For PERSPECTIVES Vol. 3 No. 1 [January-March 2000]
Please feel free to submit short questions or your comments. We reserve the right to answer and publish those we believe to be in the public interest. We reserve the right to use or not use submitted material (in whole or in part), to include your name, and to edit or condense your questions for clarity and space. Click here to submit a question or comment to the editor.
A Young Earth?
I doubt the Editor has looked at any of the recent "fossil
evidence" and how it supports the idea that man and dinosaurs lived at the
same time. Some of the evidence includes fossils with red blood cells (which
decompose after several thousand years), and a man's foot print fossilized in
a dinosaur's foot print found in Texas.
There are many credible scientists who have found NUMEROUS pieces of scientific evidence that support the earth being only thousands of years old. Everyone's ideas about the forming of the earth are "assumptions," because the past, just like the Bible, can not be proven.
You have a wonder staff and produce wonderful material on Biblical Archaeology. Please be careful how you share your opinions, especially when it is outside your area of expertise. I say this because in the response you say that the idea of the earth being only approximately 6000 years old is not biblical, well I think that it is a far stretch to say that the idea of the earth being millions of years old is biblical.
In fact, the idea of evolution is very non-biblical. According to Genesis, death entered the world through sin. According to evolution, death was before sin. The idea that death entered the world through sin is a foundational principle for Judaism and Christianity. No one has all the answers, we are not God. We must therefore be willing to share ideas openly, honestly and lovingly with one another. I hope and pray that I have not offended anyone on your staff. My goal is to share information so that we all might grow in our knowledge of a wonderfully loving and powerful God. God bless you and your work.
-Jeff Williams, Poquoson, VA
In this month's feature article Doug Ward discusses the Genesis 1 controversy.
–editor
Dinosaurs or Alligators and Hippos?
It was said that a 6,000 year old earth is not biblical. This is true. However, an earth millions of years old is also not biblical. There is as much evidence for a young earth as there is for an old one. In which case, the answer to this question may be a neutral one. I would like to suggest to sources for support: Job 40-41 as poetic descriptions of humans co-existing with dinosaurs (not poetic descriptions of alligators and hippos as some say) and ICR, Institute of Creation Research, as the other source.
-Kyle and Lara Schwendemann
Go Back to Genesis Again and Read It Properly!
I have had a look at the question and answers page on your web site. You have stated that the dinosaurs were around 65 million years ago. I strongly suggest that you remove this rubbish and speak truth only. You are accountable before God for all that you do and say.
How many people have read this and have lost faith because of it? Go back to Genesis again and read it properly. God goes to a lot of trouble to spell out to us that the creation process took 6 days only and He rested on the 7th day. God clearly outlines exactly what a day is for us so that there is no confusion. There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that the world is young. Go to http://www.yfiles.com or http://www.drdino.com or the Creation Science web site for the evidence. Take your Bible literally and read only the King James Bible. You have no excuses. Also, He clearly states that before the flood all animals and people ate vegetable matter only, no meat.
Have you ever wondered how the ancients were able to construct buildings with such enormous stone blocks, some of which cannot be moved with today's technology? There is much evidence to suggest that the ancients had far greater technology than we have today, were much bigger and far smarter. We have beasts of burden today. Could a large dinosaur lift a 200 ton block? I think so. Refer to a book by Jonathan Gray Dead Men's Secrets. I can give you the mailing address if you are interested. You are the editor of a biblical based archaeology web site. You should know these things. You have a responsibility to print the truth.
–Brian Deeker
Can Science and mt-DNA Falsify the Bible?
I have been told that science and "mtDNA" can prove the Bible false...is this true? I also wondered, is there evidence of a global flood, as portrayed in the story of Noah? And, lastly, are there really two contradictory accounts of the creation of man in Genesis?
–Dave Mamanakis
The Scientific method is a means of producing facts through the falsification of working hypotheses. Science has nothing to prove. If a scientist attempts to prove anything he or she is not "doing" science but has become an advocate. Theologians are advocates not scientists.
No one knows where mtDNA research will lead as this kind of research is in its infancy. There remain problems in instrumentation, sampling, and the fact that at least one study suggests that some mtDNA comes from fathers. There is, however, great promise in mtDNA research. While facts so derived may falsify some of the arguments put forward by various biblical interpreters it is unlikely that they will undermine either the Hebrew Scriptures or the New Testament.
Verifiable scientific evidence shows the earth to be quite old. Various life forms appeared upon the earth millions of years ago. Neither the suppositions of creation science nor the synthetic theory of evolution adequately explain the presence and nature of human beings. So long as creationists and evolutionists persist in advocacy rather than exegesis and science scholarly understanding in these areas will remain clouded.
Does Genesis claim there was a global flood? Noah believed
all the world was consumed but could this simply have been in reference to all the world Noah
knew? Please refer to my answer to a viewer in Perspectives for April/June 1999
at
http://www.bibarch.com/perspectives/1999-AprJun.htm.
Scroll down to Where in the World is Noah's Ark.
The problem lies in the hermeneutic one has in approaching the material and how he or she approaches the exegesis of the material. The first two verses of Genesis suggest that the earth is very old.
–editor
The Four Rivers of Eden
I am doing research to present a paper at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers next spring. My topic is going to be the rivers that are mentioned flowing from the Garden of Eden. I would like any information you might be able to give me on any research previously done on this subject and where it might be available.
-Randy H. Johnson
Genesis 2:10-14 mentions the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates rivers. Not all that long ago any serious scientific inquiry into the nature of the Garden of Eden and its associated rivers would have been met with scholarly ridicule. Nevertheless, researchers evidently have found the Pishon River which the Hebrew Scriptures describe as issuing forth from the Garden of Eden. James A. Sauer discusses the route of this river named the Kuwait River in "The River Runs Dry-Biblical Story Preserves Historical Memory" appearing in the July/August 1996 Biblical Archaeology Review. According to Sauer this river, detected by Shuttle Imaging Radar, is the best candidate yet for the Pishon River (Sauer 1996).
An additional factor in considering the identity and location of these four rivers lies in fixing the boundaries of Eden and the extent of its garden. John H. Sailhamer argues in Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account that the Garden of Eden occupied the same area as the "Promised Land" of the Israelites. The implications are enormous.
–editor
On Eden and Nod
Where was the garden of Eden and the land of Nod located?
–Simon Lee
Where is the Land of Nod? East of Eden doesn't quite cover it. Were there people there before Cain? And if not, where did Cain find his wife?
-L. Smith
As to the Garden of Eden please refer to The Four Rivers of Eden above. The Genesis account implies that the location of the Garden of Eden was Mesopotamia. This is the area of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. East of this area would likely place Cain in eastern Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Some believe Cain's wanderings could have taken him on to India and China.
As to the Land of Nod note that God condemned Cain as a murderer and sent him away to wander. The sense of the Hebrew at Genesis 4:16 is that the "land of Nod" was a land of wandering. Whether or not this land of wandering was the name of an actual place or a simple reference to his status as a wanderer-outcast from the family of Adam remains to be seen. He had to live in a "land of wandering."
The classical answer to "Where did Cain find a wife?" is from his sisters. An anthropological answer is from humans outside the family of Adam.
–editor
Sheep Shearing in Eden
How did Adam and Eve shear their sheep? or remove their fleeces?
–Lynette
The Hebrew Scriptures do not say, but we assume one at a time and very carefully, if they did so at all. Humor aside, the standard biblical chronologies place Adam and Eve about 4000 BCE signifying they lived during the fourth millennium BCE. At that time stone tools with highly refined edges provided a means for cutting as did copper tools. The discovery of a cache of these tools occurred in 1961 when P. Bar-Adon investigated a remote cave, on a cliff face in the Judean Desert in Nahal Mishmar", now known as the Cave of the Treasure." The artifacts included linen and woolen textiles. The latter are the only examples of Levantine woolen textiles known from this period. The cache also contained fragments of a wooden and bone loom, loom weights, implements for spinning thread, remnants of worked leather, and the like. The implication is that early sheep shearing would have been accomplished by cutting with razor-edge flint implements.
–editor
Page last edited: 12/31/05 08:14 AM
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