November 28, 2017 Show with William VanDoodewaard on “The Quest for the Historical Adam: Genesis, Hermeneutics & Human Origins” AND Terry Mortenson on “Searching for Adam: Genesis & the Truth About Man’s Origin (Part 3)”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 28th day of November 2017.

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We have a jam -packed show today on the subject of the historical

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Adam and we have two guests to discuss this very important topic in a day and age when the existence of this vital biblical character is being questioned not only by liberals but even by those who profess to be conservative bible believers and even those who profess to be believers in biblical inerrancy which is quite disturbing to many of us in the

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Christian community who believe that in order to deny the existence of this vital historic character figure from history you would really be compromising or even denying the inerrancy of scripture no matter what you claim.

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But the first guest that we have on today to discuss this important matter is

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William Vandewaard and he is an author. He's a professor of church history at Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan and that is a seminary that is very familiar to most of our

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners I believe since we've had so many of the faculty and people associated with that seminary on the program including the founder

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Dr. Joel Arbeke who's a personal friend of mine for many years and we are looking forward to our discussion with Dr.

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Vandewaard on his book The Quest for the Historical Atom Genesis, Hermeneutics, and Human Origins and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Dr.

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Bill Vandewaard. Well it's great to be with you Chris. Thank you so much for the kind invitation to join with you and your listeners as we discuss these things.

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And by the way am I butchering the Dutch pronunciation of your name? No you've got it quite good.

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Okay that's great that's a relief. And in studio with me is someone who is a frequent visiting co -host on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio especially when we are discussing anything involving creationism especially in regard to a young earth position on that very topic.

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We have Charlie Liebert in the studio today who is founder of sixdaycreation .com.

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It's always great to have you in the studio to co -host Charlie. Thanks Chris it's great to be here. And we look forward to you returning as a guest as well on the program.

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Yes thank you that's coming up soon. And if anybody would like to join us with a question on The Quest for the

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Historical Atom please send us a question quickly to chrisarnson at gmail .com

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if you have specifically a question for our first guest Dr. Bill Vandewaard because of the fact that he's only on with us for the first 30 minutes of the show.

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But first of all Dr. Vandewaard what led you specifically to write this book

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The Quest for the Historical Atom since as you are fully aware there have been other books that have focused their subject matter on the historical atom especially since liberalism has crept into the church beginning in the late 19th century perhaps earlier and has really begun to overturn the faith of many but it has continued to overturn the faith of many.

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But if you could tell us why The Quest for the Historical Atom and why do you believe it's a needed volume in our libraries to be added to what has already been written?

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Sure great thanks Chris. One of the reasons really it just came out of a conference talk that I was asked to do at Patrick Henry College was hosting a conference on origins and a friend of mine who's a scientist who teaches there asked if I'd be willing to do a presentation from a historical vantage on a history and theology related to atom in terms of biblical interpretation.

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So I did a short talk on it and did some research and as I was reading I came to realize that not only was there not a great deal of sound literature simply focusing on atom himself in terms of a historic traditional interpretation of Genesis, the real lack

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I felt was in the area of actually looking at the history of biblical interpretation. I knew that Terry Mortenson had done some excellent work.

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He's actually our second guest today. Yeah in terms of looking at you know a young earth and biblical commentary but actually to hone in on atom himself the creation of man and trace that through the history of the church.

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I realized there was a gap there and I felt that from sharing the same vantage as Terry that the

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Lord willing I could make a contribution in filling that gap. In fact it should please you to know that the last time

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I had Dr. Terry Mortenson on the program he spoke very highly of your book. Well certainly a mutual feeling.

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I very much appreciated his excellent work. And well why don't we go into because we're not going to have a lot of time today obviously since you're only on for the first half hour but why don't we go into some of the primary things that you believe an orthodox christian needs to know and believe about Adam in regard to Adam's origins in the scriptures themselves and then if we can we'll try to get into some of the patristic evidence as well.

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Sure. So I would say first of all right off the bat an orthodox christian to hold to the teaching of the scriptures and to hold to the rich truths of the gospel.

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You need to believe in a real historical Adam and Eve, two real persons.

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That's absolutely essential. But then I would add to that what's also essential is to see this

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Adam and Eve as standing at the head of all of humanity. So that all mankind are descended from this

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Adam and Eve and there were no humans prior to Adam and Eve and at the time of their origin there were no people contemporary to them.

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So they were the first and and only pair, the first and only man and woman and that's essential.

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It's what's revealed in scripture and it's connected with the whole scope of the doctrine of scripture from the doctrine of man, the doctrine of sin, to Christ and salvation.

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That's a very important factor because... This is Charlie Liebert by the way speaking. That's a very important factor because a lot of the old earth people and even some of the young earth people that are kind of off want to bring other people, other races in there and other people before Adam.

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That's a critical factor. Even young earth people are there. There's a couple there. Some of the ones that are more deviant.

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That's odd. You would wonder why they would even bother. Well they want to explain something about Cain's wife.

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That's a long story. Okay. Yeah so this idea that there were hominids that were not quite human that were

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Adam's parents. That is a completely dangerous, not only a false, but a dangerous concept to have

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I'm assuming you would believe. Absolutely and it's interesting. It's not something that only appeared with Darwin.

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We look further back just after the time of the Westminster Assembly, the post -reformation era.

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There were a number of sort of enlightenment figures, rationalists, who were arguing contrary to scripture that there were pre -Adamites and so people before Adam and they actually argued that on the basis of sort of an occultist rabbinical tradition among medieval

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Jews which argued that only the Jews were the descendants of Adam. So it was actually kind of a

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Jewish supremacy at the time and they argued that the Chinese or people from India or Africa were of other origins,

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Europeans of other origins. Really? And that Francis Turretin takes that on.

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Herman Witzius, quite a number of key theologians who are grappling with and responding to that error.

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And what era would Francis Turretin be from specifically? Francis Turretin would be from the late 1600s.

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So he would be writing between the 1670s, 1700s, that window.

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So that's a bizarre theory. I know that there is even a

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Christian cult, I don't know if you're familiar with it. Some of them, they're really almost nearly died off, but there's a doctrine called the two seed in the spirit teaching that all of the non -elect are actually the biological offspring of Eve and the serpent.

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I don't know if you've heard that strange teaching. Yeah, I have heard forms of that, yes.

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Yeah, but so the old earth folks who introduce into the biblical account, many of them, if not most, will claim to be believers in biblical inerrancy.

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And they will say that the reason why their view, one of the reasons why their view is compatible with the scripture is that they will say that the only death that came about through the fall was the death of human beings.

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And they will say that since Adam's parents and his other ancestors were not fully human, their deaths would not violate the biblical teaching on that.

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What is your response to that? That simply does not cohere well with the testimony of scripture itself.

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You have a creation that's declared good and very good by God, and this is a reflection of who

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God is himself in his goodness. And so you then have the great difficulties of having to say that animal death, and potentially here, deaths of people that in every respect looked human but lacked some perhaps spirituality or maybe a soul, but were

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Adam and Eve's parents, that violence and death in the midst of the animal world and among these hominids was a good thing.

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And that simply does not cohere with our own experience in this world.

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We feel the need to care for animals. We lament disease and its ravages and death.

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And those realities, on the other hand, cohere with what we read in Romans. The whole creation is groaning.

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And we look at the pristine beauty of the original creation prior to the fall, a death -free world, and then read that in the light of the book of Romans, Romans 5, other passages, and then look to the new heavens and the new earth, where all things will be made new, and where death will no longer reign.

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And so I would say that that model simply does not cohere with the tenor of scripture.

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And not only does that not cohere there, it doesn't cohere logically with the way people exist and consider the rest of creation and its groanings and struggles and sufferings today.

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Before we take any of our listener questions, because we've already got a number of them, please give us some of the patristic background on this issue of the historical

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Adam. Sure. If we begin with the early church and walk through the medieval era, right up to the

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Reformation, what you find is that across the board, with only a couple of exceptions, it's very clear that Adam and Eve are seen as distinctly, especially immediately created apart from any other ancestry or pre -existence of some sort.

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The only exceptions that we see to this are really because of Neoplatonism, where they prioritized, saw spiritual as better than material, and so we had a couple figures like Origen, who believed that there was actually a pre -existence of the soul, and that the body was almost a lesser thing, really kind of a

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Gnostic influence. And I'm sure the Mormons quote him. Yeah.

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And then as we move to the Reformation era, you know, there were some allegorists because of this, because of this pressure from the surrounding

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Greco -Roman culture. And so Origen adopts an allegorical view of the six days, so does

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Augustine. And so you do this allegorical stream, there are what I'd call literal interpreters who are a strong stream alongside.

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What happens in the Reformation is with the recovery of a historical grammatical reading of the text of Scripture, a correct exegesis, so you see a wholesale recovery among Protestants of a literal interpretation of the days as natural, ordinary days of duration.

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And I think that's really key, that sixth day of ordinary duration is something that I like to point out to friends who hold to a framework or other view actually helps us safeguard the special, temporally immediate creation of Adam and Eve, and preserves us from going down the road of further allegorism, as some do, pushing, you know, the dust and the rib to simply be allegorical as well.

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And so to me the days are a key aspect of the text, indicating to us what kind of work of creation this was by God.

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All right, we're going to take some of our listener questions, and I typically do not read the entire name of our listeners, but since this pastor is someone

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I know who actually is pastoring a church, I can confidently recommend the

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Knox Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. I'm speaking of Dr.

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Jeffrey Waddington, who pastors there. He asks, can one maintain the two -atom structure of Paul in Romans 5 and 1

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Corinthians 15 if one denies that Adam was a real historical person, the first human ever?

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That is Dr. Waddington's question. I would say to that, no,

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I do not believe that you can hold to that consistently if you do not hold to a real historical individual as Adam.

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And I think the text of Romans is very clear, even critical commentators who are operating really not from a basis of a truly

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Christian understanding of Scripture, but rather a rationalist approach to Scripture, would argue that the

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Apostle Paul believed in a historical Adam. They would see

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Paul as being primitive and being simply a man of his times in believing so, but I think that the text is abundantly clear.

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And when we erode the first Adam, we say he's simply figurative. Of course, we have set in motion a hermeneutical principle in Genesis that does not have an exegetical endpoint.

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We take a historical narrative text, we interpret that allegorically. There is no place in that text for a change, for an endpoint, and so we've seen historically, of course, the movement from a historical

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Adam to a figurative Adam, and that being pushed right through to Genesis 3, figurative snake, and on we go through the flood and forward.

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Without a historical Adam, you're going to run into that comparison with Christ and who he is and his reality in history, because it's going to undermine all that basis.

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Yeah, the fact that Adam is in the genealogy of Christ in the Bible, that would make that a fictitious genealogical record.

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And it would be, you know, first Adam, second Adam. Well, if there's no first Adam, then where do you get the second

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Adam? Right. All right. Well, thank you, Dr. Jeff Waddington, and you have won a free copy of the book that we are discussing today, complements of the

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Reformation Heritage Books, that is the quest for the historical Adam, Genesis, hermeneutics, and human origins.

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And we want to thank our friends over at Reformation Heritage Books who frequently provide us with books to give away to our listeners who submit questions.

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And this is quite a substantial book, a 400 page hardcover that retails for $30.

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So this is quite the gift. And so please make sure we have your mailing address,

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Dr. Jeff Waddington, so we can mail that out to you. We have another listener who has a question.

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And let's see, just had it in front of me and it disappeared. Got to find that fast because we are limited on our time today.

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Okay, here we have Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Ted says,

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Hi Chris, the question of a historical Adam plays prominently in the debate on the age of the earth.

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Though for the life of me, I don't know why. For some reason, young earth creationists tend to assume that old earth creationists don't or can't believe in a historical

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Adam. And your guest view is an old earth view inconsistent with a belief in a historical

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Adam. And if so, why? Well, I'm assuming the first would be the how

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Adam was created. But if you could, if you could answer the question of Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

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Sure, I'm glad to answer Ted's question. What I would say is that an old earth creationist can certainly hold to the special immediate, temporally immediate creation of Adam and Eve.

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And I know many who do, and I'm thankful that they do. We stand on common ground there.

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Typically, the way that's done is where Genesis one will be interpreted in light of the days, in a more figurative manner.

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They make a transition in Genesis two, to then adopting a more straightforward, grammatical historical reading of the text as a historical narrative.

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And so they would argue for a genre change at that point. And I'm thankful that they do.

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They maintain that ground, some of them. And I would simply push back and argue against that, that exegetically,

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I think the argument for the days is a compelling argument. On the one hand, if you look at the markers in the text, but secondly, that what has been put into motion by adopting an alternate interpretation of Genesis one, which old earth creationism, an ancient age of earth necessitates, you have to do something with those days.

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They're a problem. By doing that, you have put in place another hermeneutical principle of interpretation, a genre choice.

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And that does include the sixth day. And to me, that's where the rub comes, because Genesis two, what we're reading there, the creation of Adam and Eve, is material that falls within that sixth day span.

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And so there, it becomes a weak argument to say we should stop at Genesis one.

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And I think that's where the old earthers who are going headlong into theistic evolution, actually point the finger back at some of the old earthers who don't and say, come on, be consistent.

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You know, you've started on this road. Why don't you join us and go in further down it? Well, thank you,

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Ted. You've also won a free copy of the book, The Quest for the Historical Adam. So please make sure we have your full mailing address.

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And we thank once again, our friends at Reformation Heritage Books, and also our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

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who will be shipping that out to you at no charge to you or to Iron Trip and We have

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David in Ada, Ohio. He says, Could you explain the timing between the fall of Satan and the sin of Eve and Adam?

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Well, to put it quite simply, I could not. Yeah, the Bible's silent on that, isn't it?

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Yes, Scripture is silent on that. So it has to be clearly somewhere between the time of the creation of the angels, and what happens there in the garden.

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But aside from that, Scripture is silent on that. You know, if you look back at some

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Bible commentaries, especially the early church pushing into the medieval era, there were theologians who tried to pinpoint it.

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Some said it must have taken place on the sixth day, or shortly after the sixth day, between the sixth day and the fall, wherever that occurred.

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But Scripture is silent. And this is Charlie Lieber. Yeah, I would make a comment on that, too.

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I think it almost has to be after the sixth day, because the declaration of everything he saw was very good.

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Right. I can't see the fall of Satan before that. But sometime between then and when he shows up in the garden is when he would have to fall.

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That's an excellent point. Yeah, well, because that does great disaster to the gap theory. So there's actually a reason

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I have you in the studio. I hope so. I hope so. I mean, it's kind of off topic, but very quickly, what do you think?

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I've heard the theory posed by some that the account of Lucifer rebelling in heaven and so on is not necessarily the same entity as Satan.

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Have you heard that? And what is your thoughts on that? What are your thoughts on that? I have not heard that account.

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And my thoughts would be, I don't see scripturally, I think that there's, we look at the wide testimony of Scripture, Satan is the leading, you could say, fallen angel.

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And, you know, appears to be the one who's the initiator, the one who led in this rebellion and who fell first.

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Okay, that's not our topic today. But I was just curious, because I'm hearing that from not liberals, and not even old earth creationists or anything like that.

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I'm hearing this from conservative inerrancy advocates. So I just was curious.

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We have Joe in Slovenia. Joe says,

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Hello, brothers, Chris, William, and I will include Charlie here, because I guess he didn't know

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Charlie was going to be on. One of the most common objections I hear from those doubting the literal historicity of Adam, is that there are so many different races, or ethnicities present on earth today.

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They doubt that all this diversity could come from just two original parents.

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One line of reasoning that I've heard is that Adam and Eve contained the total of all possible features within their perfect DNA.

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Then after the confusion of the languages at the Tower of Babel, and division of the people into nations, which then scattered across the globe, the smaller gene pools over time concentrated the narrower range of possible characteristics into the ethnicities we recognize today.

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Is this a valid and plausible explanation of the situation? Are there other aspects from scripture, science and history that further corroborate

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Acts 1726? I don't even

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I don't even know why someone would find it hard to believe that two parents could give birth to so many different people with with facial features and skin tones when even in the same families today we see sometimes a wide variety of characteristics and children of the same parents.

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I don't know. I'm just I don't know why that would be such a leap of logic to to believe that you have to look at the the structure of genetics.

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Genetics come in pairs and there's two kinds so the diversity of Adam and Eve is pretty simple.

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They have the diversity of all mankind which means they have one capital letter or one dominant and one recessive gene in every case which means all of humankind can come from those two individuals.

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It's not really a genetic problem. It's a problem more of people are arguing about the amount of time it takes but it doesn't take much time at all because you look at the people today is genetic diversity has been radically declined.

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I mean who did Abraham marry? He married his half -sister. Was it a problem? No. Later on would God would say you can't do that because what genetics are going to dictate problems with the progeny.

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Yeah no I think those are those are great great great thoughts there and as I think about it as well

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I think you know the the initial era Adam and Eve I think we do see a decline in history of course we see the

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Lord after the time of the flood stating that man will no longer live beyond 120 years and as well we'd know that there would be you could say a genetic bottleneck at the time of Noah and his sons and so I wouldn't necessarily use the

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Tower of Babel argument as as being essential to the case though it certainly could could be part of things you know in terms of the ethnicities and the things we're seeing there.

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Another thing we know about skin color is as it sorts out through natural selection which is a real process in nature as it sorts out you get the darkest skin at the equator and the lighter skin as you go north or south so that's actually a working out of the of the thing related to the position of the sun and the people that are living there the people that are more adaptable survive simple that's not evolution people.

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Well we have time for only one more questioner because of the fact that our guest has to leave to make an appointment we have

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Susan Margaret in Dauphin County Pennsylvania who wants to know what do you think the one most significant reason that Christendom began to adopt an unbiblical view of Adam is?

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I believe it really comes down to the the wave that we see in the 19th century there is a high optimism regarding science scientific and technological advances are just taking off in that era of industrialization and you have found men who are beginning to grapple with all these new theories are coming out they're not entirely sure what to do with them

31:54

I think Fred Faspel and his book on B .B. Warfield has done a good job of showing how

32:00

B .B. Warfield himself though perhaps initially more open to evolution comes to a point where he's starting to back off from it.

32:07

Oh I remember that coming up in an interview I did with Fred years ago. Yeah and just realizing you know some of the implications and and I think some of the logical and philosophical and theological implications people didn't realize those in the first you know one two generations and that began to settle down and settle in and believers began to be more and more concerned not to say there were none in the 19th century there were those who who were starting to raise the red flag over the transitions there so I think it's just initially an optimism and maybe a naivete because of the massive cultural transition that was taking place.

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Well I want to let all of you know who wrote in questions you've all won a free copy of The Quest for the

32:58

Historical Atom by our guest William Vandewaard and this is complements of Reformation Heritage Books the website for Reformation Heritage Books is heritagebooks .org

33:12

heritagebooks .org the website for Puritan Reform Theological Seminary where our guest

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Dr. William Vandewaard serves on the faculty is prts .edu pr for Puritan Reform ts for theological seminary dot edu prts .edu

33:29

do you have any other further contact information that you'd like to give brother no no that's great and yeah

33:36

I'm very thankful to be able to have joined with you Chris and Charlie and look forward to our paths crossing again.

33:44

Yeah I would love to have you on for the full two hours at some point in the future because as you see the time flies by very quickly on Iron Trip and Siren Radio.

33:52

It does. Well thank you very much brother and we look forward to your return. Good to meet you. Thank you.

33:58

Okay and don't go away folks because our second guest is going to be joining us at any moment and that is

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Dr. Terry Mortenson. Dr. Terry Mortenson is returning for his third discussion with us on his book

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Searching for Adam Genesis and the Truth about Man's Origins and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Dr.

34:20

Mortenson our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com that's c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com

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please give us as always your first name at least your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the

34:37

USA and please only remain anonymous if you are asking about a personal and private matter for instance if you disagree with your own pastor on this or your own spouse or something like that but don't go away

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Christian books and bibles at the best possible prices. Unlike other book sites they make no effort to provide every book that is available because frankly much of what is being printed is not worth your time.

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That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic heretical and otherwise faith insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.

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Their website is CVBBS .com. Browse the pages at ease shop at your leisure and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the church, and to Christ.

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That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at CVBBS .com. That's CVBBS .com.

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Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And you can also call

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CVBBS .com at their toll -free number 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231.

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If no one answers then call tomorrow because they are typically manning that phone number between 10 a .m.

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and 4 30 p .m. That's 800 -656 -0231 or of course you can go to CVBBS .com

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anytime 24 hours a day CVBBS .com standing for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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I have one very important request in this regard. I have a strong feeling that many of you are not letting

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CVBBS .com know that you are hearing about them from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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They have had a really big turnaround for the good in their sales recently and I cannot help but think that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio has a lot to do with it because of the special offers we have been announcing and the sales and that kind of thing.

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But it seems that there is a minority of those customers who are telling

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Todd and Patty Jennings that they are hearing about CVBBS .com from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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So please, there is a comment section if you are ordering online, there is a comment section.

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Please tell them you heard about CVBBS .com from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and if you call them at 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231, obviously verbally tell them that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

41:13

And by the way, they are giving away free of charge a $29 .99

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book, The Theology of the Reformers by Dr. Timothy George, published by B &H

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Publishing Group. As I said, this retails for $29 .99 and you are getting it for free if you order $50 or more worth of merchandise from CVBBS .com.

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So make sure that you let them know that you want to take advantage of that offer and get that free copy of Theology of the

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Reformers by Dr. Timothy George, retailing for $29 .99. Yours is absolutely free if you purchase a minimum of $50 worth of merchandise.

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And by the way, on top of all that, until the end of the month, CVBBS .com

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is also taking 10 % off even those things that are already discounted.

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They're taking 10 % off of everything in their catalog and in their inventory that you order.

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So it's even more of a blessing to order from CVBBS .com during the holidays.

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So we hope that you continue doing your Christmas shopping at CVBBS .com and always remember to let them know that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

42:30

Well, now we have joining us for the remainder of the show Dr. Terry Mortensen, who received his

42:38

Master of Divinity degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, his PhD in History of Geology at Coventry University.

42:48

He is a historian of geology and researcher for Answers in Genesis, a lecturer on the creation evolution controversy in 25 countries since the late 1970s.

43:00

He's a university campus ministry leader in the United States and Eastern Europe with Campus Crusade for Christ.

43:06

He's the author of many articles and books, including The Great Turning Point and the editor and contributor for Coming to Grips with Genesis, and he is going to be discussing for the third time on our program

43:21

Searching for Adam, Genesis and the Truth about Man's Origin, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

43:29

Terry Mortensen. Good to be with you. And in studio with me again is my frequent co -host

43:36

Charlie Liebert, founder of 6daycreation .com. Hi, Dr. Mortensen. You might want to say that again,

43:44

Charlie, I had you on mute. Hi, Dr. Mortensen. Well, this is a very vital topic as we have even begun to learn about from our first guest who is on today,

44:00

Dr. William Vandewoerde. And by the way, Dr. Mortensen, he was speaking very highly of you and your work before you came on the program today.

44:07

Just wanted to let you know that. Well, it's good I didn't hear that. I don't need to hear that. And so tell us once again about why you believed the book

44:21

Searching for Adam, Genesis and the Truth about Man's Origin was a needed volume to be included on our library shelves and to be included most of all in our minds, the content of course, to be included in our minds when there are other things available on the historicity of Adam.

44:41

Well, as I was looking at the books that have been written, most of them mainly dealt with the theological side of the issue, and I felt that there was a need for a much broader defense of Adam, looking at it historically, biblically, theologically, paleontologically, the fossil evidence, genetically, even anatomically, the difference between man and apes in terms of our physical arrangement, and then ethically and archaeologically.

45:22

And so I wanted, I just felt that there was a need to have a single volume that dealt with all of those different angles to show that there's a really a full -orbed defense of Adam that is intellectually very credible and satisfying.

45:41

By the way, Dr. Mortensen, I don't know if you're using a speakerphone or a cell phone, but whatever you're doing, the way that you were just speaking a second ago is perfect, but there were a couple occasions where you faded out nearly completely during your response.

45:54

Okay, I will keep that in mind. Yeah, in fact it's happening again right now.

46:02

Can you hear me now? Now I can hear you good, well, fairly good. I guess we'll just have to cope with the in -and -out syndrome here.

46:14

Well, I'm going to go to some of our questioners in our audience. Let's see, we have

46:21

Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, and I have to enlarge

46:26

Tyler's font on his email because it's microscopic. He says, is it true that when scientists discovered that the universe had a beginning, it was troubling to them because it reflected the

46:41

Genesis historical account of creation? I'm not sure exactly what he is referring to about scientists discovering that the universe had a beginning.

46:51

Is there some news that I missed where scientists are unanimously agreeing that the universe had a beginning of some kind?

47:00

Well, there are certainly some scientists who felt that the Big Bang theory pointed to a beginning because you start with the universe in a very, very, very tiny, highly dense bit of matter, energy, and space, and it expanded supposedly, according to the theory, into the universe we have today.

47:27

But there were, and there were scientists who were uncomfortable with that idea.

47:34

But they shouldn't have worried about it because the Big Bang theory is completely incompatible with the

47:40

Genesis 1 account of creation, which says that God created the earth before he created the sun, moon, and stars.

47:48

So the Big Bang theory is not a scientific description of Genesis 1. In fact, the

47:55

Big Bang theory is actually an attack on the truth of Genesis 1.

48:02

But some scientists who don't read the Bible very carefully and are so committed to atheism, they became nervous that it might point to a beginner.

48:14

But there are many Big Bang proponents who believe that the

48:21

Big Bang doesn't point to a beginner because the Big Bang was preceded by a big crunch of a previous universe, which had expanded from a previous tiny speck of matter, energy, which had crunched from a previous universe.

48:39

So they talk about multiverses. Of course, we only have scientific evidence for one universe, and that's the one we live in.

48:47

Well, thank you, Tyler. And if you haven't won it already from our previous interviews with Dr.

48:53

Mortensen, you have won today a copy of his book,

48:58

Searching for Adam. So make sure we have your full mailing address. This is a $24 .99

49:05

book retailing for $24 .99. And this is a gift to you from New Leaf Publishing Group, also known as Master Publishing, one of the subsidiaries of New Leaf Publishing Group.

49:24

And we are also thanking our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com, for shipping that out to you at no charge to you or to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

49:35

So thank you very much for your participation today. We have Joey in Clifton, New Jersey.

49:43

He says, Dear Dr. Mortensen, I have been very sad to see even some of the more traditional biblically sound churches, such as the

49:52

PCA and OPC, which for our listeners who are unfamiliar with those initials or abbreviations, that's the

50:02

Presbyterian Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, now holding to framework and even day age theories of Genesis 1.

50:12

As you well know, these views hold to a reinterpretation of the

50:17

Hebrew word yom or day in Genesis 1 to be long time spans or ages rather than roughly 24 hours.

50:30

Their thinking is that as long as they believe in the supernatural creation of man apart from an evolutionary process, these views still fall within the scope of orthodoxy.

50:42

However, I fear that once we give ground on simple and clear interpretations such as the simple meaning of the word day, everything else opens up for redefinition.

50:55

Furthermore, lay people who are less familiar with the issues will almost inevitably associate long time frames with evolution.

51:04

My question for you is, what steps would you take to reach these individuals, especially given that in spite of their strong biblical literacy, they are very convinced on this subject?

51:17

Have you found any particular approach useful? Let me just quickly add that not everyone in the

51:22

PCA or OPC holds to those views. In fact, my co -host Charlie Liebert, who is founder of 6daycreation .com,

51:31

is a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Yes, that's correct, Chris. So I'm sure you're more dismayed than even our listener is that any of that would be at all present in your denomination.

51:42

I'm dismayed most about the framework hypothesis. I think that's an escape. But Dr.

51:47

Mortensen, do you have an answer to Joey and Clifton New Jersey's question? Well, this is not a terribly new phenomenon.

51:57

The church first compromised with the millions of years at the beginning of the 19th century, when geology was developed as a science, and people embraced the gap theory, the day age view, the local flood view, and then

52:14

Darwin's theory came along and they said, okay, well, we can accept animal evolution, but not human evolution, and then

52:21

Darwin published his Descent of Man in 1871, and then much of the church said, okay, we can accept human evolution of the body, but God breathed into an ape -like creature, and then, of course, the liberals finally jettisoned

52:36

Adam completely. And now, as has often happened, evangelicals are just a few decades behind the liberals, and we now have evangelicals, professing evangelicals, denying a liberal

52:50

Adam a literal fall. So it's been a 200 -year compromise.

52:58

Not everybody goes down the slide at the same instant, but it's millions of years of compromise.

53:08

Dr. Mortensen, we could barely hear you at all.

53:16

I know, yeah, I don't know what's going on, but I wonder if I should take a moment and call you back on my landline.

53:26

Yeah, that would be perfect, because we have to go to a midway break anyway. All right, take your break, and I'll call you back on the landline.

53:33

Okay, great, and if anybody else would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:40

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

53:46

USA. Don't go away. God willing, we will be right back after these messages from our sponsor.

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Linbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

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that's chefexclusive .com. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

01:01:21

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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Todd and Patty specialize in supplying Reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable to everyone.

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Since 1987, the family -owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available

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Christian books and Bibles at the best possible prices. Unlike other book sites, they make no effort to provide every book that is available because, frankly, much of what is being printed is not worth your time.

01:01:55

That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith -insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.

01:02:08

Their website is CVBBS .com. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the

01:02:18

Church, and to Christ. That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at CVBBS .com.

01:02:26

That's CVBBS .com. Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

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And once again, you can also call them toll -free at 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231.

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Please, please, please remember to tell them that you heard about CVBBS .com from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

01:02:50

Don't forget about the offer. Purchase $50 or more worth of merchandise. Get the book

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Theology of the Reformers by Dr. Timothy George absolutely free, and that is a $29 .99

01:03:01

retail value. And you're also getting 10 % off everything that you purchase, including things already on sale.

01:03:10

Before we return to our guest today, Dr. Terry Mortensen, I just have a few special announcements to make.

01:03:19

First of all, coming up on Friday, December 8th, we have my friend Marcus A.

01:03:25

McKnight III, also known as Mike McKnight, attorney at law, who is a former elder of the church where I am currently a member,

01:03:34

Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He is now a member of the

01:03:39

West Shore Evangelical Free Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. And he is going to be conducting a special event to get you in the mood for Christmas in a biblical way.

01:03:51

He's going to be speaking on the Joseph the Quiet Hero of Christmas on Friday, December 8th from 1130 a .m.

01:03:59

to 1 p .m. Actually, that's not the length of time he's going to be speaking, but the event itself begins at 1130 a .m.

01:04:06

and ends at 1 p .m. at the Comfort Suites in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

01:04:12

I plan to be there myself. This is an event being run by the

01:04:17

Christian Businessmen's Connection, CBMC, as it is known more commonly.

01:04:24

And if you mention that you heard about this from Chris Arnsen on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, your registration is free of charge.

01:04:31

Call 717 -395 -5854. 717 -395 -5854 to register.

01:04:40

And please mention that you heard about this from Chris Arnsen on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio. Then, coming up in January, the

01:04:48

G3 Conference returns to Atlanta, Georgia. The G3 stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory.

01:04:55

This year, or should I say this January, the theme is Knowing God, a

01:05:00

Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. The 17th of January is exclusively a

01:05:06

Spanish -speaking edition of this conference, and the 18th through the 20th will be exclusively in the

01:05:12

English language. And the speakers include Stephen Lawson, Voti Baucom, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .B.

01:05:18

Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askle, Anthony Matheny, and Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, and Justin Peters.

01:05:30

If you'd like to register for the G3 Conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,

01:05:37

and mention that you heard about the conference from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio.

01:05:42

Last but not least, my most uncomfortable task of each and every day on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio is to beg you for money.

01:05:51

I never enjoy doing this. I feel very uncomfortable doing this, but it is something that is urgently needed because we are facing very desperate times financially.

01:06:00

And my advertisers, who have kept me afloat and kept me broadcasting through their own hard -earned money for so many years going back to 2005, they have urged me to make these public appeals.

01:06:15

And after years of silence, I finally broke down several months ago and began making public appeals for donations.

01:06:22

So if you love this program, you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, which we are in real jeopardy of doing, disappearing that is, well please go to ironsherpanzironradio .com,

01:06:36

click on support, and mail a check to the address that you see there. Made it payable to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio for any amount you can afford.

01:06:45

And as I always try to remember to remind you, never ever siphon money out of the regular giving you are accustomed to to your local church where you are a member.

01:06:54

If you're not a member of a Bible -believing church, and if you're not prayerfully seeking for one, you are living in disobedience.

01:06:59

So please prayerfully seek out a Bible -believing church near you and join it.

01:07:06

And if you need help in finding one, I can help you because I have connections all over the world with Bible -believing churches and ministries and pastors and so on.

01:07:16

But please never siphon money out of the giving to your church. Never take food off of your family's dinner table if you are struggling to make ends meet, because those two things are commands of scripture providing for your family and your church.

01:07:29

But if you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, please consider sponsoring with a donation of any amount and as often as you can to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio.

01:07:44

Just go to ironsherpanzironradio .com, click on support, and mail us a check to the address that you will find there.

01:07:49

If you would like to advertise with us, we could surely use the advertising dollars from an ad campaign or ongoing ad campaigns and sponsorships.

01:07:59

So please send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and put advertising in the subject line.

01:08:06

And whatever it is, whether it's your church, your parachurch organization, your business, your professional practice, like a law firm, a medical practice, a chiropractic firm, whatever it is that you are advertising, maybe it's a special event, as long as whatever it is you're doing is compatible with the theology expressed on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, we would love to help you launch an ad campaign.

01:08:28

You don't have to believe identically with me, but whatever it is that you're advertising needs to be compatible in some way with what we believe here on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio.

01:08:38

Can't militate against what we believe. And we look forward to receiving your emails with requests for ad campaigns at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:08:48

And that's also the email address for you to send in questions for our guest Dr. Terry Mortenson on Adam, the

01:08:55

Adam of Scripture, the parent of all the human race, the initial parent.

01:09:04

Send us an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and Dr. Mortenson will be happy to attempt and hopefully successfully answer your question.

01:09:14

And before the break, Dr. Mortenson, as you know, we had Joey in Clifton, New Jersey, who asked, my question for you is, what steps would you take to reach individuals who are holding to framework and day age theories of Genesis 1, especially given that in spite of their strong biblical literacy, they are very convinced on this subject?

01:09:40

Have you found any particular approach useful? If you could restart your answer now that you're using a landline.

01:09:47

Yeah. Can you hear me? I hear you perfectly now. All right, great. Now I just pray that my phone battery doesn't go out.

01:09:58

Well, let me, let me just say again, this whole situation is not recent.

01:10:05

It developed 200 years ago when in the infant state of geology, deist and atheist geologists developed the idea of millions of years of geological history to the earth to explain the rock layers and fossils.

01:10:20

And most of the church by 1850, even before Darwin, most of the church had compromised with the millions of years.

01:10:29

They proposed the gap theory, the day age view, the local flood view of Noah's flood.

01:10:35

And by the time Darwin came along, they had already given away half of the game.

01:10:40

And then they gradually began to compromise with animal and plant evolution, and then eventually human evolution in the more liberal churches, but even among some evangelicals.

01:10:54

And now we're seeing increasing compromise with not only the millions of years, but also with evolution and even a denial of a literal

01:11:06

Adam and a literal fall, which is catastrophic for the gospel. I have, it's difficult because most people who hold to a day age or framework or any old earth view, and I've found this true in every country that I've been in and in theological circles with PhD theologians and Bible scholars or lay people, most of them have never carefully considered the arguments, both biblical and scientific, for taking

01:11:41

Genesis 1 to 11 as straightforward literal history. And so one of the things that I have found helpful in getting people to think about this is, and to see the gospel connection, because as long as they see it as just a science issue that most of them won't investigate.

01:12:03

But one of the most critical questions or issues is, if you accept millions of years, whether you accept biological evolution or not, if you accept millions of years, you're accepting millions of years of death and bloodshed and violence and extinction in the animal world, natural disasters, asteroids slamming into the earth, all before Adam in a time period that God called very good.

01:12:30

And that destroys the Bible's teaching about the cosmic impact of the fall in Genesis 3,

01:12:38

Romans 8, where Paul says the whole creation is groaning in bondage to corruption.

01:12:44

That is not describing the original Genesis 1, very good creation.

01:12:49

That is describing the post -fall world, when God cursed the creation.

01:12:55

And most theologians, most lay people, have never even thought about this issue of death before the fall.

01:13:03

And let me just emphasize, we're not talking here about a dinosaur dying of old age at the age of 40 and just falling over on the path that it had walked on for years.

01:13:15

We're talking about massive catastrophic death. Evolutionists talk about five major mass extinction events in earth history that happened millions of years before man.

01:13:29

So if all of that happened before Adam, then I say the idea of millions of years is an assault on the character of God.

01:13:40

It's an assault on the truth of Genesis regarding the very good creation and the cosmic impact of the fall.

01:13:49

And so I try to really engage people in thinking about that issue, and most have never thought about it, including some of our greatest theologians who say the age of the earth doesn't matter, and are becoming open to even questioning a literal

01:14:07

Adam. Well, thank you, Joey, in Clifton, New Jersey. Please make sure we have your full mailing address, because you have also won a free copy of the book that we are addressing,

01:14:18

Searching for Adam by Dr. Terry Mortensen, compliments of New Leaf Publishing Group and Master Books, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

01:14:32

who are shipping that out to you, and no charge to you or to Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Keep listening to Iron Trip and Zion Radio and spreading the word about the program in Clifton, New Jersey and beyond.

01:14:45

Go ahead. I could add one other shorter little comment, and that is a verse that I have found a lot of Old Earth and theistic evolutionist proponents have never looked at, or they dismiss casually, and that is the

01:15:01

Fourth Commandment, where God says, You work six days, for in six days the

01:15:07

Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. So He didn't make anything before the six days.

01:15:13

He made everything in six days. He used the same word for days in verse 11 of Exodus 20, as He did in verse 8, where He tells the

01:15:24

Israelites to work six days. And no Jew prior to, no Orthodox faithful Jew prior to the 19th century took that as anything other than literal, that God created in six literal days.

01:15:39

Yeah, otherwise that would be a very long work week. How many more millions of years to the lunch break?

01:15:48

Yeah, that would seem to automatically disprove the theories of those who claim biblical inerrancy, because obviously an evolutionist doesn't care about that.

01:16:01

Somebody who's a full -blown atheistic evolutionist, but those that share our view of biblical inerrancy,

01:16:08

I don't know why that wouldn't stop them in their tracks. But anyway, we have, let's see, we have another listener.

01:16:19

Oh, our friend Joe in Slovenia has returned with a question. Joe in Slovenia says,

01:16:25

Dr. Mortensen, please address a combination of two questions previously posed to Dr.

01:16:31

Vandewoord. Is belief in the literal historical uniquely created

01:16:37

Adam a test of Christian orthodoxy? In other words, should we consider one to be an unbeliever who decidedly denies the historical

01:16:45

Adam? And the second question is, how and why would any truly regenerate person led of the

01:16:52

Holy Spirit deny this vital truth of Scripture? Well, that's a bit of a, that's a bit of a difficult question, because on the one hand, there's no

01:17:04

Bible verse that says that in order to be saved, you have to believe in a literal

01:17:10

Adam. What you have to believe in is that you are a sinner, and you turn from your sin, and you trust in Jesus Christ alone as your

01:17:19

Lord and Savior and his death and resurrection on your behalf. Having said that,

01:17:25

Adam is foundational to the gospel, because Paul makes it very clear that Jesus died to solve the problem that the first Adam started.

01:17:38

And so if we make Adam a myth or a metaphor or make -believe, then

01:17:46

Jesus died for a mythological make -believe metaphor problem, and he then becomes a mythological make -believe metaphor

01:17:53

Savior, offering us a mythological make -believe metaphor hope for the future that the whole gospel message collapses.

01:18:05

So I don't know if it's a proper way to phrase it to say that it's a test of orthodoxy, but I also think, you know, if we're really honest, none of us is perfectly consistent.

01:18:22

I don't obey every Bible verse that I believe to be the inerrant

01:18:28

Word of God. I'm a sinner. I'm inconsistent. I do things that I have to repent of and say,

01:18:35

Lord, keep working on me. I have a sin nature still, and so I have to keep depending on the

01:18:43

Holy Spirit and obeying God's Word and trusting God's Word. And two passages that really help me here, because a lot of people are troubled when they see really great theologians who have been very helpful to the

01:18:57

Church not believe Genesis. And I think of Matthew chapter 16, when

01:19:03

Jesus asked the disciples, who do men say that I am? And Peter got an

01:19:10

A on the exam. He said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus commended him. And then

01:19:16

Jesus began to tell the disciples that he was going to Jerusalem to die at the hands of sinful men.

01:19:21

And Peter said in so many words, no, you're not, Lord. And Jesus said, the text records in Matthew 16, 23, and Jesus said to Peter, get behind me,

01:19:34

Satan. You're setting your mind on the things of man, not the things of God.

01:19:40

So at that point, right after Peter had passed an A, gotten an A on his theology exam, or as they say in Europe, a one, he had become a mouthpiece for Satan.

01:19:53

Well, we could dismiss that and say, well, that was before Pentecost, before he had the Holy Spirit. Well, then we come to Galatians 2, and Paul comes to Antioch and finds

01:20:02

Peter not eating with Gentile Christians, only eating with Jewish Christians, and we might think, well, that's insignificant.

01:20:10

That's no big deal. Paul saw it as a threat to the gospel, and he confronted

01:20:15

Peter publicly in the presence of the others for hypocrisy, for influencing even

01:20:22

Barnabas into hypocrisy, and he said, you're not being straightforward about the gospel. And so we think, how could

01:20:29

Peter, who preached the birthday sermon of the church on the day of Pentecost, who led the first Gentiles to Christ, who was liberated from prison, who walked on water to Jesus, how could he do that?

01:20:43

Well, Galatians 2 tells us, it was the fear of the party of the circumcision, and the fear of man can affect us all.

01:20:53

There's tremendous cultural pressure to go along with what the world says, and today, if you doubt evolution or certainly if you doubt millions of years, you're going to be labeled a

01:21:07

Bible -thumping, scientific, ignoramus, fundamentalist idiot who's just sticking his head in the sand, and you're not using your brain, and then, of course, there will be

01:21:18

Christians who will accuse you of putting roadblocks in the way of the gospel. So there's tremendous pressure, and so, in a way, it's very disappointing to me, but in a way, it's not surprising because, as the

01:21:36

Bible says in the New Testament, people give in to the fear of man, they seek the praise of man, and it's not always conscious, it's not always deliberate, it can be unconscious, and we can all succumb to peer pressure and cultural pressure.

01:21:52

Yeah, the greatest, of course, coming from our own brethren who are otherwise conservative, who believe in the inerrancy of the scriptures, who believe in the gospel, who actually, amazingly, will say that some of the most dangerous people around, as far as keeping sinners from embracing the gospel, are those who are young earth creationists because they will say, some of them,

01:22:21

I'm talking about an extreme group, perhaps, of old earth advocates who would say that we are making a laughingstock and a mockery of the

01:22:33

Bible by believing in moronic things in regard to the origins of the universe and of the human species or of human beings or of life itself, and when they would call us moronic, we are merely repeating what the scriptures teach, but this is pretty disturbing when you have your own brothers in Christ, and it is interesting, isn't it,

01:23:04

Dr. Mortensen, that at one time it seemed that old earth creationists merely wanted an equal voice at the table and they wanted to be respected and not viewed as heretics, and now you're seeing more and more of them calling us heretics and calling us a roadblock to people coming to Christ.

01:23:24

Yeah, but you know, when we look at it historically, what has happened to Western Europe, Great Britain, and North America over the last 200 years?

01:23:35

Countries that once were missionary sending countries that were culturally powerfully influenced by biblical

01:23:43

Christianity, what has happened to those countries? Have they become more open to biblical morality, more open to the gospel over the last 200 years?

01:23:54

No, they've become more hostile to biblical Christianity, and it is during those 200 years when old earth views have ruled in the church, not young earth.

01:24:06

By about 1850, as far as I can tell from my historical research, virtually the whole church had compromised with the millions of years.

01:24:15

Many were standing against evolution, biological evolution, but they had accepted the millions of years, and it wasn't until really the book, the

01:24:27

Genesis flood in 1961 that we saw a revival of what the church had believed for the first 1800 years, a global flood, a young earth, a six -day creation.

01:24:38

Is that Leon Morris? What's that? It's Morris and Whitcomb. I'm sorry? It's Morris and Whitcomb.

01:24:44

Oh, okay. Morris and Whitcomb wrote that. And so history shows us that, in fact, it's the church's compromise with the millions of years and or evolution, not the church's adherence to young earth creation that has caused

01:25:01

Western Europe, Great Britain, and North America to become increasingly hostile to Christianity.

01:25:09

Well, thank you so much Joe in Slovenia. It's always a pleasure to have you join us on the air with excellent questions for our guests.

01:25:20

And if you haven't already won a copy of Dr. Mortensen's book, we will send one out to you, or should

01:25:27

I say Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will send one out to you free of charge. We have to check the records on these things so we don't send duplicate copies to people who have already won this book since we've already had

01:25:38

Dr. Mortensen on twice prior to today to discuss this topic.

01:25:43

We're going to our final break today. It's going to be briefer than the previous ones.

01:25:49

And if you have any questions, we do still have several people waiting to have their questions asked and answered by Dr.

01:25:55

Terry Mortensen. If you'd like to get in line, do so now or forever. Hold your peace because we're running out of time rapidly.

01:26:03

I mean our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away.

01:26:09

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01:32:14

Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio on the air. Well, we are now back with our guest today,

01:32:19

Dr. Terry Mortensen, to continue our discussion on searching for Adam, Genesis, and the truth about man's origin.

01:32:27

And our co -host today is Charlie Liebert, founder of sixdaycreation .com.

01:32:33

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:32:39

And we have Jeff in East Norrington, Pennsylvania, and Jeff asks, what are the ethical consequences of denying the reality of the biblical

01:32:55

Adam, the ethical consequences? It's pretty horrific.

01:33:03

I think of Adolf Hitler, who believed that his race, the

01:33:08

German race, was the ultimate race, and he liquidated gypsies and Jews and handicapped people.

01:33:16

I think of Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong. These were all men that the

01:33:25

Japanese emperor, at the time of the Second World War, they were all thoroughgoing evolutionists.

01:33:32

Now people will say, yeah, but Christians have done evil things. Yes, Christians have done evil things.

01:33:38

The Crusades, the fighting between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland for decades,

01:33:44

Christians who had slaves in this country. But they didn't do it because of the biblical teaching.

01:33:53

They did it in spite of biblical teaching or twisting biblical teaching, whereas these political leaders and Margaret Sanger, who founded

01:34:03

Planned Parenthood, who was extremely racist, she wanted to exterminate the black people, which is why

01:34:11

Planned Parenthood has put a lot of their clinics in the poor communities. These people collectively have murdered millions and millions of people.

01:34:21

If we are descended from an ape -like creature, then really morality is simply the law of the jungle.

01:34:29

If I'm stronger than you and you have a banana that I want, I can take your banana. If I'm stronger than you and you have a woman

01:34:37

I want, I can take your woman. If I'm stronger than you and you have a company I want,

01:34:42

I can steal, lie, cheat. It doesn't matter because it's the survival of the fittest. It's only a biblical god who gives us a basis for morality above human opinion or majority vote.

01:34:59

The teaching of evolution in millions of years has been an assault on the foundational book of Genesis, which is foundational to the rest of the scriptures, including the scriptures teaching on right and wrong morality.

01:35:15

When we deny a literal atom, we are destroying the foundation for morality.

01:35:22

We may personally still be a fairly moral person, but we have destroyed the foundation for that morality.

01:35:30

It just becomes our personal opinion. What's really disturbing to me is to see

01:35:36

Christians, Christian leaders who are adamant about a literal historical atom, or at least a historical atom.

01:35:44

They may still believe in some kind of evolution of Adam's body, but they believe in a historical atom and they believe that the

01:35:52

LGBTQ revolution is contrary to scripture. And yet I would submit that you cannot, with any exegetical consistency, with any consistent method of interpretation, you cannot argue for a literal historical atom and marriage being one man and one woman and gender being

01:36:16

God -given, male or female. You can't argue for those and at the same time, with any kind of exegetical, hermeneutical consistency, argue for a local flood or a day -age view or the framework hypothesis.

01:36:33

Because Genesis clearly teaches all of those things and it takes what

01:36:38

I like to call exegetical gymnastics to argue for some of the truths in Genesis as straightforward truth and deny others.

01:36:50

So it's really a total package and Genesis has been under attack now for 200 years and we're seeing in our culture and even worse in Western Europe and Great Britain, moral insanity.

01:37:09

I know I brought this up before, but I cannot help but bring it up again because it really vividly reveals what you have been saying.

01:37:20

A debate that I organized a number of years ago at the Freedom Chapel Assembly of God in Amityville, Long Island, New York, between Dr.

01:37:32

James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and David Silverman of American Atheists, the atheistic organization that was founded by Madeleine Murray O 'Hare, probably the most notorious atheist in the

01:37:46

United States. During that debate on is the

01:37:53

New Testament evil was the theme, Dr. White posed the question to Mr.

01:38:00

Silverman, and keep in mind Mr. Silverman is an ethnically Jewish atheist. He said, how can you determine evil?

01:38:10

How can you determine what is good and what is evil if we are really just walking bags of evolved protoplasm?

01:38:18

And he, Mr. Silverman, said that good and evil are determined by whatever the majority of people believe in any particular geographic region on the planet and any particular era of history.

01:38:32

That is what determines good or evil. And Dr. White said, so then if you are being marched through the gates of a

01:38:40

Nazi death camp, the most you could say in protest is that I find this personally offensive?

01:38:48

And Mr. Silverman said yes. He admitted that he could not really say that it was innately wrong.

01:38:56

He just could say that he personally didn't like it. And that's quite amazing for a Jewish atheist to admit that, isn't it?

01:39:03

It is. It's tragic. Well, thank you, Jeff, from East Norton, Pennsylvania.

01:39:10

And please give us your full mailing address because you have won a free copy of the book that we are discussing,

01:39:17

Searching for Adam, compliments of our friends at New Leaf Publishing Group and Master Books, and also compliments of our friends at cvbbs .com,

01:39:26

who will be shipping that book out to you free of charge. And we thank you for your participation.

01:39:32

We have John in Bangor, Maine, who says, Chris, I have heard you interview a number of times

01:39:41

Ken Samples, who is known to be a part of an organization that promotes an old earth view of creation.

01:39:51

Do you believe that you are being inconsistent here in interviewing Dr. Terry Mortensen? Well, I personally don't believe that I'm being inconsistent because Ken Samples is a not only a dear friend that I've known since the late 19,

01:40:06

I was about to say 1880s, 1980s, a brother in Christ who I respect greatly and agree with on many, many, many things.

01:40:15

We just seriously disagree on the issue that we are discussing today.

01:40:21

And when I interview Ken, we don't talk about this. We talk about many other things that I agree with Ken on.

01:40:28

And also, I have had representatives defending an old earth view, but I've always had young earth people on following that to give both sides because I don't want to give a platform to anybody to just teach something that I radically oppose.

01:40:53

But that brings me to my own question. And it was really asked in a roundabout way by a previous listener.

01:41:01

But as far as a litmus test of orthodoxy, don't we who are young earth advocates have to be very careful not to go overboard in our own rhetoric when we disagree with genuine brethren in Christ who are old earth advocates?

01:41:22

Yes, we need to avoid ad hominem attacks where we attack a person and attack their personhood.

01:41:34

And, you know, there's no justification whatsoever for calling names or implying that the person is an idiot or stupid or not a

01:41:49

Christian because they disagree. But this is just my own read on things.

01:41:57

I sense that our critics are almost implying that you can't say that another brother is wrong, seriously wrong, on this point without them saying, well, you're just attacking the person.

01:42:14

No, I'm not attacking the person. I'm attacking his ideas and I'm saying his position is wrong.

01:42:20

That is not sin. We have to be able to say, tell each other that we're wrong when we think another brother is wrong.

01:42:32

That's part of being iron sharpening iron, as this radio program is about.

01:42:38

And so when I mention people, I try to always preface my remarks by saying, yeah,

01:42:48

I'm not saying this person is a heretic. I'm not saying they're going to hell. And I often say

01:42:54

I have books from this person in my library that have been very helpful to me. But I think they're wrong on this point.

01:43:01

And I think they're seriously wrong. I think they are unconsciously, unintentionally undermining the very faith that they have in Christ and in his inerrant word.

01:43:13

And I think it's an important issue. And so I have to be faithful to God in my calling.

01:43:23

I have to speak what I believe is the truth. And let's quickly also note, those same people will also say that I'm wrong.

01:43:34

So that's fine. They can say that. But then those who are listening have to say,

01:43:40

OK, let me listen to the arguments, to the biblical support for the positions, and see who's really wrong, or maybe they're both wrong.

01:43:50

But the Word of God has to be our final authority. We can't have, as I've been saying recently in the

01:43:58

Protestant world, we better not have any popes or College of Cardinals. The only person who never made a mistake was the

01:44:09

Lord Jesus Christ, and the Bible must sit in judgment over all of us.

01:44:14

And if we become defensive when somebody else says that we're wrong, then we have become, if they're bringing biblical arguments to our attention for something we've said, something we've done, an attitude we've expressed, then we should be really saying,

01:44:35

Lord, help me to listen to this, and if this person is right, and I'm wrong, I need to repent, and I need to seek to grow in this area.

01:44:44

But if they're not right, and I go to your Word and I say, no, they're not right, then I need to stand firmly on the truth of Scripture.

01:44:53

And Charlie Liebert has a question or comment. A comment, yeah. The whole issue here, in my mind, revolves around the question of what's the authority?

01:45:04

Is science and Scripture equal, or is Scripture over science? And that's really where I have the argument very often with people that are old earth.

01:45:12

I say, you know, you value science at a level where you're interpreting science, which is interpretation of evidence, compared to Scripture, which is absolute.

01:45:21

Yeah, and a lot of the old earth folks that I hear from behave as if these theories of evolution and other things are actual proven fact.

01:45:32

Yes, that's correct. And they're not. That's why they still call them theories. That's right. Well, I think there's one other little thing that we should be really careful about, and that is that science doesn't prove anything.

01:45:46

Science doesn't say anything. It is scientists. And when people say, well, they're going with science.

01:45:53

No, they're not going with science. What they're going with is what the majority of scientists believe today.

01:46:00

Not what the majority of scientists in all of history have believed, but what the majority today, in the 20th and 21st century.

01:46:09

And so I'm not going against science. I'm going against the majority view in science, among scientists.

01:46:17

And so the battle is the interpretation of scientists, not science as some kind of autonomous and monolithic entity.

01:46:30

All scientists don't believe the same thing. Charlie Liebert has another comment. When you look at the origins of the modern scientific thought, most of those people are

01:46:40

Christians. I mean, Newton and, you know, the origin here originally of the scientific method and how it speaks to the real world around us started with a

01:46:49

Christian presupposition, a Christian worldview. And then it deviates from that as Darwin comes in and people try to find an excuse to take

01:46:57

God out of the equation. Yep. But it started before Darwin. Oh, yeah. No, it started long before that.

01:47:03

It actually started in a garden, if you want to get technical. Now, we also have to make sure that we are not broad brushing and therefore unintentionally slandering some of our

01:47:15

Old Earth brethren, because most of the Christians, in fact, all of the

01:47:21

Christians that I know that are professedly conservative and believers in inerrancy, believe in a historical

01:47:29

Adam and Eve. I think that they are just very, very seriously wrong on the origins of Adam and Eve or the creation account of Adam and Eve.

01:47:40

But do you actually know of any professedly conservative and adherence of inerrancy that would deny the literal existence of Adam and Eve?

01:47:55

Probably not. But here's another thing. People will say they believe in a historical

01:48:02

Adam. Okay. But what does that mean? Do you believe the account in Genesis is historically literally accurate?

01:48:12

Like when it says that Jesus went up to Jerusalem from Jericho, it really means that he went up geographically uphill from Jericho to Jerusalem.

01:48:21

Or do you say, well, he went to Jerusalem, but he didn't really go up from Jericho? You know, was

01:48:28

Adam made from dust or was he made from a preexisting living creature?

01:48:33

So just because you believe he's historical doesn't tell me enough. And if you believe

01:48:40

Eve was historic, was she made from the rib of Adam or was she made from an ape woman? So I want to say, just saying you believe in a historical

01:48:49

Adam, that's helpful, but that's not sufficient. I want to know what you believe about the origin of Adam and Eve biologically, because the

01:49:00

Bible doesn't just say that Adam was historical. It gives us details about how

01:49:06

God created Adam and Eve. And I believe those details are just as literally accurate as the statements about Jesus dying on a cross between two thieves.

01:49:16

Yes, I agree with you 100%, but obviously I'm sure you would concur that to deny the existence of Adam and Eve and merely say they were allegories or fictitious figures to prove some kind of moral point, that is far seriously more dangerous and heretical than someone who says that they truly existed, but just as an unbiblical understanding.

01:49:41

I'm not trying to undermine the seriousness of their error, but... No, I think it's more obviously subversive to the gospel, but whenever we undermine what the

01:49:53

Bible clearly teaches, we're undermining its authority, which eventually has a knock -on effect of undermining the gospel.

01:50:02

Amen. Well, I want to make sure, before we run out of time, before I take any listener question,

01:50:09

I want to make sure that you have about five minutes of uninterrupted time yourself to fully summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today, because I don't want to run out of time when you're in mid -sentence.

01:50:22

Yeah. Well, one thing that has become clear to me increasingly in recent months and years is we often, in Answers in Genesis, have been saying for years that the issue is the authority of Scripture.

01:50:38

And my Old Earth brethren, who are not evolutionists in terms of their view of Darwinian evolution, they reject that, but they will say to me, and I've had some of them say this directly to me,

01:50:52

Terry, it's not an issue of the authority of Scripture, it's an issue of the interpretation of Scripture.

01:50:58

And what I think I want to increasingly say is, and I have said this, but I'm hoping to be more clear, is that, well, really it's an issue of the clarity, or theologians say, the perspicuity of Scripture, because Genesis is just not that difficult to understand, and for 1 ,800 years, the

01:51:23

Church, and for another 1 ,400 years before that, Orthodox Jews believed that it was a,

01:51:29

Genesis 1 -11 was a straightforward historical account. And the details are literal and they're straightforward.

01:51:40

No five -year -old or a PhD Old Testament scholar can really read

01:51:47

Genesis 6 -8 and come to the conclusion that it's just describing a local flood in the

01:51:53

Middle East. I mean, it's clear this is a global flood, and it's clear that in Genesis 3,

01:52:01

Adam and Eve's sin brought the judgment of God on the whole creation. He cursed the animals, he cursed the ground, thorns and thistles shall grow for you.

01:52:12

And then we come to the New Testament, and Romans 8 says the whole creation is growing in bondage to corruption, and Colossians 1 and Acts 3 -21 says that when

01:52:23

Jesus comes again, he's not just going to redeem Christians' bodies, he's going to redeem and restore the whole creation.

01:52:32

And so, the Scriptures, Genesis is not difficult to understand.

01:52:39

It's a lot of exegetical gymnastics, jumping around on the text and using some very seemingly sophisticated arguments to deny the obvious.

01:52:53

It simply does not teach creation over millions of years of death and bloodshed and violence and extinction.

01:53:01

It teaches a six -day creation. And so, when people reinterpret

01:53:08

Genesis, they're using what the scientific majority, and I have an article on our website,

01:53:15

Why Don't Christian Leaders and Scholars Believe Genesis? And I have about 15 quotes from leading

01:53:23

Old Testament scholars and theologians, and they all, in different ways, say basically the same thing.

01:53:30

Well, Genesis seems to teach creation in six days and a young earth, but, and then what comes after the but is, but that's contrary to what science says, which what they really mean is, it's contrary to what the majority of geologists and cosmologists and biologists say.

01:53:51

And so, we, in Answers in Genesis this next year, are really making an emphasis on the clarity of Scripture.

01:54:00

Obviously, not every verse in the Bible is equally clear. Peter said in 2 Peter 3 that there are some things in Paul that are hard to understand.

01:54:09

We're not saying that every verse is equally clear, but we are insisting and will be arguing that Genesis 1 to 11, there might be a couple words or verses that, you know, are open to debate, but the text is clear.

01:54:26

It's describing a literal six -day creation, a very good creation being ruined by a fall in God's curse and a global flood and a tower of Babel that explains where the different people groups came from and the different languages, and that all paves the way for God's call of Abraham to make him a nation through whom the

01:54:50

Messiah would come. And all of that is clear in Scripture, just as it's clear about the virgin birth and the miracles of Jesus and his death and resurrection.

01:55:04

So, we want to call the Church back to the clear and supremely authoritative

01:55:09

Word of God, and to do that as humbly and graciously and boldly as we can.

01:55:17

Amen. We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says, I have heard and seen

01:55:24

John Lennox give presentations on radio and television and find him quite fascinating.

01:55:31

Where does he fall within the realm of views on the origins of the earth?

01:55:38

Well, I was involved in a debate with John Lennox, Hugh Ross, and Michael Behe back in 2011, and I actually stayed in John Lennox's home once when

01:55:50

I was doing my Ph .D. and I was at a conference in his city. He wrote a book a few years ago entitled,

01:55:58

Seven Days That Divide the World, and in it he argues that there is an indeterminate amount of time between verse 1 and verse 3 of Genesis 1.

01:56:08

He believes that the first day of creation begins at Genesis 1 -3, when

01:56:16

God said, let there be light. And then he believes the days are literal, but there's an indeterminate amount of time between the days, and so that's where he's putting the millions of years.

01:56:28

And at that debate, in a one -hour Q &A time with the audience that each of us speakers had, he was asked, do you believe that the fall had an impact on the whole creation?

01:56:44

And it was interesting that he did not answer that question. Instead, he answered a different question, do you believe the fall was historical?

01:56:54

And he affirms that it was historical, but he evaded the question, do you believe that there was death before the fall?

01:57:00

And then somebody else followed up and said, do you believe that the flood was global? And he didn't answer the question, he answered a different question, the question, do you believe the flood was historical?

01:57:12

And he believes it was historical, but he evaded the real question. And so he's a wonderful brother, he's a brilliant, brilliant mathematician and apologist, but I think his book,

01:57:27

Seven Days that Divide the World, is seriously, fatally flawed.

01:57:33

And he's influenced a lot of people to not believe Genesis. Well, thank you,

01:57:38

B .B. You've also won a free copy of Searching for Adam. As long as you didn't win one the last time, we'll do our research and find out if that's the case.

01:57:46

But thank you very much for participating in today's program. I want everybody to know that New Leaf Publishing Group's website is nlpg .com,

01:57:55

nlpg .com, and the Master Books website is masterbooks .com,

01:58:02

masterbooks .com. And what's the website for Answers in Genesis, Dr. Mortenson? It's answersingenesis .org.

01:58:11

Answersingenesis .org. Any other further contact information you care to give? Well, you could also search on our website, right on the homepage, come to the

01:58:21

Creation Museum that we have had over 500 ,000 visitors this past year, and the

01:58:28

ARC Encounter that is going to have some phenomenal things, even here at Christmas time, a 15 -projector multimedia presentation on the whole side of the

01:58:38

ARC, presenting the biblical truth of creation, the fall, the flood, the birth of Jesus, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and proclaim the gospel.

01:58:49

It'll be a 12 -minute, jaw -dropping, 15 -projector presentation.

01:58:54

So we've had over a million at the ARC in our first year, and it's a great place to learn.

01:59:03

And unlike the evolutionist museums, we present to the people who attend, we present what creationists believe as well as what evolutionists say, so that people can learn to think critically.

01:59:17

Great. And that's answers in Genesis .org. Thank you so much, Dr. Mortensen, for being our guest today, especially with such short notice.

01:59:25

We look forward to your return to Iron Trip and Zion Radio in the near future, and very often as well. God bless you.

01:59:32

And I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions today, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater