Debunking the Seven Myths about the Bible, Genesis, and Noah's Flood (full movie)

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September 17, 2019

Many colleges today (including some Christian colleges) teach 7 myths about the Bible, Genesis, and Noah's Flood. This video combines all 7 segments into a single video. The 7 myths addressed by this video include: 1 - “While the Bible may be ‘inspired,’ by God, it’s not ‘inerrant’ and parts of it are just myth.” 2 - “The Bible’s account of Creation is only metaphorical, the six creation days were not ordinary days, and creation really unfolded over millions of years.” 3 - “Genesis 1 and 2 provide two different accounts of creation.” 4 - “Adam and Eve were not real people, only allegorical figures in the story of human evolution.” 5 - “The Bible’s account of Noah’s Flood is just myth and was drawn from writings from the Ancient Near East.” 6 - “Moses did not actually write the first five books of the Bible”; and 7 - “Dinosaurs died out millions of years ago, did not walk with man, and are not mentioned in the Bible.” See our website for more info: www.sevenmyths.com Download our free mobile app for videos on each of these subjects, available as "Genesis Apologetics" in iTunes and Google Play stores.

00:00: Is it possible that the world surrounds us with the conventional paradigm, a matrix about our origins and history of life on earth, a reality matrix reinforced by education, movies, television, museums, and secular institutions?
00:15: One that entirely discounts the credibility of biblical history as plainly written? Is it also possible that this worldview has slipped into many
00:23: Christian colleges that have morphed biblical truth to be relevant to the culture of today? Join us now as we look at seven myths that the world and even many of today's
00:33: Christian colleges espouse. These include, while the Bible may be inspired by God, it's not inerrant and parts of it are just myth.
00:41: The Bible's account of creation is only metaphorical. The six creation days were not ordinary days, and creation really unfolded over millions of years.
00:50: Genesis 1 and 2 provide two different accounts of creation. Adam and Eve were not real people, only allegorical figures in the story of human evolution.
00:59: The Bible's account of Noah's flood is just myth and was drawn from writings from the ancient Near East. Moses did not actually write the first five books of the
01:08: Bible, and dinosaurs died out millions of years ago, did not walk with men, and are not mentioned in the
01:14: Bible. Before exploring these, let's first look at why these topics even matter. Jesus said we should love the
01:21: Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Yes, we see plenty of Christians today who are passionate about their faith, but when it comes to being committed to the validity and truth of the
01:31: Bible, sometimes their minds are just not on board, weakening their Christian walk. Many Christians today aren't quite sure what to do with the obvious claims of the
01:40: Bible, such as creation, the flood, and the many other miracles that even Christ himself taught as real historical events.
01:48: Many students are dragging their minds far behind in their walk of faith, being surrounded by the competing views offered by worldly entertainment and secular institutions and education, where they are subjected to 250 pages of evolution teaching over 50 classroom hours before they even graduate high school.
02:06: Scripture even promised that scoffers would come to suppress the truth and try to deliberately forget creation and the flood.
02:12: The biblical account of God speaking creation into existence is replaced with the secular view of deep time and random processes.
02:21: Similarly, Noah's flood is replaced with long, slow, uniformitarian ideas. Because these competing views create dissonance in their minds, many
02:29: Christians are living a half -hearted faith, some without even knowing it. Many times, this problem gets compounded when they attend
02:37: Christian colleges that place the Bible on equal footing with ancient Near East mythology, spin the creation and flood accounts every which way, and turn
02:45: Adam and Eve into myths or allegories. To cope with these challenges, many Christians become theistic evolutionists, hoping to reconcile their
02:54: Christianity with what their professors or classmates believe. Students don't want others to think they are closed -minded or simple by holding beliefs that appear to be fairy tales by modern thinkers.
03:04: Other students deal with these challenges by compartmentalizing their Christianity as their spiritual side, or even identifying as New Testament Christians.
03:13: All this because they don't believe that the Christian faith is based on real history, beginning with the first page of the
03:19: Bible. Would Christians live out their faith with more boldness if they really believed that the Bible is true, both theologically and historically?
03:27: If their hearts, souls, and minds were all in? What would happen if Jesus came to earth and took 100 doubting
03:34: Christians into a theater and played a movie that replayed history from the beginning? Creation week, the flood, and major biblical events that happened after, all the way to today.
03:44: Would those Christians leave the theater and return to life as usual? Certainly not. This is because evidence that confirms
03:51: God's word translates into a committed belief in one's mind. And this belief emboldens
03:56: Christians to live faith -filled lives, fully believing and obeying God's word also opens the door to blessing.
04:03: No, we're not promoting prosperity teaching here. We're talking about what happens when a person makes a conscious decision to order their lives after biblical teaching and makes choices that align with God's word.
04:14: For God will not be mocked, whatsoever a man sows that he will also reap. We're talking about Christians getting onto the right train tracks for their lives and journeying to their ideal destinations because they're living their lives in ways that honor
04:28: God and His word. Today's youth are only going to follow God's word if they believe it to be true in its claims.
04:35: No one's going to submit to a book of fairy tales. This is exactly why biblical apologetics is important, beginning with the first book of the
04:42: Bible. Let's look at it this way. Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead. How do we know it happened?
04:49: We weren't there. We can't go back and watch a rerun of it. We get that belief from the Bible. But wait, scientists today would say that a person can't rise from the dead.
04:58: So, shouldn't we reinterpret this event and say that it wasn't really a bodily resurrection? Same with the virgin birth, the miracles
05:05: Christ performed. Most Christians would say, of course not. But that's exactly what a lot of Christians do with Genesis.
05:12: It's the same thing. Many Christians have no problem affirming the New Testament miracles of Christ. But when we get to the creation account in Genesis where He created in six days, drew man from dust and Eve from His side, many say, oh no, science says otherwise, so it can't be so.
05:28: They don't believe what the Bible says because of what modern scientists say, so they reinterpret the
05:33: Bible. Once we unlock that door, we unleash the same attack that Satan made on Eve, questioning, did
05:39: God really say? This attack, did God really say, was so effective in the garden that the enemy still uses it today.
05:47: Evolution over millions of years, ape men, no life after death. These ideas lead people to question, doubt, then ultimately reject
05:56: God's word. If people won't believe the history of the Bible, this undermines the authority of the
06:01: Bible and the gospel is based in that very authority. If we cannot trust the Bible's history, why would we believe what it says about salvation?
06:09: If people won't believe Genesis 1, why believe John 3, 16? Jesus even said,
06:15: I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe. How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
06:20: These challenges represent a key stumbling block to the gospel of Jesus Christ for many people today.
06:26: The Bible also stresses that we should not be cheated by those in the world who tout philosophies that follow the traditions and basic principles of this world, rather than on Christ and his word.
06:36: Indeed, the wisdom of God has made foolish the wisdom of this world, since the world through wisdom did not know
06:42: God, with many being led astray and deceived by the so -called science of each generation. Such wisdom of this world draws back into the mystery of unseen, unproven deep time to frame the theory of evolution, far beyond when we can use true science, that which we can observe, measure, and repeat to test such ideas.
07:01: Finally, these topics are not important so we can have the satisfaction of winning arguments. Rather, they are important because believing in the clear message of the
07:09: Bible firmly grounds and roots a person's faith, allowing them to build their lives in the solid, rich ground of God's word and base their life decisions and choices in ways that are aligned with the
07:19: Bible. Trees that have roots that drill deep into the soil draw life -giving nutrients and establish a firm grounding for when the storms come.
07:27: Trees that start growing roots but hit a blockage that stunts their growth will not be able to access all the intended nutrients the tree will need to be healthy and fruitful.
07:36: It will also not be strongly rooted to stand against the storms and testings that come. The leaves and fruit that are visible on the outside of a tree are a reflection of the invisible roots that are beneath the tree.
07:47: Christians who place their trust deeply in God's word, trusting it back to the beginning in Genesis, will draw life -giving strength for their lives and will not sway and uproot when false teaching and challenges come.
07:58: The fruitfulness of our lives and our daily choices and behaviors all stem from what we believe about God and His word.
08:05: The very first psalm in the Bible promises that if we delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on His law day and night, that we will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, bringing forth our fruit in season, and that our leaves shall not wither and whatever we do will prosper.
08:20: All of these come from meditating and revering God's law, which is the set of the first five books in the
08:25: Old Testament beginning with Genesis. How deep do your roots go? Are you a
08:31: Christian student looking for answers about what the Bible teaches about creation, the fossil record, dinosaurs?
08:37: Download the Genesis Apologetics app from the iTunes or Google Play stores for answers to these questions and more.
08:44: Myth number one is, while the Bible may be inspired by God, it's not inerrant and parts of it are just myth.
08:51: Some professors may also challenge the historical validity or reliability of the Bible. Inerrancy refers to God's original word having no heirs.
09:00: Why is inerrancy important? Well, the question of ultimate authority is of the highest importance to the
09:05: Christian. It's not just a theological argument. You see, we can't offer the world a reliable gospel if it comes from an unreliable scripture.
09:13: How can we offer the truth on any issue if we're suspicious of errors everywhere? Airline pilots will ground their planes even with the most minor of faults, knowing that one fault can destroy confidence in the whole machine.
09:25: If you pick your car up after being serviced and find out they missed something simple, wouldn't that call into question the rest of their work?
09:32: The entire core message of the gospel, including sin, redemption, and forgiveness is rooted in Genesis history.
09:39: If these core events are not true, how can we trust the theology behind them? Did Jesus die for the sins of a mythical Adam who lived in a mythical garden?
09:47: The Bible itself claims to be much more than myth. It claims to be God's word delivered through human authors to all humankind.
09:54: Passages like 2 Peter 1 .21 and 2 Timothy 3 .16 assure us that God himself authored the scriptures.
10:02: Psalms 119 verse 89 also makes clear that God's word is fixed or settled in heaven.
10:09: Jesus confirms this by saying not even a dot on a letter will pass away from God's word until heaven and earth pass away.
10:16: He also prayed to the father saying, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth.
10:21: Jesus also confirmed that Moses authorized the Torah rather than it being a compilation of ancient
10:26: Near East mythology. Jesus referred to the Old Testament over 40 times and every time he treated it as real history including creation, the flood,
10:36: Sodom and Gomorrah, Jonah and the fish, and the account of Cain and Abel. To Jesus, the
10:41: Bible was clearly inerrant, inspired, and historical. The New Testament writers were so convinced that the writings of the
10:48: Old Testament were the actual words of God that they even claimed scripture says when the words quoted actually came directly from God.
10:55: In Romans 9, Paul accepted that God delivered his word directly to Moses. Paul also treats
11:01: Isaiah's words as God himself speaking. In Acts 4, both Peter and John affirmed the creation account in the fourth commandment written by God.
11:09: The believers who heard Peter and John also acknowledged that David wrote Psalm 2 by the Holy Spirit.
11:15: There is some classic historical test we can use to evaluate the validity of the New Testament writings.
11:20: First, we can determine whether what we have today matches what was written originally. Second, we can evaluate whether the recorded events describe true historical events.
11:30: Let's see how the Bible holds up to each of these tests. One way to apply the first test is to look at the time gap between the original writing and the copies that still exist today.
11:40: The closer the copy is to the original, the greater chances that it more accurately represents the original.
11:45: Ancient manuscripts like the New Testament were written on fragile material such as papyrus.
11:50: This required ancient writers to continually make new copies. When we evaluate the number of New Testament manuscripts we have compared to other famous works of antiquity, the
11:59: Bible exceeds them all with 5 ,366 manuscripts. Adding the copies from other languages such as Latin, Ethiopic, and Slavic results in more than 25 ,000 manuscripts that predate the 15th century printing press.
12:14: By comparison, the runner -up historical text, Homer's Iliad, has only 643.
12:20: We can also see that the time span between the original and these copies is closer than any other work compared.
12:26: There is more. Even if all the copies of the Bible from A .D. 350 to today were destroyed, the entire
12:32: New Testament, except for only 11 verses, could be reconstructed using only quotations by the early church fathers in the first few hundred years after Christ.
12:41: This is because the church fathers frequently quoted large sections of scripture in their letters to each other.
12:47: Next, we can test to see if what was written down actually happened. The Gospels written by Matthew, Mark, and John were written with or by direct eyewitnesses of the events in Jesus' life.
12:58: Luke, a physician, wrote the account of Jesus' life for Theophilus, a high -ranking official.
13:03: Luke said, Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.
13:14: Luke continues to state that he carefully vetted his account of Jesus' life and ministry. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning,
13:23: I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
13:30: Other New Testament writers had similar testimonies. 1 John 1 .3 states, We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us.
13:40: 2 Peter 1 .16 says, For we do not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our
13:46: Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. We should also consider that eleven of the twelve disciples died terrible deaths, being killed for their unchanging testimony of who
13:57: Christ was and of his resurrection. They were so sure that Christ was who he claimed to be that they signed their testimonies with their own blood.
14:05: Who would die for a resurrection that never happened? Paul said that without the resurrection, we are of all men the most pitiable, if indeed they suffered persecution for falsehood.
14:14: It's also incredible that numerous Bible prophecies have come true over the years. Even prophecies that we now can confirm were written before the actual events occurred.
14:23: For example, Isaiah 53 specifically foretold Christ's trial, crucifixion, and burial.
14:30: Isaiah 53 describes a Messiah, a Savior, who would be despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, a man who would be despised and not esteemed by others, one who would bear the griefs and carry the sorrows of humanity.
14:45: These descriptions could apply to many people throughout history, but it gets more specific as it continues by saying that people would consider him to be stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, and that he would be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, and the punishment for our peace would be set upon him.
15:03: Then it says, by his stripes we would be healed, and that the Lord would lay upon him the iniquity or sins of us all.
15:09: The passage continues to be incredibly specific about Jesus' death and crucifixion by stating that he would be oppressed and afflicted, yet like a lamb led to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers would be silent.
15:22: He would not even open his mouth in defense. Well, what have you got to say for yourself now?
15:31: Speak! Or say something!
16:13: Don't you want to defend yourself? Do you want to die? Don't you realize
16:20: I have the power to release you or have you crucified? If it had not been given you from above.
16:58: It even says that his grave would be made with the wicked and his death with the rich. Even the very purpose that Christ came was foretold by this chapter, stating that he would pour out his soul unto death so that he would bear the sin of many.
17:19: He was despised and rejected of men, man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
17:30: He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.
17:38: He was brought as a lamb to slaughter and as a sheep before its shearer is done.
17:48: Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him, stricken, and smitten of God and afflicted, that he was wounded for our transgressions, he was abused for our iniquities, and through his wounds we are healed.
18:15: Is there any other person throughout recorded history who fits these descriptions better than Jesus Christ? Not only does this chapter show how the
18:23: Bible predicted Christ's life, crucifixion, and burial, it demonstrates just how reliably the
18:28: Bible has been transmitted over the centuries. Consider this. There's the original book of Isaiah written in the 8th century before Christ.
18:37: Next, there's the copy found in the Dead Sea Scroll collection that dates about 125 years before Christ.
18:42: Then, we have the copies that are from about 1 ,000 years ago. And, finally, today's version. Now that the
18:48: Dead Sea Scrolls have been discovered, we have proof that these incredibly specific prophecies were written before Christ was even born, showing their divine inspiration.
18:58: We can now also test how reliably the Bible has been transmitted over a 2 ,200 -year period.
19:04: The results? Incredible! Famous theologian Dr. Norman Geisler writes, Of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, there are only 17 letters in question.
19:15: Ten of these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions.
19:23: The remaining three letters comprise the word light, which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the meaning greatly.
19:29: Thus, in one chapter of 166 words, there is only one word with just three letters in question after 1 ,000 years of transmission, and this word does not significantly change the meaning of the passage.
19:42: Wow! Over two millennia of copying this text, and over 99 % of it matches an original written before Christ.
19:50: And the incredibly specific prophecies it tells about Christ? All of them came true. It's no surprise that the field of archaeology continues to confirm the historical accuracy of the
20:00: Bible. Check out this list of 53 people in the Bible confirmed by archaeology. These are some of the reasons why tens of thousands of ministry professionals have signed a
20:09: Bible petition affirming that the Bible alone and in its entirety is the infallible written word of God in the original text and is, therefore, inerrant in all that it affirms or denies on whatever topic it addresses.
20:22: So, this leaves us at a crossroads. Either this book is divinely inspired and true in all it says, including historical events, or it's not.
20:30: It can't be true and untrue at the same time. What gives us the right to pick and choose which parts we want to believe?
20:36: People understand. If the Bible is not based in real history but claims to be historical, it's not authoritative.
20:43: And if it's not authoritative, they won't follow and obey it. If it is not true, then there's no reason to submit to it.
20:49: Since the Bible is true, it has authority over all matters of life. When Christians understand that the
20:54: Scripture is inerrant and historically valid, their faith and their minds are fused together, like two pieces of a puzzle.
21:01: This provides a solid foundation for their faith in the work of Christ, as revealed in the words of Christ, resulting in a solid foundation for their faith, a real faith that produces good fruit.
21:11: So, there we have it. One authorized compilation with 66 books spanning over two millennia with incredible reliability and accuracy.
21:20: Governments ban it. Philosophers dismiss it. Scientists ridicule it. The media makes fun of it.
21:26: But most in our society simply ignore it. But the Bible is still the world's best -selling book, with over 4 billion copies sold over the last 50 years.
21:35: Currently, the complete Bible is available in over 600 languages and rising. Nothing can equal its power to change lives, and an unbelieving world cannot change it from being
21:45: God's authoritative revelation to mankind. To a person who says that he is a
21:54: Christian but denies the inerrancy of Scripture, I would say several things.
22:00: You are denying God's own claim for the Bible. You're denying what
22:07: God, the Holy Spirit, who authored Scripture, says about Scripture, that all
22:13: Scripture is given by inspiration of God, that every word is pure, that the
22:22: Scripture is God -breathed. Not only that, not only those explicit statements are you denying, but you're denying every time in Scripture it says, thus says the
22:32: Lord. And then you're denying the overall superintending power of God over His revelation.
22:39: Now, what that does, essentially, is say this. You are the judge of Scripture.
22:46: You've just made yourself the authority over the Bible. So you're going to be the one we have to trust to tell us what's true and what's not true in the
22:56: Bible. And here's the problem with that. If you deny inerrancy, the only reason you would ever deny inerrancy would be essentially to deny something in the
23:06: Bible that you don't like. And when you've done that, you've now said what the
23:14: Bible says about that can't be true, it's not true. Once you have broken the link in the chain, how do we know that anything is true?
23:25: So when the Bible claims inspiration for all of it, and you break that, then where do you go?
23:33: How do you trust any of it? You could start, for example, say, well, I don't believe Genesis 1 and 2. I don't believe in a six -day creation.
23:39: I believe in some kind of evolutionary process. That's not in Genesis 1 and 2. So the question is, if that's not true, what else isn't true?
23:48: And who's the person that's going to tell us what else isn't true? And what isn't true is hiding something that is true, and where do we go for that?
23:57: You literally unravel the Scripture if you deny its inerrancy.
24:03: Looking for answers about what the Bible teaches about creation, the fossil record, dinosaurs?
24:08: Download the Genesis Apologetics app from the iTunes or Google Play stores for answers to these questions and more.
24:24: Myth number two is, the Bible's account of creation is only metaphorical. The six creation days are not ordinary days, and creation really unfolded over millions of years.
24:34: Despite what some would say, the Bible's creation account is not so vague that it's subject to each person's unique spin.
24:40: The Bible clearly narrates how God created everything over a six -day period. What else could
24:46: God have meant when He wrote with His own hands and in the Ten Commandments, no less, that He created in six days, and even wanted us to model our lives after the same weekly cycle?
24:55: It wouldn't make sense if this part of the Ten Commandments was figurative, catched in between literal commandments like don't steal, don't lie, and don't commit adultery.
25:04: Did Jesus or any of the New Testament writers update what God said? Certainly not. He wanted us to believe, back then and still today, that He created in six days.
25:14: When looking at the actual text, the writer was directed by the Holy Spirit to use certain Hebrew words and phrases to describe creation week, and it sure seems like they went out of their way to define the creation timeline.
25:26: For example, day or yom in Hebrew is defined in verses 14 to 16 when
25:31: God said, Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.
25:43: And it was so. God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.
25:49: Think about it. For life to begin on earth, this cycle had to be started first. We can see from these verses that days and years are linked, with their duration being determined by the fixed movements of earth in reference to the sun.
26:02: The earth, sun, and moon are all perfectly synchronized to give us a 24 -hour day. This is why the
26:08: Jewish people count a day from nightfall to nightfall. It all has roots back to the first chapter of Genesis.
26:14: Notice in the same context where Genesis 1 mentions the days of creation, that days is defined and is even contrasted with years.
26:22: Surely there's no way to insert millions of years into this text. We can also tell that the word yom in Genesis 1 means an actual day because each usage of the word day is prefaced by evening, morning, and then a number.
26:37: Yom is used 2 ,301 times in the Old Testament. When used with a number, yom always means an ordinary day, and this occurs 410 times outside of Genesis 1.
26:50: Evening and morning are used together without yom 38 times, and it always means an ordinary day.
26:56: Evening or morning is used together with yom 23 times each, and it always means an ordinary day.
27:02: Night is used with yom 52 times, always meaning an ordinary day. The writer of Genesis could not have been more clear.
27:09: In fact, just looking at the first four days of creation, when the earth and the universe were formed, reveals that about one -third of the text is dedicated to defining the chronology of the creation process.
27:21: In Jeremiah 33, God said that He made a promise that earth would always have a day and night cycle, just as permanently as David's throne would have a king.
27:30: This day and night cycle has been repeated for all recorded history, and it all began in Genesis 1 verse 5 when
27:36: God called the light day and the darkness He called night. This cyclical succession of light and darkness has always constituted a solar day.
27:45: The genealogies in the first 11 chapters of Genesis map straight back to Adam, who was created on the sixth day of creation.
27:52: It also describes that Adam was created out of dust and Eve from his side, and they were created in the image of God, not in the image of some evolved ape -like creatures.
28:01: These genealogies list 87 patriarchs by name and their sons, and the birth and lifespan years are given for 33 of them.
28:08: How could this even possibly not be a historical account? How much more straightforward could
28:13: God have been? It's really a matter of authority, believing God's word over man's word. Yes, there are passages like Psalm 104,
28:22: Job 38, and Isaiah 40 that provide poetic descriptions of creation. God is riding on the clouds in a chariot, shutting in the seas with immense doors, or measuring the waters with His hands.
28:33: We wouldn't expect these to be read as historical narratives. They are clearly poetic. The multiple uses of the word like in the poetic context express creation in dramatic and vivid language.
28:44: However, the genre of the book of Genesis is clearly historical. This is evident for many reasons, but we'll consider just three.
28:52: First, Genesis provides an unbroken narrative, from creation to the fall, the flood, then on to Abraham, Moses, and David, all leading up to Jesus the
29:01: Savior. Matthew traces the genealogy of Jesus back to Abraham and Luke back to Adam.
29:07: Where in this unbroken line would we stop and say we are just working with some poetic imagination?
29:13: The flood? The fall? Adam's sin? We can't pick and choose the history we like and dislike.
29:19: Second, Genesis 1 -11 is written in the genre of Hebrew prose, recorded by the writer to include 87 patriarchs and birth and lifespans given for 33 of them.
29:30: Some say the creation account is just figurative. Can this be so? Is it just poetry? Not according to Hebrew expert
29:37: Dr. Stephen Boyd, who ran a statistical analysis of the text. By looking at the different types of verbs that are used in Hebrew poetry compared to historical works,
29:46: Dr. Boyd determined that there is a 99 .5 % likelihood that the Genesis creation account is literal history, not poetry.
29:54: Third, Moses recorded that God wrote with his own hands that he created the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days.
30:02: This is what the writer, God, intended to convey, and it's been interpreted like this for generations since it was given.
30:08: If this is not what was meant by God, when did the writers of Scripture or Jesus fix it, setting the record straight?
30:15: The great reformer Martin Luther even wrote, when Moses writes that God created heaven and earth and whatever is in them in six days, then let this period continue to have been six days, and do not venture to devise any comment according to which six days were one day.
30:29: But if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are, for you are to deal with Scripture in such a way that you bear in mind that God himself says what is written.
30:42: But since God is speaking, it is not fitting for you to wantonly turn his word in the direction you wish to go.
30:48: The Bible has God miraculously creating the world and everything in it in just six days about 6 ,000 years ago.
30:55: But the theory of evolution has a much different timescale, taking millions of years to go from goo to me and you by way of the zoo.
31:03: Which view is correct? Well, to be honest, both views require faith because no one was there thousands or millions of years ago to observe how it all got started.
31:12: But can the idea of millions of years of evolution be scientifically validated? Can we really prove this idea of deep time using the same observational science we use for making medicine and putting people on the moon?
31:26: Validation is the process of confirming what is believed to be true by what can be observed to be true. Has this ever been done for radiometric dating, the process that gives us the very idea of long ages?
31:38: Actually, long ages and radiometric dating hasn't stood up to the validation test.
31:43: Radiometric dating has never been validated against the absolute known ages of rocks. Let us explain.
31:50: Consider Mount St. Helens. This volcano erupted in the 1980s, giving scientists the opportunity to date the rocks that were formed from the eruption.
31:59: The results? Five different ages, all between 350 ,000 and 2 .8
32:05: million years old, for rocks that we know were less than 30 years old. This discrepancy happens all the time in radiometric dating studies.
32:14: In fact, there has never been a radiometric dating analysis that simply produces ages that validate to the known ages of rocks.
32:21: And if radiometric dating doesn't work for rocks of known ages, why do we trust it for rocks of unknown ages?
32:29: So, the next time you hear, millions of years ago this happened or that, just ask, how do you know that for sure?
32:36: And if radiometric dating is the answer given, just ask, are you aware of a study where the radiometric age of a rock agreed with the known age of the rock?
32:45: And you'll find the answer will undoubtedly be no. God wrote with his own hand that he created the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them in just six ordinary days.
32:56: The genealogies in Genesis lead us straight back to Adam. Just about 6 ,000 years ago, millions of years can't be jammed into this timeline for the very important reason that Adam and Eve were responsible for bringing the curse of sin, death, disease, suffering, thorns, and thistles into the world.
33:12: And the evolutionary time scale has these things existing supposedly millions of years before humans were even around.
33:18: And if these things existed before the consequences of our sin brought them, this makes them God's ideas rather than the results of our falling away from God.
33:26: This doesn't fit the Bible because God said his creation was very good and all life started out vegetarian before the fall.
33:33: See the problem? Death, suffering, and carnivorism are the result of the fall of Adam and Eve and were not part of God's original creation.
33:41: Have you ever noticed how hard the world pushes the idea of millions of years? Books, movies, museums, schools, it's everywhere.
33:49: Honestly, it takes faith to believe in either the creation account or in millions of years of evolution. None of us were present when
33:56: God created and filled the earth. The creation process, through either perspective, goes back further than written history will take us.
34:03: But when you look at the earth, the sun, and the planet spinning through space with an incredible degree of precision so that we have days, seasons, years, warm, cold, seed, and harvest, doesn't it look like the book of Genesis got it right?
34:16: That it was all designed and placed here at the beginning with this incredibly well -tuned universe working in harmony?
34:22: Genesis 1 shows that God was setting up the earth, the cycles, and systems just like a master planner.
34:28: It all had to be calibrated from the beginning to start and sustain the life on earth we see today. Days, nights, the monthly cycle of the moon, and the earth traveling around the sun every year.
34:38: It all works like clockwork engineered by a master designer. If you move the distances or change the cycles, the whole thing unravels and we all freeze or fry.
34:47: Such a finely tuned universe all had to be created and timed in perfect synchronicity. Many Christians believe that creation was a miracle just like Jesus' resurrection, walking on water, and multiplying five loaves and two fish to feed thousands.
35:02: So, is it too difficult to believe that creation was a result of God's command as the Bible says and was outside of the natural laws as we know them today?
35:10: The Bible says that God cannot lie or change His mind and that His words are permanent and pure like silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times.
35:19: And it is this very word that tells us that the world was framed by the word of God and that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
35:27: That's because God commanded and they were created and He commanded and it stood fast. Each of us has a choice about how to frame our worldview.
35:35: Using man's word or God's word and how we live our lives stems from what we believe. Because none of us were eyewitnesses, wouldn't it make more sense to go through this life taking
35:45: God at His word? Looking for answers about what the Bible teaches about creation, the fossil record, dinosaurs?
35:52: Download the Genesis Apologetics app from the iTunes or Google Play stores for answers to these questions and more.
36:04: Myth number three is Genesis 1 and 2 provide two different accounts of creation. At first blush, this may seem to be the case but taking a careful look reveals something different.
36:14: First, both of these chapters are inspired and historical. At least Jesus believed so when
36:19: He quoted from both Genesis 1 and 2 in Matthew 19. Next, we need to understand how
36:25: Genesis is laid out. While our Bibles today break Genesis into 50 chapters, the original text is actually broken into 11 sections called toldotes which mean to bear or to generate in Hebrew.
36:38: Genesis 1 provides the introduction, the overview of the creation of the entire universe in six days which precedes the first toldote that begins in Genesis 2 verse 4.
36:48: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth. Genesis 1 .1 through 2 .3 provides a complete overview of the six days of creation in a stepwise way with each creation day starting out with God said followed by His creative works on that day then concluded by there was evening and morning and a mention of the numerical day.
37:07: Genesis 2 is not concerned with the steps of the overall creation account but rather focuses on the events of day 6 including the creation of Adam, the garden of Eden and its river systems,
37:18: Adam's instructions for the garden, naming the animals, the creation of Eve and the institution of merit.
37:24: None of these details are in the first chapter of Genesis. They are saved for the second chapter that sets the stage for the third which is the fall of men and the curse of sin both of which happened in the garden.
37:35: The second chapter also does not mention important creation events from the first chapter such as the creation of earth, atmosphere, oceans, sea creatures, land and the sun and stars showing that it was not attempting to be a second account of creation.
37:49: These two chapters actually tie into each other with each chapter providing important details not in the other.
37:56: Some say that it appears that plants were created after people in Genesis 2 apparently conflicting with the
38:02: Genesis 1 account that explains plants being made on day 3 and man on day 6. Genesis 2, 5 through 7 says,
38:09: Before any plant of the field was in the earth, and before any herb of the field had grown, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground, but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground, and the
38:22: Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground. In this passage, these verses call the plants, plants of the field and herbs of the field.
38:30: These terms are more specific than the grass, herbs and trees described in day 3 of Genesis 1 because none of these are accompanied with the of the field description.
38:40: Hebrew scholar Mark Futado defines plants of the field as wild shrubs of the steppe or grassland and herbs of the field as cultivated grain.
38:49: Both make sense, especially given the context that describes there being no man to till the field and no rain yet.
38:56: Then, in the very next chapter, we see it is these very herbs of the field that are cursed with thorns and thistles that Adam would have to till and farm by the sweat of his brow as a consequence of the fall.
39:06: Indeed, because of Adam's sin, he would no longer have it easy. Instead of eating from abundant fruit trees in the garden, he would need to till the ground, contend with thorns and thistles and grow crops for food.
39:17: The next contention that some people bring up with the Genesis 2 account is that verse 19 states,
39:23: Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them.
39:30: It's that word formed which gets people thinking the animal kinds were created right then and there, after men and before women, unlike the sequence in chapter 1 where humans were created last.
39:40: So, were the animals created after Adam? Actually, they weren't. The verse is simply stating the source and the origin of the animal kinds, which were formed out of the dust and spoken into existence by God.
39:51: Also notice that God put Adam in charge over all the animals, taking dominion over all of creation.
39:57: In Hebrew, the precise tense of a verb is determined by the context. Genesis 1 makes it clear that the animals were created before Adam.
40:05: So, Hebrew scholars would have understood the verb formed to mean had formed or having formed, which is how many
40:11: Bible translations state this passage, including Tyndale's translation, which predates the King James.
40:17: Moreover, Hebrew verbs focus on completeness of action, not past, present, future temporality.
40:23: So, they don't have tense like English verbs. Instead, the past, present, future of an action verb is determined by context.
40:31: Thus, in context with Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 .19, which uses a verb that denotes completion of actions, can be translated as now the
40:39: Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. Given this, the apparent disagreement with Genesis 1 disappears completely.
40:49: The extra details in the Genesis 2 account demonstrate several things. First, the account affirms
40:54: Genesis 1 in every way, without contradiction. Second, we find that Genesis 1 and 2 are complementary rather than contradictory.
41:03: Chapter 1 may be understood as creation from God's perspective. It is the big picture, an overview of the whole and the sequence of God's created works, light, atmosphere, vegetation, sun and stars, birds and fish, mammals and man.
41:18: Chapter 2 views the more important aspects from man's perspective and expounds upon Day 6 events with details like the names of the first man and woman, their relationship with creation, where they were first placed in the
41:29: Garden of Eden, naming the animals and setting the stage for the events that would later occur in the Garden. Looking at it this way, the first two chapters of Genesis provide a cohesive and detailed account of creation.
41:40: They certainly don't represent two different accounts of creation. They were authorized by Moses, cited by Jesus and referred to as authoritative by New Testament writers.
41:50: Looking for answers about what the Bible teaches about creation, the fossil record, dinosaurs? Download the
41:56: Genesis Apologetics app from the iTunes or Google Play stores for answers to these questions and more.
42:04: Myth number 4 is Adam and Eve were not real people, only allegories used to describe the first humans.
42:10: Many professors in secular and even some Christian colleges place the Genesis creation account on equal footing with mythological writings from the ancient
42:18: Near East. Indeed, one can look back in history and find many different accounts of human origins.
42:24: What makes the Genesis account stand apart? Is there scientific evidence that supports the Bible's account of human origins?
42:31: Let's look and find out. The Bible is very clear about human origins. Genesis lays out who made us,
42:38: God or Elohim in the Hebrew, what we were made from, dust, how we were made, divinely spoken into existence, who we were made like in God's image, our role in creation, dominion, and our marital covenant for family.
42:53: Scripture even includes when we were created during creation week, day 6, and the time in history, about 6 ,000 years ago based on the genealogies in Genesis.
43:03: Next, Scripture is consistent about this account, with every Bible contributor in both the Old and New Testaments holding to the same description of how we came to be, spanning 66 books over 1 ,500 years written by 40 writers in 3 languages on 3 continents.
43:19: Billions of people over the millennia have regarded the Bible's account of origins as historical and quite literal.
43:25: Could they have all been wrong? Scripture is clear that Adam was the first man and Eve the first woman, the mother of the human race.
43:33: The Apostle Paul inseparably connects Jesus to Adam, with Jesus coming to redeem us from the curse of sin and death brought by Adam.
43:40: Paul also describes how Adam and Eve specifically as individuals fell into temptation.
43:46: The Gospel of Luke even connects Christ's genealogy to Adam and Adam's son who lived after him.
43:52: How could that be mythical? Without a real Adam, a real garden, a real tree, and a real enemy that led
43:58: Adam and Eve into sin, the consequences for sin laid out in Genesis 3 has no foundation.
44:04: And without this, the Gospel and the entire New Testament has nothing to stand on. Because of the sin nature we inherited from Adam, we are all in need of a
44:12: Savior. That's the very foundation of the Gospel and the New Testament. Did Jesus die for the sins of a mythical Adam?
44:19: Certainly not. Unlike ancient mythological writings, the Bible makes the unique claim to be inspired so the pages of Scripture can be relied upon as words from God himself.
44:29: The Jewish people and Christians have regarded Scripture with this level of reverence for millennia. In fact,
44:35: Romans 1 even says that all of creation, including humans, are an obvious testimony to God's creative powers and invisible attributes.
44:43: So, people are without an excuse. One of the most obvious examples that humans are created is found in our hearing system.
44:51: Taking an honest look at our hearing system reveals an obvious designer. How could random, mindless evolution engineer five separate components that have no purpose unless they are all joined together in a certain order and in a certain way for the purpose of hearing?
45:05: Even if some random process could put together just one of these five components, it takes engineering and intelligence to join these five parts together so that the sound waves from speech could be heard and then immediately interpreted as communication in our minds.
45:19: The eye might even be more convincing, containing hundreds of parts that had to be assembled to create the overall purpose and function for seeing.
45:27: Random chance certainly doesn't have the intelligence needed for assembling different parts into a cohesive, interdependent system for sight to work.
45:35: Next, let's take a quick tour of some scientific discoveries over just the last few decades that give strong evidence for the
45:42: Bible's account of human origins. Let's start by looking at DNA, a protein -coding language that cannot be replicated by any scientist in the world.
45:50: It's the most sophisticated information storage system in the known universe. Nothing comes even close.
45:57: In fact, over 10 ,000 DNA molecules can fit on the head of a pin, and unfolding just one of them reveals six feet of instructions capable of building who you are.
46:07: Stretching out DNA in the trillions of cells in your body could reach to the sun and back hundreds of times.
46:13: Perhaps you've heard that humans and chimps share 98 % of their DNA, but did you know that when they made this comparison, they ignored 18 % of the chimp genome and 25 % of the human genome?
46:24: Plus, the chimp genome is over 6 % larger than ours. When they give the 98 % similarity figure, it's based on cherry -picked
46:32: DNA regions that were similar. Of course, humans and chimps have similar DNA. They're mammals living in the world with similar requirements for biological life.
46:42: Our DNA is also similar to several other creatures. What about DNA research that purportedly shows our genome dates back tens of thousands of years, far outreaching the biblical timeline?
46:53: Recent research into mitochondrial DNA mutation rates gives the answer. This is unique because it comes only from the mother's egg, making it useful for tracing maternal ancestry.
47:04: Since DNA was sequenced in 1981, researchers have been studying the mutation rates in mtDNA to try and estimate when different groups of people possibly diverged.
47:14: Evolutionary researchers have based these timelines on the assumption that humans and chimps shared a common ancestor about 5 million years ago.
47:22: That date was based on counting the mtDNA and protein differences between all the great apes, and timing their divergence using dates from fossils of one great ape's ancestor.
47:32: This evolutionary assumption counts on the mtDNA mutation rate of about one mutation every 300 to 600 generations, or one every 6 ,000 to 12 ,000 years.
47:43: But do these evolutionary assumptions hold up? Actually, recent studies have shown that the actual mutation rates are much faster than the rates assumed by evolution theory, causing researchers to rethink the mtDNA clock they depend on for forensic investigations.
47:58: This discovery was published in Nature Genetics by Dr. Parsons and his colleagues, who investigated the mtDNA of 357 individuals from 134 different families, representing 327 generational events, which are counted by the number of times that mothers passed on mtDNA to their offspring.
48:17: Parsons' team showed that mutation rates actually occur at a rate of one every 33 generations, which was 20 -fold higher than the estimates based on the theoretical 5 -million -year timeline between chimps and humans that expect about one mutation in every 300 to 600 generations, or one every 6 ,000 to 12 ,000 years.
48:37: This study was published in Nature Genetics, and the faster rate has stood fast even as the number of families in the study has doubled.
48:44: Other studies have confirmed these findings since Parsons' discovery. For example, Howell's team analyzed mtDNA from 40 members of a family with an overall divergence rate of one mutation every 25 to 40 generations.
48:58: Howell remarked that both of our studies, his and Parsons', came to a remarkably similar conclusion.
49:04: Based on these findings, Howell warned that phylogenic studies, studies that try to estimate the evolutionary branching between animal kinds, have substantially underestimated the rate of mtDNA divergence.
49:16: As one science writer puts it, evolutionists are most concerned about the effect of a faster mutation rate.
49:22: For example, researchers have calculated that mitochondrial Eve, the woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living people, lived 100 ,000 to 200 ,000 years ago in Africa.
49:34: Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6 ,000 years old. This, of course, fits well within the
49:40: Bible's timeline. Based on their updated work, identifying 220 soldiers' remains from World War II to the present,
49:47: Parsons and Holland now have new guidelines, adopted by the FBI as well, to account for a faster mutation rate.
49:54: Studies have also confirmed that there was a massive DNA variability explosion that happened on Earth just thousands of years ago, within the time frame of Noah's Flood and the
50:03: Babel dispersion that occurred afterwards. Next, let's consider the extent of the fossil evidence that exists for human evolution.
50:11: Charles Darwin postured that if evolution was true, innumerable transitional forms must have existed.
50:17: He also questioned, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the Earth? We agree.
50:23: If human evolution was true, wouldn't we expect the ground to be filled with numerous transitions between ape -like creatures?
50:30: We agree with Darwin that the lack of transitions is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory of evolution.
50:38: Even Ian Tattersall, Emeritus Curator with the American Museum of Natural History noted that you could fit all the supposed ape -to -human fossil evidence into the back of a pickup truck if you didn't mind how much you jumbled everything up.
50:50: With centuries of recorded history and over 7 billion interfertile humans on the planet today, we should certainly have more than a truck bed of fossil evidence if evolution was true.
51:00: Lucy is featured in most public school textbooks as the leading icon to support the theory of human evolution.
51:07: Listen closely to what Lucy's discoverer Donald Johansson says about Lucy's kind on this
51:12: BBC video. We now have 400 specimens of Lucy's species Australopithecus afarensis, named after the
51:20: Afar region, and we know that there are very large individuals, which were males, and the smaller ones are certainly females.
51:28: What Johansson doesn't say is that what he's actually referring to when he says 400 specimens is not the hundreds of upright walking skeletons that are represented in the video.
51:38: He's actually talking about 400 bone fragments, barely enough to scatter on this picnic table, and over 30 % of this collection are just teeth.
51:47: Nearly 50 years of study on Lucy has revealed what many have known since her discovery. She's just an extinct ape.
51:54: If there's no historical Adam, there's no gospel. If Adam and the fall are not historical, then
51:59: Jesus died for a mythological problem and he is a mythological savior offering us a mythological hope.
52:05: Atheists also understand the problem of a mythical Adam and Eve. No Adam and Eve means no need for a savior.
52:12: It also means that the Bible cannot be trusted as a source of unambiguous literal truth. It is completely unreliable because it all begins with a myth and builds on that as a basis.
52:22: No fall of a man means no need for atonement and no need for a redeemer. The truth is that we are too sophisticated to evolve out of some primordial mud pit over billions of years.
52:33: We sing, worship, have ceremonies, pray, educate ourselves and do so many other things that reflect the fact that we are spiritual beings and not animals.
52:42: God made us on the sixth day of creation to name and take dominion over the entire animal kingdom.
52:48: This happened just thousands of years ago. God sent his son to redeem us from the fall that happened when our real forefather sinned.
52:55: We have been mercifully brought into a place of grace, forgiveness and rest if we accept his sacrifice by confessing our sins and surrender our lives to him.
53:04: Looking for answers about what the Bible teaches about creation, the fossil record, dinosaurs? Download the
53:10: Genesis Apologetics app from the iTunes or Google Play stores for answers to these questions and more.
53:28: Myth number five is the Bible's account of Noah's flood is just myth and was drawn from writings from the ancient
53:34: Near East. To investigate this claim, we'll look at the global evidence for a worldwide flood, the seaworthiness of the
53:41: Ark and answer tough questions like how could Noah fit all of the animals on the Ark? Finally, we'll contrast the
53:47: Bible's account of the flood with the leading flood myth from the ancient Near East, the epic of Gilgamesh.
53:53: First, let's take a quick look at the evidence for the worldwide year -long flood of the Bible. The Bible records that the flood commenced by the fountains of the great deep breaking open that led to the entire globe being covered with water, with the highest hills even submerged by 20 feet.
54:07: If this happened as described, it would have left some amazing scars on the Earth. This is exactly what we find with the 40 ,000 mile oceanic rift system that covers the
54:17: Earth 1 .9 times over including the massive 10 ,000 mile mid -Atlantic ridge that quite obviously shows how these continents were once joined together and then pushed apart.
54:28: Just check out this map with all the ocean water removed. The deep continental shelves become visible and we can see how the continents fit together like puzzle pieces to shape an
54:37: Earth that used to be mostly a single landmass. This is especially obvious when looking at the matching jagged edges of lower
54:44: South America and Africa. We can also see this notch of submerged land off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and how it perfectly fits into a slot north of Spain.
54:53: These continents fit together so well because of the catastrophic linear rifting that occurred when the fountains of the great deep were pulled apart.
55:01: The Hebrew term used for this is Ba -Ka, which means to cleave, rent, or break and rip open, to make a breach.
55:08: This couldn't describe what we see any better. One of the largest tears, the mid -Atlantic ridge, includes perpendicular faults along its entire length, showing the formation of new seafloor that occurred rapidly during the flood, not slowly over millions of years.
55:22: The raised and sloped features on each side of the rift also testify to the hot and buoyant rock that still lies beneath it.
55:29: This is certainly something that happened quickly in the past and then slowed down greatly, as GPS measurements today indicate.
55:36: The evolutionary view holds that these continents moved apart slowly over millions of years. If this was true, the large rivers on the continents that straddle each sides of these rifts would have left a connected trail of mud stretching from one side of the
55:50: Atlantic to the other. But what we see from the evidence is that they were rapidly split apart, and then the draining and erosion started.
55:57: Major rivers like the Congo, Mississippi, and Amazon run off the continents and have mud fans with only thousands of years worth of mud deposits, not millions.
56:06: Also, there are flat sand bottoms on each side of these continents, showing they were split apart rapidly.
56:12: They don't have millions of years worth of runoff with extensive mud extending out into the ocean. These rivers began shaping and eroding only thousands of years ago, not millions.
56:22: The fossil record that now straddles both sides of this global tear testifies to the same theory, with millions of the same kinds of animals that were once living together now found buried in mud layers on either side.
56:36: Global geology joins this testimony with recent analysis of 1 ,800 boreholes from around the world, revealing six mega -sequences of the flood that indicate its worldwide extent.
56:47: Billions of fossils buried in the mud around the world, including 13 states of dead dinosaurs mixed with marine life in the middle of America.
56:55: What type of flood could do this? Just how much water would it take to bury millions of land creatures under hundreds of feet of mud in this 13 -state, 700 ,000 square mile area?
57:06: And just how did so many land creatures get buried together with marine life, with 97 % of the dinosaurs found disarticulated, and many of the remaining 3 % that are found intact, discovered in mud layers with their necks arched back, suffocating as they died?
57:22: Catastrophic plate tectonics explains the mechanism behind the Genesis Flood, with massive oceanic plates subducting under the land masses, generating cycles of tsunamis that brought megatons of sediment onto land, wiping out every living creature in their paths, burying them in the muddy layers we can still see today.
57:41: These types of tsunamis still occur, although much less frequently and on a smaller scale.
57:46: The spreading seafloor subducts, binds under the land masses, and then releases, creating mud -filled tsunamis that carry debris and sea life onto land, sorting them in layers.
57:56: This is exactly what we see in dinosaur graveyards today around the world. North America provides some clues to the massive nature of the flood.
58:05: In fact, even secular geologists refer to what's known as the widespread Late Cretaceous Transgression, which is just technical jargon for worldwide flood.
58:14: Studies have revealed that a sea level rise of 310 meters is required to flood the
58:19: Cretaceous layers based on their current elevation. However, the maximum thickness of the fossil layers produced by a 310 -meter sea level rise is only about 700 meters.
58:30: The challenge is that, in North America, nearly 50 % of the Cretaceous layers contain strata thicker than 700 meters, indicating that the continents had to sink and buckle during this global inundation.
58:42: This is exactly what the catastrophic nature of the flood would have done. There's just no way that rising sea levels alone can explain the fossil record in North America.
58:52: Something much more catastrophic that warped and submerged the continents just had to be involved. Next, let's investigate whether the ark was seaworthy.
59:00: God gave certain dimensions to Noah for building the ark. 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high.
59:08: Using the nipper cubit at 20 .4 inches, this works out to a vessel about 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet high.
59:18: Accounting for a 15 % reduction in volume due to the hull curvature, the ark had about 1 .88
59:24: million cubic feet of space, the equivalent of 450 semi -trailers of cargo space, twice as long as a
59:31: Boeing 747 and stretching over 1 .5 football fields. This was a massive ship, but was such a vessel seaworthy?
59:40: Interestingly, the ark's dimensions were about the same as modern shipping vessels, making a fitting shape for handling ocean swells that are typically spaced out in such a way that ships of this size fare well at sea.
59:51: In fact, Dr. Xian -Wan Hong, who holds a Ph .D. in Applied Mechanics from the University of Michigan, conducted a study on the seaworthiness of Noah's ark at the world -class ship research center,
01:00:02: CRISO. Dr. Hong's team compared 12 different hull designs of various proportions and found that the ark, based on the biblical dimensions, outperformed all others because it carefully balanced the conflicting requirements for stability, resistance to capsizing, passenger stability, or seakeeping, and strength.
01:00:19: The study also confirmed that the ark could handle waves as high as 100 feet without capsizing.
01:00:25: Noah was instructed by God to coat the inside and the outside of the ark with pitch, a thick, gooey substance secreted by trees as a means of protection against infection or insect attack.
01:00:36: When heated into a liquid state and applied to ship planking, pitch hardens almost instantly into a protective waterproof shell, very similar to how epoxy or fiberglass are used in shipbuilding today.
01:00:47: The strong outer shell provided by hardened pitch adds both strength and waterproofing beyond the natural capability of the wood.
01:00:55: These divine shipbuilding instructions given to Noah certainly seem to make realistic sense.
01:01:01: Next, let's look at one of the most frequently asked questions about the ark. How could it fit all the animals?
01:01:07: Skeptics frequently scoff at the idea of packing all the animal species onto the ark, but the solution is found in this very objection.
01:01:14: Noah didn't have to load all animal species on the ark. He only had to load the animal kinds.
01:01:20: For example, there are over 300 dog breeds and over 300 horse breeds, and all breeds within these two animal kinds are interfertile, producing offspring representing a mix in between the two parents.
01:01:32: The same is true for many other animal groups. Collapsing these animal trees results in a very feasible number of animal kinds, less than a few thousand, that could board the ark, get off a year later, and then spread around the world and reproduce into the varieties within kinds we see today.
01:01:48: Now let's compare the biblical flood to the leading flood myth, the Epic of Gilgamesh. In 1853, archaeologists found a series of 12 tablets dated to around 650
01:01:59: B .C., although parts of the story existed in earlier fragmentary versions. Because the story had many of the same elements as the
01:02:06: Genesis account, skeptics believed that Gilgamesh preceded the biblical account, negating the
01:02:11: Genesis account as just a spin -off. Fortunately, for Christians, however, there are major clues that point to the biblical account as the accurate one, and Gilgamesh as a later work of fiction that incorporated legendary elements of a flood within a cultural fantasy.
01:02:26: Here are the reasons why. First, we have the feasibility of the Gilgamesh version of the ark, described as a massive, unstable cube that was about 200 feet on each side with 6 decks that divided it into 7 parts.
01:02:39: Along with help from the community and craftsmen, he supposedly built this vessel, which was over 3 times the size of the biblical ark in just a week.
01:02:47: How would something like this fare during a catastrophic worldwide flood? It would obviously tumble, killing or maiming its passengers.
01:02:56: That's obviously quite different than the biblical ark, which had a 7 to 1 length to width ratio, which is very similar to many of today's ocean barges, making a feasible design for staying afloat during the flood.
01:03:07: Scripture provides clues that Noah and helpers likely had between 55 and 75 years to build the ark.
01:03:14: The second key for determining which of these flood accounts is the original is the duration of the flood provided by each.
01:03:20: The Gilgamesh flood lasted a mere 6 days, whereas the Genesis flood lasted 371 days.
01:03:26: Both accounts claim the flood was worldwide, but how could water cover earth in just 6 days? A floating 200 by 200 foot cube and 6 days for worldwide inundation certainly stretch credulity.
01:03:38: The next consideration is the reasons for the flood given by each of the two accounts. In the Genesis account,
01:03:44: God's judgment is just. He was patient with utterly wicked mankind for 120 years before sending the flood, and showed mercy to the last righteous family.
01:03:53: In the Gilgamesh account, the flood was ordered by multiple self -centered squabbling gods that were starving without humans to feed them sacrifices.
01:04:01: These two are quite different. Finally, there are several other parts of the Gilgamesh account that are obviously mythical, such as Gilgamesh being two -thirds divine and one -third mortal.
01:04:12: After oppressing his people, Gilgamesh and others called upon the gods, and the sky god Anu creates a wild man named
01:04:18: Enkidu to fight Gilgamesh. The battle is a draw, and they become friends. Gilgamesh apparently also encounters talking monsters and a scorpion man in his journeys.
01:04:28: Many myths are based on historical accounts, but they get embellished over time, becoming more and more mythical as the story is repeated over generations.
01:04:37: This is exactly what we see with flood myths like Gilgamesh. They take the original historical account, the biblical flood, and grow it into a mythical, interesting story over time.
01:04:47: For example, the earlier version of the Gilgamesh flood account clearly identifies the flood as a local river flood, with the dead bodies of humans filling the river like dragonflies, and moving to the edge of the boat like a raft, and moving to the riverbank like a raft.
01:05:02: Centuries later, this gets exaggerated into a global, worldwide flood, where humans killed in the flood fill the sea like a spawn of fish.
01:05:10: Both accounts have a god or gods that are sending judgment, describe a worldwide inundation, have an arc built to specific dimensions that are loaded with surviving humans and animals, and land just a few hundred miles apart from each other after using birds as a test to find dry land.
01:05:26: Myths often grow from being historical to being more mythical, but they almost never develop in the reverse, becoming more truthful and accurate over time.
01:05:35: While these accounts mirror each other in so many ways, which account is the original, historical one?
01:05:40: The feasible one, of course. While both accounts describe plenty of divine intervention, only the biblical arc's size, shape, function, build time, and flood duration make sense.
01:05:51: Let's see what Dr. Randall Price, distinguished research professor and curator at Liberty Biblical Museum, has to say about this topic.
01:05:58: What extra biblical text would you say substantiate the flood account in Genesis 6 -9?
01:06:05: Well, let's work our way backwards. We can start with all the church fathers. Every one of them mentioned the flood, and it's always a global flood.
01:06:11: There's no example in any of them of a local flood. And then, as we move back to a first century writer like Flavius Josephus, who wrote for the
01:06:20: Romans, he's writing a history of the Jewish people, primarily to impress the
01:06:25: Romans because they defeated the Jewish people. It makes them look greater if they defeated a great people. But he's going into the details, and he talks about that in this place where the
01:06:37: Ark landed, they call it Armenia, they say that there are people who show relics of the
01:06:43: Ark. There's at least four different accounts in Josephus where he says people chip off pieces of the bitumen and make amulets of it, or people are shown these things who are curious to see them, or that all the history of the barbarians, he says, he talks about Egyptian and Chaldean and Greek, all of these have similar accounts of the flood.
01:07:06: And he said this was the same as the legislator Moses, he talks about, who wrote.
01:07:12: Now we go back in time, and this are those barbarian accounts. We have
01:07:18: Sumerian accounts, the Iridu, Genesis, we have the
01:07:23: Enuma Elish, we have Atrahasis, we have the
01:07:29: Gilgamesh Epic, we now have the Simmons' Cuneiform Tablet, or the
01:07:34: Ark Tablet, and we have the Sumerian King List. All of these mention the flood and have various details.
01:07:42: Some talk about, all of them talk about the God's punishing man, and one man being chosen to bring either himself or his family or alternately, and certainly in every case, all the animals onto a vessel to survive this flood, this punishment.
01:08:00: And then, afterward, we have various details. He sent out a dove or a raven, which is likely to mention in the biblical text.
01:08:08: Almost all of them, when he gets off the ark, offers a sacrifice to please the gods.
01:08:15: Well, this is not only in the same chronological order as you have in the Bible, but it's the same unique events and details that are in the
01:08:22: Bible. Now, all these predate the Bible, and you could accuse the
01:08:28: Bible of copying from them, but as we mentioned earlier, the problem is the Bible comes across more simple, more historical, more believable, while these are complex myths, and they differ among themselves in those details.
01:08:43: But where they all agree is a similar core history that must have been passed on after the flood, and as civilization spread out, and generations begin to go their own way, they develop their own myths, which keep that core common history, but add to it in their own direction.
01:09:02: The Bible doesn't do it that way. It's not a perception. They're saying, this is the way it happened in an orderly event.
01:09:08: And they don't do like this. They give you clear genealogies. They give you historical time frames.
01:09:14: They give you dimensions and structures that are quite literal, and actually work. So, when you look at some of the weird proportions of some of these ancient
01:09:23: Easter counts, the ark is a square box that couldn't float. It's a round type of basket that might have done this.
01:09:31: They all have the idea of a boat, but they're too far from the information, whereas the biblical account gives you exact dimensions of something that is hydrodynamically stable, that will fit what it claims.
01:09:45: It's just not, it's no comparison when it comes to those things. Jesus taught about a real flood, and compared it to what the end times will be like.
01:09:53: Jesus warned, But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my
01:09:58: Father only. But, as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
01:10:04: For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away.
01:10:14: So also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Because Jesus stood firmly on the historicity of the flood, and likened it to end times, the two go hand in hand.
01:10:23: If the Genesis flood never happened, we have no foundation for believing in the rest of what Jesus said, including his second coming.
01:10:30: At least for Christians, Matthew alone should destroy the flood as myth idea. Looking back through history, there are actually hundreds of flood accounts, and the similarity between these accounts and the
01:10:40: Genesis flood are uncanny. Most of them seem to draw from the same common themes. Judgment from God, a family chosen to preserve humanity, and loading animals.
01:10:50: The early Chinese certainly seemed to have Genesis and the flood in mind when they invented written language.
01:10:56: Together with the Jews, Chinese is one of the earliest and the oldest enduring civilizations.
01:11:02: It has a 4 ,500 years of unbroken history. Every Chinese word not only expresses a meaning, it captures a history.
01:11:12: Every character tells a story. And that the Chinese people were the descendants of the
01:11:18: Tower of Babel. They were the descendants of Noah. Surely they want to record all these global cataclysmic events.
01:11:25: So I'm going to show you that all these global events were documented in Chinese history.
01:11:31: Now notice. Watch, everybody. God took clay to He breathed with his mouth on two people.
01:11:45: One is a man. Out of his sight came forth a woman and put them in a garden.
01:11:56: That's how you got the word garden. And the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden you may freely eat.
01:12:02: But the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
01:12:08: So God stopped them. Prohibited them. Now to forbid in Chinese is this word jing.
01:12:17: Now how do you write the word jing? Now look. God gave them
01:12:23: God put them in a garden. You have trees. He gave them a revelation.
01:12:34: God gave them revelation about the tree. Don't you eat it.
01:12:40: If you eat it, you will die. Why were there two trees? Because there was a tree of life and a tree of knowledge of good and evil.
01:12:49: Genesis chapter 3 verse 1 now. Now what is the word tempter in Chinese?
01:13:00: The person who gives temptation. Now how do you write the word more? One guy came to man.
01:13:11: Secretly. This is the word. Si means secret.
01:13:19: So this word gui means devil. Where did he come? He came among the trees.
01:13:26: Undercover. He came as a tempter. So he tried to seduce
01:13:34: Eve. Eve ate the fruit. Eve, the
01:13:39: Bible says, lusted after the fruit. Got greedy for it. How do you write the word to lust?
01:13:45: Notice, it's again those three over a woman. All the story of creation was recorded in their writings.
01:13:52: Now we come to the flood in Genesis chapter 7. So Nomer with his sons, his wife, and his son's wife swam into the ark because of the waters of the flood.
01:14:01: What is the Chinese word for a big boat? Chuan. How do you write chuan?
01:14:07: Look, look. A boat. With eight people.
01:14:17: You say, why eight people in a boat? Because chapter 7 and verse 7 says Noah and his wife, two people, three sons, that makes it five, and three daughter -in -laws, that's eight.
01:14:29: The first time boat was used, eight people were inside. Where did the Chinese picture concepts come from?
01:14:36: Why do these figures match Genesis history so clearly? Isn't it also interesting that all human history disappears about the same time as the biblical flood?
01:14:45: Even secular school textbooks admit this. This is exactly what we would expect with civilization starting again after the flood.
01:14:53: In summary, the Bible clearly lays out a flood account that, while miraculous, fits into history with much more believability than the mythical accounts.
01:15:01: The ark is the only vessel in the ancient flood accounts that could have actually survived the flood. It was seaworthy and watertight, fit dimensions of many similar ships today, and could certainly hold the thousands of animal kinds necessary to blossom into the variety of animal life we see today.
01:15:17: The obvious scars around the world also coincide well with the Bible's account, matching both the megasequences in the geologic record and the massive worldwide fossil record, consisting of billions upon billions of animals buried in the muddy catastrophe that killed them.
01:15:33: Looking for answers about what the Bible teaches about creation, the fossil record, dinosaurs? Download the
01:15:39: Genesis Apologetics app from the iTunes or Google Play stores for answers to these questions and more.
01:15:59: Myth number six is Moses did not actually produce the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.
01:16:04: They allege that Moses did not have the ability to write, or that the Hebrew language doesn't date back far enough for the events recorded in the
01:16:11: Bible. Let's find out why these claims couldn't be further from the truth. To begin with, keep in mind that Jesus himself supported that Moses produced the
01:16:20: Torah, stating in John 5, "'For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.
01:16:25: But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?' When praying to the Father in John 17,
01:16:31: Jesus said this, "'Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth.'" Jesus had a high view of Scripture, and he clearly believed in the
01:16:39: Mosaic authorship of the Torah. New Testament authors mention Moses 80 times, and always give him credit for producing the
01:16:45: Torah. Paul even noted in Romans 3 that God committed his oracles and teachings to the
01:16:50: Jewish people, and this came through Moses. But wait a minute, Moses wasn't present during the six days of creation recorded in the first chapter of Genesis.
01:16:59: No one was, and Adam wasn't created until the end of creation week. Moses also didn't witness the flood, or the events leading up to it.
01:17:07: In fact, Moses didn't even show up until at least 700 years after the flood. So, just how did he write or compile the biblical history that came before him?
01:17:16: The answer is quite simple. They were transmitted orally, or in writing, or both. Interestingly, the first set of writings referenced in the
01:17:24: Bible is the book of the Generations of Adam in Genesis 5. This book is actually one of 11 toldots, which means histories or genealogies that are included in the book of Genesis, which is broken into 50 chapters in our
01:17:36: Bibles today. While we don't know for sure, it's likely that these 11 toldots were memorized, compiled, or both by the generations that are relevant to them, and handed like historical batons between generations.
01:17:48: For example, the toldot from Genesis 5 .1 to 6 .8 includes 13 people listed by name.
01:17:54: The next one, dealing with the flood, includes 9. The next toldot picks up in chapter 10 and describes
01:18:00: Noah's sons and grandchildren with over 70 people listed by name. The events of the toldot for Terah, Ishmael, Isaac, and Jacob even occurred during the period for which we have evidence of Hebrew writing.
01:18:12: The Bible is clear and specific about the histories that predate Moses. It's hard to imagine how the birth, death, or lifespan years given for the 87 patriarchs in the first 11 chapters of Genesis was passed down through oral history alone.
01:18:26: However, the ancients transmitted stories orally much more frequently than we do today, and they were often quite reliable when they did so.
01:18:33: Also, remember that the Holy Spirit had no limitations for guiding Moses through the transmission process, as men being born along by the
01:18:40: Holy Spirit spoke from God. 2 Peter 1 .21 Another major clue that the early chapters of Genesis were preserved and given to Moses is found in Genesis 2.
01:18:51: This chapter describes river systems that encircled certain areas that were rich with precious minerals and gems.
01:18:57: Moses was not around to see this landscape, as it was completely reworked by Noah's flood, which occurred long before his day.
01:19:03: He knew about these things because they were passed down beforehand and given to him. So, if these accounts were preserved through the flood and preserved after the flood, it is conceivable that they were passed down from one generation to another by oral transmission or writing.
01:19:18: Liberal scholars today promote the documentary hypothesis, which stands against the Mosaic authorship of the
01:19:23: Torah, and suggested instead that it was a compilation of four originally independent documents, abbreviated as the
01:19:30: J .E .P .D. sources. This idea originally was promoted by Julius Wellhausen in the 19th century.
01:19:36: Creation Ministries International provides a thorough rebuttal of this hypothesis, showing even how modern scholarship does not support it.
01:19:44: The evidence that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, often referred to in the Bible as the Law or the
01:19:49: Torah in the Hebrew, is overwhelming. There are five things that strongly support
01:19:55: Mosaic authorship. Number one, contrary to the views of Wellhausen and others, archaeological research has established that writing was indeed well known in Moses' day.
01:20:06: That was one of their main premises. It was, yeah. The J .E .D .P., the documentary hypothesis, falsely assumes that the
01:20:13: Israelites waited until many centuries after the foundation of their nation before committing any of their history or laws to written form, even though their neighbors kept written records of their own history and religion from before the time of Moses.
01:20:30: Two, the author is obviously an eyewitness of the exodus from Egypt, familiar with the geography, the flora, the fauna of the region.
01:20:38: He uses several Egyptian words, refers to customs that go back to the second millennium
01:20:44: B .C. So obviously the writer, Moses, would have been familiar with what the
01:20:49: Egyptians... Of course, yeah. Number three, within the Pentateuch, in many places it indicates that Moses was the writer.
01:20:56: When people write letters or emails and include their name at the bottom, it's an excellent indication that that person wrote the text.
01:21:03: Why doubt them unless you have good reasons? Exactly. Four, outside of the Pentateuch, many times in the rest of the
01:21:09: Old Testament, Moses is said to have been the writer. Clearly the writers of those other books held to Mosaic authorship.
01:21:16: Right. Number five, in the New Testament, Jesus frequently spoke of Moses' writings, or the law of Moses.
01:21:23: Jesus said that those who hear not, or that is reject Moses, would not be persuaded though one rose from the dead.
01:21:32: In Luke 16 .31 we read that. Thus we see that those churches and seminaries that reject the historicity of Moses' writings often also reject the literal bodily resurrection of the
01:21:45: Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus made that connection right there. And so for evangelicals to be accepting this, it's just...it's
01:21:53: ridiculous. It's crazy. Other New Testament speakers, writers, said the same thing.
01:21:59: Moses is the author of the Pentateuch, another support for Mosaic authorship.
01:22:04: Does that mean that Moses wrote Genesis without reference to any previous information? No, not necessarily.
01:22:11: That's not what we're saying. Genesis comprises narratives of historical events that occurred before Moses, before he was born, long before he was born.
01:22:20: Moses may very well have had access to patriarchal records and or reliable oral traditions of those events.
01:22:28: In that case, such records would have certainly been preserved by writing probably on clay tablets.
01:22:34: That's the way they used to do it a long time ago. And handed down from father to son, from family to family via the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and so on.
01:22:42: You start through the flood with Noah and Shem. There are 11 verses in Genesis that read these are, or this is the book of, the generations of.
01:22:54: There's 11 statements like that. The Hebrew word Toledoth translates generations, that's the word for generations, can also mean origins or history, or even family history.
01:23:08: And each verse comes either before or after a description of the historical events that involved the person that's named.
01:23:17: This is the generation of so and so. The most likely explanation is that Adam, Noah, Shem, etc.,
01:23:24: each wrote an account of the events that occurred either right before or during his lifetime.
01:23:31: And Moses, it's kind of like a signature almost, or a heading, that kind of thing. Same thing with Moses.
01:23:37: Under the infallible inspiration of the Holy Spirit, selected, compiled, and edited these to produce Genesis in its current, present, cohesive form.
01:23:46: Next, we have the many instances in the Bible where Moses recorded the commands or words of God.
01:23:52: For example, in Exodus 17 .14, the Lord said to Moses, write this for a memorial in the book, and recount it in the hearing of Joshua.
01:24:00: Exodus 24 .4 states that Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And verse 7 records that Moses took the book of the covenant and read it to the people.
01:24:08: We also have Deuteronomy 6 that indicates the Israelites were using writing, being directed by God to write his commandments on the doorposts of their houses and gates.
01:24:18: Then there are the Ten Commandments, where God instructed Moses, come up to me on the mountain and be there, and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which
01:24:27: I have written, that you may teach them. Exodus 32 .15 even says that these tablets were written on both sides.
01:24:33: So, it looks like God himself was writing in a language that the Israelites would understand. Many Christians and Jews alike believe that this interchange occurred in ancient
01:24:42: Hebrew, but to compile a work like the Bible, you need the flexibility of an alphabet. While opinions vary, many secular scholars today hold that the
01:24:50: Phoenicians developed the world's first alphabet around 1050 B .C. How can this be when most biblical scholars hold the view that Moses wrote the
01:24:58: Torah in the 15th century B .C.? In filmmaker Tim Mahoney's movie, Patterns of Evidence, The Moses Controversy, he answers this question thoroughly.
01:25:07: In this movie, Mahoney establishes the Mosaic authorship by looking at evidence that answers four key questions.
01:25:13: One, could Moses have written the Torah in a language by the time of the Exodus? Two, in the region of Egypt?
01:25:20: Three, using the power of an alphabet? And four, in a form of writing like Hebrew? This movie documents over two hours of evidence that supports the biblical case.
01:25:29: We'll review some of the highlights covered by the movie. While visiting Brian Brickett, I asked him how emphatic the
01:25:36: Bible's claims are for Moses writing its first books around the time of the
01:25:41: Exodus. Exodus 17 -14, it says the Lord said to Moses, write in a book.
01:25:48: Write this in a book. And then it goes on and when Moses produces the tablets,
01:25:54: God tells him to do that too. So we have references in the Torah and all throughout the Bible that describe
01:25:59: Mosaic authorship to the text and it claims for itself that it is the product of Moses writing as a result of what
01:26:06: God told him to do. I remembered that almost all the books of the
01:26:13: Bible reference back to the writings of Moses. Jesus talks about Moses and references
01:26:19: Moses and if Moses didn't exist then what does that do to really the credibility of Jesus?
01:26:26: Yes. John 5 provides five witnesses to Jesus' divinity. He concludes his argument by saying this in John 5,
01:26:35: If you believed Moses you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?
01:26:44: So there it looks like you have a definitive statement from Jesus that Moses produced the
01:26:50: Torah and he's staking an awful lot on that reality. What Moses himself says that these things were given to him by God.
01:27:00: God told me. God spoke to me. God commanded this. He clearly says that what he is writing is what
01:27:08: God revealed. It's not just a matter of historical curiosity. Well, Moses wrote these books and not some anonymous figure.
01:27:17: It is that Moses is the chosen man of God. He is the man who spoke to God as a man speaks to his friend.
01:27:27: And so Moses has great authority and that is why
01:27:33: I think Jesus and the apostles when they spoke of the books of Moses they refer to him by name because he was
01:27:42: Moses. He was this chosen man of God. In 1905, the great pioneer of archaeology,
01:27:51: Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie and his wife Hilda went to the Sinai Peninsula searching for evidence of ancient
01:27:59: Egyptian activity. Petrie had already found the famous Merneptah Stele near Thebes.
01:28:09: At the time, it contained the oldest known reference to the people of Israel. It boasted that they had been subdued by the pharaohs.
01:28:19: The Petries began to discover many hieroglyphic inscriptions. Then on the walls of one of the mines they saw writing that appeared different from the rest.
01:28:33: Petrie's work in the Sinai is incredibly important. He uncovered a group of inscribed objects, inscribed with a script which was unknown elsewhere in Egypt.
01:28:46: The Griffith Institute holds the handwritten archives of the man responsible for identifying the source of these inscriptions.
01:28:55: His name was Sir Alan Gardner and he was one of the world's preeminent experts in ancient languages.
01:29:02: He determined that not only was this script made by Semitic people, it was made up of individual letters that formed the world's oldest known alphabet.
01:29:13: The case for the alphabetic character of the unknown script is overwhelming. The meanings of these names, translated as Semitic words, are plain or plausible in 17 cases.
01:29:24: The inscriptions found by the Petries and others confirm that the Proto -Sinaitic script is the earliest known alphabet, and it appeared centuries earlier than even
01:29:35: Phoenician. An alphabet would make learning to read and write easy, allowing the
01:29:40: Israelites to teach their children the words of God, as Moses instructed. And this alphabet was
01:29:47: Semitic, which means that it was in the same family as Hebrew. Therefore, it was a form of writing like Hebrew.
01:29:56: This writing, existing by the time of the Exodus, and in the region of Egypt, could have provided the tool needed for Moses to express the nuance and detail found in the early books of the
01:30:07: Bible. There are several distinctively Hebrew words that are not found in any other
01:30:15: Semitic language that are contained in the 15 Hebrew inscriptions that I've translated. Moses had written down all the instructions from God, as well as the history of his people, beginning with the creation of the world.
01:30:33: When Moses had finished writing the words of this law, in a scroll to its very end,
01:30:40: Moses commanded the Levites, who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, he said, take this book of the law and put it by the side of the
01:30:50: Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God. Looking for answers about what the
01:30:58: Bible teaches about creation, the fossil record, dinosaurs? Download the Genesis Apologetics app from the iTunes or Google Play stores for answers to these questions and more.
01:31:11: Myth number seven is dinosaurs died out millions of years ago, did not walk with man, and are not mentioned in the
01:31:18: Bible. Many people have asked, where did dinosaurs fit into the Biblical timeline, and what does the
01:31:23: Bible say about dinosaurs? Yes, the Bible does mention dinosaurs, even specifically.
01:31:29: But before we get there, let's take a quick look at the big picture. Evolution holds that dinosaurs evolved 220 million years ago and died about 65 million years ago from any of a number of possible extinction events.
01:31:40: But the Bible teaches that all land animals, including dinosaurs, were created on the sixth day of creation, just thousands of years ago.
01:31:47: And they were all named by Adam just before God handed over his completed creation to Adam and Eve, charging them to take dominion over his completed creation.
01:31:54: Then, about 4 ,400 years ago, the entire world was deluged by Noah's flood, and the dinosaurs, along with billions of other creatures, were wiped out.
01:32:03: Let's take a quick look at some evidences that show that the Biblical account might actually be true. First, dinosaurs are cleverly designed.
01:32:09: Consider this triceratops. Its 2 ,000 pound head is mounted in a way that allows it to turn every which way, yet still be strong enough to ram something, even while running.
01:32:18: What about massive sauropods with weight -bearing systems from hip to toe that allow its 200 ,000 pound body to even walk, and neck vertebrae that are 90 % filled with air so it can lift up its head?
01:32:28: Next, there's the absence of dinosaur ancestors and transitions. Even this Chicago Field Museum sign admits there have been zero transitions between dinosaur kinds.
01:32:37: It shows question marks regarding where they came from. It's almost like someone just put each basic kind on Earth right at the same time.
01:32:43: There are even dinosaur design features that show they lived in the ideal, pre -flood world. Pterodactyls may have been too heavy to fly in today's atmosphere.
01:32:51: Same with huge pre -flood dragonflies. The fossil record is filled with giant creatures and plants. We know this because there are billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the
01:33:00: Earth. And when we look at the dinosaur fossil record, we see that they were buried furiously, rapidly, and simultaneously, oftentimes found fleeing in groups.
01:33:08: Take this massive bone bed in Hilda, Canada. Thousands of centrosaurs were catastrophically buried over an entire square mile.
01:33:14: Or this one in China, where thousands of different kinds of dinosaurs were simultaneously buried in a single 980 foot long ravine.
01:33:21: There are hundreds of dinosaur bone beds all over the world, including the U .S. where the Morrison Formation covers 13 states and 700 ,000 square miles.
01:33:29: Thousands of torn apart dinosaurs are buried here in hundreds of mass graves, with many found in the classic death pose with their necks arched back choking as they died.
01:33:38: Museum signs everywhere even admit they died in a watery catastrophe. Some dinosaurs are even found mummified with tree leaves, flowers, ferns, shrubs, and algae still in their stomach.
01:33:48: Dinosaurs are even found buried with marine creatures. Isn't a global flood the best explanation for this?
01:33:53: Scientists have been discovering soft tissue in dinosaur bones. They describe blood cells, blood vessels, connective tissue, and even collagen, which has a maximum shelf life of about 900 ,000 years at 40 degrees.
01:34:04: With a maximum shelf life of less than 1 million years, what's collagen doing in dinosaur bones that are supposedly 65 million years old?
01:34:11: Many dinosaur bones are even found unfossilized in places like Madagascar, Alaska, and Montana. Does this evidence seem to support the
01:34:18: Bible's recent and violent flood or evolution stories? But some would say if the Bible includes the truth about Earth history, it would specifically mention dinosaurs.
01:34:27: Well, the term dinosaur wasn't even invented until 1841, and Bible translations before this time used the term dragon over 35 times, in many contexts describing dinosaur -like creatures.
01:34:40: Job chapter 40 describes a majestic creature using the name behemoth, which means colossal beast.
01:34:46: In context, Job and his philosopher friends just finished over 30 chapters of dialogue trying to explain
01:34:51: God and why he would allow such hardships into Job's life. Then God shows up in a whirlwind, tells
01:34:57: Job to brace himself like a man, and says that he would be the one asking Job the questions for a while. Then, for four chapters straight,
01:35:05: God asks Job 77 rhetorical questions that all have to do with creation. After explaining to Job that he is the master designer of space and Earth, God describes 13 of his created animals, such as an ostrich, horse, and deer, then caps off the discussion by telling
01:35:20: Job about his two grandest creations, behemoth and leviathan. God calls behemoth the first of all his ways, meaning the first in rank, the chief, the most supreme of his creative works.
01:35:33: In context, God is saying to Job, sit down, brace yourself, and now I will tell you of the chief of all my works, the biggest, most amazing land creature
01:35:41: I ever made. When we scan through all land -dwelling creatures, both living and extinct, which one comes up as the first in rank, the most colossal, or the chief?
01:35:52: Clearly the sauropod dinosaur. Pairing God's word that behemoth is the grandest creature he ever made with the fact that sauropods are the largest land creatures we've ever found, should give us a clue to behemoth's identity.
01:36:05: Sauropods were huge. The largest one found to date was over 120 feet long.
01:36:10: That's 10 freeway lanes across. At a weight of 76 tons, it's a wonder these creatures could even walk.
01:36:17: In fact, Dr. Waddell was granted an international award for discovering one of the secrets behind how their mobility was even possible.
01:36:25: Their bones were pneumatic. They were charged with air. Dr. Waddell notes, they were marvels of biological engineering, and that efficiency of design is especially evident in their vertebrae, the bones that make up the backbone.
01:36:38: It turns out their vertebrae was increasingly lighter, higher up the spinal column, and were filled with air, some up to 90%.
01:36:45: When Matt puts sauropod backbones through a CT scanner, he finds a real surprise.
01:36:52: The x -ray slices from the CT scans reveal not marrow, but a honeycomb pattern inside the dinosaurs' back and neck bones, filled only with air.
01:37:05: Matt's work shows that the bigger dinosaurs got, the more air they had in their vertebrae.
01:37:11: This is one neck vertebra from Supersaurus. A neck bone like this would have been light enough for one man to lift.
01:37:19: The same size mammal bone would require a forklift. Now we found that the biggest of these sauropods, the vertebrae were about 90 % air, so that's comparable to styrofoam.
01:37:32: So the bigger the dinosaurs got, the more air sac like structures running into the bone.
01:37:38: Absolutely. While this may solve the puzzle of how they could lift and move their massive heads and necks, it doesn't solve the challenge of how they could possibly inhale enough oxygen through their tiny nostrils, which were only about twice the size of those on a living horse.
01:37:52: Perhaps they thrived better in a world before Noah's flood when the oxygen levels were likely higher. Their long necks and tails resembled living suspension bridges.
01:38:01: For this creature to eat, breathe, and move its long neck, the series of over 12 neck vertebrae had to be interlocking and twistable.
01:38:09: They also had to have anchoring points in just the right places for muscles and ligaments to connect in such a way to prevent the neck from pinching veins and nerves and to brace the trachea and esophagus.
01:38:19: God even describes behemoth's diet, eating grass like an ox. In 2005, researchers found grass and sauropod coprolites in India, and some paleobotanists are even saying that this will cause a rewrite in our understanding of dinosaur evolution because evolution holds that grass didn't evolve until millions of years after the dinosaurs had gone extinct.
01:38:41: God describes behemoth's strength in his hips and power in his stomach muscles. Again, we have a strong clue that behemoth was a sauropod dinosaur because while many animals have strong hips and stomach muscles, none were as strong as the sauropod.
01:38:55: The muscle structure around the hips and stomach that were necessary for sauropods to move, walk, turn, and eat would be incredible.
01:39:03: In fact, for some sauropods, like the Diplodocus, its highest point of its core body was the hips, and its whole body balanced on the hips, front to back.
01:39:12: Diplodocus was able to rear up on its back legs and balance on its tail like a tripod, making use of the hips to support not just the back half of its body, but the front half too.
01:39:22: This required enormous strength in the hip and stomach muscles considering they lifted tons of its own body into the air.
01:39:29: Below the hips was an incredible weight distribution system that went from a massive femur, which in some cases was about 8 feet long, to 2 shin bones, then to 5 toes.
01:39:39: Behemoth's tail also closely matches those of sauropods. God describes that he moves his tail like a cedar tree and follows this by stating the sinews of his thighs are tightly knit.
01:39:51: Paleontologists have learned from muscle attachment locations in their bones that the tightly knit structure of Behemoth's thighs and hips actually made his tail sway from side to side with each step, much as a cedar tree does when it sways in the wind.
01:40:04: Tail drag marks are only rarely found behind sauropod footprints, indicating their tails were raised while they walked.
01:40:11: It's difficult to think of a creature that fits this biblical description better than a sauropod dinosaur. God describes his bones like beams of bronze.
01:40:20: Most bible versions translate this phrase as tubes of bronze, conduits of bronze, or pipes of brass, which conveys both strength and being hollow like a channel or a tube.
01:40:31: This matches the fact that sauropods have the largest leg bones of any animal, and they are in fact just like tubes of metal, having a hard outer casing and spongy marrow and veins on the inside.
01:40:42: Then God says that its ribs are like bars of iron. Unlike much of sauropod's skeleton that was spongy and filled with air for weight savings, its ribs were fully ossified.
01:40:52: They were made out of solid bone. Again, we have a perfect match. God even describes
01:40:58: Behemoth's habitat. He lies under the lotus trees. In a covert of reeds and marsh, the lotus trees cover him with their shade and the willows by the brook surround him.
01:41:08: This was a creature that had to be near lots of green food, living in a lush, tropical environment.
01:41:14: Large sauropods had to eat half a ton of vegetation every day, and they likely had to eat all day long to consume this amount of food.
01:41:21: Next God says that indeed the river may rage, yet he is not disturbed. He is confident, though the
01:41:28: Jordan gushes into his mouth. Why would God point out that this animal can stand in a rushing river?
01:41:33: Lots of animals can do this, depending on the size of the rushing river. In this case, God said the river may rage, yet he is not disturbed, and that Behemoth is confident, even though this raging river should gush into his mouth.
01:41:46: The Jordan River is the largest river in Palestine, and it currently flows at only 15 % of the rate it flowed in the past.
01:41:54: Even so, in the winter, this river would be incredibly difficult to cross, and it would take a very sizable animal to stand undisturbed in this rushing current, and even more, let the current gush into its mouth.
01:42:05: Some of the larger sauropods stood over 20 feet at the shoulders and weighed over 70 tons. Creatures of this size and mass could withstand a raging river better than any others.
01:42:15: Even with all this evidence, some say that Behemoth was just a mythical creature, but why would God try to display his awesome creative power by describing something that never existed?
01:42:25: Anyone can do that. And why would God say that Behemoth was the chief of all his creations after describing 13 real, still -living animals in the same passage?
01:42:34: Why go through all the trouble to describe Behemoth as a grass -eating animal that lies peacefully in the shadow of the river plants along with his physical description, diet, and habitat, all of which happen to fit a known creature – a sauropod dinosaur?
01:42:47: Certain Bible footnotes state that Behemoth was a hippo or an elephant, but neither comes close to matching all 13 characteristics
01:42:54: God used to describe Behemoth. Certainly, hippos and elephants aren't the first in rank or chief of God's creations.
01:43:02: Would God tell Job to gird up his loins to behold the chief of his creations just to show off a hippo?
01:43:08: An elephant? These creatures were plentiful. They also don't have tails that sway like cedar trees, and both of these animals have been captured and killed by man throughout history.
01:43:18: But God says that only Behemoth's creator can approach him, that he cannot be captured by humans when he is on watch, and that no one can use barbs to pierce his nose.
01:43:27: These impossibilities fit sauropod dinosaurs better than any other animals because of their towering heads and huge size.
01:43:33: With a head that reached over 40 feet high, it could also see people coming from far away. Its massive tail also makes him unapproachable.
01:43:42: Based on what we know from fossils, some sauropods could cover a 200 -foot circle with deadly force using their tails, which could be over 50 feet long and weigh over 13 ,000 pounds.
01:43:53: Recent studies have shown that some sauropods could probably create sonic booms with their tails, just like a whip.
01:43:59: It's not by chance that God says to Job that Behemoth can only be approached by his creator.
01:44:05: Good luck even getting near this creature to put a snare in its nose. To this day, elephants and hippos are surrounded by hunters and killed, but sauropods better fit this passage because they are simply unapproachable.
01:44:16: God says that he made Behemoth, along with man, like during the same creation week, not millions of years ago.
01:44:23: God made Adam as the last of his creations and gave him dominion over all the animals that had just been created during creation week, not just some of the creatures.
01:44:32: Why else would God tell Job to consider or behold a creature which no human had ever seen? Just in the last 20 years, over 50 articles have been published in scientific journals that have documented 14 bio -organic materials in dinosaur bones that simply cannot be millions of years old.
01:44:48: These include blood vessels, red blood cells, hemoglobin, bone cells, ovalbumin, chitin, unmineralized bone, collagen, limited
01:44:58: DNA, skin pigments, fex proteins, histones, keratin, and elastin.
01:45:04: Just 20 years ago, most scientists simply assumed dinosaur bones were solid mineralized impressions of bones, but modern science has now revealed that many of the dinosaur bones are original, even at the molecular level.
01:45:16: Hello, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host for Nova Science Now. For the last decade, the
01:45:23: African island has offered Ray and Christy Rogers a spectacular excavation site.
01:45:29: They work in an area of remote grasslands where dinosaur bones literally cover the ground.
01:45:36: An ancient graveyard where an unusually large number of dinosaurs died and were entombed by mud flows that preserve their bones.
01:45:45: The preservation is unbelievable. The quality of the material is exceptional. This is a piece of bone from the
01:45:52: Madagascar locality. It, in many regards, doesn't even look like a fossil.
01:45:57: This is typical of the Madagascar material. It is not heavily stained. It's not been invested with iron, with manganese.
01:46:03: It doesn't look like a typical fossil. If you didn't know, you might think you're picking up a cow bone today, a bleached cow bone.
01:46:11: I was looking at this thing thinking, this is really interesting. It was the inside of the
01:46:16: T -Rex bone that fascinated Schweitzer, who made thin sections out of it. And in these cross sections of fossilized bone, she saw something that she and everyone else had thought was impossible.
01:46:29: Round structures that looked like red blood cells. Dinosaur blood cells.
01:46:35: Inside those channels where the blood vessels would have run were these little round red structures that were all kind of lined up like a train.
01:46:45: And they were bright red and translucent. Nobody else had seen anything like that before. The very idea of blood cells in a 70 million year old bone was more than unconventional.
01:46:57: It was radical. Nobody was imagining that dinosaurs might have had preserved soft tissues.
01:47:04: Derek Briggs is curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Peabody Museum at Yale University.
01:47:11: So along comes Mary Schweitzer and she's starting to look inside dinosaur bones and has made this startling discovery about the presence of red blood cells.
01:47:21: What was your initial reaction to that? Oh, I think the same reaction as everybody's.
01:47:27: That this was totally improbable. She perhaps misinterpreted the evidence or was exaggerating the potential for what she was seeing.
01:47:36: So skeptical at first. Oh yeah, definitely. Why do you think it didn't occur to anybody? Because we have this clear understanding that part of all biological cycles involves decay.
01:47:46: I mean, nature is set up to break down that material and recycle it. So it's just improbable that those kinds of very delicate structures would survive particularly for millions of years.
01:47:56: When you think about it, the laws of chemistry and biology and everything else that we know say that it should be gone.
01:48:03: It should be degraded completely. This is not possible. Do it again. We got another piece of bone, we put it in the solution, we waited two or three or four weeks, looked again, more blood vessels.
01:48:17: We must have repeated that with probably 17 or 18 different fragments of bone.
01:48:23: Several ancient cultures have drawings and carvings of sauropod -like creatures. Look at this one from the
01:48:29: Amazon rainforest that shows nine warriors hunting what appears to be a sauropod dinosaur. It even dates to around the time the
01:48:36: Book of Job was likely written. You can see these amazing pictographs here.
01:48:42: Allegedly over 5 ,000 years old and they definitely look authentic. I've seen pictographs all over the world.
01:48:48: And we have a hunting scene here with a very large animal in the center. Now we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 hunters.
01:48:57: And you can see this hunter here is raising his spear, getting ready to spear this animal.
01:49:03: Obviously these people saw this animal alive. They didn't dig up the bones. They saw it living, breathing.
01:49:09: They were hunting this animal. Well, what is it? There's a lot of people that aren't sure what it is, but it sure looks like a dinosaur.
01:49:18: It's got the long neck, the small head, the big body, and the large tail. Some have suggested maybe this is a camelid, like a llama.
01:49:26: But llamas don't have big, large tails like that. Many reptiles do. But according to the theory of evolution, dinosaurs went extinct at least 65 million years ago.
01:49:36: What in the world were people just over 5 ,000 years ago doing hunting them? The local secular archaeologist would not tell us what he believed the animal was on film.
01:49:49: Off camera, he admitted that it was a dinosaur that survived extinction and lived alongside people.
01:49:54: Why did so many different cultures draw and paint the same type of creature? As a land -dwelling creature that breathed through its nose,
01:50:01: Noah was commanded to bring these types of creatures onto the ark, as juveniles of course, and many likely survived for some centuries after the flood.
01:50:09: When it comes to human history, to bridge the gap between 4 ,000 to 5 ,000 years ago and the distant past beyond this time, we each have two choices.
01:50:17: Rely on God who was there and told us what happened, or trust in carbon -14 dating and other types of radiometric dating beyond 100 ,000 years.
01:50:26: Choosing between these two histories is no small matter. You see, people won't allow God's word to shape their daily lives or guide them in their eternal choices if they don't believe it's historically or scientifically credible.
01:50:38: God's timeless word lays out Earth's initially perfect creation, the fall, the flood and life afterwards.
01:50:45: The New Testament describes Christ as the only way to be reconciled to God and live with him in eternity.
01:50:51: His timeless word gives us a clear testimony about when he created the world and the creatures that were present in the original creation, plus some of his magnificent creatures that survived after the flood.
01:51:02: Why would God dedicate one of his longest animal descriptions to behemoth, calling him the chief? Could it be to reassure
01:51:08: Christians today that his word really is true, permanent and dependable, and the viewpoint offered by the world is not?
01:51:15: Are you a Christian student looking for answers about what the Bible teaches about creation, the fossil record, dinosaurs?
01:51:21: Download the Genesis Apologetics app from the iTunes or Google Play stores for answers to these questions and more.