Piltdown Superman

Many people grew up knowing about (and possibly playing with) crèche scenes of the Nativity of Jesus, which are useful to communicate the birth of Jesus. There are many traditions in Christianity that have little to do with the Bible. Do not disunderstand me, there is nothing wrong with such images. But they are not quite right. One wrong detail is that Jesus was born in a stable because there was "no room in the inn," and another has the three wise men or magi with the family, shepherds, and animals all together. Magi yard decoration, Pixabay / Michelle Raponi Don't be using this knowledge to show off and annoy people, pilgrim. The "wise men" probably did not reach Bethlehem for a couple of years after all the excitement of the birth of Jesus. The Bible tells us of three gifts , but there was probably a sizeable group of people that made the trek. The magi were important people, which is one reason Herod got all agitated by them. It is interesting to note that...

In some ways, professing Christians give aid and comfort to enemies of the gospel message. Many liberal theologians do not believe that the Bible is the Word of God and try to find flaws with it. After their scoffing is published, atheists and others use their words as ammunition against God. Scoffing can be seen with studies of Ancient Near East (ANE) cultures and mythologies that are used against the Bible. Since biblical creation and the Genesis Flood are primary targets of skeptics, its cosmology comes under fire. Pond off Sawkill Road, Kingston, NY, Unsplash /  Cowboy Bob Sorensen , modified with  FotoSketcher Numerous assumptions are made. One is that the Hebrews were just like their ANE neighbors, so why not incorporate their mythologies into sacred texts? Not only does that show profound ignorance of what they taught and believed, but rejects how the Hebrews knew that they belonged to Yahweh the Creator. Also, the greater context is ignored, including passage throughou...

Whether one likes it or not, concrete is a ubiquitous sign of human progress. Study on it a spell when looking around and seeing various forms of concrete in buildings, sidewalks, and so on. Like other things, it is subject to breaking down. Mayhaps it would last longer if it was made better? Well... When the ancient Romans were building their empire, they had brilliant engineering feats such as the aqueducts — which even made water flow uphill for a ways. Roman concrete was a big part of the construction. Also consider their Pantheon. Pantheon, Unsplash / Nicholas Martinelli Those feats don't fail after all these years. This amazes people who are locked into their belief of descent with modifications evolution, as their worldview requires humans to be unintelligent way back when. That is why they're constantly surprised by artefacts and records of historical talents. Biblical creationists have long said — and repeatedly vindicated — that humans were created as intelligent bein...

Some folks seem to have the notion that Charles Darwin applied science to his observations, leading to the publication of On the Origin of Species . That is not the case. He had ideas for which he wanted to find support. Interestingly, his writing was not intended as a way to kill God. People have debated whether or not Darwin was an atheist throughout his life, and his writing may imply that he was unsure himself. Reading Origin  one can see an unevenness, and maybe a vague defense of the Creator regarding pain. I gave Charlie a floral wreath at  PhotoFunia .  His writings had many unsupported claims for which he promised to provide evidence — but never produced . At times he supported atheistic materialism, but other times, he knew that what is seen in the world must have been designed in some way. A benevolent Creator would not have used so much suffering, so natural selection — nature — is the culprit. The timing and conditions back then were right for Darwin to becom...

A spell back, we examined characteristics of Noah's Ark and saw that the entire process was not just an series of miracles (see " Noah's Ark and the Miraculous " for those article links). Answers in Genesis has spent considerable time on the logistics of the Ark. Here are two more articles of interest. It has been a dogma of Darwinism that early humans swung down from the trees but had not yet evolved intelligence. Numerous examples of their genius ruins evolutionary presuppositions. That is because humans were created with intelligence from the beginning. Grinding peanuts with ox power, Wikimedia Commons / Michael Gunther ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ) Indeed, the Bible mentions skills of people before the Genesis Flood which included metalworking and the like. (Some people speculate that Noah and family could have hired people to help build the Ark, even though they would have thought it was foolishness.) They lived a mighty long time, and after the Flood, Noah reached a total o...

In the twentieth century, John Dewey was considered a great intellectual. He is credited with developing the modern public school system. Dewey had some odd and contradictory ideas in his worldview. He was an atheist and signer of the atheistic Humanist Manifesto, which openly admitted that it was a religion. Also, he did not believe in absolute truth or knowledge. It is ironic that an educator did not believe in knowledge. Worse, his rejection of God made him blind to the fact that logic comes from God — without God, morality, knowledge, wisdom, logic, and science are impossible ! Those details did not matter to Dewey. While he did some things that helped the school system, he wanted children depending on others to do the thinking for them — reflecting the atheistic, evolutionary, and Marxist trends that were growing in the formerly United States at the time. It can be seen today that many people have no inking about how to do critical thinking. Also, notice how these sheeple tend tow...

Mockers of Christians and the Bible frequently make inane statements that Christians and creationists do not understand science, or worse, that we are " science deniers ." Some claim that creation scientists are not "real" scientists, as if instead of getting their degrees from actual universities, they came from Billy Joe's Bible Church Academy and Bait Shop. Some take a different tack, ignoring the fact that Christians founded many of the major sciences, then making false statements about history. One is that the Reformation led to attacks on science. Actually, the Reformation accelerated science. Wittenberg church door, Wikimedia Commons /  AlterVista  ( CC BY-SA 3.0 ) Remember what has been discussed before: Movements rarely happen overnight, nor are they triggered by one individual. Martin Luther nailed ninety-five theses to the Wittenberg church door on October 31, 1517, and many people consider that the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. It was an i...

It is not news that people throughout history have hated the Jews, and many want to eradicate them from their land. Especially Mohammedans, who have thugs working toward that end who murder men, women, and children. Modern Israel is a small strip land that most people would find unappealing. Yet the Hebrew people have survived persecutions and attempted genocide for millennia. The state of Israel testifies of fulfilled prophecy , which in turn indicates that the Word of God is true. The hand of God can be seen keeping Israel in existence. Israel Flag, Unsplash / Stanislav Vdovin Other peoples in the area inhabit historic lands, but modern Jews are genetically who they claim to be. Fanatical Islamic groups like Hamas and others want to join with the Palestinians (who have a flag but never had a country ) in destroying the Jews. Hatred for Israel seems to have been increasing in recent years, with the American Democrat party supporting terrorists! Hebrews have survived for thousands of y...

Although political correctness (a wide-ranging term often unrelated to politics) and cultural sensitivity frequently become absurd, sometimes they can be useful. Ayers Rock in Australia is also known as the Aboriginal name Uluru.  Easter Island and its people are now called  Rapa Nui . While it was arrogant of the white explorers to assign names of their own choosing without so much as a by your leave, leftist ideologies often demonize white people. The secular science industry embraces leftist cultural ideas, and this is illustrated with the history of Easter Island. Easter Island statues, Flickr / The TerraMar Project ( CC BY 2.0 ), modified at PhotoFunia On a side note, the head statues on Easter Island are famous. What is less known is that bodies of a sort are attached to those heads and buried underground. There are stories about how the isolated population of Rapa Nui degenerated and collapsed, even to the point of wars and cannibalism. A big part of it was ecoci...

Every once in a while, there will be news about a gospel, Bible fragment, or other ancient text that purports to provide special insight. People get all a-twitter about these things, thinking that knowledge can be gained from texts that were omitted from the Bible. Here is an expensive word that may impress your friends if you use it: pseudepigrapha . Essentially, it is an ancient text that is falsely attributed to a famous person. There are quite of few of those things. An infancy gospel is credited to Thomas, and I doubt he would approve of it. Apostle St. Thomas / El Greco, ca. 1612 One of my suspicions as to why people like rejected writings is that people want to feel special, and having what appears to be knowledge that others don't have may give them that imagined superiority. Indeed, that also fits with Gnosticism . While Gnosticism does not really have one definition and has changed over the centuries, essentially it means special esoteric knowledge. Also, they tend to b...

So, how about those Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, huh? Really impressive things worth writing home about... Except for one, all we have are stories and historical records. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon have been misnamed for more than one reason. According to traditional accounts, the gardens did not exactly hang, but were grown on roofs and things in the palace of Babylon. But the moniker did not get corrected. History is sketchy about them, and not written by eyewitnesses. Checking more closely, they were probably in a different location altogether. Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Wikimedia Commons / 19th century illustration (PD) People who bother to read their Bibles should recognize the name of Assyria. It was a kingdom. Vicious, nasty people at times. That was a reason Jonah did not want to obey God and call Nineveh, the capital, to repentance. He wanted God to punish them, and was disappointed that they did repent for a while. Later on, they went back to being bad dudes. Ass...

Although is is often interesting to learn about archaeological discoveries, it must be a tough job. Study on it. Not only are things very old and fragile, but archaeologists must study history, false narratives, shifting borders, languages — and modern political situations that may bring their work to a screeching halt. The Bible contains accurate history; nothing in it has been contravened by archaeology. Those of us who believe the Bible are not rattled by fallacious arguments from silence (something has not been found), knowing it is inerrant. Archaeology helps clear up certain things. Tablet from Nuzi, Wikimedia Commons / Zunkir ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ) When reading the Genesis narrative around the time of Abraham, people may wonder, "What's that all about?" We know why Sarai told Abram to go in to her maidservant Hagar in Genesis 16, but it turns out that she is not the first person to suggest this. Also, why did Rachel steal her father's household gods in Genesis 31, a...

Huge numbers of books have been written about historical events and notable people, often attempting to go beyond recounting events. The lives and personalities of important figures are explored — and explanations for their actions are attempted. One of these is Charles Darwin. People may think that science was shaken by the wonderful discovery of evolution by natural selection, but that is not true. As discussed previously, significant events seldom happen spontaneously. Events, culture, help from others, and more helped Darwin attain popularity . Charles Darwin preaching in a church, made with AI at Bing The article linked below is by Neil Thomas, writing for the Discovery Institute. Although he is a professing agnostic (and Christians should be praying for him), he does not show contempt for Christianity. He has made a few mistakes, which is to be expected. Neil pointed out that Victorian England had reached a point where people were doubting the Bible, and this was exacerbated by i...

Several countries have special days set aside to pay tribute to those killed in the service of their countries. Today is ours. One tradition is to put American flags on graves of the fallen, and people tend to blur Veterans Day (which honors living people in the armed forces) with Memorial Day. It is a good thing to have holidays to prompt us to remember the fallen, and also for other noteworthy times in a culture or individual lives. We do something similar with birthdays and anniversaries. Establishing reminders is found in the Bible. Memorial Day flags and cross / Pxhere God instituted symbols and feasts to prompt Israel to remember him and what he did for them. The most obvious in the Old Testament is the rainbow, which is God's promise to never flood the entire earth again. Another famous reminder is  Passover , which had detailed instructions for the observance. Yesterday at church, we had Communion (the Lord's Supper). Passover was a strong foreshadowing of the time when...

Dating methods are fraught with problems. Secular scientists admit it on occasion. Also, the conflicting results and poor reasoning are brought to the fore by biblical creation scientists. Historical records are suspect because victors often write history, and in ancient times, often embellished the stories. Archaeometric dating is a reasonable idea at first glance. Ancient artifacts often contain bits of iron, and when it is heated (such as when cities were burned), the conditions of Earth's magnetic field are shown. Sounds like a plausible way to calibrate a dating method. Clay brick inscribed with the name of Nebuchadnezzar II, WikiComm / Dr. Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ) It doesn't work. Secular scientists make a number of assumptions, primarily uniformitarianism ("the present is the key to the past") and deep time. The magnetic field of the earth was stronger in the past, but there were times of great changes in it. Observations and models of bibli...

There are many stories floating around about Nicolas Copernicus, but many are completely false. (Atheistic revisionists are partly to blame.) He was in fact a Christian who believed that studying the heavens glorified God. His views did not contradict the Bible. Copernicus is credited with the heliocentric view (the earth orbits the sun). He reluctantly brought forward his view. Church leaders were enthusiastic about it at first, and geocentric (the earth moves around the sun) scientists and philosophers opposed him. Copernicus in the tower at Frombork , Jan Matejko, 1872 His model was discussed for about seventy-five years, but it seems to have received some backlash from Galileo. Frankly (mind if I call you Frank?), Galileo was a bit of a jerk and brought trouble on himself . (Atheistic revisionists made up many things about him, too.) Galileo drew from the work of Copernicus, then brought physical evidence to the discussion of which objects orbits what; it was no longer just philoso...

Although atheists and other anti-creationists try to avoid inconvenient truths, some of us still try to present them. First, many insist that creationists lack the intellectual prowess to be scientists. We show them that many great scientists of the past were Christians , even biblical creationists. Then they may whine that we are discussing dead people, so we tell them about modern scientists that are biblical creationists . No, they are disqualified because the only true  scientists are materialists. Lather, rinse, repeat, they move the goalposts like they were jet propelled. Plesiosaur skeleton, Flickr /  Kim Alaniz  ( CC by 2.0 ) In 1660 London, the Royal Society was formed to encourage the development of natural philosophy (the earlier term for what is now called science). While some sidewinders say that biblical creation science was initiated fairly recently, the Royal Society had members who believed the Bible, including recent creation and the Genesis Flood. ...

As discussed here several times before, a movement, revolution, or other large effect on a society seldom spontaneously generates. Mayhaps you have heard how something was "ahead of its time" or the world was not ready for it. Conditions were not right for that thing. Other sweeping changes occur, leaving people wondering how they took root. Slowly. Charles Darwin is treated like a brilliant scientist for creating evolution, but that is the opposite of the truth . The conditions in Victorian England were right for his conjectures, and the prominent Huxleys helped him out . Darwin caricature, 1871, Vanity Fair , modified at remove.bg At the time of Darwin and even before, people were becoming more blatantly rebellious to God and disrespectful to the Bible. (Interestingly, the only degree that Charlie earned was in theology, which lends credence to the suggestion that he lifted the biblical creation narrative and was making a naturalistic religious text!) Many factors came toge...

The word apologetics  comes from the Greek word ἀπολογία ( apologia ), which essentially means to make a reasoned defense or argument. (In this regard, an apology does not mean saying one is sorry.) We discuss the Bible internally and also use outside references. There are apologists for many things. Biblical apologists strive to show that the Bible is true. Otherwise, it is simply an item of curiosity for stuffy intellectual types having parlor discussions with brandy and cigars. Our faith would be worthless, Question Evolution Day would have no relevance, we would be worthy of ridicule. Section of P-45 Greek papyrus manuscript of the Gospel of Luke, via Wikimedia Commons That is not the case. The Bible has been shown to be an important historical reference, and it is the Word of God, changing lives and bringing salvation. Interestingly, some of the technology that backfires on evolutionists  has been used to examine extremely delicate biblical manuscripts that could...

So many events of ancient history are only known through word-of-mouth stories, some artefacts, and even written accounts. The Bible has never been refuted by archaeology, and archaeologists used to respect the Bible even if they were unbelievers. Today, some try to wave off biblical events using bad reasoning. The Battle of Jericho was a significant event marking the conquest of Canaan. The Israelites were led by Joshua, successor of Moses. Jericho was an imposing city with a double wall, and God miraculously intervened. The Taking of Jericho , James Tissot, ca. 1900 There is no doubt that Jericho existed. In fact, there were walls around the city before Joshua got there. After it was burned, other people decided that it sure would be a shame to let that prime real estate go to waste, so they moved in. Jericho went without walls for many years after its conquest because nobody wanted to run crosswise of Joshua's curse on whomever rebuilt the walls. There are many archaeological fa...