Interview with Dr Dan Biddle about the "Ark and the Darkness" Movie

Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to C4C apologetics. So a lot of you have been checking out the review that I did on the Ark in the Darkness film a while back. And so I'm excited to go ahead and announce that we got about three interviews from people that Had a lot of work a big role to go go ahead and do within this film.

And so today we're interviewing. Dr Dan Biddle is the executive producer of the Ark in the Darkness as well as the president of Genesis Apologetics and so we got some questions as far as what we're going to ask him and from what I from what I understand Dr. Biddle whenever I'm interviewing people.

They're always like You give me some interesting questions. I've been interviewed a lot before but there's some new ones out here. Did any of my questions surprise you at all? I'm just curious right off the bat.

No, and I'm also interested in the in the questions that we can that we can go off of the script, too. So those are sometimes the the most fun ones, but I don't think anything was was surprising. There's a Yeah, this this movie really is stirring the pot within hearts minds and spirits of people who watched it.

I know people have watched it multiple times. I know people who have given us testimonies that they've actually become angry because this movie has caused them to rethink the world the way that they were raised and the worldview that they have bought into for years and.

They're disturbed at that having to rewrite their history rewrite their worldview and their perspective of the world. I also had to go through that when I converted to creationist maybe 13 years ago or so I had to go through that process and for me it was it didn't make me mad.

But it did make me feel like I had been duped. So Yeah, there's a lot of people that have a lot of different variety of responses to watching the movie.

Worldview Shock and the Power of the Film

So yeah, I could definitely see that I for sure. Makes me think in one of the earlier books that I've written. I used the illustration of the land before time. That people grow up, you know I grew up watching the land before time cartoons and you watch these movies and it's like 70 million years ago.

Whatever the case is you go through public education and the teacher and all the faculty and the staff. They're like evolution evolution Lucy Lucy and all these other aspects. And then you you come across when you're a grown-up you come across someone like you or me.

Who's a young earth creationist and now it's like, okay land before time. I grew up watching. I've had 12 years plus of public education that says it's 70 million years ago. But all of a sudden I got this adult that sounds like they're a pretty smart person, but he's saying gets it's not 70 million years.

It's actually 6 ,000 years or so and so I can definitely understand just the aspect of trying to challenge your own worldview and to be able to swallow that pride pill. And be like, you know what maybe there is something else to look at and so I've been there before in fact.

When I converted to creationists, I was a very enthusiastic about sharing this and I took several of my friends out to lunch and They would honestly look at me and say Dan you're a smart guy you have a PhD in the behavioral sciences.

I've always regarded you as an intellect, but I can't believe you actually believe the earth is 6 ,000 years old and that's happened. Repeatedly in my lifetime and please understand. This is not a boast at all.

But what I say to those people as I said, like I can't give it to you in a five-minute elevator pitch. I can't explain it to you in 30 seconds but I'm batting a hundred percent of those friends that I'm able to take to lunch and spend about an hour with if I can have an hour with someone I have yet to fail.

To convince them on young earth creationism and it and I take zero credit for that. Yeah, all I'm able to do with them is share look I did pressure test as I spent 90 days of my life and thousands of dollars worth of books.

And a trip to Canada and a trip to Montana and several other trips. And if I can just download for them over time and show them the logical steps in the path that it took me to. It has always worked, but I can't do it in 30 seconds.

In fact, it's almost like you do a lot of damage in 30 seconds your elevator pitch. Oh, yeah. You know I've created everything in six days and God gave dominion over man then they named everything and dinosaurs were included and then the fall came.

And then they turned into carnivores. They're looking at you like what on earth are you talking about because you're you're going against what's called a neural network a fabric in their minds of. Years of conditioning and hundreds of hours of conditioning and you can't unwind those things quickly.

In five minutes same thing. I just can't do it. But if I can have a lunch with someone I've I've seen in it's. I'm not gonna say I've convinced them I'm gonna say the evidence flipped them just like it did me and so and when that happens.

You can see you go through a realignment Process and your mind and your heart can become a line and you're no longer resisting and fighting what scripture obviously says. I mean the atheists they know what scripture says and that's why they're not oftentimes at odds.

So much with older creationists as they are with younger creations. There's a reason why. There are people on YouTube who have dedicated their lives towards debunking our videos. I've never heard go look after yourself or be on YouTube.

I'll have one video that has got 50 ,000 views on topic a. There's guys on there rebutting topic a that have 200 ,000 views. They spend hours obsessing over this. Well, they're not doing that to Progressive or day age or gap theory people we are under attack because we're standing on the truth.

And it's a hotbed and that's that's a reason why the enemy has enlisted his forces the rulers. Principalities and authorities are beckoned against us to defeat this because the enemy knows when people drink this truth in.

It's gonna cause life transformation.

Amen. Amen, I appreciate that. Well Before we go any farther for anybody that may not know who you are Let's go ahead and talk, you know, explain a little bit about yourself. Anything about Genesis apologetics where you're the president of.

Share a little thoughts on on that. And then how did you actually get into apologetics?

Dr. Biddle’s Testimony and Call to Ministry

Yeah, so, um, gosh, I I love that topic because I did go through. I'm very enthusiastic about my my conversion testimony. But I was saved when I was 11. I went through a rebellious time as a teenager came back to Christ when I was 17.

I backslid pretty hard until that time. I locked in with Christ ever since I was 17 got married. Blessed amazing wife for kids business the whole thing and I studied to become a behavioral scientist. I have a PhD in industrial organizational psychology for about 20 years.

I was a testifying expert in state and federal court cases dealing with statistics research and evidence. And so I was on plaintiff side and the defense side and worked on over a hundred cases and lived in that world for about 20 years and then.

It was about maybe 13 years ago now or so and this is something that makes my Fundamentalist leaning friends a little bit uncomfortable. God put a call on my life and I am NOT a woo-woo charismatic. I believe that the gifts are for today again.

That makes a lot of people mad. But I went through a process of my life where God called me in an undeniable ways that I can verify scientifically and spiritually. God started putting markers into my life.

I got dreams. I had people say things to me that they had no busy no business saying or knowing about me. I got surrounded by By the Holy Spirit and by the Lord and by people and that's the only way I can explain it.

And I say that as a very conservative grounded businessman as an evidence guy as a person. Yeah with a PhD in behavioral sciences. God called me supernaturally into this ministry. And so I had two choices.

I could keep fighting it or I could succumb and you know. It's like God saying hey come here. You're gonna have to jump in the water get swallowed by a fish. I'm like, I don't want to do that version that story.

I want to submit and so I submitted and then God began compounding and growing and multiplying our ministry. I don't believe that God calls people into addition and subtraction. I got called into the multiplying business or business.

I so to speak I One of my commissionings by the Lord Was to do a YouTube video about the flood. It was a very Supernatural download thing that happened to me and I did it. I was as obedient and then I went to go see dr John Baumgartner in San Diego when I was preparing to do that video and I was about to leave and dr Baumgartner says hey, you know look before you go.

He just relented. He was a very interesting dynamic because he's also a scientific guy. He's like I just need to tell you something that might make you feel uncomfortable. Well, I have to tell you he says a couple years ago someone came to me and said John towards the end of your life someone is going to come to you and take your work and make it famous and Then he handed me a blue USB thumb drive with his life's work on it.

And I took that work and I spent a couple months on it and I put it on YouTube. With a video with compelling evidence about Noah's Flood that's turned out to be the most Watched video in history about Noah's Flood and again zero credit.

I got a commissioning from the Lord to do them the movie. I could give a longer version of that but people would agree after the hearing it like yeah. Sounds to me like God gave you an assignment took the assignment ran with it met with John.

John's like yeah. Someone came to me and said a couple years ago. So it's gonna come to me in the last days your last part of your life. Take your word make it famous it did it and it's got 2 .8 million views now on YouTube.

And then we end up doing a movie about it. So it's interesting that that God can give a calling to someone that can be verified with what we see in the world. God called John Bob Gardner to his work. He called me to my work.

We were we both submitted and surrendered and we took that work and then God did make it multiply and make it famous. And so that's kind of how the our ministry got started. But that even more specifically when God was calling me into the ministry I went to my son's.

I would say the day I got the call was. There was a whole bunch of events that led up to this but I went to my son's back-to-school line at public school and Sat in the in the sixth grade world history class and the teacher said look if you're Christian or Jewish or Catholic.

Just know we've got to teach evolution. It's about two weeks. And and then we get out. It's not a big deal. And then I was looking at her bookshelf when she was saying that she had all kinds of books on on evolution that it was Reflecting that my son when he was attending her class was just being indoctrinated.

He's like son. He's like dad all the other Christians. Heads down and they've got their pens and they're just writing all this stuff and they're believing all of it and and the Lord opened my eyes. Again, it's as a cognitive psychologist.

I understood all of the the propaganda that these kids were Reading about how they would layer the books with with truth. Why truth truth truth lie truth truth not that they were lying, but they're just their misunderstanding of evolution.

And so when that happened to me and God really opened my eyes to what was happening in the state of, California. I got physically sick in class. I I I'm like, I'm what I'm told my wife is I have to walk home.

I can't stand this anymore and I walked home and and the Lord began slowly showing me. Peeling the covers off of what's happening with people who are believing like the scripture says the lie. Yeah, the lie of evolution is the grandest biggest lie that's ever been done.

And so but rather than jumping in with my own strength and then combating it with what tools that I was ready with. The Lord again began coaching me on looks on. This is not your battle. Don't even pretend you can fight it in your own strength and then God began downloading Instructions here, but the Bible says it is God who lives in you to will and to act according to its good purpose.

And Ephesians 2 says that we should do good works, which God has appointed in advance for us to do. So God is involved in a very granular level at leading us and guiding us as spirit-filled believers I want to do.

And I began getting those steps and following those steps, even if they didn't make sense. I mean a lot of the stuff we do doesn't make sense. Yeah, and then the Lord has blessed us and the Lord eventually led me to do this movie.

And interesting just a quick side note on the movie that the commissioning that I got to do the flood movie. Came at a time during with within a one-month period. I got sick and laid out with the nasty version of kovat.

Mmm, I was felt like I was half dead. Yeah, my brother passed away from liver disease same month. My mom's cancer came back to stage four and her eyes began bulging out of her head with tumors. Since in recovery.

Okay, and I became an empty nester with all but my third and fourth kid going off to college. I was a wreck the worst period I'd ever had in my life and it was during that down low period. That again the Holy Spirit commissioned me.

I got the assignment to go do this movie and and I take too long to explain how it happened. And God showed me he wanted me to do this and I joined with Ralph strand who was equally passionate about doing this work.

And we met together. I said, hey, let's do a film about the flood. That's gonna go through the theaters. Let's put it out on YouTube afterwards. I'm like that great plan. Let's do it two and a half years later.

We give birth to the movie. Amen. Amen. Amen. There's a lot to unpack there. I appreciate all that in that heart for ministry. And just like I was thinking the whole time when you're talking about getting your commission I was like, well, is he gonna turn out like a Jonah case, you know.

Get swallowed by a fish.

Like I read that story God I don't want to do it but it's interesting when I used to wonder when people say Oh, I got a calling from God. I'm like, oh that sounds spooky. That's crazy. You know God just leads practically and only through his word or you know I believe God speaks primarily through his word.

If you want to hear from God, you're not reading. You're not reading this word. But if God wants to call you to do something He will do it and he will do it with ways that will make some Christians uncomfortable.

But he'll get your attention and that's what he did with me and thank God I leaned into that and I obeyed. But I got the commissioning of us. It was very clear that he was calling me to do the movie.

It's amazing when things like that happen. I know. Being military just retired not that long ago. We were stationed in South Dakota and it was our last assignment. Me and my wife were. We're always talking about what are we doing when we retire?

Do we want to get back into ministry? Do we want to do this or that. And we were we were offered a To consider a position here at a church by the senior pastor and some me and my wife were like, okay.

So if we were to go to this church What would we'd like to try to adjust or do things a little differently or whatever? The case is what ministries would we want to try to invest in? So me and my wife came up with these ideas.

As far as what we would do well we ended up coming out and visiting for a little while and part of the visit at this church was to go ahead and and for me and the senior pastor and a bunch of the men there just meet in a room and Just talk about different things and unbeknownst to me the senior pastor opened up the floor to all the guys.

There is like so if you could change anything about open door, what would you want to change? And I kid you not every single thing that they mentioned not one more not one less. Everything was stuff me and my wife had already talked about.

Not one more not one less.

You absolutely can't can't make it up. The Lord knows how to tune in a signal that's just tuned to your receiver. Yeah, and that's the kind of God I want to follow is God who's the king creator of the universe, but also can tune in and give Specific callings and and anointings for what we do and praise God for that.

That's a great story. My calling was very similar just that you look at a certain circumstance like I can't make this up and then what happened again and Again, and again, I'm like, okay, I give.

Genesis Apologetics and How the Ministry Equips Believers

Well, we're gonna be talking a lot about the movie but before that. Can you shed a little light as far as Genesis apologetics? How does this ministry help equip believers reach unbelievers. A little bit about Genesis apologetics before we move on?

Yeah, sure. So youth today are 6 .7 hours a day on their phone and in many ways. That's how they shape their understanding about the world and the worldview. You he who has the most compelling video wins.

They're they're they're truth assembly and if you look at what's happening in and public school and in education. They have these amazing multi-million dollar videos that just make evolution seem so real.

How could you deny it. And it's it's kid the message is carried through video. And so we are a student focused ministry. We do a lot with public school kids. But we also serve the private school kid community and the homeschoolers as well.

But we want to bridge the gap and help Christians that are you know, our true regenerate Christians part of the remnant. To help them understand that Genesis is real history and we do that provide producing short compelling videos.

We have three long form works out there as well. And we're working on on more but I think most of our ministry is just coming out with short Compelling impactful videos that distill Genesis truth and show it as real history so we've got that but we've got books and training programs and things for K to 8th graders and 5th to 10th graders and College kids as well, but that's um, we're very much a video focused ministry.

So you got a.

Curriculum for homeschoolers things like that as well.

We do we have several different programs for we've got the student zone for K to 8. We've got the debunking evolution for 5th to 10th graders. We've got the the seven miss program for 11th grade and up and then we've got Genesis impact for family.

Which is a great program to watch before families go visit public's public museums. So several different offerings, but it's all video based and it's interesting that also it's all free we sell hard copies of our books, but you can download all the PDFs and all the videos for free and That's really what we're we're doing but we've got our our Marketing director Elizabeth that's going to be hitting the top 12 homeschool conventions in America over this year.

Yeah, bring it all those books and products around the nation. So we do cater to the homeschool community as well. But but my heart really breaks for Christians who are in public school in the state of California.

For example by the time they graduate high school. They will have received 250 pages of evolution teaching spread out over 50 classroom hours. And they're really not given a strong biblical case at all by their church family or school, of course on biblical creation but the students who do take the time to learn it will be convinced by it because our hearts and spirits resonate with what's true and most students go to public school just know in their hearts that.

That doesn't really make sense and Lucy doesn't look like a predecessor to humans. And I know in my heart that that evolution is not true so what they're doing not some not half but most of Christians who are in public school are ending up as bad at best as theistic evolutionists.

Believing that God used a long slow random murderous process to bring about humans on earth. Which is completely flipped opposite of the truth where God created us as perfect. Everything was perfect. And then we brought the fall and death suffering of bloodshed or our fault.

It's not the circle of death that there's an enemy. So but most most students just don't don't know that. So we're we're on a mission to help strengthen the faith of all who will believe.

Amen, I mean there's so much I told you before I keep my I try to keep my confidence to a minimum. You're given so much a Intrigue, you know, you mentioned Lucy once or twice and it's always amazing to me.

Where with all these models of Lucy they give. They give her Human eyes, you know with the sclera and if you get Lucy ape eyes it's gonna look like an ape and I so it's just amazing with that. And then.

Yeah, there's a lot to be said about Lucy. Just got a Genesis apologetics comm Lucy and you can we've got all of our videos there. We've got public school teachers that are using our Lucy videos just because on a scientific Grounds alone Lucy has been weighed measured and rejected.

They can't even determine her gender anymore. Her Thoracic vertebrae belong to a therapeutic. It's not even to an australopithecus. She's a mess, you know and a little three and a half foot tall monkey that weighed 40 pounds.

It has nothing to do with human evolution. So yeah, but and there's several different reasons to believe that that she's even been rejected by many mainstream secular evolution believing. Scientists have rejected Lucy as a as a supposed transitional form.

So well, well, that's that's good to know. I.

Curious. What are your thoughts on the age of the earth in the universe? I know last last I checked I think they tried to update the timelines but. 4 .6 billion and 13 billion years for the earth in universe.

What are your thought. How old is the earth universe and and based on what evidences would you posit those ages?

The Age of the Earth and the Biblical Timeline

Yes, so I have a guarantee in that that the guarantees are going to keep changing that age. The Bible is very clear that God created the heavens the earth the sea and all that is in them in six days as the Jews Understand it so when God downloaded the Ten Commandments to Moses Exodus 31 says it's the only one scrap of Scripture the only small passage that God chose to wrote with his own hand and he conveyed To the Israelites in a way that they would believe that the six days of creation were ordinary earth rotation days.

Because he said for in six days he created the heavens the earth the sea and all that is in them. So everything was created in six earth rotation days. And we know from Luke chapter 3 the Genesis genealogies that goes 77 patriarchs back.

From Jesus all the way back to a at Adam who was in Luke chapter 3. It was he was the son of God. So Adam was not a son of a son of a son of a son of right? Yeah, Neanderthals homo sapiens Promagnaman Lucy any of that stuff.

He was a son of God whom he breathed into existence to bring stewardship to take stewardship over all that he had just made six days prior to him and Adam was a capstone and then he drew Adam or Eve from Adam and those two took Dominion and stewardship over everything.

And Adam named everything issuing Dominion over all of them so everything was spun up into existence because you had to have all the planets and the Rotations and the gravity there within the six days and God started time as we know it with the you know Marking out everything and the the stars and the heavens for the signs seasons days and years.

So it all had to be present there. God was very intentional and as far as when that happened There are two different viewpoints that are within Orthodox Christianity. Yeah, the Masoretic would lean about 6 ,000 years the Septuagint set of text might go back 7 ,800 or so years.

I'm okay with either one of those because they they don't put death before sin. However, we lean Masoretic we teach that as a it's a straight Bible. There there are some things that are interesting about the Septuagint text that would have the flood around 32 BC and creation around 5 ,500 BC.

I think there's some great strong academic arguments for bringing us to that perspective. But the Masoretic is just fine too. We teach from that position. It's very much a similar place that answers in Genesis lands where they teach from the Masoretic.

But you look at the answers research journal and they'll entertain all kinds of good scholarly viewpoints that want to stretch it back to the Septuagint, so I've learned enough about that world to be okay with either perspective, but we teach from the Masoretic.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, well, that's good to know. You know while we're talking about You know the ages there's one verse or one passage in the book of Job that I've always wrestled. Well, not really wrestled with but trying to paint a picture as far as what creature this is.

Now understand. I would believe that the behemoth that is spoken of in Job is some type of sauropod dinosaur, brontosaurus, brachiosaurus, whatever the case is, but then you get in Job chapter 40 and we get this picture of what's known as the Leviathan.

41 can now draw out the Leviathan with a hook or his tongue and this and that. So so there's. Description. As far as this creature called a Leviathan believe in verse 19. It says. Out of his mouth goes burning lamps and sparks of fire leap out out of his nostrils goes smoke.

What what is the Leviathan from your understanding? What is this a dinosaur? Is this a sea creature? Is this a flying creature?

Behemoth, Leviathan, and Other Ancient Creatures

It's a dragon. What do you think? This is sure in Job chapter 40 and 41. We have the end of a narrative where God shows up to Job. He shows up on the scene. Job has been whining and complaining for 38 chapters for good reason to of course but he's been trying to philosophize with his friends and everything and God shows up at a whirlwind and says Job sit down and shut up and listen to me.

That's essentially what the Hebrew is saying grab yourself like a man and listen. That's what he says gird yourself around like a man sit down I'm gonna show you some things and then God begins a narrative of listing about a dozen different animals.

Normal animals that we would understand the way of the eagle and the deer and all these different animals. It jobs listening and listening and listening. But when we get to Job chapter 40, I'm 100 certain that the description in Job chapter 40 is a narrative of Behemoth which is a sore pawed dinosaur.

It could have been Argentina's Horace Titanus Horace. It was maybe not the Platycus because God says it's the biggest baddest thing he ever made. He uses the Hebrew where he says that he behemoth is the chief of all of my ways.

The biggest grandest terrestrial creature I ever made in a ranked sorted list is behemoth and if you look at the fossil record, it was absolutely a large massive sore pawed and some of these creatures are 122 feet long and 77 tons and they're amazing and they're massive and they represent the grandeur of God and Then God brags about that.

He's just consider this behemoth, which I made along with you like on the same sixth day of creation. It's got a scale that says like sways like a cedar tree and then God describes 13 Unmistakable characteristics of a sore pawed dinosaur that don't fit a hippo.

They don't fit a crocodile. It's a sore pawed and God expresses his magnificence through this creature. Which he made as a chief of all of his works then we get to job chapter 41 and I'm strongly confident, but not certain That it was a dinosaur kiss, which is a super croc and we have a video on our website.

And on YouTube just called what it what was Leviathan and I think there's again There's a strong list of over a dozen descriptions of This creature Leviathan that lead us to believe it was a super croc primarily for the hornback description That's given Alligators and crocodiles have got a horn back.

That's on them. It's a it's a whole bunch of Osteoderms or scoots which are bony circular plates that are on its back where no air can pass between and they are impervious by the Seven different weapon systems that God names in Job chapter 41 and God says look your human man-made Instruments of warfare are a joke to this creature.

And we prove that using slow-motion cameras and Warbows that we go against an alligator hornback that we attack with all this different weapon systems say yep. No, our air can pass between it and nothing can pass it not not a dart not an arrow not a javelin not a spear.

Nothing can penetrate this thing and the only thing that what we can't be for certain is the apparatus used for breathing fire. Because soft tissue Decays over time, but the dinosaurus fossils that have been uncovered Lead us to believe that the animal probably weighed seven tons was was as long as 40 feet long and eight dinosaurs because some of the Remnants that have been found in the stomach regions of these fossils show the dinosaurus eight Crocodile or eight eight dinosaurs.

Oh wow yeah, that's what we think it was we make a pretty strong argument for that on our YouTube.

Video called Leviathan. Wow. I think we're gonna have a link in the descriptions here as far as this is concerned. But you know that's I've never heard that before so I definitely want to look that up.

I know the information's out there. It's just I haven't studied that aspect of it, so I appreciate all that.

Yes, Spinosuchus would be a close second, but I think Leviathan wins. Yeah so Moving on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Spinosaurus. Spinosaurus would be a tough second. A good argument for second.

But I think Dinosuchus is probably what the only thing I know about Spinosaurus correctly if I'm wrong was from Jurassic world. Is that correct?

That's correct, and sadly we actually don't have a lot of fossil records to go on for Spinosuchus. We had some but they were all lost during the war. Yeah, but I and that's why I think that We know was a semi aquatic creature and Dinosuchus Really would have fit it and the Bible also says it was playing this in the ship ways of ships.

Oh, yeah, so so it's and they've there have also uncovered some evidence that Dinosuchus would go out to sea. So yeah. Strong arguments for that creature, but it could have also been a Spinosaurus. You make me want to ask you about a unicorn.

Yeah, if you just look at the ice age creatures that have been discovered with the longest form that ever been found there are some single-horned rhinoceros creatures that have been found in ice age layers that would make a strong argument for what a Unicorn could have been a single horn.

Creature, so yeah, I think I've looked it up as far as etymology of the word and and just how words evolved meaning. And I think one of them talked about like what is it like a Monoceros or some some aspect like that.

I don't.

But you would know a lot more yeah, I forget the name of the of the creature. It did go extinct during the ice age which is of course after the flood. But it is a huge creature that they found that's got like a four foot tall Single horn that that goes up and oh yeah, it looked like a wooly rhinoceros type of a creature.

But had a big huge single horn that went up. Yeah.

Okay, well with the film the arc in the darkness I'm curious how long did it take from start to finish. You know production wise not like brainstorming. But like from starting the production to when it was released.

How long did it take. Because it was pretty amazing.

Production, CGI, and the Release Schedule

It was about two and a half years, and and I have to give credit to our producer director Ralph Strin for that. The guy just didn't stop he he literally lost two and a half years of his life. And then this movie just poured it straight in 12 hours a day.

Just just buried himself into it, but some of the parts would would while he was working. He's got these render farms set aside With his software programs that would do the rendering for the animation parts of the movie.

And he had some some scenes in there. And if you haven't seen the movie yet wait to about 35 minutes into the movie when the flood Commences that the flood commencement scene when the water drops begin falling.