CHALLENGES TO GOD & FAITH

ECBS 2014

MANʼS CHALLENGES TO GOD Challenge of Biology – Evolution Challenge of Geology – Deep Time Challenge of Archaeology – Egyptian Chronology

GODʼS CHALLENGES TO MAN Challenge of Godʼs Power & Specified Design Challenge of The Empty Tomb Challenge of Godʼs Witnesses

ECBS 2014 – TS 1 ECBS 2014 – TS 2 INTRODUCTION: CHALLENGES TO GOD & FAITH

Why We Should Be Concerned – A Case Study Rob Hyndman was a dynamic Christadelphian preacher. He has written a number of helpful books for the community both on the fundamentals and on other subjects. Several years ago he decided to explore a number of troubling issues. He felt these could be resolved in a way that would satisfy both current scientific thought and still be true to Godʼs Word. Here, in his own words, is what happened:

AN END OF FAITH – Rob Hyndman Published on 29 July 2013

This week I resigned from the Christadelphian faith after nearly 30 years as a member, and having attended Christadelphian activities almost every week of my life.

I resigned because I no longer believe. I donʼt believe the Bible is inspired by God. I am not even sure there is a God. Perhaps there is, but he is not who I once thought he was. I was an active and enthusiastic believer from the time of my baptism at age 16, right up until a few months ago when my world of faith fell apart.

I should have seen it coming, but I didnʼt. I had embarked on what I thought was a quest to re- examine my beliefs, and encourage reform within the Christadelphian community. About two and a half years ago, I started this blog in which I publicly discussed some areas of Christadelphian beliefs (my beliefs) that I thought needed a re-think. I looked at our stance on voting in governmental elections and found it weak. I looked at our position on creation and evolution, and was persuaded by the arguments for evolution. I then tried to re-interpret Genesis (and some New Testament passages) in the light of this knowledge. I explored inspiration, and what it means, and how it might have worked. In particular, I wondered about the obvious errors in the Bible, the contradictions, the mythology borrowed from contemporary accounts, and I tried to construct an approach to inspiration that took all this into account while retaining divinely guided scriptures. I felt like I was part of a group forging a new and more enlightened way for Christadelphians.

But then, quite suddenly, I could not think of a good reason to believe any more. Far from inspired, the Bible now appeared as a collection of ancient human documents, full of propaganda, legend, and bigotry. Yes, there was some wisdom there, and some beautiful poetry, some uplifting words. But the attitudes to women and foreigners that it describes, sometimes commands, were not worthy of the God I once believed in. The alleged miracles seemed more like the superstitions of a primitive people than evidence for enlightened belief. Even the prophecies that I once found so convincing, appeared to be either contrived, out-of- context, or written after the alleged fulfillment. What I once thought were answers to prayer now appeared to be coincidence or imagined. My faith was always based on what I thought was evidence, and once the evidence was removed, the faith quickly followed.

[The remainder of the blog talks about the impact on his decision on his family and the Christadelphian community.]

ECBS 2014 – TS 3 Never underestimate the power and seductiveness of the worldʼs wisdom. But also, do not be awed and dismayed by what you see and hear. The ultimate conflict has been and will always be between the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of God. Indeed, as we will see in the first class on the Challenge of Biology, the world has always recognized this conflict and has sought in every way possible to diminish and then destroy the very idea of God. This is especially true of His Word because Godʼs Word confronts and challenges everything man esteems and holds valuable.

This is how God views the conflict:

“It is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

“For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

“For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.” (1 Cor. 1:19-29 NKJV)

In the spirit of the above passage we will explore three major areas of conflict between manʼs wisdom and Godʼs wisdom:

The Challenge of Biology – Evolution The Challenge of Geology – Deep Time The Challenge of Archaeology – Egyptian Chronology

We will follow this with Godʼs Challenges to man:

The Challenge of Godʼs Power & Complex, Specified Design The Challenge of The Empty Tomb The Challenge of Godʼs Witnesses

ECBS 2014 – TS 4 CLASS 1 THE CHALLENGE OF BIOLOGY – EVOLUTION

PART I: EXPLORING CREATION AND EVOLUTION: CAN BOTH BE TRUE? Group Discussion (based on worksheets 1,2,3): Can both explanations for existence be true? Key Issue: Are the differences between Genesis & Evolutionary Ages reconcilable? Conclusion: It is an either-or proposition: Either God is true or the Theory of Evolution is true.

PART II: DOES IT MATTER? Consider these points to answer this question:

(1) Evolutionary theory is not an explanation of how God created; it is the replacement for God as Creator.

“For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was no evolution at all. It made nonsense of the central point of evolution.” [Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.249]

"Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the creator…from rational discussion." [Julian Huxley (1887-1975), famous biologist and statesman]

"Darwin pointed out that no supernatural designer was needed; since natural selection could account for any known…life, there was no room for a supernatural agency in its evolution." [Francis Ayala, evolutionary biologist and philosopher at the University of California, Irvine]

"Although many details remain to be worked out, it's already evident that all the objective phenomenon of the history of life can be explained by purely naturalistic factors… Man is the result of a purposeless and naturalistic…process that did not have him in mind." [Gaylord Simpson (1902-1984), noted American paleontologist]

"God's role has been diminished over the eons. First we had God making Adam and…every creature with his hands… Then we had the God who sets evolution in motion. And then you don't even need that God --the law giver-- because, if we take the ideas from cosmology seriously, then there are other places and other laws and life evolves where it can. So...God, the master of ceremonies does not actually play any role any more in the universe and no longer intervenes in any way." [Daniel Dennett, Professor of Philosophy & Cognitive Scientist at Tufts University, Interview in Der Spiegel]

"Belief in evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if that religious view is indistinguishable from atheism." [William Provine, Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University]

ECBS 2014 – TS 5 (2) When God and Evolution are merged, God is always the Loser By the very nature of the fundamental assumptions, it is impossible to combine together the two ideas of creation and evolution. Their differences are too great. One views creation to have occurred by Divine power and means, the other sees creation to have occurred by naturalistic forces alone. Any honest attempt to combine the two will inevitably require that something give: Sadly, it is never Evolution that gives way, it is always God and His Word that have to be altered to make it fit with evolutionary thought. Consider these examples:

Rob Hyndman We looked at the outcome of one honest manʼs attempt to explain the Bible by means of evolutionary theory. Neither God, the Bible or Robʼs faith survived.

BioLogos The cover story of the June (2011) issue of Christianity Today, entitled "The Search for the Historical Adam", noted that the BioLogos Forum (group of Evangelical evolutionary scientists) has played and continues to play a prominent role in stimulating discussion surrounding the historical Adam.

“As detailed extensively on these pages over the past two years, there is now little doubt that God has created all life forms, including human beings, through an evolutionary process. God could have created in an instant. After all, in the supreme divine act of all time Jesus was raised from the dead—in an instant. However, it now seems certain that this is not the way He chose to create the human body. Godʼs process was gradual, not instantaneous.” [BioLogos Blog]

Evangelicals have traditionally been strong supporters of the inerrancy and divine origin of the Bible. Evolutionary belief has now undermined this, leading to a wholesale reinterpretation of inspiration, the meaning and validity of Genesis and other re-evaluations of their traditional beliefs. This is where proponents of theistic evolution are led when dealing with conflicts between evolutionary explanations and the Bible:

“In my view, Adam and Eve are historical figures—real people in a real past. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that the biblical text is more interested in them as archetypal figures who represent all of humanity. This is particularly true in the account in Genesis 2 about their formation. I contend that the formation accounts are not addressing their material formation as biological specimens, but are addressing the forming of all of humanity: we are all formed from dust, and we are all gendered halves. If this is true, Genesis 2 is not making claims about biological origins of humanity, and therefore the Bible should not be viewed as offering competing claims against science about human origins. If this is true, Adam and Eve also may or may not be the first humans or the parents of the entire human race. Such an archetypal focus is theologically viable and is well-represented in the ancient Near East.” [John Walton, The Historical Adam, p.89]

“Genetic evidence shows that humans descended from a group of several thousand individuals who lived about 150,000 years ago. This conflicts with the traditional view that all humans descended from a single pair who lived about 10,000 years ago. While Genesis 2-3 speaks of the pair Adam and Eve, Genesis 4 refers to a larger population of humans interacting with Cain. One option is to view Adam and Eve as a historical pair living among many 10,000 years ago, chosen to represent the rest of humanity before God. Another option is to view Genesis 2-4 as an allegory in which Adam and Eve symbolize the large group of ancestors who lived 150,000 years ago. Yet another option is to view Genesis 2-4 as an “everyman” story,

ECBS 2014 – TS 6 a parable of each personʼs individual rejection of God.” [Were Adam and Eve historical figures? http://biologos.org/questions/evolution-and-the-fall]

“Humans appear very late in the history of life. The fossil record clearly shows that many creatures died before humans appeared. This appears to conflict with Bible passages which describe death as a punishment for human sinfulness. However, the curse of Genesis 3 was that Adam and Eve, not the animals, should die for their disobedience. Therefore, animal death before the Fall is compatible with Christian doctrine. For humans, Genesis 3 and other Bible passages may be speaking primarily of spiritual death, not physical death.” [Did death occur before the Fall? http://biologos.org/questions/death-before-the-fall.]

Religious Philosophers: “How Can the Tension between Faith and Darwin Be Resolved? When we understand the messiness of the processes through which life unfolds, any design must be judged as largely unintelligent, any Creator as, at best, whimsical and capricious. Providential religion can only be sustained by supposing that Godʼs design is an unfathomable mystery...[However, the Darwinian] critique of providentialism and supernaturalism leaves open the possibility of what I have called ʻspiritual religion.ʼ Each of the major Western monotheisms can generate a version of spiritual religion by giving up the literal truth of the stories contested by the enlightenment case. How can this be done? I shall illustrate the possibility by using the example of Christianity. Spiritual Christians abandon almost all the standard stories about the life of Jesus. They give up on the extraordinary birth, the miracles, the literal resurrection. What survive are the teachings, the precepts, and the parables, and the eventual journey to Jerusalem and the culminating moment of the Crucifixion. That moment of suffering and sacrifice is seen, not as the prelude to some triumphant return and the promise of eternal salvation—all that, to repeat, is literally false—but as a symbolic presentation of the importance of compassion and of love without limits.” [Philip Kitcher, Columbia University Philosopher of Science, Living with Darwin, pp. 149, 152]

“There can be no doubt that evolution can be squared with belief in some deity, but not the God who revealed himself in the Bible, including the first chapters of Genesis.” [Mohler, A. (President of Southern Baptist Seminary), Evolution is Most Certainly a Matter of Belief—and so Is Christianity,15 January 2014; http://eepurl.com/MqOgz.]

The Argument: As the above documents, the effort to align the Bible with evolutionary belief requires that Genesis be read as an allegory or figurative language, not as literal history. Here are some problems with this argument:

The Figurative must be based on the Literal: ʻStrong as an oxʼ makes no sense if there is no literal ox. Since the Gospel of salvation from sin and death is based on Genesis, Itʼs reality stands or falls on the literality of Genesis.

Difference between History & Allegory: Historical events have context, beginning, sequence, and end, all at a place in real time. Allegories are timeless; they are meant to teach principles for application at any time. In Genesis, the distinctive signs of history are evident: • Mythological themes are absent (e.g. warring gods). • Poetry is absent; written as a straightforward narrative of events. • Genealogies from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses, to David, and to Jesus tie historical events together and provide actual dates (Gen 5; Gen 11; Lk 3).

ECBS 2014 – TS 7 Genesis is used as true history by OT & NT writers, including Jesus: All refer to Genesis in a simple, straightforward way as true history and as a foundation for many of their messages: • Literal six-day creation used as basis of Sabbath. (Ex 20:11; 31:16-17) • Creation of first man in image & likeness of God, unlike animals. (Jas 3:9; Col 1:13-20) • Relationship of man & woman based on unique, separate creations. (Eph 5:21-23; 1 Tim 2:13-14; 1 Cor 11:8-9; Mt 19:4-6) • Historical basis of death, suffering, & decay through Adamʼs sin. (Rom 5; 8:20-23;Acts 3:17- 21; Rev 21-22) • Descent from one common ancestor, Adam, whom God created, controls and holds accountable. (Acts 17:24-31; Rom 5; 1 Cor 15) • Genealogies connect Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, & Jesus historically as essential parts of Godʼs unfolding Purpose, showing His planning, sequencing, timing, control, and faithfulness. • Literality of first Adam basis of literality of “second Adam” and the hope of literal resurrection & eternal life through Jesus. Men & women are saved from real sin & literal death brought into the world by a real, literal Adam. (1 Cor 15; Heb 2:14-15; Rev 20:14 & 21:1-4) • Literality of Noah & the Flood as basis of prophecy and illustration. (Matt 24:37-39; 1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet 2:5, 3:1-10; Heb 11:7) • Rejection of literality of Genesis creation & Flood prophesied. (2 Pet 3:3-7; Lk 17:26-32).

PART III: IF BOTH CANNOT BE TRUE, HOW DO WE DETERMINE WHICH ONE IS TRUE? While this question is the whole point of this class, there are several key points that need to be kept in mind as this discussion proceeds:

Key Point #1: Understand The Real Source of Evidence For Evolution This may seem like an odd point since everything you read purports to show what science has established to be true through extensive laboratory and field research. What is rarely understood is that the argument is not between scientific data and God, it is always between the interpretation of scientific data and God. This will be illustrated more fully in the next class when we consider the matter of the Genesis Flood and Deep Time.

Key Point #2: Know The Real Definition of “Evolution” The definition of “evolution” is extremely important to understand. Here is a comprehensive definition by a well-known evolutionist: "In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest proto-organism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions." [Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986]

Put more succinctly: Evolution is “a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations.”

This is why evolution is declared to be an obvious, observable fact, because changes in biological organisms can be and are seen all around us. These changes are caused by well- known processes:

ECBS 2014 – TS 8 • natural selection (selection of the most fit to survive), • adaptation to environment (e.g. color of peppered moths, beak size of Darwinʼs finches), • speciation (process by which new biological species arise; usually by the loss of genetic information; e.g. huge number of species in genus Canis which includes domestic dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals, and many extinct species).

But this kind of change is not the same as the development of entirely new species from the first microbe to man. Small levels of biological change (sometimes called “micro-evolution”) are a well-documented fact of nature. It is the large-scale change, that is, the change from one kind of life form to another (sometimes called “macro-evolution), for which there is absolutely no undisputed evidence and for which no viable creative mechanism exists. [The evidence for this point s found in Part Two,” How To Build An Animal” in Darwinʼs Doubt by Dr. Stephen Meyer.]

Evolution must explain not only the survival of the fittest, but also the arrival of the fittest. The difference between these two is monumental. Do not be fooled by arguments for the former that obscure the lack of evidence for the later. [See Dr. Don Batten, Arguments evolutionists should not use, points #1-4, http://creation.com/arguments-evolutionists-should-not-use]

“What makes the question complex is that in place of the countless thousands of transitional forms expected (as Darwin logically indicated should be found, and anticipated would be found in future), there exists at any point in time a handful of candidates, i.e. fossils put forward as transitional forms by evolutionary proponents. (Note: By ʻtransitional formsʼ is meant fossils showing intermediate stages between major evolutionary transitions, i.e. from one kind of creature to a wholly different kind…)” [Dr. Carl Wieland, Missing Links Parade, http://creation.com/missing-links-parade]

Key Point #3: All Scientists Do Not Believe Evolution It might seem every real scientist in the world believes evolution is true and that their cumulative research in every area of science is only reinforcing this belief. This is not true. Historically, many of the worldʼs greatest scientists believed the Bible to be true. These include Kepler, Boyle, Newton, Linnaeus, Euler, Faraday, Babbage, Joule, Pasteur, Kelvin, Maxwell, and Werner von Braun (Ann Lamont, 21 Great Scientists Who Believed The Bible, Creation Science Foundation. See also a list of 100 scientists: http://unmaskingevolution.com/29- 100_scientists.htm and here: http://creation.com/scientists-alive-today-who-accept-the-biblical- account-of-creation.)

Today, scientists who have serious doubts about evolution or reject it altogether fall into three camps: • Secular scientists who may not reject belief in some kind of evolution, but who do have serious doubts about the evidence for Darwinian or neo-Darwinian evolutionary explanations. • Scientists who are compelled by the scientific evidence for intelligent design in nature to acknowledge the existence of an intelligent hand behind what they see, rather than undirected processes such as natural selection. These are called Intelligent Design or ID scientists. • Scientists who evaluate scientific data and conduct original research within the framework of Godʼs written revelation of what has happened in the past. These are called Creation Scientists.

The first group is interesting in that they have called attention to the flaws in current evolutionary thinking. One famous group, called the Attenberg 16, “recognize the need to challenge the

ECBS 2014 – TS 9 prevailing Modern Synthesis (of evolution), because thereʼs too much it doesnʼt explain” (Susan Mazurp, The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution, p. vii. Read more here: http://creation.com/review-altenberg-16).

One quote from this book is especially enlightening about the perception that all scientists seek only truth: “Evolutionary science is as much about the posturing, salesmanship, stonewalling and bullying that goes on as it is about actual scientific theory. It is a social discourse involving hypotheses of staggering complexity with scientists, recipients of the biggest grants of any intellectuals, assuming the power of politicians while engaged in Animal House pie-throwing and name-calling: ʻham-fistedʼ, ʻlooney Marxist hangoverʼ, ʻsecular creationistʼ, ʻphilosopherʼ (a scientist who canʼt get grants anymore), ʻquackʼ, ʻcrackpotʼ … In short, itʼs a modern day quest for the holy grail, but with few knights. At a time that calls for scientific vision, scientific inquiryʼs have been hijacked by an industry of greed, with evolution books hyped like snake oil at a carnival.” (ibid, p. v)

The two latter groups of scientists are both extensively belittled and ridiculed by evolutionists. Any argument an ID or Creation scientist makes is discounted as not worthy of response; any research is dismissed since many results are not “peer-reviewed” by secular scientists.

Yet despite this, both groups have through their analyses of scientific data and through their own original research highlighted fatal flaws in the theory of evolution. While these arguments and research have been mocked and ridiculed, very few evolutionary scientists have made any attempt to provide serious rebuttals.

Key Point #4: There Are Fatal Problems With The Theory of Evolution Below are some of the fatal flaws mentioned by ID and Creation scientists. Remember, though, we are not PhD scientists with a mastery of the issues being presented here. Unless and until you have such mastery, this information should not be used as the basis of arguments: This information is provided that you might know there really are sound arguments against evolution that have been put forward by competent PhD scientists.

Missing Transitional or Intermediate Fossils Transitional fossils are the remains of creatures which should be found ʻin-betweenʼ one kind of creature and another. Charles Darwin made an interesting observation: “The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on earth, must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graded organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.” (The Origin of Species, Cp. 9) While Darwin predicted the fossil record would show numerous transitional fossils, even after 150+ years, all we have are a handful of disputed examples.

Do not be confused by those who dismiss this point. The argument is often made that scientists have, indeed, shown multiple examples of intermediate or transitional fossils. Wikipedia has 24 lists showing such fossil sets. The famous example of horse evolution puts various horses into a sequence from less to more complex. But putting fossils in such an order may show nothing more than speciation (change within a specieis), not the evolution of a horse into something else. [Ellen Styles, a Christadelphian who actually worked with the scientist who assembled this ʻevidenceʼ of evolution, has commented that the horses he shows as evolving were actually found mixed together at all levels. In other words, the fossil record actually shows all these horses living together at the same time.] This same point can be made for all the fossil sets

ECBS 2014 – TS 10 cited as proof of evolution: At most, the assemblages may show speciation, but certainly not a change into an entirely different animal body plan. [See also: Specious Speciation: The Myth of Observed Large-Scale Evolutionary Change, http://www.discovery.org/f/8411]

Dr Colin Patterson, former senior paleontologist (fossil expert) at the British Museum of Natural History (now dead) once stated in a letter to a creationist: “I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic licence, would that not mislead the reader?” He went on to say: “Yet Gould [Stephen J. Gould—now deceased Harvard professor of paleontology] and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. … You say that I should at least “show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.” I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.” [Sunderland, L., Darwinʼs Enigma, Master Books, Arkansas, USA, pp. 101–102, 1998. Pattersonʼs letter was written in 1979.]

The most significant fossil finds that have accentuated the problem of missing intermediate fossils are found in what is called the Cambrian Explosion (seen in the Burgess shale fossils in Canada & Chengjiang fossils in China). In this strata are found all major animal phyla with very different and complex, even unique, body plans fully developed. The plethora of required intermediate fossils is completely missing. In the strata immediately underlying the Cambrian (the Pre-Cambrian), the most complex animal found is a sponge (or rather, the spores of such sponges). Absolutely no sequence of transitional animals has been found between these two sets of fossils. The Cambrian animals appear out of nowhere, all of a sudden, fully formed, with very complex structures.

“Described recently as "the most important evolutionary event during the entire history of the Metazoa," the Cambrian explosion established virtually all the major animal body forms -- Bauplane or phyla -- that would exist thereafter, including many that were 'weeded out' and became extinct. Compared with the 30 or so extant phyla, some people estimate that the Cambrian explosion may have generated as many as 100. The evolutionary innovation of the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary had clearly been extremely broad: "unprecedented and unsurpassed," as James Valentine of the University of California, Santa Barbara, recently put it… Why, in subsequent periods of great evolutionary activity when countless species, genera, and families arose, have there been no new animal body plans produced, no new phyla?" [Lewin, R. Science, vol. 241, 15 July 1988, p. 291]

“The fossil record reflects the original diversity of life, not an evolving tree of increasing complexity. There are many examples of "living fossils," where the species is alive today and found deep in the fossil record as well.

“According to evolution models for the fossil record, there are three predictions: 1. wholesale change of organisms through time 2. primitive organisms gave rise to complex organisms 3. gradual derivation of new organisms produced transitional forms.

“However, these predictions are not borne out by the data from the fossil record. Trilobites, for instance, appear suddenly in the fossil record without any transitions. There are no fossils

ECBS 2014 – TS 11 between simple single-cell organisms, such as bacteria, and complex invertebrates, such as trilobites.

“Extinct trilobites had as much organized complexity as any of todayʼs invertebrates. In addition to trilobites, billions of other fossils have been found that suddenly appear, fully formed, such as clams, snails, sponges, and jellyfish. Over 300 different body plans are found without any fossil transitions between them and single-cell organisms.

“Fish have no ancestors or transitional forms to show how invertebrates, with their skeletons on the outside, became vertebrates with their skeletons inside.

“Fossils of a wide variety of flying and crawling insects appear without any transitions. Dragonflies, for example, appear suddenly in the fossil record. The highly complex systems that enable the dragonfly's aerodynamic abilities have no ancestors in the fossil record.

“In the entire fossil record, there is not a single unequivocal transition form proving a causal relationship between any two species. From the billions of fossils we have discovered, there should be thousands of clear examples if they existed. The lack of transitions between species in the fossil record is what would be expected if life was created.” [Fossils Show Stasis and No Transitional Forms, http://www.icr.org/fossils-stasis/]

Missing Mechanism for Generation of New Biological Information If you were to unwind the DNA from one cell in your body it would be over 6 feet in length. DNA as an information carrier has 3 billion chemical units that comprise the ʻwordsʼ for the ʻlanguageʼ of DNA. These units are formed into 30,000 genes. Each gene provides the coding for building a specific protein, the building blocks needed for the construction of the different tissues and organs that make up an organism. And, it is genetic information (actually, epi-genetic information, information found outside DNA) that tells the molecular machinery how to put all these pieces together to form a living, functioning life form. The formation of new life forms with new body plans requires the creation of specific, new genetic information in all three areas.

Therefore, for particles-to-people evolution to be true, two things must happen: (1) Random forces must somehow generate specifically organized chemical information to bring into being the first living cell. Evolutionary scientists have no explanation how this might have happened, as all known natural forces tend to degrade and destroy randomly created biological molecules. (2) Once the first cell exists, dramatic increases in new genetic information are essential for every step in the evolutionary process (and we are talking about millions of different species), and in all three information areas noted above.

Evolution requires that random natural forces alone generate this information. The only available mechanisms are: mutation (DNA copying mistakes made during cell division, exposure to ionizing radiation, exposure to chemicals called mutagens, or infection by viruses), genetic drift (random gene variation within a specieʼs population affected by environmental and other changes), and natural selection (process by which individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce).

None of these mechanisms can generate the new information needed for a new body plan. All these mechanisms can do is rearrange or eliminate existing genetic information. This is a significant, and ultimately, impossible barrier for evolutionary theory to surmount.

ECBS 2014 – TS 12

A thorough examination of this problem is found in the book, Darwinʼs Doubt by Stephen Meyer. Dr. Meyer is a member of the Intelligent Design movement. Dr. Meyers shows with precise, data-supported arguments that: (1) There is not enough time to generate the needed genetic complexity for the existence of life as we know it, especially in the Cambrian Explosion of life. (2) There is insufficient genetic material generated by random natural causes to select from to produce new life forms. (3) There are absolutely no mechanisms that can produce the needed new information for a new body plan; rather, the available mechanisms can only rearrange or degrade the genetic information.

Three other books are worth mentioning: “Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome” by Dr. John Sanford (Creation scientist), “Darwinʼs Black Box – The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution” by Dr. Michael Behe (ID scientist), and “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis – New Developments in Science are Challenging Orthodox Darwinism” by Dr. Michael Denton (ID scientist).

Creationists have also observed: “Mutations are copy errors that degrade the information contained in DNA, which carries vital instructions for the maintenance and reproduction of cellular life. All creatures experience mutations. Very rarely, a mutational error can help some individuals in a population survive in an unusual environment. A mutation can cause disease or death, but the vast majority of mutations have no effect on the organism. Since they are too subtle to cause a difference in any trait, no process can detect them. Even "natural selection" is incapable of detecting them. Therefore, these nearly neutral mutations build up relentlessly.

“Eventually, the accumulating mutations will damage vital systems and cause "mutational meltdown," which leads to extinction. The buildup of mutations is accelerated by small population sizes, making recovery difficult or impossible. For example, conservationists must carefully breed pandas, giant salamanders, Tasmanian devils, Bengal tigers, and many more endangered creatures with others of their kinds that have the fewest mutations. But this only delays the inevitable.

“It has been calculated that with 100 mutations per 20-year generation, the human genome would not last much longer than 500 generations. Because mutational buildup acts as a clock ticking down toward extinction, and because so many animals have yet to reach that point, this is strong evidence that life on earth is only thousands, not millions, of years old.” [http://www.icr.org/mutation-buildup/]

Contradiction of the Law of Biogenesis A second flaw in evolutionary theory in regards to biological information is the law of biogenesis. This law (attributed to Louis Pasteur) is the observation that living things come only from other living things. This is a “law” because it has been shown to be universally true with no exceptions. Evolution is a direct and flagrant contradiction of this law since it postulates the “spontaneous generation” of life from random forces operating on various chemicals. This law would also seem to be violated in the generation of new life forms since new information has to be generated in this process too, new information for which there is no antecedent (previously existing) information.

ECBS 2014 – TS 13 Evolutionist George G. Simpson, an influential paleontologist of the 20th century, stated, “[T]here is no serious doubt that biogenesis is the rule, that life comes only from other life, that a cell, the unit of life, is always and exclusively the product or offspring of another cell” (Simpson and Beck, Life: An Introduction to Biology, 1965, p. 144).

Irreducible Complexity of Molecular Machines Irreducible complexity is: • Something that doesnʼt work unless all the parts are in place. • Something that doesnʼt work if parts are missing. • Something that cannot be explained by any step-by-step, natural or accidental means. • Something that had to be put together. • Something that had to function while it was being put together.

“By irreducibly complex I mean a single system which is composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.” (Behe, Michael J. Darwinʼs Black Box. 1996. p. 39)

The vast number of molecular machines now being discovered within every cell in living plants and animals are powerful examples of the kind of design that proclaims an intelligent designer. A look at this and other examples of incredible design will be presented in the fourth class.

Darwinʼs Black Box – The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Dr. Michael Behe (ID scientist) considers this argument in detail. Also Creation arguments can be found here: http://creation.com/search?q=molecular+machines.

Contradiction of the Second Law of Thermodynamics The second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy of a closed system will tend to increase with time. "Entropy" is a technical term with a precise physical definition. Entropy is the observed principle that all systems tend towards increase in ʻdisorderʼ over time (the lowest energy state). We experience it practically in disintegration of plastic objects left in the sun. Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics basically says that the universe as a whole gets more disordered and random as time goes on.

“There is one consideration, however, which goes well beyond the implications of the above difficulties. Not only is there no evidence that evolution ever has taken place, but there is also firm evidence that evolution never could take place. The law of increasing entropy is an impenetrable barrier which no evolutionary mechanism yet suggested has ever been able to overcome. Evolution and entropy are opposing and mutually exclusive concepts. If the entropy principle is really a universal law, then evolution must be impossible.” (John Morris, PhD, www.icr.org/article/evolution-thermodynamics-entropy/)

Why impossible? Because evolution postulates the increase in order and complexity over time.

Numerous anti-Creationist sites ridicule this notion that evolution violates the second law. They argue that the earth is not a closed system; it is a system that receives energy from the sun and other external sources. That is, energy is being put into the earth-system. This, they argue, is the necessary fuel that overcomes the second law.

ECBS 2014 – TS 14 A Creation scientist responds as follows: “The open systems argument does not help evolution. Raw energy cannot generate the specified complex information in living things. Undirected energy just speeds up destruction. Just standing out in the sun wonʼt make you more complex— the human body lacks the mechanisms to harness raw solar energy. If you stood in the sun too long, you would get skin cancer, because the sunʼs undirected energy will cause mutations. (Mutations are copying errors in the genes that nearly always lose information). Similarly, undirected energy flow through an alleged primordial soup will break down the complex molecules of life faster than they are formed. Itʼs like trying to run a car by pouring petrol on it and setting it alight. No, a car will run only if the energy in petrol is harnessed via the pistons, crankshaft, etc. A bull in a china shop is also raw energy. But if the bull were harnessed to a generator, and the electricity directed a pottery-producing machine, then its energy could be used to make things. To make proteins, a cell uses the information coded in the DNA and a very complex decoding machine. In the lab, chemists must use sophisticated machinery to make the building blocks combine in the right way. Raw energy would result in wrong combinations and even destruction of the building blocks.” (Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, http://creation.com/the-second- law-of-thermodynamics-answers-to-critics)

[Other articles: www.trueorigin.org/steiger.asp; and www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/02/12/just-add-energy; also search www.icr.org for “arguments against evolution”]

Contradiction of The Law of Causality The single, most fatal objection as to why Evolution cannot account for the needed increase in biological information over time is the Law of Causality. This is the law that states that every material effect must have an adequate antecedent or simultaneous cause. Put more simply, it is The Law of Cause & Effect. Behind every effect, there must be an adequate cause. It is called a “Law” because it has been shown to be universally true with no exceptions.

Evolution postulates that random, uncontrolled, and directionless (non-intelligent) forces produced complex, specified information. Yet in all our observations of the world around us, whenever we see complex systems with specific design features, we immediately look to an intelligent cause behind what we see. This is why we know the difference between a rock filled with beautiful crystals and silicon (sand) with electrical materials precisely embedded within it. The one came about through natural, but unintelligent causes; the other, found in our cell phones and computers, came about through (was caused by) highly intelligent people.

That is why most thinking people, viewing the incredible complexity and design found in the living cell implicitly acknowledge some kind of intelligent designer behind the design.

Ironically and paradoxically, atheistic scientists, who firmly believe that a completely random, uncontrolled, directionless process can produce complex life forms, firmly believe intelligent life must exist elsewhere in the universe. For decades they have gotten funding for SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. And how do they propose to identify such intelligence? By looking for patterns in the signals they monitor, that is, complex, specified information. This is the evidence of intelligence the Law of Causality would predict, and that every reasoning person would expect. Yet, when it comes to Evolution, this recognition of intelligence as the cause behind clearly seen design is completely discarded. One of the most famous proponents of this anti-Law of Causality argument is Richard Dawkins in his book, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design.

ECBS 2014 – TS 15 “Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make the random concept absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favourable properties of physics on which life depends, are in every respect deliberate…. It is therefore almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect in a valid way the higher intelligences…even to the extreme idealized limit of God.” (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, 1981, pp. 141,144)

Criticisms of Darwin's theories and of the whole evolutionary postulate are increasing among secular scientists. One such critic, Michael Denton has written a book entitled, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Bethesda, Maryland: Adler and Adler, 1986, 368 pgs). Denton is a molecular biologist and medical doctor. He has done extensive work with the basic building blocks of all living things - proteins. Proteins in living things determine all the biology of an organism, all its anatomical features, its physiological and metabolic functions. Denton sought to compare the amino acid sequence of a protein (proteins themselves are built from four basic amino acids put together in a very special sequence, unique for each protein) from two different organisms, noting the number of positions where the chains of amino acids differ. He states that these differences “can be quantified exactly and provide an entirely novel approach to measuring differences between species... As work continued in this field, it became clear that each particular protein had a slightly different sequence in different species and that closely related species had closely related sequences. When the hemoglobin sequences in different mammals, such as man and dog, were compared the sequential divergence was about twenty percent, while, when the hemoglobin in two dissimilar species such as man and carp were compared, the sequential divergence was about fifty percent.” (Ibid. pg. 276.)

The outcome of all this research led Denton to the following conclusion: "The really significant finding that comes to light from comparing the proteins' amino acid sequences is that it is impossible to arrange them in any sort of evolutionary series... (thus) the whole concept of evolution collapses (because) the pattern of diversity at a molecular level conforms to a highly ordered hierarchic system. Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated, and unlinked by intermediates." (Ibid pg. 289 and pg. 290.)

ECBS 2014 – TS 16 CLASS 2 THE CHALLENGE FROM GEOLOGY: DEEP TIME

PART I: THE ORIGIN OF THE GEOLOGIC TIMESCALE The geologic timescale is the scale we often see associated with the age of the earth. It purports to show the age of the earth from its alleged beginning 4.6 billion years ago to the present. It may seem from what you see and hear that this age for the earth is a derived from extensive scientific research done over the last 200 years. Nothing is further from the truth.

During the European Enlightenment, which began in the 17th century, there emerged a view of the world purposefully opposed to the idea of God and Divine revelation (i.e. the Bible). “Its purpose was to reform society using reason, to challenge ideas grounded in tradition and faith, and to advance knowledge through the scientific method… This new way of thinking was that rational thought begins with clearly stated principles, uses correct logic to arrive at conclusions, tests the conclusions against evidence, and then revises the principles in the light of the evidence.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment)

It was out of this movement that “Naturalism” arose. As a philosophy Naturalism believes that “all phenomena or hypotheses commonly labeled as supernatural are either false or not inherently different from natural phenomena or hypotheses.” As a methodology, naturalism “holds that science is to be done without reference to supernatural causes” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism). Clearly, enlightenment thinkers saw God and His revelation as something to be opposed and replaced by the superior logic and wisdom of manʼs thinking.

The presupposition that only natural forces and processes can be used to explain the world around us, gave rise to the idea of “Uniformitarianism”. “Uniformitarianism is the assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now, have always operated in the universe in the past, and apply everywhere in the universe. It has included the gradualistic concept that "the present is the key to the past" and is functioning at the same rates. Uniformitarianism has been a key principle of geology and virtually all fields of science, but naturalism's modern geologists, “while accepting that geology has occurred across deep time, no longer hold to a strict gradualism.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism)

It was this belief system that motivated the work of the Scottish geologist James Hutton at the of the 1700s to interpret the strata he investigated as being laid down by natural processes: “Rather than accepting that the earth was no more than a few thousand years old, he maintained that the Earth must be much older, with a history extending indefinitely into the distant past. His main line of argument was that the tremendous displacements and changes he was seeing did not happen in a short period of time by means of catastrophe, but that processes still happening on the Earth in the present day had caused them. As these processes were very gradual, the Earth needed to be ancient, in order to allow time for the changes.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hutton). Later, in 1830, Charles Lyell popularized this view in his book, Principles of Geology.

Key Point #1: Deep Time is an interpretation of scientific data founded on a prior belief that the world evolved by present forces only. Deep Time was purposefully set forth as a replacement for God and His activities in this earth as declared in the Bible.

ECBS 2014 – TS 17 Key Point #2: The contention is not between Geology and Godʼs Word; it is between the interpretation of the geological record and Godʼs Word.

PART II: WHAT ABOUT THE ROCKS? Rocks do not tell their age; they are not geological clocks. So how did these secular scientists establish the timescale now used? Evolutionary paleontologist Stephen Gould put it this way:

“A chronometer of history has one, and only one, rigid requirement— something must be found that changes in a recognizable and irreversible way through time, so that each historical moment bears a distinctive signature. Geologists have long appreciated this principle in the abstract, but had not found a workable criterion. …rocks are simple physical objects formed by chemical laws and, as such, do not bear distinct temporal [time] signatures…Cambrian quartz is not different from Pleistocene quartz. But life is complex enough to change through a series of unrepeated states. Today, we attribute this irreversible sequence to the workings of evolution…” (Gould, S.J., Timeʼs Arrow Timeʼs Cycle: Myth and Graphic: Geological Column with Index Fossils Metaphor is the Discovery of (Notice all index fossils are marine fossils, found in all strata. Geological Time, pp.157-158) The implications of this are profound, for it suggests the ocean once flooded extensively over all continents.)

Evolutionary theory claims that life evolved and changed over millions of year, therefore we can date strata based on certain key or “index” fossils we find in a particular strata. Evolutionary theory provides the dates for the fossils, and this, in turn, provides the geological date for the strata.

Key Point #3: Rocks do not tell you their age: they are not clocks. Evolution, as a consequence, has been used to provide the dates. But these dates are true ONLY IF evolution is true. This is the fatal flaw in the currently used geologic timescale.

What about radioisotope dating of rocks? The dating of rocks by the decay products of radioactive elements is seen as a fatal objection to fossil dates of only a few thousand years ago. Recently, the results of an eight-year scientific research project called RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) conducted by creation scientists were published. The RATE Team discovered: • Conventional radioisotope dating methods are inconsistent and therefore not reliable. In dating the same rock layer, radioisotope dating showed four different ages.

ECBS 2014 – TS 18 • Substantial amounts of helium are found in crystals within granite. If the earth evolved over billions of years, all the helium should have already escaped. It hasnʼt. Instead, even in granites claimed to be 4.6 billions years old, large amounts of helium are found. • Radiohalos in rocks caused by the decay of uranium and polonium, strongly suggest rapid decay rates, not gradual decay over billions of years. • Coals from different ages (34 to 318 million years) and diamonds (1-3 billion years) contain significant levels of carbon-14. Carbon-14 decays quickly becoming undetectable after ~100,000 years. None should have been found in the coal samples or diamonds if their evolutionary ages are correct. Carbon-14 is also found in 65 million year old dinosaur bones.

In other words, there are substantial reasons to question the soundness of the current use of radioisotopes to date rocks. There appears to be substantial evidence that at least twice in the history of this planet, nuclear decay has been accelerated. Radioisotopes, though, do have a story to tell from their relative ages, but not the ones claimed by secular geologists. [The findings of the RATE research are discussed in the book, Thousands...Not Billions - Challenging an Icon of Evolution, Questioning the Age of the Earth, by Dr. Don DeYoung. A summary of this and other research findings about radioisotope dating can be found in a helpful video by Dr. Andrew Snelling, Radioactive and Radiocarbon Dating. Go to AnswersinGenesis.org website to locate this video.]

Key Point #4: Radioisotope dating has significant problems and cannot be relied on to give true dates. They are useful, however, in providing relative ages to show what is the older and the younger rock strata.

PART III: CAN THE BIBLE BE RECONCILED WITH DEEP TIME? Since the 1800ʼs when Naturalism began to be the driving force behind scientific research, the Christian world has struggled to confront the ideas being presented. One major strategy adopted to live in this new world of ʻscientificʼ explanations for earthʼs history (which conflicted so directly with Genesis history) was to insert a gap between verse 1 and 2 in Genesis 1. In this gap was placed all the pre-Biblical history supposedly established by secular scientists. With this view, one could now comfortably believe that virtually all of earthʼs strata was laid down in a pre-Biblical time before God began ʻrecreatingʼ the earth 6000 years ago. (Both John Thomas and Robert Roberts were caught up in this approach.)

There are three, very significant objections to this view: First, the language of these verses does not support this view. Nowhere does the Hebrew allow for a break such as proposed. Second, the very record of Genesis 1 describes a creation that involves both earth and heaven, something that could not happen in an account of the re-formation of the earth alone. The third and final objection is the most fatal: If life once existed on this earth and then was wiped out by a global catastrophe leaving the earth in the condition described in Gen. 1:2, we would expect to find a significant and dramatic discontinuity in the geologic record. Nowhere is such a discontinuity seen on this planet.

Deep Time directly challenges the Bibleʼs explanation of the geologic features found in the earth. It relies on present processes applied over millions of years to explain past geologic features. Radioisotope dating, tree rings, ice cores and, especially, key fossils are correlated to argue for this great age. This secular interpretation of earthʼs past is evaluated in great detail in a critique of the geologic timescale by Dr. John Reed in his book, Rocks arenʼt Clocks (Creation Book Publishers). This is a very accessible resource and all are urged to read it as a primer to understand the current arguments over the age of the earth.

ECBS 2014 – TS 19 Key Point #5: The Bible cannot be reconciled with Deep Time. It is important to remember the disagreement is not between the geological record and Godʼs Word, it is between the interpretation of the geological record and Godʼs Word. Either the geologic record shows rock layers laid down slowly over millions of years (like multiple layers of an onion), or, they were laid down in an historical cataclysm described by God in Genesis.

PART IV: WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY? We have already seen that Genesis 1 stubbornly refuses to be fit into the evolutionary sequence of creation; the two descriptions are ultimately mutually exclusive. There is a second piece of Biblical revelation that is equally devastating to the fundamental assumptions of the evolutionary timescale. Like Genesis 1 it just refuses to be bent into the shape of evolutionary thought. It creates a framework that completely alters our interpretation of geological data; it calls for a complete reassessment of geological history, a reassessment that brings geological history in line with Godʼs Word rather than the other way round. It is the Biblical Flood of Genesis 6-8.

Was this flood in the days of Noah real…or just a story meant to warn us? Was it a local flood…or was it worldwide? What does the Bible say?

Whatever personal opinions we may have, three things should cause us to tread carefully: 1. The declaration that “all” Scripture is “God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16), spoken by holy men of old moved by Godʼs spirit (2 Pet. 1:21). 2. Jesus not only believed The Flood happened, and affected all mankind, he also used it in his teaching about his own second coming (Mt. 24:36-39). If he was mistaken about The Flood, was he also mistaken about his second coming? 3. The third warning is even more powerful: 2 Pet. 3:1-7. Ironically, an indicator that we are in the last times before Godʼs great judgments come on this earth is the rejection of both the Creation account and the Flood account!

Letʼs take a closer look at The Flood. It will help us sort through the overwhelming dismissal of this event in the present world, and the confusion that exists in both Christian and Christadelphian communities.

IMPORTANT DETAILS Pre-Flood Conditions? It is important to carefully understand the world before the flood:

• One Land: Gen. 1:9 speaks of only one land mass rising out of the waters, not the fractured earth we now know. Geologists through their research into plate tectonics have confirmed this very thing.

• Low Mountains (Psa. 104:6-8): There is no reason to assume mountains on the earth were as tall as Mt. Everest (29,000 ft). For example, geological evidence indicates the Himalayas were once sea floor (marine fossils found in top 3000 ft).

ECBS 2014 – TS 20 Who Went on the Ark? From Gen. 7:18 we learn that only 8 humans went on the ark. From Gen. 7:13-16 we learn that male and female of every kind of land animal went on the ark: beasts & cattle, birds, creeping things – every creature that breathed air. This is obvious, but must be said: ocean dwelling animals were not included. Nor would insects, as they do not “breathe”.

Why mention this? Because many ridicule the Bibleʼs account by pointing out there are now over 7 million identified species on this earth. Would all these fit on the ark? (Source: Arthur D Chapman. 2009. Numbers of Living Species in Australia and the World. 2nd edition. Australian Government, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. Canberra, Australia.)

Once you eliminate all marine animals and insects, you are left with only around 25,500 species. It would not be necessary to take on board every kind of dog, as only a pair of ʻdog kindʼ with the requisite genetic diversity would be needed to repopulate the world. But assume for the sake of argument there are 25,500 animals.

Most animals are small, the size of a rat. Large animals would not have to be fully mature when taken aboard; they could have been juveniles. It is known that the average size of all animals is about the size of a sheep. Using a standard train stock car, there is enough space to hold 150 sheep. It would take 170 stock cars to hold all 25,500 animals. It turns out, when you calculate the square footage of the ark, the ark could hold 274 stock cars. In other words, only two of the decks would be needed to fit this many animals!

Was the Flood Local or Worldwide? To avoid the geological implications of a global flood, it has been argued that the flood must have been only a local affair. But this raises some very important questions. If the flood was only local… • Why build an Ark? Noah & family could have walked to the other side of the mountains and missed it. • Why did God send animals to the Ark so they would escape death? There would have been other animals to reproduce the animal kinds destroyed in a local flood. • Why was the Ark big enough to hold every kind of land vertebrate animal? If only Mesopotamian animals were brought aboard, the Ark could have been much smaller. • Why would birds have been sent on board? Wouldnʼt they have simply winged to the safety of a nearby mountain range? • How could the waters rise to 15 cubits above the mountains (Gen. 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. Look at a map: The Persian Gulf is an outlet to the sea. How could water mass and overflow the local mountains, but not drain for over 150 days into the sea? • Since there have been large local floods to this day, God would have repeatedly broken His promise never to send such a flood again (Gen. 9:8-15). (E.g. Bangladesh in 1970, flooding due to a cyclone killed 300,000-500,000. And in 1991, another cyclone-caused flood killed 125,000. The Indonesian tsunami in 2004 produced floods that killed 230,000 in 14 countries.) • Most importantly: The text is emphatic – The Flood was Worldwide.

ECBS 2014 – TS 21 THE TEXT – GODʼS WITNESS TO THE FLOOD (Gen. 6-9) Read carefully the language of Genesis 6-9 and note the following details:

Cause of The Flood: Gen. 7:11 • Earth: Fountains of the Deep (oceans) suggested ruptures in earthʼs crust causing underground water to be released. Due to the heat and pressure, this would have created great geysers of super-heated steam sent high into the atmosphere from these rifts. • Heaven: Floodgates of heaven opened. • Result: Torrential rains lasting for 40 days and nights. With no breaks in this process and with enormous amounts of water being spewed into the atmosphere, water would build up quickly on the land. Add to this the lifting up of the earthʼs crust due to fracturing and subsequent extrusion of magma and you have another source of water that would rush catastrophically onto the land and completely overwhelm the existing landmass. • Conclusion? Catastrophic processes of huge magnitude are being described => The Flood was worldwide.

Language of The Flood: Gen. 7:17-20 Note the ascending scale of the catastrophe indicated by the Bibleʼs language: Waters increased Ark rose high above the earth Waters greatly increased & prevailed Ark moved about on the waters Waters exceedingly increased All mountains under the whole heaven were covered Mountains were covered Ark (15 cubit draft) cleared mountains Conclusion? Language embraces the whole earth => The Flood was worldwide.

Outcome of Flood: Gen. 7:23 Notice carefully the language used to describe the aftermath of the flood: “ALL flesh died that moved on the earth” (v.21). “ALL in whose nostrils was the breath of life…ALL that was on the dry land, died” (v.22). God “destroyed ALL living things... They were destroyed from the earth” (v.23). “I never again…destroy EVERY living thing as I have done” (8:21). Conclusion? Language again strains to depict the end of all life => The Flood was worldwide.

Timeline of Flood: Genesis 7:11-12,17, 8:1-19 When you put into chart form the timing of the events as given in the Bible, the evidence that the Bible is talking about a global flood is powerful and compelling: Day What Happened 1 Noah: Feb 17, 600 – fountains broken up, floodgates opened, rain begins (Gen. 7:11) 40 Torrential rains stop (though light rains continued); ark able to float over all mountains (Gen. 7:12,17) 150 Waters remain covering mountains for 4 months; wind from God, fountains stopped, rain restrained, waters begin to decrease; Ark rests on Mt. Ararat (Gen. 7:24) 224 10 more weeks (74 days) required before other mountain tops seen, that means water has been on top of the land for almost 2/3 of a year! (Gen. 8:1-5) 264 40 days later Noah sends raven; doesnʼt return (Gen. 8:6-8)

ECBS 2014 – TS 22 271 7 days later he sends dove; returns (Gen. 8:9) 278 7 days later sends dove; returns with olive leaf (Gen. 8:10-11) 285 7 days later sends dove; doesnʼt return = 61 days for water to subside enough for land/foliage to show & dove to feel safe. (Gen. 8:12) 314 Waits almost another month before seeing a dry earth. After over 9 months the earth is finally dry (Gen. 8:13) 371 BUT, Noah waits another 57 days before finally letting all life on the ark disembark. (Gen. 8:14) Conclusion? Look carefully at the above calendar of event. This is not the kind of timescale one would expect with a local flood => The Flood was worldwide.

Summary: The Universality of the Flood The global nature of the flood described in Genesis can be summed up as follows: • The Depth of the Flood • The Duration of the Flood • The Need for the Ark • The Use of Universal Terms (all flesh, every mountain, under whole heaven) • The Rainbow Covenant: “I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” (Gen. 9:15)

Conclusion? The Bible claims to be history as directed and witnessed by the Living God. We have read with care the historical account God has provided. The witness of the text is that God brought a global flood on this earth of such magnitude that millions of animals died and were buried in the earth, and that the earth was forever altered in its appearance. The implication of this claim is that the rocks must reflect the effects of this judgment if this account is true. Is this, then, what we see in the earth? Can the geological record be interpreted as the remains of a global, catastrophic flood?

PART V: EVIDENCE OF A GLOBAL CATASTROPHE If the flood recorded in Genesis really was a worldwide, catastrophic, water-caused event, what would you expect to find in the geological record?

Evidence #1—Massive flooding of continents leaving behind buried marine life. We find fossils of sea creatures in rock layers that cover all the continents. For example, most of the rock layers in the walls of Grand Canyon (more than a mile above sea level) contain marine fossils. Fossilized ammonites are found in the Himalayas. Over 70 whales were recently discovered in the Andes, along with swordfish and marlin remnants and extinct aquatic sloths and walrus whales. [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n1/high-dry-sea-creatures]

Evidence #2—Rapid, and recent, burial of plants and animals. If there was a global flood, one would expect to find plants and animals, both terrestrial and marine, swept up and buried together in extensive fossil “graveyards”. In a fossil graveyard at Montceau-les-Mines, France, hundreds of thousands of marine creatures were buried with amphibians, spiders, scorpions, millipedes, insects, and reptiles. The Mazon Creek area near Chicago has a shale layer holding over 100,000 fossils of ferns, insects, scorpions, and tetrapods mixed with jellyfish, mollusks, crustaceans, and fish, often with soft parts exquisitely preserved. At Florissant, Colorado, a wide variety of insects, freshwater mollusks, fish, birds, and several hundred plant species (including nuts and blossoms) are buried together. Bees and

ECBS 2014 – TS 23 birds have to be buried rapidly in order to be so well preserved. An alligator, large variety of fish, birds, turtles, mammals, mollusks, crustaceans, many varieties of insects, and palm leaves were buried together in the vast Green River Formation of Wyoming. Such mixing is best explained by ocean waters rising and sweeping over the continents in a global, catastrophic Flood.

Another example of catastrophic, rapid burial is the billions of nautiloid fossils found in a layer within the Redwall Limestone of the Grand Canyon. This layer, formed by a flow of sediment (mostly lime sand), covers an area of 80 square miles across northern Arizona and into southern Nevada. This can be compared to the discovery of 500 fossilized oysters of very large size found together at a site in the Andes Mountains.

In some areas fossils are preserved in such exquisite detail that some were caught in the act of eating or giving birth! Many of these are soft-bodied creatures. Such preservation speaks of very rapid burial. The Burgess shale and the shale of Chengiang China both hold huge collections of soft-bodied marine animals so well preserved that they can be studied in very fine detail. (http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n2/world-graveyard. For a beautiful compilation of amazingly preserved fossils (both marine and terrestrial) all around the world, visit this site: http://m.harunyahya.com/tr/works/4066/Atlas-Of-Creation---Volume-1-/chapter/4423/What-is-a- fossil)

One startling piece of evidence of recent burial is the recent discovery of carbon 14 in fossils dated to be millions of years old. The problem? Carbon 14 has a half-life of only 5730 years. Finding any 14C after 120,000 years would be improbable; finding any after a million years would be impossible. So, the fact that 65-million year old dinosaur bones regularly show 14C calls into question this age. The amount of 14C found would indicate instead, a burial age of only a few thousand years. Many other fossils are showing the same thing. Even coal and diamonds show traces of Carbon 14. (See the following articles: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v5/n4/carbon-dating; http://www.icr.org/articles/view/117/262/ or the scientific article by the same author: http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Carbon-14-Evidence-for-a-Recent-Global-Flood-and-a-Young- Earth.pdf)

Another line of evidence for the recent burial of plants and animals is found in the discovery of unfossilized soft tissues in fossil remains. The survival of any kind of soft tissue even over the relatively short period of time since the flood is truly remarkable. Finding any soft tissue after millions of years is a biological improbability of the highest order, yet it is now being found almost regularly since the publication in 2009 of soft tissue (e.g. blood vessels) in a dinosaur bone. These findings are consistent with a recent, not ancient, burial. (See the following articles for more information: http://creation.com/dinosaur-soft-tissue; http://www.icr.org/article/8059/; http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Original-Tissue-Fossils-and- Age-Implications.pdf)

Evidence #3—Rapidly deposited sediment layers spread across vast areas. If there was a global flood, one would expect to find large amounts of sediment spread across enormous land areas. Just such sediment layers are found and can be traced across continents, even between continents. Physical features in these strata indicate they were deposited rapidly.

Interestingly, it seems there might have been at least six major flood surges across the N. American continent. These deposits are called “Megasequences” because in each unit you find

ECBS 2014 – TS 24 a layer of sandstone, then shale, followed by limestone, each consisting of finer particles than the previous layer. For example, in the lowest megasequence (Sauk) you find the Tapeats Sandstone (found in the Grand Canyon) that can be traced across the entire United States, up into Canada, and even across the Atlantic Ocean to England. This sandstone varies in thickness from 125 to 325 feet. It consists of quartz sand grains cemented into hard rock, with larger grains and even cobbles and boulders clustered at the very bottom. These larger grains and rocks could only be transported by very energetic water movement.

Another sediment called St. Peter Sandstone found in the Tippecanoe Megasequence (just above the Sauk) can also be traced across the United States. It is 100-300 feet thick, covering 1.5 million square mile. More astonishing is that this layer was deposited on a subsurface that has been planed so flat that over the whole continent the elevation of this sediment does not vary by more than 300 feet.

Even more amazing is the Coconino Sandstone of the Grand Canyon that average 300 feet in thickness, but can be as thick as 1000 feet. Its inclined (sloping) layers are testimony to 10,000 cubic miles of sand being deposited by huge water currents within days.

Another extensive unit of sediment is the chalk beds found in England (White Cliffs of Dover). These beds can be traced across Europe into the Middle East and are also found in the Midwest of the United States and in Western Australia. The global distribution of these very uniform beds, with the same characteristics and fossils, is astonishing given that the chalk is an extremely pure, unique coccolith-bearing limestone (–coccolith are special calcium carbonate plates found on certain one-celled marine plants). [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n3/transcontinental-rock-layers. More examples of this evidence can be found in chap. 7, “Scientific Evidence That The Flood Was Catastrophic in Nature”, The Global Flood, Dr. J.D. Morris]

Evidence #4—Sediment transported long distances. Scientists have found that the sediments in those widespread, rapidly deposited rock layers had to be eroded from distant sources and carried long distances by fast-moving water. For example, sand for the Coconino Sandstone of Grand Canyon (Arizona) had to be eroded and transported from the northern portion of what is now the US and Canada. Furthermore, water current indicators (such as ripple marks) preserved in the rocks show that water currents were consistently flowing from northeast to southwest across all of North and South America. This is reasonable in the processes of a yearlong global flood, but nonsensical over the claimed “300 million years.” [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n4/sand-transported]

Evidence #5—Rapid or no erosion between strata. We find evidence of rapid erosion, or even no erosion, between rock layers. Flat, knife-edge boundaries between rock layers indicate continuous deposition of one layer after another, with no time for erosion. For example, there is no evidence of any “missing” millions of years (of erosion) in the flat boundary between two well-known layers of Grand Canyon—the Coconino

ECBS 2014 – TS 25 Sandstone and the Hermit Formation. Another impressive example of flat boundaries at Grand Canyon is the Redwall Limestone and the strata beneath it. [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v4/n1/no-slow-erosion]

Evidence #6—Many strata laid down in rapid succession. Rocks do not normally bend; they break because they are hard and brittle. But in many places we find whole sequences of strata that were bent without fracturing, indicating all the rock layers were rapidly deposited and folded while still wet and pliable before final hardening. For example, the Tapeats Sandstone in Grand Canyon is folded at a right angle (90°) without evidence of breaking. Yet this folding could only have occurred after the rest of the layers had been deposited, supposedly over “480 million years,” while the Tapeats Sandstone remained wet and pliable. [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v4/n2/folded-not-fractured]

It is sometimes argued that given millions of years of heat and pressure, rock can be deformed without fracturing. This may or may not be true, but if this were the explanation, then one would see the signature of this process because heat and pressure change sedimentary rock into metamorphic rock.

The above information on geological evidences was extracted mainly from a series of linked articles by Andrew Snelling (PhD geologist). The full articles can be found here: www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n4/geologic-evidences-part-one.

There is also an excellent video by the same author, Rocks, Strata, Fossils and the Flood. This can be obtained from the Answers in Genesis website.

For a comprehensive, overall view of the geologic record and the Flood the following are recommended: The Global Flood, John D Morris, Institute of Creation Research, www.icr.org. Also the video by Andrew Snelling, The Flood: The Big Picture of its Mechanism and Resulting Evidences, from Answers in Genesis.

Morrisʼ book also gives a critique of dating methods. Other information of rock dating and the age of the earth can be found in these resources: Rocks arenʼt Clocks, John Reed, Creation Book Publishers The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods, John Woodmorappe, Institute for Creation Research Radioactive and Radiocarbon Dating (video), Andrew Snelling, Answers in Genesis

Interesting Factoid:

ECBS 2014 – TS 26 CLASS 3 THE CHALLENGE FROM ARCHAEOLOGY: EGYPTIAN CHONOLOGY

Development of a Chronology Like the timelines developed to support the belief in evolution, archeology has not been immune to similar pressures to support anti-Biblical biases. In an earlier time, archeologist routinely used the Bible as the basis of their explorations. In the early 19th century when Napoleon brought the treasures of ancient Egypt to the attention of the world, fascination with Egypt grew enormously. This ultimately led to the development of a chronology that relied (to a large extent) on a list of pharaohs compiled by the Egyptian priest Manetho in the 3rd century BC. Carbon-14 dating, especially for the Middle and Old Egyptian Kingdoms, and the alleged pre-dynastic period, has been used to provide some support for this dating. The Egyptian chronology put the beginning of Egyptʼs Old Kingdom to be around 3000 BC, or some 700 years before Noahʼs flood.

It is not just the Biblical account of the flood that has been called into question by this new chronology. All the history from Abraham, to Joseph, to Moses, to Joshua down through the end of the Northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah has also been called into question. The Dec. 18, 1995 cover of Time magazine asked the question, “Is The Bible Fact or Fiction?” Here are some of their answers: “(Years) of searching have convinced all but the most conservative experts that Abraham, and the rest of the Patriarchs, were inventions of the Bible's authors.” ”Apart from the Bible, there is no evidence that (Moses) ever lived.” “The walls of (Jericho) did come tumbling down, say most historians, but centuries before Moses' protégé could have arrived." ("Are the Bible's Stories True?" – sidebar to featured article.) Here are the critical problems when following the Egyptian Chronology:

The Exodus Problem: The Exodus from Egypt was not only the most significant event in the history of the Jewish people; it was also an unprecedented and unequaled catastrophe for Egypt. In the course of Pharaoh's stubborn refusal to let the Israelites leave and the resultant plagues sent by God, Egypt was devastated. Hail, disease and infestations obliterated Egypt's produce and livestock, while the plague of the first-born stripped the land of its elite, leaving inexperienced second sons to cope with the economic disaster. The drowning of the ruling Pharaoh and the Egyptian army in the Red Sea left Egypt open and vulnerable to foreign invasions.

Such a momentous series of events must find a reflection somewhere in the archeological record, but, according to the currently accepted chronology, in the year of the Exodus, the greatest warlord Egypt ever knew, Thutmose III, embarked on a series of conquests, extending the Egyptian sphere of influence and tribute over Palestine, Syria and crossing the Euphrates into Mesopotamia itself. No archeological evidence exists from this time supporting any of the Biblical claims.

The Wilderness Problem: Forty years is a very long time for 2 million people to live in the wilderness. The considerable time they would have spent in various locations should have left evidence. Archeologists, using the standard chronology, have not found any such evidence.

ECBS 2014 – TS 27 Conquest of Canaan Problem: The problem only gets worse in trying to find evidence for the major devastation of cities recorded in the book of Joshua. Archeological evidence bears little resemblance to the biblical account of the conquest of Canaan. Archaeologists say Israel "emerged" from among the Canaanite peoples without a conquest. In other words, there is virtually no evidence for the mighty overthrow of the Canaanites as recorded in the Bible.

The Iron Age Problem There were invasions, but they were from the north, from Syria and Mesopotamia, and they came in several waves, unlike the lightning conquest under Joshua. The people who settled the land after the invasions also came from the north, and seemed to settle an empty land after it had been destroyed by others. The south remained in the hands of the Bronze Age inhabitants, albeit on a lower material level. (See chart below.) The conclusions drawn from this evidence? The people in the south, who supposedly constituted the kingdom of Judah, have been determined to be of Canaanite descent, if not biologically, then culturally. And the people in the north, supposedly the ten tribes of Israel, have been determined to have no relation to the tribes of the south. The idea of twelve tribes descended from the sons of Jacob has been removed from the history books and re-catalogued under "Mythology, Jewish." The Current Archeological View of the History of the Land of Israel

HYKSOS NORTHERN TRIBES PROTO-CANAANITES AMORITES CANAANITES EMPIRE SOUTHERN TRIBES

LATE BRONZE EARLY BRONZE AGE MIDDLE BRONZE AGE IRON AGE AGE

UNITED DIVIDED SAMARITANS CANAANITES CONQUEST & JUDGES MONARCHY MONARCHY (Israel in exile) (David-Solomon) (Israel – Judah) JUDAH

The Biblical View of the History of the Land of Israel (Chart from: http://www.starways.net/lisa/essays/exodus.html)

The Real Problem The acceptance of the Egyptian chronology has not been universal, but the use of it in evaluating and dating archeological evidence is so common and dominant that Bible dictionaries and popular archeology books and magazine all reflect the belief that little, if any, evidence exists to support the plain reading of the Old Testament. As the Time article put it: “…parts of the Old Testament where the evidence is contradictory or still absent, (include) slavery in Egypt, the existence of Moses, the Exodus and Joshuaʼs military conquest of the Holy Land… Kathleen Kenyon, who excavated at Jericho for six years, found no evidence of destruction at that time.” (p. 54)

However, the real problem turns out to be the Egyptian chronology, not the Bible. The flaws in this chronology have produced continuing problems in trying to correlate finds throughout the eastern Mediterranean world. A number of archeologists have called for its revision. In Centuries of Darkness, Peter James (British historian and author specializing in the ancient history and archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean region) calls traditional chronology a “gigantic academic blunder.” David M Rohl (Egyptologist and former director of the Institute for the Study of Interdisciplinary Sciences) writes, “The only real solution to the archaeological

ECBS 2014 – TS 28 problems which have been created is to pull down the whole structure and start again, reconstructing from the foundations upward.” (Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest, 1997, p. 9)

David Down, in Unwrapping the Pharaohs, has synthesized the work of many experts into a cohesive narrative consistent with the Bible. He points out many synchronisms between the histories of Israel and Egypt, providing a highly plausible identification for many of the characters in the Old Testament. Furthermore, his work is consistent with the history of surrounding nations and allows the Hittites to slip into their proper niche in the context of their Assyrian and Egyptian neighbors. (Short article here: http://creation.com/searching-for-moses.)

When the Egyptian chronology is corrected, suddenly the missing evidence for Joseph, Israel as slaves in Egypt, Moses as potential heir-apparent to the throne, the Exodus and its devastating effects on Egypt, the wilderness wanderings, Joshuaʼs dramatic conquest of Canaan, Israel under David and Solomon as the super power of the Middle East, through the destruction of Israel and Judah, all find reflections in the archeological record. The alignment is staggering and a powerful confirmation that Godʼs Word really can be trusted. (See interview with David Down: http://creation.com/timing-is-everything.)

The chart below, based on the proposed revision by archeologist David Down, contrasts the Traditional Egyptian chronology with his revised chronology. Notice where The Flood, Babel, Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, etc. are located in the Traditional Chronology versus the Revised Chronology.

An excellent article that documents how well archeological data line up with the Biblical account when this revision is taken into account can be found in chapter 24 of Answers Book 2 by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell. (Available online at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab2/doesnt- egyptian-chronology-prove-bible-unreliable#fnMark_1_52_1) A thorough analysis of the chronology problem (and the resistance to any change to it) is documented by P John Crowe (The Revision of Ancient History - A Perspective, 1999, revised 2007, http://www.sis- group.org.uk/ancient.htm#p7.)

ECBS 2014 – TS 29 CLASS 4 GODʼS CHALLENGE TO US: EVIDENCE OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN

CREATIVE DESIGN & ORGANIZATION “For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.” (Rom. 1:20-23, HCSB)

The fingerprint of the Creator is in evidence all around us, from the smallest unit of matter, to the staggering complexity of biological machines found in every living cell, to the largest structure known to man, the universe itself—everywhere we look, we are challenged by the evidence of a Divine Intelligence that created and arranged all that we see and His power that has provided just the right forces to assure that all things continue to exist. Letʼs look first at the evidence of Godʼs intelligence.

Consider this set of letters: IARNTHNHNEVHEGICRINGGANETODEHEDTHETAEABENSDTEH There is no order or plan or purpose; just random letters without any meaning.

Now consider the same set of letters with a different order: AAAABCDDDEEEEEEEEEGGGHHHHHIIINNNNNNORRSTTTTTV These do have an order to them since they are alphabetically arranged, but again, they serve no real purpose (other than a helpful arrangement); more importantly, they carry no meaning.

Consider one final arrangement of these letters: INTHEBEGINNINGGODCREATEDTHEHEAVENSANDTHEEARTH Why do they convey meaning now? Because these letters have been ordered according to a specific plan for a specific purpose. These letters now convey meaning to the reader.

This is what is meant by “creative design and organization.” Such becomes the fingerprint of intelligence because letters are deliberately fit together for a specific function or purpose.

Why are the rocks on the left evidence of intelligence? Because their specific shapes show function & purpose. The rocks on the right show random forces at work.

Just as clearly, one cannot put together a house, car, computer chip, specific drug, etc. without a purposeful, directed, ordering of many different & differing parts for a specific purpose or goal according to an overall design. That is why the watch above shows evidence of a designer.

ECBS 2014 – TS 30 Sadly, even with this kind of evidence staring one in the face, some refuse to believe what their senses are shouting:

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” (Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons”, in the review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan. New York Review of Books, Jan 9, 1997, 28)

EVIDENCE FOR AN INTELLIGENT CREATOR

Design of the Universe There are four basic forces in the universe which hold everything together: • gravitational force • electromagnetic force • strong nuclear force • weak nuclear force

Each has an exact characteristic strength that can & has been measured. These do not appear to be arbitrary values; rather they appear to be expressly designed to give the universe the precise properties needed for life to exist. So precise are these values that any deviation would end the universe as we know it.

For example: • Gravity and weak nuclear forces are in perfect balance to provide for the steady expansion of the universe. If there were just one billion trillionth change in this balance, it would cause an explosive expansion and then catastrophic collapse of the universe (assuming the "Big Bang" theory of the origin of the universe). • If the nuclear force were only a few percentage points stronger, helium would have been formed and not hydrogen (element fundamental to nuclear reactions which create stars). • The relationship of the sunʼs size to life on earth is critical. If the gravitational force were slightly weaker or the electromagnetic force slightly stronger, the sun would become either a red dwarf (smaller & cooler than our sun) or a blue giant (much hotter & brighter than our sun). Neither would provide the conditions necessary for sustaining life on this earth. • All the critical properties of elements depend on these four forces having precise values. Small changes could turn oxygen from a gas into a metal or solid, iron would cease to be a strong metal, carbon would be unable to form the enormous chemical chains essential to life, potassium would be unable to store the energy so vital to cell life, and water would not exhibit its unique properties that make it a universal solvent and an essential to life.

How did this all come about? By creative design and organization. The heavens truly do declare the glory of God; and the firmament His handiwork. (Psa. 19:1)

ECBS 2014 – TS 31 Design of the Earth 1. Right Sun: We have a sun that gives us just the right amount of radiation and gravitational pull. If it were larger or hotter, no life would exist on earth.

2. Right Distance: If we were 1% further from the sun we would be a frozen waste like Mars. If we were 5% closer, the seas would boil like on Venus.

3. Right Size: If the earth were smaller like the moon, there would not be enough gravity to hold the water or the atmosphere. If we were larger like Jupiter, we would be a poisonous gas ball, the weight of whose atmosphere would produce life-crushing pressure.

4. Right Rotation: If the earthʼs rotation were slower, we would be baked by the sun; if we rotated faster, cyclone winds would continually devastate the earth.

5. Right Materials: We have lots of water and carbon and oxygen and nitrogen, all of these being critical elements for the existence of life.

6. Limited Wrong Materials: We have only small amounts of heavy metals like arsenic, mercury, lead, and radioactive elements, all of which are detrimental to life.

7. Right Sea: The earth's seas (which cover 4/5 of the earth's surface) act as a vital heat reservoir that regulates the earth's climate and weather. Ninety percent of the oxygen we breathe comes from the oceans. The seas act as an enormous waste control system. For example, plant life increases in the oceans when phosphorus increases. This, in turn, is precipitated out when the plants die to maintain just the right balance of this element in circulation.

8. Right Atmosphere: There is just the right balance of oxygen (21%), nitrogen (78%), carbon dioxide, water, and other substances to support life. It also has the right density.

How did all these things turn out to be "just right"? Creative design and organization.

(For a video about our privileged earth, check out “The Privileged Planet Trailer” on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ohuG3Vj_48&list=PL7Wwl5TzliiG6D3XERntPg_A90z- hETkj&index=13)

Design in Living Things In the world of living things we constantly find "all or nothing systems," that is, systems that had to come into existence all at once or they would be as completely useless as a partially built helicopter or jet aircraft.

For example, the eye of any living creature is a marvel of engineering that would be completely useless in a partially developed form. Other examples include the fantastic engineering evident in a bird's wing, the hopping "gear" of the kangaroo, the intricate water storage system of the camel, the chemical protection mechanism of the bombardier beetle, and, especially, the metamorphosis of the butterfly.

Further examples are furnished by the built-in instincts of various animals, each one of which is absolutely crucial to the development and maintenance of its life: the salmon's ability to always return to its breeding grounds, the migration of birds and the monarch butterfly, the instinctual

ECBS 2014 – TS 32 behavior of the newborn herring gull to obtain its food by pecking at a red spot on its parent, the cleaner fish that instead of becoming a larger fish's food acts as its dental hygienist, and, the critical interdependence between bees and flower pollination.

Why do living things seem to have the appearance of design? Because they were designed.

(The Privileged Species Trailer is an interesting video showing design in living things: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAHPTwGZSP4&index=2&list=PL7Wwl5TzliiG6D3XERntPg_A90z- hETkj More fascinating videos: Metamorphosis: The Beauty & Design of Butterflies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZk6nZGH9Xo&list=PL7Wwl5TzliiG6D3XERntPg_A90z- hETkj&index=10 Flight: The Genius of Birds - Official Trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46rE4BfWN_M&list=PL7Wwl5TzliiG6D3XERntPg_A90z- hETkj&index=7)

DNA - The Code of Life Producing Life “After Its Kind” DNA has been likened to an extremely complex computer code. This is the code that produces proteins, the building blocks of all living organisms. Computer engineers marvel at the depth of the complexity and design of this information system. Remarkably, built into this code is adaptability, that is, the ability to respond to the environment to preserve the life of the organism. This adaptability is very similar to the “if-then” subroutines built into computer programs. We see this amazing, pre-coded ability expressed through species adaptation. This ability to adapt, though, consistently has limits. As God said, all life has been created to reproduce only “after their kind” (e.g. Gen. 1:12,21)

As remarkable as it may seem that a series of chemical “letters” can compose “words” that actually direct a cell to produce specific acids to generate a specific protein, a recent discovery has exposed something that is beyond remarkable. It turns out that this same code can also be read a second way to specify how the genes should be controlled. Even man has not yet developed a code that can be read in two distinctly different ways for two distinctly different and essential purposes. Why is it so difficult for the brilliant minds of today to see the powerful evidence of Godʼs creative intelligence?

(News article here: www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/dual-use-codons-point-to- second-genetic-code/81249255/. Further information here: https://answersingenesis.org/genetics/stop-or-go-dna-codes-reveal-rampant-rule-breaking- language-life/)

Design in Living Cells The "all or nothing" systems found everywhere in the animal world are only half as marvelous as the extraordinary and unique chemical systems found in even the simplest living cells, DNA, RNA, and proteins – and the machines that build and operate cells.

The discovery of the information storage in DNA was in itself a spectacular discovery. Recent research is also uncovering how literally thousands of molecular machines within every cell make use of this information to manufacture the building blocks of all living organisms (i.e. proteins). Not only so, but the cellular highways and internal transport systems are also being

ECBS 2014 – TS 33 uncovered. These machines need to be seen to be believed. Here are some examples that can be found on YouTube of artist visualizations of these eloquently designed machines.

Journey Inside The Cell: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fiJupfbSpg&index=3&list=PLR8eQzfCOiS3L98qRoQ6CqpCQbsd EgqQ- The Workhorse of the Cell: Kinesin: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbycQf1TbM0&index=1&list=PLR8eQzfCOiS3L98qRoQ6CqpCQbs dEgqQ- ATP Synthase: The power plant of the cell: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI8m6o0gXDY&index=2&list=PLR8eQzfCOiS3L98qRoQ6CqpCQb sdEgqQ-

Truly, all of nature shows Godʼs awesome power & intelligence through creative design and organization!

“To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one is missing.” (Isa. 40:25-26)

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and intelligence, so that they are without excuse…” (Rom. 1:20)

ECBS 2014 – TS 34 CLASS 5 GODʼS CHALLENGE TO US: RESURRECTION OF JESUS

Why is this so important? Whatʼs at stake? If Jesus did not really die and rise again the third day as recorded: • God is a liar because He promised He would raise Jesus up from the dead; indeed, Godʼs very existence is called into question. • Christianity is founded on a fraud and a deliberate deception. • Moral value of Jesusʼ teaching is completely discredited. • Hope in the personal resurrection promised in his gospel is without foundation.

“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable.” (1 Cor. 15:19)

But if Jesus did rise… • Then not only the truthfulness of God is vindicated, but even His very existence is given another powerful witness. • Claims of Christianity are indisputably true. • Compelling moral force of Jesusʼ teaching is solidly established. • Hope of a personal resurrection for those in Christ is indisputably assured.

“But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Cor. 15:20; see also Jn. 6:39)

The Center of the Conflict From the time immediately following the resurrection and into the subsequent centuries, only one question has ever been seriously and vehemently argued: How did the tomb become empty?

Abductive Inferences To investigate how the tomb became empty, we must employ the scientific method used to examine historical events. It is called “abductive inference”. It is not the same as deductive or inductive reasoning used in the laboratory. Abductive inferences are like this:

Major Premise: If a mudslide occurred, we would expect to find felled trees. Minor Premise: We find evidence of felled trees. Conclusion: Therefore, we have reason to think that a mudslide may have occurred.

To move a conclusion from “may” to a more certain footing, either you must evaluate all competing hypotheses or demonstrate there is only one known cause. The former requires that you find additional evidence to eventually eliminate all but the most likely cause. This is what “historical science” is all about: It requires just as rigorous work and careful argument as laboratory science, but knowledge is gained by a different form of reasoning.

Remember: While we can legitimately question the soundness and validity of evolutionary or deep time assertions, we must ultimately be prepared to answer the legitimate questions that query the soundness and validity of Biblical assertions. This is what we will do in this class.

ECBS 2014 – TS 35 Generally Accepted Evidence Concerning Jesus of Nazareth 1. Messianic Expectations of Jewish People Fervent messianic expectations existed among the Jews in the first century. This was based on Old Testament prophecies (e.g. Dan. 9). Acts 5:33-39, Josephus

2. Jesus Was Real, Historical Person Who Was Crucified by Romans Around 30 AD Jesus appeared among the Jews around AD 27 professing to be their promised Messiah. He lived an exemplary life teaching the people about God and His coming kingdom. About AD 30 he was executed as a criminal through Jewish instigation by the hand of the Romans.

Cornelius Tacitus: Roman historian and governor of Asia, born about AD 54, wrote in AD 112, mentions "Chrestus," the founder of the Christian movement, who was put to death by Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius and that the "superstition" about him, having been repressed for a short time, broke out not only throughout Judea, but in Rome as well. Annuals XV:44

Pliny the Younger: Governor of Bithynia, he wrote in AD 112 to Emperor Trajan for advice on how to handle the Christians and mentions the remarkable morals of the Christians who were bound by beliefs "never to commit any fraud…never to falsify their word." Epistles X.96

Flavius Josephus: Born AD 37, Pharisee & Jewish historian, Josephus mentions Jesus, "who was known to be virtuous," Pilate, the crucifixion, and the report of the resurrection. Antiquities XVIII.33 & Arabic Mss. "Kitab Al-Unwan..." (Book of History)

Will Durant: A modern, secular historian, cites the above and concludes the historicity of Jesus is beyond reasonable doubt. The Story of Civilization, Part III, Caesar and Christ, Ch. 26, pp.554-555, 281

Wikipedia: “Most modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts, and the only two events subject to “almost universal assent” are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

3. Roman Crucifixion Ensured Jesus Really Died Crucifixion was a Roman form of punishment, carried out according to Roman law. It involved a severe scourging prior to the actual execution. The Centurion and the Roman soldiers entrusted with the responsibility of carrying out the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus did so knowing that their own lives would be forfeit if they failed to secure the intended result, the victim's death.

4. Burial According to Jewish Custom Jesus' body was taken from the execution site, anointed with costly spices, and tightly wound from head to foot with linen, all in accord with acknowledged Jewish custom.

5. The Tomb Was Sealed Jesus was buried in a rock-hewn tomb, then sealed by responsible Jewish leaders to guard against tampering (Matt. 27:66). The sealing of a tomb was an official and legal Roman practice. A cord was stretched across the entry stone and attached to the rock behind with official seals. Any disruption of the seals carried with it the penalty of Roman law.

ECBS 2014 – TS 36 6. The Tomb Was Guarded By Soldiers The Jewish leaders also caused a guard to be set to doubly secure the tomb from any unauthorized intrusions. Opinions differ regarding the nature of the guard, but most scholars believe it was a Roman guard. In keeping with Roman discipline, these soldiers would carry out the assignment as though their own lives were at stake (note Acts 12:18,19). If it was the Jewish temple guard, and not a Roman guard, these men would perhaps be even more diligent given their racial and religious involvement, besides the discipline to which they were subject.

7. The Tomb Was Empty Three days later this same tomb was found empty. This is one fact that has never been disputed by any, not even the chief antagonists to the Christian claims, the Jews. The dispute has always centered on how the tomb became empty.

8. Fearful to Fearless The immediate disciples of Jesus stated that they did not expect his death, were completely disillusioned and demoralized when it happened, and had to be convinced by both physical and Scriptural evidence that he truly rose from the dead.

Fifty days following Jesus' claimed resurrection, these same men began to preach the resurrection of Jesus with a strength and boldness and vigor that astonished their enemies. These preachers relied heavy on the Old Testament Scriptures and on common knowledge about Jesus to convince their listeners that Jesus was the risen Messiah, not just by appeals to their own experiences. Their whole message, though, was made to stand or fall on the reality of the resurrection of Jesus (e.g. Acts 2,3, 1 Cor. 15).

Almost all the Apostles, as well as some other disciples (e.g. Acts 7; 26:9-11), died violently at the hands of their enemies for their profession they had not only seen their risen and immortalized Lord, but also talked to, ate with, handled and watched him ascend into heaven. Others suffered life-long humiliation, deprivation, and loss of property and status.

9. Conversion of Skeptical Witnesses The Apostle Paul, a Jew trained in the strictest sect of the Jewish religion (Pharisees), was at first a vigorous enemy of Christianity. Several years after Jesus' death he became one of the most remarkable converts to Christianity, one of its most powerful preachers. He suffered many things for the new convictions he held about the resurrection of Jesus.

James, the half-brother of Jesus, was a staunch skeptic throughout Jesusʼ ministry (Jn. 7:5). When Jesus, dying on the cross, wanted to entrust the care of his mother to someone, he chose the apostle John rather than his half-brother. Yet soon after Jesus ascended to heaven, James was counted among the believers (Acts 1:14) and became a leader in the Jerusalem ecclesia. What could account for such a change?

10. Moral Imperative of Christianity The teaching of both Jesus and his Apostles called men to a highly moral life. Honesty and integrity were fundamental virtues of this life. Lying, deceit, hypocrisy, and all forms of immorality were grounds for exclusion from the early Christian community. The virtuous and highly moral conduct of early Christians was well known even to their enemies. (Mt 15:18- 20; 1 Pet 3:9-12; Eph 4:22-25; Gal 6:7-10; Letter of Pliny the Younger to Trajan, Epistle X.96; Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, Ch.15, p.182 & others.)

ECBS 2014 – TS 37 11. Principle of Embarrassment Why would writers of history invent details that do not seem to help their cause? For example, the first eyewitness of the risen Christ was not an important dignitary like Caiaphas, Pilate, or King Herod; nor was it a leading disciple like Peter or John. Instead, it was a woman. And not just any woman, but Mary Magdalene, a woman with a questionable background. Why would the Gospels claim that this Mary was the first eyewitness? Either the writers were foolish or exceedingly clever or they wrote precisely what happened.

12. The Nazareth Inscription The Nazareth Inscription is a marble tablet (24 by 15 inches) acquired in Nazareth in the latter part of the 19th century. It is the earliest known written record that (many) scholars believe references the events concerning Jesusʼ empty tomb. The Nazareth Inscription is almost certainly authentic and is a condensation or summary of an imperial rescript (a document issued in response to a specific demand). It was also almost certainly issued by the Emperor Claudius in 41 AD. The text of the inscription fits both the style and structure of other known rescripts of Claudius.

EDICT OF CAESAR It is my decision [concerning] graves and tombs—whoever has made them for the religious observances of parents, or children, or household members—that these remain undisturbed forever. But if anyone legally charges that another person has destroyed, or has in any manner extracted those who have been buried, or has moved with wicked intent those who have been buried to other places, committing a crime against them, or has moved sepulcher-sealing stones, against such a person, I order that a judicial tribunal be created, just as [is done] concerning the gods in human religious observances, even more so will it be obligatory to treat with honor those who have been entombed. You are absolutely not to allow anyone to move [those who have been entombed]. But if [someone does], I wish that [violator] to suffer capital punishment under the title of tomb-breaker.

The early date strongly suggests that this was written with the events surrounding Jesusʼ empty tomb in mind. The details of the decree do indeed appear to fit Jewish burial practices as opposed to Roman or gentile practices: the reference to sepulcher stones in the edict is in line with Jewish burial practice of the first century A.D. and not with gentile burial practice of this period. Roman burial was generally in dug graves or cremation and not by entombment as implied in the decree. The Romans used coffins in which bodies or urns were buried in individual graves in cemeteries, while Jewish burial, as we know from the New Testament and surviving remains, was in tombs or sepulchers (see John 19:38-42).

It would appear the issue of Jesusʼ empty tomb eventually came before Caesar, who accepted the Jewish religious leaders' explanation of what happened at the tomb and how Jesus' body came to be missing. Given the Roman respect for the dead, it would appear that Caesar wanted to make sure the same event did not happen again. This is why he issued the edict and had the Nazareth stone created.

(For a full description of the research and argument concerning this inscription, see the research article by Clyde E. Billington, Ph.D., The Nazareth Inscription: Proof of the

ECBS 2014 – TS 38 Resurrection of Christ? Part One: Translation, Commentary, and Date – http://creation.com/nazareth-inscription-1; Part Two: The Historical Context of The Nazareth Inscription – http://creation.com/nazareth-inscription-2)

Attempted Explanations for the Empty Tomb Remember, in abductive reasoning, to establish that only one explanation is possible for a historical event, one must eliminate all the other attempted explanations. Only four serious explanations have been offered. (A fuller treatment of the various explanations can be found in a ten-part series on the resurrection of Jesus here: www.answersingenesis.org/get- answers/k/resurrection-series/v/recen)

Remember, too, that those offering these explanations all accept that an empty tomb existed in which a body was placed. Their explanations represent attempts to explain the empty tomb. This is a significant admission.

1. Disciples Stole The Body While Guards Slept This was the best explanation the enemies of the Christians, who were alive when it all happened, could provide for the empty tomb, the very tomb they had personally sealed and set a guard to prevent this from happening. But, does this really fit the facts? • The tomb was sealed and zealously guarded by men who were charged to prevent the very thing they now said happened! • If they “slept”, how did they know it was Jesus' disciples who stole the body? • And why were they not severely punished by the Jewish or Roman authorities for failing in their duty? • Most damaging of all, this requires a deception of such enormous dimensions that it runs completely counter to all that is known about the early disciples and their teaching. Why didnʼt one of the inner circle expose the whole sham, especially since most of them paid for this “deception” with their own life's blood? • Finally, this fails to adequately account for the explosive growth and spread of Christianity in the face of a hostile Jewish and Gentile environment. The facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth could be personally verified by many of their early Jewish converts. And, even more significantly, the conviction that the true Jewish Messiah must die and be raised up on the third day was won from these Jewish converts by appeal to the Old Testament prophecies about these very things!

2. Recovery in The Tomb It has been suggested that Jesus only appeared to die on the cross and that later he revived either naturally in the coolness of the tomb or with the help of drugs administered by those in on the “plot”. He later presented himself as having risen from the dead (or he allowed his disciples to assume this), then quietly disappeared from the scene. But… • This runs entirely counter to all we know about crucifixion and Roman soldiers. The scourging prior to crucifixion was designed to expedite death. The Roman soldiers were professionals and were experienced in the business of death. The description of the spear thrust bringing forth blood and water (Jn 19:34-37) is medically consistent with death. When asked by Pilate whether Jesus was dead (Mk 15:44-45), they literally staked their own lives on their answer. • This theory does not take into account the method of Jewish burial. The tightly wrapped linen filled with ointment that secured the limbs and blanketed the face would have ensured the death of the victim, rather than promoted recovery.

ECBS 2014 – TS 39 • This theory fails to account for the sealed tomb, the tomb guard, and Jesus' physical condition. Does it really seem possible that Jesus unwrapped his tightly bound body, did the impossible by rolling back the sealing stone from the inside, terrified a large contingent of soldiers, walked several miles on severely wounded feet, and, presenting himself to his disciples, overcame all their skepticism and doubt, convincing them that the battered and bruised man before them was their risen and immortalized Lord? Does having an accomplice in this matter really make all this more plausible? • This theory meets an insurmountable barrier when the character and teaching of Jesus is taken into consideration. A plot to deceive regarding the very foundation of Christianity is completely out of character for either Jesus or his disciples. Jesus' teaching constantly inculcated the highest regard for integrity and truth, and constantly exposed human nature with its propensity for deception. The honesty and integrity of early Christians was well known even by their enemies.

3. Mass Hallucinations or Visions It has been suggested that the shock and grief of Jesus' death resulted in a kind of religious hysteria or a mass hallucination in which the disciples thought they saw their risen Lord. Based on this experience they went on to hazard their lives by proclaiming the resurrection to the world. But… • The disciples by their own admission were demoralized and disillusioned by Jesus' unexpected death and had to be convinced of the resurrection by hard physical evidence. Unlike the normal grief process wherein one thinks they see their loved one as still alive (because they see someone with a similar shape or build), these men and women not only saw him, but ate and drank and handled him until all doubts about his resurrection were dispelled. They refused to believe the report of the women, and when initially confronted with the risen Christ, they were skeptical and assumed they were seeing a phantom. (Lk 24:9-12, 36-43; Jn 20:19-29; 1 Jn 1:1-3) • It is noteworthy that Mary mistook Jesus for a gardener; she clearly did not expect to see Jesus. (Jn 20:14-16) • The disciples on the way to Emmaus had to be convinced by Jesus “opening up the scriptures” to them – an appeal to reason and logic, not to emotion. (Lk 24:13-27) • The disciples' preaching was based on careful reasoning from the Old Testament as well as their own experiences. (e.g. Acts 2,3,13) • Since both Paul and James did not participate in this claimed emotional scene, how can the conversion of these two skeptics be explained? • Finally, and most significantly, the enemies of the Christians would simply have produced the body of Jesus to silence all these foolish claims.

4. Wrong Tomb or Family Tomb It is sometimes suggested that the disciples mistakenly went to the wrong tomb and when they found it empty, they assumed that Jesus had risen from the dead. A recent (2007) alternative suggestion is that Jesus was buried in a family tomb known to the early Christians. But… • This does not account for the disciplesʼ extreme reluctance to believe Jesus actually was alive from the dead. • The NT writers state that Jesus was put in a new tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea (Mt 27:60). If no one else knew where Jesus was put, surely this man would know. And if he knew, why wouldnʼt others know? • The same would surely be true of a family tomb. All would know its location.

ECBS 2014 – TS 40 • Nor does this theory account for the tomb being sealed by the Jewish authorities and being watched by a contingent of soldiers. Others may have been mistaken, but these men would not have been. • And worst of all, any claims that Jesus rose from the dead would have been quickly dispatched simply by producing the body from the “right” tomb.

Only Alternative: Jesus Actually Rose From The Dead The failure of all these explanations of the empty tomb leaves, by abductive reasoning, only one viable alternative: Jesus of Nazareth did rise from the dead as claimed.

“Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he is risen, as he said.” (Matt 28:5-6)

The implications of this fact are enormous: • God, who raised up Jesus from the dead, must exist. • All that Jesus spoke and all that the Scriptures say about him must be true. Jesus appealed to the Scriptures as the genuine Word of God, revealing God's purpose with man. • The resurrection was an act of Divine intervention in the affairs of men. God has promised He will intervene again, this time sending His Son to rule the world in righteousness and to establish God's kingdom on earth. As a consequence of the resurrection, all men everywhere are called upon to acknowledge the only true God. (Acts 3:19-26 +17:30-31) • The resurrection of Jesus is the “crown in the arch of the whole structure of God's revelation… It ties together the whole of the promises and prophecies of the past and their realization in the future… It is the crux of the working of God with men.” (L.G. Sargent, A Sound Mind, p.166) • When seen in the context of world history illuminated by Bible revelation, the resurrection not only makes sense, it is required. • It is the historical fact on which the hope of Christianity, the hope of the resurrection, is founded. Because it happened once in fulfillment of Godʼs word, we have solid reasons to believe it can happen again…to us, if we are willing to join our lives to this man.

ECBS 2014 – TS 41 CLASS 6 GODʼS CHALLENGE TO US: ISRAEL

What is Prophecy? When we hear the word “prophecy” images of Nostradamus, psychics or astrologers may come to mind. Many times in history people have claimed that an event is fulfilling a previously recorded prophecy. Whether it be the claim that the attack on the Twin Towers was prophesied by Nostradamus, or that President Kennedy was predicted to be assassinated while in office, as Jean Dixon asserted, there have been many attempts to claim that world events have been successfully predicted by humans.

The idea that a person could predict the future is compelling. Wouldnʼt everyone like to know what is going to happen to them or their loved ones in the future? Perhaps if we could learn what was in store for us in the future, we might even nbe able to act to prevent a disaster or endure a difficult time knowing that a better one lay ahead.

Bible prophecy, though, claims to be much more than haphazard predictions about future events, like those of its many competitors, such as Jean Dixon or Nostradamus. The purpose of Bible prophecy is not just to foretell coming events, but to reveal the master, guiding hand of a moral, living God—a God who is concerned with His creation, and acts in response to it. As such, fulfilled prophecy is an active and powerful witness that God does indeed exist and that the affairs of this earth are being directed according to His will and purpose.

There are other characteristics of Bible prophecy equally unique. As you study Bible prophecy, you will always find it is: • Written before foretold event not after the event.

• Specific & intelligible not vague or indefinite.

• Often unlikely or improbable not predictable, probable.

• Likely to be falsified if given not likely to be fulfilled if given enough time. enough time (some)

• Outside man's power to control or not within manʼs power to fulfill. fulfill

• According to a plan & with a not random, without direction or purpose. defined purpose

• Requiring a moral response not an intellectual curiosity.

God reveals to us, using Biblical prophecy, not only His power to predict the future, but also His power to direct the future. He tells us that He gives prophecy “in order that the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He will, and sets over it the lowest of men.” (Dan. 4:17)

God actively challenges other prophets to: “…come and show what they can do, says God, the King of Israel. Let them try to tell us what occurred in years gone by or what the future holds. Yes, thatʼs it! If you are gods, tell what will happen in the days ahead! Or do some mighty

ECBS 2014 – TS 42 miracle that makes us stare, amazed. But no! You are less than nothing and can do nothing at all.” (Isaiah 41:21-24 TLB)

“Gather the nations together! Which of all their idols ever has foretold such things? Which can predict a single day ahead? Where are the witnesses of anything they said? If there are no witnesses, then they must confess that only God can prophesy.” (Isa. 43:9)

Isaiah says that Godʼs challengers and their gods are “nothing” and they accomplish “nothing at all.” Ironically, as we shall see, sometimes God chooses those things that are the most improbable and least likely in order to challenge our unbelief and bring us to an appropriate humility in His presence (see 1 Cor. 1:27-29). This alone can provide a real basis for trusting Him and discovering what He desires to teach us.

Israel, the Focus of All Bible Prophecy But where are Godʼs witnesses? Where are those whose unfolding history is an active fulfillment of what the Living God has declared that all might acknowledge that He is God, He alone?

“But I have witnesses, O Israel, says the Lord! You are my witnesses and my servants, chosen to know and to believe me and to understand that I alone am God. There is no other God; there never was and never will be. I am the Lord, and there is no other Savior.” (Isa 43:10- 11 TLB)

God has appointed Israel to be His witnesses. It is for this reason Israel is the central focus of most Bible prophecies. They are, by Godʼs own appointment, His witnesses to His existence, His purpose with the earth, and His work of salvation. Prophecies concerning other nations and world empires find their meaning only in the context of their relationship to Israel.

The Key to Bible Prophecies All Godʼs work with Israel has a moral basis: Israelʼs life in land was to be based on their righteousness in behavior and faithfulness to their God. Obedience would bring blessing and good; rebellion would bring curses and evil. The outcome either way would be clear, unmistakable, and specific: They, and all the world, would know that Israelʼs God, the Living God, had acted that He might transform them into a people showing His ways in the earth. (For examples see Lev. 18:24-30; 19:1-37; Deut. 4:1-13; 5:6-21,33; 6:3-5,24-25; 7:9-15; 8:7-20; 11:10-17, 26-28; 30:15-20; 31:16-21.)

This is why embedded in all prophecies concerning Israelʼs past and future, God declares His intent and desire to save not just Israel, but all peoples that would look to Him for salvation & life: “Consult together, argue your case and state your proofs that idol worship pays! Who but God has said that these things concerning Cyrus would come true? What idol ever told you they would happen? For there is no other God but me—a just God and a Savior—no, not one! Let all the world look to me for salvation! For I am God; there is no other.” (Isa. 45:21-22 TLB).

How Do We Gain Confidence in God Through Prophecy? Godʼs prophecies about Israel illustrate an important point: God often uses short-term prophecies to prove to the observer that His long-term predictions will also come true. Whether entering the Promised Land, predicted several centuries prior to its occurrence (Gen. 15:16-21), or winning the battle of Jericho, prophesied only days before the victory (Josh. 6:2-5), by witnessing the fulfillment of Godʼs word, Israel was to gain confidence that Godʼs promises for the future would also be fulfilled. Ultimately, we, as modern observers, are to use prophecy for

ECBS 2014 – TS 43 the same purpose—to allow God to build our faith that He is at work fulfilling the promises He has given to the world.

Testing Godʼs Predictions – Do His Prophecies Come True? Two key prophecies about Israel, recorded in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, set forth the consequences for Israelʼs unfaithfulness. We can use them to test the veracity of Godʼs prophetic word. The fulfillment of these prophecies provides powerful evidence of a living God at work and helps demonstrate that we can trust God to fulfill His prophetic word.

To the skeptic, however, it seems odd to use as a proof of fulfilled prophecy, a manuscript that did not date back prior to the time when the prophecies were fulfilled. So, although the fulfillment of much Biblical prophecy recorded in the Old Testament would have helped the Israelitesʼ understand that God was working in their life as a nation, it becomes necessary for us, as students of prophecy to identify more reliable texts to use as proof—manuscripts that can be dated back prior to the time the prophecies were fulfilled. Fortunately, in 1947 a great treasure trove of ancient Bible texts was found in Israel. These texts, called the “Dead Sea Scrolls,” conclusively prove that the Bible prophecies contained in the texts of the Old Testament were written prior to 200-300 BC. Therefore, anything happening after 200-300 BC provides the ideal conditions under which to test the truthfulness of the Bibleʼs claims.

The following table chronicles the major elements of prophecies about the nation of Israel found in the Old Testament. These prophecies explain the major events Israel and the rest of the world should look for to prove that God keeps His word. All of these prophecies were verified by the Dead Sea Scrolls as being written at least before 300 BC, and we can assume that any fulfillments of these predictions after this date are legitimate. (Note: Manuscripts dating from 125 to 350 A.D. exist for the books of the New Testament, written prior to the end of the 1st Century. Keep this point in mind when considering the dates of the fulfillment of prophecies from the NT.)

Israelʼs Desolation & Scattering God warned Israel that their persistent faithlessness and Lev. 26:14-29; Deut. 28:16- disobedience would bring natural disasters, drought, famine, 35,38-46; 32:15-25 dreadful diseases and plagues, and defeat and oppression at the hand of their enemies. All formal religious worship, including the great temple in Lev. 26:30-31; Dan. 9:26-27; Jerusalem, would be destroyed so that “not one stone would be Hosea 3:4-5; Matt. 24:2; Lk. left upon another.” 21:5-6 After the destruction of their land and nation, broken by her Lev. 26:33,37-38; Deut. 4:27; enemy coming upon them “as the eagle flies,” Israel would be 28:64,68; Luke 21:24 sold as slaves and driven into all nations. The land would be wasted by their enemies and eventually left Lev. 26:32-35,43 desolate and barren to “enjoy its sabbaths” as long as Israel remained scattered among the nations. Gentile dominion over Godʼs land and His special city, Luke 21:20,24 Jerusalem, would last for a long, uninterrupted period. The Jews would wander from nation to nation, a homeless Lev. 26:36-39; Deut. 28:59-67 people, without peace or rest, living in constant fear of their lives, suffering from many diseases, plagues and sicknesses.

ECBS 2014 – TS 44

Yet, astonishingly, the Jews would remain a distinct and Lev. 26:44; Jer. 30:11; 31:35- separate people, never allowed to assimilate or be destroyed. 37; 33:24-26; Amos 9:8-9; Num. 23:7-10 For this reason, Gentile antipathy would express itself in Deut. 28:37; Jer. 24:9 derogatory terms memorialized in proverbs and bywords visual characterizations.

And what do we find from history? Can these prophecies prove that Godʼs word does come true? Fulfilled throughout the time of the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, any history book, including the Bible, will fill in the sad details of the consequences of the Israelitesʼ disobedience to God. Israelʼs cities were indeed destroyed by outside invaders, their people scattered throughout the world, and Gentiles held control over Godʼs land for a long, uninterrupted period of time.

One specific example of the fulfillment of these prophecies is the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Romans, an exceedingly fierce nation, brought swift retribution on the Jews. Easily the most terrible time in history up to that date, the destruction of Jerusalem was accomplished with Roman meticulousness. The Temple, only recently completed under Herod the Great in the 1st Century BC, was again destroyed. There was literally not one Temple stone left on another—a fire in the Temple, set by the Jews themselves, melted the Templeʼs gold into the stones. Each stone was later burned by the Romans to extract the gold.

The priesthood and all formal Jewish religious worship also came to an end. Jerusalem was dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus, and the figure of a pig was placed over the gate leading to Bethlehem – under this polluting shadow no Jew would pass. To this day no Jew has been unable to offer a single sacrifice prescribed by the Law.

The cities of Israel and the land itself, beginning shortly after the Jewish war of AD 70, succumbed to the promised desolation, especially under the domination of the Arabs and Turks. Josephus, a contemporary historian in the 1st Century AD, indicates that over a million people perished in Jerusalem and approximately 100,000 were taken captive.

After the Bar Kochba rebellion in 135 AD, Emperor Hadrian put the land of Israel up for sale. Gentiles flocked to settle the country from which the Jews were expelled. From that time till the end of the 1800s, the enemies of the Jews have been the possessors of the land.

Jewish history, following the destruction of Jerusalem and the revolt of Bar Kochba, is well documented by many historians. Any history book or encyclopedia will verify the Jews have been a despised and hated people, forced to wander from nation to nation. Whenever they sought to lose their identity and fade into their host nation, terrible pogroms and persecutions ensued, driving them out. Among the nations, ugly characterizations have given rise to proverbs and bywords.

Now consider: 1. It is a fairly safe guess to suggest the Jews would be overthrown by their enemies, but who would ever predict this would happen when they forsook their God and His Laws – regardless of the international events of that time?

ECBS 2014 – TS 45 2. What then of the prophesied desolation of the land? This indeed is a reasonable prediction, but is it reasonable to suppose that desolation would continue in the land despite who occupied it? 3. Other nations and people have come and gone, but very few, if any, have had such a profound impact on the world. The very name “Jew” has evoked astonishment and hatred and has been used continually as a proverb (“As shrewd as a Jew”) and byword (to “jew” someone means to get something from someone deceitfully). All this has occurred exactly as God said. Was this just a good guess? 4. Normally, a mighty river that flows into the sea makes itself felt for a moment and then is rapidly absorbed into the general chaos of the sea. Soon it canʼt be distinguished from other waters. But not the Jew. How did the prophets know they would remain perpetually a separate and distinct people, despite their fervent desires and persistent attempts to become assimilated into surrounding society? Babylon and their other enemies have ceased as nationalities, but never the Jew, who has always existed from age to age. Was this expected and probable? Surely, given enough time the Jew would cease to exist as an identifiable people! 5. The Jew has never found rest among the nations of his sojourns. Whenever he became settled and began to lose his identity, some type of persecution arose and again he was uprooted and driven out. It is a singularly striking fact of history that the Jew has never found a permanent resting place; he has always lived in constant fear without power to resist his enemies; he has perished in land after land. Even today examples of anti-Semitism can be found throughout the world. Does this really seem like something likely to happen as a continual pattern of existence?

Israelʼs ʻResurrectionʼ: The Return to their Land It is not just in Israelʼs history over the last two thousand years that we see Godʼs prophecies being accomplished. Perhaps one of the most convincing and exciting fulfillments of Godʼs predictions about the nation of Israel happened in the last half century! In 1948, the world witnessed one of the most dramatic and improbable elements of Biblical prophecy coming true: The regathering of Godʼs people from all over the earth and the “resurrection” of a Jewish state.

After God gave His people all He had declared and the “times of the Gentiles” had run their course, God promised His People that they would:

Return completely to their own land from Deut. 30:1-5; Isa. 11:11-12; Jer. 16:14-17; every nation where they had been scattered. 30:3,10-11; 31:10; 32:37; 33:7; Ezek.11:16-17; 34:11-16; 37:1-14; Amos 9:14; Zech. 10:8-10 Rebuild their cities. Ezek. 36:33-38; Amos 9:14 Become a nation again. Ezek. 37:15-22 Regain Jerusalem under their control. Jer. 30:18; Luke 21:24 Have the fruitfulness of their land and people Jer. 31:10-14; 33:12-13; Ezek. 36:8-15, 29- restored. 30,33-38; Amos 9:13-14

Israelʼs rejection and crucifixion of Christ, their Messiah, brought on them the full weight of the prophecies in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Jesus summarized Israelʼs future from the first century forward, stating that because of their actions “they shall fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all nations and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:24)

ECBS 2014 – TS 46 The Old Testament prophesies of the same event state that after the Jews were “scattered throughout all nations” and countries, God would gather them from the ends of the earth and bring them back into their own land. Ezekiel records this prophecy stating: “Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came … For I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land.” (Ezekiel 36:22-24)

At the end of the nineteenth century a remarkable change began to take place: The ʻresurrectionʼ of Godʼs people from their international “graves.” Beginning with the First Zionist Congress in 1897, through the painful and horrific years that included two world wars and the Holocaust, Godʼs mighty hand in world affairs would not be stayed. On May 14, 1948 Israel became a nation again by an international vote taken in the United Nations assembly. Neither international threats nor four fierce wars against an overwhelmingly larger enemy could quench Godʼs purpose for Israel. And to this day, Jews continue to pour back into their land from all corners of the earth.

Now consider: 1. The emergence of a Jewish State in Palestine depended on the collapse of two powers: the Ottoman and Russian empires. The Ottoman Empire, which included the land of Israel, obviously needed to disintegrate. Holy Russia, under the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, also needed to disappear as they were strong protectors of the Christian holy sites in Israel. Under no circumstances would they allow Jews to have control of their holy sites. Thus, the fall of both was vital if the State of Israel was going to come into existence. Accordingly, WWI ended the Ottoman Empire. And amazingly, at the same time, Communism rose to power in Russia, suppressing the power of the Russian Orthodox Church. How is it that all the necessary international events so crucial to the rebirth of Israel as a people and nation ʻjust happenedʼ to occur at the right time?

2. Again, what great insight allowed the prophets of Israel to foretell that Israel would return to her land in a state of unbelief at the end of a train of devastating experiences? All this was accomplished despite Britainʼs powerful resistance in the 1930ʼs, Nazi Germanyʼs near annihilation of Jews in Europe, the devastation of the Jews in the land when German forces swept across Africa to the edge of Egypt, multitudes of Arab attacks aimed to crush the new Jewish state, and four other attempts to ʻpush Israel into the sea.ʼ Israelʼs return has been in the face of circumstances that were overwhelmingly against this return.

Israelʼs Exaltation – The Challenge of Prophecy Fulfilling The completion of God's work of "resurrection" (regathering and restoration) of His people and His land still awaits the last act of the drama in Israel's life-cycle: their exaltation. Israel's unbelief and rebellious spirit must be changed; they must be given a "new heart" and a "new spirit". Then God will make them the “first” and the “head” of all nations. God has been very specific in how He intends to accomplish this.

A final calamity and day of trouble will come Psa. 83; Joel 2:1-11; Zech. 14:1-2 upon Israel to humble them greatly: In their distress they will at last turn to their God Deut. 30:1-5; Ezek. 20:42-44; 36:25- in repentance. 31; 39:25-29; Joel 2:12-17,30-32; Zech. 12:10-14

ECBS 2014 – TS 47 God then acts to save Israel out of her distress, Isa. 11:1-9; Ezek. 34:23-24; 37:24- by sending their long prophesied Messiah, the 25; Mic. 4:1-4; Zech. 14:9 rightful heir to the Davidic throne. He destroys those nations that seek to destroy Deut. 30:7; Isa. 41:10-16; Jer. 30:16; Israel. Ezek. 28:24-26; 34:25-28; 35; 36:1- 12; Joel 2:20; 3:14-16; Hag. 2:21- 23; Zech. 9:12-16; 12:4-9; 14:3-5 By these means God purges and cleanses His Deut. 30:6; Ezek. 20:32-38; 36:24-29; People from their former rebelliousness & Joel 3:21; Mic. 5:9-15; Zech. 13:1 godlessness. Israel is now greatly blessed with fruitfulness in Ezek. 28:24-26; 34:25-30; 36:33-38; the Land and the People, causing them to dwell Joel 2:18-27; 3:18 unafraid, resting securely in Godʼs care. God gives them power over all their Isa. 11-14; Mic. 4:1-7,11-13; 5:8-9; adversaries… Zech. 10:3-7 Thereby glorifying Himself in Israelʼs prosperity Ezek. 37:24-28; Zech. 2:10-11; in the eyes of all nations. 14:20-21

God At Work God promised that if Israel turned away from Him, He would give them over to their enemies. If Israel failed to return to their God, their enemies would first distress and then destroy the people and the land, carrying the remnant of Israel into captivity and eventually scattering them among all the nations of the earth.

The purpose of the desolation and long centuries of wandering was to cleanse His People from their idolatry and faithlessness (Hosea 3). When this was accomplished God promised to regather Israel and restore the fruitfulness of Israel's land under their hand.

All that God promised in this respect, He has wonderfully fulfilled. Israel today stands as a living witness that there is a God who exists and that He has a definite, revealed purpose with man on this earth.

But the purging of Israel's heart from all their past uncleanness and sins against their God will only be accomplished through great affliction brought on them by their old enemies living round about them. In the midst of this crucible of fire and suffering, Israel's faith will be newly forged, leading to a stunning and dramatic victory over all their enemies. Their exaltation and blessing will quickly follow.

The Prophecy of Joel The book of Joel is one of the remarkable prophecies concerning these future experiences of Israel. We would like to highlight the significant events foretold in this book.

Chapters 1 and 2 detail the principles of Godʼs work, namely, the destruction and desolation of Israel by a northern army, bringing His people to repentance, followed by a dramatic, Divine deliverance and an astonishing rejuvenation of the land's fruitfulness. The key ideas as applied to Israel in the Last Days are summed up in Joel 2:30-32:

“And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible

ECBS 2014 – TS 48 day of the LORD come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.”

Chapter 3 provides the specific details of this work: The time: “When I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and 3:1 Jerusalem...” God will judge those nations that have scattered Israel and 3:2-8 parted His land. These nations proclaim a “holy war” - a Jihad! 3:9 Two of the offending nations are specifically mentioned: Egypt & 3:19 Edom = The Arabs. Deliverance is assured for those who make the LORD their 3:16 “hope" and "strength.” Then follows the blessing on the land when Israel once again 3:18 becomes a land “flowing with milk and honey.”

This prophecy against the Arabs (Edom) is spelled out in even greater detail in Ezekiel 35 and 36:1-7. In these chapters the ancient hatred of Israel's brother (Esau) resurfaces in the “last days” (36:5). The focus of their hatred is the removal of Israel from the “ancient high places” or holy places, and from the land, all of which they claim as their own (36:2-3, 35:10).

There is a Psalm which provides dramatic confirmation of this prophesied animosity. It reads as if taken from todayʼs headlines. Again, it is Israelʼs ancient Arab neighbors who play the role of adversary. Psalm 83 is the must-read Psalm.

The Prophecy of Zechariah Perhaps the most detailed prophecy of Israel's travail in the Last Days is found in Zechariah 12 and 14. These should be read completely and carefully; they read as if they were written in the twenty-first century! In them you will find:

Jerusalem becomes focal point of world concern (perhaps 12:2-3 because it remains the last obstacle to world peace?), but burden proves to be intractable. Conflict arises around Jerusalem and Judah (S. Israel), but 12:2-3 nations “round about” are unable to prevail (Intifadasʼ fail). The nations round about (12:6, the Arabs) will finally succeed, 14:1-2 venting their pent-up hatred on hapless citizens of Jerusalem, but only when supported by nations of the world (UN?). As in prophecy of Joel, new found faith among God's people 14:3-6 (cf. also Acts precipitates a catastrophic earthquake. This earthquake is itself 1:11) triggered by the return of Jesus to save Godʼs People. This great earthquake throws the enemy into a complete panic. 12:4 + 14:3-6 Absolutely stunning and completely unexpected Jewish victory 12:6-8 ensues. When dust settles, astonished and deeply repentant Jewry 12:10-14 comes face to face with their great deliverer: the man their forefathers hated and killed, Jesus of Nazareth.

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Then, God alone reigns supreme over all the earth in glory, and 14:9; Zeph. 3:14-20 Israel becomes greatly blessed above all nations. Jerusalem becomes Godʼs throne and center of authority over all 14:9,16-17; Isa. 2; nations on earth Mic. 4; Isa. 60 On this throne will sit Godʼs Son and Israelʼs Messiah, Jesus Isa. 11; 110:1-5; Christ. 2:1-12 Bringing great blessings and lasting peace into the whole world Psa. 72; Isa. 2; Mic. through Godʼs Kingdom on this earth. 4; Dan. 2:44

Other prophecies detailing the same course of events for Israel can be found in Obadiah, Psalm 83, and Daniel 12:1-7.

The Challenge Here then is a remarkable challenge to all who doubt the existence and purpose of the God of Heaven: Watch Israel. If God really does exist and really does have a purpose with this earth, then this generation will see the inexorable outworking of God's declared purpose concerning His People.

Is it just an accident that the words of Zechariah 12:2-3 have suddenly taken on great significance at the beginning of this millennium? That the city of Jerusalem has become the focal point of concern and alarm among all nations of the earth? That the problem of Jerusalem has, indeed, proved to be utterly unresolvable despite the best efforts of the international community?

Where will all these things lead? Where will all these things lead you? That is the question only you can answer.

“It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: ʻCome, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths.ʼ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

Conclusion? Is the Bible true? Does the God of the Bible, the self-proclaimed Maker of Heaven and Earth, exist? Is there evidence that a real purpose and direction to all events exists? A purpose and direction that can have a profound effect on your life? In this class you have seen evidence that would answer these questions with a “yes.” It is now your turn to carefully weigh the evidence, and to determine your response.

“This is what the LORD says—the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands? It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts... I am the LORD and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacobʼs descendants, ʻSeek me in vain.ʼ I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right... Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:11-12, 18-91, 22-25 NEB) (Good Christadelphian resource: http://www.theevidence.org.uk/challenge1.htm)

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