Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/online/topics06/t08800

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08800
 \\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) Where did the nations come from?                         8807
08801
 \\1. Question:\\ "When did the world begin?"

 \\Answer:\\ According to Scripture, "in six days the Lord made heaven
 and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" (Exodus 20:11).  These
 words were written on a tablet of stone by God Himself (Exodus 31:18),
 and it is therefore presumptuous for man to question it.  Nor can the
 word "days" be interpreted as "ages."  The Hebrew word (yamim) is used
 more than 700 times in the Old Testament and always, without exception,
 {[1} One possible exception might be claimed, in Hosea 6:2.  This
 passage also probably refers to literal days, but since it is a
 prophecy yet awaiting future fulfillment, this cannot be conclusively
 demonstrated either way in terms of actual history.  See also chapter
 7, Footnote number 9.} means literal solar "days" and nothing else, as
 anyone can verify by consulting an exhaustive concordance of Old
 Testament word usage.

    Nevertheless, most people today believe that it took drastically
 longer than a mere "six days" to make the universe.  The consistent
 materialist, in fact, believes that matter is eternal, that the solar
 system is almost five billion years old, that life began on earth about
 three billion years ago, and that modern man finally evolved about a
 million years ago.

    This vast time span is, of course, necessary for any viable theory
 of evolution.  And of course evolution is absolutely essential if men
 are going to reject the Biblical doctrine of special creation, as our
 modern political and intellectual establishment has chosen to do.

    Nevertheless, it should be obvious that it is quite impossible to
 prove, scientifically, the age of the earth or how long it took to
 bring it into its present form.  Science is built upon direct
 observation of natural processes, and on experimental verification of
 hypotheses.  Nothing is more impossible now than to observe,
 experimentally, the origin of the solar system or the evolution of man
 or the development of life over the geological ages!  Consequently,
 speculations on these subjects are necessarily outside the scope of
 genuine science.

    Written historical records (apart from those in the Bible) extend
 back only about four thousand years.  Events which may have occurred
 before that time, therefore, can be verified neither by historical
 description nor by scientific repetition.  They must be accepted on
 faith, and \\only\\ on faith!  That faith may be placed either in the
 divinely inspired Biblical record of those events or else in the
 uniformitarian extrapolations of present processes by modern
 evolutionists.  This is a spiritual decision, not a scientific
 decision!

    The Bible clearly teaches a relatively recent creation of all
 things, measured in thousands rather than billions of years.  In order
 to provide the immense ages required by evolution, the principle of
 "uniformitarianism" is employed, according to which the entire history
 of the earth is to be explained in terms of the process operating at
 present, and at approximately the same rates as at present.

    However, even on this assumption (which is obviously a pure
 assumption, quite impossible to prove) there is ample reason to
 question the orthodox evolutionary history of the earth.  Practically
 all of the earth's surface rocks and physiographic feature (e.g., the
 great orogenic and tectonic movements by which mountains were formed,
 the tremendous volcanic terrains, the evidences of continental
 glaciation, the vast thickness of sediments in alluvial valleys and
 high plains, etc., etc.) must have required geophysical phenomena of
 character and intensity utterly beyond anything ever actually observed
 taking place in the present relatively inactive world.

    Even the radioactive dating techniques which are used to "prove"
 these vast ages are highly vulnerable {[2] See \\The Genesis Flood\\,
 by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris (Nutley, N. J.: Presbyterian
 and Reformed Publishing Co., 1961), 518 pp., for a detailed and
 documented critique of uniformitarianism and geologic dating criteria.}
 on a logical basis.  The method of radiocarbon dating, for example,
 which has been widely used to "date" events over the past 50,000 years,
 involves at least a dozen unprovable assumptions.  One of these
 assumptions is that, on a global basis, radiocarbon has attained
 equilibrium with natural carbon, with as much radiocarbon now being
 formed in the upper atmosphere as is presently decaying throughout the
 world.  Actual measurements, however, have indicated that such
 equilibrium has \\not\\ yet been attained and that in fact the present
 state of non-equilibrium corresponds to a maximum age of only about
 6,000 years for the beginning of the atmosphere itself!  All so-called
 "radiocarbon ages," therefore, should accordingly be drastically
 reduced.

    Similarly, the widely used potassium-argon method involves many
 assumptions and uncertainties.  In fact, it can at best be only as
 reliable as the uranium-lead method by which it must be calibrated.

    But the uranium methods likewise involve numerous assumptions! For
 example, it is well known that radiogenic lead can be added to a
 uranium mineral system by external processes and that uranium can
 easily be leached out of such a system, either of which would make the
 "apparent age" of the system immensely greater than its "true age."

    In general, it is evident that for any geophysical process to be a
 valid means of measuring prehistoric time, it must satisfy at least the
 following three conditions: (1) the relative amounts of "parent" and
 "daughter" products must be measured in the system at the beginning of
 the decay process (but this is impossible, since that was supposedly
 millions of years ago!); (2) the decay process converting "parent" into
 "daughter" must never have changed its rate (but there is no such thing
 in nature as an unchangeable process rate, and this is especially
 cogent in view of current ideas concerning geomagnetic reversals,
 intermittent showers of intense cosmic radiation from space, etc.); and
 (3) the system being used must have remained a perfectly "closed"
 system during all the changes of geologic history since it was first
 formed, unmodified by any external activities (but there is no such
 thing in nature as a truly closed system, and this is especially true
 for a geological system).

    If one wants to base his evolutionary faith on such uniformitarian
 assumptions, this is a free country!  But he should recognize that this
 is no more "scientific" than faith in the historical chronology
 recorded by divine inspiration in the Holy Scriptures.
08802
 \\2. Question:\\ "Where did Cain get his wife?"

 \\Answer:\\ This is certainly one of the most ancient of all questions
 raised by Bible critics, and we can be sure that the superficial
 contradiction it implies did not escape notice by the original writers
 of the Bible.  Cain was apparently the first son of Adam and Eve
 (Genesis 4:1) and Abel the second (Genesis 4:2).

    After Cain had murdered his brother Abel (Genesis 4:8), God
 punished him by sending him away from his home and from God's presence
 forever.  But then we are told that Cain was fearful of vengeance by
 others who might slay him (Genesis 4:14), that he knew his wife
 (Genesis 4:17), and even that he built a city.  The descendants of Cain
 and the antediluvian civilization which they developed are described in
 Genesis 4:17-24.

    Sceptics have "wondered" where all those other people came from if
 no one except Adam, Eve, and Cain were living at this time.  The idea
 that there might have been in the vicinity a "pre-Adamic" race of men
 is clearly precluded by the unequivocal Bible teaching that Adam was
 the "first man" (I Corinthians 15:45, etc.) and that Eve was "the
 mother of all living" (Genesis 3:20).

    However, the real reason for this criticism is merely the evolution-
 ary presupposition that such critics hold.  They are unwilling to
 believe that God started the human race by special creation of one man
 and one woman, preferring instead to believe that man came instead as a
 slowly evolving population of primates which eventually acquired what
 we consider human characteristics about one million years ago.

    However, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was Himself man's Creator in the
 beginning (note John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:16,17,etc.), taught otherwise.
 He said: "Have ye not read (that is, in Genesis 1:27, which He was
 quoting) that He which made them at the beginning made them male and
 female, . . ?" (Matthew 19:4).  Thus the creation of Adam and Eve, as
 the progenitors of the human race, was "at the beginning," not after
 millions of years of evolution of a pre-human population of animals.

    In the beginning, according to Scripture, man was created "very
 good" and would have lived forever had he not sinned.  But, "by one man
 sin entered into the world, and death by sin" (Romans 5:12).  Even
 after the reign of decay and death entered the world at the time of
 God's great Curse on man's dominion (Genesis 3:17), most men did live
 for hundreds of years and undoubtedly had large families.  Adam and Eve
 are said to have had both "sons and daughters" (Genesis 5:4) during the
 930 years of Adam's lifetime, and the same is true of each of the other
 antediluvian patriarchs listed in the genealogies of Genesis 5.  The
 average life-span of these patriarchs (excluding Enoch, who was taken
 out of the world before he died) is 912 years.

    The question of how man was able to live to such great ages is a
 separate problem, which will be discussed later.  Taking the record at
 face value, however, it is obvious that a very large population could
 have developed in the world before the Flood.  It can be shown that,
 based on very conservative assumptions as to family size, average
 longevity, etc., there could easily have been many millions of people
 in the world long before Cain's death.

    Since the Bible does not indicate at what period of life he murdered
 his brother, took his wife, or built his city, there is obviously no
 contradiction in the record.  Consequently, neither the original writer
 of Genesis 4 nor any later editors ever felt this was a problem that
 needed explanation.

    Now, at least one son and one daughter of Adam and Eve had to marry
 each other in the first generation after the beginning in order for the
 race to get started at all.  There is no other possibility if all men
 are descended from Adam and Eve as the Bible teaches.

    In later generations, brother-sister marriages would come to be
 recognized as genetically dangerous and would be prohibited as
 "incest."  Not only the Bible but also most other legal codes refuse to
 sanction marriages of close relatives.  The scientific reason for this
 restriction is that children of such marriages are more likely to be
 deformed or sickly or moronic than those of other marriages.  The
 genetic basis for this probability is that inherited mutant genes,
 producing such unwholesome characteristics, are more likely to find
 expression in the children if they are carried by both parents.

    However, there were no mutant genes in the genetic systems of Adam
 and Eve, as these had come directly from the creative hand of God
 Himself.  Thus no genetic harm could have resulted had Cain or some
 other son of Adam married his sister.  In fact, it would undoubtedly
 have taken many generations before enough genetic mutations (which are
 random, and therefore harmful, changes in the highly ordered structure
 of the germ cell, brought about by penetration of the cell by
 shortwave-length radiation or some other destructive agent) could have
 accumulated in the human race to make such marriages of close relatives
 genetically harmful.

    The Bible is thus always consistent, not only with its own
 statements, but also with all known facts of science.
08803
 \\3. Question:\\ "How was it possible for men to live hundreds of years
            before the Flood?"

 \\Answer:\\ One of the remarkable things about the record of the early
 chapters of Genesis is the straightforward simplicity with which the
 writer recorded certain amazing and almost unbelievable facts of
 history.  One would think that if Genesis were really written in some
 late period in Jewish history, as critics allege, the writer would have
 interjected some explanatory comment or at least some expression of
 wonder at the uniqueness of the phenomena he was describing.

    But instead he wrote the account in the most simple and straight-
 forward way possible, as a sober historian or news reporter would do,
 with no attempt whatever to justify or explain events which would seem
 almost incredible to later generations.

    Thus, in Genesis 5 appears a simple chronological and genealogical
 table, sketching the line of the antediluvian patriarchs from the first
 man, Adam, down to Noah.  The age of each man at the birth of the next
 son in the patriarchal line given, and also the age of each man when
 he died.  This would be very dull and uninteresting, were it not for
 the remarkable fact that the age of each at his death was many hundreds
 of years!

    Adam lived 930 years, Methuselah lived 969 years, and the average
 age of the nine antediluvian patriarchs (excluding Enoch, who was--
 also matter of factly--taken into heaven without dying, at age 365) was
 912 years.  The only logical explanation for reporting these amazing
 facts in such a mundane fashion is that, when the original writer
 recorded them they were not unusual at all, but common experience.  As
 pointed out in Chapter 6, Question 3, these accounts in the early
 chapters of Genesis were probably eyewitness accounts, written
 originally on stone tablets and then transmitted down the line of the
 patriarchs until they finally came into Moses' possession, who
 collected and edited them as the book of Genesis.

    That these ages are given in terms of real years, and not months as
 some have suggested, is evident from the ages of the fathers at the
 birth of their sons, ranging from 65 years in the case of Mahalaleel
 and Enoch to 500 years in the case of Noah.  Another proof of this is
 the fact that, after the Flood, the life-span began a slow and erratic
 decline from 950 years for Noah to 205 years for Terah (as recorded in
 Genesis 11), and eventually down to about 70 years at the time of Moses
 (note Psalm 90:10).

    Evidently something happened at the time of the Flood that affected
 the human environment drastically, gradually accelerating the aging
 process and the onset of death.  Although we cannot be sure what this
 was, there are certain interesting intimations in both science and
 Scripture which provide at least a plausible hypothesis.

     No one knows, of course, even today exactly what causes death.
 There seems to be no necessary, innate reason why man could not live
 hundreds of years.  As a matter of fact, he was originally created as
 an immortal being, and death came only as a judgment of God upon sin.
 "Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by
 sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned"
 (Romans 5:12).

    Now a remarkable fact brought to light by modern gerontology (the
 study of aging processes) is that probably no one actually dies simply
 of old age.  Rather, aging so increases susceptibility to disease and
 so decreases the operational efficiency of bodily organs and functions
 that, finally, there is a complete breakdown of some particular aspect
 of the body's mechanism, and this causes death.  This may happen
 earlier or later in various individuals, but eventually it happens to
 all.

    The fundamental factor in longevity, therefore, is the rate of the
 aging process and the environmental influences which affect it.  There
 are various theories of aging, but the one apparently supported by the
 best evidence is the somatic mutation theory.  A somatic mutation is a
 sudden, random change in the structure of a cell of the body.  Since
 almost all mutations are harmful, the gradual accumulation of mutations
 in the cells of various organs and tissues will inevitably lead to
 impaired bodily efficiency and eventually to complete breakdown of one
 or more bodily components.

    Now various environmental factors may cause mutation, but probably
 the most important is radiation, both from the sun and from other
 radiational sources.  Radiations also cause genetic mutations in the
 germ cells, although these are much better shielded that the somatic,
 or body, cells.  Though much less frequent than somatic mutations for
 this reason, genetic mutations, which are also almost always harmful,
 are transmitted to the children and thus affect not only the
 individual, but also all his descendants.

    It seems reasonable to suggest, therefore, that somatic mutations
 lead to the aging and death of the individual, and genetic mutations
 to the aging and death of the species, with both primarily attributable
 to radiations in the environment.  Other facts also are involved, of
 course, but this seems to be the most universally prevalent cause.

    Before the Flood, the "waters above the firmament" (Genesis 1:7)
 probably were in the form of a vast blanket of invisible water vapor in
 the upper atmosphere.  Not only would this have produced a wonderful
 "greenhouse effect," maintaining a mild and calm climate over all the
 world, but also it would have provided a highly efficient filter for
 the lethal radiations bombarding the earth from outer space.

     Thus the "background radiation" of the environment before the Flood
 was much less than it is at present, and this could certainly have
 contributed significantly to the long ages of men before the Flood.
 These upper waters later condensed and fell to the earth as one of the
 causes of the great Flood, and so are no longer available for this
 function in full.  However, even the 1-1/2" of water vapor remaining in
 the present atmosphere maintains enough of a green house effect and
 radiation filter to sustain life at least in its present less efficient
 and durable form on the earth.  The drastically changed climate and
 denuded earth after the Flood, together with the inbreeding
 necessitated for the very few survivors of the cataclysm, undoubtedly
 also contributed to the general decline in longevity and viability.  In
 any case, there is no good reason to doubt the reasonableness of the
 Biblical record of the antediluvian patriarchs and their great ages.
08804
 \\4. Question:\\ "Was the Biblical Flood worldwide or only a local flood?"

 \\Answer:\\ The Bible writers undoubtedly describe the Flood as
 universal in extent and effect.  Most geologists reject the historicity
 of such a flood, and this has therefore become one of the chief pints
 of conflict between Biblical Christianity and the modern evolutionary
 philosophy.  Some Christian writers have tried to promote the
 compromised view that the Flood was only a great river overflow on the
 Euphrates or some other river in the Middle East.

    However, the Biblical case for a global deluge is quite convincing.
 The following are just a few of the many reasons for this position.
 (1)  More than thirty statements of the universal character of the
      Flood and its effects occur in Genesis 6 through 9.
 (2)  The purpose of the Flood was to destroy not only all mankind, but
      also all animal life on the dry land as well (Genesis 6:7, 6:17,
      7:22).
 (3)  The Flood was even sent to "destroy the earth" (Genesis 6:13).
 (4)  The Flood covered all the mountains (Genesis 7:19,20).
 (5)  The Flood lasted over a year (Genesis 7:11; 8:13).
 (6)  The ark had a volumetric capacity of more than 500 standard
      railroad stock cars, which is far more than adequate to hold two
      of every known species, past or present, of dry land animals.
 (7)  The ark was ridiculously unnecessary for Noah, the animals, and
      especially the birds, to escape from a mere local flood.
 (8)  God's promise (Genesis 8:21; 9:11,15) never again to send such a
      flood has been repeatedly broken if it were only a local flood.
 (9)  All men in the world today are said to have descended from Noah's
      three sons (Genesis 9:1, 19).
 (10) Many later Biblical writers accepted the historicity of the
      worldwide Flood (note Job 12:15; 22:16; Psalm 29:10; 104:6-9;
      Isaiah 54:9; I Peter 3:20; II Peter 2:5; 3:6; Hebrews 11:7).
 (11) The Lord Jesus Christ believed in the universal Flood and took it
      as the type of the coming destruction of the world when He
      returns (Matthew 24:37-39; Like 17:26,27).

    The above and other biblical proofs that could be added, if
 necessary, prove that not only the author of the book of Genesis but
 the other biblical authors as well, and even Jesus Christ Himself,
 accepted the Flood as of worldwide extent and effect.  To this evidence
 could be added the well-known fact that practically all nations and
 tribes in the world have retained some kind of tradition of the Flood
 at the dawn of their history.

    The fact that most modern geologists reject these evidences stems
 from the philosophy of uniformitarianism and evolutionism that has
 formed the backbone of geological interpretations for the past century.
 The uniformity principle, popularized originally by Hutton and Lyell (a
 medical man and a lawyer, respectively), claims that all of earth's
 past history should be explained in terms of ordinary natural processes
 as they occur today.  The evolutionary philosophy popularized by
 Charles Darwin (an apostate divinity student turned naturalist) says
 that the origin or all the forms of life and of life itself must
 likewise be explained in terms of present natural processes.  These two
 philosophies are at the foundation of the evolutionary interpretation
 of the earth's supposed geological ages, and they obviously preclude
 the Biblical record of special creation and the Flood.

    Thus the fossils of former living plants and animals, as found in
 the sedimentary rocks of the earth's crust, are used to "date" the
 rocks and to determine the particular geologic age of the formation
 containing them.  This is done primarily on the assumption that rocks
 containing "simple" fossils must be older, and those containing
 "complex" fossils must be younger, since all things have developed by a
 process of evolution over the ages.

    But then these geological ages and their fossil record supposedly
 provide the best (indeed the only) historical proof of the "fact" of
 evolution over the ages!  This is a notorious case of the flagrant
 circular reasoning that is frequently used for evidence in modern
 scientific philosophy.

    It is significant that, before the time of Lyell and Darwin, and
 their followers and populizers (Marx, Spencer, Huxley, Nietzsche, et
 al.), the dominant theory of geology for the preceding century, that of
 the great awakening in science, had been the Flood theory, which
 understood the sedimentary rocks and their fossil contents as having
 been originally deposited as sediments during the awful year of the
 Great Flood and the century or so following.

    This explanation of the geologic strata was never disproved.  It was
 simply rejected as inconsistent with the philosophies of progress and
 humanism and evolutionary socialism that came into vogue in the
 nineteenth century.

    Actually, there is much evidence that most of the strata must have
 been deposited rapidly, not gradually (otherwise, for example, how
 could their fossil contents have been preserved?)  Furthermore, instead
 of a universal principle of evolutionary progress in the world, the
 Second Law of Thermodynamics combines with all actual human experience
 to indicate rather that there prevails a universal law of decay and
 deterioration in the world.

    Although creationism and catastrophism, as opposed to evolutionary
 uniformitarianism, does represent a minority view in science today, it
 is an increasingly recognized view.  For example, the Creation
 Research Society, organized in 1963, has had over 700 scientists as
 members (M. S. degrees at least) in its membership, committed to belief
 in special creation and the worldwide Flood.  This organization {[3]
 For information or application forms, write: Creation Research Society,
 P. O. Box 14016, Terre Haute, IN 47803.} publishes a quarterly journal
 of scientific articles refuting evolutionism and supporting the
 Biblical record of creation and the Flood.  There is thus not only
 overwhelming Biblical testimony, but also adequate supporting
 scientific data, to warrant acceptance of the Noahic Flood.
08805
 \\5. Question:\\ "How could Noah get two of each of the millions of
               animal species into the ark?'

 \\Answer:\\ This is a standard objection that critics frequently lodge
 against the Biblical record of the Great Flood.  They like to ridicule
 the thought of Noah setting off on trapping expeditions to Alaska and
 Australia, and they especially seem to relish the thought of the
 insuperable difficulties encountered by Noah's family in feeding and
 cleaning up after the animals during their year in the ark!  The fact
 that conservative Christian scholars have answered these objection many
 times in the past is not known to religious "liberals," of course,
 since they almost never read books written by "conservatives."

    Genesis 6:15 gives the dimensions of the ark as 300 cubits by 50
 cubits by 30 cubits, and the cubit was at least 18 inches long.  On
 this basis, the volumetric carrying capacity of the ark can be
 calculated as at least the equivalent of that of 522 standard railroad
 stock cars.  A standard stock car can transport 240 sheep, so that the
 ark could have carried at least 125,000 sheep.  The average dry-land
 animal undoubtedly is considerably smaller than a sheep, as there are
 only a few large animals.

    The ark had to transport only land animals, of course, so that the
 mammals, birds, and reptiles were essentially all that needed
 accommodations.  The ark was constructed in three stories, and each
 was fitted with "rooms" or "nests" (Genesis 6:14)--evidently tiers of
 cages or stalls--to store the different kinds of animals.

    The Genesis "kind" is undoubtedly a more flexible term than our
 biological "species."  However, even assuming they are the same, there
 are not very many species of mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles.
 The leading systematic biologist, Ernst Mayr, gives the number as
 17,600.  Allowing for two of each species on the ark, plus seven of the
 the few so-called "clean" kinds of animals, plus a reasonable increment
 for known extinct species, it is obvious that not more than say, 50,000
 animals were on the ark.  This is obviously much less than the 125,000
 that could easily have been carried.  There was also ample room for
 food storage and for living quarters for Noah and his family.

    In fact, the ark was so commodious that the whole story makes sense
 only if the Flood were a universal flood.  The ark was far too large
 for only local animals.  For that matter, if the Flood were only local,
 no ark would have been needed at all!  The problem of preserving human
 and animal life could have been solved far more easily by merely moving
 out of the endangered flood plains.

    As far as the problem of obtaining the animals is concerned, the
 Lord solved this merely by sending them to Noah (note Genesis 6:20), so
 that he didn't have to go searching for them at all.  Animals can
 migrate long distances, especially when impelled to do so by imminent
 weather changes.  These still-mysterious "instincts" were implanted
 somehow within those animals the Lord wanted preserved, and He thus
 caused them to "come unto" Noah and the place of safety from the
 gathering storm.

    Once they were safely on board, lodged in their stalls, and properly
 fed, most of them very likely settled down for a long period of
 dormancy, or hibernation.  The sudden darkness and chill in the air,
 when "the sluiceways of heaven were opened," quite probably set in
 action those remarkable physiologic powers, which seem to be shared in
 some degree by all orders of the animal kingdom.

    The animal world seems to have, in fact, these two remarkable mech-
 anisms for coping with unfavorable climatic conditions--namely,
 migration and hibernation.  Modern biologists, despite much study, have
 still been unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for the origin
 and operation of these fantastic capabilities.  The known facts fit the
 hypothesis that God imparted these abilities, perhaps by new
 "information" conveyed to the "genetic code" at this time, to those
 animals selected by Him to go to the ark, and their new hibernation
 mechanisms enabled them to pass the awful year of the deluge in
 relative quiet and comfort.  The descendants of those animals that
 "went forth from the ark" have all inherited these capacities in greater
 or lesser degrees, still enabling them, as necessary, to escape
 unfavorable environmental conditions by one or both mechanisms.

    Before the Flood, it is likely that there was worldwide warm,
 pleasant climate.  This is indicated both by the fact that such a
 climate is implied in the fossils and sediments from practically all
 the so-called "geologic ages" prior to the Pleistocene ice age, and
 also by the fact that the Bible record of the "waters above the
 firmament" points to a great antediluvian canopy of invisible water
 vapor in the upper atmosphere which would have produced just such a
 "greenhouse effect" all over the world.

    Thus, before the Flood, animals had no need for migration and
 hibernation, and probably all kinds of animals were dispersed more or less
 uniformly all over the world.  When the thermal vapor blanket condensed
 and precipitated at the time of the Flood, there was a rapid change of
 climate, which led finally to the ice age and then eventually to the
 present climatological regimes of the world.

    Evidence and documentation for all the above and many other aspects
 of the great Flood are given in the writer's book, \\The Genesis Flood\\
 now in its 29th printing.  It is recognized that this is a minority
 view in science (as a matter of fact, Biblical Christians represent a
 minority in any field), but there are hundreds of qualified scientists
 who do agree with it in all essentials.  In any case, the actual
 observed facts agree with it, so far as known at present.  The decision
 to accept or reject any part of the biblical record (confirmed as fully
 historical and factual, even in its stories of Creation and the Flood
 by Christ and His apostles in the New Testament) is therefore not a
 scientific decision at all but a spiritual decision!
08806
 \\6. Question:\\ "Where do the fossils of dinosaurs and other extinct
               animals fit into the Bible record?

 \\Answer:\\ Most of the earth's land surfaces today are underlain by
 sedimentary rocks, which are sediments that have been gradually turned
 into stone through pressure and chemical reactions.  Most sedimentary
 rocks were originally unconsolidated sands and gravels, silts, and
 clays, which were eroded by water, transported by water, and finally
 deposited under water.

    Such sedimentary rocks often contain fossils, which are the remains
 of former living things, in the form of bones, casts, petrifications,
 tracks, or other marks of the organism which formed them.  In fact,
 fossils are very abundant in sedimentary rocks, so much so that they
 are almost universally used as the chief means of identifying the
 geologic "age" of a particular rock.  The study of fossils and their
 supposed evolutionary history is called palaeontology.  Although there
 are actually only a relatively small number of professional
 palaeontologists in the world, this field of study has become of
 critical importance in the standard evolutionary interpretation of
 earth history.

    This is so because the fossil record is by far the most important
 evidence for the theory of evolution.  All other supposed evidence for
 evolution are strictly circumstantial in nature, consisting merely of
 various types of similarities between organisms and various types of
 small biologic changes which may occur in different species.  Such
 evidences as these can, of course, be understood as well or better in
 terms of an original creation of all the basic "kinds" or organisms,
 with degrees of similarity between organisms, in proportion to the
 similarities of function and purpose intended for them by their
 Creator, and with provision in their respective genetic systems for a
 fairly wide range or variation (though always within definite limits)
 in response to environmental changes in time and space.

    The fossil record in the sedimentary rocks, however, is supposed to
 demonstrate the actual evolutionary development of life into more and
 more complex and specialized forms over the vast span of geologic
 time.  Thus the true nature of this fossil record and its proper
 interpretation are critical to the evolution question.

    Fossil assemblages (especially certain marine "index fossils")
 indeed provide the chief mechanism for dating rocks in the "geologic
 column."  The geologic time scale has in fact been developed over the
 past 150 years primarily on this basis.  Other facts, such as lithologic
 characteristics, radioactive mineral ages, vertical superposition of
 strata, etc., are also used, but the fossils are always of
 determinative importance whenever conflicting data (and this is quite
 often) are discovered.

    Obviously an important question is: How do we know which fossils
 belong to which age, so that we can use them with such assurance to
 determine age?"  The answer is that they are required to conform to the
 evolutionary history of life!  Since simple marine organisms such as
 trilobites must have evolved early, rocks containing only such fossils
 are assumed to be quite old.  Since man supposedly evolved most
 recently, rocks containing human fossils must be very recent.  And so
 on.  The detailed order of the fossils, and therefore the geologic
 column which is built up from it, is based directly on the assumption
 of the gradual evolution of life over vast stretches of cosmic time.

    This might be reasonable if we somehow knew (by divine revelation,
 perhaps) that evolution were really true.  But, as a matter of fact,
 the only real evidence for evolution is the same fossil record!  And
 this is where we came in!

    The zeal with which this evolutionary circle of reasoning is
 guarded is seen clearly in the approach taken with respect to its
 problems and contradictions.  When radioactive mineral age
 determination conflict with the palaeontologic dating (as they
 frequently do), they are abandoned as having been somehow altered since
 deposition.  When, in a given location, a formation of a certain age
 rests comfortably and naturally on a formation of a much earlier age,
 with all the intervening ages omitted (and this kind of thing is found
 almost everywhere), then it is assumed that these missing ages were
 ages of uplift and erosion rather than deposition, even if no evidence
 of this exists.  When fossils from different "ages" are found together
 in the same formation (as does happen with some frequency), then it is
 assumed that earlier deposits have ben "reworked" and mixed together.
 And when (as very often is the case) formations with "ancient" fossils
 are found lying conformably on top of formations with "recent" fossils,
 then great earth movements and "overthrusts" must be invoked to get the
 column out of its proper evolutionary order, even though in many cases
 there is no evidence of such movements and even though there is no
 adequate physical mechanism which could produce them!

    There thus appear to be sound reasons for questioning the orthodox
 evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record and its uniformitarian
 framework of earth history.  Furthermore, there does exist a legitimate
 alternative explanation. {[4] The most thorough treatment of the
 interpretation of the rocks and fossils from the biblical point of view
 is found in \\The Genesis Flood\\, pp. 265-291.  Also see \\Scientific\\
 \\Creationism,\\ pp. 91-130.}

    It is significant that fossils, especially of large animals such as
 the dinosaur, must be buried quickly or they will not be preserved at
 all.  Furthermore, the sediments entrapping them must harden into stone
 fairly quickly, inhibiting the action of air, bacteria, etc., or else
 they will soon be decomposed and disappear.  The very nature of
 fossilization thus seems to \\require\\ catastrophism.  Most certainly
 must this be true of the great dinosaur beds, the massive fish-bearing
 shales, the tremendous deposits of elephants and other animals in the
 arctic regions, and the great numbers of other "fossil graveyards" with
 which the geologic column abounds.

    According to the Bible, death did not even "enter the world" until
 after Adam's sin (Romans 5:12).  And the fossil record, more than
 anything else, is a record of death--in fact, of sudden death--and on a
 worldwide scale!

    At the end of the creation period (Genesis 1:31), God pronounced
 everything in the whole universe "very good."  Thus the struggling,
 groaning creation (Romans 8:22) everywhere evident in the fossil record
 must be dated Biblically as occurring after man's sin and God's curse on
 man's dominion (Genesis 3:15).  And this can only mean that most of the
 sedimentary rocks of the earth's crust, with their fossils, were laid
 down during the awful year of the great Flood, when "every living
 substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground" (Genesis
 7:23).

    This must have included the dinosaurs and all other terrestrial
 animals, except those preserved in Noah's ark.  Evidence is available
 (in the form of human and dinosaur footprints in the same formation, of
 dinosaur pictographs left by primitive tribes in Africa and North
 America, and of the universally prevalent traditions of dragons among
 ancient peoples) that dinosaurs lived contemporaneously with early
 man.  The geologic column, rightly interpreted, therefore, does not
 tell of a long, gradual evolution of life over the geologic ages,
 but rather its polar opposite--the rapid extinction of life as a
 result of God's judgment on the antediluvians when "the world that
 then was, being overflowed with water, perished" (II Peter 3:6)
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 \\7. Question:\\ Where did all the different nations come from?'

 \\Answer:\\ One of the greatest hindrances to the attainment of peace
 in the world is the existence of so many different nations in the
 world, each with its own particular national characteristics and
 selfish interests.  Attempts to weld all the nations into a one-world
 community have been made many times in man's history, but all have soon
 disintegrated.  Various great nations have attempted unsuccessfully to
 impose a unification of their own on all of mankind.  World leaders
 have tried a League of Nations, and, currently, a United Nations
 Organization, among others, but such schemes inevitably collapse.  The
 International Communist cancer will also certainly destroy itself
 before it has attained the universal rule toward which it continually
 maneuvers.

    The origin of so many different and competing national interests
 and characteristics, perpetually thwarting every attempt to impose a
 world brotherhood on mankind, is indeed one of the great problems of
 history.  Evolutionists face a quandary here, as they are confronted
 with only two possible evolutionary explanations, neither of which is
 comfortable to them.

    If evolution is true, then the present races and nations must have
 come either from a single common ancestral pre-human population,
 diverging into the separate tribes and nations after the completion of
 the basic evolutionary process leading to man (the mono-phyletic
 theory), or they must all have arisen by parallel evolution from a
 number of different groups of pre-human primates (the poly-phyletic
 theory).

    The actual historical evidence, seen in evolutionary perspective,
 seems to favor the poly-phyletic theory, and many evolutionists have
 advocated it.  As far back as written historical records go, there have
 been highly civilized nations in various places.  Whether in Babylonia,
 China, India, Egypt, Yucatan, England, Peru, Persia, or whatever, the
 earliest records indicate a complex civilization, with highly
 individualistic and competing nations.

    By the poly-phyletic theory, these national and racial distinctives
 are very ancient, reflecting parallel evolution from different
 origins.  Inevitably this leads to racism and the conviction that one
 race or nation is better than another because of a longer or more
 efficient evolutionary sequence in the once case than in the other.

    Of course, racism is not much in vogue today among Western "liberals."
 In the recent past, however, it has been an integral part of the
 speculations of such eminent evolutionists as Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche,
 Arthur Keith, Adolf Hitler, Cecil Rhodes, and many others.  In any
 case, it is important to remember that true racism has its roots in the
 theory of evolution.  The Bible does not once recognize the existence
 of different races or even the very concept of "race"--the latter is
 strictly a category of modern evolutionary biology!

    Most evolutionary anthropologists today, because of sociological
 considerations, tend to support the mono-phyletic theory, believing
 that all present races have diverged from a common ancestor in recent
 geologic time.  Beyond this agreement, however, there is then a great
 divergence of opinion among them as to which line led up to this first
 man and as to the mechanisms and directions of the supposed subsequent
 diversification into the different "races."

    How, for example, assuming a common inter-breeding ancestral
 population, could such a wide variety of characteristics--skin color,
 stature, physiognomy, posture, etc.--have developed in the different
 groups, so much so that each nation and tribe is distinct and highly
 specialized in its own culture right at the beginning of its known
 history?  Genetic theory does not yet have an answer to this question.

    And, of course, the main distinctive of the different national and
 tribal groups is that of language!  There are almost 5,000 distinct
 human languages extant in the world, in addition to a considerable
 number of dead languages.  All of these are very complex systems, as
 far removed genetically from the chattering of a chimpanzee as a
 Shakespearean play is from the paper on which it is written.  The
 evolutionist has no explanation whatever for the origin of human
 languages.

    One turns with relief to the simple and powerful history of the
 nations as recorded in the Bible,  "God hath made of one blood all
 nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath
 determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their
 habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel
 after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one on us"
 (Acts 17:26,27).  He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of
 the people" (Deuteronomy 32:8).

    The division and separation of the nations took place at Babel, when
 "the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from
 thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth"
 (Genesis 11:9).  This judgement followed man's first attempt after the
 great Flood to build a "United Nations," established for the purpose of
 exalting man's will against that of God.

    The amazingly accurate tenth chapter of Genesis names the earth's
 seventy original national units, resulting from the dispersion. {[5]
 For a detailed discussion of the original nations and their migrations,
 see the author's commentary on the book of Genesis, \\The Genesis\\
 \\Record\\ (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1975), pp. 245-290.
 Archaeology and ethnology have confirmed the existence and migrations
 of most of these primeval nations in a remarkable way, and the chapter
 deserves much more study and application that it has yet received.  It
 concludes with the statement: "These are the families of the sons of
 Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the
 nations divided in the earth after the flood" (Genesis 10:32).

    This is the true beginning of the original nations.  As they were
 separated and forced to survive by inbreeding for a time, the
 distinctive nation traits quickly surfaced through genetic variation,
 mutation, selection, and segregation processes, in addition to the
 supernatural physiologic changes established by God when He changed
 their languages.  Other nations have emerged later through
 recombination, migration, inter-marriage, and other processes.

    There are no known facts of human history which contradict this
 biblical outline, and many which confirm it.  Finally, although there
 is no possibility of establishing a truly united world before Christ
 returns, it is true today that eternal salvation, through faith in
 Jesus Christ, is freely available, and men "of all nations and
 kindreds, and peoples, and tongues" (Revelation 7:9) are responding to
 the gospel message.
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