Todd's Blog

I've been reading a lot of church fathers in preparation for my Sunday School class  (which is actually taking quite a bit longer than I originally anticipated), and I've been impressed with how many of them read Genesis 1-11 as historically valid.  Especially when treating the Genesis narratives apologetically, the fathers tended to defend the straight historical sense of the passages.  With that recent background, I was very interested in Jack Collins's most recent paper  "Noah, Deucalion, and the New Testament," in which he surveys various early treatments of the Greek legends of a Noah-like figure called Deucalion who survived a flood much like Noah did.  In both Jewish and Christian sources, he notes a tendency to use terminology from pagan flood legends when discussing Noah and the ark, and in some cases, the writers explicitly state that either Noah is the same person as Deucalion or that the Genesis account is the correct version of the Greek legend. ...

Jim Kidder has yet another post on parallel culture , and he makes an amazingly important point. He's specifically reacting to the essay " The Evangelical Rejection of Reason " at the New York Times , co-written by Karl Giberson and Randall Stephens, who identify themselves as Evangelical Christians. Giberson, you might recall, is the author of Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution and the co-author with Francis Collins of The Language of Science and Faith . Writing about their NYT essay, Jim says that by mixing evolutionary biology with beliefs typical of liberal Protestant theology, their message about evolution will be lost. Or to quote Jim, After reading Giberson's and Stephens' New York Times essay, why would your average evangelical even think about changing their minds about evolution? He's completely right about that. Go read what he has to say about it. It's definitely worth it. Some of you might recall last yea...

UPDATE: Absolutely not Noah's Ark I just noticed today's article at AIG: Has Noah's Ark been found? Short answer: No. To clarify, a Chinese group called Noah's Ark Ministries International announced over the weekend that they found the Ark at 12,000 feet up the side of Mt. Ararat in Turkey. Fox News reports the announcement with little critical commentary. The Daily Mail was considerably more skeptical, quoting Oxford University's Nicholas Purcell calling it "the usual nonsense." If you visit the NAMI website , you'll find a number of pretty pictures of the inside of some kind of wooden structure. Notice that the locality of the discovery was not disclosed, and external photos of the discovery were not released. There was no report of a formal description of the find submitted for peer review either. Basically, the outside observer has no way of verifying the discovery (yet). You'll recall my fondness for hype-driven science . Here's...

Sometimes I hate being right. The Chinese "Noah's Ark" discovery was apparently a scam, or at least that's what one of the investors said. Check out this blog, which quotes one Randal Price: Noah’s Ark PaleoBabble Update I was the archaeologist with the Chinese expedition in the summer of 2008 and was given photos of what they now are reporting to be the inside of the Ark. I and my partners invested $100,000 in this expedition (described below) which they have retained, despite their promise and our requests to return it, since it was not used for the expedition. The information given below is my opinion based on what I have seen and heard (from others who claim to have been eyewitnesses or know the exact details). To make a long story short: this is all reported to be a fake. So there you have it. You know, creationists give evolutionists a hard time over hoaxes like Piltdown, but frankly, we've got just as many skeletons in our closet. Paluxy, Durupinar, th...

Remember that Noah's Ark discovery by Noah's Ark Ministries International that isn't really Noah's Ark? I've mentioned this quite a bit back in April when the announcement was made ( here ,  here ,  here , and  here ), and based on their alleged evidence for the Ark, I firmly rejected their claims. Recently, Randall Price, a professor at Liberty University and critic of the NAMI "discovery," has published his formal criticism in a newsletter, which you can read for yourself at his website (or go straight to the PDF ). The verdict is not good. The evidence they present supports their conclusion that this was a hoax, and some of their evidence even implicates NAMI as willing partners in this hoax. In other words, it's an outright fraud. Creationists making honest mistakes is one thing, but fraud is just depressing.  It is good to know the details though, and we can thank Randall Price and Don Patton for that. Feedback? Email me at toddcharlesw...

For those who care, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, known for The Black Swan , The Wrestler , and Requiem for a Dream , is making a film about Noah and the Flood.  Today, we get a glimpse of the poster and the first two trailers. Looks kind of impressive, doesn't it?  But then almost any movie can look kind of impressive condensed to two minutes. For myself, I am wary.  I've already read two different takes on an early script draft ( Brian Godawa's and Peter Chattaway's ).  Admittedly, they both reviewed early drafts of the script, so the final version is likely to be different, but I am concerned about turning the Noah story into a modern environmentalist fable.  The Flood story is pretty grim to begin with (all of humanity wiped out in a single, global catastrophe?), but the notion that humanity must be destroyed because we're bad for the planet?  That sounds like the stereotypically worst attitudes that the environmentalist movement has to of...

For those just joining us, "From the Library" spotlights interesting items in the library of the Center for Origins Research at Bryan College . The full title of this week's book is Noe Architectus Arcae in Diluvio Navarchus Descriptus et Morali Doctrina Illustratus . It was written by a German Jesuit named Jeremias Drexel and published in Antwerp in 1640. Our copy is a first edition. Drexel was quite well-known in his own time. He wrote thirty different books (nine published posthumously), and during the last twenty years of his life, more than 150,000 copies of his books were sold. I'm highlighting this book not because I've read it (which I haven't - it's entirely Latin), but because it exemplifies an interesting historical trend on Noah's Ark. In 1554, a French monk named Johannes Buteo published a pamphlet that attempted to analyze the logistics of Noah's Ark, its structure, how it was built, how many animals it carried, how much ro...

Answers magazine has two very helpful articles in its most recent issue, one of which you can read for free today. In the first article , Andrew Snelling addresses the claims that the remains of Noah's Ark might be found on modern Mt. Ararat (a volcano known as Agri Dagh). I have addressed this issue in a previous blog post , where I was pretty firm in my understanding that the Ark will not  and can not  be found on Agri Dagh. I said that modern Mt. Ararat is a post-Flood volcano that has erupted many times since the Flood.   Andrew Snelling makes the same points but far more diplomatically and with much greater geological knowledge and detail. He still reaches the right conclusion: Mount Ararat was thus not built under water. The volcanic eruptions that spread lava across the Erzurum-Kars Plateau and then built Mount Ararat began after the Flood deposited all the ocean sediments. That means the ocean waters had already retreated from off eastern Turkey (and Noah...

Photo: Pixabay Judging by the correspondence I received about the previous post on human lifespan, my readers have a great interest in the ages of the Old Testament patriarchs and the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11.  These passages have a special importance to young-age creationists, since it is by adding up the ages recorded there that we estimate how old the earth really is.  I was reminded by a reader that these ages also hint at an eschatological importance, since we will be given a new body and live forever in that new body.  If we believe that, why is it so hard to believe that we once lived much longer than we do now? As a young-age creationist myself, I wish I could say that our understanding of Genesis 5 and 11 is an interpretive slam dunk for young-age creationism.  I wish that the passage was clear as a bell, and we know for a fact exactly what it means.  Unfortunately, it's not that simple.  I still believe in a young earth (for many...

Remember that Hong Kong team that claimed to find Noah's Ark? And LU prof Randall Price claiming that they were victims of a hoax? Well, CMI is still following the story, and we might get some resolution very soon. Maybe. Apparently Carl Wieland is going to Hong Kong to meet with the Chinese team. According to this page at the CMI site, he sounds guardedly skeptical, which is good. I still say it isn't Noah's Ark, but it is good to get a definitive answer on what is going on. Good for CMI for following up like this. Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com.

    Today was the last day of Origins 2022 (sad), and I presented some of the work we've been doing at Core Academy.  First, we talked a bit about our work with human fossils and origins.  For this presentation, we indulged a bit in speculating about the ancestral form of humanity.  It's a really difficult problem.  I would guess that most modern creationists consider our appearance as Homo sapiens to be the original form of humanity.  In other words, Noah and family looked like us (Noah is as far back as we can extrapolate with the presently known fossils and DNA).  I've long thought that was just prejudice.  We naturally assume that people are like us, so of course Noah looked like us.  The problem is that the fossil record preserves humans that don't look much like us at all.  So how should we understand their appearance?  I wish I could tell you that we had a good answer, but figuring out the ancestral human form is just a...

In my previous post in this series on genealogy and patriarchal longevity, I examined William Henry Green's influential article "Primeval Chronology."  In my conclusion, I expressed some disdain for one of Green's statements.  According to Green's paper, ...if a chronology is to be constructed out of this genealogy, Noah was for fifty-eight years the contemporary of Abraham, and Shem actually survived him thirty-five years, provided xi. 26 is to be taken in its natural sense, that Abraham was born in Terah's seventieth year.  This conclusion is well-nigh incredible. I responded, The conclusion is incredible?  In other words, Green just doesn't believe it.  That's not an argument, and it's not compelling. I wanted to expand on that comment because I think it deserves more attention. Frankly, I hear these sorts of biblical claims all the time.  "Obviously" there were other people alive at the time of Adam and Eve, because Cain had a ...

You've probably already seen this report, but just in case, check out Andrew Snelling's detailed discussion of the C-14 results from the Ararat wood that is NOT Noah's Ark: Is the Wood Recently Found on Mt. Ararat from the Ark? He not only explains why the results are suspect but also what kind of a C-14 date we could expect from Noah's Ark, if it ever were found. His ideas sound very, very familiar, but with a lot more detail and authority than I could ever muster. Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com.

Me and Sinornithosaurus  at the Carnegie Museum, 2013 I was intrigued by a post last week on the Panda's Thumb , a blog which is known for its criticism of creationism.  Actually, criticizing creationists is pretty much why the blog exists at all.  In a recent post, Jonathan Kane (self-described "armchair paleontologist") examined creationist discussion of feathered dinosaurs.  In my own experience, feathered dinosaurs are kind of a sore spot for some creationists.  I personally don't have a problem with feathered dinosaurs.  If God wanted feathered dinosaurs, then there will be feathered dinosaurs.  Other creationists see things differently, to say the least.  They react rather angrily to the evolutionary treatment of feathered dinosaurs, in which the dinos in question (like Sinornithosaurus  above) are used to support the notion that birds evolved from dinosaurs. I found Kane's article pretty well-informed, all things considered. ...

My last post elicited comments that some of the sites I included in my map were dubious or debatable.  And you know what?  That's true.  What's more, the mere fact that stone tools and cut bones occur together does not by itself indicate that humans were once present there.  We've known for a long time that other creatures can make tools that look kind of like Oldowan flake tools (like chimpanzees ).  In fact, I would expect that some early human traces would have a sort of dubious quality to them, where they just don't stand out enough from the background to be conclusively recognized. As I went down the Google Scholar rabbit hole looking up papers on the sites from my last post, I stumbled onto the fascinating world of automatic identification of tool marks on bones.  I've known about this new field for a while, but reading about some of the recent applications really grabbed my attention.  The techniques are fairly straightforward.  Researcher...

Rumors are flying that AIG is getting ready to begin development on an amusement park as an extension to their Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. Read all about it (which is to say not much about it): Noah’s park: $150M project eyed in Kentucky (Cincinnati Business Courier) Theme park planned for N.Ky.? (Kentucky Post) In Praise of The Creation Museum’s Noah’s Ark Amusement Park (Death and Taxes) Apparently, there's supposed to be an official announcement at the end of this month. Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com.

The weirdness continues. Here's a blog with the full letter from Randall Price: Randall Price: Ark Pictures are Fake I understand a public statement from Price will soon appear. In the meantime, let's note a few points. Price says that this is a hoax played on NAMI. He says, "I am sorry to have to report this is apparently a fake (and I am sure that the Chinese do not know this, but they do not respond to my e-mails)." So they took your hundred grand, promised to return it, then ignored your requests for your money and your warnings about the fake ark. And now they won't return your emails. Why exactly do you think they're victims of a hoax? Others are pointing out that Price is a competitor of NAMI, so we should be skeptical of his claims. As Price himself says, "I encourage your prayers for me and others who will have to explain this 'discovery' to many others – because negative reports are never well received and motives are ques...

On Let's Talk Creation this week  [ the episode on YouTube ], I briefly mentioned the doctrine of the Harrowing of Hell as an example of something that might be too much doctrine read into too few verses.  This inspired a few questions and comments, and I felt it warranted a bit of clarity (which I thought was clear enough in the episode but evidently not).  I'm glad to have the chance to elaborate on a point that didn't need to be elaborated on in the podcast. That part of our conversation was inspired by a point in the Apostles' Creed, "He [Christ] descended in to Hell," which is an expression of an earlier belief that after his death and before his resurrection, Jesus went to Hades, the place of the dead, preached the gospel to the spirits there, and took the righteous dead to heaven after his resurrection.  This is collectively known as the doctrine of the "Harrowing of Hell" (to harrow is to torture, as in, Jesus struck a blow against hell by f...

BioLogos recently posted an interesting set of essays by Richard Hess on the meaning of the Hebrew term  mîn   ( Part 1 and Part 2 ), which many readers might recognize as relevant to issues of baraminology.  Or as the BioLogos editors put it: The baraminology Wood and others pursue as an alternative to evolution is predicated on taking Genesis to mean that God created (Hebrew bara ) such fixed species (Hebrew mîn ). Frankly, I think it's a really nice essay that everyone interested in creationist biology ought to read.  I endorse Dr. Hess's conclusions: Those attempting to draw any formal classification or biological significance from mîn are asking too much of a word that does not appear to serve that purpose.  I concur that  mîn  seems to be used equivalently to the colloquial "all kinds" or "every sort."  I know that many creationists have asserted otherwise  (most famously Frank Marsh), and I think they are mistaken. Does th...

This will be an unusual post. You might have been following the story about the flooding in West Virginia.  In my house, it's very personal, since it's very nearly my wife's hometown.  We were just there the week before the flood happened.  I just spoke in their church, Elkview Baptist, which is now flooded.  So is the high school where she went to school.  Thankfully, my inlaws live on the top of a mountain there, but it's still been hard watching my wife struggle with the pictures and stories on Facebook.  Her childhood best friend Autumn lost everything.  Literally everything. West Virginia is mountainous, so building options are three:  You can level the top of a mountain (like they did with the Charleston airport), live on the side of a mountain, or take the only flatland: floodplains.  The present flooding is the worst in more than a hundred years.  People are calling it a thousand-year flood.  Some folks don't just have f...