Faith Reconsidered

Am I Back?

I know, I abandoned the site, but believe me it was never my intention to abandon it permanently. There are a number of topics I’m working on, but for the time being it’s pretty tough to keep up. I am in a bad situation now, and am getting back on my feet.

I intended on doing as thorough a job as possible on my Christian Presuppositionalism project, but I am not so sure if that’s going to be practical, or even possible.

So this is just a heads up to those of you out there who might be barely interested in what I have to say If there are any of you… I intend to post what I can when I can, but I can’t promise anything at this particular point in my life.

Introduction to Philosophy Part 1 – Intro to Series and Logic

While I work on some other projects, I wanted to post a series for those who don’t know much about philosophy. I do not intend to write much of anything myself, but rather the series will be like a directory to the sources that have been the most helpful to me.

The very first thing to master while you embark on your philosophical journey is informal and formal logic. It is not necessary to take up the more advanced symbolic logic just yet. Informal and formal logic will provide you with the necessary tools to analyze any and all arguments. I think it was Stefan Molyneux who, in one of his podcasts, said that all human knowledge is a subset of philosophy. This is indeed true. Philosophy applies to all areas of scholarship and all philosophy rests on the proper use of reason.

Informal logic describes common fallacies committed in popular argumentation. Understanding fallacies will help you more readily detect them in things other people say, as well as in your own thinking. If an argument commits one or more of these, it is invalid and the conclusion need not be accepted on the grounds it is purported to be based on. Formal logic concerns the structure or form of arguments and defines methods for analyzing them independently of the statements they employ. If an argument commits a formal fallacy it is invalid no matter what the argument is about.

Logic – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Internet sources for Informal Logic:

• The Nizkor Project
• Logical Fallacies
• Informal Logic (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• Informal logic – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Internet sources for Formal Logic:

• Propositional Logic – The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Print sources:

The best book on the topic is Introduction to Logic by Irving Copi and Carl Cohen. It’s a hardcover college textbook, so it’s a bit on the expensive side. You should be able to find all the necessary information on the internet, and it’s growing every day. However, if you prefer reading printed materials and are looking for a single, consolidated source, this is your best bet.

I should also add a note about something that has helped me immensely in analyzing arguments (and this falls under informal logic): The distinction between rebuttal and refutation. If you rebut an argument, you show that the opponent has not adequately established their position or conclusion. In other words, the conclusion might be true, but a rebuttal would have shown that it cannot be accepted on the grounds that the opponent has offered. On the other hand, if you refute an argument or position, you show that the argument or position can’t be true – it must be false.

Minor Notes

I have updated all the links in my posts so that they behave correctly, and have made some other small changes. I also uploaded images that stripped away when I restarted my blog and restored from the backup file.

Discussion Forums

I’ve installed a bbPress discussion forum, which you can visit here. The only forum so far is for discussing Creationism, and I’ve started a topic for discussing my arguments against Young Earth Creationism. If you register, you can start your own topic in the Creationism forum, so long as it’s relevant to Creationism. I will be creating more forums and topics as time goes on.

The Omnipotent Stance

[originally posted February 17th, 2009]

A little while back someone attempted to “rebut” my series on Young Earth Creationism, and this short exchange took place on a discussion board. The argument was so ridiculous that I didn’t give it much thought. The argument was basically this: This person told me that I was putting God into a materialistic framework and that I had to prove that God did not miraculously preserve the garden of Eden from the destructive force of Noah’s flood. Well unfortunately this person did not wish to tell me why I had to prove that, but the rest of us know it’s just shifting the burden of proof. Anyone who wishes to assert that YECism stands because God miraculously preserved the garden has to prove it in order to rebut my argument. I can agree that if there is a God who is omnipotent, then it could do that, but as I thought about this counter-argument more I found that it has its own problems. That is, what would the implications be if we suppose that God really did miraculously preserve Eden?

This person suggested that God lifted the garden up off of the ground, waited for the flood to deposit all the sedimentation, and then set the garden back down again when it was finished. Aside from being completely asinine, if the person had read my blog posts (he didn’t – he complained that they were too long and I was kind enough to sum it up for him, which he complained was still too long but he read it anyway) he would have realized that the features mentioned in the account – the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, two other dried up riverbeds that we can reasonably identify today, the city of Assur, and the wide swaths of land these features are associated with – cover almost the entire Middle East. In order to preserve things as this person suggested God did, he would have to have lifted the entire Middle East into the air while the flood ran its course underneath.

First of all, if that were the case then we ought to find a layer of soil in the entire Middle East that lays on top of the flood sediment and underneath any sediment that had accrued since God laid the Middle East back down. This layer of soil would be the topmost soil of the pre-flood surface of the earth at the time God lifted it up. And, this feature would only be found in the Middle East, underneath at least the features that the biblical account mentions. Of course, we would have heard about this unique feature by now if it existed.

Secondly, where does this person think the people existed that God wanted to destroy with the flood? Was it not in the Middle East, and wouldn’t they be lifted up with the land too when God lifted it up? They would have been preserved from the flood too, which defeats the purpose. A friend of mine jokingly added that God must have lifted the entire Middle East up, turned it on its side, and then shook off all the people into the waters below. And what about the Ark that had not launched yet? Did God carefully pluck it off the ground and place it in the water? And finally, if God wished so much to preserve a silly piece of land that he performed the greatest miracle in history, a piece of land he valued more than human life, why didn’t he just leave Noah and his family and the animals two-by-two on the land? There would be no need for an Ark in that case.

The other option is to say that the features that existed prior to the flood miraculously reformed on post-flood ground just as they were before. Again, however, this is just conjecture that proves naught, and it illustrates that the omnipotence of God can be used as a magic explain-all^TM. Something tough to understand? No worries, just say it must be true because the Bible says it, and however “hard” it is to do God can do it because he’s omnipotent. All rationality is thrown out the window. Or, the easier option would be to just let Young Earth Creationism go. YECism tries to be scientific, but it can’t stand up to even that. YECism has biblical problems as well, and I consider it successfully refuted. There are plenty of other Christians who do not believe the Bible even teaches YECism to begin with. And it probably wouldn’t surprise you that they are in the minority and they are looked upon as sinful compromisers with secular science.

There is more I could say about this garden of Eden business, most of which centers around the authorship controversy. The result of looking at that has been that it doesn’t really matter if Moses wrote it, if someone living long after Moses wrote it, if Moses was only the compiler of earlier “eyewitness” tablets, or if someone added the passage in question later to aid understanding. Any stance you take there are problems for YECism. I can’t say that I definitely will write any posts about this because I’ve been so pressed for time that I haven’t been able to write on some other topics I had in mind. But, if I get time I will.

YECism Refuted (Part 6) – Concluding Remarks

[originally posted October 8th, 2008]

I titled my last post “Eden is a post-flood land, according to the Bible.” This title is wrong, and I apologize for any confusion it may have caused. I want to be clear about exactly what I mean to say. It is my position that Eden is not only a pre-flood land, but that the Bible is fairly clear that it can also be located on a post-flood landscape, despite whatever changes it may have undergone during the flood. This means that the flood of Noah could not have been nearly as devastating as AiG says it was, whether it was global in extent or not, and it also could not have been responsible for the deposition of most of the fossiliferous rock around the world, since if it was it would have covered Eden over, or completely destroyed it. In either case, Eden would not be locatable on a post-flood landscape and would contradict what Genesis 2:8-14 says.

On the other hand, the author of the passage in question (who very likely was also the author of the flood account) could have been mistaken about Eden being locatable on the post-flood globe. But either road you take, AiG is in a real dilemma here. If they deny that the flood was utterly devastating as they presently claim it to have been, then they essentially give up the central tenet of their scenario and their whole system will crumble – much of what they’ve written (and indeed have made a lot of money on) would be useless. If instead they go with the option that that the account in Genesis 2:8-14 is mistaken, then they will give up their theological position that the Bible is inerrant. If the Bible is not inerrant, then perhaps it is also mistaken about the flood account.

AiG holds strongly to the idea that they have interpreted the flood account correctly, and that it says, with little room for doubt, that the flood was global in its extent, and was a catastrophe so devastating that the surface of the earth was forever changed – and to a great extent. Indeed it deposited most of the sedimentary, fossil-bearing rock that can be found the world over, which is miles-thick in places. But whether this interpretation is true of the world we live in ultimately rests on the principle of biblical infallibility. This principle is more fundamental than that particular interpretation of the flood account, so in order to preserve it (by not denying Genesis 2:8-14 is mistaken), then the only way out is to admit that the flood account cannot bear that interpretation. But this, as I said before, will basically dash most of what AiG teaches to pieces.

At this point, I would like to turn back to some of Dr. Walker’s remarks about research programs that try to locate the area of Eden – in particular Dr. Juris Zarins’s account. We saw that he dismissed any such attempts without paying much attention to them because he believes that it is an impossible task. But we also saw that this is not the case, according to the Bible itself. Dr. Walker says that these attempts are based on a superficial reading of Genesis 2:8-14 – someone skims the text and sees that it barely mentions the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and immediately assumes that these must be the same Tigris and Euphrates Rivers we know today. However, a more careful reading of this passage will show that indeed the post-flood author believed Eden to be locatable on a post-flood landscape. It would appear then that it is Dr. Walker who is doing the superficial reading and assuming. I say superficial because if he read it more carefully he would see what I’ve been arguing, and that it conflicts with his interpretation of the flood account. I say assuming because he assumes that Dr. Zarins and others had not actually read it as close as they should – or perhaps failed to interpret the flood account “correctly.” He doesn’t show that their readings and interpretations are inadequate – he just says they are.

It’s also very clear that Zarins’s conclusions were not at all based on a couple of place names. Rather, “Tigris” and “Euphrates” were his starting points, and from that he showed that the other two rivers, the Pishon and Gihon, could be accounted for. Moreover, he drew on the fact that the characteristics of Havilah (there being gold, bdellium, and onyx stone there) match what we know about the area today. He argued that “Cush” was misinterpreted as being Ethiopia and should instead be identified with Iran. The point is there is much more to Zarins’s account and it is not at all superficial.

Dr. Walker also says, “Note also that the Bible speaks of one river breaking into four, only two of which are called the Tigris and Euphrates. This is not what is found in the Middle East today at either of the sites proposed.” Reading this one wonders whether he even read Zarins’s account at all, because Zarins argues that he has good reason to believe that the other two rivers correspond to features that we do find in the Middle East today. That is his whole argument! Besides, Dr. Walker, being someone who writes on geological topics for AiG, ought to know that a lot could change in the thousands of years between now and when Genesis 2:8-14 was written. But reading that account anyways shows that only two of the four rivers were flowing at the time this passage was written. So, in this way, the information the passage gives us is a lot more like what we do find in the Middle East today than he thinks.

Dr. Walker is wrong. Not only is he wrong, but the response he gives to Zarins and others is completely inadequate to protect against what AiG should recognize as the biggest thorn in the side of their system. Now there is a biblical account that, interpreted plainly, is in direct conflict with the way they interpret other parts of the Bible, in particular the flood account which is of utmost importance to them. AiG owes us an explanation – something more than a half-hearted attempt to deflect people’s attention. I don’t believe they are doing that on purpose, it’s just the effect that this article by Walker happens to have. However, I do not believe that this is an obstacle AiG can overcome, if they hope to keep their interpretation of the flood of Noah intact. A plain reading of Genesis 2:8-14 shows, without a doubt, that the author of it believed that Eden could be located, if one desired, on a post-flood landscape. Coupled with the principle of biblical infallibility, for the sake of argument, Eden can be located on a post-flood landscape. Since that is so, the flood of Noah was not at all as devastating as AiG lets on. Indeed, it must not have been very devastating at all.

How did AiG go wrong, then? I think that Dr. Walker himself gives us a good answer. He says, “This shows how carefully we must read all Scripture. We must never re-interpret Scripture just to make some outside evidence support an event of the Bible.” Exactly, Dr. Walker. AiG went wrong because it did not follow this advice. They did not read Genesis 2:8-14 carefully enough. Rather, they re-interpreted the flood account to say that the flood was global and absolutely devastating, just to make the outside evidence of the existence of fossil-bearing rock support the flood event itself. The flood of Noah cannot explain the existence of the fossil-bearing rock, so this is something that Christianity still must grapple with.

YECism Refuted (Part 5) – Eden is a Post-Flood Land, According to the Bible

[originally posted October 7th, 2008]

Since my last post I’ve been trying to structure the progression of my arguments in a congenial way, but it’s proved to not be as easy as I thought. Therefore, I will present what I have over the next couple of posts and hope for the best.

To begin establishing my conclusions, I first need to consider the passage of Genesis chapter 2 that concerns the location of the garden of Eden. There are definite indicators as to its whereabouts, but the question is, “Is it a pre-flood or post-flood location?” As we saw, Dr. Walker believes it is a pre-flood location, but I aim to show that a good interpretation of the passage proves that the author of that passage intended to convey that Eden was able to be located on a landscape contemporaneous to the writing – that is, on a post-flood landscape.

Most scholars attribute authorship of the book of Genesis to Moses. If you are not one to agree with that, then perhaps at least you would concede that whoever wrote the book was closely associated with Moses. I will not go into details, as I think they are pretty irrelevant to what I want to show here, but generally speaking, whoever wrote the passage in Genesis about the location of Eden was a post-Eden, post-flood descendant of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Furthermore, the account was most likely written by an Israelite during captivity in Egypt, during the wandering in the deserts of Arabia, or shortly after the occupation of Canaan. This gives us two aspects of the point of view of the author, which we will use to help us interpret the passage. The first aspect is temporal – the account was written at a time much later than Eden and the flood of Noah, making these events past events relative to the passage. The second aspect is spatial – the location of the author of the passage was somewhere in Egypt, Arabia, or Canaan.

Now that we understand that the author had a particular point of view with respect to time and location (as indeed all authors do), we should also understand that if the text was meant to convey statements of truth about the past, the present, and geographical features to its audience, rather than just allegorical explanations, then the author would give indicators relative to his and his audience’s point of view (here I take it that the author’s audience was the nation of Israel who lived at the same time or later, and in roughly the same place as, the author). There should be two types of indicators, temporal and spatial, which correspond to the author’s temporal and spatial points of view.

For instance, let’s assume that I live in New York City and I am writing a description of my old hometown to an audience of, say, 50 people who live on my block, and I intend for them to read it almost immediately after I finish it. Furthermore, let’s assume that I want to give them some glimmer of where my home town is located, and it just so happens that my hometown is in rural Ohio. But let’s say these people have never heard of Ohio and have no clue what the word “rural” means. I could explain to them the meaning of the word, but suppose that I want my account to be short and that they probably would not grasp the concept even if I took the time to explain it. In order to convey what I wanted to, I might say, “My hometown is in Ohio, in the West.” When I indicate the direction of my hometown, I indicate it relative to my audience’s location. It would make no sense if I indicated the direction relative to California because then it would be in the East, and when my audience reads the account of my hometown they would interpret it as being east of them, in the Atlantic Ocean. But, of course, this is not what I mean.

Similarly, if I want to convey things that took place in my hometown at a certain time, I would use time indicators that are relative to when my audience will read my account. If my hometown still exists, then I will say that it is there, rather than was there. If there are horses there still today, I would tell them that there are horses there. Conversely, if there were horses there in the past (relative to now), but something happened and all of the horses either died out or were moved away so that there were no more horses left in my hometown, I would tell them that horses were there. Now if a long time passes after I have written my account and horses, let’s say, have been moved back in, my account would say, “horses were there,” but it would be the case that horses now are there. Of course, this is because things change over time, but it would be true that at the time of my writing, there were no horses there, but it was the case that horses were there in the past relative to the time I wrote my account.

This is all pretty straightforward and should be easy, but I mention it because I think it will enable us to interpret the Genesis passage better. I think that because, firstly, people today do not read or write very well, and if I were to say something like, “Horses were there,” that could also be taken to mean something like “Horses were there when I was there,” and that would not discount that horses might still be there today. But your English teacher will try to get you to write correctly, and only say “Horses were there” only if that is not the case now. I also think that it will aid interpretation because, secondly, even if people can read and write well, they tend to forget common rules of grammar and logic when they read the Bible, favoring traditional interpretations instead, or the interpretation that their Church tells them is the right one.

Looking at the passage, then, we will see that temporal and spatial indicators relative to the author’s and the audience’s point of view are very telling. I will reproduce the passage here for ease of access, and I will underline the important temporal and spatial indicators.

And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. (Genesis 2:8-14)

It is worth noting initially that the events of this part of Genesis are supposed to have taken place in the author’s past. The second part of the passage above, however, stands out from the rest of the text and does not seem to be relating any narrative story. Rather, it is saying something about the landscape surrounding Eden. The first part of the passage is part of the narrative, however, but it is curious that the author needed to mention that Eden is “in the East.” This detail is not important to the events of the story, since they would make perfect sense if the detail is omitted. If it was omitted, however, the audience might not know what Eden means, except that maybe it is the name of some distant land. But the author also says that it is “in the East.” East of what? Apparently the only interpretation that makes sense is that Eden is in the East relative to where the audience that the author intended to write to was located at the time of reading. This is perhaps the most important indicator of the whole passage, since it locates Eden in a definite direction on the post-flood landscape.

Verse 10 (beginning, “A river flowed…”) presents some difficulties in interpretation, but they are not at all important to what I want to show (unless someone could show that they are). I did however want to point out that there are indicators present in this verse, and that it says that one river flowed out of Eden (somewhere) and at the garden separated into four other rivers.

The first river is called the Pishon. Notice that there is a temporal indicator that says that the flowing of this river was in the past (it flowed, but it does no longer). Furthermore, when it flowed, it did so around the whole land of Havilah. The indicators we get about the land of Havilah is that its gold is good (not was good), and that bdellium and onyx stone are (not were) there. So, it appears that while the river may no longer flow around that land, relative to the time of writing, the land itself is still there, and still bears those natural resources. The absence of a spatial indicator about this land means that perhaps the author’s audience was at least somewhat familiar with it, if having only heard about it.

The second river is called the Gihon, and here we find a similar situation concerning its flow. It flowed (not flows) around the whole land of Cush. No spatial indicators about the land are given, meaning once again that perhaps this land was in some way familiar to the audience. If it was a pre-flood land, we would expect them to somehow know about it, perhaps having heard stories. There are reasons, however, which I will mention shortly, why this should not be interpreted as a pre-flood land.

The third river is called the Tigris, and it appears that this river still flows at the time of writing, since the past tense flowed is not used as it was to describe the previous two rivers. Moreover, this river flows east of Assyria, which is another spatial indicator. I will come back to this, but for now realize that the author switched from using flowed to using flows. This in itself is very telling, since if this was a pre-flood river, it must somehow still be flowing!

The fourth river is called the Euphrates, and this is all that is mentioned. There are no temporal or spatial indicators, meaning that probably the author assumed that his audience was somehow familiar with this river – perhaps even more familiar with it than any of the others. Another thing to notice about this river is that it is the Euphrates, not was. It is the same for all the other rivers, even the ones that no longer flow, indicating that perhaps the audience was familiar with these names already.

There is nothing here like high-order hermeneutics that I use to interpret this passage. It should be plain to anyone who knows how to read, and to read carefully, that the author at least believed that he was speaking of Eden as a post-flood landscape. I will here give more credence to the principle of biblical infallibility and conclude that the land the author is describing, the land of Eden, is in fact a post-flood land, and so could be located on a post-flood landscape.

There are some other important features about the passage that I think need to be elucidated, as they will provide more confirmation. Assyria is mentioned in the passage. This could be a reference to the whole Assyrian Empire, but the empire did not flourish until much later than the time the account was likely written. It more probably refers to the city-state of Ashur (or Assur) since this is what the Hebrew of the word is. There is no reason to suppose it refers to a pre-flood Ashur, however, except by utilizing the very interpretation I wish to refute. It is also very interesting to note that the passage says that the Tigris river flows (again present tense) east of Ashur. If this Ashur does indeed refer to the post-flood city state of Ashur, as I claim it does, then it is highly coincidental that the (post-flood?) Tigris River also flows on the east side of it. This is confirmed by looking up maps of the Middle East, a research project that can be done completely on the internet. In fact, I grabbed this shot off of Google Earth (click the image for a larger view):

Havilah and Cush were also names of post-flood descendants of Noah, and the lands of the same names were probably named after them. If you would like to find this same view on Google Earth, search for “Assur.” It is located at 35°27’21.63”N Latitude, 43°15’40.66”E Longitude. You might have to zoom out and scroll around a bit to confirm that the river right next to it is indeed the Tigris River. I assure (no pun intended) you that it is. A good map showing Ashur and the Tigris is located here:

http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/sarasvati/html/Iraq_Site_150dpi.gif

This has been quite a long post, and I still have a little more to talk about. Next time I will say a little more about the dilemma this puts Answers in Genesis in. I will also look at some more of Dr. Tas Walker’s remarks about Zarins’s research, asking whether they are fair or not. I will do this because I believe that this location is, indeed, the area of Eden.

YECism Refuted (Part 4) – CAN The garden of Eden be found?

[originally posted September 29th, 2008]

Dr. Tas Walker, a representative of Answers in Genesis, wrote a brief rebuttal (now hosted at Creation Ministries International) in 2001 to claims that the garden of Eden has been found. In it he addresses the two main candidates, the northern location, and the southern location. I very shortly outlined a little about the southern location in my last post, as it is the most compelling. The northern location has some connection to another topic I want to write on this blog about – the homeland of Abraham, but I do not find it a very viable location for the much earlier and (supposedly) pre-flood land of Eden.

Dr. Walker asks, “What are we to think of such claims?” That is, how can one committed to AiG’s position on the natural history of the earth reason with and provide an answer to claims that the biblical garden of Eden (or at least its geographical location) have been found? He points out that “[b]ecause the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are clearly named in Genesis, it has been thought to be in the Middle East.” Presumably this is because there are two rivers of the same name in the middle east today, so it is only natural to be drawn to them. Speaking of Zarins, he says,

some scholars have claimed that the Garden of Eden was situated at the head of the Persian Gulf, where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers run into the sea. The site is now under water. Archaeologist Juris Zarins researched this area using information from many different sources including LANDSAT images from space. Under this theory, the Bible’s GihonRiver would correspond with the Karun River in Iran, and the Pishon River would correspond to the Wadi Batin river system that once drained the central part of the Arabian Peninsula.

This is a very fair treatment of Zarins theory, according to the article I mentioned in my last post. Dr. Walker understands what Zarins is saying, and can not be faulted for misunderstanding. Dr. Walker does not discuss this theory in particular any more, nor does he discuss the northern site in any further detail. Rather, he considers them both as being the same kind of thing (that is, a claim to the location of the garden of Eden on the surface of the modern globe) and seeks to dismiss the kind, and thus with it all the species of that kind (northern and southern sites). He asks,

So, we are faced with two competing sites for the Garden of Eden—one is in the mountains of eastern Turkey and the other submerged beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf. It would be hard to find a greater contrast, geographically, in elevation, or in environment. Yet, both sites are said to confirm the accuracy of the Bible. What are we to believe?

He mentions that they both confirm the accuracy of the Bible since the proponents of each theory claim to have found the respective sites by guidance of the Bible. In this sense such claims would seem very attractive to Bible believers. But, Dr. Walker goes on to answer the question he asks:

What are we to believe? Neither! It is clear that neither site corresponds with the Biblical Garden of Eden. Each site only matches some of the details, and these are only superficial. Both sites conflict with other important information from the Bible.

I would disagree that the detail-matches of Zarin’s theory are only superficial, and I will give reasons for this later, but for now I want to explore what exactly Dr. Walker’s objections are. I do agree, however, that the details given for the northern site ARE only superficial. Another quote from Walker:

The answer is obvious once we understand that the Bible describes a global cataclysm—Noah’s Flood—which destroyed the entire world, including the Garden of Eden. Everything that existed before the Flood was ‘deluged and destroyed’ (2 Peter 3:5–6). The Flood waters covered the highest mountains of the day (Genesis 7:19–20). We see the evidence of this cataclysm in the billions of fossils buried in sedimentary rock layers deposited from water all over the earth. This evidence is apparent in the rocks in Turkey and the Middle East where large areas of fossil-filled, sedimentary rock cover the land. Indeed, the pre-Flood vegetation buried deep underground in the Middle East now provides much of our global oil requirements. It is obvious that the present Tigris and Euphrates Rivers formed after the Flood, and on top of sediment laid down by the Flood. Thus, the Garden of Eden can’t be located in the Middle East (either in Turkey or the Persian Gulf) on top of rocks laid down by the Flood.

Without being deflected into discussions of interpretation regarding 2 Peter 3:5-6 and Genesis 7:19-20, from this quote we see that Dr. Walker is committed to the early-earth scenario of AiG that I had outlined in my first and second posts on this topic. It is because of this commitment that he rejects the possibility that the garden can be located today. The garden that the Bible mentions was completely and utterly destroyed, and subsequently buried under vast amounts of (fossil-bearing) sedimentary rock. Since both locations posited for the location of the garden are replete with such sedimentation, this should confirm for us that the garden is beyond locatablity. The most we can say is that its location is somewhere under all that stuff.

What are we to make, however, of the fact that the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are indeed in the Middle East, aside from the “fact” that those rivers we all know formed during post-flood processes? Well, as Dr. Walker says,

If we were to base our conclusions simply on geographical names, then we could hardly find a better match than the delightful, seaside town of Eden, 400 km south of Sydney in Australia. Yet, it is clear that this town cannot be the Biblical Garden of Eden. Obviously, the original settlers thought ‘Eden’ would be a nice name for their town. In the same way, the present Tigris and Euphrates Rivers have nothing to do with the rivers described in Genesis 2, except for their names.

He suggests that the descendants of Noah, who did not perish in the same flood that destroyed the garden, Eden, and its surrounding landscape, settled in the area of ancient Mesopotamia, found the two rivers there, and re-named them after rivers they heard about, or even possibly knew, from the pre-flood days.

I will save my objections for next time, as this post was only meant to outline how AiG, or at least one representative from that organization, has answered the claim that the garden of Eden has, or even can be, found.

YECism Refuted (Part 3) – Where Was the Garden of Eden?

[originally posted September 29th, 2008]

Some people are interested in the location of the garden of Eden of the Bible, and some have actively searched for it. Perhaps the garden, if it exists, would not be as it was at the time described in the Bible (that is, paradise), but at least we might be able to pin down the location on the surface of the globe, and study its archaeology.

In my last post on this topic, I said that this post would highlight one objection against the AiG scenario of primordial earth, but that’s not quite accurate. The article I am talking about is not offered as an objection per se, but one might take the findings of that article and cite them as support for an objection against the AiG scenario. I know it’s been quite a while since I last posted on this topic, so you may need to go back and re-read my previous posts to recall what I am talking about here.

There have been mainly two modern locations suggested for the garden of Eden – one in Turkey, at the heads of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (the northern loacation) and the other in southern Mesopotamia, under what is now the northern part of the Persian Gulf (the southern location). In this post I want to outline why some people think the garden was located in what is now the southern location, since it is the most compelling account. And, as we shall see, the rebuttal from a prominent AiG representative dismisses all supposed locations for the garden on the face of the earth today, and insists that want of knowledge of such location arises from a failure to apprehend what the Bible says. This, I will argue, puts the AiG position in a terrible dilemma.

The article that posits the southern location can be read here: http://ldolphin.org/eden/. The article was written by Dora Jane Hamblin, who relates to us the findings of archaeologist Juris Zarins. The article assumes that we can follow the language of Moses, who supposedly wrote the book of Genesis, and use it as a guide to help us pinpoint the location. As it goes, the Tigris and the Euphrates, referred to in the book of Genesis, are the same Tigris and Euphrates we know today. But what about the other two rivers mentioned? For the Pishon, this is what the article says:

The Pison can be identified from the Biblical reference to the land of Havilah, which is easily located in the Biblical Table of Nations (Genesis 10:7, 25:18) as relating to localities and people within a Mesopotamian-Arabian framework. Supporting the Biblical evidence of Havilah are geological evidence on the ground and LANDSAT images from space. These images clearly show a “fossil river,” that once flowed through northern Arabia and through the now dry beds, which modern Saudis and Kuwaitis know as the Wadi Riniah and the Wadi Batin. Furthermore, as the Bible says, this region was rich in bdellium, an aromatic gum resin that can still be found in north Arabia, and gold, which was still mined in the general area in the 1950s.

So, the general testimony of the Bible concerning this river fits the evidence of what is found in this area today. Since it fits quite well, it is quite compelling indeed, and this would put one closer to pin-pointing the location of the garden, and would approve of the general historical reliability of the Bible. The Gihon river, the last river mentioned in the Biblical account, is much more elusive.

Drawing on the fact that “Ethiopia” may be a mistranslation of the word “Kush”, and further LANDSAT imaging,

Zarins now believes the Gihon is the Karun River, which rises in Iran and flows southwesterly toward the present Gulf. The Karun … was a perennial river which, until it was dammed, contributed most of the sediment forming the delta at the head of the Persian Gulf.

It is concluded, then, that

[T]he Garden of Eden, on the geographical evidence, must have been somewhere at the head of the Gulf at a time when all four rivers joined and flowed through an area that was then above the level of the Gulf.

If the reader is interested in following this topic more, let him or her do further research on his or her own. My purpose here is to outline that some people believe that the garden can be located on earth’s surface today. That is, even if it is not nearly as it was then (according to this account, it is under water!), at least we can know where abouts it was. I furthermore wanted to outline this article because it in part evoked a response from Answers in Genesis, which I will be outlining in my next post. It was important for AiG to respond, because if this article is right, then it stands in direct conflict with what AiG teaches about Noah’s flood.

YECism Refuted (Part 2) – What Answers in Genesis Teaches – Part 2

[originally posted July 1st, 2008]

Since the Bible is the word of God, divinely inspired, inerrant, and since “its assertions are factually true …,” whatever it teaches about creation is factually correct, and “no apparent, perceived, or claimed interpretation of evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.”[link] However, what we are led to believe by modern day scientists and historians paints a very different picture from what we find in Genesis. What, then, does AiG believe the Scriptural record is?

Firstly, it believes that the “account of origins presented in Genesis is a simple but factual presentation of actual events and therefore provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the earth, and the universe.”[link]

Secondly, it teaches that the origin of mankind, as well as the whole creation, is a recent event, or at least much more recent than evolutionary accounts would have us believe. The six days of creation, as told in the Bible, are six literal, consecutive, twenty-four hour days. That is, the creation itself was very, very short in duration from the beginning until its completion. According to AiG, the gap theory “has no basis in Scripture.”[link] The genealogical accounts of the descent of man from our first parents (Adam and Eve) give us enough information to add up the ages, and come to a figure of roughly 6,000 years for the age of creation.

Thirdly, AiG teaches that all life forms, including mankind, were created by special acts of God. However, contrary to popular belief, God did not create each and every species complete and perfectly adapted to their environments today. This is the doctrine of the immutability of the species, which AiG rejects, and rightly so for the Bible never teaches such a thing. To berate them for that would be a Straw Man. Rather, AiG teaches that God created several basic kinds of animals, of which mankind is one. Over the course of the last 6,000 years or so, speciation has occurred among the animals, and to some extent, among man. That is, animals are not immutable, they do adapt to their environments, but there is a barrier to the amount of change they can undergo.

Fourthly, AiG teaches that the globe has suffered a major catastrophe in the relatively recent past, known in the Bible as the flood of Noah. This event was a complete upheaval of the surface of the earth, and all animals and humans who were not saved by being aboard Noah’s Ark, were destroyed and buried under very thick sedimentation. This sedimentation is what we see today, and the fossils it contains are the remains of the fauna of the former world that perished. All history as we know it, ensued after Noah and his family disembarked from the Ark, which settled in the mountains of Ararat (the Kingdom of Urartu, at the time of Moses).[link]

Whereas modern geology tells us that fossiliferous (sedimentary) rock we find around the globe was deposited very slowly over long, long ages (millions of years), AiG’s position is that most (save for a few of the top-most layers) of that sediment was deposited during the flood catastrophe.

Some object that radiometric and other dating methods yield ages much older than 6,000 years, and that therefore AiG must be wrong. Not so. AiG cites several reasons why – First, these dating methods are consulted with presuppositional beliefs that influence conclusions based on them. Second, there are other, albeit unpopular methods, that yield dates that are perfectly compatible with an age of 6,000 years. Third, different dating methods used on the same specimens yield vastly different ages, and the prevailing beliefs that are already in place about the age of the earth influence, to a very great extent, which one of the yielded dates are considered to be “correct.”

This has been a very short introduction to what AiG teaches. On their website they host many articles (for the general public, as well as for technical folk) that explain various, specific issues. What has been said thus far should suffice here for my purposes. In my next post, I will give an overview of one objection to the AiG scenario that has cropped up on the internet. This objection concerns the location of the biblical garden of Eden.