Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/online/topics06/t08700

Text File | 1994-05-30 | 51KB | 896 lines

08700
 \\The Bible Has the Answer\\

 The following material was included for two reasons:

 1) To show the absolute folly of compromising God's Word to
    accommodate scientific or archaeological theories. If we find a
    supposed contradiction in the Bible with these theories we
    should not doubt the Bible but find the logical fallacy in the
    theory.  Without exception, the theory will be based on
    indirect evidence.  You should ask the questions, "How do you
    know?", and "Where you there?". If you cannot harmonise the
    Bible with these theories, just wait. Science has a way of
    correcting itself. Never, ever doubt the accuracy of God's
    Word.  The final authority is the Bible, plus nothing else.

                   \\The Anvil of God's Word\\

        Last eve I paused beside the blacksmith's door,
          And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
        Then looking in, I saw upon the floor,
          Old hammers worn with beating years of time.

        "How many anvils have you had," said I,
          "To wear and batter all these hammers so?"
        "Just one," said he, and then with twinkling eye,
          "The anvil wears the hammers out, you know."

        "And so," I thought, "The Anvil of God's Word
           For ages sceptic blows have beaten upon,
        Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
           The Anvil is unharmed, the hammers gone."

                                --John Clifford D.D.

    \\Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed, by \\
    \\the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not
    \\made of things which do appear. (Heb. 11:3)\\

 2) To strengthen our belief in the Bible especially the book of
    Genesis.  If the foundational truths of Genesis are undermined,
    Christianity will crumble. Christians do not have to apologise
    for the Bible.  This material will show that Genesis is indeed an
    accurate account of our origins and our early history.

    \\If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?\\
                                           \\(Ps. 11:3)\\

 \\Chapter 6  - The Bible and Science                      Topic No.\\

 1) Has modern science discredited the Bible?                8701
 2) Do miracles such as we read about in the Bible           8702
    still occur today?
 3) How could Moses have written Genesis when writing        8703
    was unknown in his day?
 4) How does the Bible explain the origin of different       8704
    races?
 5) Was the long day of Joshua a fact of history or          8705
    only a legend?
 6) How could Jonah survive three days and three             8706
    nights in the belly of whale?
 7) Are there intelligent beings on other planets?           8707

 \\Chapter 7 - Creation and Evolution\\

 1) Should a Christian believe in evolution?                 8751
 2) Is the creation story literal or allegorical?            8752
 3) Is evolution a scientific fact?                          8753
 4) Can evolution be harmonized with the Second Law of       8754
    Thermodynamics?
 5) When did Adam live?                                      8755
 6) Is there a gap between the first two verses of           8756
    Genesis?
 7) Can the days of Genesis be the ages of geology?          8757

 \\Chapter 8 - The Ancient World\\

 1) When did the world begin?                                8801
 2) Where did Cain get his wife?                             8802
 3) How could men live so long before the Flood?             8803
 4) Was the Flood a local or universal flood?                8804
 5) How could all the animals get into the ark?              8805
 6) How did all the fossils get there?                       8806
 7) Were did the nations come from?                          8807

 \\Chapter 9 - Problems in Earth History\\

 1) What were the created kinds?                             8851
 2) Why did God create carnivorous animals?                  8852
 3) How could great geological structures have been          8853
    formed in a few thousand years?
 4) What about the theory of continental drift?              8854
 5) Was there an Ice Age?                                    8855
 6) What and when was the Stone Age?                         8856
 7) Will man ever be able to create life?                    8857


 =====================================================================
 These chapters taken from the book:

     "The Bible Has The Answer"
        by Henry Morris/Martin E. Clark

        Copyright (c) 1987 by
        Master Books, P.O. Box 1606, El Cajon, CA, 92022

 These chapters are quoted by permission of the Institute of Creation
 Research (ICR), California. This material may be used with the Online
 Bible for personal and scholarly use. You do not have the right to
 republish this material in any form without the permission of ICR.
 Contact ICR for details. Write the publishers at:

       \\Master Books, P.O. Box 1606, El Cajon, CA, 92022\\

 They have a large selection of creation based materials.  Write them
 for a free catalogue. If overseas, contact them for the address of
 the distributor in your country.  The topics disk containing this
 material may be freely distributed, provided it is not altered in
 anyway.

 If you would like to learn more about creation and the Bible, contact
 your country's creation organisation. If you do not know the address,
 write ICR for information.

       \\Institute for Creation Research,\\
         \\P. O. Box 2667,\\
         \\El Cajon, CA\\
         \\92021\\

 or call \\[phone].\\

 An excellent magazine on creation is "Ex Nihilo". You can find out
 how to get a copy by writing:

       \\Creation Science Ministries\\
         \\P.O. Box 6330,\\
         \\Florence, KY\\
         \\41022\\

 In the US call 1-800-350-3232.

 \\In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. (Ge. 1:1)\\

 =====================================================================
08701
 \\1. Question:\\ "Has Modern science discredited the Bible?"

    \\Answer:\\ Probably the most basic reason for the modern widespread
 Rebellion against traditional values in every realm--social, moral,
 political, educational, religious--is the widespread impression that
 Biblical principles have been outdated by the discoveries of modern
 science. Our constitution and our entire American culture were
 permeated in their origins with a strong national faith in God and His
 Word.  The gradual undermining of confidence in the Scriptures,
 resulting from the rise of uniformitarianism and evolutionism in the
 nineteenth century, inevitably was followed by a revolt against the
 social and political institutions erected on that faith.  It is no
 accident that religious liberals are almost always moral and
 political liberals, and vice versa.
    The fact is, however, that true science has always confirmed the
 Bible! It is not science but scientism (that is, the extension of the
 scientific theories to a supposedly complete philosophy of life and
 meaning) that has attacked the Bible.
    "Science" means "knowledge" and therefore includes only that which
 we actually know, by direct observation and experience.  It is the
 organized body of factual knowledge and relationships.  The
 "scientific method" necessarily involves experimental
 reproducibility and verification.  Thus science, in its proper sense,
 can deal only with the processes of the world as they now exist.  It
 can tell us nothing for certain about prehistoric events and
 processes, nor can it predict future events and processes with
 certainty.
    Many scientists (not science as such, but scientists--men who are
 just as biased, fallible, sinful and human as any other men) have
 assumed that these present processes are eternal processes, and
 therefore that they can explain everything that ever has been or ever
 will be in terms of what exists now! This is the philosophy of
 "uniformitarianism" and is the ruling philosophy in the modern
 scientific establishment.  It necessarily leads to "evolutionism,"
 which seeks to explain the origin and development of all things in
 terms of present natural processes.  But this assumption itself
 violates the two most fundamental laws of science, the First and
 Second Laws of Thermodynamics!  These laws deal with the
 all-embracing entity known as "energy," which includes all the
 phenomena of the physical universe.  All processes are basically
 interchanges of energy--even matter itself is fundamentally a type of
 energy, which can, under the right circumstances, be converted into
 other forms.  The First Law of Energy Conservation, which states that
 nothing is now being created or destroyed.  The Second Law is the Law
 of Energy Decay, which states that in all real processes there is a
 net loss of energy available for further work.  All natural processes,
 without any exception whatever, operate within the framework of the
 Two Laws.
    Thus all processes are conservative and disintegrative, not
 creative and integrative.
    The Bible, instead of being discredited by science, has actually
 anticipated modern science.  The Two Laws were stated in the pages of
 the Scriptures thousands of years before their recognition by
 nineteenth-century scientists.  In fact, the institution of the First
 Law by God is commemorated every Sabbath Day.  "For in six days the
 Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and
 rested the seventh day" (Exodus 20:11).  All of His "works were
 finished from the foundation of the world" (Hebrews 4:3).  He is now
 "upholding all things by the Word of His power" (Hebrews 1:3). Thus,
 He is not now creating anything, but neither is He allowing anything
 to be annihilated.
    The Second Law expresses in a formal way the fact that something
 is intrinsically wrong with the world.  Everything gets old, wears
 out, runs down, and finally dies.  In all processes, some energy
 becomes degraded to low-level heat energy and can no longer be used.
 Every ordered system, left to itself, tends to become disorganized.
 Complex structures tend to break up and become simpler.  The
 "entropy" (that is, the disorder, or randomness) of a system tends to
 increase, and this tendency can only be superseded, locally and
 temporarily, if there is an excess supply of ordering energy brought
 in from outside the system.
    In the Bible, this Law is called the "bondage of corruption"
 (literally, "decay") under which the "whole creation is groaning"
 (Romans 8:21, 22). It is nothing less than God's primeval Curse on
 man and his entire dominion (Genesis 3:17), which God invoked when
 man first brought sin into God's originally perfect creation.
    This Second Law teaches that, unless God Himself intervenes, the
 universe is proceeding inexorably toward an ultimate "heat death,"
 when all available energy will have been degraded to low-level heat
 and no more work can be done.  Since this state has not yet been
 reached, the universe is not infinitely old and thus must have had a
 definite beginning!
    The First Law states that, since all present processes are
 conservative, not creative, the beginning of all things required by
 the Second Law must have been accomplished by means of creative
 processes which are not now in existence {[1] The biblical,
 theological, and scientific implications of the First and Second Laws
 are treated more fully in the author's book, \\The Biblical Basis for\\
 \\Modern Science\\ (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984),
 pp. 185-215.} Therefore, they are inaccessible to science, and anything
 we are ever to learn about them must come by revelation from the creator
 Himself.
    Thus the basic framework of science, confirmed by Biblical
 revelation, leads us inexorably and irrefutably to the first words
 ever written and the most profoundly important truth ever
 comprehended:  "In the beginning God created the heaven and the
 earth." (Genesis 1:1).
08702
 \\2. Question:\\ "Do miracles such as we read about in the Bible still
               occur today?"

    \\Answer:\\ The standard belief of the scientific establishment today
 is that miracles are impossible and that genuine miracles have never
 occurred, either in Biblical days or in our own day.  It is usually
 claimed that supposed miracles can always be explained in terms of
 natural laws in one of the following ways: (a) the witnesses, under
 the excitement of the moment may have been mistaken in what they
 claimed to have seen; (b) with the advance of scientific knowledge,
 more and more phenomena, once thought to be supernatural, are found
 to have a purely naturalistic explanation; (c) every natural process
 is known to vary statistically about some typical method and rate of
 operation, and thus a supposed miracle may really be only a rare, but
 impossible, variation in the particular process.
    Undoubtedly many so-called miracles can actually be explained by
 such means.  God is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, and
 His laws are exceedingly reliable.  If it were not so, our world
 would be a chaos, and science and technology would be impossible.
    On the other hand, since He established the laws, He is also able
 to change them if He so wills.  To say that miracles are
 impossible is actually to deny that God exists.  The question,
 therefore, is not whether miracles can happen, but whether they do
 happen.  And this depends merely upon whether God has adequate reason
 for superseding His ordinary laws or not, and also upon whether there
 is adequate evidence that He has done so.
    These two conditions are abundantly satisfied with respect to all
 the Biblical miracles, and we are abundantly satisfied with respect
 to all the Biblical miracles, and we are quite justified in believing
 that they really happened and that they were really miracles.  Here
 it will be helpful if we note that there may actually be two
 different kinds of miracles {[2] See \\Ibid\\., pp. 75-101, for a more
 complete discussion of this subject.}.
    The first type is what we might call a miracle of creation.  This
 involves actual creative activity on the part of God Himself.  We know
 scientifically that there are just two basic laws controlling all
 natural phenomena, as discussed in the preceding section.  The First
 Law is the Law of Energy Conservation, and this law states that
 nothing is now being created in the physical universe so far as
 science can tell.  The Second Law is the Law of Energy Degradation,
 and this law states that everything is moving toward a state of
 disorder and ultimate death.  Every natural process--that is,
 everything that happens in the known universe--obeys these two basic
 laws.
    Therefore, if a particular event involves a new act of
 creation--of matter, or energy, or order--then it is a genuine
 miracle which only the power of God Himself can accomplish, since He
 alone is the Creator.  Such miracles are exceedingly rare, but they have
 occurred.  For example, the great "signs" recorded in the Gospel of
 John, such as the turning of water into wine, the feeding of the five
 thousand, and the raising of Lazarus from the dead, were all creative
 miracles, and thus unite in their testimony that "Jesus is the
 Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, ye might have life
 through His name" (John 21:31).
    One special miracle of creation is actually very common, even
 today. This is the miracle of regeneration, whereby "if any man be in
 Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all
 things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). When a person truly
 believes on the Lord Jesus, he is "born again,"  receiving assurance
 of forgiveness and everlasting life, and a transformed attitude, with
 purpose and meaning in his life as never experienced before.  This is
 a true miracle in the fullest sense of the word.
    The second type of miracle is a miracle of providence.  This does
 not involve a divine intervention in the two basic laws, but rather a
 special ordering of the manner or time of occurrence of a particular
 process.  Such a miracle was the Philippian earthquake (Acts 16:26),
 the 3 1/2 year drought of Elijah (1 Kings 17), and many other
 Biblical miracles.  Often God uses his angels to accomplish miracles
 of this kind (note Daniel 6:22; Psalm 32:7; Hebrews 1:14, etc.) {[3}
 However, one should also be aware that Satanic angels exist and are
 capable of producing unusual phenomena of this kind on occasion.  All
 such supposedly supernatural phenomena should be carefully evaluated
 in terms of their fidelity to God's Word and their testimony to Jesus
 Christ as the Incarnate Lord and Savior (I John 4:1-3)}.
    Providential miracles still occur today.  Every believing and
 practicing Christian knows from personal experience that God does
 answer prayer, often in unlikely and remarkable ways.  True answers
 to Christian prayer, in the providential ordering of circumstances,
 will, of course, always be in conformity with Biblical revelation and
 will honour the Lord Jesus Christ.
08703
 \\3. Question: \\"How could Moses have written Genesis when writing was
                unknown in his day?"

 \\Answer:\\  This is an ancient criticism which is still voiced
 frequently today.  The answer is, first, that writing was known and
 widely used long before Moses' time and, second, that he quite possibly
 compiled and edited the book of Genesis, rather than writing it
 himself.

 There is no doubt whatever that writing was practiced long before Moses
 was born.  For example, archaeologists have unearthed an ancient library
 in the city of Ur containing thousands of stone "books."  It will be
 recalled that Ur of the Chaldees was Abraham's home before he migrated
 to Canaan, and these stone books were written even before Abraham's
 day.  Many of them constituted records of a most mundane sort, which
 indicates that not only scholars but also ordinary tradesmen could read
 and write.

 Whether writing was invented by the Sumerians, as many scholars
 believe, or by still earlier peoples, it is quite certain that Moses,
 educated in the palace of the Egyptian emperor as he was, was fully
 competent to write the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible).
 It is significant that Christ Himself accepted and confirmed the
 universal belief of the Jews that Moses was responsible for these
 books, frequently quoting from them as of Mosaic authority.  In fact,
 He taught that belief in the divine authority of Moses' writings was
 prerequisite to recognition of His own authority.  "If ye believe not
 (Moses') writing," said He, "how shall ye believe my words?"  (John
 5:47).  Those who profess allegiance to Christ, while denying the
 reliability and historicity of the book of Genesis, for example, would
 do well to ponder such statements as these.

 But now an interesting fact appears.  Although the New Testament
 writers quoted from Genesis at least 60 times and include it under the
 general category of the Mosaic writings, they never cite any of these
 quotations as of specific Mosaic authorship.  Moses is referred to at
 least 80 times, however, in connection with references or quotations
 from the other four books of the Pentateuch.

 This circumstance is best explained by the assumption that Moses
 \\edited\\ the writings that now constitute the book of Genesis,
 rather than authoring them himself.  He then brought them together in a
 collection with his own writings (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
 Deuteronomy) to formulate the Torah, the "Law" of God.  This
 explanation is also consistent with the fact that the events in Genesis
 all took place before Moses was born, whereas those in the other four
 books start with his birth and end with his death (the last chapter of
 Deuteronomy, describing Moses' death, was probably written by Joshua,
 although Moses, could have written it prophetically).

 The question then arises as to who originally wrote the book of
 Genesis.  By far the most plausible answer to this is that many
 different men wrote it, each narrating those events which he himself
 had seen or investigated.  This type of origin is implicit in the very
 structure of Genesis, which breaks down naturally into the ten
 divisions marked off by the recurring phrase: "These are the
 generations of...."

 It has been noted by archaeologists that ancient records, especially in
 Babylonia, were kept on stone tablets, which were commonly identified
 by the author's name as a subscript at the end of the narrative on the
 tablet.

 This fact provides an exciting key to the probable origin of the
 original documents of Genesis.  Each division can be understood as
 terminating with the subscript of its author.  "These are the
 generations (that is, 'records of the generations') of (author's
 name)."  It is significant to note that the actual events thus recorded
 in each division occurred within the lifetime of the individual so
 named, and thus were directly accessible to his observation or
 interrogation.  The importance of this recurring formula is indicated
 by the fact that the very name "Genesis" was derived from the Greek
 word used to translate the Hebrew word for "generations" in the ancient
 Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament.

 Thus, the division from Genesis 2:4b to Genesis 5:1 ends with the
 statement: "This is the book of the generations of Adam."  ("Note that
 it was a "book," therefore it refers to an actual written document of
 some kind.)  This division narrates those events with which Adam, and
 only Adam, could have been familiar--the description of the garden of
 Eden, the manner of his own creation, as well as that of Eve, the
 temptation and fall, God's curse on him and his dominion, the expulsion
 from Eden, and the history of Cain and Abel.

 A similar analysis could be made of each of the other divisions.  All
 of this leads to the significant conclusion that the events of the very
 earliest ages of the history of man and his world were written by
 eyewitnesses of the events!  We are not at all dependent upon age-long
 traditions, handed down with continuing embellishment by word-of-mouth,
 but rather on direct, first-hand observations and reliable records,
 recorded originally on stone tablets by the ancient patriarchs
 themselves.  These were transmitted down through the line of patriarchs
 from Adam to Noah, then to Shem, Abraham, and finally to Moses.  The
 latter then brought them all together with appropriate editorial
 transitions and explanations into the book of Genesis as we now have
 it.  And, of course, assuring the absolute accuracy and integrity of
 the entire work was the guiding inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

 It is noteworthy that the very first of the divisions, Genesis 1:1-2:3,
 describing the work of the six days of creation, does not name a human
 author in its subscript.  Instead it says: "These are the generations
 of the heavens and the earth, when they were created"  (Genesis 2:4a).
 Obviously no human writer, not even Adam, was present to observe most
 of the great events of the six days.  This record could only have come
 by direct revelation from God Himself, who was the only one there.
 Perhaps it was even written on stone by the very "finger of God," as
 was later true with the Ten Commandments (Exodus 31:18).  In either
 case, this marvellous first chapter of the Bible was written in a more
 direct way by God Himself than probably any other portion of Scripture.
 It is thus absolutely true in its facts and clear in its meaning, and
 men who reject it or "explain" it away, or ignore it, are presumptuous
 in the highest degree before God.
08704
 \\4. Question:\\ How does the Bible explain the origin of different races?"\\

 \\Answer:\\ The concept of "race" is biological, not biblical.  There
 is no mention of different races, as such, in the Bible, nor even of
 the very concept of a "race."  Evidently, there is no biblical or
 theological meaning to the term, and we must conclude, therefore, that
 races are purely arbitrary entities invented by man for his own
 convenience in biological and anthropological studies.

 Biologically a race is generally thought of as a variety, or
 sub-species, within a given species.  In terms of evolutionary
 philosophy, it may represent a stage in the evolution of a new species.
 Thus different sub-species within a species may vary in their
 respective degrees of evolutionary advance over the ancestral species,
 depending upon the relative efficiencies with which the postulated
 evolutionary mechanisms of mutation, segregation, natural selection,
 etc., have been functioning in each case.

 This leads to the observation that racism, in the sense of struggle
 between races and the conviction that one race is superior to others,
 must be based on evolutionism, not on theism.  Evolutionary scientists
 may not all be "racist" in their personal or political philosophies.
 Nevertheless, the various philosophies that have promoted racism have,
 quite understandably, used the supposed universal evolutionary process
 as their intellectual framework for such a position.  Nazism and
 Marxism are two notable examples.

 The testimony of the Bible, however, is that all men who have ever
 lived in the world are descendants of Adam and, therefore, are of
 essentially the same race--the human race.  "God hath made of one blood
 all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth"  (Acts
 17:26).  Furthermore, all men in the present world are also descendants
 of Noah, after the great Flood.  Before the Flood, God had said: "The
 end of all flesh is come before me; . . . behold, I will destroy them
 with the earth" (Genesis 6:13).  Then, later the Bible says: All flesh
 died that moved upon the earth. . . and every man" (Genesis 7:21).
 After the Flood, "God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be
 fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth" (Genesis 9:1).  Finally
 the Bible says: "And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the Ark, were
 Shem, and Ham, and Japeth . . . and of them was the whole earth
 overspread" (Genesis 9:18,19).

 Now although the Scriptures do not mention races, they do have a great
 deal to say about nations and languages.  These distinctions are even
 noted in heaven.  In Revelation 7:9, the vision of the heavenly throng
 was given as of "a great multitude, of all nations, and kindreds, and
 people, and tongues."  The description of the eternal city includes
 this remarkable statement: "And the nations of them which are saved
 shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring
 their glory and honour into it" (Revelation 21:24).  Thus, in some
 sense, national identities are to be retained, even in the ages to
 come.

 The most distinctive characteristic, and the most divisive, possessed
 by various groups among men, is not skin color or physical size, or
 some other physical trait, but language.  Communication is of paramount
 importance for understanding and harmony, and language is certainly the
 most basic element in communication.

 The origin of human language, and especially of the tremendous diversity
 of human languages, is as yet quite inexplicable to the evolutionist.
 {[4] The author's book, \\The Trouble Waters of Evolution\\ (San
 Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1975) contains additional
 discussion (pp. 161-165) on the origin of races and languages.
 Also see \\The Biblical Basis for Modern Science\\, pp. 426-436.} There
 is nothing even remotely comparable to such an ability among the
 higher animals.  That human speech and language are divine creations is
 by far the most reasonable explanation.  Furthermore, the fact that the
 great variety of languages reflects a divine judgment on early man, as
 the Bible teaches, is also the most reasonable explanation we have.

 After the Flood, when "the whole earth was one language and one speech"
 (Genesis 11:1), men disobeyed God's command to scatter and fill the
 earth, preferring to remain together and erect a single great world
 empire, with its capital at the first Babylon, and centered in the
 worship of the "host of heaven."  For this purpose they erected a
 gigantic temple tower, or ziggurat, at whose apex was a shrine
 dedicated "unto heaven," undoubtedly inscribed with the signs of the
 Zodiac and other astrological emblems.  The "host of heaven,"
 frequently mentioned in the Bible, refers both to the stars and to the
 angelic and demonic host identified with the heavenly bodies.  The
 great Tower of Babel, therefore (part of which may still be standing in
 or near the ruins of Babylon), was essentially a temple dedicated to
 Satan worship and evolutionary pantheism.

 God's judgment on this great rebellion was to "scatter them abroad from
 thence upon the face of all the earth," through "confounding their
 language, they may not understand one another's speech" (Genesis
 11:7,8).  This must have been some kind of physiologic miracle, an
 instant change in those centers of the brain controlling speech, so
 that each family suddenly found itself identifying various objects and
 actions with different words and tones than other families used.  The
 confusion and incoherent arguments which resulted finally led each
 family to go its own way and eventually to establish its own national
 and linguistic identity.

 Since physiologic changes were necessarily involved in this sudden
 confusion of tongues, it may well have been that still other
 physiologic changes were also induced by God at the same time, in order
 to hasten the establishment of each group as a distinct national
 entity.  Whether or not this is the case, it is certainly true that the
 development of specific national, or even what we call "racial" traits,
 could not take place as long as men lived together and inter-married
 freely.  A certain amount of isolation and national inbreeding is
 genetically essential for the establishment of particular
 characteristics in a nation or race.  Thus, these could not have
 developed until after mankind was dispersed from its first
 post-diluvian home in Babylon.

 Even apart from the miraculous changes suggested above, such
 characteristics could have developed quite rapidly, assuming that the
 different genetic factors (for skin color, stature, hair texture, and
 the like) were present in the ancestral stock, and that isolation and
 selection pressures of some kind--whether climatic or social or
 others--operated in favor of certain characteristics in each tribe.
 These, however, are all basically superficial and could never result
 in a new "kind" of man.

 All nations are alike before God in that all are in need of a Savior,
 and in that all can come to the Savior if they will.  "For God so loved
 the world, the He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth
 on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
08705
 \\5. Question:\\ Was the long day of Joshua a fact of history or only
              a legend?"

 \\Answer:\\ The account of the "long day," as found in the tenth
 chapter of Joshua is certainly one of the most remarkable records in
 the Bible.  That a day could actually have been extended, even through
 the length of another whole day, as indicated in Joshua, seems
 impossible and unbelievable.

 And yet it is found in the Word of God!  Furthermore, it is found in
 the context of the other events in Israel's conquest of Canaan, the
 general outline of which has been remarkably confirmed by archaeological
 discoveries in recent years.  Dr. Nelson Glueck, probably the greatest
 modern Palestinian archaeologist, President of the Hebrew Union College,
 has written: "As a matter of fact, it may be stated categorically that
 no archaeological findings have been made which conflict in clear
 outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible."  {[5}
 \\Rivers in the Desert,\\ p.31.}

 According to the narrative, God caused the day to be lengthened in
 order that the army of Israel could complete the conquest of the
 Amorite forces before they could escape and re-group under cover of
 darkness.  This was a key battle in the Canaanite campaign, and its
 outcome would determine whether or not Israel could win the promised
 land.

 Thus the integrity of God's promises was at stake here, as well as the
 vindication of His moral law.  He had, at one time, delayed the
 occupation of the land by Abraham's descendants, because, as He
 said, "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (Genesis 15:16).
 But by Joshua's time, their wickedness and degeneracy were so pervasive
 and irreversible (a fact increasingly being confirmed by archaeological
 research into their cultures) that considerations of mercy, for their
 neighbors and even for their descendants, dictated their removal.

 There was thus adequate reason for God to intervene in any way
 appropriate to accomplish His purposes--first, in the destruction of
 Amorite power and influence, and second, in the fulfillment of His
 promises to the seed of Jacob.  The reason for using the sun in such an
 unusual way to do this, quite possibly, was because the Amorites were
 sun-worshippers.  For the chief object of their worship to be used as
 an agent in their defeat must have implied that the God of Israel was
 the true God, not only to the Amorites themselves but also to the
 other peoples of the region who had been intimidated by them.

 It is noteworthy that the Bible is not the only ancient record of the
 long day.  As a matter of fact, traditions of a long day (or of a long
 night, among the American Indians and the South Sea Islanders) are
 quite common among early nations and tribes.  Immanuel Velikovsky, in
 his book \\WORLDS IN COLLISION\\, {[6] \\Worlds in Collision\\ (New
 York: Doubleday, 1950), 401 pp.} gives abundant documentation of this
 fact, as have many other writers.  It is difficult to account for the
 widespread incidence of such an unlikely narrative unless it is based
 on an actual fact of early human history.  Whatever the cause, the
 event itself seems really to have occurred. {[7] Recent widely
 circulated reports that computer calculations made in connection with
 the space program had turned up a missing day in astronomic history
 are, unfortunately, not factual.  The nature of the phenomenon would
 preclude its identification by such means as this, regardless of
 whether or not it actually occurred.}

 One common criticism of the Biblical record of the long day is that its
 language is unscientific.  It says, for example, that "the sun stood
 still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole
 day" (Joshua 10:13).  Critics say that the earth, rather than the sun,
 would have to "stand still" for the day to be prolonged, since normally
 its axial rotation controls the length of the day.

 But such a criticism itself is unscientific!  All motion is relative
 motion, and the sun is moving as well as the earth.  No one knows where
 in the universe there may be a fixed point of zero motion.  That being
 so, all velocities must necessarily be measured with respect to some
 arbitrarily assumed fixed reference point.  The proper point to choose
 is normally the one which is most convenient to the observer.  In the
 case of the relative motion of the sun and the earth to each other, it
 is almost always most convenient (and therefore most "scientific") to
 consider the earth as fixed and the sun as moving around it.  Joshua's
 language, therefore, is perfectly modern and correct.

 As a matter of fact, since the account says that the moon also stood
 still (Joshua 10:13), it may be that the entire solar system stopped in
 its tracks for a day, with all relative positions and motions simply
 suspended.  This seems no more difficult to believe than that only the
 earth stopped rotating.

 The natural reaction to the idea of a "long day" is one of incredulity,
 of course.  It would certainly constitute an amazing miracle.  The
 Bible itself says "there was no day like that before it or after it"
 (Joshua 10:14).

 But to deny the possibility of the miraculous (and, after all, how do
 we measure the dynamics of one miracle against another?) is to deny the
 existence of God.  That the earth should stop rotating on its axis for
 a time is no more inexplicable than that it should start rotating in
 the beginning.  The Creator who started it could also stop it if He so
 desired.  The question is not whether an alleged miracle could occur,
 but whether it did occur.  The testimony of Scripture, as well as the
 many supporting traditions, confirms that it did.

 There was presumably a gradual deceleration of the motions, rather than
 instantaneous, so that no catastrophic geologic changes need have been
 cause by the long day.  However, the circulation of the atmosphere and
 the hydrologic cycle are both controlled to some extent by the earth's
 rotation, so that such an event would undoubtedly disturb the
 atmosphere to a profound degree.  This is indirectly confirmed by the
 devastating hail storm which accompanied the long day as recorded in
 the Bible (Joshua 10:11) and by the many evidences of atmospheric
 violence noted by Velikovsky in his collection of ancient traditions of
 the miracle.

 Although no amount of evidence could prove a miracle to someone who
 does not want to believe they can occur, there is certainly adequate
 reason for the Bible-believing Christian to accept Joshua's long day as
 a real fact of history.
08706
 \\6. Question:\\ "How could Jonah survive three days and three nights in the
              belly of a whale?"

 \\Answer:\\ This is one of the Bible stories most ridiculed by people
 who consider themselves sophisticated and intellectual.  Sceptics say
 that no whale could swallow a man in the first place, and, even if he
 did, the man would certainly never survive three days and three nights
 in his belly, as the Bible claims.

 "Christian liberals" have attempted to avoid this problem by saying
 that the story of Jonah was only an allegory and was never meant to be
 understood as actual history.  However, whenever the Bible writers used
 allegories or parables or other symbolic stories, they always either
 said so or else made it evident in the context.  The book of Jonah is
 certainly written as though it were actual history.  Jonah was a real
 prophet who is mentioned also in II Kings 14:25.  None of the ancient
 Jews or early Christians ever doubted the authenticity and historicity
 of the book of Jonah and its story.

 Most importantly, the Lord Jesus Christ accepted the account as true.
 He said that the people of Nineveh repented of their sins as a
 consequence of his preaching (Matthew 12:41).  He even said: "For as
 Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall
 the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the
 earth" (Matthew 12:40).  Thus Christ actually compared Jonah's
 experience to His own coming death and resurrection, pointing out the
 miraculous nature of both.  One cannot deny the actuality of Jonah's
 experience, therefore, without charging the Lord Jesus Christ with
 either deception or ignorance, either of which is equivalent to denying
 His deity.

 There is little question that the event was a miracle, but this fact
 certainly does not disprove it!  The account, in fact, says as much:
 "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.  And Jonah
 was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights" (Jonah
 1:17).  Later it says: "And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it
 vomited out Jonah upon the dry land" (Jonah 2:10).  God was certainly
 able to accomplish this if He wished; to deny the possibility of
 miracles is atheism.  The actual occurrence of this particular miracle
 is adequately attested by the very fact of its record in the Holy
 Scriptures, and is doubly confirmed by the testimony of Christ.

 The "great fish" may have been either a whale or a shark or even a fish
 specially prepared by the Lord for this purpose.  (The Hebrew and Greek
 words that are used merely mean "a great aquatic animal.")  Some
 species of whales and some species of sharks are quite capable of
 swallowing a man whole.  Among these are the sperm whale, the white
 shark, and the whale shark, all of which have been found with whole
 animals as large or larger than a man in their stomachs.

 As a matter of fact, there are some cases recorded in whaling history
 even of men swallowed whole by these great animals!  In at least two
 well-documented cases, the men were later rescued and survived. {[8]
 See Bernard Ramm, \\The Christian View of Science and Scripture\\
 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954), pp.296-298; G. c.
 Aalders, \\The Problem of the Book of Jonah\\ (London: Tyndale Press,
 1948), p.6; Harry Rimmer, \\The Harmony of Science & Scripture\\ (Grand
 Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1936), chapter 5.}

 As to whether a man could survive "three days and three nights" under
 such conditions, there are three possible answers that could be
 suggested in defense of the biblical narrative.  In the first place, it
 has been well established that the phrase "three days and three nights"
 in ancient Hebrew usage was an idiomatic expression meaning simply
 "three days," and was applicable even if the beginning and ending days
 of the period were only partial days.  Thus it could refer to a period
 as short as about 38 hours.  At least one man in modern times (James
 Bartley, in 1895) is known to have survived a day and a half in a whale
 before being rescued.  There is always some air in the whale's stomach,
 and, as long as the animal it has swallowed is still alive, digestive
 activity will not begin.  Thus Jonah's experience could possibly have
 happened entirely within the framework of natural law.

 It is more likely, however, that the event involved a divine miracle,
 as the Scripture strongly implies.  The "great fish" was prepared and
 sent by God, as was the intense storm that threatened the ship on which
 Jonah was traveling.  The storm ceased as soon as Jonah was cast
 overboard (Jonah 1.4,15).  In like manner, it was quite probable that
 God preserved Jonah's life miraculously all through the horrifying
 experience.

 A third possibility is that Jonah actually suffocated and died in the
 great fish and then God later brought him back from the dead.  There
 are at least eight other such "resuscitations" recorded in the Bible,
 as well as the glorious bodily resurrection of Christ--of which Jonah's
 experience in particular was said by Christ to be a prophetic sign.

 This is implied also by Jonah's prayer, when he said: ". . . out of the
 belly of hell (i.e., "sheol," the place of departed spirits) cried I,
 and thou heardest my voice" (Jonah 2:2).  In any case, it was a mighty
 experience, evidently well known and certified in his day, probably
 contributing in significant degree to the fact that all the people of
 Nineveh repented and turned to God (Jonah 3:5) when Jonah returned
 "from the dead," as it were, to preach to them.

 Even in Jesus's day, it was so well known that He could use it as a
 "sign" of His own impending death and resurrection, which were to
 constitute God's crowning proof of the deity of His Son and the great
 work of salvation which He would accomplish on the cross for all who
 would receive Him.  "God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent:
 Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world
 in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath
 given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead"
 (Acts 17:30,31).
08707
 \\7. Question:\\ "Are there intelligent beings on other planets?"

 \\Answer:\\ It is impossible to prove a universal negative, but there
 is not as yet even the slightest evidence, either biblical or
 scientific, that there are men like us inhabiting other planets or
 star systems.  There is an abundance of pseudo-scientific speculation
 of this sort, but the hard evidence is against it.

 Life, at least such as we know it, requires a very complex combination
 of environmental factors to be possible, and only this planet, so far
 as is known, provides this combination.  Water must be abundant, for
 example.  Little if any water exists on the moon, or Mars, or Venus, or
 the other planets, and certainly not in liquid form.  The temperatures
 on all the other known planets are either too cold or too hot for life
 in any higher form comparable to the earth's human life.

 In addition, many complex chemicals must be present in abundance in
 order to support the life process.  An atmosphere essentially like our
 own would also have to be present.  In general, life in any form
 comparable to human life would require a planet essentially the same as
 our own planet in every respect.  There is no evidence, however, other
 than speculation, that such a planet exists anywhere else in the
 universe.

 The main reason that men keep wishfully searching for evidence of
 extraterrestrial life is that this would give support to their
 evolutionary philosophy.  That is, if life is just a product of
 natural chemical developments here on earth, as the leaders of
 evolutionary thought insist, then the same chance developments should
 also have taken place in other places in the universe, they feel, in
 view of the almost infinite number of other stars.  Nevertheless, the
 actual evidence remains massively negative.

 As far as the Scriptures are concerned, they teach unequivocally that
 the earth is uniquely the abode of man.  "The heaven, even the heavens,
 are the Lord's, the earth hath He given to the children of men" (Psalm
 115:16)  "God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all
 the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed,
 and the bounds of their habitation" (Acts 17:20).

 It was to this earth, alone among all the uncounted billions of
 heavenly bodies, that God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, came
 down to suffer and die for man's salvation.  "And no man hath ascended
 up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man,
 which is in heaven" (John 3:13).  The earth may not be the center of
 the universe (though no one knows, of course, where such a center might
 be), but it is certainly the center of interest of the universe!  "In
 this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent
 His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him"
 (I John 4:9).  It seems grotesque and blasphemous to suggest that the
 tragedy of Calvary's cross should be repeated on millions of other
 planets, for the benefit of other unknown and hypothetical members of
 God's creation.

 The earth, as the astronauts observed, is uniquely beautiful and
 uniquely equipped as man's home.  Though it is small, it is of
 infinitely more complex organization and variety than even the largest
 stars, composed as they are mostly of the simplest elements, hydrogen
 and helium.

 Since the sun and moon were made specifically to "give light upon the
 earth" (Genesis 1:15), it may be possible that the moon, and even the
 solar system, were within the "dominion" which man was commissioned by
 God ultimately to "subdue," by his science and technology (Genesis
 1:28).  This is uncertain, but it is at least clear that the other
 stars, the nearest of which is four light-years away, are well beyond
 man's power ever to explore directly, or to control, in the present
 order of things.

 Why, then, did God create them?  What is the purpose, in God's wisdom,
 for the tremendous number and variety of stars, and perhaps a still
 greater number of planets (though the existence of these is
 speculative, based only on analogy with the solar system) throughout
 the vast universe?

 We can only give tentative suggestions, of course, but it is well to
 remember that God is still the Creator, and there are endless ages of
 eternity ahead of us.  Even though, for the moment, the only obvious
 function of the stellar heavens is to reflect the infinite power and
 grandeur of their Creator, it may well be that they are awaiting more
 specific uses by Him in the ages to come, after the completion of His
 redemptive program for the earth and men.

 It is also possible, that, even now, they have some relationship to the
 angels of God.  This may be implied by the fact that angels are often
 called "stars" in Scriptures (e.g., Job 38.7; Isaiah 14:12, 13;
 Revelation 12:4, 9; 9:1; etc.) and that the phrase "host of heaven" is
 applied both to the stars and to the angelic hosts (e.g, Jeremiah
 33:22; II Chronicles 18:18).  The worship of the stars, which has
 always been a characteristic of polytheism, has, in reality, been a
 worship of angels (or "gods"), especially those angels who have followed
 Satan in his great rebellion against the true God (note II Kings 17:16;
 Colossians 2:18; I Corinthians 10:20, etc.).  It seems possible, at
 least, that this frequent identification of stars and angels is more
 than mere poetic imagery; possibly angels, who are mighty spiritual
 beings created by the "Lord of hosts," have their primary sphere of
 operations in the heavens, in the stars.  The Bible says, "(He) maketh
 His angels spirits and His ministers a flaming fire" (Psalm 104:4;
 Hebrews 12:22) that "do His commandments" (Psalm 103:20).

 Thus, although it is all but certain that no other man-like creatures
 {[9] See \\The Troubled Waters of Evolution,\\ pp. 168-171.  Also see
 \\King of Creation\\ (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1980), pp.
 6-17.} inhabit other worlds, it is true that in God's universe, and
 possibly on the stars themselves, there exists a vast host of
 intelligent and powerful beings, the angels of God.  Though it is
 futile to try to establish contact with them by such devices as
 space-ships and radio telescopes, we can communicate with God Himself
 through prayer and through His Word, by faith, and the angels are "sent
 forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation" (Hebrews
 1:14).
08708
 next 8750
08749
 next 8707