Review of Beyond Creation Science - Part 2

What should Drive the Christian Culture
In this Part 2 of my review of BCS, this writer will give a few responses concerning some of the quotes in chapters 5 - 10. I will then look at the local flood vs. global flood sections. In Part 3 of my review, a few comments about some particular passages of Scripture that are important concerning the subjects of the fall of Adam and the curse, eschatology and prophetic language, and a few comments about what ancient writers thought about all of this. First of all, I should point out a few details about my eschatology. This writer does believe that many of the prophecies concerning Jesus, the kingdom of God, and the destruction of Jerusalem were fulfilled in the first century. Even though I believe this, that does not mean I will try to twist every Scripture to confirm to my personal beliefs about eschatology. Sometime we must be honest enough to say we just don't know exactly what God's Word is saying here. We can give an opinion but that is all it is. We must all remember that, whatever our views about eschatology, we should be all united on the person of Christ and how one becomes a Christian. Sadly, I fear, since there are so many divisions on this as well, that now many are going into other areas to sow division and discord. Many writers over the centuries have plunged into the waters of prophecy and end-times. Our generation is no different. My concern is that my name is written in heaven which was what His first coming was all about, not that I be absolutely correct about the circumstances of His second coming. This leads me to mention one of BCS's quotes in their first four chapters that I left out of Part One of my review. On page 31, they state, "Prophetic views drive Christian culture. That is why they are so controversial". Unfortunately, this statement has some merit. But when I read the book of Acts, I don't sense that prophetic views of His second coming dominated the disciples. Now prophecies concerning his First Coming, I do see, and the apostles were adamant about the fact that Jesus came in fulfillment of prophecy. What dominated the Christian culture of Acts was the proclaiming of the gospel - the good news of Jesus Christ and the establishment of His church - in which all the divisions were broken down and there was no more Jew, Gentile, slave, male or female, no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Eph. 2: 14 - 22). I believe this is the more important message that should drive our culture today.

The Historical Connection of Premillennialism and Geology
Now let us look at a few quotes in chapters 5 - 10. In chapters 5 and 6, BCS tries to connect the historical rise of two events: flood geology and premillennialism. In Chapter 5, BCS states on page 91:

We have arrived at an amazing historical synchronicity. The modern doctrine of pre-tribulational rapture, dispensational premillennialism was completed in 1830 - the same year Lyell (Charles) published his Principles of Geology! The rise of modern geology and modern dispensational premillennialism took place at the same time and in the same English locale.

Later in Chapter 6, BCS states on page 101:

But there is no doubt that young-earth creationism and premillennialism grew to dominate the American Christian scene simultaneously.

Frankly, another important event also occurred in 1830, the Book of Mormon was published. Yet, I have no immediate explanation as to why all three happened in 1830. So, I do not see the importance of the connection as BCS. And BCS appears to contradict itself. On page 94, BCS tells us that the Plymouth Brethren, founders of modern dispensational premillennialism, had no qualms over an ancient earth in the 19th century. Yet they tells us on page 101 that young-earth creationism and premillennialism come on the scene simultaneously. So BCS would suggest to us it took time (well at least 100 years) for the implications of dispensationalism to work its way backwards to Genesis. Hmm! BCS does not explain why it took so long. And it is strange the premillennialists of the 19th century could live with an ancient earth but the premillennialists of today cannot! What has changed! Well, in the opinion of this writer, our knowledge of science has changed today. The exciting events of the 19th century where science appeared to destroy the historicity of the Bible has now changed to where science appears to confirm the historicity of the Bible. One could suggest a modern synchronicity of science and Bible started to occur in the 1950's and 1960's which led Whitcomb and Morris to write their monumental book, The Genesis Flood. Still, it seems odd that BCS can see clearly the connection between premillennialism and young - earth creationism today, but that it took over 100 years for others to see it so clearly. BCS does mention the "curious fact" that some evangelical leaders accept young earth creationism but reject premillennialism. BCS tries to explain this anomaly by suggesting these leaders do not understand the theological implications of dispensational premillennialism on Genesis. However BCS does not explain how some can defend young-earth creationism without being a premillennialist. To BCS, guys like George McCready Price, who supposedly did apply his dispensational premillennial beliefs back to Genesis, was just the tip of the iceberg that finally lead to Whitcomb and Morris' book The Genesis Flood. To this writer, sometimes events happen (God's providential plan) but have no immediate connection except to the common denominator many of these events have - false teachings and false teachers or better yet, a common spirit of a certain generation for the truth.

This writer, for example, is not a premillennialist. I have never thought my views of any present or coming millennial period colored how I interpreted Genesis or prophecy. I hold there have been many physical changes in the earth after creation, but this has nothing to do with my views of prophecy. This has to do with my understanding of faith, empirical science and hermeneutics. Now you can debate as to whether my faith, my science and hermeneutics are true and rational, but please don't confuse this with my views of prophecy. Is it possible that my understanding of hermeneutics could lead me astray when it comes to prophecy? Yes, that is possible, but lead me astray to what end. If I agree on the rules of hermeneutics with the writers of BCS and I still come to a different interpretation, then that shows we are all in the same boat here as many believers have disagreed. The biggest problem we have with New Testament prophecies concerning the end-times is we have no inspired writer telling us when they were all fulfilled. Even the authors of BCS admit this on page 370. We do have inspired writers telling us that Jesus was a fulfillment of OT prophecies. For example, none of the church fathers in the 2nd and 3rd centuries write with any authority concerning their interpretation of Matthew 24 and Luke 21. So BCS relies on the historical evidence, which by the way is a branch of science, to prove their case for preterism. The problem here is that both non-preterists and preterists use empirical observation as an avenue to find God's truth concerning creation, flood geology, and prophecy.

Hermeneutics
I do agree with BCS in their Appendix A, page 452, that "Our primary goal should be to find the biblical interpretation, not the literal interpretation". However these two do not always have to be mutually exclusive - they can merge and most of the time, they do! We surely can accept the biblical interpretation of why, Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross and literally accept it happened. Gnostics, as many of you know, had problems with the historical event of God and Jesus, the man, dying on the cross which led them to question the interpretative message of the cross. The spirit of antichrist, as John told us, was that Christ had not literally come in the flesh (I John 4:3). I can literally believe baptism is for the remission of sins according to Acts 2:38 and still maintain man cannot be saved through his own efforts or works. Yet millions of believers would state I teach a salvation by works and since they are convinced of this, they try to not take Acts 2:38 literally. Is it possible to take Acts 2:38 literally and still harmonize the biblical teaching of salvation? Yes, it is. Another example would be the role of women in the church. Millions will not take what Paul had to say about this literally. While there are extremes on both sides on this issue, we either take what Paul said literally, and isn't it interesting that Paul uses Genesis to back up his claim that women be silent, or we find a biblical interpretation that suits our interests and needs. Let’s look at an example in the area of prophecy. Many scholars debate the word virgin, which can mean either young woman or virgin (although all major translations have virgin), in Isaiah 7:14. Still that prophecy was literally fulfilled in the birth of Jesus, if you accept the literal fact that Mary was a virgin. There are some passages where it is difficult to take them literally. Jesus, in John chapter 7, talks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Many disciples upon hearing this stated: "This is a difficult saying, who can understand it". But even hear while we do not literally eat His flesh and drink His blood, we still literally partake of a Supper in which we spiritually consume His flesh and drink His blood. So even hear we come close to both the literal and biblical interpretation. Sometimes literal interpretation is misplaced due to a cryptic and enigmatic statement. I have already mentioned the misunderstanding disciples had concerning whether John would literally die. In reference to the temple at Jerusalem, Jesus stated at least once to the Jews, "Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up". The Jews thought Jesus was literally talking about the temple which was still in construction after 46 years. But Jesus was literally talking about His body. I will come back to this subject when I talk more about the interpretation of prophetic language in Part 3 of my review.

Science and Genesis
Now a few comments about the use of science to interpret Genesis. BCS laments this attempt. On pages 263 - 265, they state that modern science and scientism have profoundly influenced the approach and interpretation of Genesis. The problem with their criticism is BCS uses scientific thought and ideas to negate the possibility of a world-wide flood, literal seven day creation, etc. Many times they will use our modern understanding of genetics, anthropology, physics, and geography to help prove their case for a local flood or other events in Genesis. I give a few important examples. We read on page 115, "How can global-flood advocates seriously believe that Christians have always taught a global flood, involving all the continents and people around the globe, before Christians even recognized the size, scope and nature of our planet Earth? Now BCS is arguing with logic AND the science of geography. On page 137, BCS states, "Anthropology suggests that by Abraham's time there were long established civilizations on most, if not all of the habitable continents". On page 173, BCS states in reference to the materials used to build bricks for the tower of Babel: "Mesopotamia did not have an abundance of trees to fuel brick kilns". How BCS can claim to know with any certainty the geographical features and natural resources of Mesopotamia some 4,000 years ago is not explained. To this writer they are imposing what is known today upon what is not known yesterday. On page 196, BCS states, "If there were no deserts before the flood, then from where did the plants and animals specific to these environments come from? A good question but is not BCS using scientific principles in asking this question? Then, on page 218, BCS, because they believe that the curse put upon Adam was covenant death not biological death, states: "There were hurricanes on planet Earth before Adam. There were also avalanches. Meteor impacts, tornados, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions - the magnitude of which we can scarcely imagine - wiped out much of life on planet Earth millions of years before Adam was on the scene". Now there is no evidence from the Bible for this. But BCS comes to these scientific conclusions based on their theological conclusions AND modern geology.

Local Flood vs. Global Flood
Chapters 7 - 10 focuses on Noah's flood. There are two statements in these chapters which encapsulate all that BCS wants to say about this. The first is on page 126, BCS states:

A fully consistent appeal to miracle undermines flood geology. One of the perennial objections raised by old-earth Christians and unbelievers alike is that flood geologists are arbitrary at this key point; they simultaneously demand geological naturalism and the multiplication of miracles over the course of the story.

Our second quote is on page 147:

There is no compelling textual evidence to believe Genesis teaches a global-flood event.

In other words, young - earth advocates have to engage in wild speculations and constant miracles to explain how a world-wide flood could have worked because the Biblical text and logic suggests a local flood. Granted to those of us who live some 6000 years later and see naturalistic forces at play, it is difficult to understand the combination of both miracle and naturalism in a world-wide flood. BCS would argue that they do not have to resort to miracle after miracle with a local-flood concept. The writer does admit that this is an attractive idea which does have merit. I just wish that BCS's arguments for this view were more attractive. Their appeal to Josephus who quotes an ancient writer, Nicolaus, concerning a local flood is weak. Despite the obvious fact that neither were eyewitnesses of the flood, there is the fact that both Josephus and Nicolaus are reporting what others have said. Then there is the fact, that even with a local flood you have to have some miracles and speculations. BCS does not explain how the animals, once released from the ark, could have gotten food and water since even after a huge local flood (even a local flood that was 20 to 30 feet deep had to be huge), fresh water and food would not have been immediately available. So the animals must have stayed around to be fed and watered by Noah (which is not in the Biblical text) or they took off for miles and miles in search for food (and this would have to be way beyond the flood or on tops of hills) and fresh water. Then there is the strange fact that BCS NEVER defines for us the boundaries of this local flood. One can deduce from their book that the local flood was probably within the area of Mesopotamia but we are not sure. Which is more speculative: the idea of a world - wide flood or the boundaries and location of this huge local flood? To this writer, the speculative ideas of what the boundaries and dimensions of this huge local flood would have been are endless. We have another speculative and textual problem with the local flood view of BCS when we look at the length of the flood. We are told that the waters of the flood prevailed for 150 days (I assume we take a day to be literal here) and after the 150 days, the waters decreased (Genesis 7: 24 and 8:3). We are told the flood began in the second month (Genesis 7:11). We are then told that on the tenth month, the first day, the tops of the mountains (BCS would call them hills) were seen. 40 days go by in which a raven and a dove were sent out, but they could not find a resting place (odd, since all they would have to do is fly to the top of the nearest hill- particularly the raven - which is now available according to 8:5). So doing a little arithmetic, we get that the waters began to recede in the seventh month and some 140 days later receded enough for a dove not to return. Now why, if this was a local flood, does it take almost 140 days (almost 5 months) for a local flood to dissipate so that a dove does not return!! BCS never addresses this fact or these Scriptures.

Why Build an Ark If Local Flood?
Then there is the problem of if this was a local flood, why did Noah have to build an ark at all. Just walk away. BCA admits that there is some merit on the surface to this argument in Appendix B, page 457. BCS explains this argument away by saying that the ark was necessary to picture the coming gospel of Jesus Christ where all those in the ark were figuratively “in Christ” that is saved from judgment. However I find it odd that God would use such an impractical example to picture the coming salvation in Christ. In other words, Noah had to go against common sense and his own sense of logic to obey God’s word. One might suggest that Abraham offering to sacrifice Isaac was against logic and common sense; yet Abraham did it. However the two examples are not analogous because God had already told Abraham that in his seed all the nations would be bless. So Abraham had, what appeared, two conflicting statements from God. How did Abraham reason this through? According to Hebrews 11:19, Abraham believed God would have to raise Isaac up from the dead. Furthermore, we are told that Noah not only walked by faith but was moved with fear (Heb 11:7). I fail to see how fear would have been a motivation if this had been a local flood. BCS then brings out their own theological bias in suggesting that to tell Noah to hike out of danger would be to teach that man must get up and save himself by his own two feet. This is a strange argument from the Old Testament. Did not Lot, his wife and daughters have to hike out of Sodom in order to escape judgment on that city? Did not the Israelites have to actually look at the serpent on a pole in order to be healed in Numbers 21? Did not the Israelites have to literally put blood on the two side posts and the upper post in order for God to passover them? For that matter, did not Noah and his sons have to obey and build an ark with their own two hands? It was not God who built the ark. In fact, even the New Testament states that we do have to do something in order to accept God’s salvation and escape judgment. We have to believe, repent of our sins, confess Christ and be immersed so that our sins might be forgiven and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2: 36 – 28). I do not find BCS’s arguments here very convincing.

Additional Miracles
BCS questions the need for so many miracles to justify a global flood; yet, there are many additional miracles (some are implied) the Bible mentions that occur during and after the flood (whether local or global). BCS either ignores or does not address directly these miracles (outside of prophetic language), except for the bringing of the animals and the flood itself. Let me list a few which go from Genesis 8 – 11:

1. God made a wind to pass over the earth.
2. Seasons are mentioned for the first time suggesting climate change.
3. Fear is put into all the animals towards man.
4. The rainbow – either due to climate change or put there by God.
5. The confusion of languages at Babel (which I will speak of later).

Long Life Spans
I do not put this next miracle in the list because it is implied and it demands a literal interpretation of the long life spans mentioned in Genesis chapter 5 and 11. BCS would have us to believe that these long life spans (BCS refers to them as apocalyptic) only applied to God's covenant line, the faithful sons of Seth and Shem. Even for the sake of argument, we accept this view; it does not explain why the ages of covenant people began to decline. Nowhere do we have an explanation by BCS for Noah living 950 years but, Abraham, one of Shem's descendants, lives to be only 175 years old. In fact, the average life span of even Christians, surely a covenant people, is about the same as non-Christians today, and rarely( in comparison to the world's population) does one live past 80 years of age. How does one explain this? BCS does not even try. God must have changed the genetic code as well as the climate after the flood. This would apply also to the next implied miracle. How are the sons and daughters of Shem, Ham and Japheth to marry unless they marry their own cousins or possibly even their own sisters? We know this had to happen with Cain. Yet the blood line remains pure without possible birth defects (that we know of). Now BCS suggests that Shem and his descendants stayed true to their covenant line. In other words, they married only within Shem’s blood line but not within Ham or Japheth’s blood line. The problem with this is we see Shem’s son, Arphaxad, mentioned in Genesis 11:11, 12. At the age of 35, Arphaxad had a son named Salah. So who did Arphaxad marry? I’m sure that BCS does not believe that he married outside of his own family. BCS believes there were other non-covenant survivors to the local flood. Was it his own sister (a daughter of Shem) or his first cousin – a daughter of Ham or Japheth? I think it is more likely that he married his first cousin, but I don’t know. Does anybody?

Genesis 9:19
BCS makes much of the fact that the word for earth is the Hebrew word erets and ge in the Greek (the Septuagint - a Greek translation of the Old Testament) and this means, over a thousand times in the OT - land, country and ground but not the planet Earth. I will not spend any time in this part discussing this except for one particular passage of Scripture. In Genesis 9:19, we read in reference to the three sons of Noah, "from these the whole earth was populated". Now, if we accept BCS's position of a local flood and that ONLY covenant people perished in the flood(with the exception of Noah's family), yes, BCS, believes other non-covenant people survived the flood, how do we explain this verse in view of translating the word, earth, as land or country. This would clearly deny anyone else survived the flood even at a local level for we are told the whole earth (land, region, or country) was populated by the sons of Noah.

"In His Days the Earth Was Divided”
Before I close, I want to refer to a serious speculative error in Chapter 10 concerning the flood and the tower of Babel. BCS cannot understand how there can be another huge civilization (upon reading Genesis 11) on earth within three generations of the flood. The key here is the birth of Peleg. Since his name means division, it is commonly thought that the incidents of the tower of Babel (division by confusing the languages) occurred at his birth. However many times people are named for a particular concept, character, or event years before they happened. Lamech named his son Noah (his name means rest), for he hoped that Noah would give them comfort (rest) concerning their work and toil (which suggest the continuing effects of the curse which I will get to in Part 3). Abram's name was changed to Abraham because he would become the father of many nations. Isaac named his son Jacob (which means one who supplants or deceitful) - a clue was given in the way Jacob grabbed his brother’s heel at birth - way before Jacob actually did the deceitful things to his father and Esau. Even Jesus was so named at his birth because "He will save His people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21). So the Scripture states concerning Peleg, "in his days the earth was divided "(Genesis 9:25). We also read that after Peleg begot Reu, he lived 209 years in 11:19. So when do we want to date the confusion of languages at the tower of Babel? Do we do it at Peleg's birth, in the middle of his life, or near his death? Granted any time period requires speculations as the Scriptures are not clear about this matter. However, if I view that the division occurred near his death, let’s say around the 200th year of Peleg, then the great civilizations mentioned in Genesis are some 300 years after the flood not 100 years. That is sufficient time. For example, if you check the census of the United States in 1800, you see that we have about 5 million people with New York City having the largest population of around 60,000 people. In 200 years, the population of the United States had grown to around 280 million people with New York City now having around 8 million people. Even if I give a 25 - 40 % of that population growth to immigrants, this is still significant growth. So it is possible for large civilizations (including technology), at least comparable to the size of New York City in 1800, to have arrived in three hundred years since the flood.