Creationist History Wanted!!!
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| Core Academy rare books |
Core Academy recently expanded our rare book collection with a set of extremely rare nineteenth century books on scriptural geology and natural theology. We spent some time at the end of last week re-organizing our entire rare book collection. I'll be posting more about those books in the near future.
I've highlighted our rare books and archives in previous blog posts, but I think it's always important to emphasize the value of the history of creationism. Believe it or not, our history is just as contentious as everything else about creationism. Many individuals want to dismiss young-age creationism as a modern aberration, an intellectual accident, that emerged from Seventh-day Adventism in the early 1900s. Standing against this is a record of creationist ideas that stretches back for centuries.
Sometimes these assertions border on the downright bizarre. Last year, I read a book on creationism in the early church, where the author asserted that the church fathers only believed in a young earth because of typological or symbolic reasons. Adding up the ages from the biblical genealogies, the author assured us, was a modern concern. To support this claim, he cited Hippolytus of Rome from the third century. I got pretty angry at this, because he never mentioned the Chronicon from the very same author where he added up the ages from the Bible to calculate the date of creation! Read all about Hippolytus here.
That's just one reason why history and collecting history is so important. There are many well-organized and well-funded voices out there that want to eliminate young-age creationism from the modern church. And if we don't study and appreciate our own history, we can't counter those voices when they distort the history of the church.
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| A chart of the ages of the Genesis Patriarchs hand-drawn by creationist Byron Nelson, from the Core Academy archives |
As you probably know, Core Academy has a pretty sizeable collection of creationist materials (including an English translation of Hippolytus' Chronicon). Our collection of original works extend back more than 400 years, and we're always on the lookout for more rare materials.
If you have unusual old creationist materials, we'd like to talk about arranging a donation or purchase. We'd be interested in conference books or notes, photographs, and pamphlets. Basically anything that isn't easily found in a used bookstore. I've also decided to offer a public bounty on some very specific and unusual things.
- I'm looking for any pamphlets or tracts that describe the supposed deathbed conversion of Charles Darwin. I'll pay $25 to $50, depending how old it is.
- I want original copies of George McCready Price's Theories of Satanic Origin and Illogical Geology. I'd be willing to pay more than $100 for either title.
If you can help, contact me at my email address listed below or use the contact page at Core Academy to get in touch.
So there it is. History is important. Please help Core Academy fill in our own history.
Have you read my book? You should check that out too!
