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin has been found in a hospital patient in Michigan, USA. DNA sequence analysis revealed that the new strain did not ‘evolve’ resistant genes, but acquired them by gene transfer from relatively harmless gut bacteria called enterococci, carried by the same patient.

Comment: That is, the information was already present. In every case known, antibiotic resistance is never the result of new genetic information evolving into existence.

#6 “Evolutionary Back-Tracking” From Science, 10 May, 2002, Pp. 1112–1115

Fossil tracks from a sandstone quarry in Canada—made by a 30 cm (1ft)-long arthropod (a segmented animal with external skeleton, like a millipede)—have astounded experts because they are in Cambrian rock, allegedly 544 million years old. The date at which sea animals came ashore was once claimed to be the Silurian, which allegedly started 440 million years ago. Then it was the Ordovician, which started 490 million years ago, and now this evidence pushes it ‘back’ another 40 million years.

The date at which many-celled animals first arose has also been pushed back. Current theory says it was 600 million years ago. But now impressions in sandstone rocks of Western Australia that appear to be the trails of an earthworm-like creature have been ‘dated’ at over twice that age, from 1.2 to 2.0 billion years old. For evolution-believers, this leaves even less time for evolution to have supposedly wrought its work.

Comment: Evolutionary ‘dates’ are really just relative positions in the strata that were mostly laid during the global Flood. Dates getting ‘pushed back’ simply means that a fossil has been discovered at a lower level. Thus, we can expect this phenomenon to keep recurring.

#7 “Living Fossil — No Evolution Of Budgies” From The Sydney Morning Herald, February 15, 1996.

The only known fossils of a budgerigar (bird) have been found in Australia by a museum scientist. They are identical to the bones of modern budgies. Three fossilized outer wing bones and a foot bone were found in the Rackham’s Roost site at Riversleigh in northwest Queensland.

Discoverer Walter Boles, from the Australian Museum in Sydney, believes the bones are about 4 million years old. He says they are ‘indistinguishable from a modern budgerigar’.

Comment: The bones are exactly like a modern bird’s bones. Why assign them such an old age? This occurs most of the time with fossils.

#8 “Japanese Researchers Find Dolphin With Remains Of Legs” From Fox News Television, November 5, 2006

Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of back legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land. One researcher said, “I believe the fins may be remains from the time dolphins’ ancient ancestors lived on land… this is an unprecedented discovery.”

Comment: According to Dr. David Menton of Answers in Genesis, the extra fin-like structure is due to a mutation in the dolphin’s genes (similar to mutations that cause people on rare occasions to develop extra fingers). Using this to support alleged dolphin evolution shows that evolutionists are grasping at straws—or perhaps fins—in their ongoing quest for transitional forms. There are no fossil remains showing that dolphins and whales were once four-footed creatures, only through imagination.

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

7. CORRUPTION: The Problem Of Evil, Part 1 - Sin

Day One Study

Read Genesis 3:1-6.

Who Is This Serpent? The serpent, one of the subtlest of God’s creation, is recorded to have spoken to Eve. The Apostle Paul obviously accepted the historical account of the serpent—and his ability to deceive—as a real phenomenon. To the Christians in Corinth, the apostle wrote, “I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:3). In Revelation, John describes Satan when he notes, “And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world (Revelation 12:9; 20:2).”

1. In Hebrew, the word Ha-satan (literally, “the accuser”) describes Satan’s nature as an accuser, adversary and a hater. [Note: By the time of 1 Chronicles, the article was dropped and Satan had become a proper name.] What is revealed about him in the texts below?

· Job 1:7, 9; 2:2—

· Zechariah 3:1-2—

· Ephesians 6:11-12—

· 1 Peter 5:8—

2. How did Jesus describe Satan in John 8:44?

3. Deeper Discoveries: (optional): for those who like to do research: Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the prophets of God may have given us the history of Satan. Lucifer is spoken of in Isaiah 14:12-15, a passage which refers initially to the wicked “king of Babylon” but which also exposes the evil one who indwelt and energized him. Similarly Ezekiel 28:11-19 is addressed superficially to the “king of Tyre” but penetrates to the one who also possessed and empowered him. Read Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:11-19. What information is given about this created being?

4. Back to Genesis 3:1-6, how did the serpent rephrase what God said to Adam in Genesis 2:16-17? What did he (Satan) emphasize?

5. Which portion of the serpent’s statements are true and which are false?

TRUE—

FALSE—

6. Compare Eve’s response in 3:2, 3 with what God actually said and did in 2:9, 16-17. Please note that the literal translation of the Hebrew at the end of 2:17 is “dying, you will die.”

Eve’s Response—

God Actually Said and Did—

7. So, in what way did Satan lead Eve…

· To doubt God’s Word?

· To distrust God’s character?

Day Two Study

8. Eve was ensnared by allowing herself to become deeply involved in a dialogue with the seductive Deceiver. Contrast this with how Jesus responded to Satan in Matthew 4:4-10.

9. a. Why do you think Eve gave in to the Serpent?

b. And, why do you think Adam also ate the fruit?

c. At any point, could either have said, “No?”

10. What are the three main areas of temptation that still apply to us today? See 1 John 2:15-16 plus any other cross-references. [Examples: Romans 13:14; Ephesians 2:3; James 4:4.]

11. What is the difference between being tempted and the actual act of disobedience (sin)? Support your answer with scripture.

Appreciation Application:

12. The good news is that we don’t have to live in fear and defeat because of temptation and the problem of sin around us daily. As the one who remained faithful in temptation, He (Jesus) became the model for all believers when we are tempted. We have an Advocate. Read Hebrews 4:15. In times of temptation, what does the Bible say about the living presence of Jesus helping and encouraging us?

· Matthew 6:9-13—

· 1 Corinthians 10:13—

· Hebrews 2:18—

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

13. Meditate on the fact that God is good, and His Word can be trusted. Be thankful for the privilege of having God’s Word in your own spoken language. Record your thoughts in the space below.

14. In the early part of this millennium, many men lost their lives in their efforts to provide English-speaking people with Bibles in the English language. The best way to express your gratitude is by reading it. Read the Bible at least 15 minutes a day for the next month.

Deeper Discoveries:

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org. SEARCH “sin, angels, Satan” or similar phrase. Select an article to read or video to watch. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

· Go to www.bible.org. Choose any of the Bible study tools available. Research the origin of sin and Satan.

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

8. CORRUPTION: The Problem Of Evil, Part 2 - Consequences

Day One Study

Read Genesis 3:1-19.

Effect of sin on an individual—

1. Once Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked” (v. 7a, NIV). Compare this with Genesis 2:25 and what the serpent “promised” in 3:5.

2. Recall our discussion of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in a previous lesson “Humans, Home and Family, Part 2.”

· What had actually been gained?

· What had really been lost?

3. Why did they start sewing? In other words, how did they try to solve their problem of “nakedness?”

Effect of sin on our relationship with God—

4. Discuss what happens in vs. 8-11 including Adam’s and Eve’s apparent emotions.

5. Read Psalm 139 and Hebrews 4:13. Is it really possible to hide from God? Explain your answer.

Effect of sin on our relationships with others—

6. Discuss the attempts of both Adam and Eve to avoid responsibility for their individual actions (v. 12-13).

7. After the questioning, God proceeded to speak prophetic curses to all parties involved—the serpent (& Satan), the woman and the man. Discuss what God said to each one and what it means. Look for evidences of God’s grace to each as well.

· The SERPENT v. 14 [Note: we will study v. 15 in more detail next week.] —

· The WOMAN—

· The MAN—

Day Two Study

Adam and Eve began to die physically on that very day, just as God promised. Remember the literal translation of the Hebrew at the end of Genesis 2:17 is “dying, you shall die.” As we will soon see, their source of perpetual life was removed from their reach. But, physical death was not the only aspect of life involved. We will study spiritual consequences more fully next week.

8. Eve rightly recognized that she had been deceived (v. 10). Consult a dictionary for the definition of “deceive.”

9. How does Satan, the serpent, still deceive today? Read Colossians 2:8; 1 Peter 5:8 as well as any other scriptures you may want to share.

10. What can and should you do to root out deception and prevent it from happening to you?

· Psalm 119:97-105—

· 1 Peter 5:6-10—

· Ephesians 6:10-13—

Appreciation Application:

11. Though Adam and Eve were hiding, God sought them.

· Meditate on Luke 15:4-7 and Luke 19:10. What does knowing this truth mean to you personally?

· Do you have trouble accepting responsibility for your own actions? Who or what do you usually blame?

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

12. Read Psalm 139:23-24 and Psalm 51:10. Memorize them and pray them often this week. Be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit reveals to you about your own heart. Remember how much God loves you. Take time to read Romans 8:26-39. Can anything be better than this?!!!

Deeper Discoveries:

· Read “Creation Answers: Cursed Creation” following this lesson.

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org. SEARCH a word or phrase from today’s passage such as Curse, Death, Suffering, etc. Select an article to read. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

· Discuss the effects of the curse upon mankind, the earth and all of creation itself. See Romans 8:18-22 plus other passages that discuss the consequences of sin.

· So, why do we wear clothes?

Creation Answers: Cursed Creation

“Paradise Lost”

The information below is adapted from articles found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org plus others sourced at the end.

John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, the second longest poem in English literature begins with these words:

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

Brought death into the World, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

Genesis 2-5 contains the account of “Paradise Lost” for us.

Genesis 2 — The Perfect World

Genesis 2 is supplemental, not contradictory to what we read in chapter 1. Jesus quoted from both chapters together at once in Mark 10:6 showing that He considered it to be a unit. Genesis 2 reveals important details about God’s highest creation—man, the one creature intended to have a spiritual relationship with God.

It is probable that when Moses wrote the book of Genesis, he used ancient records that had been handed down through the generations, each record associated with the man who wrote it. Genesis 2:4a says, “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.” There are 9 more of these lines scattered throughout Genesis seemingly at the end of a section, like a signature at the end of a letter. The first one is God’s, obviously given by direct revelation. The second one is Adam’s in Genesis 5:1 and is called a book or written account. In fact the word “generations” (Hebrew tholedoth) was translated into English as “Genesis.” It also appears in Matthew 1:1 “This is the record of the genealogy (genesis or genealogical history) of Jesus Christ.”

It’s now known that writing was common before Abraham so it’s reasonable to think these early records were also written. By the way, the many intimate details and descriptions throughout Genesis indicate that these were eyewitness accounts. Probably written on stone or clay tables. Moses, guided by the Holy Spirit, then compiled and organized them into a continuous narrative. God used the same method in inspiring the other historical books of the Bible that were either written by eyewitnesses or from the direct verbal or written testimonies of eyewitnesses. All of this is not proven but quite probable.

From Genesis 1 and 2, we glean some specific details.

Animals And Humans Were Vegetarian So There Was Harmony In Nature.

“Then God said, ‘I now give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the animals of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to all the creatures that move on the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.’ It was so.” (Gen. 1:29-30)

God Specially Designed Both The Man And The Woman With Purpose.

They were designed for work and for fellowship. (Genesis 2:15, 18) He put them together in marriage relationship with each other, thus defining marriage as one man/one woman for life. He gave man work to do to tend and guard the garden. God gave both of them work to do in reproducing themselves to fill the earth and in ruling the other creatures. That meant they had to study the earth and its systems and living occupants to properly manage them all.

Where was the Garden of Eden located? We don’t know. The Flood would have totally restructured the surface of the Earth, wiping away all traces of the garden except what may be found as fossils. God placed an angel at the entrance to the Garden to keep pre-Flood men from returning. That was no longer necessary after the Flood obliterated it. After the Flood, Noah and his descendants gave familiar names to the new rivers and places they encountered as they migrated, just as American settlers have done for 300 years.

God Made Man And Woman (Not The Animals) In His Image.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.’ God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1:26-27)

God established a relationship with them. He made gracious provision for them with only one restriction—that one tree! It was a test of their love for Him because true love requires a choice.

Mankind And Most Of The Animal World Would Have Continual Life.

Death was not in the “genes” at the time. However, it was stated as the consequence of disobedience right up front. The phrase in Genesis 2:17 is literally, “dying, you shall die.” In the very day of disobedience, man would enter into a state of “dying” which would lead ultimately to death. We don’t know the role of the Tree of Life in the garden. Because God barred their access to it after the Curse, it may have also perpetuated life. We simply do not know.

God Pronounced His Creation “Very Good” At The End Of The 6th Day And Rested From Creating.

Since then, He has been sustaining His creation (Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:17). Later, we’ll talk more about this.

Conclusion: any evidence of disorder, suffering, decay, and death which we now see in the present world or in the records of the past cannot possibly be attributed to anything occurring during the six days of Creation. Something obviously corrupted this “very good” perfect world, turning it into the world we see today. The answer is found in 1 Corinthians 15:21 which says, “…death came through a man.”

Genesis 3 — Man’s Sin And “Paradise Lost”

Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s one command. They sinned. Then, they hid from God. God came looking for them, asking questions about their behavior. Adam blames Eve. Eve blames the serpent. God as judge holds each party responsible then delivers His verdict—the promised consequences to sin but more far-reaching than either Adam or Eve could possibly imagine. (Genesis 3:14-19) Corruption aptly describes what happens to God’s perfect world. Corruption affected all of life.

Do you know that many cultures have in their traditional histories (before ever having contact with a Jew or Christian) an account of a perfect world that was marred by disobedience? A “paradise lost”. Some even involve a tree.

Death Enters The World—Spiritual Death For Man, Physical Death For Man And Living Creatures

Instantly Adam and Eve died spiritually (separated relationship from God), and they began to die physically until they actually physically returned to dust. Since Adam was appointed to exercise dominion over the earth, his dominion also would begin to “die.”

Paul describes this in Romans, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.” (Romans 5:12) “World” is the Greek word kosmos which is used to refer to the universe and the entire earth. Death did not enter only the experience of humanity, but the universe which would include the animal kingdom—the other living creatures besides man.

We need to define who the living creatures were. Life according to the Bible resides in the “soul,” the Hebrew word nephesh. This might be equated roughly with the concept of consciousness and is also associated with the “breath of life” or “blood” (Lev. 17:11). This quality is associated only with man and most animals, but never plants. The Bible says plants grow, flourish, wither, and fade but they do not “live” or “die.” They are biologically alive but not Biblically “living.” Not everything we classify as part of the animal kingdom would be biblically “alive” according to God’s definition. A similar argument can be made for some of the “lower” animals (perhaps clams and crawfish) and certainly for bacteria and viruses. Their “death” would not constitute death of truly living organisms.

Physical death of living creatures, including man, began with God’s judgment on man’s sin. If you think about it, adding millions of years of animal death before the creation and Fall of man contradicts and destroys the Bible’s teaching on death and the full redemptive work of Christ. It also makes God into a bumbling, cruel creator who uses (or can’t prevent) disease, natural disasters and extinctions to mar His creative work, without any moral cause, but calls it all “very good.”

If God originally intended death to be an integral part of His creation, then God should allow death to continue into eternity. But, He doesn’t. All the prophecies of the future talk about a restoration to harmony in nature, animals eating only plants, and man living long on earth. Paul calls death the last enemy. Rev. 22:3 says the curse will be removed in the new Earth. Death will be vanquished for good.

A Cursed Creation Affected Everything!

· The ground/dirt became reluctant to yield its food. Instead it required man’s toil, sweat and tears before he could eat.

· Some creatures and plants were changed — the serpent was altered physically. Women would experience pain and sorrow in childbearing. Some plants would now produce thorns and thistles rather than just useful fruit and vegetables. Relationships were affected.

· Pain, decay, suffering and aging would become part of the daily experience. As would animals eating one another, although man isn’t told to eat meat until after the Flood.

“For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God who subjected it – in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now.” (Romans 8:20-22)

Did The 2nd Law Of Thermodynamics Begin At The Fall?

Everything is running down because of sin. This is a scientific principle or law called the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. This law says that the entropy (disorder) of the Universe increases over time, and some have thought that this was the result of the Curse.

Disorder isn’t always harmful. Digestion breaks down large complex food molecules into their simple building blocks. Friction turns ordered mechanical energy into disordered heat allowing Adam and Eve to walk with God in Eden rather than slipping through the tulips. The sun heating the earth is heat transfer from a hot object to a cold one—a classic case of the Second Law in action. Breathing is based on air moving from a high pressure to low pressure. Finally, all beneficial processes in the world, including the development from embryo to adult, increase the overall disorder of the universe, showing that the Second Law is not inherently a curse.

The more likely answer is that when God judged sin with death, He withdrew some of His sustaining power so that the decay effect of the Second Law was no longer countered.

Did God Change Creatures So They Would Become Fierce, Eat Meat, And Die? Or, Did God Create Them With Those Capabilities In The First Place And Just “Turned It On” After The Curse?

There’s argument for both ideas. Here’s a brief synopsis of the two theories regarding these defense/attack structures (DAS):

1. The Defense/Attack Structures Were Already Present And Used For Different Purposes Before The Curse.

· Sharp teeth—even today, creatures with sharp teeth do not always use them to rip other animals apart—for example, bears, bats, and monkeys. The giant panda’s sharp teeth are used for bamboo munching; the fruit bat eats fruit with its fangs. Some originally vegetarian animals become accustomed to eating meat when they are exposed to it. So, it’s not unlikely to think that they could have all been vegetarians to begin with, but God allowed them to “branch out.”

· Disease-causing organisms—While some organisms cause disease in one type of creature, those same organisms are beneficial to other creatures. Many E. coli bacteria are very helpful to the human body, especially aiding digestion.

· Thorns—thorns have no apparent purpose for plants other than defense. Which leads to the second theory:

2. Design Alterations Were Made After The Curse To Allow Such Defense / Attack Structures.

Physical changes were made to plants producing thorns and the serpent losing its legs. These changes were passed along to offspring. Man (and animals) would no longer live perpetually but age and die.

Conclusion: Both of these ideas may be true. We just don’t know how God did it. But, He did something that permanently affected the perfect “very good” world. Through it, God is allowing mankind to experience what it wants—life without God.

Genesis 4 & 5—Though No Longer Perfect, Life Moves On

Children are born, grow up, marry, build settlements, fight and kill one another. In Genesis 4, Cain murders his brother Abel then runs away to a land called “Nod.” There, he and his wife have kids. Where did Cain get his wife? This question has been the food of scoffers for years. The scripture does not say he found a wife in Nod nor does it prevent him from having already been married before he murdered Abel. Since Adam and Eve had sons and daughters, and since God did not prohibit marriage between close family members until the time of Moses, (at least 2500 years later), it is reasonable to conclude that Cain married a sister or a niece. According to the historian Josephus, Jewish tradition held that Adam and Eve had 56 sons and daughters. Considering their lifespan of >900 years and their pristine physical condition (no mutations yet), it is not impossible to believe.

The remaining portion of Genesis 4 gives a most intriguing, even tantalizing, picture of life in the antediluvian (pre-Flood) world. This is almost the only information we have about that first human civilization, which was later so completely destroyed by the great Flood. Archeological excavations deal almost entirely with post-Flood deposits. Other than semi-legendary recollections of the world’s first “golden age,” the brief Biblical record is still the only fully reliable account we have of that first age. (Dr. Henry Morris, The Genesis Record, page 142)

While in Nod, Cain built a walled encampment, raised his family, and spread his particular brand of wickedness to his descendants and their friends. Population on the earth increased and so did technology and culture. The record of Cain’s descendants reveal that metal tools of all kinds were available to use, and musical instruments stimulated the emotional and aesthetic senses for them as it does for us. Some created poetry. Some lived as nomads, engaging in the domestication and herding of livestock. And, there was writing as we have already discussed. Lamech’s two wives were noted for their fashion sense: Ada means “gorgeously adorned” and Zillah means “one whose presence is announced by the tinkling of her jewelry.” Although subject to death, men used intelligence God gave them. These are not the works of primitive, uncivilized, slow-witted “cave-men” humans. By the way, Job who lived shortly after the Flood also knew about metalworking. Much of archeology is based on the concept of evolution.

Meanwhile, Eve has another boy named Seth whose line is traced in chapter 5 without reference to what they built or accomplished other than their relationship to God. So, some look at Genesis 4 and say that such evidences of culture and civilization must be the by-products of a godless people since the activities are described in Cain’s lineage rather than in Seth’s. On the other hand, God has gifted man with the abilities needed to do all of these things and even given directions to godly men in scripture to perform similar works of “civilized” behavior. Some examples are Exodus 25; 1 Kings 5-8; Deuteronomy 3:6-25; and Matthew 25:14-28.

Though not perfect, life moves on. And, God is in it.

Sources For Further Study

1. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Jonathan Sarfati, www.answersingenesis.org/Docs/370.asp#fall

2. Arguments We Think Creationists Should NOT Use, www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp.

3. Do the Genesis Genealogies Contain Gaps?, Dr. Rick Freeman, June 20, 2007 at www.answersingenesis.org/articles/web/level/semi-technical.

4. Death Before Sin?, James s. Stambaugh, ICR Impact article No. 191, May 1989.

5. Creation’s Original Diet and the Changes at the Fall, James Stambaugh, www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v5/i2/diet.asp.

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_08.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

/assets/pdf/Newton_7Cs_08notes.pdf

9. CORRUPTION: The Problem Of Evil, Part 3 - The Promised Redeemer

Day One Study

Read Genesis 3:14-24.

1. Naively gloating over his victory in the garden, Satan most likely assumed that the allegiance of Adam and Eve and all their descendants was automatic. What counterattack did God use in Gen. 3:15 to thwart Satan’s strike in the garden?

2. The term seed has a biological connotation, of course, and usually refers to man’s part in conception. One could be a physical seed of woman, “her seed,” only if there was no male seed involved in conception. This necessitates a virgin birth. The reference to the seed (singular) of the woman (not the man as ordinarily would be the case) is then to whom? Read the following verses:

· Isaiah 7:14—

· Luke 1:31-35—

· Galatians 4:4—

3. Who or what is meant by “the seed of the serpent?”

· John 8:44—

· Acts 13:10—

· I John 3:8—

4. God made His first Messianic promise in Genesis 3:15. He proclaimed essentially the first Gospel to Adam and Eve, promising victory over Satan and victory over his power against them. Discuss the meaning of Eve’s name in Genesis 3:20.

Day Two Study

5. Compare Genesis 3:21 with Genesis 3:7. Why weren’t the clothes Adam and Eve made good enough? Or, conversely, what was better about God’s provision of clothing?

6. From Genesis 2:9 and16, we learn that Adam and Eve were to eat from the Tree of Life. We can assume they did. From our study of this tree in Revelation 22:1-3, we learn that it bears fruit every month, perhaps to replace what is being eaten. God decided in Genesis 3:22 to withdraw the privilege of eating from this tree. So, the conclusion can be drawn that life was planned to be perpetuated for man and woman as they ate of the Tree of Life consistently. What would be the result if Adam and Eve continued to eat of the Tree of Life after they had sinned?

7. How did God prevent Adam and Eve from eating of the Tree of Life?

8. Discuss God’s driving out Adam and Eve from the garden as both a punishment and an act of mercy.

Scriptural Insight: The fig leaves of Adam and Eve’s own invention were insufficient, for what was actually involved here was the need for spiritual covering, something which would be accomplished only by faith in shed blood (Hebrews 9:22). God graciously provided for their nakedness with “coats of skin.” “Perhaps they silently and sorrowfully waited as God selected two of their animal friends, probably two sheep, and slew them there shedding the innocent blood before their eyes. They learned, in type, that an atonement (or covering) could only be provided by the shedding of blood upon the altar.” (Dr. Henry Morris, The Beginning of the World, p. 77)

9. Deeper Discoveries (optional): What other information is given in scripture about the cherubim and the sword? See Ezekiel 1:4-8; 10:1-22; 28:14; Revelation 4:6-8 plus any others you find.

10. What remained the same and what was different regarding Adam’s job description before the Curse as opposed to afterward? Compare Genesis 1:28; 2:15; 3:17-19, 23.

· BEFORE—

· AFTER—

Appreciation Application:

11. Sin has consequences. But, as the hymn goes,

“Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt.

Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured, there where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.

Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace will pardon and cleanse within.

Grace, grace God’s grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin.”

Read and comment on Romans 5:12-21. How has God’s plan benefited you?

Think About It: If you accept millions of years, you are accepting death before Adam which nullifies the work of Christ on the cross.

Day Three

Appreciation Assignment:

12. Almighty God loves man and woman—stubborn, disobedient, selfish, and frail—so much that He provided suitable clothes for them. Covering that provided protection and warmth. And, He planned to redeem them, us, making us perfect again so we can once again have perfect fellowship with Him. Read John 1:29 and John 3:16 and meditate on the meaning.

Deeper Discoveries:

Go to www.answersingenesis.org. SEARCH a word or phrase from today’s passage such as Cherubim, Garden of Eden, etc. Select an article to read or video to watch. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

10. CORRUPTION: The Conflict Of The Ages

Day One Study

Read Genesis 4:1-16

1. Review: What was the first sacrifice? Who offered it and why?

From the Hebrew: In this story we find Cain and Abel providing an offering to God. The word used for offering in this context is minchah, which means “meal (cereal) offering; offering; tribute; gift; sacrifice.” Minchah is often used to refer to ANY “offering” or “gift” made to God, whether it was a “vegetable offering” or a “blood sacrifice.” In later Old Testament texts, minchah is commonly used to designate grain or cereal offerings, usually mixed with oil, to be offered alone or with a burnt animal sacrifice. The Hebrew word olah means a burnt animal sacrifice and first occurs in Genesis 8:20, when Noah built the altar to the Lord and sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The same Hebrew word for offering, minchah, was used for the offerings of BOTH Cain and Abel. Scripture does say that Abel brought “fat portions of some of the firstborn of his flock” which means he brought the “choicest parts.” (Vines Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words)

2. What insight do the following verses give about the Lord’s acceptance of Abel’s offering but not Cain’s?

· Hebrews 11:4—

· 1 John 3:10-15—

3. In the following references, why was the offering unacceptable?

· 1 Samuel 15:3, 21-23—

· Malachi 1:6-10—

4. In the following references, what is considered a pleasing sacrifice or better than a sacrifice?

· 1 Samuel 15:22—

· Psalm 51:16-17—

· Proverbs 15:8—

5. So, after answering the previous two questions, what does God really want?

6. Describe the similarities and differences in sin offerings and the blood of Christ from the following verses: Hebrews 9:6-7; 9:11-14; 10:1-4, 14.

· SIN OFFERING—

· JESUS’ BLOOD—

7. In response to the Lord looking with favor on Abel’s offering but not his own, Cain was very angry. The Hebrew word means “to blaze up, of anger, zeal, jealousy.” Cain responded with jealous anger. What does God teach us about harboring anger? Dealing with anger?

· Proverbs 14:17—

· Ephesians 4:25-27—

· Ephesians 4:31—

· James 1:19-20—

8. God personally communicates with Cain asking him why he is angry and explaining that he should take responsibility by doing what is right in order to be accepted. God also points out that if “you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” Explain what you think God means by this.

9. How do we master the temptation to sin? Use the following references.

· Romans 12:1-2—

· James 4:7-10—

· 1 Peter 1:13-16—

Day Two Study

Read Genesis 4:1-16.

10. Cain did not master sin. What were the consequences—for himself, his brother, his family, and his descendants?

11. Throughout this whole passage, on whom or on what is Cain’s focus?

12. What attitudes does he demonstrate in his reaction to God’s confrontation and to his punishment?

13. What are some of the fruits of being self-centered instead of God-centered? See James 4:1-6.

Appreciation Application:

14. Read Matthew 13:37-39 then refer back to Genesis 3:15.

· Who are the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent in the account of Cain and Abel?

· In what ways is this same conflict being manifested in our world today? See also Matthew 13:37-39.

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

15. What is your heart attitude today? Who or what is at the center of your focus? Read Philippians 2:1-11 and 3:4-11. Meditate on the example of Christ and Paul. Think about what areas of your life need to be yielded to the Holy Spirit so that you will do what is right and have mastery over sin.

Deeper Discoveries:

Go to www.answersingenesis.org. SEARCH a word or phrase from today’s passage such as Cain and Abel, etc. Select an article to read. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_10.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

/assets/pdf/Newton_7Cs_10notes.pdf

11. CORRUPTION: The Lost World, Part 1

Day One Study

Read Genesis 4:10-17.

1. Reread verses 11-15. Discuss the following:

· God’s judgment upon Cain—

· God’s mercy to Cain—

2. Read verses 16-17 again. Discuss the changes that then took place in Cain’s life as a result of God’s judgment upon him. [Note: Just as the location of Eden before the Flood is unknown, the location of Nod is also unknown. The name Nod just means “wandering, exile.”]

3. The Hebrew word translated “city” in verse 17 refers to any permanent settlement. [Note: It is logical to conclude that Adam and his clan were already building a permanent settlement in their homeland by this time.] How might this activity have been Cain’s attempt to circumvent God’s judgment upon him (see Genesis 4:11-12)?

4. What else could he (Cain) have done?

Historical Insight: Where Did Cain Get His Wife? This is a question that has plagued scoffers for years. The scripture does not say he found a wife in Nod nor does it prevent him from having already been married before he murdered Abel. Since Adam and Eve had sons and daughters (Genesis 5:4), and since God had not prohibited marriage between close family members (not until the time of Moses), it is reasonable to conclude that Cain married a sister or a niece. According to the historian Josephus, Jewish tradition held that Adam and Eve had 56 sons and daughters. Considering their lifespan of >900 years and their perfect physical condition, it is not impossible to believe.

Read Genesis 4:18-24.

5. Notice the type of heritage that Cain passed down to his descendants, particularly Lamech who is in the seventh generation from Cain. Comment on Lamech’s activities and attitudes towards others, himself and God. [Note: the word translated “killed” in verse 23 means “to slay, slaughter” and is the same word used of Cain’s murder of Abel.]

6. What aspects of civilization, culture and intellectual achievement BEFORE THE FLOOD are found in the following verses? Comment about ALL the skills involved in each. Be specific!!

· 4:17—

· 4:20 [Livestock possibly included horses, donkeys, camels, sheep, goats.]—

· 4:21—

· 4:22 [Think through the phrase “all kinds of tools.”]—

· 5:1 [Note: The word translated “book” means “written account.”]—

7. Are these the works of primitive, uncivilized, slow-witted “cave-men” humans?

Day Two Study

Read Genesis 4:25-26; 5:1-5.

8. After the murder of Abel, God provided another son for Adam and Eve, and another line of descendants began. Compare 5:1 with 5:3. What could be the meaning of Adam’s statement about having a son in his likeness?

Focus on the Meaning: “At that time men began to call on the name of the Lord.” (Genesis 4:26) To “call” on God’s name is to summon His aid. “Calling” in this sense constitutes a prayer prompted by recognized need and directed to One who is ABLE and WILLING to respond. Often this Hebrew verb represents sustained communication as when God called to Adam in Genesis 3:9. It may also mean “to proclaim” or “to announce.” This is not the beginning of prayer, since communication between God and man existed since the Garden of Eden; nor is it an indication of the beginning of formal worship, since formal worship began at least as early as the offerings of Cain and Abel. (Vines Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words)

9. To help us understand the possible meaning of this phrase, refer to some or all of the following scriptures where calling upon the name of the Lord is mentioned:

· Genesis 12:8—

· I Kings 18:24—

· Joel 2:32 (quoted in Acts 2:21)—

· I Corinthians 1:2—

10. God’s name represents His character, His attributes, and His nature. “Calling” on Him to summon His aid involves recognition of who God is. Review Genesis chapters 1-4. What has God revealed about Himself to Adam, Eve and their descendants thus far?

Read Genesis 5:6-32.

11. What is known about Seth’s descendant Enoch? Read Genesis 5:18-23; Hebrews 11:5-6, and Jude 14-15 (a sample of Enoch’s preaching) to derive your answer.

Historical Insight: Assuming there are no “gaps” in these chronological genealogies (a possibility which cannot be ruled out completely, but one for which there is no internal evidence), and that the years are not anything other than normal years (the Jewish year was 360 days), there seems to have been 1656 years from the creation of Adam to the Flood. The record is perfectly natural and straightforward and is obviously intended to give both the necessary genealogical data to denote the promised lineage and also the only reliable chronological framework we have for the antediluvian (pre-Flood) period of history. Taking the recorded ages at face value, it is interesting to note that Adam lived until Lamech, the father of Noah was fifty-six years old. Most likely the oldest of the living patriarchs maintained the primary responsibility for preserving and promulgating God’s Word to his contemporaries.

The scriptures indicate that the antediluvians (those who lived before the Flood) lived to very great ages (averaging 912 years!) and that most families were quite large. The antediluvian world was substantially different from our own. Perhaps a vapor canopy did exist, filtering out harmful forms of radiation from outer space which are a chief cause of genetic mutations and other deteriorative activity in living flesh. Also, not much time had passed since the perfectly created human body began to be plagued by such mutations that became hereditary. As we study Genesis further, it will be noticed that life spans begin a slow and steady decline after the Flood, showing evidently that they were connected with the pre-Flood atmosphere and environment. All in all, there is no reason whatever not to take this list in Genesis 5 as sober history in every way. The names are repeated as well in I Chronicles 1:1-4 and Luke 3:36-38. This confirms that they were accepted as historical by the later Biblical writers, of both Old and New Testaments. (Adapted from The Genesis Record, Dr. Henry Morris, pp. 153-155)

So, what is the point of including the selective genealogies in Genesis? Perhaps to show the contrast in heritage between men who focus on pleasing themselves AS OPPOSED TO men who focus on pleasing God. [For information about the long life spans of Genesis 5, see “Creation Answers: The Lost World” after the next lesson.]

Appreciation Application:

12. In Biblical times a name usually represented a person’s character. God’s name represents His character, His attributes, and His nature. The issue for us is one of TRUST. Our heavenly Father longs for us to know more of who He is, that we might more fully TRUST in His name and call upon Him. Discuss the following verses, applying them to you personally.

· Psalm 145:18—

· Proverbs 3:5-6—

· Isaiah 50:10—

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

13.If you were fortunate enough to have a relative who prayed or is praying for you and shared the gospel with you, spend some time thanking God for that person.

14.Do you realize the value in praying for your husband and children? Spend time praying for them each day this week.

Deeper Discoveries:

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org. SEARCH a word or phrase from today’s passage such as pre-Flood civilization, Nod etc. Select an article to read. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

· Some interpreters of this passage may conclude that the above evidences of culture and civilization are the by-products of a godless people, such as Cain’s descendants, since the activities are described in Cain’s lineage rather than in Seth’s. On the other hand, God has gifted mankind with the abilities needed to do these things and even given directions to godly men in scripture to perform similar works of “civilized” behavior. Use cross-references, a concordance, etc. to research this topic. Examples are Exodus 25; 1 Kings 5-8; Deuteronomy 3:6-25; Matthew 25:14-28.

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

12. CATASTROPHE: The Lost World, Part 2

Day One Study

Read Genesis 6:1-13.

It is speculated that by this time (~ 1656 years after Creation), the population of the earth would have been in the millions. Longevity of life (average lifespan of 912 years) and large families would have contributed to a large population. In fact, just allowing 18 children per family and including only those generations listed in Genesis 5, there would have been ~775 million still living by the time of Noah. Genesis 6:1 bears witness to the fact that mankind had indeed multiplied.

Who Were Those Sons Of God?

The phrase “sons of God” has caused interpreters quite a bit of difficulty for the last two millennia! You will likely find several interpretations mentioned in your commentaries/study Bibles. Here are the most prevalent views:

A. They were angels, either angels who joined Satan in his rebellion against God previously (demons) or angels that rebelled at this time.

· Support for this view: the technical phrase “sons of God” is used elsewhere of angels in the Old Testament (Job 1:6; 2:1; Job 38:7; Psalm 29:1; Daniel 3:25) and in Jewish literature, generally referring to those who were created by God not born (like humans). Also, the progeny of these seem to be excessively wicked as would be expected of demonic origin. The references to spirits now in prison (1 Peter 3:19-20; I1 Peter 2:4) and Jesus’ encounter with demons who didn’t want to be locked up (Luke 8:31) may be referring to God’s judgment upon those wicked angels of Genesis 6.

· Objections to this interpretation:

1) How could demons be referred to as “sons of God,” a phrase usually associated with those who revere and honor Him?

2) Angels do not marry (Mark 12:25) or procreate after their kind. However, we do know that men of Jesus’ day were indwelt by demons and participated in the daily activities of life while being “demonized,” even exhibiting superhuman strength. If these (Gen. 6) were angels, they did on this unique occasion cohabit with human women to produce human offspring.

B. The “sons of God” were godly men, believers, such as are represented in the line of Seth; the “daughters of men” represented the unbelievers, such as are described in the line of Cain. So, the wickedness developed as a result of breaking down the wall of separation between believers and unbelievers, the godly and the ungodly.

· Support for this view: Expressions equivalent to “sons of God” often refer to human beings, though not in similar contexts (Deut. 14:1; 32:5; Psalm 73:15; Luke 3:38). We also know that the families of the Sethites were involved in the wickedness of the time as well as those of Cain because both were destroyed in the Flood (except for Noah and family). And, Adam and Eve had several sons and daughters besides Cain and Seth so all of their descendants were involved in the wickedness. Also, God’s judgment upon the earth was directed at humans. There is no mention of blame upon any angels who may have caused the problem.

· Objections to this interpretation: It is not very well supported by the terminology used or the context of the passage. Why would such believer/nonbeliever unions lead to universal corruption and violence?

C. These were powerful rulers who may or may not have been controlled (indwelt) by fallen angels. It may be that fallen angels left their habitation and inhabited bodies of human despots and warriors, the mighty ones of the earth, who then married commoners.

· Support for this view: It is believed from Ezekiel 28 and Daniel 10 that great kings of the earth have “princes” ruling behind them—demonic power. In ancient literature, kings are described as divine, half-divine or demi-gods. Many mythological traditions describe them as being the offspring of the gods themselves such as in the Sumerian traditions.

· Objections to this interpretation: it does not fit the context of the passage. How could this lead to universal violence and corruption?

Conclusion:

Have we confused you enough? The point is that NO ONE REALLY KNOWS who those “sons of God” were. Therefore, we are giving you several possible interpretations but will concentrate on the rest of this passage in the questions rather than discussing this topic.

1. Regardless of interpretation, Genesis 6 describes how corrupt the world had become as a result of sin in less than 1700 years. Describe the moral characteristics of the people of Noah’s day as God described them.

Scriptural Insight: Nephilim? Men of Renown? Mighty Men? Giants? Genesis 6:4 also generates lots of discussion and interpretation. Who or what could have been the Nephilim? (KJV uses “giants of the earth”.) Nephilim comes from a Hebrew word meaning “to fall” so the word can be translated “fallen ones.” However, it can also refer to those who fall upon others such as attackers/bullies. The term came to be used after the Flood of men who were excessively tall (giants) and/or fierce, behaving as bullies. Read Numbers 13:31-33. The Greeks translated the word Hebrew word nephilim into gigantes (giants). So this term may be referring to the physical characteristics of pre-Flood humans.

Interestingly enough, nearly all modern animals and plants were once represented by larger fossil ancestors. Giant cockroaches; armadillos 6 feet tall; birds with wing spans of 52 feet; and, of course, dinosaurs—20 feet tall, 50 feet long and weighing 7 tons!! Detailed analysis of the few pre-Flood human bones and footprints studied suggest the men and women who made them were at least 6’8” to 7’5” tall. So, it would not be unreasonable to conclude there were indeed “giants” in those days. [For information as to the possible reasons why, see “Creation Answers: The Flood Begins.”]

Who were the mighty men, “the men of renown”? The Hebrew term translated “mighty” refers to power and strength and is often used of warriors. “Men of renown” refers to men of reputation. So, this phrase may refer to men whose exploits of strength and violence had made them famous in song and fable in all nations in the ages following the Flood. Perhaps these were the source of the heroes of Greek, Roman, and Sumerian mythology. To men of later times, especially rebellious men, they were revered as great heroes. But in God’s sight, they were as described in your answer to the previous question.

2. Discuss God’s evaluation of the social climate on earth and what He plans to do about it. Notice the timetable he has set. Include both His plans for judgment and for mercy.

Day Two Study

Read Genesis 6:8-13.

Genesis 6:8 is the first reference to grace in the Bible. The Hebrew word translated “favor/grace” (chen) is from a root word meaning “to bend or stoop,” and thus came to mean condescending or unmerited favor of a superior person to an inferior one.

3. From Genesis 6:8-13, describe Noah’s character.

4. From the following verses, what quality of Noah caused him to find favor with God?

· Genesis 6:22; 7:5—

· Hebrews 11:1-7—

5. What could “he walked with God” (Genesis 6:9) mean? Read also Deuteronomy 13:4. For additional understanding, see II Kings 23:3; Isaiah 66:2; Micah 6:8; and Malachi 2:6.

Appreciation Application:

6. Noah was the only one in his generation who was found righteous. Isn’t it wonderful to know that because of Christ and His Church, a Christian is surrounded by brothers and sisters who are like-minded, also found righteous because of what Christ has done for them? Yet, like Noah…Think of a time when you may have felt like you were the only one who was trying to be righteous and walk with God in your family, job environment, neighborhood. How do you deal/did you deal with such isolation? Share scriptures that have given you direction and comfort for such times. Feel free to use creative means (poem, song, drawing) to describe your experience.

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

When all around us is total depravity, we individually have the choice of God’s ways or the world’s. Isn’t it neat to know that God notices even just one person, such as He did Noah? Such as He does you?

7. Read Ephesians 4:1-3; Colossians 1:9-12; 3:12-17. Thank Him that we can individually “walk with Him” through Jesus.

8. Read I Corinthians 1:4-8 and Ephesians 1:4 and thank God that Jesus Christ will “strengthen you to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Deeper Discoveries:

· Read “Creation Answers: The Lost World” following this lesson.

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org. SEARCH a word or phrase from today’s passage such as “Nephilim, Noah, pre-Flood, giants.” Select an article to read or watch a video. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

Creation Answers: The Lost World

The information below is adapted from articles found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org plus others sourced at the end.

The Lost World And Its People

It is speculated that by this time (~ 1600 years after Creation), the population of the earth would have been in the millions. Take the average lifespan of 912 years plus 9 children per family. Just including only those families listed in Genesis 5 and taking into consideration the violence prevalent on the earth, there may have been ~200 million people alive at the time of Noah.

What Would You Expect To Find? What Do You Find?

If there were that many humans alive, we might expect to find lots of human fossils, right? Yet, most human fossils are found in what is classified as post-Flood sediments or in caves not in Flood deposits. Why is that? Good question. Here are some possible reasons (from Chapter 13 of The New Answers Book):

· 200 million people spread out over the surface of the earth would average only one human fossil for every cubic mile of sediment of land surface. Pockets of humans living in settlements may have not been found—yet.

· We can’t say that God’s wiping mankind from the earth means that no evidence of their past existence remains. The same Hebrew word is used to refer to God wiping away our sin. Evidence still remains in the consequences and scars of sin in our lives.

· Since the waters of the Flood took weeks to cover the earth completely, humans could have climbed to higher ground, grabbed onto floating debris, then died and decomposed rather than being buried. The speed at which water and other forces eliminated all traces of bodies in the 2004 Asian tsunami absolutely shocked scientists. 43,000 victims were never found. Dead humans bloat and float rather than sink.

The Big Three

What was that “Lost World” like? Three particular evidences scream out about this lost world. I call them the Big Three.

1) Long Life Spans For Humans.

According to the Bible, humans lived for more than 900 years (at least Seth’s line did from those genealogies in Genesis 5). Then, after the Flood, lifespans dropped significantly.

2) Appearance Of A Worldwide Tropical “Greenhouse” Climate

Geologists admit there’s evidence of a worldwide tropical climate throughout the fossil record. These are statements from geology books about the past geological time periods.

· Description Of the Cambrian: “climatic conditions were much more uniform over the earth than now.”

· Of the Pennsylvanian and Mississippian: “a moist, warm climate throughout the year provided luxuriant, unceasing vegetative growth.”

· Of the Jurassic: “The earth had a tropical or sub-tropical climate over much of its land surface, & abundance of lush vegetation. The land was low, & there were no high mountains forming physical or climatic barriers.”

Scientists have found fossils of tropical plants and animals from the North Pole to the South Pole and on top of the highest mountains. Remember the “Chilled Crawfish” in Antarctica? Below Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay inside the Arctic Circle, an ancient tropical forest is found 1100 to 1700 feet down—palm trees, pine trees, and tropical foliage in great profusion. Other examples are a foot-long millipede fossil and an 8-foot long crocodile-like fossil called a champsosaur both found on an island in far northeastern Canada. The champsosaur is cold-blooded and cannot migrate or hibernate during winter. These can’t be explained by continental drift because the process is too slow, and evolutionary scientists think that island hasn’t moved much anyway.

Another indication of warmer climate is coal—compressed plant material that becomes carbonized as all its cells are replaced by carbon. Huge coal seams everywhere represent massive vegetation existing all over the land being buried and decaying at the same time. Nothing like that is occurring today.

3) Gigantism In Fossil Plants And Animals.

According to the fossil record, nearly all modern animals and plants were once represented by larger fossil ancestors. There were literally giants in the past and not just dinosaurs weighing 40 tons (although the average size was that of a sheep). Here are some other examples:

· Armadillo—6 ft tall, 18 ft long found in Florida

· Bison—12 ft tall at shoulder, 12 ft horn span!!

· Beaver – 6 ft long. Imagine looking up into the face of a giant beaver. When he says, “I want that tree,” you respond, “Take it. It’s yours!”

· Camel—20 ft tall; found in India

· Donkey—9 ft tall at shoulder; found near Lubbock

· Rhinos—17 ft tall. This one was almost eighteen feet high and 27 feet long. One of the biggest land mammals found.

· Pigs grew to be the size of cattle. Kangaroos 10 ft. tall; Wombats the size of a small car

· Giant birds—With feather sizes 5 feet long and 8 inches wide. Giant birds called terror birds, nearly 10 feet tall, weighed over 500 pounds, and could swallow a dog in a single gulp.

· The pterosaur, found in West Texas, wingspan of >50 feet! Size of a Lear jet!!

· Crocodiles—50 ft long, 14 ft skull

· Alligator—found in the Amazon, 5-foot long skull. Height estimated at 8 feet when walking and its length 40 feet (the size of a railroad boxcar).

· Turtles 11 ft long; 12-14 ft wide; found near San Antonio

· Giant plants—Cattails (like those that grow along the edges of a pond) 60-100 ft. tall!! Club mosses (only a few inches high today) — 120 feet tall.

· Giant insects—Dragonflies with a wingspan of 25 inches. Scorpion-like insects 5 ft long!! Centipede-like bug, 3 feet long. Yikes!!!!

Giants in the land! Then all of a sudden the large animals and plants disappear. Don’t have them today—except for the whale. Why?

Secular geologists say that the giants have “devolved” to smaller representatives. That doesn’t make sense to me when it comes to survival of the fittest. Evolutionary theory doesn’t do that great a job of explaining why such large animals were the ancestors of the smaller animals living today. It’s one thing if all these extinct animals are different species than exist today (and in some cases they are) but quite another if the primary difference is that they were giant animals. Scientists solve this problem by the use of the scientific term, “LIKE.” For instance, if a 12 foot St. Bernard were to walk across their lawn, they would describe it as a “Dog-Like creature, rather than a dog.

Something was different about the pre-Flood world!! But what? Several models have been proposed. A recently popular one is the Vapor Canopy Model.

Vapor Canopy Model

According to this model, a thick water vapor canopy covered the top of the atmosphere creating a greenhouse for the earth and producing a worldwide tropical climate, greater atmospheric pressure, a higher concentration of carbon dioxide, and protection from harmful radiation. All this resulted in longer life spans for man and animals.

Support For The Thick Canopy Concept:

· Genesis 1:7 says that God separated the waters below from the waters above which could be a water vapor canopy, clear enough to see stars through it.

· Genesis 2:5-6 says, “for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth … but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground” Based on this, it was thought the earth did not experience rain until the Flood, just a daily misting like dew. This canopy came down as a source of rain for the Flood.

· The vapor would act as a greenhouse, trapping the sun’s heat inside so the Earth would be like a humid terrarium, an idyllic paradise. And, such a canopy would shield out harmful radiation that causes mutations plus provide greater atmospheric pressure, increasing available oxygen for larger animals and carbon dioxide for plants. So, plants, animals, and humans would live longer and grow larger.

· Three planets in our solar system (Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter) have atmospheres with one gaseous substance floating in or above another gaseous substance, like a canopy.

· And, God’s use of the rainbow indicates it might have been a new thing for people to see.

Objections To The Thick Canopy Concept:

· The Bible does not require the pre-Flood world to have been idyllic; the Fall was the point of ‘paradise lost’ and the Earth was filled with violence. According to the fossil record, it was also filled with disease and carnivorous behavior (animals eating other animals).

· Genesis 2:5-6 at face value teaches only that there was no rain at the time Adam was created. But, it doesn’t rule out rain at any later time before the Flood.

· Recent computer simulations reveal that only a small canopy was possible, enough to keep the air evenly moist and comfortably warm—a gentle greenhouse effect. A thick canopy would be too hot and heavy to sustain life. Although, it’s possible that the high reflection at the top of a cloud layer in the canopy may reduce the sun’s radiation into the canopy, greatly reducing the heating. More research is being done on this.

· Regarding the greater atmospheric pressure, too much oxygen can often be as harmful as too little. I couldn’t find enough satisfactory information on this issue. More research is currently being done.

· The sun’s heat, even in that era, must have evaporated large volumes of surface waters which would have condensed into clouds and rain so we can’t be dogmatic and say it didn’t rain before the Flood.

· The seasonal changes may not have been as great as today, but there were seasons. Many trees buried in the Flood had tree rings indicating seasonal change. There are other proposed sources for the rain besides a vapor canopy. And, regarding the rainbow, God often uses existing things as symbols—for example, the bread and wine at the Last Supper.

It’s not that there couldn’t have been a canopy. That’s still a possibility. A special research team is investigating through computer simulations and geological studies various models for the pre-Flood atmosphere. I look forward to their research results.

Explanations For The Big Three:

1) Pre-Flood Versus Post-Flood Life Spans Of Humans.

From the study of modern family lines that include centenarians (100 year-olds) and the process of cell division, it is now believed that lifespans were not affected by environmental factors as much as genetic ones. Even with a canopy “raining itself out,” Noah still lived another 350 years in the post-Flood atmosphere. It’s likely that Noah came from a line of humans that was genetically programmed for longer life. Other pre-Flood humans may have had genes for fewer years. When the entire human race was reduced down to Noah and 7 others (this is called a population “bottleneck”), it is entirely feasible that some forms of the genes present in Noah were not passed on. Also, subsequent population bottlenecks (dispersion of family groups from Babel) may have contributed further to the shortened life spans. The decline reached a plateau by the time of David. Apart from disease and accidents, there is no biological reason at all why people could not live much longer than they do at present, if they had the appropriate genetic makeup.

2) Appearance Of A Worldwide Tropical “Greenhouse” Climate

Based on Genesis 1:9, we can propose all the land was together in one landmass (some call it Rodinia) with fewer, lower mountains as the geologists also propose. The combined continents centered around the equator, extending not nearly as far north as today. This would result in a more tropical climate over most of the land as opposed to today. There were likely no deserts yet. Everything today grows bigger in the more tropical climates. Given this, though, the most likely explanation from creation scientists for that champsosaur and other tropical plants & creatures buried at the poles is that during the Flood, the plants and animals, even live animals, floated rapidly to high latitudes from their tropical origins on gigantic floating mats of vegetation. Similar mats are seen during local floods today and after tsunamis scour shorelines.

One creation scientist, John Woodmorappe, proposes a pre-Flood climate model that includes:

· Absence of tall mountain ranges that tend to deflect global wind circulation from a more polar direction—according to some models. So, there would be absence of ice caps at the poles as well.

· The existence of shallow seas over much of the continental-interior areas. These would trap heat and help prevent the interiors of the large continents from falling below freezing temperatures at night. Nearby water and forests moderate temperatures. There isn’t anything in Genesis 1 or 2 that would prohibit inland lakes and shallow seas. There is even a hint of water coming up from subsurface reservoirs through springs or artesian wells. Many lakes today are fed through underground springs.

· Larger concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide for a greenhouse effect. The increased carbon dioxide would greatly increase forestation and, thus, raw material for the coal deposits. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a heavy gas so it would be trapped inside even a small canopy. In spite of adverse publicity about this today, the opposite side is that forests would soak it all up!! Plants grow very well in a greenhouse and love CO2. You would expect to find remains of lush plant growth everywhere. We do find tremendous amounts of fossilized vegetation everywhere, including current deserts. Abundant vegetation became huge coal deposits. The land configuration enhanced vegetative growth. The Floodwaters uprooted all the vegetation and buried it rather quickly, producing a hundred times more coal than from today’s slow “swamp-to-coal” model. There are no massive coal deposits forming today. Other creation scientists have proposed that carbon dioxide levels were higher in the pre-Flood world and dropped drastically after the Flood until recently building up again.

3) Gigantism In Fossil Plants And Animals.

How did the animals and plants grow so big? We know that many living reptiles and even some mammals (elephants) can grow slowly throughout their lifetimes. A cottonmouth snake can grow to the size of a tire. That’s an “old” snake. Comparing bones of juvenile dinosaurs, scientists believe that dinosaurs experienced rapid growth in their youth and then continued slow growth the rest of their lives. If dinosaurs lived hundreds of years, as people did before the Flood, they had plenty of time to develop into the enormous creatures we find as fossils. Maybe some fossils of giants are the ones originally created by God. Also, the climate as described above seems to favor optimal growth of animals and plants. Remember, that everything had been created perfectly. There hadn’t been much time for the cumulative effects of inherited mutations to show up in genetics. And, there is indication from post-Flood evidence that the largest creatures were killed by humans. There were still giants in the land after the Flood.

Conclusion:

It is reasonable to consider the pre-Flood earth having some kind of greenhouse effect, greater shielding from radiation by both water vapor and the magnetic field, and habitable land space actually being closer to the equator with fewer mountains to block air currents. These plus genetic factors contributing to long lives could easily contribute to not only man living for a long time, but gigantism in animals and plants.

Sources For Further Study:

Answers magazine, April-June 2007. The whole issue is dedicated to the Flood.
Sauropods: God’s Majestic Giants, Mike Riddle, Answers magazine, 2/27/2007.
Running out of Puff, AIG website at www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/0331oxygen.asp.
Living for 900 years, Carl Wieland, Creation magazine, Vol. 20(4), pages 10-13.
Decreased Lifespans: Have We Been Looking in the Right Place? Carl Wieland, at www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i2/lifespans.asp.
A Tropical Reptile In The Cretaceous Arctic, Michael Oard, www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i2/reptile.asp.
Giant fossils at http://s8int.com/mega1.html.

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

13. CATASTROPHE: The Flood And The Fossils, Part 1

From the Hebrew: The word for “Flood” (Hebrew mabbul) is only applied to the Noahic Flood; other floods are denoted by a different word in the original. Mabbul is related to an Assyrian word meaning “destruction”; the phrase “a flood of waters” (Genesis 6:17) could properly be translated by “a catastrophe of waters.” Similarly, when the Genesis Flood is referred to in the New Testament, the Greek kataklusmos (“cataclysm”) is uniquely employed. (Dr. Henry Morris, The Beginning of the World, page 107)

While scripture is the infallible Word of God, study notes in your Bible and commentaries are the interpretations (sometimes best guesses) of educated, though fallible, humans. So, the study notes in some Bibles may give confusing or inaccurate information regarding the Flood. Always look to see what the Bible actually says both in the passage and elsewhere in scripture about that passage.

Day One Study

Read Genesis 6:13-7:16.

1. Describe the Ark that Noah is to build, paying attention to the minute details of both exterior and interior layout and all the skills and tools that would be needed to carry out God’s instructions. Be specific! [Note: The ancient cubit ranged from 17.5 to 24 inches, averaging 18 inches.]

2. Now, make a drawing/diagram of how it might have looked, inside and outside.

3. Read “Creation Answers: Just How Big Was That Ark?” at the end of this lesson. Compare the information you learned today to your previous concept of Noah’s Ark and its purpose.

4. Read Gen 6:11-7:16. Compare Genesis 1:21-26 with 7:13-14, 21. God groups the creatures He has made on Days 5 and 6 (living creatures) into specific categories, not all of which were represented on the Ark. Discuss:

· Why certain creatures were excluded from going on the Ark—

· How the creatures were to be gathered and brought to the Ark—

5. There is a lapse of time between Genesis 6:22 and 7:1. 1 Peter 3:20 refers to God’s patience during this time, waiting for Noah to construct the Ark (along with the help of his young sons, no doubt).

· What else did Noah do while building the Ark? See 2 Peter 2:5 and Hebrews 11:7. [Note: a similar description of Noah is found in other ancient documents.]

· Why would he do this?

· Why would God be patient?

· Was the Ark big enough to carry other people as well? Did any others respond?

6. Reread Genesis 7:1-10, 13-16. How many times is the same information repeated? Repetition implies emphasis. What could God be trying to emphasize to us as we read this part of Scripture? [Notice who closed the door.]

Day Two Study

Read Genesis 7:6-12.

A word of caution: While scripture is the infallible Word of God, study notes in your Bible and commentaries are the interpretations (sometimes best guesses) of educated, though fallible, humans. So, the study notes in some Bibles may give confusing or inaccurate information regarding the Flood. The best approach is to study the Scripture first. Look to see what the Bible actually says both in the passage and elsewhere in scripture about that passage. Build a model based on what it says. Ask the question, “If this is true, what would you expect to find?” Then, observe what is found in the world. That’s the approach of this study.

7. Reread verses 11-12. The Flood was brought on by more than just 40 days of rain. Discuss the 2 physical mechanisms that caused the Flood. What physical effects would each have upon the earth?

· Springs or fountains of the great deep—

· Floodgates or windows of the heavens—

Scientific Insight: The breaking up (literally “cleaving open”) of the fountains of the great deep is mentioned first and so evidently was the initial action that triggered the rest. These conduits somehow all developed uncontrollable fractures on the same day…Soon a worldwide chain reaction would develop, cleaving open all the fountains of the great deep throughout the world. The volcanic explosions and eruptions which would have accompanied these fractures would have poured great quantities of magma up from the earth’s mantle along with the waters…Immense quantities of volcanic dust would have been blown skyward, along with gigantic sprays of water and turbulent surges of the atmosphere. The combination of atmospheric turbulence, expanding and cooling gases, and a vast supply of dust and other particles to serve as nuclei of condensation would suffice to penetrate the any upper canopy of water vapor and trigger another chain reaction there, causing its waters to being to condense and coalesce and soon to start moving earthward as a torrential global downpour of rain. The phrase “windows of heaven” is very graphic…it certainly is intended to convey the idea of great quantities of water, formerly restrained in the sky, suddenly released to deluge the earth. The downpour continued at full intensity—exactly as God had predicted—for forty days and nights. (Dr. Henry Morris, The Genesis Record, p. 196-197)

Appreciation Application:

8. Consider your daily life and relationships. Or, even long range goals that require some decisions today. Is there something difficult that God is asking you to do? What obstacles stand in your way? Remember that Noah chose to be faithful even when he could not visualize the reason for his labor.

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

9. Have you thought about the wonderful capability God instilled in mankind to be able to build things? Think about how God has gifted you to be creative, productive in your own way. In prayer now, give praise to Him. Dedicate your skills to Him and to His work.

Deeper Discoveries:

· Read “Creation Answers: Just How Big Was That Ark?” and “Creation Answers: Raging Waters” following this lesson.

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org and SEARCH anything related to the Flood. Select an article to read or watch a video. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

Creation Answers: Just How Big Was That Ark? Texas Size!!!

The information below is adapted from articles found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org.

1. Ark—same word as used in Exodus 2:3. Ancient word for box meant to float upon water.

2. Dimensions—at least 438 feet long, 72.9 feet wide, and 43.8 feet high. (The ancient cubit had a length ranging from 17.5 inches to 24 inches, average 18 inches.

3. Hydrodynamics—exceedingly stable, almost impossible to capsize (determined by hydraulic engineers). When tilted up to just short of 90˚, it would immediately right itself again. Tending to align itself parallel with the direction of major wave advance so subject to minimum pitching.

4. Volumetric capacity—minimum 1.4 million cubic feet = 522 standard railroad livestock cars. Each car holds 240 sheep, so Ark could carry 125,000 sheep-size animals.

5. Decks (17.5 feet high!)—three decks with combined floor area > 20 college basketball courts. 3/4 the size of a modern ocean liner. 1.4 million cubic feet of space. Decks divided into various rooms (literally “nests”). Held 8 humans (with room for many more); plus up to 75,000 air breathing creatures, food for everyone for a year or more. Kind of big for a local flood. No boat of this size was built again until 1884.

6. Gopher wood—unknown but speculated to be either a hard, dense wood similar to oak or a laminated wood product.

7. Pitch—literally as a verb “to cover,” as a noun “a covering.” Same word used for “atonement” in Leviticus 17:11. Probably some resinous substance. Perfect covering for the Ark, keeping out the waters of judgment, just as the blood of the Lamb provides a perfect atonement for the soul.

8. Window—literally “opening for daylight.” Two possibilities for placement: on top of side walls, or on roof.

9 Door—one door. All must enter and leave by the same door. 8 people willingly did so; the rest of humanity did not! Noah preached while he worked on the boat. 1 Peter 3:20; I1 Peter 2:5. (Similar to Jesus stating He is the door in John 10:7-9.) God closed the door in Gen. 7:16, not Noah.

10. Animals—2 of every kind, 7 of some kinds. Most land animals are small. Take twice the known land species today (to account for the extinct ones as well) = ~18,000 species. (Species is not equal to kind, though). Yield ~ 72,000 animals.

· About 60% of the carrying capacity of the Ark. Probably fewer since the Biblical kind is apparently larger than our division of species.

· Genesis 8:1 says both wild animals and domesticated ones. Probably took juveniles of the larger animals. Had to spend a year without reproductive activity but needed to be healthy enough to repopulate the earth.

· God sent them to the Ark—perhaps the migration instinct.

· Perhaps many hibernated, especially during the dark, stormy times. (From observation of our cat on bad weather days, I know the cats slept!!)

11. Food for animals, Noah’s family, and immediate provision upon embarking from Ark.

12. Noah’s family living quarters. Four couples.

13. Where was the manure pile? At the bottom of the boat, or assigned to the insects, or shoveled out the window (that’s what I would do!). Perhaps that’s why we have so much coal today!

Think About It: The Flood began on FEB. 17, 600 A.N. (After Noah’s birth, just a hypothetical date!!) On that day, two things happened— springs of the deep burst forth AND the floodgates of the heavens were opened and rain fell 40 entire days. It wasn’t over until 370 days later!

Sources For Further Study:

Noah’s Ark Q&A at www.answersingenesis.org/Home/area/faq/noah.asp.
Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study, John Woodmorappe.
The large ships of antiquity, Larry Pierce, Creation 22(3): 46-48, June 2000 www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i3/ships.asp.
Caring for the Animals on the Ark, John Woodmorappe, March 29, 2007 at www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/caring-for-the-animals.
Yes, Noah did build an Ark! Bodie Hodge and Jonathan Sarfati, 26 March 2004 http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2004/0324ark.asp)

Creation Answers: Raging Waters

The information below is adapted from articles found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org plus others sourced at the end.

The most universal of legends is that of a worldwide flood. More than 270 cultures have one. This is unexplainable apart from common experience. Add to that some undeniable observations about our planet that tell us something different happened in the past to change its surface drastically and different from what’s going on today.

· Cracks on the sea floor circle the globe like seams on a baseball. How did that happen?

· Oceans today hold more water than they once did. Why?

· Billions of dead things are buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth.

Is the Flood just legend or was it a real event? What questions should you ask to find out? The best approach is to study the Scripture first. Look to see what the Bible actually says both in the passage and elsewhere in scripture about that passage. Build a model based on what it says. Ask the question, “If this is true, what would you expect to find?” Then, observe what is found in the world.

The Flood Begins

One of the first things you need to forget is the idea that the Genesis Flood was just a 40-day rainstorm. What 2 physical mechanisms are stated in verses 11-12 as causing the Flood to begin? 1) Springs of the great deep burst forth. 2) Floodgates of the heavens were opened. What do those phrases mean?

Springs Of The Great Deep:

How many? All. What are these?

· “Springs” refers to the places where water issues or bursts out of the earth. Other scriptures refer to them existing since creation. Can also refer to reservoirs, basins.

· “The great deep” means the deepest water—the ocean and subterranean reservoirs.

· This would include great amounts of water, entrapped below the crust, building up temperatures and pressures until finally being released.

The Bursting Forth:

· Great amounts of water and other liquids such as magma were being released from below the crust.

· “Burst forth” means “to cleave, split, break open, break through, to fault” as in the parting of the Red Sea. See the same thing in Zechariah 14:4 “the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley.” Used in Num. 16:31 for the ground “splitting asunder.” Three times God is said to “split open” rocks or the ground to provide water for His people (2 Kings 8:12; Psalm 74:15; Isaiah 48:21).

· The earth was split, fractured. You would expect great volcanic explosions and eruptions, accompanying earthquakes, and tsunamis (sometimes called tidal waves).

Floodgates Of The Heavens Opened:

· Windows/Floodgates of the Heavens refers to the image of a great amount of water previously held back but now being released.

· Then, there’s the 40 days of rain. Geshem (Hebrew word) is the most violent rain. In Ezekiel 13:11-13, violent rain is described as destroying mortared walls!

So, the water for the Flood came from three sources: (1) Subterranean fountains of water, etc. bursting forth; (2) Violent rain from above; (3) Waters from the existing ocean spilling over the land.

What evidence would there be that such things did occur? Subterranean water sources, splitting and distorting of the crust, and increased amounts of water on the earth today as compared to the past.

Evidence Of Subterranean Water Sources?

· Ocean floor springs/vents were discovered in the 1960’s. These waters are metal-rich, hot brines (400˚ C). One professor from MIT suggests that water in the amount of 40 cubic miles flows out of springs each year. So, subterranean water is still being released but not to the same degree now as then.

· Volcanoes, even underwater ones, add tremendous amounts of water to the atmosphere. During 100 days of erupting, a secondary cone of Mt. Etna issued 460 million gallons of steam. One volcanic cone, 4.6 million gallons of water per day.

· The most natural mechanism to bring down the canopy also would be volcanic activity. In 1883, Krakatoa in East Indies, sent up 3 cubic miles of volcanic dust into the stratosphere. Distributed globally. Caused red sunsets for 10 years and lowered the average temperature of the earth 4˚ F for about 3 years. One volcano affecting the atmosphere for 10 years.

· What about several hundred volcanoes? Providing a volcanic cloud cover at the top which would cool the canopy and cause it to condense out on the dust particles. Result: torrential rain.

Evidence Of The Bursting Forth?

Look for evidence of Splitting and Distorting of the Earth’s Crust.

· Cracks in the earth’s crust circling around the globe like the seams on a baseball. It’s a fact. There is no explanation for it. The continents appear to have separated. Perhaps this is associated with the onset of the Flood.

· Then there’s the associated Volcanism, Earthquake Damage, Tsunamis, Massive Water-Lain Deposits. Did you know that pillow lavas, produced as fluid lava cools underwater, are the most abundant volcanic rock on earth? We’ll cover all these next week.

· Increased Water on the Earth. Studying the continental shelves and slopes plus drowned canyons extending out from land-based rivers indicate sea level was once several thousand feet lower than it is today. Some parts of the sea bottom have definitely dropped. Lots of “seamounts”–nonvolcanic, flat-topped drowned islands in the middle of the ocean. No explanation. More about that in the next fact sheet.

· What would happen when that great amount of water and magma was released from below the crust? Most likely, sinking of the land above it.

So, the evidence matches the prediction. The model may be accurate after all. The Flood may have really happened just as the Bible said it did.

Rising Waters

In Genesis 7:17-24, notice the frequent use of the terms “rose” and “increased.” The Hebrew term translated “increased” / “flooded” means “overwhelmingly mighty” and is sometimes translated “prevailed”. What is the author plainly trying to convey to us? This is a global phenomenon!

Skeptics claim that the Genesis Flood must have been confined only to a local area or regional at most (just involving the Mesopotamian river valleys—modern day Iraq). Anyone holding to that view needs to consider several things:

· No normal meteorological process exists that will produce 40 days of continuous torrential rainfall over any region.

· The implications of floodwaters covering even a short mountain by 22 feet (which may have been the draft of the Ark). Water seeks its own level. It doesn’t flow uphill. So, for example, to cover a hill such as Pilot Knob in Argyle (~800 feet above sea level), water would be covering most of Texas and the Gulf Coast, the East Coast, and the West Coast except for the mountain ranges. And, that’s a small hill. The Hebrew word kasah translated “covered” in Genesis 7:20 means “overwhelmed to the point of washing away.” Any hill completely covered by raging floodwaters would certainly be overwhelmed like that. Psalm 104:6 refers to this, “You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.” We talked last time about the land surface probably having fewer and lower mountains, maybe no higher than 5,000 feet.

· How long did the waters rise and cover the whole earth? 150 days. How many months is that? 5 months. Too long for a local flood.

· The size of the ark. Ridiculous waste of time and resources when God could have sent Noah and his family to a neighboring region. Also, the animals could have just migrated.

This was no local Flood. You would be better off saying it never happened than to try to make it local.

Conclusion: the water for the Flood came from three sources: (1) Geysers of water lasting 5 months at least; (2) Violent rain from above lasting 1/4 of that time; (3) Waters from the existing ocean rising up and spilling over the land, also lasting for 150 days at least That’s a long time!

Build A Model For The Flood

Based on what the scripture says, creationists have constructed a few models as to what could have been the source for all the rain and water covering the land.

Model 1: Vapor Canopy Collapsed

The splitting open of the earth’s crust created volcanic eruptions that shot into the atmosphere providing dust for condensation of the water vapor into torrential rain. As I mentioned last time, more advanced computer simulations have just about eliminated the possibility of a thick vapor canopy. The heat trapped within would be too great to sustain life. So, the main source of the water was probably not a thick canopy.

Model 2: Subterranean Water Reservoirs Erupted Into Geysers

Vast amounts of hot, pressurized water were stored in interconnected subterranean chambers. Interestingly, scientists have recently discovered that minerals in the mantle may store 5-6 times more water than in the oceans so this is not an unreasonable possibility.

Something started splitting open the earth’s crust. The released water burst through as violent fountain-jets shooting high into the atmosphere then fell back as torrential rain. This would be accompanied by great tectonic activity, as continental blocks would slide away from the rupture zone causing tidal waves and churning of the water. As the reservoirs were emptied, the land above would sink allowing the ocean water to rush over the new basins for massive sediment deposits that were uplifted later as mountains.

What caused the splitting? Some speculate bombardment of the earth by asteroid or comet fragments. No one knows.

Model 3: Hyper-Hurricanes (Hypercanes) Generated Over Hot Ocean Water

The earth split along the lines of the 40,000-mile long mid-ocean ridges spawning thousands of underwater volcanoes. Within hours, the newly formed heat plumes of scalding water would generate thousands of monstrous storms called hypercanes with wind speeds >300 MPH and rainfall up to 10 inches per hour. Although these would remain fairly stationery over the energy source (the “bubble” of hot water), such storms would also loft large volumes of water into the atmosphere, saturating it so that torrential rain falls elsewhere on the continents. Interestingly, oxygen isotope measurements from sea-floor sediments indicate the oceans in the past did experience a 40˚F rise in temperature.

Model 4: Runaway Subduction

This model is called “Catastrophic Plate Tectonics.” It has some similarities to Model 2. The earth has a thin crust made up of lighter continental rock and heavier, colder ocean floor rock. These overlie a layer of hot rock called the mantle. Below this is a molten outer core surrounding a solid, mostly iron inner core. On the earth’s crust, cracks circle around the globe like the seams on a baseball breaking it into individual pieces called “plates.” It also looks like the continents have separated, have moved large distances relative to one another, and are still moving very slowly today. There is no secular explanation for what caused this. Here’s a possible Flood-related scenario to explain what happened:

· God did something on that first day to “crack” open the ocean floor next to the land, causing the cold, heavy ocean floor rock to start sinking into the upper mantle forming what we call the trenches.

· As the crack grows, more ocean rock sinks and drags the rest of the ocean floor with it like a conveyor belt, increasing speed as the ocean rock melts. The result is a runaway process that causes the entire pre-Flood ocean floor to sink in a matter of a few weeks or months, pulling apart the plates as this happens.

· This action displaces hot mantle rock and pushes up to the surface elsewhere forming mid-ocean rift zones and new ocean floor through undersea volcanoes.

· The liquid rock from the volcanoes vaporizes huge volumes of ocean water to produce steam fountain-jets along the seafloor rift zones. These shoot up large amounts of water into the atmosphere which fall back to the surface as intense global rain. Volcanoes, even underwater ones, add tremendous amounts of water to the atmosphere. During 100 days of erupting, 4.6 million gallons of water per day came out of a secondary cone of Italy’s Mt. Etna.

· The new “warm” ocean floor rock expands and rises up as much as 6500 feet, displacing sea water that would then sweep onto and over the continental land surfaces, carrying vast quantities of sediments and marine organisms with them. These formed most of the thick, fossil-rich sedimentary rock layers we now find blanketing large portions of today’s continents.

· Continental plates ramming into each other would distort the layers and push them up forming mountains and plateaus.

The concept of runaway subduction has been in the scientific literature for 40 years, seriously considered in the early 70’s, but then dropped. So, it’s not just made up by creationists. It explains several observations in the geologic record that slow and gradual movement simply does not. Chapter 14 describes those better than I can.

One more interesting note: Superheated water found in magma powers volcanic eruptions anyway. About 2/3 of what comes out of the average volcano is water vapor. Evolutionists believe all the earth’s oceans were filled by the release of volcanic water. It’s not unreasonable to consider that a major source for the floodwater. One more note: there’s still a lot of unmelted ocean floor in the mantle below the trenches. Too much for millions of years.

So, those are the models that give several reasons for the rainwater and the rising water. I like model #4 with hypercanes from #3 and subterranean water chambers from #2 added. The combination of the three seems to best explain the evidence we see.

Picture “geysers of molten rock and scalding water squeezed out of the earth’s crust in a violent, explosive upheaval. These fountains were not stopped until 150 days into the Flood—so the earth was literally churning underneath the waters for about five months! (The New Answers Book, page 131)” Including the time the water started going down, the total duration of the flood was over a year.

Examine The Evidence: What Would We Expect To Find? What Do We Find?

· Enough water to cover the planet. There’s plenty. Flattening the oceans and land, the existing water would cover the surface by almost 2 miles.

· Scouring, splitting and deforming of crustal rocks all over the globe. This is evident all over the planet, especially at plate edges.

· Massive concurrent volcanics — Thick volcanic rocks are found interbedded with sedimentary rocks everywhere. Pillow lavas, produced as fluid lava cools underwater, are the most abundant volcanic rock on earth.

· Massive water-lain, fossil-rich deposits. There are billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth.

We’ll examine all this evidence in the next Fact Sheet.

Sources For Further Study:

1. Primary Cause of the Flood, Allen Roy, at http://www.tagnet.org/anotherviewpoint/fod.htm

2. Hypercanes: Rainfall Generators during the Flood?, John Woodmorappe, www.answersingenesis.org/Home/area/magazines/TJ/TJv14n2_Hypercanes.pdf

3. Noah’s Flood Q & A, Answers in Genesis website

4. The New Answers Book, Ken Ham

5. Earth’s Catastrophic Past, Andrew Snelling

6. A Catastrophic Breakup, Andrew Snelling, www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/a-catastrophic-breakup

7. The Genesis Flood, Henry Morris and John Whitcomb.

8. The Genesis Record, Henry Morris.

9. In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, Dr. Walt Brown. Online version at www.creationscience.com/onlinebook.

10. There are a number of excellent videos about the Flood—Evidences: The Record and the Flood; Raging Waters; Fossils and the Flood; The World That Perished

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_13.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

/assets/pdf/Newton_7Cs_13notes.pdf

14. CATASTROPHE: The Flood And The Fossils, Part 2

Billions of dead things, buried in rock layers, laid down by water, all over the earth!

Day One Study

Read Genesis 7:11-24.

1. Reread Genesis 7:17-20. What information is given to us about the first forty days of the Flood? Notice the frequent use of the terms “increased” / “prevailed.” What is the author plainly trying to convey to us?

2. Skeptics claim that the Flood of Noah must have been only confined to a local area or regional at most (just involving the Mesopotamian river valleys). How would you prove that the Flood was truly global from this passage? For example, think of the implications of having floodwaters covering even a short mountain by ~22.5 feet (which may have been the draft of the Ark).

3. Read Genesis 8:1-5. Up to this point, the Flood narrative has been an account of judgment upon a very wicked world. From this point on, it is a story of REDEMPTION. God “remembered” Noah. To “remember” in the Bible is not merely to recall to mind; it is to express concern for someone, to act with loving care for him. Read the following verses. In what ways did God act with loving care for someone?

· Genesis 19:29—

· Exodus 2:24-25—

· 1 Samuel 1:15-20—

After 40 days of heavy rain and water rising from the deep followed by 110 days of it prevailing over the earth…

4. What three specific things did God do (in vs. 1-3) on behalf of Noah and his family and all the animals so that the water stopped rising and began to recede?

5. The water also had to have a place to go. Part of Psalm 104 may be referring to the work of God at this time. What information is given in Psalm 104:6-9?

Scientific Insight: Mountains of Ararat—The Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat (Greek, Armenia). The mountain known as Mount Ararat is volcanic in origin. It is speculated from studying the glass rocks, salt domes, and volcanic structures found there that the mountain may have been only 6000 feet in height at the time of Noah’s landing. Today Mt. Ararat itself (now 17,000 feet in elevation) abounds in what is known as pillow lava, a dense lava rock formed under great depths of water. The mountain also includes certain sedimentary formations containing marine fossils. It was the highest mountain in the region by far.

The existence of Noah’s Ark in the Ararat region and its exact location is still speculation. A rather large number of reported sightings of the Ark have come from explorers or travelers on this mountain during the past century, as well as during ancient and medieval times. Many books have been written and videos produced about the search for Noah’s Ark, all of them very interesting. A number of modern expeditions have been trying (unsuccessfully so far) to relocate the Ark with adequate documentation. This would surely be the most important archeological discovery of all time, if successful.

6. Discuss Noah’s actions to determine whether or not the ground was dry yet.

7. How many days were involved from the beginning of the Flood until the day Noah knew the earth was completely dry again? [Note: the Hebrew year was 360 days long.] Total = ______ days

8. In the entire passage of Genesis 6:12-8:14, count the number of times (in your translation) the words “all,” “every,” or “everything” are used. Total = _______ times. What is the author plainly trying to convey to the reader?

Think About It: The record of the Flood in Genesis gives every indication of being an eyewitness account, written originally by Noah or his sons. Despite the efforts of many commentators to explain it away as a local flood, it is obvious that the writer intended to tell of a worldwide, uniquely destructive cataclysm. In fact, it would be difficult to imagine how the concept of a universal Flood could be better presented than in the words actually recorded in Genesis. (Dr. Henry Morris, The Beginning of the World, page 116)

Appreciation Application:

9. Regarding the Biblical account of a global flood, scoffers abound. Read 2 Peter 3:3-6. The concept of a local flood, lasting over a year, covering all the local high mountains by a depth of 22 feet but not leaving any destructive evidence or affecting the rest of the planet is illogical.

· What was the purpose of the Flood?

· Did God accomplish His purpose?

· What does this tell you about evaluating scripture that describes future judgment upon the earth?

· If you have chosen to place your faith in God’s Son Jesus Christ, God has chosen to save (deliver) you from any future judgment upon the earth. How does this make you feel?

Day Two Study

Appreciation Assignment:

10. God lifted huge mountain ranges out of the earth to make the water drain off the land into the newly deepened ocean basins. Spend some time meditating on the beauty and majesty of mountains. Have you traveled to the mountains? What do you like about mountains? Do mountains inspire you? If so, how? Feel free to be creative in expressing your thoughts about mountains in the space on the next page.

Deeper Discoveries:

· Read “Creation Answers: The Flood Rages On” following this lesson.

· Consider: If there really was a year-long, worldwide Flood, what would the evidence be?

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org and SEARCH anything related to the Flood. Select an article to read or watch a video. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

Creation Answers: The Flood Rages On

The information below is adapted from articles found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org plus others sourced at the end.

Do the stones cry out? Jesus said that if His people stopped praising Him even the stones would cry out in praise to Him. Do the rocks cry out in testimony to God and the Flood He sent upon the earth?

Old earth scientists, whether creationists or evolutionists, say that either the Genesis Flood didn’t happen or that it wasn’t global, or that it left no surviving geological evidence. But, think about it. Scripture says the waters rose greatly, greatly and then prevailed mightily for almost 5 months before it started receding. Then it took another 220 days for the waters to go down completely. A year-long catastrophic world-shaping Flood would have left a massive amount of geological evidence, more than any event before or since.

There is no way that such a lengthy, global flood could have occurred without leaving any evidence! If there had been a year-long worldwide flood, what would the evidence be? Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. What do we find? Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth.

This information sheet attempts to explore the possibility that the physical makeup of the surface of the earth may be related to the work of the Noahic Flood. It does not presume to have answers to the myriad of questions raised anytime this subject is discussed. However, you will be directed to resources if you want more information. Also, let me assure you that neither your salvation nor your spiritual maturity are dependent upon your acceptance of the structure of the earth’s surface as being due to the effects of a year-long flood or millions of years of slow processes.

Question #1: Do You Mean That Most Of The Rock Layers Could Have Been Formed In 1 Year Rather Than Millions? How Could That Be?

Nature Of Water As An Agent For Rapid Erosion And Deposition.

All that soil, sand, and clay plus rock from the fountains breaking up would be scoured from the surface, worked by the water, and deposited elsewhere. Any evidence?? You bet! 400 to 40,000 feet of sedimentary layers cover the surface of the earth. The question is not whether thick sediments exist, but whether they were deposited slowly over millions of years or rapidly. How rapidly can sediments be deposited?

Some geologists say that 1,000 years are needed to accumulate 5 inches of sediment and then deep burial and thousands of years are needed for cementation to take place. Evidence found in the world does not agree, however. Water is a great sorting agent, especially fast-moving water. Particles of rock and organic matter are sorted by size and density so that particles of similar size are deposited together, giving a layered effect. It is now known that beds (sediment layers) form quickly on river floodplains during floods, in shallow marine areas during storms, and in deep water by turbidity currents as well as the result of other catastrophic events (tsunamis and mud flows).

· River floods—The Waiho River of New Zealand, during a single, high-intensity rainstorm in 1965, deposited about 70 feet of sediment on its bed over several miles. Experiments with fast-moving water carrying sediment show that strata can form laterally and vertically at the same time and are not always a measure of chronology. So, thick sequences of layered rock don’t mean that each layer formed separately. This is a very important difference from what you are normally taught. A lot of water, but not a lot of time! Fast flowing water also carves huge channels into solid bedrock in a matter of hours. A small-scale example from Texas occurred when Canyon Lake poured over its spillway into the Guadalupe River, moving at >100,000 ft3/sec carving a new channel deep into bedrock in just a matter of hours.

· Tsunamis (tidal waves) are known to attain heights of 130 feet, extend inland several miles, and travel up to 450 miles per hour, eroding and depositing sediments 60 feet thick over vast areas in a matter of hours. Imagine the number of tsunamis occurring as the fountains of the great deep were split open sending repeated pulses of water toward the continents from every direction, bringing sediments and marine fossils to the land.

· Turbidity Currents are underwater avalanches that carry millions of tons of mud and ooze at express train speeds. These flow downhill under gravity then flow great distances over the ocean floor and sort the grains so the larger grains surpass the smallest ones and settle out most rapidly. The 1929 Grand Banks earthquake generated a turbidity current that ran down the slope at the edge of the North American continent at speeds up to 50 mph, ripping up cables and depositing sorted sediments up to 3 feet in thickness covering 600 miles—in about 13 hours. Lots of sedimentary layers are now being considered fast-forming turbidites. With the upheavals inevitably associated with the breaking up of the ‘fountains of the great deep’ recorded in the Bible, it is no wonder that most of the fossil record consists of buried sea creatures.

· Mud flows—Within months after the May 18, 1980 Mt. St. Helens explosion, significant deposits of ash and mud resembled layered rock strata, showing how strata in the geologic record could have been rapidly formed. On June 12, 1980, 25 feet of pumice/mud flow were deposited which developed a layered appearance that same day and was cemented. The layering was very precise, micro-thin bedding (called lamination) formed by the power of the surging flow (90 mi/hr). The hurricane-force surge of the volcano sorted out the grains. And volcanic dust and ash are good sources for cement.

The fountains burst forth, not sneaked out, requiring lots of earth movements and massive erosion! Water-laid deposits take a lot of churning, fast-moving water, not necessarily a lot of time!!

Nature Of The Rock Layers Themselves.

You would expect to find and do find thick extensive beds of similar materials.

· Widespread—Lots of water-sorted sediment extending over wide areas with varying thicknesses. Expect to find thick extensive beds of similar materials. Evidence? Yes. Examples: Dakota Sandstone–one of the most distinctive in the Rockies. No process today forming similar deposit. Also the Morrison Formation, famous for its dinosaurs, covers parts of 11 states! Thick sandstones reach from the Grand Canyon eastward to the Appalachian Mountains. Names change along the way, as does the thickness. But the layer is the same. Once again, the data match the prediction.

· Redbeds—Great thicknesses of red to reddish brown sediments cover our continent in a continuous sheet that extends west through the Grand Canyon and eastward to the Appalachian Mountains, commonly several thousand feet thick. The color is due to the presence of hematite, an iron mineral, the color of which is so dominant that a very small amount of it will color the rock a faint shade of red. Why so much iron in all these sediments? Volcanic rock contains a wealth of iron minerals. When these are decomposed in water, hematite is formed. Iron comes not only from the weathering of volcanic rock, but also from the associated hot waters released by volcanoes, water that is highly charged with iron. Extensive volcanism during a worldwide flood would release tons of mineral-rich water to mix with sediments as they are deposited. When exposed to oxygen, the iron forms hematite which drops out of solution, creating lenses and concretions in the deposits. The Woodbine Sandstone upon which we live is considered a redbed and contains hematite lenses and concretions.

· Ripple marks, “raindrop impressions,” animal tracks, cross beds, mud cracks—Ripple marks form as water moves over a surface. Raindrop marks are probably blisters formed as air bubbles escape from rapidly deposited sediments. Animal tracks are impressions left by a creature on soft sediment. These surface features are preserved in many rock layers. All had to be formed in soft sediment, are very fragile, and require rapid burial by sediment before they had a chance to erode or be destroyed. Crossbedding is caused by rapid sedimentation, requiring strong sheet-flow of sediment over sand waves. In order for it to be preserved, deposition must take place rapidly and then the whole sequence must be buried before it is washed away. Single crossbeds form in the Mississippi River in less than one minute. Deposits over thirty feet thick may have accumulated in only a few days. A lot of water, not a lot of time. Mud cracks are shrinkage cracks resulting from water loss. We often see mud cracks form when a mud puddle dries in the sun. But, mud cracks also form underwater in the muddy bottoms of lakes and in buried mud layers as water is pressed out. The cracks are then filled in with other material, which preserves them. Mud cracks have to be formed in soft sediment, are very fragile, and require rapid burial or cementation before they have a chance to erode or be destroyed.

More Evidence Of Rapid Deposition.

· Grand Canyon—Exhibit A used to prove millions of years to form rock strata. Sediments a mile thick; horizontal. They are widespread water-laid deposits, layered with particles sorted by size and preserving crossbeds, ripple marks and animal tracks—all evidence of rapid deposition. Closer examination shows that they could have been laid down quickly with little time delay between formations. Again, a lot of water; not a lot of time. Want to know more? Get the DVD or book Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe by Dr. Steve Austin.

· Conglomerates and Breccias—Conglomerates are rock deposits composed of pieces of other rock and/or fossil fragments. They may contain everything from rounded boulders to gravel-sized particles. Breccias are similar to conglomerates except the particles are angular, meaning freshly broken pieces from other rock. Both indicate quick deposition after a major upheaval and erosion of other rock. Throughout the rock layers in Colorado are thick layers of conglomerates and breccias. Castle Rock is one noteworthy example because it’s so conveniently located along the interstate highway. There is a conglomerate of oyster shells in the Woodbine formation along Lake Grapevine. Abundant broken fossil shells embedded in dirty sand and silt indicating they were transported away from where the oysters had grown. This also indicates rapid burial, for as shells are long exposed on the sea floor, they suffer abrasion and corrosion or perforation by boring animals.

Either the rock record is the evidence of millions of years, or it is largely the evidence of the Genesis Flood. It can’t be both. I think the evidence weighs heavily on the side of the Flood.

Question #2: Do You Mean That The Fossils We Find In The Rocks Could Have Been Buried By Noah’s Flood?

Rapid Burial—Did It Take Millions Of Years And Evolution?

· How is a fossil formed? A fossil forms through: (1) rapid burial and (2) burial under deep sediment. A fossil is formed when an animal is trapped and buried very quickly under sediment that seals the organism in and holds its body together. As the sediment turns to rock, so do the creature remains. The soft parts may rot away leaving only hard parts like teeth, bones and shells which are replaced by minerals from the sediments. Or, molds of the original creature are left.

· Fossils must be buried quickly or they don’t form at all. For example, multitudes of jellyfish are found in the fossil record, but when found stranded on the beach, they turn to formless lumps of jelly within hours. Intricately detailed jellyfish fossils are evidence only of rapid burial. Fish and other animals when they die will float. Such dead animals must be buried rapidly to form fossils in order to protect them from scavengers, bacterial decay, and weather conditions. This holds true with plants as well. They must be buried rapidly and fossilized quickly in order to keep “nature from taking over” and decomposing them. There are also many examples of creatures in the process of eating or giving birth—perfectly preserved—something that can only happen with rapid and complete burial. Flooding is the most likely way for an animal to be buried since floods come by surprise, trapping and burying animals.

Is There Evidence Of Rapid Burial In The Fossil Record?

Everywhere you look is evidence of rapid burial of billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. Here are some special examples that can only be explained by catastrophic flood conditions:

Incredible Fossils:

· Glen Rose, Texas—A three-foot thick strata composed primarily of millions of closed fossil clams. Normally, clams like to burrow in sand separated from each other, but these are packed together by the millions. To be found closed and whole, a clam would need to be buried alive since only the muscles of a live clam can keep the valves closed. These clams must have been washed into their present position and buried alive. These clams are found throughout Texas in this layer. Clams are not the only fossils found here, just the most prevalent. Also fossilized worms in adobe dirt clods—still round, not squashed! Worms are very difficult to preserve since they have no hard body parts. After cutting open a live worm, it turns to dust quickly. This requires rapid burial and rapid changing to rock to keep the worm from decaying.

· Eating or Giving Birth—Many examples of creatures in the process of eating or giving birth, perfectly preserved, which can only happen with rapid and complete burial.

· Gooey Creatures—Thousands of intricately detailed fossil jellyfish are found in rocks. When jellyfish die or get stranded on the beach, they turn to formless lumps of jelly within hours. Terrific evidence of rapid flood-related burial under deep sediment, which turned to rock quickly.

Polystrate Fossils:

Poly = many; strate = strata. A polystrate fossil extends through multiple layers.

· “Kamikaze” ichthyosaur—A complete preserved skull of an ichthyosaur (an extinct marine reptile that gave birth to live young) was found buried in a vertical, nose-down position through several layers. Unlike most fossils, the head was preserved in three dimensions, and had not been flattened by the weight of sediment above it. The various layers supposedly span 1 million years. Discuss evolution explanation. It’s impossible except if the layers had been deposited rapidly and deeply to bury the ichthyosaur and keep it from decaying.

· Tree trunks in coal seams—These penetrate coal plus sandstone layers above and below. One tree in a coal mine in Germany extends vertically 38 feet through the strata. No branches, no roots so did not grow where found. This is evidence of rapid deposition of the strata because the tree didn’t rot and fall over. Some are even upside down. They were carried by water and deposited at the same time as the surrounding sand or coal—over a short period of time.

· Yellowstone’s petrified forests—Numerous layers of upright petrified trees supposedly representing the growth and burial of >27 forests over millions of years. However, the lack of roots, bark and branches associated with these trees gives evidence that they were uprooted and transported from one location to another, buried rapidly, and mineralized. A modern example is what happened after the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption at Spirit Lake. Trees buried in different layers of soil were in position to be petrified in just a few years after the volcano’s eruption.

Unfossilized Bones:

The most sensational, of course are the dinosaur bones.

· Scientists from the University of Montana found Tyrannosaurus rex bones that were not totally fossilized. Sections were like fresh bone and contained what seems to be blood cells and hemoglobin. If these bones really were millions of years old, then the blood cells and hemoglobin would have totally disintegrated. Also, there should not be ‘fresh’ bone if it were really millions of years old.

· Unfossilized frozen duck-billed dinosaur bones have been found on the North Slope in Alaska. Evolutionists would not say that these bones had stayed frozen for the many millions of years since these dinosaurs supposedly died out (according to evolutionary theory). Yet the bones could not have survived for the millions of years unmineralized. This is a puzzle to those who believe in an “age of dinosaurs’” millions of years ago, but not to someone who builds his thinking on the Bible.

Fossil Graveyards:

Thousands of marine and land creatures are buried together in great “fossil graveyards,” tightly packed in a jumbled heap, choked with sediments, buried before they had time to decay. Fish, birds, reptiles, mammals, insects, and plants — creatures that don’t live together — have been piled together and preserved.

· Quarry near Lubbock—Many dinosaur and other reptile bones. Scientist says they drowned in a major flood.

· Agate Quarry in Nebraska—Thousands of rhinoceros, zebra, pig and camel bones in one layer. Whole herds buried at one time.

· Fossil Butte National Monument—Multitudes of perfectly preserved fish, crocodiles, insects, turtles and palm fronds. No signs of decay so were buried rapidly.

· Green River Formation—This rock formation consists of finely layered sediment, each layer supposedly like annual tree rings. Yet, it’s full of fish and bird fossils beautifully preserved spanning across the fine layers. The Mount St. Helens eruptions in the 1980s produced the same fine layering in just one afternoon. So, it’s possible the Green River layers represent equally rapid deposition. The traditional view contradicts the fossils amazingly preserved in them.

· Karoo deposits of southern Africa—The most massive, continuous, fossil deposit known on the planet. 800 billion vertebrate fossils in a 20,000-ft thick deposit of sandstones and shales stretching out for hundreds of miles.

· Gobi desert—Hundreds of dinosaurs as well as lizards, crocodiles, and small mammals preserved in a huge bone bed that’s been in the news frequently because of various claims that “dinobirds” have been found. Every one of those “dinobird” fossils, by the way, have been verified as completely dinosaur or completely bird. Check the Answers in Genesis website whenever you hear another “dinobird” claim.

· Florida south of Tampa—One of the richest fossil deposits in the United States, yielding bones of ~70 species of animals, birds, and sea creatures. About 80% of the bones belong to plains animals, such as camels, horses, mammoths, etc. Bears, wolves, large cats, and a bird with an estimated 30-foot wingspan are also represented. Mixed in with all the land animals are sharks’ teeth, turtle shells, and the bones of fresh and saltwater fish. The bones are all smashed and jumbled together, as if by some catastrophe. The big question for scientists is how bones from such different ecological niches—plains, forests, and ocean—came together in the same place.

Evidene Of Rapid Cementation:

It doesn’t take millions of years for a bone to become fossilized. Researchers have found that chicken bones and wood can be petrified, in just five to ten years. Perhaps a dinosaur bone would only take a hundred years to completely mineralize. Besides, not all fossil remains have yet turned to stone. Pieces of the original shell and bone are commonly present in strata as well as soft tissue.

Question #3: What About The Sequence In Which Fossils Are Found? Doesn’t It Prove Evolutionary Development?

The sequence in which fossils are found does not prove evolutionary development. Rather, it is evidence of sorting and differential abilities to escape floodwaters. Let’s consider these:

· The types of fossils preserved—95% of all fossils are marine creatures, particularly shellfish. That makes sense considering ocean waters swept up from the ocean bottom onto the land. The other 5% is plants and land invertebrates. Less than 1/5% are vertebrates—mostly fish, and most land vertebrate fossils consist of one bone.

· The order of burial—This is the evidence used for evolution. Burial sequence could definitely be influenced by where the organisms lived. Finding fossils in groups suggests that the rising floodwaters buried different ecological zones. You’d expect that large numbers of various marine organisms would be buried together. Above them are the free-swimming vertebrates. Then, at the higher elevations—birds, mammals, and finally man because the ability to escape would affect burial. Larger creatures can climb or swim; plants can float. Both could be buried later in the process. But, that’s not all…

· Hydrodynamic sorting—Floodwater sorts out objects according to similar shape and size. Streamlined objects settle out first; larger creatures with arms and tails settle out last. And, based on the nature of churning water and wave action, there is reason to believe that many initial sediment deposits were reworked and deposited elsewhere. So, you can’t go by the way they are found in the layers anyway. Since flood conditions are ideal for forming fossils, finding fossils in groups suggests that the rising floodwaters buried different ecological zones. The geologic column shows the usual sequence in which the rising floodwaters buried plants and animals from their different zones. It would be expected for large quantities and varieties of marine organisms to be buried together. Larger creatures that could climb or swim would be buried later; plants could float and also would be buried later. Again, the evidence matches the prediction. A lot of water; not a lot of time!!

There are over 2000 documented examples of fossils found that don’t fit into the evolutionary sequence, called Out-Of-Place fossils. There are examples of entire rock layers being out of place with “older” fossils overlying “younger” fossils. All of which are explained away without reason.

Conclusion:

The fossil record is best understood as the result of a marine cataclysm that utterly annihilated the continents and land dwellers. Genesis 7:23 “Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out.” You would expect to find…Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. The evidence matches the prediction.

Was The Flood Regional Or Global?

Here are 7 clues from scripture that the Genesis Flood was global and not just regional or local.

· Global Flood Clue #1: Size of the Ark. Need for an Ark. Genesis 6:14-16, 19-21. Texas Size!!! Its size, construction, and stocking would be totally unnecessary for a local flood—a lot of work and materials. Why bother? God would have told Noah and his family to move to another area.

· Global Flood Clue #2: Purpose of the Flood. Genesis 6:17-18. To wipe out wickedness and violence on the earth. If the purpose of destruction was for the punishment of sin on earth, the purpose couldn’t be accomplished if only part of humanity had been affected.

· Global Flood Clue #3: Depth of the Flood. Genesis 7:17-24. The Flood covered “all the high mountains under the entire heavens” by ~22 feet which may have been the draft of the Ark. It would have taken that much water just to get the Ark floating. All breathing creatures outside the Ark perished. None escaped by swimming, climbing, or flying. The Hebrew translated “covered” is kasah, which means “overwhelmed to the point of washing away.” Psalm 104:6 refers to this part of the Flood, “You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.”

· Global Flood Clue #4: Duration of Flood. More than 40 days!! 21 weeks of rising and prevailing; 31 weeks of receding. Total = 371 days. Not a typical local flood. The Hebrew word translated “prevailed” means that the floodwaters were “overwhelmingly mighty.” Job 12:15 refers to this, “If he holds back the waters, there is drought; if he lets them loose, they devastate the land.”

· Global Flood Clue #5: Use of universal terms, >30 times—all, every, everything. Wording of entire record— 6:17; 7:4 (every), 19 (all), 21-23 (“everything, all” which God Himself uses). The word God uses for the Genesis Flood is not the same word used for a local flood in the rest of the Old Testament. Also, the phrase “all under the entire (whole) heavens” is a double emphasis in the Hebrew.

· Global Flood Clue #6: Promise of No More Floods. Genesis 9:15. There have been many floods, even regional foods, even in Mesopotamia since Noah’s day. If this was merely local flood, then God broke His promise, and the rainbow covenant means nothing.

· Global Flood Clue #7: The Rest of Scripture. Genesis, 2 Peter 2:5; 3:5-6; Isaiah 34:9; Psalm 29:10; 104:6-9; 1 Peter 3:20; Hebrews 11:7. Jesus clearly stated in Luke 17:26-27 that all men were destroyed by the Flood. See also Matthew 24:39. Also, God’s covenant w/Noah after Flood is meaningless if only part of humanity had been involved. The New Testament uses kataklusmos (cataclysm) for the Flood rather than the usual Greek word for flooding.

It had to be universal and it had to have left lots of evidence!!

Sources For Further Study:

1. Noah’s Flood Q & A, Answers in Genesis website

2. The Genesis Flood, Henry Morris and John Whitcomb.

3. The Genesis Record, Henry Morris.

4. There are a number of excellent videos about the Flood—Evidences: The Record and the Flood; Raging Waters; Fossils and the Flood; The World That Perished

5. Double Tragedies Frozen in Time, Dr. Joachim Vetter, www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v12/i4/lime.asp

6. Sensational Dinosaur Blood Report, Carl Wieland, Creation 19(4), September 1997 at /www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i4/blood.asp

7. Florida Fossils Puzzle the Experts, Carol Armstrong, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 21:198, 1985

8. The Yellowstone Petrified Forests, Jonathan Sarfati, Creation 21(2), March 1999 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i2/yellowstone.asp.

9. Dinosaur National Monument: Jurassic Park Or Jurassic Jumble? at http://www.icr.org/article/106.

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_14.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

/assets/pdf/Newton_7Cs_14notes.pdf

15. CATASTROPHE: The New World

Noah and the other occupants of the Ark stepped out into a very different world from the one they had previously known. Consider some of the implied physical changes to the world after the Flood:

1) The oceans were much more extensive, since they now contained all the Flood waters;

2) The possible thermal vapor blanket had been dissipated, so that strong temperature differentials were inaugurated;

3) Mountain ranges uplifted after the Flood emphasized the more rugged topography of the post-Flood continents;

4) Winds and storms were possible for the first time, as well as rain and snow;

5) The environment was much more hostile to man, especially because of the harmful radiations from space no longer being filtered out by the possible vapor canopy, resulting in gradual reduction in human longevity;

6) Tremendous glaciers, rivers and lakes existed, with the world only gradually approaching its present semi-arid state;

7) The lands were barren, until plant life could be re-established through the sprouting of seeds and cuttings buried near the surface.

(Adapted from The Beginning of the World, by Dr. Henry Morris, page 131)

Day One Study

Read Genesis 8:15-22.

The covenant (promise) God made with Noah before the Flood apparently became the standard for ancient governments and contracts after the Flood between a king and his subjects in which sovereign protection is offered in exchange for faithful obedience.

1. Read Genesis 6:13-22; 7:1-9; 7:13-16. What protection did God offer Noah? What was Noah’s responsibility?

2. During the Flood, God made good on His promise, carrying out His sovereign protection of Noah. After the Flood, how did Noah show his thankfulness to God for this protection? [Note: this is the first mention of an altar in the Bible. The first mention of a concept or practice is always significant to understanding its meaning for the rest of Scripture.]

3. Discuss Genesis 8:21-22.

· Why and how was God pleased?

· What did He declare?

· How does His promise affect us?

4. Read Genesis 9:8-17. (We will cover verses 1-7 later in the lesson.) God establishes a new covenant with Noah that does not depend upon anyone’s faithful obedience. This is an unconditional divine promise. What are the terms of this new covenant, AND what is the sign that God gives that He is keeping His promise?

5. The rainbow as a sign of the new covenant obviously had significant meaning to Noah. [It may have been a new thing for Noah to see.] As a symbol associated with God, it is also found in 3 other Scripture passages. How is it used?

· Ezekiel 1:28—

· Revelation 4:1-6—

· Revelation 10:1—

Day Two Study

6. Read Genesis 9:1-7. Compare 9:1-4 with Genesis 1:28-30. What remains the same? What has changed?

· SAME—

· CHANGED—

7. Discuss the meaning of Genesis 9:5-6. Refer to the additional verses for understanding. What does God value? What responsibility does He delegate to man? (See “Deeper Discoveries” at the end of the lesson for an article to read concerning this issue.)

· Genesis 9:5-6—

· Exodus 21:12-14, 28-32—

· Numbers 35:16-32—

CONCLUSION:

Read Genesis 9:18-29.

8. This is a less than noble picture of Noah. What do you think is the reason for this incident to be recorded in Scripture for us?

9. Noah’s sons reacted differently to their father’s drunken state, which revealed their character. Discuss the reactions and character of…

· Ham—

· Shem & Japheth—

10. Parents often have great insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their children. What did Noah discern and prophesy about each of his sons?

· Japheth [the oldest, whose name means enlargement/extension/prosperity]—

· Shem [whose name means honor/authority/character]—

· Ham [the youngest, whose name means hot/swarthy]—

11. Why do you think Noah didn’t curse Ham but instead cursed Canaan, one of Ham’s sons?

12. What is God’s opinion regarding mocking/disrespecting one’s parents? See Exodus 20:12 and Ephesians 6:1-3.

Appreciation Application:

13. Skeptics dismiss the idea of a global flood and claim that Noah’s Flood was merely local. Read Genesis 9:11 again. We still have local and regional floods that are often very destructive and deadly. Does that mean God has broken His promise? Why or why not? What assurance is there for us today that His promised protection is still operating?

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

14. Can you think of 10 wonderful reasons to honor your parents? Will you tell them? What 10 wonderful reasons do your children have for honoring you? What reasons would you like for them to have?

15. Recall a time when you saw a particularly special rainbow. What did you think about? What do you like about rainbows? What makes them special? Think about what you discovered in this lesson about rainbows. Praise God and thank Him now for His promise. Feel free to use any creative means to do so.

Deeper Discoveries:

Read “Creation Answers: Receding Waters” and “Creation Answers: A Brave New World” following this lesson.

Consider: In what ways was the post-flood world different in physical aspect from the pre-flood world? What evidences of the flood can we still see in the present structure of the earth’s surface?

An excellent article on “Capital Punishment” by Kerby Anderson can be read online at www.probe.org. SEARCH “Capital Punishment.”

Go to www.answersingenesis.org and SEARCH anything related to Noah and his sons, the rainbow. Select an article to read or watch a video. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

Creation Answers: Receding Waters

The information below is adapted from articles found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org plus others sourced at the end.

Many people seem to think that Noah’s Ark was a product of ancient folklore, a myth. But there is growing evidence that the account cannot be taken lightly. An ever-increasing number of scientists believe that geologic evidence indicates the worldwide Flood as described in the book of Genesis, was an actual historical fact. The formation of the ocean basins is one of the most perplexing questions to geologists. Equally perplexing is the uplifting of the mountains.

God’s Grace Displayed Again

After the first five months, God did three specific things on behalf of Noah, his family, and the animals on the Ark.

1) God closed the ocean geysers and restrained (limited, restricted) the rain so that it was no longer torrential. The waters stopped rising. Genesis 8:3 says the water “decreased”, meaning the height had been reached by then and started falling down at that time.

2) God caused the Ark to come to rest on the mountains of Ararat. This is God’s grace also, to protect the occupants from what happened next.

3) God put forces into place to turn the raging waters into receding waters. Genesis 8:1 says He sent a wind. Psalm 104 gives us other clues about what God did at this time.

The psalmist said in Psalm 104:6-9. “The watery deep covered it [the earth] like a garment; the waters reached above the mountains. Your shout made the waters retreat; at the sound of your thunderous voice they hurried off – as the mountains rose up, and the valleys went down – to the place you appointed for them. You set up a boundary for them that they could not cross, so that they would not cover the earth again.”

“Rebuke” (verse 7) implies the waters were a chaotic force to be calmed and conquered.

Notice that the mountains rose up, the ocean basins sank. The continents were raised up above sea level as new mountain chains were formed. That just doesn’t happen without a lot of lava also being released. Water ran downhill forming new valleys and filling large, deep ocean basins now defined by the nearly vertical continental edges. God altered earth’s topography to set the boundary.

What Evidence Would We Expect To Find?

· Continents once below sea level having thick deposits, especially marine

· Soft sediments folded, thrust, overturned and uplifted in a short time

· Massive volcanic deposits throughout the rock record.

· Mass erosional features from receding waters.

· Larger and deeper ocean basins to hold the receding water.

The landforms we see today are a result of the Flood, not Creation or millions of years. Let’s examine the evidence.

New Landforms

During the Flood, the break up of the crust must have released tremendous amounts of water, magma, and associated heat. And the erosion of the pre-Flood mountains and land surfaces had resulted in great quantities of sediments being deposited in the seas. This undoubtedly left earth’s crust in a highly unstable condition very possibly resulting in a redistribution of weight on the surface and a shifting of land surfaces. It is highly probable that the post-Flood continents were once the bottom of the pre-Flood seas.

Uplift Of Sediment-Covered Land

The continents were obviously once below sea level. Thick water-laid sediments full of marine fossils are deposited on them. Those same rocks have been uplifted thousands of feet, folded, thrust and overturned on a gigantic scale. Major faults (due to cracking and shifting of rock) dominate the landscape. Even in the United States. It is believed that most of the present mountain ranges have been uplifted almost simultaneously and during relatively recent times (70 million years ago). Marine fossils are found at the top of the highest mountains, including Mt. Everest!! The question is not their existence but how recently were they formed and how long did it take?

Scientists say the terrain where today’s mountains exist, in most cases, was nearly flat and near sea level when the recent intense pulse of uplift began. Not only flat, but also covered with thousands of feet of fossil-rich sediment. Marine fossils are found at the top of the highest mountains, including the Himalayas and the Andes.

· These are very difficult to explain for evolutionary geologists. No continents are underwater today for the simple reason that continental crust is made of lighter rock than oceanic crust making the continents more buoyant in the mantle like Styrofoam on water.

· And, nowhere can you find flatness of a shallow continental sea for hundreds of miles in all directions as the sediment deposits demand. And, have it stay that way for millions of years as pile after pile of sediment is laid down.

· Grand Canyon is currently 7-8000 ft above sea level. The land supposedly went up and down several times, remaining almost completely flat. The ocean was over the continent each time. Harder to believe than considering it a onetime event!

· And, it appears that all the world’s mountains rose almost simultaneously just a “few million years” ago—yesterday in earth’s history.

The big question then is how recent, and how long did it take?

The Model

1. Release of water and magma would cause readjusting of oceans and continents. As new ocean floors cooled, the rock became denser and sunk deeper into the mantle allowing water to flow off the continents. Movement of the water off the continents and into the oceans would have weighed down the ocean floor more and lightened the continents, resulting in the further sinking of the ocean floor, as well as upward movement of the continents.

2. The collision of the tectonic plates would have pushed up mountain ranges also, especially towards the end of the Flood.

How Are Mountains Formed?

Mountains form by folding of rock layers (the Appalachians, Arbuckles of Oklahoma), faulting (the Guadalupe Mountains and Big Bend region of west Texas), volcanic eruption above the surface or bulging from below after hardening below the surface (Mt St Helens, Stone Mountain in Georgia), uplift of land above sea level (the Ozarks), or a combination of the four (the Rockies). What would the evidence be that such activity didn’t take millions of years?

Strata Is Too Tightly Bent For Extended Time

According to the evolutionary view, many rocks were already hundreds of millions of years old at the time of uplift. There is a problem with this view. The strata are too tightly bent!! In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. If the rocks were old at the time of folding and uplift, having been deeply buried and cemented for years, they should behave in a brittle fashion, shattering in the process. No gradual process can deform rocks into tight folds under normal temperature conditions without fracturing them. Once a rock becomes hard, it is extremely difficult to bend it without breaking it. Rocks would be expected to behave in a hard “brittle” fashion, not a soft “plastic” fashion. Closer examination of many folded rock layers indicate that they were formed while still in a soft, uncemented state. Most of these show no evidence that the rocks were subjected to high temperature and pressure. The evidence points toward “Soft Sediment Deformation.” Examples:

· Grand Canyon—the same rocks that are perfectly flat at Grand Canyon village are standing in a near-vertical orientation a short distance away. The Tapeats Sandstone, now a very hard rock, was bent from horizontal to vertical in a space of 100 feet or so. It is supposedly 550 million years old. Yet, the time of bending was 480 million years later! No evidence exists of the cement binding the grains together having been broken. In order for folding to take place without fracturing, each grain in the rock layer has to rotate. So, it had to be done while they were still soft, like mashed potatoes moving—every grain had to rotate. This is called plastic deformation. But it only takes a few hundred years at best for sandy sediments to turn to stone in the presence of high overburden pressure and adequate cement. Evidently, the Tapeats wasn’t very old. This eliminates time— folding occurred less than millions of years after deposition.

· The situation at the Grand Canyon is far from unique. There are many other places where now very hard rocks must have been deformed while in a soft, unconsolidated condition. The Rocky Mountains are full of such occurrences. The Appalachian Mountains likewise. Closer to home: the Arbuckles in southern Oklahoma. One such occurrence might be passed off as an anomaly, but the world is full of examples of soft sediment deformation, just as it should be if the earth is young and the Flood is really responsible for most of the world’s geologic features.

Injected Sandstone Dikes Shorten Time

Rockwall, TX is named after some very unusual rock walls—sandstone and limestone dikes (a vertical, wall-like feature buried underground) that are several miles long and 150 ft high. Contrary to the popular rumor spread by local citizens, they are not walls built by a prehistoric race of giants. They were evidently squeezed upward from a sandstone layer below into a thick limestone layer now found at the surface. But, old-earth geologists say the source sandstone bed was already millions of years old at the time of the squeezing. Yet, there is no evidence of cracking or breaking in the sandstone dikes. All points to the sand being semi-fluid when it was squeezed into the overlying cracks. Many similar sandstone dikes are found elsewhere such as west of Colorado Springs and in Kodachrome Basin State Park, Utah.

Massive Volcanic Activity Also Built Up The Land.

During the past, lava evidently flowed much more freely than now—spouting from craters, and pushing upward from immense cracks. Lava built up the land as volcanic rocks mixed with sedimentary rocks everywhere. Huge quantities of granite bulged up from below the surface to form great domes such as Pikes Peak and Enchanted Rock. Ps 104:32 says, “He touches the mountains and they smoke.” Some examples are:

· Columbia Plateau in the Northwestern U.S.—Built up by oozing lava flows stacked one on top of another in rapid succession, covering 65,000 square miles in Washington, Oregon and Idaho and northern California several thousand feet deep AND built Earth’s most stupendous rock formation, stretching for a thousand miles along the shores of Canada and Alaska. The eruptions, probably occurring during the late Flood or early post-Flood, produced a lake of lava thousands of times larger than anything witnessed in historic times.

· India’s Deccan Plateau—This is formed by a lava deposit that is two miles thick!! No doubt, lava poured out of the earth for years after the Flood ended.

· Mt. Ararat—One of the volcanic mountains formed in an earlier period of the Flood is Mount Ararat along with other similar mountains in the upland regions of what is now Armenia. The Ararat region abounds in what is known as pillow lava, a dense lava rock formed under great depths of water. The mountains also include certain sedimentary formations containing marine fossils.

Uplift Of Land Above Sea Level Resulted In Enlarged, Defined Ocean Basins.

As the water and magma burst forth and reduced pressure under the ocean basins, and the waters of the canopy washed down into the ocean basins, you would have a shifting of isostatic equilibrium, meaning the heavier rocks would sink and the lighter ones would rise. Supposedly the continental rocks are lighter than what is at the bottom of the oceans! The Grand Canyon is currently 7-8000 ft above sea level yet it supposedly went up and down several times as layers were deposited and eroded. The ocean was over the continent each time. That is harder to believe than a onetime event!

Continental shelves and slopes plus drowned submarine canyons indicate sea level was once several thousand feet lower than today. Some parts of the sea bottom have obviously dropped. Lots of “seamounts”—nonvolcanic, flat-topped drowned islands— exist in the middle of the ocean. No explanation. Actually, most of the earth is still covered with water from the Flood. Over 70% of earth’s surface is submerged at an average depth of over 2 miles. Much water is stored in the form of huge continents of ice at the north and south poles. It is also said that if you could level off the land and the ocean bottom, the ocean would cover the earth’s surface to a depth of 2 miles.

The Waters Receded

Once the crust began to move (the previous land surfaces downward to form the new ocean basins, the previous sea bottoms and their new deposits of stratified sediments upward to form the new continents), the waters began to drain off the emerging lands, “and the water receded steadily from, the earth” (Genesis 8:3). According to Dr. Henry Morris, the expression in the Hebrew indicates a rapid subsidence, as would have been expected under the circumstances. What would you expect to find? What do you find?

Leveled Land With Remnant High Spots

The rapidly receding floodwaters have left behind leveled-off land with remnant high spots, terraces from receding water levels, and huge drainage gullies. Initially, rapid withdrawal of water would have scoured wide, flat surfaces across the landscapes though sometimes being deflected around resistant areas forming remnant hills, mesas and buttes. Some examples are:

· Llano Estacado or “Staked Plain”—This landform stretches from Glen Rio, Texas, to Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Early travelers put stakes into the ground to find their way from place to place on this almost featureless surface. Looks like a countertop that has been wiped clean.

· Mesas and Buttes—Some areas resisted the sheet erosion so formed the mesas (wide ridges) and buttes (narrow ridges) in west Texas, New Mexico and other places in the west such as Monument Valley. If you have driven from here to Albuquerque NM, you’ve seen lots of these.

· Devil’s Tower—This is the throat of a volcano that has a flat top. As overlying sediments were removed, the top of the already cooled lava forming Devil’s Tower was leveled off. And, the softer sediments were removed from around it. By the way, the presence of the vertical joints is evidence of ample available water to migrate into the rock, evaporate and exit out thus cooling the rock. The next time you notice these interesting vertical columns at a tourist site, think of the Genesis Flood.

· Gulf Coast sediment basins—The Great Plains in the heartland of America became one gigantic alleyway of floodwaters draining off the continent. And, all the eroded sediment had to go somewhere. It may be found along the Gulf Coast—extending through the coastal lands and onto the present continental shelf. Wedge-shaped deposits, thicker on the Gulf end (40,000 feet) and nearly horizontal (tilting 1˚), extend from the Dallas area toward the Gulf. A surface rock layer near Nacogdoches is buried 14,000 feet below Galveston. It would have taken more water power than the few river systems located in east and southeast Texas—the Sabine, Trinity, Brazos, and Colorado—to lay down up to 40,000 feet of sediments, thousands of square miles in area! The inland edge was uplifted by faulting which further enhanced drainage and cementing of the sediments.

One other thing: Massive sheet erosion might explain the absence of human and large animal fossils in the remaining Flood sediments. The last to be buried—the floating, less streamlined creatures—would be the first to get eroded away and redeposited in the ocean basins.

Terraces And Valleys

Other evidences of receding waters are terraces and remnant valleys.

· Terraces—Terraces are water lines left behind by subsiding water. Ancient water lines can be clearly seen along the coasts of all continents. California cities are built on them.

· Great Inland Lakes—As the waters drained off the continents, every bowl-shaped basin became a lake. Terraces are also found along the great inland lakes that have now dried, such as Lake Bonneville, Death Valley.

· Carved Valleys Adopted by Rivers—In less flat areas, the receding waters would split into channels, which cut deep valleys in the soft, unconsolidated earth. Practically all river valleys are far deeper and wider than their present river systems require indicating they once carried a far greater volume of water. More in line with a flood than river erosion.

So, there’s evidence of receding waters. A lot of water, not a lot of time.

Deepened Oceans

Studying the continental shelves and slopes plus drowned canyons extending out from land-based rivers indicates that sea level was once several thousand feet lower than it is today. Some parts of the sea bottom have definitely dropped. This is particularly noticeable in oceanic “seamounts” (or, guyots)—about 70,000 volcanic, flat-topped drowned islands in the middle of the ocean. The cones have been seemingly chopped off at an average depth of 5-6,000 feet below sea level. Evidently, those volcanoes on the ocean floor grew up to the surface of the lowered ocean where their peaks were eroded and flattened by wave action. Later, sea level rose several thousand feet as ocean basins sank deeper, water continually drained off the land, and glaciers melted. No explanation for the seamounts being there.

Conclusion

The earth’s features appear to have been fashioned largely by rapid, catastrophic processes that affected the earth on a global scale. Could it be the effects of the Genesis Flood? Yes. The evidence matches the prediction. A lot of water, not a lot of time.

Sources For Further Study

1. What Geologic Processes Were Operating during the Flood?, John Morris, Back to Genesis #189, September 2004, page d.

2. When Did the Mountains Rise?, John Morris, Back to Genesis, March 2005, page d.

3. Recent Rapid Uplift of Today’s Mountains, John Baumgardner, Impact #381, March 2005.

4. Warped Earth, David Allen, Creation 25(1), December 2002, pages 40-43. www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i1/warped.asp

5. Were the Huge Columbia River Basalts Formed the Flood?, John Morris, Back to Genesis #185, May 2004.

6. Devil’s Tower and Bible Glasses, Tas Walker, Creation 24(3) June 2002 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i3/devils_tower.asp

7. Creation Road Trip, Dave and Mary Jo Nutting at www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/creation-road-trip.

8. Creation Road Trip: More Destinations, at www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/creation-road-trip-more.

9. Utah’s Testimony to Catastrophe, Andy McIntosh, May 8, 2007 at www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/utah-testimony-catastrophe.

10. Evidence for the Run-off of Flood Waters, Michael Oard, audio at http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/bio.aspx?Speaker_ID=24.

11. Noah’s Flood Q & A, Answers in Genesis website

12. Grand Canyon: Monument to the Flood DVD, book.

13. The Genesis Flood, Henry Morris and John Whitcomb.

14. The Genesis Record, Henry Morris.

15. In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, Dr. Walt Brown. Online version at www.creationscience.com/onlinebook.

16. There are a number of excellent videos about the Flood—Evidences: The Record and the Flood; Raging Waters; Fossils and the Flood; The World That Perished

Creation Answers: A Brave New World

The information below is adapted from articles found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org plus others sourced at the end.

Noah and the other occupants of the Ark bravely stepped out into a very different world from the one they had previously known. The land looked different. He wouldn’t have recognized any familiar landmarks. New rivers and lakes needed to be explored and named. The mountains were higher and more rugged looking. Seeds and cuttings buried near the surface would be sprouting. But, the lush forests were gone. There must have been a sense of aloneness on this vast land.

But, the land surface quickly took on the look of a mature landscape, one that had been there a long time. Why do I say this? Because observations in the world show that mature landscapes don’t take millions of years to develop.

Rapidly Developed Mature Landscapes—How Long Did It Take?

Erosion of fresh surfaces takes place very rapidly then slows down as equilibrium is reached with the stability of the surface, plant coverage, etc. Just watch a recent excavation and preparation of land for building. If it rains right after sloping land is smoothed out, gullies will form in the soft land with little effort. Over the next few weeks, if it rains again, the gullies will deepen. But, that will stop as grass and weeds take hold on the unconsolidated earth and as the size of the gully becomes adequate to handle water flow on that slope. It will stop changing. And, within a few months, the slope will look like it had been there for years. You’ve seen that before, haven’t you?

New Landscapes Look Old

Mature looking landscapes such as those in mountains or on islands don’t take long to develop. We don’t have continents going up and down below sea level to observe, but volcanic mountains make excellent laboratories.

· Surtsey Island—In 1963, Surtsey Island was born in the ocean near Iceland. Within 3-5 months, the waves had reworked the island edges into level, sandy beaches. Within a few years, wind and rain had weathered the lava into soil for hollows and glens to become lush meadows. The official Icelandic geologist Sigurdur Thorarinsson wrote for National Geographic in 1964: “… in one week’s time we witness changes that elsewhere might take decades or even centuries … Despite the extreme youth of the growing island, we now encounter a landscape so varied that it is almost beyond belief.” Another scientist said, “…it gives the appearance of being thousands of years old.”

· Mt. St. Helens—The same thing has been seen at Mount St. Helens over the past 25 years. Within just three years, 90% of the original plant species were already growing within the blast zone. Return of many animals soon followed. So, today the diversity of species living in the area is approaching its pre-eruption levels.

It’s not reasonable to assume that the earth has always been shaped by passive everyday processes. If, however, the bulk of the past geologic activity took place under intense conditions in a brief space of time, it’s not unreasonable to determine that mature landscapes could have developed within a few years rather than millions of years.

Caves Developed

Another landform that is attributed to millions of years of development is the underground cave. But, the evidence does not agree. So, let’s look at it:

1) Caves Form In Limestone Rock.

To have large caves like Mammoth cave and Carlsbad Caverns, you need great thicknesses of limestone. These are found all over the earth’s surface. Dallas and Fort Worth are both built on very thick limestone layers. We have small caves throughout our area. Creation scientists believe that most limestone layers accumulated during the Flood because they normally contain large numbers of catastrophically buried fossils (usually corals and shellfish) buried in limey mud.

To get that you need lots of dissolved calcium and carbon dioxide (already present in the ocean water) plus a change in temperature. During the Flood, volcanoes added massive heat to the ocean. The warmer the water, the more the dissolved CO2 changes to CO3, (called carbonate) which quickly combines with calcium to form the mineral calcium carbonate. CaCO3 is heavier than water so it drops out. This is the source material for limestones. So, increase in ocean temperature would be associated with increased lime muds available for deposit. Nowhere on the earth is limestone being deposited on such a mass scale. But, limey muds being deposited are cementing within a few years showing that this is possible.

These limey muds were buried rapidly under huge amounts of other sediments. The weight on top of the lime sediments would compact them, and tend to expel the water they contained, probably through internal cracks formed while the sediments were hardening. Mud tends to form cracks when it dries. The stage is set for caves.

2) Earth Movements Uplifted The Land.

Floodwaters receded and eroded the sediment layers above so that the layers of lime sediments would now again be near the surface. Groundwater would continue to permeate the limestone along those internal cracks where the rock would have been weakest. This happens today.

3) Acidic Groundwater Dissolves The Calcium Carbonate.

Calcium carbonate dissolves in acid. For months after the floodwater receded, excess groundwater made acidic by volcanic ash or decaying organic matter would be moving through these new semi-soft rocks below the water table, dissolving the rock. A new cave system would develop at that level.

Geologist Steve Austin studied the famous Mammoth Cave Upland region of Kentucky and determined that a cave 180 feet long and 3 feet square could form in one year. If even remotely similar rates of formation occurred elsewhere, huge caverns obviously could form in a very short time. On the contrary, at the rate those caves are being dissolved now, nothing would have been left after the supposed two million years age of those caves.

4) Drier Conditions Leave Caves Exposed.

When the excess groundwater drains away, the water table would be at a lower level so that the newly hollowed caves would be filled with air instead of water. Surface water continues to flow downward creating the stalactites, stalagmites, and flowstone in the cave systems.

These are known to form more rapidly than the usual “thousands of years explanation” when adequate water is present. In tropical areas, caves and their formations develop much faster than those in more temperate regions because of higher annual rainfall. Large stalactites are also found growing everywhere—in shopping centers, schools, universities, and even in multi-storey car parks. None of those are older than 100 years! One stalagmite in Carlsbad had grown so fast it was able to preserve a complete bat before the creature had time to decompose. A newly formed cave in Mexico has crystals as large as telephone poles that scientists say may have formed in 30-100 years because of the extreme temperatures and humidity.

Conclusion: It’s possible to consider that caves and their formations resulted more from the after-effects of the Genesis Flood than through slow and gradual processes over millions of years.

Canyons

A third landform often stated as Exhibit A for an old earth is the canyon. Especially the famous canyons like Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo and, of course, the Grand Canyon. Just how long did it take?

The official story on the Grand Canyon is this: the rocks demonstrate slow and gradual processes over eons. The fossils document evolution’s march through time, with simple creatures at the bottom and complex ones at the top. The Colorado River took 70 million years to erode the Canyon. With such an authoritative story who could doubt?

Well, there is room to doubt, and even many old-earth advocates are revising their views, talking about catastrophic deposition and runaway erosion within the last one million years. They aren’t talking about Noah’s flood yet, but they might as well be!

Recent events have cast a new light on canyon formation that address several observations such as the fact that nearly all canyons are vastly larger than the river system it contains. Here are two examples:

· A new canyon formed last century near Walla Walla, Washington in less than 6 days. In March 1926, an obstruction in a series of irrigation ditches, built in 1904, forced dammed up water to be diverted to a small side ditch (10 ft deep, 6 ft wide). In less than a week, what once was an insignificant ditch became a gully, then a gulch then a miniature Grand Canyon——1500 ft long, 120 ft deep—carved through silt, sand and solid rock!

· At Mount St. Helens in one day’s time, layers of ancient solid rock, 500-ft thick, were eroded by fast-moving mud flows and water to produce several mature looking canyons 100 feet deep only 4 years after the initial eruption. Later, creeks formed at the bottom of the canyons. The canyons caused the creeks, not vice versa!! Is this a clue to post-Flood canyon formation? Gravity plus a lot of water; not a lot of time.

The Grand Canyon did get eroded, but probably not by the Colorado River. Examining the evidence reveals that erosion was rapid, not so long ago, and the waters carried the debris far to the west, not like the modern Colorado River. The main erosional features are typically those of soft sediments, not hard rock.

One current explanation is called the “Breached Dam” theory. There’s evidence that large lakes once existed upstream. It is speculated the canyon formed as the natural dams were breached. Later the river developed at the bottom of the canyon.

As mentioned above, some geologists are grasping the idea, especially after recognizing that the Channeled Scablands of Washington were likely formed by waters breaching an ice dam holding back ancient Lake Missoula in Montana. Also, at Yellowstone National Park, a canyon called “The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone” is now said to have been gouged out in one week by the water that broke through an ice dam, of course hundreds of thousands of years ago! This is a good example of how even evolutionists recognize such canyons can be formed quickly—yet they mock when creationists talk about the catastrophic origin of the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

So it is possible to interpret Grand Canyon rocks as having been laid down by the Flood, the area uplifted late in the Flood year, with trapped Floodwaters carving out the canyon itself while draining off the uplifted continents. Interestingly enough, Havasupai Indian legend says that there was a flood over the earth, then the canyon formed by excessive drainage from the flood. Could Palo Duro Canyon in Texas have formed this way as water drained off the Llano Estacado? What about other large canyons?

It’s interesting that secular scientists are increasingly suggesting that catastrophic processes, including the mighty force of water, explain much about the earth’s surface today. These features truly could have been formed by a watery global catastrophe and the subsequent unstable earth, which occurred ~4,400 years ago. Landscapes are evidence of the work of gravity, wind and a lot of water, not necessarily a lot of time.

It was a “New World” for Noah and his family as well as for the animals.

How Did The Animals Spread Throughout The New World?

Well, if God brought the animals to Noah from all over the earth, He certainly could make sure they spread out again. There are some clues as to how animals get from one place to another.

1) Multiply And Migrate

As animals moved out from the mountains of Ararat, they would have most likely traveled by land. Populations of animals may have had centuries to migrate, relatively slowly, over many generations. As they migrated, they rapidly increased in number. A recent example of this was seen after the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980 when the decimated elk herd bounced back through an increase of multiple births per cow allowing the herd to grow rapidly. Those populations may have separated from one another, thus allowing variation to develop as the gene pools were reduced.

2) Cross Land Bridges

We’ll talk about the Ice Age in the next section. But, one thing of note is that as ice formed on the continents, water was removed from the oceans lowering sea level somewhat. Land bridges connected separate landmasses were exposed, giving animals a means to get to different continents. Perhaps by swimming.

3) Catch Rides On Vegetation Mats

The animals could also have migrated by catching rides on vegetation mats floating on the ocean surface. When Krakatoa erupted in 1883, the island remnant remained lifeless for some years, but was eventually recolonized by a surprising variety of creatures—insects, birds, lizards, snakes and even a few mammals. One would not have expected some of this surprising array of creatures to have crossed the ocean, but they obviously did. Present day observations of lizards catching rides on vegetation mats in the Caribbean Sea confirm this.

4) Expect Some Not To Survive

The ancestors of present-day creatures and plants may have established daughter populations in different parts of the world, but most of these populations subsequently became extinct because they weren’t suited to that climate. Kangaroos didn’t make it in Africa, but the group in Australia survived. Hummingbirds didn’t make it in Europe, but the ones in North America survived. You wouldn’t expect to find fossils of those creatures in other parts of the world unless those fossils had been buried by the Flood.

It’s not a hurdle for creationists to explain how the animals migrated to various parts of the earth and established unique populations in single locations. For man and animals, they left the Ark to brave a new world.

Was There Really An Ice Age?

Besides all the changes in the landscape as floodwaters were draining off the land, the climate would have changed as well, at first in the polar regions, later among the tops of the new tall mountains. This could have brought on the “ice age.”

An “ice age” is a time of extensive glacial activity that covers a relatively large area with ice. During the Ice Age, which ended a few thousand years ago, 30% of the land surface of the earth was covered by ice. Less of Europe and Asia than you probably knew. In North America an ice sheet covered almost all of Canada and the northern United States. We know this from the deposits left behind by the advancing and retreating ice sheets plus other surface features. Today’s polar ice caps and alpine glaciers are the remains of those vast ice sheets. The evidence points to just one ice age, though.

The Big Freeze

To accumulate and maintain large sheets of ice requires 3 conditions: 1) increased evaporation, 2) increased snowfall, and 3) decreased snowmelt. Evolutionists find the cause of the Ice Age a mystery. Obviously the climate would need to be colder. But global cooling by itself is not enough, because then there would be less evaporation, so less snow. How is it possible to have both a cold climate and lots of evaporation? All three requirements are met by the Flood model, especially through extensive volcanic activity during and after the Flood and the residual warm oceans following the Flood. Let’s examine how these provided the conditions for an ice age.

Increased Evaporation

For increased evaporation, the key is more heat in the ocean.

· The opening of the “fountains of the great deep” caused tremendous volcanic activity. We saw evidence for that last time in the massive volcanic deposits all over the earth. Extensive volcanic activity with large lava flows, particularly undersea, would have added huge amounts of heat to the ocean.

· Also, movements in the earth’s crust would have released high-pressure outflows of deep, hot water reservoirs. The rapid Flood currents would mix the warm water, driving it from pole to pole. Warm water would prevent the formation of ice in the sea.

· As a result, the warm ocean would have a much higher level of evaporation than that in the modern cool ocean. Under such conditions, most of the resulting snow would fall in the middle latitudes and polar regions.

· Studies of ocean floor sediments show that the oceans were at one time 40˚ warmer than today. This would encourage evaporation and more snowfall available to higher latitudes and elevations. You would expect to find thick snow accumulation forming ice sheets.

Increased Snow Fall

The key to snow rather than rain falling in an area is cooling.

· Warm water and cold continents are a recipe for powerful and continuous snowstorms, whose behavior can be estimated using basic weather principles.

· Volcanoes cast volcanic dust and aerosols (very small particles) into the stratosphere where they were trapped for several years following the Flood. These particles would have reflected some of the sunlight back to space and caused cooler summers, mainly over large landmasses.

· Extensive volcanic activity would have continued for a number of years after the Flood and then gradually declined. By the way, there is abundant geologic evidence of extraordinary volcanic activity during the Ice Age, which would have replenished the dust and aerosols in the stratosphere (the layer of the atmosphere from 12 to 21 miles above the earth’s surface). Ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica also show abundant volcanic particles and acids in the sections associated with the Ice Age.

Decreased Snow Melt

Slick continents, denuded of vegetation, would radiate heat back to the atmosphere. Volcanic ash would have reduced incoming solar radiation, enhancing the cooling. The result would be cooler summers, not necessarily colder winters. In 1883, Krakatoa in East Indies sent up 3 cubic miles of volcanic dust into the stratosphere, which was then distributed globally. This caused red sunsets for 10 years and lowered the average temperature of the earth 4˚ F for about 3 years. One volcano affecting the atmosphere for 10 years! So, it’s reasonable to conclude that conditions for creating an ice age were met by the Flood.

Evidence That Ice Can Accumulate Quickly

· Two B-17 Flying Fortresses and 6 P-38 Lightning fighters landed on the Greenland ice sheet during WWII. These aircraft were buried under about 250 feet of ice and snow in about 50 years. This means the ice sheet has been accumulating at an average rate of 5 feet per year. So, at that rate of accumulation, the 4000-ft thick Greenland ice sheet could have formed within the past 4500 years rather than the 160,000 years claimed by evolutionary scientists.

· A flag, tent and sledge left at the South Pole by Antarctic explorer Amundsen in 1911 are now 40 feet under the ice. Antarctica is drier so the ice is accumulating more slowly than in Greenland. But, that may not have always been the case.

How Long Did It Last?

Meteorologist Michael Oard who specializes in “ice age” studies speculates that the accumulation of ice to its maximum depth (average 2,300 ft) over much of the Northern Hemisphere would have taken about 500 years.

Taking into consideration ice sheet meltback (about 33 ft per year along the edge, but slower in the interior), the gigantic glacial ice sheets (after the peak in accumulation) would have melted within 200 years. Of course, Greenland and Antarctica would have continued to grow because of their high latitude and altitude. Thus, the total time for the Ice Age is a maximum of only about 700 years (500 years to accumulate, 200 years to melt).

This means that from about 2350 B.C. until 1650 B.C., the ice sheets seriously affected life in Europe and North America. Interestingly, there’s a possible reference to this time in the book of Job.

“From whose womb does the ice emerge, and the frost from the sky, who gives birth to it, when the waters become hard like stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen solid?” (Job 38:29-30)

Job lived near Arabia. God spoke to Job as though Job was aware of sheets of ice (glaciers—hard as stone) up north in Europe and ice packs covering the polar regions of the oceans. Job lived between the time of Noah and Abraham so the Ice Age must have followed soon after the Flood.

What About The Rest Of The Land?

Land close to the warm oceans and on either side of the equator would still have had a pleasantly warm climate like today. Two-thirds of the land was NOT covered by ice.

Present day deserts were well-watered. Israel is described in the Old Testament as a lush land flowing with “milk and honey” producing abundant, large fruit. Today, it’s dry and desert, made green and productive through irrigation. In the Sahara Desert, dwarf crocodiles survived into the 20th century and lived in isolated lakes or pools along several wadis of the high western Sahara. People once lived in the Sahara Desert along with a variety of tropical and aquatic animals. They have left countless stone tools, pottery, and pictures of those animals carved on the rocks. Explorers have even found fishhooks and harpoons!

If you had all that water tied up in glaciers, the ocean levels would be considerably lower, in fact the sea level was ~600 ft lower at this time. The evidence for this is the drop off from land’s edge to the continental slope edges. Because of this lowered sea level, land bridges connected continents and islands, thus assisting the migration of animals and later people after the Flood.

Eventually, the seas gradually cooled, so evaporation would decrease, therefore the snow supply for the continents would also decrease. And as the ash settled out of the atmosphere, it would allow sunlight through. So the ice sheets began to melt. Sometimes the melting would have been rapid enough for the rivers that drained these ice sheets to flood. These catastrophes would have happened about 700 years after the Flood. Sea level rose to its current level. Rain declined in the middle latitudes, too, so that deserts formed.

Remnants Of The Ice Age

When the ice began to melt, about 500 years after the Flood, large lakes would have built up. Sometimes, natural ice dams would have contained them for a while. But when these finally cracked, the lakes would have burst through. This water can have tremendous destructive power.

· The “Spokane Flood”—Glacial Lake Missoula in Montana at the end of the Ice Age was perched behind an ice dam at 4,200 feet above sea level. Only Washington State stood between it and the Pacific Ocean. When this ice dam failed, 500 cubic miles of water poured westward across an area twice the size of New Jersey at freeway speed. This has been nicknamed the “Spokane Flood.” It scoured the basaltic bedrock carving giant channels that are now dry (called coulees), deposited gravel/boulder bars over 300 feet high, and left dried waterfalls that dwarf Niagara Falls. The resulting landform is the Channeled Scablands in eastern Washington State. The Grand Coulee, a trench 50-miles long, one to six miles wide, and 900 feet high, was chiseled through hard basalt and granite.

· The Quick-freeze of the Arctic Ocean—Scientists are now considering a massive catastrophic burst of an ice dam in Siberia, on the scale of the Spokane Flood releasing huge amounts of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean. Salt water stays liquid below 32 °F and is denser than fresh water. So if melt-water poured into the Arctic Ocean, it would tend to float on top, and freeze. The resulting ice layer would cover much of the ocean’s surface. The air above this sea ice is deprived of heat and moisture from the ocean. The snow that soon falls will reflect much of the sunlight back to space, cooling the air further. As a result, there would be a tremendous cold front over the land, and the temperature over the adjacent land could drop 54 °F in a week. This, with the added wind chill, could possibly explain the frozen mammoth carcasses and the apparently sudden change in the climate.

· Niagara Falls—As the ice sheets melted, some of the meltwater remained pressurized under the ice. This is believed to have carved out the Finger Lakes in New York State during the Ice Age, and a similar process may have excavated part of the Niagara Gorge. Water from the melting glaciers would have greatly swelled the flow of the Niagara River causing rapid erosion of the newly deposited and hardened rock beneath. Add to that any scouring by glacial ice or meltwaters beneath glaciers, only 4,400 years are needed for the present day gorge to form—well within the biblical time frame.

Ice Age Animals And People

We’re going to talk about this more in the next lesson. But, it’s significant to say that any groups of people moving north from where the ark rested in Turkey and where the populations were dispersed from Babel would naturally run into climatic conditions that are very harsh. This would affect how they daily lived and established communities, the ability to provide nourishing food, and the size of the populations. By the way, some animals grew to giant size after the Flood as well. The mammoth we’ve seen. Scientists can usually tell what deposits are post-Flood—they don’t have the same characteristics of the rapidly deposited Flood layers filled with drowned creatures. Some other bones of giants found in post-Flood deposits are: a camel 12 feet tall, deer

Conclusion

Everywhere, we see layer upon layer of sediment laid down by the sorting action of moving water and also find great fossil beds intermixed with the sediments. These fossils seem to have been formed by sudden burial from a tremendous flood which prevented their rapid decay and decomposition as minerals replaced their cellular structure. Our vast deposits of oil, natural gas, and coal are called fossils fuels. Evidence indicates that they are the carbonized remains of great masses of plant and marine life which were washed together. Today, after years of pressure, heat, and chemical changes, these buried remains form the great coal seams and oil reservoirs that fuel our modern economy.

More and more evolutionary geologists today are returning to the concept of local catastrophism as the explanation for all types of geological features and formations. Catastrophic events not everyday processes appear to explain the formation of mountain ranges, deposition of thick sequences of sedimentary rocks with fossils, initiation of the glacial age, and extinction of dinosaurs and other animals. More and more creationist geologists and other scientists are returning to the concept that all these local catastrophes were essentially contemporaneous and continuous, making up a complex which was nothing less than a worldwide cataclysm. If Noah’s Flood laid down the rocks and the fossils, there is no evidence left for evolution and an old earth. Because it so restructured the surface of the earth, any attempt to reconstruct earth history without using Noah’s Flood is doomed to failure.

So What? There are 14 references to the Flood in the NT including Jesus’ own words. Combined with all this evidence, it must be true! God’s Word Can Be Trusted

Sources For Further Study:

1. Setting the Stage for an Ice Age, Michael Oard, Answers 2(2), April 2007 at www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/setting-stage-for-ice-age.

2. Mammoth—Riddle of the Ice Age, Jonathan Sarfati, Creation magazine, 22(2), March 2000 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i2/mammoth.asp.

3. Frozen in Time, Michael Oard, online book at www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/FIT/index.asp.

4. Tackling the big freeze, Interview with weather scientist Michael Oard, Creation 19(1), December 1996 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i1/freeze.asp.

5. Mammoth Q&A at www.answersingenesis.org.

6. Ice Age Q&A at www.answersingenesis.org.

7. Mammoth among the pharaohs?, Dennis Swift, Creation magazine 19(4), September 1997 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i4/mammoth.asp.

8. Ice Cores and the Age of the Earth, Larry Vardiman, Impact #226, April 1992.

9. The lost squadron, Carl Wieland, Creation magazine, 19(3), June 1997 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i3/squadron.asp.

10. Niagara Falls and the Bible, Larry Pierce, Creation magazine, 22(4) September 2000 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i4/niagara_falls.asp.

11. Lubenow, Marvin L. “Surtsey: A Micro-Laboratory for Flood Geology,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Volume 16, June 1979 at www.creationresearch.org/crsq/abstracts/sum16_1.html.

12. Limestone Caves: A Result of Noah’s Flood?, Robert Doolan, John Mackay, Dr Andrew Snelling and Dr Allen Hallby, Creation 9(4) September 1987 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v9/i4/caves.asp.

13. Do ancient stalactites really exist? Evan Jamieson, Creation 16(1), December 1993 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v16/i1/stalactites.asp.

14. Rapid Stalactites, by Stephen Meyers and Robert Doolan, Creation 9(4), September 1987 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v9/i4/stalactites.asp.

15. A Canyon in Six Days, John Morris, Creation 24(4), September 2002 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/canyon.asp.

16. How did animals get from the Ark to places such as Australia? Don Batten (editor), Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati, and Carl Wieland, The Revised and Expanded Answers Book, Chapter 17 online at www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/faq/migration.asp.

17. Surtsey, the Young Island that Looks old, Carl Wieland, Creaiton magazine 17(2), March 1995 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v17/i2/surtsey.asp.

18. After Devastation, the Recovery, Keith Swenson and David Catchpoole, Creation magazine 22(2), March 2000 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i2/recovery.asp.

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_15.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

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16. CONFUSION: The Great Dispersion

Genesis 10 occurred chronologically in accordance with Genesis 11:9. Genesis 9:19 boldly declares that the whole earth was populated from Noah’s sons. Chapter 10 tells us how; chapter 11 tells us why. We will be studying this in chronological order.

Historical Insight: One of the most amazing phenomena of human history is the strange fact that, despite the essential biological unity of all nations and “races, there are more than 3,000 different languages among men. Each language is significantly different from all others, and it is often true that the more primitive tribes use the more complex languages. All human languages are separated by an essentially infinite barrier from the sounds made by animals, although the vocal organs as such may not be greatly different. The origins of language in general and of languages in particular, are thus inexplicable in terms of evolution, and yet it is impossible to overestimate the importance of articulate, propositional (as distinct from merely reflexive or emotional) speech in the life of mankind.” Genesis 10-11 are the final chapters dealing with the nations in general as distinct from the chosen nation, Israel, and provide the only true explanation for the origin of languages. (Dr. Henry Morris, The Beginning of the World, p. 155)

Day One Study

Read Gen 11:1-9.

1. What information is given in verses 1-3? What advantages did a common speech give humankind?

2. Within 200 years, the population could have grown to several thousand, considering size of families and longevity. According to Genesis 11:4, what were four things the people wanted to do AND why?

3. Discuss God’s assessment of their behavior and what He decided to do about it. Why?

4. Read Genesis 9:19; 10:1-5; Acts 17:26. On the map below, locate the names of Japheth’s descendants mentioned in this passage. Color the area around each one blue.

5. Which of Japheth’s descendants are represented in the following verses, and what information is given about them?

· Ezekiel 27:19—

· Isaiah 66:19; Ezekiel 27:13; 32:26—

· Ezekiel 38:6—

· Ezekiel 38:2; 39:6—

· Revelation 20:8—

6. Read the information regarding Japheth’s descendants on the “Creation Answers: Civilization Restart” information pages at the end of this lesson.

Day Two Study

7. Read Genesis 10:6-20. On the map above, locate the names of Ham’s descendants mentioned in this passage. Color the area around each one yellow.

8. Which of Ham’s descendants are represented in the following verses, and what information is given about them?

· Isaiah 18:1-2—

· Jeremiah 46:9—

· Ezekiel 30:1-9; 38:1-6—

9. In Genesis 10: 8-12, what information is given about Nimrod as a man and the nation he founded?

10. Read the information regarding Ham’s descendants on the “Creation Answers: Civilization Restart” information pages at the end of this lesson.

11. Read Genesis 10:21-32. On the above map, locate the names of Shem’s descendants mentioned in this passage. Color the areas around each one red.

12. Which of Shem’s descendants are represented in the following verses, and what information is given about them?

· Jeremiah 49:34-36—

· Numbers 24:20-24—

· Ezekiel 27:23-24—

13. Peleg’s name means “division.” In Genesis 10:25, what information is given about the time period in which he was born?

14. Read the information regarding Shem’s descendants on the “Creation Answers: Civilization Restart” information pages at the end of this lesson.

Shem’s Descendants—One Branch

15. Read Genesis 11:10-26. What do you notice about the life spans of the men listed in this genealogy compared to those listed in Genesis 5? Suggest a possible explanation for the change.

Scriptural Insight: What Does the Bible Say About the Races? “The race question is certainly one of the most important and explosive issues of our time, and the same is true for the issue of nationalism versus internationalism. The existence of distinctive ‘races’ and nations and languages is obviously a fact of modern life, in spite of efforts of many modern sociologists and politicians to remove racial and national barriers…The true origin of the world’s various races and nations and the events associated therewith must be clearly understood and placed in right perspective before there is any possibility that the problems rising out of them can be comprehended and solved…The origin of races and nations is still a mystery to most scientists, determined as they are to explain man and his culture in terms of an evolutionary framework. There are numerous contradictory theories on these matters among anthropologists and ethnologists, but the only fully reliable record of the origin of races, nations and languages is found here in Genesis 9 through 11.

It is significant that the Bible never mentions race at all; neither the word nor the concept is found in Scripture. A race, in evolutionary terminology, is a sub-species evolving into a new species but, in reality, there is no such thing. That is, as far as mankind is concerned, there is only one race—the human race. The various divisions are those of nations, tribes and languages—not races. Nevertheless, there have been three major groups of nations in world history, and these are those originally established by the three sons of Noah.” (Dr. Henry Morris, The Beginning of the World, p. 141-42)

Appreciation Application:

16. The Babel builders sought to make a name for themselves by erecting their tower, a foolish thing in the eyes of God. We just studied how God rearranged the plans of the people to bring them in line with His plan. Has God ever done this in your life, and how did you respond?

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

17. You descended from at least one of Noah’s sons, perhaps all three. From which nations of people have you descended? What do you appreciate about your heritage? Draw your family tree back through four generations. Which ones were Christians and might have had a positive influence on your life? How?

Deeper Discoveries:

· Read the Fact Sheets “Civilization Restart” and “What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs?” found at the end of this lesson.

· Ponder the archeological implications of the various tribes/groups radiating from Babel and having to develop their own separate cultures.

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org and SEARCH anything related to Noah and his sons, Nimrod, Tower of Babel, races, etc. Select an article to read or watch a video. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

Creation Answers: Civilization Restart

The information below is adapted from resources found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org plus others sourced at the end.

Noah and the animals left the Ark more than 371 days after the start of the Flood. What a long time to be cooped up! A couple of years later, Noah’s grandchildren began to arrive. Soon, he had 16 grandkids. Genesis 10 and 11 tell what happens to those grandkids and their families. Chapter 10 is the genealogy of who they are and where they settled. The events of chapter 11 actually came first. If this is true, what evidence would you expect to find? You would expect that the oldest civilization had developed in that area. That’s what we do find.

Leaving The Ark

Where They Settled

They moved east to Shinar (Genesis 11:1-2) and built there. Shinar is the whole region of the Tigris-Euphrates valley—the closest fertile area to the mountains of Ararat. The most ancient peoples leaving written, historical records were the inhabitants of that valley (the Sumerians) just as expected, followed by the Nile Valley of Egypt and other near-Eastern areas. This area is called Mesopotamia (middle). Interestingly enough, modern computer studies have shown that the geographical center of the earth’s land areas is located within a short distance of the mountains of Ararat. Coincidence? I think not!

What They Did

Within 100 years, they were building cities. The Bible says they made brick for stone and used tar for mortar. What do we find? That area has no stone. The people had to make their own rock by way of burning local dirt into bricks. Written records describe the building of Babylon, the city, by the same brick-making process as described in Gen. 11:3. Samples of such bricks (man-made rock) have been found. One Dallas Morning News article described how ancient Mesopotamians (before 2000 BC) made their own rock by burning local clay at very high temperatures then used the “rock” for building. “This stuff could only have been made if there had been interactions between metallurgists and potters,” surprising archaeologists that people with different skills would be working together. A second article described how those same ancient people used a sticky, coal-based “tar” as glue on wood and stone, also surprising archaeologists. But not us!!

They planned a tower whose top literally is into heaven—meaning representing heaven, a center of worship. We find that the step-like tower known as a ziggurat originated there, acting as an artificial mountain that became the center of worship in the city. Seated in a miniature temple at the top of the tower was their god. [Side note: Perhaps they also thought a tower would protect them from the next flood should God change His mind!]

Who They Were

Ancient humans were NOT backward and ignorant savages as depicted in books and movies. Their forefathers built cities, herded livestock, played musical instruments, made tools of bronze and iron (Gen. 4:17-22) AND built an unsinkable boat! Building a city and tower required marvelous engineering skills. We know the ancient Sumerians had electric batteries and did electroplating of metals. The civilizations that shortly followed—Babylon, Egypt, Greece, China, India and in the Americas (Inca, Maya)—were amazingly advanced. This is seen in their elaborate architecture, calendars, writing, organized cities with intricate water supply systems, and amazing understanding of astronomy and seasonal changes. Awe-inspiring accomplishments without our modern day mechanics!! No, these were not savages, but intelligent men!! Yet, foolish. The builders’ sin was one of immense pride that led to open rebellion against God, declaring independence of Him. A common language enabled the rebellion.

So, God separated the people into language groups. Confused languages forced them to spread out and repopulate the earth. Genesis 10 describes how that happened. Verse 10:5, 20, and 31 all say they spread out by their clans and languages so God gave members of one clan the same language.

Did It Really Happen?

If this is true, you would expect to find: 1) evidence through archaeology, written records, and language studies that all people have migrated from that area AND 2) similarities of cultures in civilizations spread thousands of miles apart, including histories that contained traces of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood.

Two things make it hard to find evidence:

· Since the 1960’s, the idea of cultural diffusion has been nixed as a means of explaining the development of civilizations. It is politically incorrect to suggest that a culture did not develop itself independent of others. However, the evidence suggests otherwise.

· General archeology is evolution-based with assumptions of slow and gradual cultural development built right in.

You have to really glean any news to find out the real evidence that does, by the way, suggest otherwise. What do we find?

All People Have Migrated From The Shinar Area.

· First of all, the entire world could have been populated in just centuries. With just 6 kids per family, within 250 years you would have a minimum of 100,000 people on earth.

· Ice Age land bridges connected England to mainland Europe, Asia to North America through the Bering Strait, and the Malaysian Straits to New Guinea and perhaps Australia.

· How’d they travel? By foot, boat, and possibly by wagon. Two Dallas Morning News articles from the 90s revealed that there were wagon wheels 5,000 years ago and that the early presence of humans on South Pacific islands means that were able to build watercraft and sail. That they could build boats is not surprising. Much evidence from antiquity indicates that they did!

· Archaeology has confirmed that many civilizations appeared about the same time, only a few thousand years ago. Not surprisingly, the building of the Tower of Babel was carried with them as well. We find pyramidal shaped buildings in nearly all the ancient civilizations around the world, particularly in those who descended from Ham! Just as expected!

How Long Ago?

Remember that all recorded history has taken place in the past 5000 years alone. Before that is purely speculation. Man is the only reliable recorder of history, and people were already writing on clay tablets and scrolls (books), inscribing with an iron stylus on lead, and engraving in rock slabs. In fact, Job 19:23-24 confirms this shortly after the Tower of Babel time. Just as expected!

Truly verified archaeological datings (based upon written records, not radiocarbon dates) do not predate the time of the Biblical Flood— ~3000-2350 B.C. The oldest documents of Indo-European languages date from ~2000 BC. The oldest Chinese records ~2250 BC. This is really strange if men have been living on the earth for hundreds of thousands of years! A newly revised Egyptian chronology starts around 2200 B.C. rather than 3000 B.C. I’ve given you several references to check out. Just as expected if the Bible is true!

How Did It Happen?

Genesis 10 is called the Table of Nations. One archaeologist, Dr. W. F. Albright, says it’s “an astonishingly accurate document” and unique—its like simply does not exist. Many of the nations had disappeared from the historical scene centuries before the Jews were scattered and before Christ was born, making it a very ancient document indeed.

As the clans grew, individual families separated and migrated farther from one another, their languages gradually changing as well as their lifestyles. Each family group learned how to survive in the land where it had migrated.

In general, most families settling in Africa and Asia were descendants of Ham and Shem; in Europe and parts of west and northwest Asia, descendants of Japheth. Many of these early nations kept an accurate record down the centuries of their beginnings and wrote down the names of their founding patriarchs, providing us with a surprising link between the ancient post-Flood era (Genesis 9-11) and the rest of recorded history. You probably studied ancient history before, but this is the rest of the story!!

Ancient History—Now Revealed!! The first generations after the Flood lived to be very old, with some men outliving their children, grandchildren and more. (Noah lived 350 years and died only 3 years before Abraham was born.) This set them apart so that several things happened:

· People in various areas called themselves by the name of the man who was their common ancestor.

· They called their land, and often their major city and major river, by his name.

· Sometimes the various nations fell into ancestor worship. When this happened, it was natural for them to name their god after the man who was the ancestor of all of them, or to claim their long-living ancestor as their god.

So, using these clues, we can trace most of the nations that formed from Noah’s sons.

Japheth And His Kin

6 Sons Headed North To Europe & Western Asia, 1 Headed East To Persia And India

His sons were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meschech, and Tiras. Allowing for the gradual modification in form that always occur in such names with the passage of time, and noting pertinent references in both Scripture and early secular historical writings and on excavated archaeological monuments, we can trace most of these nations and recognize them as ancestors of the Indo-European peoples, a classification based upon common language. The Indo-European family of languages was/is spoken in nearly all of Europe and much of India, Pakistan and parts of western Asia.

Most of them went to the north and northwest. Some headed east. If you are from Great Britain, Ireland, or the Scandinavian countries, I can highly recommend an amazing book called After the Flood by Bill Cooper. It traces those ancestries to Noah and Japheth.

Gomer

Gomer’s tribe first settled in what is now Turkey. When Paul wrote to the Galatians, he was writing to a people group that had been previously known as Gomerites. By New Testament times, they were called Gauls or Galatians.

· One group of the Gomerites/Gauls, migrated westward to France and Spain. For many centuries, France was known as Gaul (i.e., Julius Caesar and the Gallic wars). Northwest Spain is still called Galicia. Part of those Gomerites/Gauls migrated further west to the British Isles. The Welsh historian, Davis, records a traditional Welsh belief that the descendants of Gomer ‘landed on the Isle of Britain from France, about three hundred years after the flood’. He also records that the Welsh language is called Gomeraeg (after their ancestor Gomer).

· The recorded ancestries (very ancient, predating Christianization) of the early Britons, Irish Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes and Norwegians all include their descent from Noah through Japheth. The Saxons considered Japheth, whom they called Sceaf, the son of Noah, to be the founder of the European nations and trace their own ancestry through his oldest son, Gomer. The Irish Celts have king lists that go back to Noah through Japheth via Gomer and Magog; the earliest Irish Chronicles insisted the people were of Scythian stock—the associated name Scot being a Greek and Saxon conversion from Scythian. This is not surprising since Galatia in Asia Minor was populated by a migrating colony of Gallic Celts whose relatives had spread to France (Gauls) and to the British Isles. Archaeologists and ethnologists consider many of the ancient peoples of Europe to be Celts (Greek name for them). The early Britons recorded (58 surviving manuscripts) their ancestors to be from Asia Minor (and that they traveled by sea, stopping at various countries along the way before reaching the shores of England).

· Another clan settled in today’s Armenia. In fact, the Armenians traditionally claim to be descended from 2 of Gomer’s sons—Togarmah (probably origin of the name Turkey) and Ashkenaz, whose descendants there were called Askuzas, translated “Scythians” by the Greeks. Some of Ashkenaz’s clan later migrated to Germany, giving their name to that nation since Ashkenaz is the Hebrew word for Germany and German Jews are called the Ashkenazi. This group of Germanic peoples spread into Denmark (the Anglo-Saxons) and the northern islands.

· Some of Gomer’s descendants ended up in China. The Miautso People of China claimed descent from Japheth through Gomer when they were encountered for the first time by Christian missionaries. Their histories (recorded in the form of ancient couplets recited at all public occasions through the ages) included surprisingly accurate accounts of Creation and the Flood (w/ names of Noah, his wife and three sons) plus a graphic account of Babel and the confusion of tongues that resulted in nations spreading out and encircling the globe. Eleven tribes settled in the Kiangsi province of China in the seventh generation from Gomer—five remained in the Miautso nation; six later intermarried with the invading Chinese who forced the Maiutso out of their land. Modern researchers say that people who once lived in northwest China (2000-400 BC) wrote in a language that bore striking similarities to Celtic and Germanic tongues (Indo-European group)—unlike any other in that part of the world. Mummies (>100 found) of those people revealed long noses and skulls, blond or brown hair, thin lips and deep-set eyes—European features. Some looked Irish, others Nordic! Easily explained by Genesis—they were Japheth’s descendants!

· These groups formed the Celtic and Germanic language families which included Irish, Welsh, Breton, Italic (forerunner of Latin, French and Spanish), German, English, Dutch, Slavic and Baltic languages.

Javan

Javan’s kids headed northwest to present Turkey and continued west to Greece (Javan in Hebrew), Cyprus, Rhodes, and eventually Spain (the Mediterranean Sea was once known as the Sea of Tarshish, after Javan’s son) and northwest Africa. The name Javan morphed to Ionia, an ancient term identified with Greece. Javan’s son Elishah is preserved in the name “Hellas” which came to be applied to Greece as a whole (i.e., Hellenist). His descendants were the Elysians, an ancient Greek people. His son Kittim’s name is the biblical name for Cyprus.

In Greek literature, Japheth’s name is preserved as Iapetos, the son of heaven and earth, the father of many nations, and the legendary father of the Greeks. The ancient Romans perpetuated his name as Iu-Pater (meaning “Father Jove”), which was standardized to Jupiter. Here’s an incidence where the ancestor became the chief god.

Madai

Madai is the ancestor of modern-day Iranians. His descendants were called Medes by the Greeks. Every time the Medes are mentioned in the Old Testament, the word used is the Hebrew word Madai (maday). After the time of Cyrus, the Medes are always (with one exception) mentioned along with the Persians. They became one kingdom with one law —’the law of the Medes and Persians’ (Daniel 6:8, 12, 15). Later they were simply called Persians. Since 1935 they have called their country Iran.

· The Medes also settled western India and Pakistan. The name Japheth is found in the literature as Pra-Japati (Father Japheth), the reputed ancestor of the Aryans of India (Aryan is a form of the word “Iran”), deemed to be the sun and lord of creation for those descended from him. Archaeologists discovered that from ~2600-1900 BC, the Indus civilization flourished in what is now Pakistan and western India. The city layouts were efficient, though not elaborate, with buildings built of baked bricks (sound familiar?). The culture was very organized and mostly nonmilitary. Unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, they buried their dead without jewels, furniture and weapons—very simply. They practiced millet cultivation similar to that done in Africa (common source?), but their ancient script is thus far undecipherable.

Magog

He went north forming the nations around the Caspian and Black Seas all the way to Russia. The people of the region of modern Romania and Ukraine were known as Magogites until the Greeks called the area Scythia (people, the Scythians). The early Irish Celts traced their own lineage from Japheth through the line of Magog.

Tubal

The descendants of Tubal were known as the Tabali, then the Thobelites, and later as Iberes. The Romans gave the name Iberia to their land which covered what is now Georgia (whose capital to this day bears the name Tubal as Tbilisi). From here, having crossed the Caucasus Mountains, this people migrated due northeast across the Caucases mountains, giving their tribal name to the river Tobol, and hence to the famous city of Tobolsk.

Meshech

This is the ancient name for Moscow, both the capital of Russia and the region that surrounds the city. To this day, one section, the Meschera Lowland, still carries the name of Meshech, virtually unchanged by the ages.

Tiras

Tiras’s people were called Thirasians, changed to Thracians by the Greeks. Their homeland reached from Macedonia on the south to the Danube River on the north to the Black Sea on the east. Tiras was worshipped by his descendants as Thuras, or Thor, the god of thunder. Another incidence of an ancestor becoming a chief god.

Noah’s Prophecy About His Son Japheth

Genesis 9:27 — The prophecy for Japheth was to be enlarged which carries with it the idea of enticing/persuading so the thought may be one of mental enlargement; open-mindedness The Japhethites (especially the Greeks, Romans, and later the Europeans and the Americans) have stressed science and philosophy in their development.

“Dwell in the tents” is a common figure of speech meaning “have fellowship with him.” It could apply to sharing in Shem’s inheritance. As Shem and Japheth had united to show respect to their father and their father’s God, so they would unite to worship “the Lord God of Shem.”

There is abundant evidence that all forms of paganism have come originally from the ancient Babylonian religion. The various gods and goddesses of Rome, Greece, India, Egypt, and other nations can be essentially identified with the original pantheon of the Babylonians. (See Rev. 17:5.) Note: It is especially to the descendants of Japheth that the term “Gentiles” was applied.

Ham And His Kin

4 Sons Stayed Central Or Headed South And West

Ham’s sons were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. Some of his descendants remained in Babel and Assyria. Most went south into Arabia or west and southwest to Canaan, Egypt and the rest of Africa. The Bible often refers to Africa as the land of Ham. Yet, some headed towards China, eventually populating the Americas. “Afterward the families of the Canaanites were spread abroad (Genesis 10:18).”

Cush

Cush is identified with Ethiopia in the Bible. The Cushites apparently first migrated southward into Arabia, then crossed the Red Sea into Ethiopia.

Mizraim

Mizraim is the ancestor of the Egyptians, some writers suggesting that the semi-legendary founder of Egypt’s first dynasty, Menes/Mamenses, was the same as Mizraim (likely a plural form of the name of his tribe).

Put

Put is identified with North Africa west of Egypt, including Libya.

Canaan

Canaan’s descendants settled in and around the land of Canaan and in Asia Minor (the Hittites, possibly being from Canaan’s son Heth), and a remnant seems to have later migrated eastward to the Far East. Of all the names in the Table of Nations, it does seem that two sons of Canaan—Heth and Sin—are the most likely to have become ancestors of the Oriental peoples.

· Heth—Archeologists have noted a number of similarities between the Hittites and the people of Mongolia (the art of smelting and casting iron plus the breeding and training of horses). Native Americans have their ancestry in the Mongolian peoples. The Biblical Hittites were known to the Sumerians as Khittae and Assyrians as Khatti which may be the origin of Cathay (the English translation of the tribe visited by Marco Polo in northern China).

· Sin—Biblical and secular references also mention a people in the Far East named “Sinim,” Sinae” suggesting some of the descendants of Canaan’s son Sin migrated eastward. The Assyrians knew the Biblical Sinites as the Siannu. It is significant that China and the Chinese people have always been identified by the prefix “Sino-” (e.g., Sino-Japanese War), and the name “Sin” is frequently encountered in Chinese names. Recent research of the genetic makeup of Chinese people shows correlation with the people in Africa. Just as expected!

Onward To America

Scientists generally believe that the Americas were first settled by humans who migrated across a land bridge that connected Asia with what is now Alaska. That land bridge disappeared when the sea level rose following the last ice age. So, Ham’s descendants in Asia crossed the land bridge to Alaska. From Alaska south were 2 corridors free of ice and open to travel. Migration campsites have been found along the way, some indicating they also had boats and were capable of offshore fishing. (No surprise!) The animals had preceded them by several hundred years. Hunters killed bison, mammoths, mastodons, camels and giant sloths for meat as they traveled.

· An ancient spear unearthed in Siberia (under a layer of volcanic ash!) looks nearly identical to the Clovis point, a flint spearhead first unearthed in New Mexico and used to identify the earliest Americans who supposedly invented the points as hunter-gatherers traveled from campsite to campsite. By the way, all Native Americans have 4 special genetic markers that appear to trace back to modern Siberians and Mongolians. (Dallas Morning News article)

· According to archeologists, about 3,000 years ago, the first civilization developed in the Western Hemisphere—the Olmec culture in Mexico and Central America. This occurred around the same time that the Shang Dynasty of China fell to enemies, forcing thousands of refugees to flee across the “Eastern Sea.” Interestingly enough, researchers have recently recognized at least 100 ancient Chinese language symbols embedded in the motifs that decorate Olmec art! The Shang society and Olmec society shared much in common including transportation skills, worship of earth and ancestors on similarly built mounds, human sacrifice, veneration of the same animals, and art carvings. Just as expected!

Noah’s Prophecy About His Son Ham

Genesis 9:25 — The prophecy to Ham through the name of his son Canaan. The translation “servant” does not mean “slave.” All of Ham’s descendants have not been continually in slavery. The word can just as well be translated “steward,” someone who gives material service to mankind, providing physical needs. The Hamites have been the great pioneers that opened up the world to settlement, to cultivation, and to technology. Among the many ways in which the Hamites have been the great “servants” of mankind are the following (from The Genesis Record, Dr. Henry Morris):

1) They were the original explorers and settlers of practically all parts of the world, following the dispersion at Babel.

2) They were the first cultivators of most of the basic food staples of the world, such as potatoes, corn, beans, cereals, and others, as well as the first ones to domesticate most animals.

3) They developed most of the basic types of structural forms and building tools and materials.

4) They were the first to develop most of the usual fabrics for clothing and the various sewing and weaving devices.

5) They discovered and invented a wide variety of medicines and surgical practices and instruments.

6) They invented most of the concepts of basic practical mathematics, as well as surveying and navigation.

7) The machinery of commerce and trade—money, banks, postal systems, and so forth—was developed by them.

8) They developed paper, ink, block printing, movable type, and other accoutrements of writing and communication.

If one traces back far enough, he will find that practically every other basic device or system needed for man’s physical sustenance or convenience originated with one of the Hamitic peoples. Truly they have been the “servants” of mankind in a most amazing way. Yet the prophecy was fulfilled also in that the Hamites have usually been able to go only so far with their explorations and inventions, and no farther. Sooner or later, the Japhethites and Semites have taken over their territories and their inventions. Some Hamites have been actual slaves.

Shem And His Kin

5 Sons Headed East, North And South From Babel.

Shem’s sons were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.

Elam

Elamites settled east of Babel, later merging with the Medes to form the Persian Empire.

Asshur

Asshur’s name is preserved in his descendants, the Assyrians, whose culture also included the Hamites (Nimrod and company). Unfortunately, Asshur was one of the earliest men to be deified and worshipped by his descendants.

Arphaxad

Arphaxad may have settled in Assyria, the earliest known settlement is 4 miles east of ancient Nineveh. Of particular interest, he’s father of the Chaldeans, and his descendants were adept astrologers, magicians, and mathematicians. He is better known by his son, Eber, whose name is possibly preserved in his descendants—the Hebrews. (Was Hebrew the original language? It is likely that it was!) Arphaxad’s grandson, Peleg, may have been born shortly after the time of the dispersion. According to Genesis 11:25, “in his days the earth was divided” which combined with Genesis 10:5, 32 clearly refer to a linguistic and geographical division.

Lud

Lud is historically associated with the Lydians, in Asia Minor, who were reputed archers and spoke an Indo-European language.

Aram

His name is the Hebrew word for Syria. His sons became the Arameans, equivalent to Syrians. Their language was adopted as the trade language for the ancient world, commonly spoken even among Jews in Jesus’ day. Some Arameans migrated to Arabia where Job later lived.

Noah’s Prophecy About His Son Shem

Genesis 9:26 — The prophecy for Shem included the covenant-keeping name for God—Yhwh, suggesting a love for the Lord and faith in God’s promises. Shem’s blessing seemed to be related to his spiritual nature. Interestingly enough, the Semites throughout history have been dominated by religious motivations centered in monotheism—the Jews, the Moslems, and the Zoroastrians, etc. Through Shem, God’s greatest blessing for mankind, the promised Seed of the woman, would eventually come into the world.

A Corrupted Witness To The Truth

Paul said in Acts 14:15-17, “We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn…to the living God…In the past, He let all nations go their own way. Yet He has not left Himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain…crops…plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.”

Popular thought supposes that the nations of the world only became aware of the God of Genesis after they were populated by Jews or evangelized by Christian missionaries, not considering the possibility that pagan man was indeed aware of God and of His attributes, and that this awareness had existed and flourished for centuries without any exposure at all to the scriptures.

As people spread out, they took the story of Creation, the Curse, and the Flood with them. Flood legends (over 300), predating any contact with outsiders (especially missionaries), are found in almost every culture around the world, about 30 of them in writing. Some are remarkably close in their details to the story told in the Bible. Of those legends, 66% say that the Flood was caused by the sinfulness of man, 95% say that the whole world was covered by water, 86% say that there was a favored family which was told to build a boat so that the animals could be saved. Just as expected! The details are different, but the essence is the same. It becomes clear that the original is, in fact, the Bible story.

Documented Evidence

· From Greece—an ancient document The Sybil: “When all men were of one language, some of them built a high tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven; but the gods…gave everyone his peculiar language…After this they were dispersed abroad, on account of their languages, and went out by colonies everywhere…took possession of that land which they lighted upon, and unto which God led them;…There were some also who passed over the sea in ships, and inhabited the islands.”

· From the British Isles—The Irish Chronicles record Irish remembrance of Creation and the Flood as relatively recent and definitely historical events and reveal that they reckoned the dates of other subsequent historical events by counting the years since the Creation (4000 BC). Anglo-Saxons and the early Britons believed in a recent creation and flood as well. Two versions of the Anglo-Saxon chronicles say that 5200 years covered the time from Creation until the year AD 6.

· From Denmark—The epic poem Beowulf contains many references to Genesis 1-6 (including Cain, giants and a flood) with an abrupt cutoff at that point. Preserved by the northward migrating peoples, then interwoven with later Germanic history before the coming of Christianity to either Germany or Denmark (it contains no elements of Judeo-Christian teaching), the account was then brought to England from Denmark by the Anglo-Saxons in 400-500AD. Beowulf himself (a historic person) was a descendant of Saxon kings who claimed their ancestry from Noah through Japheth.

· From Mexico—Found in the histories of the Toltec Indians of ancient Mexico (Ham’s descendants?) is a story of the first world that lasted 1,716 years and was destroyed by a great flood that covered even the highest mountains. Their story tells of a few men who escaped the destruction in a “toptlipetlocali,” which means a closed chest. Following the great flood, these men began to multiply and built a very high zacuali,” or a great tower, to provide a safe place if the world was destroyed again. However, the languages became confused, so different language groups wandered to other parts of the world. The Toltecs claim they started as a family of seven friends and their wives who spoke the same language. They crossed great waters, lived in caves, and wandered 104 years till they came to Hue Hue Tlapalan (southern Mexico). The story reports that this was 520 years after the great flood. Likewise, the Mayans of Central America measured time from the beginning of their culture after the Flood—~3113BC.

· From China—The ancient Chinese preserved the truth about man’s earliest history in their ancient (~2000 BC) writings which refer to a violent catastrophe that happened to the Earth. The entire land was flooded with water reaching the highest mountains and completely covering all the foothills, leaving the country in desolate condition for years afterwards. This history records that one man, his wife, three sons, and three daughters escaped a great flood, were the only people left alive on earth, and repopulated the world afterwards. The accounts of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood are revealed in ancient Chinese characters (which combines pictographs to form new ideas) for “to forbid” (combines 2 trees and to command, God), “to sacrifice” (ox + sheep + unblemished + spear), “righteousness” (lamb + me, with the lamb placed over the me), and “boat” (vessel + 8 + person)—none of which make any sense apart from the Genesis record. The characters (found on early bronzes and ancient drums) were well-established (creation of new pictographs had ceased by 800 BC) and already exported to other oriental countries before the earliest Christians influenced China, ~640 AD.

What Happened To The Truth About God?

Someone forgot to teach the next generation! The Bible tells of the attitude of men before the Flood in Job 22:15-17 “Will you keep to the old path that evil men have trod? They were carried off before their time, their foundations washed away by a flood. They said to God, ‘Leave us alone! What can the Almighty do to us?’” That attitude prevailed in some of Noah’s descendants as well. And they said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’” Gen. 11:3-4

The long war against God gained steam from Babylon outward. Excavator Stephen Langdon of Oxford University has determined that the history of man’s religion— steadily going from monotheism to extreme polytheism and widespread belief in evil spirits—is in a very true sense the history of the fall of man.

Ham’s grandson Nimrod is credited with instigating the Great Rebellion at Babel and founding the worst features of paganism, including the practice of magical arts, astrology and human sacrifice. Worshipped from earliest times (by Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians), Nimrod was worshipped by the Romans as Bacchus (son of Cush). Various sites in the ancient world were named after him—Shinar was known as the Land of Nimrod. Ancestor worship also began in this area and, combined with other aspects of paganism mentioned above, was carried by tribes forming new nations—Assyria, China, the Saxons—resulting in the spread of polytheism and idolatry. Degrading from there, the forces of nature were given names (pantheism) so that some people considered everything to be a god—Mother Nature, Father Time, natural selection (evolution itself).

According to The Book of the Dead, dealing with life and beliefs in ancient Egypt by E.A. Wallis Budge, the Egyptians originally believed in one God (as did Greece and China) with His attributes eventually being recognized as pointing to many gods. The pharoah Akhnaten sought unsuccessfully to bring all Egypt under the persuasion that there was but one god instead of the many that the Egyptians worshipped by then. As God said in Romans 1:25 “they exchanged the truth for a lie.” And so three streams of nations dispersed to form their own nations as they repopulated the earth.

One Blood, The Biblical Answer To Racism

As they migrated out from Shinar and became individual nations, each group developed its own physical characteristics peculiar to each ethnic group. The Bible never talks about races but about tribes and nations. We are told in the Bible that we are all of one blood, one flesh (I Corinthians 15:39). There is really only one race—the human race! The modern concept of “race” is based on evolutionary thinking; racism is an idea used by man to divide people and justify social stratification.

Modern genetics shows that when a large, freely interbreeding group is suddenly broken into many smaller groups which from then on breed only among themselves, dominant characteristics unique to each group will arise very rapidly. There are 4 genes for skin color from which a whole range of skin shades may be produced in the offspring from light to dark. All skin color in humans comes from a pigment called melanin. Everyone has the same color, but some just have more of it (intensity). A person with a lot of melanin will be very dark; a little melanin renders her very light. All the information for the variations of skin shades goes back to the original parents—Adam and Eve. A recent news article stated that only one woman’s mitochondrial DNA survived to the present day in all of us. Just as expected!

“Primitive” And “Stone Age”?

No Primitive Man

No group of human beings today (or, in the past) speaks a “primitive” language even those in isolated cultures. Each language has nouns, verbs, etc. The observable evidence tells us that by 2000 BC all the people had broken up into these different language groups already. Just as expected!

Archaeologists confirm that many civilizations appeared about the same time, only a few thousand years ago. After short periods spent hunting and gathering, highly developed civilizations sprang up all over the world. A pattern seems to have been repeated:

· A tribe moves to a new area, sets up a temporary camp until a more permanent site for their village or city could be established once the area was determined capable of supporting the people—game for hunting, water, and farmland.

· Temporary homes could have been made of stones, hides, or sticks; even caves were used. Remains of these original occupation sites naturally suggest to evolutionists a “stone age culture” when actually they reflect only a very temporary situation.

· Some groups have continued the simple style of living up to the present time; most have progressed to urbanization.

· As soon as material for ceramics and metals could be found, the “stone age” at the site was succeeded by a “bronze age” or “iron age.”

· Groups farther away from Babel may have lost much cultural ‘know–how’, including the loss of previous written, as well as spoken, language. Thus, it is not surprising that they would soon develop an alternative style of writing.

One People, Several Tribes — Where Neanderthal And Cro-Magnon Fits!

After the first bones were discovered in 1856 in the Neander Valley of Germany (thus, the Neanderthals), the first anatomist to examine them concluded he was homo sapiens (modern man) with rickets caused by a vitamin D deficiency. In the early 1900’s, a French paleontologist devised the modern concept of a stooped-over brute.

Modern researchers conclude Neanderthal walked upright (stood ~5’7”) but some had arthritis causing a stooped posture. Since then discoveries have been made (over 200 skeletons) in Palestine, Iraq, northwest Africa, and throughout Europe. Though evolutionists once used the fossils to support human evolution, today they are classified as fully human who lived 30,000 to 300,000 years ago.

Long-age ‘progressive creationists’ such as Hugh Ross, in order to reconcile their belief in the evolutionary ‘millions of years’ with the belief in a literally created Adam, are forced to claim that the Neandertals were ‘spiritless quasi-humans’. How much easier to take Genesis as written which leads to the conclusion that they were fully human descendants of Adam. They had a simple culture but NOT an animal culture.

· A recent Time magazine article stated “they wielded simple tools, wore body ornaments, had religious rites, and ceremoniously buried their dead.”

· Recent archaeological discoveries show that Neanderthals also built houses, decorated their bodies, and contained their fires in hearths.

· Musical instruments have been found with their bodies, and they painted on cave walls.

Neanderthals were part of Japheth’s Indo-European language group who migrated away from the Tower of Babel. They found themselves in harsh Ice Age circumstances in northern Europe particularly (average temperature estimated to be 14˚F lower than now), and some were forced to live in caves. Add to this heavy cloud cover (blocking vitamin-D producing ultraviolet light), the need to wear heavy clothing, and poor diet (the only significant dietary sources of vitamin D are fatty fish and egg yolk, seldom consumed by Neanderthals) and the result is rickets (a deforming bone disease caused by lack of vitamin D) and arthritis.

By the way, many of the features we now call “Neanderthal”—heavy brow ridge, teeth crowding forward, deterioration of the chin, excessive wear on the teeth—are actually features of very old people. And why not? Post-flood patriarchs lived 100’s of years—Shem 600, Eber 464, Peleg and Reu 239, Abraham 175.

Dr. Jack Cuozzo, a Neanderthal expert studied Neanderthal children, concluding that they didn’t achieve maturity until much later than children of today. His book reveals that although Neanderthals had massive features and somewhat larger skulls than is common in mankind today, they would go unnoticed if dressed in modern clothing.

His research has also determined that skulls thicken with age, increasing in width and length but without vertical change. The results should be seen as noticeable changes in skulls that were at least 200-300 years old. Using computer extrapolation of skulls at old ages, the expected shapes at 200-300 years resembled Neanderthal skulls! By the way, the heavy brow ridges and sloping forehead found in Neanderthal skeletons are found in people living today.

Neanderthals are now considered to be a people group living at the same time as other human people groups elsewhere, having reached Europe first during the worst part of the Ice Age then crossed the Mediterranean Sea at the Rock of Gibraltar to live in northwest Africa. They probably intermarried with another tribe of people called Cro-Magnon (named after the cave in France where the first remains were found)—many fossils show such a mix of traits. In fact, there was great variation among both Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon tribes. Cro-Magnon people consumed fish routinely so were able to avoid rickets. They were probably those humans living at the end of the Ice Age when the climate became more normal. The human fossils found in Western Europe are generally more Neanderthal-like than those found in southern Europe, North Africa, or western Asia. Both groups were fully human. Just as expected!

Conclusion About Noah’s Descendants

A total of 70 “families” forming nations is mentioned in Genesis 10! These three streams of nations are not three “races.” We all have the same color; some just have more of it than others. There are dusky and black people found among all three groups of nations. The Bible does not mention “race” only nations. The modern concept of “race” is based on evolutionary thinking. And, Increasingly in recent years has archeology been confirming that civilization appeared more or less contemporaneously in all parts of the world, only a few millennia ago. Just as expected!

Sources For Further Study

1. Babel, John Whitcomb, Creation magazine 24(3), June 2002 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i3/babel.asp.

2. Why the Electric Battery Was Forgotten, David Down, Creation magazine 16(2), March 1994 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v16/i2/battery.asp.

3. The Sixteen Grandsons of Noah, Creation magazine 20(4), September 1998 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i4/noah.asp.

4. The Mystery of Ancient Man, Steve Cardno, Creation magazine 20(2), March 1998 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i2/ancient.asp.

5. In the Days of Peleg, Larry Pierce, Creation magazine 22(1), December 1999 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i1/peleg.asp.

6. How Does Man’s History Fit with the Biblical Timeline? Bodie Hodge at www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/2006/0630.asp.

7. From Ararat to the Americas—in a Few Thousand Years? Bodie Hodge at www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/2006/0922.asp.

8. Searching for Moses, Technical Journal 15(1), April 2001 at www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i1/moses.asp.

9. Archaeology Q&A at www.answersingenesis.org

10. Timing Is Everything, Tas Walker, Steve Cardno and Jonathan Sarfati, Creation magazine 27(3), June 2005 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v27/i3/down.asp.

11. American Genesis: The Cosmological Beliefs of the Indians, Bill Johnson, Impact #369 at www.icr.org.

12. Towering Change: Were all of today’s thousands of languages separately created? And if not, have languages evolved? Carl Wieland, Creation magazine 22(1), December 1999 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i1/towering_change.asp.

13. The Origin of Languages, Wayne Spencer, Creation Answers monthly newsletter, July 2007 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i1/towering_change.asp.

14. The Neandertals: Our Worthy Ancestors, Part I, Marvin Lubenow, Answers online, November 29, 2006 at www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n2/worthy-ancestors.

15. The Neandertals: Our Worthy Ancestors, Part II, Marvin Lubenow, Answers online April 11, 2007 at www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n1/worthy-ancestors-2.

16. One Blood: the Biblical Answer to Racism, by Ken Ham, Carl Wieland, and Don Batten, online book at www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/OneBlood/index.asp.

17. Where Did the ‘Races’ Come From? by Ken Ham, Carl Wieland, and Don Batten, online book at www.answersingenesis.org/radio/pdf/races_booklet.pdf.

18. Associates for Biblical Research at http://abr.christiananswers.net/home.html.

19. Digging Up the Past at www.diggingsonline.com.

20. Genesis according to the Maio People, Impact #214, April 1991 at www.icr.org.

21. Man-made slabs offer new insight into Mesopotamia, Robert Cooke, Dallas Morning News, July 6, 1998, page 10D.

22. Success without the splendor, John Noble Wilford, New York Times News Service

23. Artifact generates questions, Associated Press

24. Babel, John Whitcomb, Creation magazine 24(3), June 2002 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i3/babel.asp.

25. Pre-Flood Relics on the bottom of the Black Sea? Tas Walker, September 14, 2000 at www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4377news9-14-2000.asp.

26. Ancient Chinese Flutes bring back sounds of old, Alexandre Witze, Dallas Morning News, September 27, 1999, page 7-8D.

27. Anthropology and Apeman Q&A at www.answersingenesis.org.

Creation Answers: What Happened To The Dinosaurs?

“They Died, But Not So Long Ago”

The information below is adapted from resources found on www.icr.org and www.answersingenesis.org plus others sourced at the end.

Our culture’s fascination w/ dinosaurs serves to promote evolution and to indelibly inscribe on the mind of each person that 1) the earth is very old, 2) that evolution is a fact, and 3) that no man has ever seen one. The facts really are on the side of the creationist interpretation, though. What do you want to know?

1. Did Dinosaurs And People Live Together? Did They Go On The Ark?

First of all, scripture says that God created all the marine and flying creatures on Day 5 such as plesiosaurs and pterodactyls plus land animals on Day 6 which included dinosaurs. Human and dinosaur footprints are found together in Texas and in Turkmenia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, plus other places.

The universe was changed when Adam disobeyed and took a bite of the fruit that God had forbidden him to eat. Before that sad event, death wasn’t part of God’s beautiful creation. Violence and death entered the physical world as animals fought and killed each other.

Dinosaurs got on the Ark. God told Noah to take all land creatures on the Ark which included dinosaurs. It is likely Noah took juveniles. Those outside the Ark were buried by the Flood. A number of fossil graveyards are known in which dinosaur skeletons are found buried together in jumbled heaps with evidence of mass drowning. Dinosaurs got off the Ark, multiplied and spread to all parts of the world through the land bridges.

They died out. Lots of animals have died out from this earth, and the memory of them has faded or been corrupted. The name “dinosaur” wasn’t even coined until the 1800s several years after the first bones of these creatures were found and studied scientifically.

2. Were Dinosaurs Really As Vicious As They Were Depicted In Jurassic Park?

How do scientists really know anything about dinosaurs? From its remains: bones, teeth, claws, spikes, horns, bony plates, footprints, imprints of skin (very rare); eggs (sometimes containing unborn babies), dung and stomach contents (also very rare). From fossils alone, scientist can only guess how the animal really looked or lived. The Tyrannosaurus looked vicious but may not have been. Very few fossils of this creature have been found. It’s more exciting to picture it as a great monster, though, not as a big lizard.

Although Genesis 1:29, 30 tell us they were created to be plant eaters before the Fall, enough is known of dinosaurs to strongly suspect that at least some of them occasionally ate meat by the time of the Flood. Fish and lizards are found in the stomach contents of some dinosaurs and flying reptiles. Were they vicious? Several types do have sharp teeth, sharp claws, spikes, armor plates perhaps used for offensive or defensive purposes, but many animals today that have sharp teeth use them for strictly peaceful ends—panda bear, fruit bat. After the Flood, God begins holding the animals accountable for the lifeblood of man so that man-eating dinosaurs may have been punished by God through death. But, they were not forbidden to kill other animals for food.

3. Are They Mentioned In The Bible?

All the nations of antiquity wrote about dinosaur-like animals they called dragons. The Biblical writers, inspired by God, wrote about creatures described by the Hebrew word tanniyn which is translated “dragons” in over 20 passages. Up until this century, that word was translated into English as dragon. They are depicted as dwelling in different types of habitats and as being of various sizes (Isaiah 34:13; Micah 1:8; Malachi 1:3). Modern translators of the Bible choose not to use the word “dragon” because modern man has never seen a creature that fits the description of some of the creatures mentioned in the Bible. So they translate the word tanniyn as jackal, whale, serpent, etc. but the Hebrew word means “dragon” or “monster,” not jackal.

· Leviathan—A sea dragon is called a leviathan (“water monster”) in Isaiah 27:1, Psalm 74:14; 104:26 and is described by God Himself in Job 41:1-34 as a living, fearsome, fire-breathing monster who lived in the sea and on land, had huge teeth, and a scaly hide that could not be pierced with sword or spear, was absolutely without fear and could not be trapped or domesticated. Neither whales nor sharks nor crocodiles fit this description but a marine reptile or dinosaur called Kronosaurus does. Psalm 104:24-26 tells us that leviathan was initially formed to frolic in the sea. Something happened; the description doesn’t sound like frolicking!

· Behemoth—God also drew Job’s attention to a huge land dragon called a behemoth (“beast par excellence”) that was a large grass eater, had a tail so large it was compared to a cedar tree, had great muscles and extremely strong bones, was not afraid of anything, and was “chief in the ways of God, “impossible to capture. Neither a hippopotamus nor an elephant fit the description. The description clearly fits that of a large sauropod such as Apatosaurus, a gigantic plant-eater with great muscles and very strong bones or Diplodocus which had leg bones so strong that he could have held three others on his back. The Egyptians knew of behemoth and leviathan. Both creatures are also named in Babylonian and Sumerian literature.

Why did God make such fierce creatures? Psalm 148:7 says they praise Him; Isaiah 43:20 says they will glorify Him who provides for them. In Isaiah 27:1 and in Job, God declares that He is more powerful than all of them, able to defeat them because He made them. He assured Job that He was well able to defeat Satan, too!

4. How Long Did They Live After The Flood?

Evidently the dinosaurs gradually died out or were hunted to extinction. Their existence has been preserved for us by people all over the world through the many legends of dragons, the descriptions of which closely resemble dinosaurs. Dragon legends are best understood as the faded and/or embellished memories of real human encounters with dragons.

We Know About Them Through Legends

Dinosaur-like animals have been drawn, written about and told about since the beginning of recorded history on every continent.

· People in India worshipped huge hissing reptiles they kept in caves.

· In the 10th century, an Irishman wrote of his encounter with a large beast with “iron” nails on its tail that pointed backwards and a head shaped like a horse. Stegasaurus? An ancient carving in an Angkor Cambodian temple also looks like a Stegasaurus.

· A Scandinavian legend describes a reptile-like animal that had a body the size of a large cow; two long, strong back legs; two very short front legs; with very large jaws. Perhaps a T-Rex!

· The city of Nerluc, France was renamed in honor of a slain dragon that was bigger than an ox and had long, sharp pointed horns on its head. Triceratops?

We Know About Them Through Drawings Left Behind

Many drawings of dragons look very much like known dinosaurs or composite drawings of various types.

· An ancient Native American drawing found on a Grand Canyon wall looks very much like an Edmontosaurus.

· The ancient Incas sketched creatures that look just like Triceratops and other dinosaur creatures.

· Thousands of dragon stories and pictures can be found in ancient Chinese books and art. Chinese kings used dragons for pulling royal chariots.

· In the 1500’s, a European scientific book listed several animals, which to us are dinosaurs, as still living back then, though relatively small and extremely rare.

We Know About Them Through Written Accounts

Flying reptiles have also been seen and described in written form by respected writers (Herodotus, Aristotle, Strabo) in ancient Egypt, Ethiopia, India and Arabia.

· In 1856 France, a flying reptile was blasted out of a tunnel and died. It was studied by a scientist, declared to be a pterosaur with a 10’ wingspan.

· Stories of giant man-eating birds are common among many other Indian tribes of the American Southwest. In Utah’s Black Dragon Canyon there is a beautiful pictograph of a pterosaur. These were called “thunderbirds.”

The most remarkable descriptions of living dinosaurs are those that the Saxon and Celtic people of Europe have passed down to us. The British Isles have historically been the habitat for lots of reptilian monsters. Over 80 places have been recorded where men, women and children have personally encountered them. Not just in the past 100 years and not just Loch Ness (or any other Scottish lake from which have been numerous sightings). The written accounts of many of these creatures include detailed descriptions of their skin and scale colors and refer to multiple witnesses.

· Flying reptiles were a feature of Welsh life until surprisingly recent times. In fact, country people predicted the weather for centuries based upon their movements.

· One church at Llanbadarn-y-Garrag in Wales contains the carving of a local giant lake-dwelling reptile whose features include large paddle-like flippers, a long neck and a small head.

· One refers to a creature that spat poisonous venom at its victims. Another describes the creature as “being vast in body, with a crested head, teeth like a saw, and a tail extending to an enormous length.” It liked to eat sheep, and shepherds; local archers tried to kill the beast, unsuccessfully, due to its impenetrable hide.

· At Carlisle Cathedral in England, a 15th century bishop’s tomb has brass carvings of creatures that look like dinosaurs.

The Saxon poem Beowulf describes three specific creatures: a flying reptile (the description of which matches a pteranodon), a sea dragon (common in harbors, depicted on Viking ships) and a land monster called a grendel.

· The grendel was larger than a human, bipedal with small and puny forelimbs; it growled angrily and slayed with its mouth or jaws—swallowing the body of its victims rapidly in large gobbles!

· He hunted alone and at night, approaching human settlements and waiting silently in the darkness for his prey to fall asleep. The Danes employed a giant watcher to watch for the approach of grendels.

· A large carved stone in an old Saxon church (in England) shows such a creature biting the necks of other quadrupedal creatures.

· Woodcut illustrations in medieval European books also show bipedal, scaled reptiles with large mouths. Too many incidents like these are reported down through the centuries and from all sorts of locations for us to say that they are all fairy-tales.

Even the stories of fire-breathing dragons may be true.

· God describes leviathan to Job as follows: “His sneezings flash forth light,…out of his mouth go burning lights; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke goes out of his nostrils, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.” Job 41:18-21—A creature with a flame-throwing capability? Far-fetched?

· Not when you examine the bombardier beetle. When threatened, the little beetle sprays a vapor, made from two chemicals stored in twin chambers at the rear of his body—hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide—instantly heated to 212˚F. High-speed cameras have recorded both audible pops and puffs of smoke when the beetle sprays.

· Some dinosaur skulls have been found with chambers in them as well, particularly the duck-billed or crested ones. Scientists have supposed they were echo chambers for making sounds, perhaps mating calls. They could just as well be for storing and mixing chemicals that ignite when projected. The little bombardier beetle is a mighty argument for creation. His system is so complex and exacting; nothing works until everything works! It is purely evidence of design and defies evolution!

5. What Happened To Them?

They died. Lots of animals have died out from this earth. The world after the Flood was much different than before. The environmental conditions, with the sparse vegetation, the destruction of the pre-Flood vapor canopy, and the temperature extremes during the ensuing Ice Age would have caused many animal types to become extinct, a process which continues today. Plant life and birds did not experience such extinction but many land creatures did. Though the pictures of dinosaurs choking to death from the cataclysmic dust of a meteor impact is a commonly touted idea, it does not explain why flowering plants or birds survived the holocaust!

· Hunters wiped out mammoths and mastodons; perhaps they wiped out dinosaurs as well. Had there been zoos, maybe some could have been saved. In Wales, the flying reptiles were reckoned to be as bad as foxes for poultry so were routinely killed. Various accounts describe how the marine reptiles hanging around harbors were hunted and killed.

· Some marine “dragons” survived because sailors have throughout history, even up to the present, reported “dragons” at sea. It may be that some are still alive in isolated parts of the oceans and deep lakes of the world. Numerous native accounts tell of a sauropod-like animal in the swampy interior of the Congolese rain forests.

· Most creationists believe that dinosaurs have coexisted with man from the beginning, only becoming extinct in the Middle Ages. Evolutionists have difficulty explaining away dragon legends, cave drawings, and even modern sightings. They completely ignore human footprints in dinosaur strata and even inside dinosaur footprints. They can’t explain the evolution of dinosaurs or their demise. All they can do is get you excited about their imaginative recreations of a world that only exists in their minds.

6. Can Dinosaurs Be Cloned?

Can large animals be cloned using DNA from other species, like frogs? In order to clone dinosaurs, researchers need perfectly preserved and complete dinosaur DNA (which we don’t have) and a living mother dinosaur to provide the living egg cell (which we also don’t have and aren’t likely to have). Don’t lose any sleep over cloned dinosaurs!

Conclusion:

Dinosaurs did NOT live millions of years ago; they DID live beside people; they DID go on Noah’s Ark; they are mentioned in the Bible: they DID live after the Flood (Job 40-41). There is MUCH evidence that they have lived up until quite recently. God CREATED all animal types. Dinosaurs did NOT evolve, and there is really NO mystery about what happened to them.

It is important to defend the book of Genesis to our children and ourselves. After all, if the first book in the Bible can’t be trusted in our eyes or in their eyes, why should any other? As one woman once asked, “When my church told me that I had to accept evolution, and that Genesis couldn’t be believed as written, I must then ask, ‘When does God start telling the truth?’” Our God tells the truth from the very first verse!

Sources For Further Study

1. Dinosaurs Q&A at www.answersingenesis.org.

2. Bishop Bell’s Brass Behemoths!, Phillip Bell, Creation magazine 25(4), September 2003 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i4/bishop.asp.

3. Evidence of Dinosaurs at Angkor, Kenneth E. Cole, January 15, 2007 at www.answersingenesis.org/docs2007/0115angkor.asp.

4. After the Flood, by Bill Cooper, New Wine Press and online at www.ldolphin.org/cooper.

5. Dinosaurs by Design, Duane Gish, Master Books.

6. Dinosaurs and Dragons: Stamping on the Legends, Russell M. Grigg, Creation magazine 14(3), June 1992 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i3/dinosaurs.asp.

7. Messages on Stone, Dennis L. Swift, Creation magazine 19(2), March 1997 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i2/stone.asp.

8. Thunderbirds, Bill Johnson, Creation magazine 24(2), March 2002 at www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i2/thunderbirds.asp.

9. Utah’s Testimony to Catastrophe, Andy McIntosh, May 8, 2007 at http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i2/thunderbirds.asp.

10. What happened to the Dinosaurs?, Don Batten, Ken Ham, Jonathan Sarfati, and Carl Wieland at www.answersingenesis.org/home/Area/AnswersBook/dinosaurs19.asp.

11. Could Behemoth Have Been a Dinosaur?, Allan K. Steel, TJ Archive, August 2001 at www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i2/behemoth.asp.

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_16.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

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17. CHRIST and the CROSS: The Promised Redeemer, Part 1

“So he said to them, ‘You foolish people – how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Wasn’t it necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things written about himself in all the scriptures.” (Luke 24:25-27)

Day One Study

Read Genesis 11:27-12:4.

1. What information is revealed to us about Abram in 11:27-12:1, 4? See also Genesis 24:7 and Acts 7:2.

2. Notice all the aspects of the promise God made to Abram. Which part of the promise specifically affects you and why? See Acts 3:25 and Galatians 3:8.

The Path To The Messiah

3. So, God made a nation for Himself through Abraham. After nearly two hundred years, seventy-two of his descendants went into Egypt to escape a famine; four hundred years later, two million Hebrews came out of Egypt on their way to the land promised to them by God earlier. Read Genesis 13:14-17 and 15:13-16. What did God promise?

Scriptural Insight: Recall God’s provision for the sin of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:21 which required the slaying of an animal to provide covering for them. Two essential components of salvation were introduced at that time: the shedding of blood and atonement (covering) for sin. Through Moses, God graciously gave the new nation of Israel a sacrificial system (the Mosaic Law) which provided forgiveness for their sins by their obedience through faith in following the system He provided. The book of Leviticus describes this, the high point of the book being chapters 16 and 17 which are about ATONEMENT for sin made once a year by the High Priest for all the sins of the Israelites. Practically every SACRIFICE included the sprinkling or smearing of blood on the altar or within the tabernacle, thus teaching that atonement involves the substitution of life for life. The blood of the Old Testament sacrifices pointed forward to the blood of the Lamb of God, who obtained for his people “eternal redemption.” NEVER did God demand nor encourage human sacrifice from His people; He considered it evil. (Jeremiah 7:31)

Throughout the Old Testament, God promised to send a prophet to the Israelites from among their own people who would be God’s ANOINTED ONE. In Old Testament times, anointing signified being set apart for service, particularly as king or priest. But people were looking for not just an anointed one but the Anointed One—their Messiah. The English word MESSIAH comes from the Hebrew word for “anointed one,” and the English word CHRIST comes from the Greek word for “anointed one.” We will now begin to examine some of the prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament and their fulfillment in the New Testament through Jesus. Jesus claimed to be not a Messiah, but THE Messiah. See John 4:25-26.

Day Two Study

In the section below, read the Old Testament passages and describe what was promised about the Messiah. These are called Messianic Prophecies. Then read the New Testament references to Jesus’ fulfillment of these prophecies as the Messiah.

4. a. Prophecy: Read Genesis 3:15 (considered the “first gospel” promising the ultimate coming and victory of the Redeemer). What was promised about the Messiah?

b. Fulfillment: Read Romans 16:20 and Colossians 2:14-15. What was fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Messiah?

5. a. Prophecy: Read Deuteronomy 18:15-18. What was promised about the Messiah?

b. Fulfillment: Read Acts 3:19-23. What was fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Messiah?

6. a. Prophecy: Read 2 Samuel 7:12-16. What was promised about the Messiah?

b. Fulfillment: Read Matthew 1:1, 6; 21:9. What was fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Messiah?

7. a. Prophecy: Read Psalm 2. What was promised about the Messiah?

b. Fulfillment: Read Luke 3:21-22; Acts 4:25-28; and Hebrews 1:1-5. What was fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Messiah?

8. a. Prophecy: Read Isaiah 9:6. What was promised about the Messiah?

b. Fulfillment: Luke 2:7; John 8:58; Colossians 2:9; and Ephesians 2:14. What was fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Messiah?

9. Summarize what you have learned so far regarding Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies pertaining to the Christ.

Day Three Study

Deeper Discoveries

· Read the essay “What Proof Do You Have that Jesus Was the Messiah?” following this lesson.

· Much of the material used in this lesson and the next comes from Jews for Jesus, an evangelistic organization of Christian Jews specifically reaching out to their Jewish brethren. You may get more detailed information from their web site at www.jews-for-jesus.org, particularly the section called “The Case for the Messiah.” If you have Jewish friends or family, you will find valuable information to use in witnessing to them, including most of the questions asked by Jews about Christianity and their objections to what they have heard Christians preach.

What Proof Do You Have That Jesus Was The Messiah?

Taken from www.jewsforjesus.org.

It is important to begin by saying that for one who has already made up his or her mind that Jesus is not the Messiah, no amount of evidence will be convincing. But for those who are honest in asking, the evidence speaks for itself.

When sincerely asked, this question is a good one. After all, there have been false Messiahs in Jewish history. Among the most prominent were Bar Kochba and Shabbetai Zevi. Bar Kochba led a revolt against Rome in the years 132-135 C.E. (Christian Era)

During this revolt, one of the most famous figures in Jewish history, Rabbi Akiva, proclaimed him to be “King Messiah.” Unfortunately, Bar Kochba, Akiva and thousands of Jews were killed in 135 C.E. when the Romans stormed the stronghold of Betar. Shabbetai Zevi, on the other hand, was a self-proclaimed Messiah. Flourishing in 17th-century Europe, the Shabbatean movement spread among both the common people and the rabbis. But when Shabbetai Zevi was arrested in 1666 by the Sultan of Turkey, he converted to Islam rather than face death. We have been tragically wrong before, so it is not surprising that hard evidence should be sought for believing in Jesus.

The idea of a Messiah is one that is found throughout the Hebrew Bible. There, the Messiah’s “I.D.” is given to us. Imagine looking up a friend by first locating his country. That would not be enough information, so you would need lo ascertain his city, street, and specific number on that street. It would also help if you had a phone number and knew the time at which he would be home.

Similarly, the Bible tells us the “I.D.” of the Messiah. His ethnic background, place of birth, time frame of his arrival and other identifying characteristics are given. These “credentials” enable us to identify the Messiah, and to recognize imposters.

Of course it might be objected that if these “credentials” are so clear, why didn’t most Jewish people believe in Jesus, and why were they so taken in by false Messiahs like Bar Kochba and Shabbetai Zevi?

To understand this, one must realize that by the time of Jesus, the Messianic hope had become greatly politicized in the minds of the people. They were seeking deliverance from the tyranny of Rome. Although the Scripture spoke both of the sufferings and of the victories of the Messiah, the victorious aspect had become uppermost in the minds of the common people because of the Roman domination. This “lopsided” view of the Messiah has stuck with Jewish people, and the politicization of the Messianic hope has continued. Thus the hope of a political rather than a spiritual Messiah contributes to both the acceptance of people such as Bar Kochba, and the rejection of Jesus in his role as a Messiah.

This is not to say that all Jewish people rejected the claims of Jesus. Far from that being the case, all the first followers of Jesus were Jews. In fact, the rabbis of that time period and afterwards were well aware of the many Messianic prophecies which Christians claimed were fulfilled in Jesus. So for instance, although the Talmudic rabbis concurred that Isaiah 53 was a prediction of the Messiah, by medieval times the pressure from those who applied this prophecy to Jesus was so great that Rashi, that greatest medieval Biblical scholar, reinterpreted the chapter and said it referred to the nation of Israel. This interpretation is maintained today by many Jewish scholars, though it only dates back to the Middle Ages.

What, then, are some of the credentials of the Messiah? Only a few can be listed below; there are many others. All of these passages were recognized by the early rabbis as referring to the Messiah:

· Messiah was to be born at Bethlehem: Micah 5:1.

· Messiah would be from the tribe of Judah: Genesis 49:10.

· Messiah would present himself by riding on an ass: Zechariah 9:9.

· Messiah would be tortured to death: Psalm 22.

· Messiah would arrive before the destruction of the Second Temple: Daniel 9:24-27.

· Messiah’s life would match a particular description, including suffering, silence at his arrest and trial, death and burial in a rich man’s tomb, and resurrection: Isaiah 52:13-53:12.

In detail as to lineage, birthplace, time, and lifestyle, Jesus matched the Messianic expectations of the Hebrew Scriptures. The record of this fulfillment is to be found in the pages of the New Testament. But several other factors combine to further substantiate the Messiahship of Jesus.

In the first place, he claimed to be the Messiah! When a woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming.” he replied, “I who speak to you am he.” (John 4:25-26.) Naturally, that doesn’t prove anything one way or the other. But if Jesus had never made the claim to be the Messiah, why would we bother to try and prove that he was? His own claim lays the groundwork for the rest of the evidence.

Also, Jesus’ life is in sharp contrast to that of the false Messiahs, and it is a positive demonstration of what we would expect the Messiah to do. Thus, Jesus worked many miracles of healing, bringing wholeness into people’s lives, forgiving sin and restoring relationships. In contrast with Shabbetai Zevi, for instance, Jesus carried out the Law of Moses as a devout Jew. And in contrast with Bar Kochba, although Jesus also died, he was resurrected!

The resurrection is a third piece of additional evidence, and it is perhaps the most convincing vindication of Jesus’ claims. It is interesting that an Israeli scholar, Pinchas Lapide, has written a book which has attracted no small amount of attention in the Jewish community. The reason is that Lapide has said that the resurrection of Jesus is well within the realm of possibility. After all, he reasoned, the Hebrew Scriptures give a number of accounts of people coming back to life. Why not Jesus as well? Regrettably, Lapide fails to note that the resurrection of Jesus is described in terms that go far beyond the resuscitations of the other stories; and, he fails to come to grips with the fact that Jesus predicted his own resurrection, which vindicated his claims to Messiahship.

An assortment of explanations has been offered throughout history to explain away the resurrection as either non-historical (“It never happened.”) or as non-supernatural (“Here’s how it happened.”). But these explanations have not been successful. Run down the possibilities for yourself and see which makes the best sense. Did the Roman authorities steal the body of Jesus from the tomb? Then why didn’t they produce it when the word started being spread that Jesus was risen? Or maybe the disciples stole it. But could such a fabrication on their part account for the change in their attitude? Three days earlier they were disillusioned, defeated idealists who had hoped that Jesus would bring in a new world order; could a lie which they knew to be a lie, now account for their hope, their boldness in the face of official persecution, and for the high ethical standards they set?

Or perhaps Jesus never died: he just fainted on the cross and revived in the tomb. This idea was popularized in the book The Passover Plot by Hugh Schonfield. Unfortunately the author overlooked the fact that the Romans pierced Jesus’ side, which would have most certainly killed him. Also, there was a contingent of Roman soldiers guarding the tomb as well as a huge stone that blocked its entrance. There was no way that a resuscitated Jesus could have escaped and then convinced hundreds of skeptical eyewitnesses that he had conquered death forever! Or was it all a mass hallucination? It must have been quite a hallucination to be seen by vastly different kinds of people at different times of day in many different places. You might be able to fool one person, but can you fool five hundred who saw him at one time? And unlike the pattern of hallucinations, these appearances of the resurrected Jesus stopped as suddenly as they started, forty days after the resurrection took place.

The only satisfactory explanation is that the resurrection actually occurred, just as the record says. And if that’s the case, it’s a solid reason for accepting the Messiahship of Jesus.

Finally, Jesus transforms people’s lives. Because he provides atonement for sin and reconciliation with God, Jesus brings peace, joy, and purpose into people’s lives. Apart from faith in him, there is no basis for true peace or direction, for as the psalmist says, “Man is estranged from the womb.” That this estrangement is healed by the reconciling ministry of Jesus is the common experience of those who believe in him. So, between the objective evidence of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, and the subjective verification in our own lives--we think there’s ample evidence that Jesus was who he claimed to be!

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_17.mp3

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Passage:

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18. CHRIST and the CROSS: The Promised Redeemer, Part 2

“As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,’ he said.” (Acts 17:2-3)

“Paul went to the Jews in the synagogue, as he customarily did, and on three Sabbath days he addressed them from the scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and to rise from the dead, saying, ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.’” (Acts 18: 27-28)

Day One Study

1. a. Prophecy: Read Isaiah 52:13-53:12. What was promised about the Messiah?

b. Fulfillment: Read the following verses to see what was fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Messiah.

· Matthew 27:14—

· John 12:37-40—

· Acts 8:30-35—

· 2 Corinthians 5:21—

· 1 Peter 2:21-25—

2. a. Prophecy: Read Jeremiah 31:31-34. What was promised about the Messiah?

b. Fulfillment: Read the following verses to see what was fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Messiah.

· Matthew 26:27-28—

· Luke 22:20—

· Hebrews 8:7-13—

Day Two Study

3. a. Prophecy: Read Micah 5:1-2. What was promised about the Messiah?

b. Fulfillment: Read Matthew 2:1-6. What was fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Messiah?

4. a. Prophecy: Read Zechariah 9:9. What was promised about the Messiah?

b. Fulfillment: Read Matthew 21:1-5 and John 12:14-15. What was fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Messiah?

5. a. Prophecy: Read Daniel 9:24-27. What was promised about the Messiah?

b. Fulfillment: Read Galatians 4:4. What was fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Messiah?

6. a. Prophecy: Read Psalm 22. What was promised about the Messiah?

b. Fulfillment: Read the following verses to see what was fulfilled in the life of Jesus the Messiah?

· Matthew 27:35-36—

· Matthew 27:43—

· Matthew 27:46—

· Mark 15:24—

· Mark 15:29-32—

· Luke 23:33—

· John 19:28—

· John 19:34—

· Acts 17:26—

· Philippians 2:10-11—

· Hebrews 2:11-12—

Day Three Study

Appreciation Application:

7. For anyone who is honestly asking, “Who is Jesus?”, the evidence speaks for itself. For anyone of Jewish descent who is honestly asking, “What proof do you have that Jesus was the Messiah,” the evidence also speaks for itself. Jesus Himself, when quizzing His disciples about what others were saying about Him, asked the question in Mark 8:29 “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ (Messiah, Anointed One).” Today, He asks the same question of us. “Who do you say I am?”

· Are you convinced that He is the Christ?

· Use a creative means (poem, song, drawing, art form, prose description) to explain your answer.

Appreciation Assignment:

8. Spend some time meditating upon God’s plan to redeem us. Then, spend time in prayer thanking Him, etc.

Deeper Discoveries:

Read the 2 essays about Jesus as Messiah, “Y’SHUA…Why That Name?” and “When the Messiah Comes,” following this lesson for additional insight into Jesus as the promised Messiah. Make notes about what you learn.

Y’shua…Why That Name?

Adapted from an article by Stuart Dauermann at www.jewsforjesus.org

The naming of the Messiah is recorded in the first chapter of the Gospel According to Matthew. In that account, Matthew describes an angel’s visit to Joseph, who was to become the guardian of the Messiah. (Angelic visitations preceding the birth of significant figures in Biblical history are not unusual. The births of Isaac and of Samson, for instance, were each preceded by an angelic visitor.) In Matthew’s account, the angel speaks to Joseph of the birth of the Messiah in these words: “She (Miriam) will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Y’shua, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Much may be learned about the Messiah from considering this brief text. The name Y’shua is necessarily the name of a human being: “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Y’shua.” Although it may seem obvious to many that the Messiah would be a human being, it is necessary to reaffirm this fact because we live in a day when religious thought is influenced by science fiction. And indeed, many allusions to a Messiah figure can be found in sci-fi films and books. But no, the Messiah could neither be an angel, nor some kind of extraterrestrial humanoid. He had to be a man. This is necessary for a number of reasons:

First, he had to be a man in order to satisfy the demands of prophecy. The prophets predicted numerous times that the Messiah would be born as a human being. Isaiah wrote of him: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders... Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.” Clearly the Messiah would be a human being.

Secondly, he had to be a man in order to satisfy the demands of God’s justice. The Scriptures reveal that one of the Messiah’s tasks was to offer Himself as a korban—a sacrifice—for the sins of His people. Although this understanding seems foreign to many Jews today, it was once widely accepted. For example, in the Midrash on the Book of Ruth, an allegorical interpretation is given to explain Ruth 2:14, “At mealtime Boaz said to her, ‘Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.”‘ The following is written: “The fifth interpretation (of Ruth 2:14) makes it refer to the Messiah. ‘Come hither’ means approach to royal state. ‘And eat of the bread’ refers to the bread of royalty; ‘And dip thy morsel in the vinegar’ refers to His sufferings as it is said, ‘But He was wounded because of our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5).”‘ If the Messiah was to suffer because of our transgressions, as our substitute, it is appropriate that he be a man.

Thirdly, the Messiah had to be a man to satisfy our need for a compassionate high priest. While it is well known that the Messiah would be a king, not so well known is his function as a priest, i.e., one who represents his people’s cause to God. Yet this is what the prophet Zechariah declared in Zechariah 6:13, where he said that the Messiah would sit as a priest upon his throne. In order for him to be a compassionate high priest, he needed to be one of us.

More Than A Man

Not only is Y’shua the name of a man, but Y’shua is necessarily the name of one who was to be more than a man. Indeed, the Jewish Scriptures say that the Messiah would be called God. Two passages often used by the rabbis in reference to the Messiah clearly teach this: “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely and do what is right and just in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:5-6). “And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

Finally, Y’shua is necessarily the name of the only one through whom we can find salvation. An examination of the meaning of the name and its background in the Jewish Scriptures reveals why this is so.

Y’shua means “the Lord saves.” It involves a combination of the name YHWH (the Ineffable Name) and the Hebrew root YASHA’. YASHA’ is related to an Arabic word, “to make wide, to make sufficient” as con basted with TSARAR, meaning “narrow.” Wideness came to connote “freedom” or “safety” which led to the root YASHA’, having the meaning: to be delivered to a position of freedom or safety.

In the Tenach, God is presented as the source of salvation, “Our God is a God who saves” (Psalm 68:20). Human agents are effective only as they are empowered by God. Ultimately, salvation had only one source—The Lord: “...And there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me. Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:21b, 22).

Although many of our people assume that the Tenach speaks only of salvation from physical distress, this is not so; the concept developed in the sacred writings to specify the promise of salvation from sin:

Salvation from What?

“They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their dwelling places where they sinned, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God...” (Ezekiel 37:23).

“Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness” (Psalm 51:14). “Help us, O God, our Savior, for the glory of your name; deliver us and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake” (Psalm 79:9).

Indeed, in Jeremiah 17:14 salvation is portrayed as a means of healing the effects of sin in our life and our relationship with God: “Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.” Jeremiah also specifies that God’s chosen agent of salvation is the Messiah. We see this in the passage quoted earlier (Jeremiah 23:6).

The Inevitable Name

The divine choice of Y’shua as the name for the Messiah has a “holy inevitability” and an iron clad logic. Salvation comes only from the Lord. The Messiah is the One through whom God accomplishes and culminates salvation. No wonder, then, that the angel told Joseph, “You are to give him the name Y’shua—the Lord saves—for he will save his people from their sins.”

It is Y’shua who brings us deliverance from the distress of our sins, bringing wholeness instead of woe.

“ He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins; he endured punishment that made us well; because of his wounds we have been healed.” (Isaiah 53:5).

Why should the name Y’shua be important to us to day?

“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12).

Accessed at http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/3_10/whythatname on March 20, 2012.

When The Messiah Comes...

Adapted from an article by Barry Rubin at www.jewsforjesus.org

Oftentimes, Jews who come to believe in Jesus are told by their unbelieving families, “If you’d only known more about Judaism, if you’d only studied your own religion, you never would have come to believe this way.”

My parents never said that to me because, before I accepted Christ, I went to see an Orthodox rabbi on my own initiative.

You see, I had met some Jews for Jesus who had given me some very convincing arguments from the Scriptures apparently pointing to Jesus as the Messiah. However, I was afraid to just “jump in.” “How can I be sure?” I thought. My impetuousness had gotten me into trouble in the past. Once I had gotten involved in the occult. Another time, I had come very close to marrying a Gentile girl I knew I shouldn’t marry. The only sound thing to do, I thought, would be to see a rabbi and ask him what he thought of these Scriptures. After all, I figured he should know.

Rabbi Bogner and I sat and discussed the many passages the Jews for Jesus had pointed out. We began with the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. The Jews for Jesus said it talked about the Messiah. The rabbi said it referred to Israel. Then we studied Jeremiah 31:31-34 which talks of a “new covenant” that God would make with His people. The rabbi just scoffed at this one.

Finally, I brought to his attention Daniel 9, which, according to the Jews for Jesus, told the time of the Messiah’s coming.

At that, Rabbi Bogner told me he was prohibited by Talmudic Law from studying that chapter. When I asked why, he said, “Cursed be the man who calculates the time of the coming of the Messiah.” He knew that Daniel 9 did indeed contain God’s message to us as to when the Messiah would come. But he explained that the Talmud prohibited studying it because of the possible unbelief that could arise from some making incorrect calculations and being disappointed.

But this didn’t make any sense to me. Why would God give us a Book and then tell us not to read part of it? I didn’t think God played “cosmic games” on us.

I left the rabbi’s study a little perplexed. And with more courage than I thought I had in me, I plunged into my own study of Daniel 9. Now I knew I was not a Bible scholar, but I was no dummy either! As a college instructor I felt I had a good grasp of concepts and could follow a carefully reasoned argument to its conclusion. And having been trained as an accountant, I knew I could make whatever mathematical calculations were necessary.

Well, Daniel 9 referred to “an anointed one” being “cut off” after a certain number of weeks. The Hebrew word for “anointed”“ is “mashiach,” which, in Greek, is “christos” or “Christ.” Also, in the Bible, to be “cut off” meant to die. I then needed to calculate the number of weeks starting with the rebuilding of Jerusalem as stated in the Scripture verse, “So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and 62 weeks.” (Daniel 9:25) The only decree to go out was by Artaxerxes in 444 B.C.E. Biblically speaking, a week equals seven years and a sabbatical year, approximately 360 days. My computations were fairly simple, but the answer I got was difficult to accept.

This anointed one was to die in 32 C.E., the year Christ was crucified. I could not call this a coincidence. It would be like saying two plus two equals five.

I thought about Rabbi Bogner. It did help me to talk with him. For despite the Talmudic prohibition on studying that Scripture passage for fear of resulting unbelief, its study made me into a believer, a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Accessed at http://jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/1_3/messiahcomes on March 20, 2012.

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_18.mp3

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Passage:

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19. CHRIST and the CROSS: Restoration, Part 1

As God designed and formed the human body, He knew, of course, that in the fullness of time even He would become a man. In that day, He would prepare a human body for His Son; and it would be “made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7), just as man had been made in the likeness of God. Both in body and spirit, Jesus Christ was indeed Himself the image of God. Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Why was it so important for Him to be resurrected from the dead? In what ways did Christ’s work on the cross and His resurrection frees those who believe in Him from the curse and its consequences?

Day One Study

1. Review Genesis 1:26-2:25. List words or phrases describing Adam and Eve’s relationships with God, each other, and their environment before sin. Example: perfect fellowship with God

2. Review Genesis 3:1-21. List words or phrases describing the effects of sin on Adam and Eve. Example: separation from God

Sin Is In Our Nature!!!

Someone might say, “I’m basically a good person and I’m very happy with my own religion, so why should I believe in Jesus?” If everyone was good in God’s sight, nobody would need Jesus. Oh, to be sure, most of us aren’t murderers or thieves or anything like that. We like to think of ourselves as respectable, with no need for major changes in our lives. Yet the picture the Scriptures present is that even the best of us is desperately sinful, deeply alienated from God, from each other and even from ourselves. We are all born sinners and continue to live that way!!

But God is serious about our sin. We tend to think that sin is exclusively a matter of committing individual acts. But sin is much more than that. The Scriptures show us that sin is a condition of human existence which does not pertain to a particular act, but rather to an attitude, one of arrogance and rebellion. The best of men, like Abraham, Moses and King David, all committed acts of sin. Sin is universal. And that’s why God provided a way of forgiveness, beginning with the Old Testament animal sacrifices and culminating in the death of the Messiah.

We really are sinful in the depths of our being, and all the education, affluence and technology in the world hasn’t changed that. It’s only enabled us to express our rebellion in a more sophisticated fashion. Jesus really did come in history, really did die and really did rise from the dead. All the objections in the world and all the ignoring of the evidence won’t make that reality go away…But God really does hold us responsible for facing the facts about ourselves and accepting His offer of forgiveness through Jesus.” (Adapted from www.jewsforjesus.org, “Questions and Answers”)

Restoration

The goal of this lesson is for you to see what Christ restored to us as individuals through His death and resurrection. Read the verses describing how sin and the curse affected us before Christ. Then read the corresponding verses to see what Christ’s death and resurrection restored to us.

3. a. Sin’s Effect: Read Ephesians 2:1-3, 11-12. How had sin and the Curse affected us before Christ? How is the life of the unbeliever described?

b. Restored: Read the following verses to see what Christ’s death and resurrection restored to us.

· Ephesians 2:4-10, 13—

· 2 Corinthians 5:17-21—

Day Two Study

4. a. Sin’s Effect: Read Romans 5:12-14. How had sin and the Curse affected us before Christ?

b. Restored: Read Romans 5:1-2,16-19. What did Christ’s death and resurrection restore to us?

5. a. Sin’s Effect: Read the following verses to see how sin and the Curse had affected us before Christ.

· Psalm 94:3-7—

· Ecclesiastes 2:1-11—

· Ecclesiastes 4:1-4—

b. Restored: Read the following verses to what Christ’s death and resurrection restored to us.

· Romans 5:3-5—

· 2 Corinthians 1:3-5—

· 2 Corinthians 4:15—

· 2 Corinthians 12:9-10—

Day Three Study

Appreciation Application:

6. From what we have learned in this lesson,

· What impact should Christ’s work have on your life today?

· How does this lesson encourage you regarding the future?

· Does this lesson convict you? How?

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_19.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

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20. CHRIST and the CROSS: Restoration, Part 2

Day One Study

The goal of this lesson is for you to continue to see what Christ restored to us as individuals through His death and resurrection. As you did in the last lesson, read the verses describing how sin and the curse affected us before Christ. Then read the corresponding verses to see what Christ’s death and resurrection restored to us.

1. a. Sin’s Effect: Read 1 Corinthians 15:21-22. How had sin and the Curse affected us before Christ?

b. Restored: Read 1 Corinthians 15:20-27, 54-58. What has Christ’s death and resurrection restored to us?

2. a. Sin’s Effect: Read the following verses to see how sin and the Curse had affected us before Christ.

· Psalm 14:1—

· Psalm 51:5—

· Isaiah 53:6—

· Romans 8:5-8—

b. Restored: Read the following verses to see what Christ’s death and resurrection has restored to us.

· Romans 8:1-4; 9-11—

· Colossians 2:13-14—

· Hebrews 9:13-14—

Day Two Study

3. a. Sin’s Effect: Read Romans 5:10a, Colossians 1:21, and James 4:4. How had sin and the Curse affected us before Christ?

b. Restored: Read the following verses to see what Christ’s death and resurrection restored to us.

· Romans 5:10b—

· Romans 8:31-39—

4. a. Sin’s Effect: Read the following verses to see how sin and the Curse had affected us before Christ.

· Genesis 11:8-9; 9:19; 10:15, 20, 31—

· Acts 10:27-28

· Ephesians 2:11-12—

b. Restored: Read the following verses to see what Christ’s death and resurrection restored to us.

· Matthew 28:19-20—

· Acts 2:5-11—

· Acts 10:34-35—

· Ephesians 2:13-19—

· Colossians 3:11—

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

5. From what you have learned in BOTH lessons (this one AND the previous one), think about what Christ has already restored to you as a believer. Knowing all this should boost your self-esteem sky high! You are greatly loved by a Great and Loving God who desires to free you from the curse; in part for now, in the future—completely! Spend some time thanking God for His indescribable gift! Feel free to be creative in the space below.

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_20.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

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21. CONSUMMATION: Restoration, Part 3

And now, for the rest of the story . . .

Day One Study

Paradise Once Lost; Paradise To Be Regained

1. Read Acts 3:20-21. What did Peter assure believers about the future?

2. Read 2 Peter 3:1-13. In vs. 3-9, what attitudes will characterize the last days, particularly that of the scoffers?

3. How have you seen this prophecy fulfilled in the past 100 years?

4. What information about the future is given in 2 Peter 3:10-13?

5. Why do you think God wants to recreate the current heavens (“space,” which we call the universe) and earth into a new heavens and new earth?

Day Two Study

The Restoration Continues . . .

Revelation 19 describes Jesus’ triumphant victory over Satan and his cohorts at the end of the Tribulation.

6. Read Revelation 20:1-6 and Isaiah 9:6-7. What information is given about Christ’s millennial reign?

7. All of creation was affected by sin entering the world through Adam and Eve. Read Genesis 1:29-31—this is Paradise at the beginning. Now read Genesis 3:17-19 and Romans 8:19-22—this is Paradise Lost. Now read Isaiah 11:1-10; 65:20-25. This is a glimpse of Paradise Regained in the future. What is being restored during the millennial reign of Christ as described in Isaiah?

8. All the nations were affected by the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel. We have seen how God restored a oneness to believers representing all nations at Pentecost through the indwelling Holy Spirit ho makes all believers part of one Body—the Body of Christ. Read the following verses to see what God will restore to all nations in the future millennial reign.

· Zephaniah 3:9—

· Zechariah 14:9—

· Philippians 2:10-11—

· Revelation 5:6-10—

Day Three Study

Appreciation Application:

9. Why should the study of prophecy regarding God’s future plans for the earth NOT cause you fear? How does it give you hope?

Deeper Discoveries:

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org and SEARCH anything related to the Curse, the millennial kingdom, and restoration. Select an article to read or watch a video. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

· Go to www.bible.org and SEARCH anything related to the millennial kingdom. Select an article to read.

Biblical Topics:

Passage:

22. CONSUMMATION: Restoration, Part 4

A Possible Timetable For The End

As Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians, believers (living and those who have already died) will be “raptured” or “caught up” to meet Christ in the air when the time comes that God has predetermined and then go to heaven to be with Christ in new glorified, heavenly bodies. It is generally believed that a 7-year period of tribulation involving extreme deception, wars, and suffering will either follow or somehow be associated with the rapture of believers. Some people still on earth will become Christians during this time.

At the end of the 7-year period, Christ will gloriously return to earth as He promised, setting up His kingdom on earth with Jerusalem as His capital. Those who become believers during the Tribulation period will be given resurrection bodies and, along with the raptured believers, will rule with Christ on the earth. From Revelation 20, we determine that Satan will be bound for one thousand years (often called “The Millennium”) as Christ reigns on the earth. Worship will center at the Temple in Jerusalem. There will be worldwide peace between mankind and even among animals. Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord but still not all will believe in Christ because man’s sin nature has not been removed. At the end of the 1000 years, Satan will be freed and will lead unbelievers against Christ but will be defeated and cast into the lake of fire.

There will then be a resurrection of all the unsaved from throughout the ages who will be judged as sinners and cast into the lake of fire. God will then create a new heaven and new earth…

Day One Study

1. Reviewing from last lesson. Why do you think God wants to create a new heaven and a new earth?

2. When you were a child, what did you imagine heaven to be like?

3. As an adult, what do you imagine heaven to be like?

4. Whom are you expecting/hoping to see there?

Read Revelation 21:1-27.

5. Have you ever wanted to throw out all your clothes and go shopping, and get everything new? Well, God does just that. What does God declare in Revelation 21:5?

6. Focus on 21:1-4. Write down all that happens in these four verses.

7. What could the advantage be to not having any seas? [Note: some suspect seas are referring to inland seas between land areas like the Mediterranean Sea, not the oceans in total.]

8. So, where will we, believers, spend eternity?

Day Two Study

“Everything Old Is New Again” — Restoration Complete!

9. Read Revelation 21:9-27. Describe the New Jerusalem—either through words or drawings.

10. Imagine and describe what it will be like for you to live there in the city with God as well as going forth from the city to places on the new earth. (God gives us the description so it is okay! In fact, He wants us to think about that glorious place which will be our future home!!)

11. Discuss the information given to us in Revelation 21:23 and 22:5. See also Genesis 1:3.

12. Read Revelation 22:1-21. Reference is made (verses 1-5, 14,19) to the Tree of Life again. What further information is given about it? See also Joel 3:18.

13. Does this information help you to understand the role of the Tree of Life in Eden? How?

Appreciation Application:

14. Read Genesis 32:30, Exodus 3:6; 33:18-23. Now read Revelation 22:4. At last after all this, we will be able to look at God’s face. Why will we be able to do this? Support your answer with scripture such as Titus 3:4-7 plus any other verses you can find.

Day Three Study

Appreciation Assignment:

15. Thinking back through this entire study:

· In what ways will you apply/have you applied this study to your life?

· In what ways have you seen that what we see in God’s World agrees with what we read in God’s Word?

Deeper Discoveries:

· Go to www.answersingenesis.org and SEARCH anything related to the new heavens and new earth. Select an article to read or watch a video. Also visit www.icr.org and search.

· Go to www.bible.org and SEARCH anything related to heaven, the new heavens and the new earth. Select an article to read.

Praise God for His Future Plans for You!!!

http://feeds.bible.org/melanie_newton/7cs/Newton_7Cs_22.mp3

Biblical Topics:

Passage: