Jul 09 2019 28 mins
Episode 11 – The Bible as Evidence Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: (dramatic opening music)(music under voice over) Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. Genesis Chapter 1, verses 3 and 4 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. 2 Peter, Chapter 3, verses 3 through 6 ******** VK: Hello! Welcome to another episode of Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m Victoria K in the studio today with RD Fierro, author, Founder, and chief of odd names and rhymes at Crystal Sea Books. RD, we’ve been taking a look at the story of Noah and the ark with a focus on whether the story is history or allegory. Today, I think we’re going to begin to wrap up the Noah series before we start an entirely different topic. Is that the plan? RD: That’s the plan. I thought it would be a good idea before we change topics on Anchored by Truth to take a look back at what we’ve covered so far about the Bible and the Genesis flood account. My goal is to summarize some of the big points that we’ve discussed and begin to see how they fit into a larger context. We also want to see how this story of Noah continues to impact the Christian faith of the 21st century. VK: Well, before we get into the review of Noah how about if we listen to a a devotional extract from Crystal Sea’s book on prayer that we call Purposeful Prayers? Today we’re going to listen to some contemplations about God’s omnipotence. RD: Sounds good to me. ---- Creation Song VK: In that piece I like the part about that in order to create the universe that we see today there had to be enormous power at work – but it had to be power under control. Power without control would produce nothing but chaos or destruction. But power under control produced the exact conditions that were needed on earth to create what one author called a “Favored Planet.” There is a God and He is the one who turned on the lights – and pays the cosmic power bill. Like the verses from second Peter that we had at the start - pretty much everybody today assumes that somehow everything continues on as if it had always been that way. As if there was never a time when the lights weren’t on in the universe. RD: Yep. It’s a little worrisome to me that Peter connected the attitude that mocks God’s promise to return with the Genesis flood. Peter is warning us that God who created everything is still in control of it all. But the flood reminds us that God is a God of holy righteousness in addition to being a loving Creator. God’s holiness means that sometimes He must pronounce judgment on part of His creation and that should be both sobering and awe inspiring to anyone who truly understands it. It reminds me of the famous exchange between one of the Pevensie girls in the Chronicles of Narnia and Mr. Beaver. Mr. Beaver says that they are going to meet Aslan, the lion-king who, of course, represents Jesus in the story. The little girl says that she hopes Aslan is a safe lion. Mr. Beaver retorts that of course he isn’t safe. He’s a lion. But he is good and he’s the king. Too often we think that because God is a God of love that He must behave in a way that meets with OUR approval. In fact, it’s the opposite that is true. We must structure our lives in such a way that we meet with HIS approval. VK: So, Lewis’s point was that God is good but God’s goodness so transcends ours that He must always be approached with reverence and awe? RD: Yes. And the flood illustrates both sides of that goodness. The flood, like the cross, combined both justice and mercy. The Bible says that in Noah’s day “the wickedness of man was great” and that the thoughts of “man’s heart was only evil continually.” God’s justice required the destruction of most of the men of that day. But in his mercy He preserved Noah and his family so they could repopulate the earth. And as a further extension of that mercy God promised He would never again destroy the earth by means of a flood. VK: But apparently in Peter’s time Peter thought that some of his contemporaries had forgotten the lesson of the flood. It seems like that is also true today. RD: It is. Today, in the same way that Peter mentions, uniformitarianism is the order of our day when it comes to how most scientific literature views the history of the earth. Geologically, uniformitarianism is the idea that present geological processes can explain all past geological occurrences. Or in Peter’s words, “all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” Up until the mid to late 19th century, though, the dominant view among scientists was that catastrophism – that sudden and violent events had affected the earth’s crust – was a better explanation for what was seen on the earth’s surface. VK: So, again we’re confronted with competing truth claims. To explain features that we see on the earth’s surface today we can turn to uniformitarianism or catastrophism. RD: Well, it’s not an either-or, but more of a both-and. Both approaches have merit in specific areas of applicability. But as a general approach to what has shaped the earth’s surface those two potential explanations stand in contrast to one another. You might say it’s roughly the difference between using a crock pot or a pressure cooker. Dinner may arrive on the table but that doesn’t necessarily tell you how it was cooked. VK: Hmmmm. An interesting visual, but we’ll let that go for now. I think most people today would say that uniformitarianism must be right because it gained acceptance later and is what’s taught today. RD: Uniformitarianism is a possible explanation for what we see around us today. But so is catastrophism and there is no debate that the earth’s surface contains evidence of previous catastrophic events that resulted in dramatic changes to the earth. The question is not whether one or both explanations are possible but which hypothesis is the best explanation taking into account the totality of the evidence. It is on that question that the debate rages. There are reasons that uniformitarianism has gained widespread acceptance. Uniformitarianism is very appealing because in a way we can see and touch it. Water moves, the wind blows, the seasons come and go and we can see their impact on the world around us. It’s very tempting to ascribe a cause and effect relationship to the causes we’re familiar with, with the effects we’re familiar with. Furthermore, while we’ve had localized catastrophes – earthquakes, tsunami’s, floods, volcano eruptions, etc. – that have wreaked havoc on large areas and groups, we haven’t had a literally “earth-changing” event in over 5,000 years. 5,000 years of things staying relatively the same is a long enough period of time to induce some level of complacency. VK: But familiarity and widespread acceptance don’t necessarily make a particular hypothesis or belief – religious or scientific - true. RD: No. The truth stands apart from our opinions or preferences. And it is not at all uncommon for a widely accepted paradigm to be displaced when new evidence arises. VK: Your observation is, then, that as new information or discoveries arise accepted scientific conventions are revised. So seeking the truth requires being willing to consider all the currently available data and observations. RD: Yes. Conventional scientific wisdom is conventional for a reason. Usually, it becomes conventional because the premise has proven to be accurate and adequate for a set of initial and subsequent observations. But new observations give rise to new hypotheses which sometimes require revisions to be made to the previous conventional understanding. Newtonian physics worked perfectly well for the everyday world of the observable, but did not work in the subatomic world. In the subatomic world quantum mechanics displaced Newtonian mechanics. We have to be alert to the findings of science as opposed to the claims of scientists. There’s a logical fallacy called appeal to authority. The fallacy occurs when someone claims something must be true just because a supposed authority believes it. Uniformitarianism is a truth claim that competes against catastrophism. We can consider and investigate both using logic, reason, and evidence. VK: But catastrophism obviously fits well the Bible’s description of the flood? RD: Absolutely. And now I’m going to say something that will really set some flags fluttering. The fact that the Bible describes an enormous deluge, whether it was world-wide or localized to Noah’s sphere of awareness in and around Mesopotamia, is itself another form of evidence that the flood actually occurred. VK: Uh-oh. That’s a fairly dramatic statement. You’re saying that rather than science being the only form of evidence about what happened in the distant past, the Bible also has evidentiary value for people seeking the truth. But wouldn’t some critics say that you’re using a form of circular reasoning? Using the Bible as evidence for a flood when your source for knowing about the flood was the Bible? RD: As you have stated it that would be circular reasoning. But that’s not what I’m saying. As we have seen in some of our past episodes of Anchored by Truth, there is abundant scientific evidence that one or more gargantuan floods have occurred on the earth’s surface. The highest mountains on the earth contain marine fossils. There are huge fossil beds containing marine remains that are hundreds of miles from the nearest contemporary ocean. There are vast beds of sedimentary rock all over the globe some of which are up to a hundred meters thick that are unbroken by layers of soil or bioturbation. The best explanation for such sedimentary beds is a huge volume of sediment being moved by astounding hydrological forces and then deposited very quickly as the water abated. All these effects testify to a Biblically sized flood. So there is good empirical evidence that supports the reliability of the Genesis flood narrative - In other words, external confirmation of the story’s historicity. VK: And there is good internal evidence from the story as well. The descriptive elements of the Biblical narrative stand up very well under scrutiny. The design parameters of the boat make sense from the standpoint of the strength and stability that is necessary of ocean going vessels, particularly one that had to endure gale like conditions. The ark configuration is similar to modern, ocean going ships, quite different from - say - the cubic shape of the Babylonian flood tale. The size of the boat is such that it could contain a large number of animals and the necessary supplies. The time period the Bible indicates that was allotted to build the ark, somewhere between 50 to 75 years, makes sense when considering the size of project Noah had to complete. If the Bible had said that Noah had completed the ark in six months, we would have good reason to doubt the Bible story’s accuracy. But it didn’t say that or have any other nonsensical details that are obvious red flags. RD: Right. The story’s internal details make sense and the narrative possesses the attributes of what is sometimes termed incidental confirmation. For instance, it is a basic axiom of boat design that properly applied ballast is an essential element of a boat’s stability, especially in rough seas. Well, Noah’s ark would have had the most ballast – all the food needed for the year at sea – when the seas were roughest. As the year progressed the food would have been consumed thus reducing the ballast, but by then the seas would have calmed considerably. VK: So the Genesis narrative contains a large number of elements that ring true when examined including details that are incidental to the main story line. The incidental details help confirm reliability. Just like the police or courts sometimes test the reliability of a witness by looking for corroborating details. If the witness had a good reason to be in place to see the robbery, it helps establish their credibility when they do testify as to what they saw. So, when you put all that together, you’re saying that there is a considerable body of evidence that aligns in favor of the accuracy of the Bible’s narrative of the flood event. RD: Yes. So, in our reasoning process we start with the Bible account to see what it describes. We start there, but we don’t stop there. We proceed to look for evidentiary verification from OTHER sources – geology, paleontology, naval mechanics, etc. Once we see that basic elements of the story can be verified, we can conclude that the Bible has a solid basic claim on historical reliability. In other words, when we test the Bible’s witness we find that the Bible is a reliable witness of the history it reports. This is true, by the way, not just of the Genesis flood narrative but for all the various historical accounts contained in scripture. VK: Your line of reasoning then, is that if the Bible is true for things we can test, we can have greater confidence that it is telling the truth in areas we can’t test. That’s why it’s not circular reasoning. The examination and application of external sources of evidence leads from a question to a conclusion. RD: Exactly. And, it’s important to establish the validity of details of the flood account that can be tested, because there are elements of the flood story that we cannot test directly, such as the content of the conversations between God and Noah. And here is another flag fluttering assertion. For the purpose of determining its reliability, the Bible deserves to be treated in the same manner as any other document from antiquity. VK: But you don’t think that it is? No. Too often it is not. The critics often approach the Bible with the challenge that the Bible must be proven to be true and if it’s not so proven to their satisfaction they label the Bible as being a combination of myth or fairy tale. That’s a very different approach than is taken with other historical books of antiquity where the basic reliability of the book is accepted without such a “proof-or-toss” demand being placed upon it. Without a doubt the Bible is a challenging document. It contains not only history, but also poetry, allegory, ethical prescriptions, etc. As such it defies simplistic approaches which seek to pigeon hole it using predefined labels. Furthermore, the Bible reports accounts of supernatural events which lie completely outside our ordinary realm of experience. The supernatural character of parts of the Bible and its multi-genre literary approach demand the full application of our analytical and intellectual abilities. But it is as unfair to dismiss the Bible entirely because of those attributes, as it would be to demand the suspension of our critical facilities and demand unquestioned acceptance of its content. 8. VK: And you think both approaches are unwise? RD: I think they are unwise and unreasonable. As we have seen with the story of Noah, the story definitely contains a supernatural dimension, but it also contains a large number of attributes that we can examine historically, scientifically, forensically. As we discussed earlier, when we take time to study the details of the story we can confirm the basic historicity of the Noahic account. That allows us to have greater confidence in the details that we must take on faith. VK: So what you’re advocating is not a leap of faith but a lesson in faith. Study, analyze, and learn and then make an informed decision based on what you learn. RD: Exactly. Just because I accept the Bible as the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God doesn’t mean that I want to ground my faith in unsupported dogmatic assertions. In fact, the Bible itself doesn’t condone that approach. 1 Peter 3:15 commands that we be prepared to give reasons for the hope that is within us. To give a reason we must first apply reason. VK: Well, today has produced a lot of material for further study and reflection. For next time I think you want to continue with our review and summary of what we can learn from Noah and the ark. There’s probably more there than even most believers normally consider. RD: True dat. As we stated before, our goal is help the listeners to the broadcast or podcast have a solid basis upon which they can continue their own pursuit of the truth. VK: Today for our closing prayer how about if we pray for the brave men and women who serve as first responders and do so much to keep us safe and healthy in our communities. ---- Prayer for first responders, radio version. VK: We hope you’ll be with us next time and we hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show. If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!” (Bible Quotes from the New American Standard Bible) The Book of Genesis, chapter 1, verses 3 and 4 2 Peter, Chapter 3, verses 3 through 6 https://creation.com/noahs-long-distance-travelers https://usstore.creation.com/how-noahs-flood-shaped-our-earth https://creation.com/geomorphology-provides-evidence-for-global-flood