Category: Essay

The Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis

If one compares the chronologies of Genesis 5 and 11 as they appear in the Masoretic Text (MT) – which is what most of our bibles use for these dates – with those in the Septuagint (LXX), one finds roughly a 1500 year discrepancy.

The LXX (or Alexandrian) Inflation Hypothesis explains this discrepancy by saying that the Greek translators of the lost Hebrew text of Genesis of their time (called the Vorlage) inflated the dates in the 3rd century BC to better agree with Egyptian history. The Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis explains this discrepancy by saying that the rabbis in the 2nd century AD deflated the numbers to discredit Jesus as the Messiah.

In the following interview Henry B. Smith Jr of the Associates for Biblical Research (ABR) argues for the Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis. It is long, so I have commented on it section by section with links to each part.

The correct dates are important for both archeology and apologetics.

The Christian archeologist has to know what the original Genesis text said about the events following the flood. Apologists who accept the Bible as an historical document also need to be clear about what that history actually is. Attacks against any Christianity that has not been watered down to a new age belief system come from those who want to discredit the Bible as reliable history.

  1. 0:00 Michael Filipek’s introduction
  2. 6:20 Henry B. Smith Jr’s introduction. He notes that there are no chronological gaps in these genealogies. He also asserts that the biblical text has higher authority over external evidence.
  3. 16:05 There are three textual traditions with differences in the genealogies: the MT, the LXX, and the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP). The correct dates are needed for archeological research and for apologetics. Smith Jr focuses on Genesis 11 because these dates come after the flood where archeological evidence has to be located and there the internal evidence is greatest for the Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis.
  4. 25:02 Smith Jr contrasts the total number of years in these chronologies. For the MT it is 2008 years. For the SP it is 2249 years. For the LXX it is 3394 years. Although creation science explores the entire chronology beginning with creation, archeologists would only have evidence for the time after the flood.
  5. 33:15 Smith Jr analyzes the dates for Peleg as an example.
  6. 35:00 Smith Jr analyzes the dates for Kainan as another example. Kainan is mentioned in Luke 3:36 and the LXX, but not in the MT nor the SP.
  7. 40:37 Smith Jr offers a warning about critical scholarship: although there might be treasures hidden there many of these scholars support the Documentary Hypothesis which entirely discredits the historical value of these chronologies. He also comments that preservation of Scripture does not require that it be preserved in Hebrew manuscripts. It could be preserved in other languages, such as, Greek.
  8. 44:51 Whoever made the deliberate changes to the text would need a high enough motivation to overcome the command in Deuteronomy 4:2 not to change the text. They would also need the means to disseminate the changes and the opportunity to do so.
  9. 54:30 There are external witnesses before the second century AD to the LXX reading of Genesis 5 and 11: Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (LAB), Josephus, Eupolemus, and Demetrius of Alexandria as early as 220 BC. However, there are no external witnesses before the second century AD to the MT reading.
  10. 1:24:00 Smith Jr returns to Peleg as an example of a methodology on how to approach these texts.
  11. 1:28:54 Smith Jr points out the internal evidence in the MT that there is not enough time from the flood to the Babel dispersion for the population to reach the state that Genesis 10 describes it to be in. He notes that some people may find it hard to believe that the rabbis would have deflated their own texts and some may also have a long-term commitment to Ussher’s chronology which is based on the MT.
  12. 1:43:45 Smith Jr introduces the Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis. Chrono-messianism used 1000-year blocks and the Daniel 9 prophecies to predict the coming of the Messiah. The Seder ‘Olam Rabbah became a new chronology in the second century AD. The rabbis wanted to put Jesus outside of biblical prophecies.
  13. 1:59:21 Ancient support for the Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis comes from Eusebius, Julian of Toledo, Jacob of Edessa and Bar Hebraeus.

The following diagram compares the ABR chronology1 which prefers the LXX dates because it accepts the Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis with James Ussher’s chronology2 which prefers the MT because it accepts the LXX Inflation Hypothesis.

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  1. Henry B.. Smith Jr, The Case for the Septuagint’s Chronology in Genesis 5 and 11, International Conference on Creationism, 2018 for the Creation and Flood date and the chart at the bottom of the Genesis 5 and 11 Project page for the Call of Abraham date: Creation 5554 BC, Flood 3298 BC, Calling of Abraham 2091 BC ↩︎
  2. James Ussher, The Annals of the World, 1650: Creation 4004 BC, Flood 2348 BC, Calling of Abraham 1921 BC ↩︎

Formalizing the Transcendental Argument Against Skepticism

Arguments for the existence of God are responses to philosophical skepticism. If you have not been deceived by this skepticism to the point of refusing to see when you look, all you have to do is look around yourself for evidence that God is real.

Romans 1:19-20 KJV – 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

People who are willing to look and see – people whose minds have not been deceived – don’t need a philosophical argument for God. They already know He’s real. They might want to know more about Him, but the fact that He’s real is not a problem.

Furthermore, if they are born again Christians who follow where the Holy Spirit leads, they are sons of God. 1 The skeptic has no hope to convince such people. If you are one these people, you can skip the rest of this post. You are indeed blessed.

For those who are unsure, trust that the answers to any of your questions about God are in the Bible, but beware. Although you have passed the first level of deceivers, the skeptics, there are other wolves (or snakes) who would love to tell you what’s in the Bible like the serpent did to Eve.2

The existence of these wolves3 is as sure as the existence of God. I suspect most of them don’t even know they’re wolves. The Way is narrow4. Don’t let yourself be led astray by blind guides which would be a kind of persecution.5 Forgive them.6 Bless them.7 But move on.8

Skeptics of God’s existence

Philosophical skeptics about God are biblically referred to as fools. They love to run their mouths. If no one listened to them, they would only harm themselves.

Romans 1:21-23 KJV – 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

When skeptics talk they introduce doubt into the minds of their listeners and reinforce it in themselves. When they keep expressing this doubt it becomes a commercial selling speculative lies over and over again.

On the bright side, since skeptics are speaking falsehood, whatever they say will counterproductively spring back on them when people argue against their positions effectively. That defense is the only reason to make these philosophical arguments.

When listeners (including the skeptics themselves) realize that no one in his right mind wants what the skeptics are selling in their commercials, the defense will have succeeded.

Formalized propositional logic

There are many philosophical arguments against skeptics of God’s existence. The kind I am focusing on here is called transcendental arguments. Immanuel Kant began this type of argumentation to address the skepticism of David Hume.9

All I will be doing in this post is formalizing the logical steps that one needs to go through in propositional logic to make a transcendental argument. I will also use an online proof checker10 to validate these steps.

What that will do, hopefully, is make clear what the structure of a transcendental argument is and demonstrate that the structure is valid.

Presuppositions11

To get started I need a proposition, a statement of something obvious that no one would want to reject such as “I think”. Then I need to identify what that proposition presupposes. Following Descartes I might say that “I think” presupposes that “I am”.

Even though I might have to chain these presuppositions to get where I want to go, if I can reach a proposition that some unknown God12 exists, then it is game over for the skeptic. Because of that, I should not expect the skeptic to quietly agree with anything I have to offer. He will claim that I just asserted the presupposition without demonstrating it.13 To make sure that no one agrees with him, I need to make sure that I argue persuasively and clearly.

This is the hardest part of the argument. It is also the part that I’m skipping. All I want to show now is what is going on with such arguments by formalizing them as a propositional proof. I want to make sure that it is clear what these arguments are trying to show.

For an example of a specific transcendental argument, Parker Settecase showed how C.S. Lewis set one up.14

What is a presupposition?

A presupposition is the consequent of two implications where the antecedent of one is the negation of the antecedent of the other. If I say that A presupposes B I mean not only that A implies B but also that not A implies B. If the proposition A and its negation both imply the proposition B, then B is a presupposition of A or A presupposes B.

Although that might sound confusing, presuppositions are easy to find. Here’s an example:

Proposition: There is writing on the paper.
Presupposition: There is a piece of paper.
There is writing on the paper implies that there is a piece of paper.
There is not writing on the paper also implies that there is a piece of paper.
If you accept the proposition or its negation, it makes no sense to reject the presupposition.

Setting up the formalization

Let A stand for the proposition and let B stand for the presupposition. Next assume the two implications (which I would have to successfully argue for), namely, A implies B and not A implies B.

A → B as the first assumption
¬A → B as the second assumption

What I want to do is show that if I am skeptical and assume not B, then all I get is a contradiction. So, I will assume not B with the intent of deriving a contradiction. That is, I plan to push the skeptic into a corner.

¬B by hypothesis

Since I have assumed not B, I can use modus tollens on A implies B to derive not A. I can do the same to not A implies B to derive not not A. With that I derive the next two lines of the proof.

¬A by modus tollens from the hypothesis and first assumption
¬¬A by modus tollens from the hypothesis and second assumption

Note that those two lines together form a contradiction, not A and not not A. Since I derived a contradiction I can use reductio ad absurdum to reject the hypothesis as absurd. Given a presupposition B, if I hypothesize not B, all I can derive is B.

Proof checker validation15

Moral of the story

If you can show that a true proposition has a presupposition, that presupposition is a necessary condition not only for the proposition but also for its negation.

If the skeptic wants the proposition to be true, he has to accept the presupposition. That is the transcendental argument.

The goal of a transcendental argument for God starts with a proposition even the skeptic can’t reject. It identifies a presupposition of that proposition which leads to some unspecified, unknown God’s existence.

Having that unknown God is all I need. The philosophical step is over. The deception has been broken. The Bible and the Holy Spirit take over (although they have been guiding me all along this philosophical journey which wouldn’t have been necessary if I weren’t deceived in the first place).

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  1. Romans 8:14 KJV – 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. ↩︎
  2. Genesis 3:1-5 KJV – 1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. ↩︎
  3. Matthew 7:15-20 KJV – 15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. ↩︎
  4. Matthew 7:13-14 KJV – 13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. ↩︎
  5. Mark 10:29-30 KJV – 29 And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, 30 But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. ↩︎
  6. Matthew 5:43-45 KJV – 43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. ↩︎
  7. Luke 6:27-28 KJV – 27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, 28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. ↩︎
  8. 1 Timothy 6:3-5 KJV – 3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; 4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, 5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. ↩︎
  9. Bardon, Adrian, “Transcendental Arguments”, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/trans-ar/ ↩︎
  10. Open Logic Project: https://openlogicproject.org/ ↩︎
  11. Beaver, David I., Bart Geurts, and Kristie Denlinger, “Presupposition”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/presupposition/&gt; ↩︎
  12. Acts 17:22-23 KJV – 22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. 23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. ↩︎
  13. Sheng-Ta Tsai, Deconstructing Christianity, Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence Debunked, 9/20/2023 ↩︎
  14. Parker Settecase provided a detailed presentation of this proof in his blog post of 11/13/2017, C.S.Lewis’s Transcendental Argument for God. ↩︎
  15. https://proof-checker.org/ ↩︎

Diotrephes and Demetrius

The short epistle of 3 John contrasts two leaders in the early church: Diotrephes and Demetrius.

Diotrephes

3 John 1:9-10 KJV – 9 I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.
10 Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

Demetrius

3 John 1:11-12 KJV – 11 Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
12 Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself: yea, and we also bear record; and ye know that our record is true.

Leadership in Church History

When Paul described the qualities that a bishop must have, he indirectly warned about the kind of men who should not be followed if given leadership positions in the church.

1 Timothy 3:2-7 KJV – 2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
3 Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
4 One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
5 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)
6 Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
7 Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Before the church gained political power, it was persecuted. After it gained political power, it began persecuting others itself. This was the result of people who should have never received leadership roles.

Justo L. Gonzalez1 commented on the persecution of the Anabaptists (and I have read far enough into that book to highly suspect that it applies to any Christian group that suffered persecution at the hands of other Christians):

The martyrs were many—probably more than those who died during the three centuries of persecution before the time of Constantine.

Paul tells us what could have happened from the very beginning of church history if people chose to follow the lead of the Spirit of God rather than their own lusts.

What could have happened is almost beyond imagining:

Romans 8:14 KJV – For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

The Point

None of the faulty leadership in the church had to happen. It could have all been avoided.

God did not will it. Don’t blame Him.

It was not caused by Augustinian total depravity nor was it caused by materialistic determinism, the atheistic rehashing of that Augustinian teaching.

Those responsible cannot hide behind any of these lame excuses for their own choices, their own defiant refusals to become the sons of God.

  1. Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: The Reformation to the Present Day, page 56. ↩︎

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Shroud of Turin

This morning I followed an email link from the Associates for Biblical Research to one of their Digging for Truth episodes on the tomb of Jesus.

The tour we took when in Israel scheduled us to see the Garden Tomb, but neglected the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This episode, however, convinces me that we should have gone to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre instead.

In the above video they mentioned the Shroud of Turin. I realized that I knew little to nothing about this shroud except that it was claimed to have covered the body of Jesus.

The following is a 8 minute summary of the evidence that favors the view that this was, indeed, the actual shroud that covered Jesus.

Fossils

We are back in South Carolina. As I was putting mulch around some bushes I noticed the fossils in a bit of mudrock we brought back from a property we once owned on Green Bay in Wisconsin. That rock (along with the mulch) are shown in the photo above.

Ten years ago when I found the stone I tried to identify the fossils1 in it using a field guide. The field guide said that they were between 300 to 400 million years old (assuming I remember what it said correctly and matched what was in the book with what was in my hand).

I was impressed, but I was also disappointed that they weren’t 600 million years old, or older. I kept looking for more of those stones.

Over the past ten years I smartened up. I realized that given erosion rates all of the stuff I had in my hand would have eroded away2 long before it reached anywhere near 300 million years.

Today, I can tell you how old that stone is to within about 10 years, but you need to understand something about fossils first.

Fossils don’t form from dead stuff falling to the ground and being slowly buried over millennia. Dead stuff falling to the ground quickly decays. They have to die rapidly with a heavy weight pressing them down so they do not decompose. That occurs when heavy sediment carried by flooding waters provides the weight to press the plants and animals to the ground.

You would apply the same process to a leaf you wanted to preserve. You would pick it fresh and place it between paper with many books piled on top of it. When it dried out, you would have a nice, flat leaf, not a curled up piece of decaying leaf mold.

So, when in the history of humanity did such a flooding occur so that you could expect to find fossils all over the world? Think. The only time such flooding occurred on a global scale was the flood recorded in Genesis 6-9 and echoed through many legends.

That allows me to date the stone that I now have in my garden.

Given the biblical chronology that Henry B. Smith, Jr from Associates for Biblical Research provided3, the flood could be dated to 3298 BC. Now there is some wiggle-room here due to when in the year births occurred in the Genesis 5 and 11 chronologies, but I suspect that wiggle-room could be reduced to plus or minus 10 years.

You might object that what we read in Genesis are just stories. They are stories, but the important question is this: Are they TRUE stories? If you do not want to believe they are true, to the extent that archeologists can align those stories with historical events to that extent you might want to seriously reconsider any disbelief. This is why Christian archeologists try to align those dates with historical evidence so that the only ignorance that remains is willful ignorance.

So, how old is that stone?

It is, given today’s year of 2025 and subtracting one year since there is no 0 year in the Gregorian calendar, 3298 + 2025 – 1 = 5322 years old plus or minus those 10 years.

That is far less than the 300,000,000 years which the field guide wanted me to believe, but a far more reasonable number given erosion rates. That stone had already suffered much erosion damage when I found it.

And it is continuing to be eroded away every year I leave it unprotected in my garden, but it is not rare. Fossils like the one I have are all over the world because sedimentation layers are all over the world as one would expect given a catastrophic, global flooding less than 5,400 years ago.

The “ungodly men” are those who “willingly are ignorant”. They are not blindly ignorant, a class I would put myself in on many issues. They are liars.
  1. I think some of those fossils are crinoids. Wikipedia says: “In 2012, three geologists reported they had isolated complex organic molecules from 340-million-year-old (Mississippian) fossils of multiple species of crinoids.” That there are complex organic molecules at all in there should raise a red flag that the millions of years are wrong. ↩︎
  2. I’ve heard that a uniformitarian erosion rate would push all of the continents into the ocean in 50 million years. The problem with erosion is that it doesn’t all happen uniformly. If you have a house on a cliff near the water, you are likely very aware of the effects of erosion. ↩︎
  3. One can find videos and other information about the controversy over the Genesis 5 and 11 chronologies at the Associates for Biblical Research site. There’s a controversy because the Septuagint and the Masoretic manuscripts have different, but not randomly different, dates. They are not unintentional scribal errors, but deliberate distortions of the original. I get the 3298 BC date for the flood (and 5554 BC date for creation) from Henry B. Smith, Jr’s article at the 2018 International Conference on Creationism. The 5554 BC date puts the ministry of Jesus in the 6th millennium when the Messiah was expected to come. ↩︎

Noah’s Flood Date: 3298 BC

Yesterday John Hartnett provided a model based on historic measurements collected by George F. Dodwell of the change in the earth’s tilt1 confirming the biblical chronology that Henry B. Smith, Jr argued for in 20182.

The date Hartnett’s model estimated for the flood event was 3154 ± 191 BC. That range excludes Ussher’s flood date of 2348 BC3 but Smith, Jr’s date of 3298 BC still fits.

If we use Smith, Jr’s chronology, that would put creation at about 5500 BC, Noah’s flood at about 3300 BC, the Tower of Babel at about 2850 BC, the call of Abraham in 2091 BC, the Exodus from Egypt in 1446 BC, Solomon crowned in 971 BC and the birth of Jesus in 2 BC.4

The reason for the discrepancy between Ussher’s and Smith, Jr’s dates is due to conflicting dates provided in the chronologies of Genesis 5 and 11 coming from different manuscript traditions of the Bible. Smith, Jr argued that the Hebrew manuscript which became the Masoretic text was modified in the first or second century after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD to void prophecies that Jesus could have been the Messiah. The Septuagint, however, preserved the original text, but the Masoretic text became the preferred source for modern bible translations.

    Hartnett’s model not only excluded Ussher’s date, but it also estimated a date for something which happened affecting the tilt of the earth at a time which aligned with the biblical chronology that Smith, Jr has promoted.

    The Flood Waters of Noah
    1. https://biblescienceforum.com/2025/04/21/can-we-know-the-year-of-noahs-flood/ ↩︎
    2. https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings/vol8/iss1/48/ ↩︎
    3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology ↩︎
    4. https://biblearchaeology.org/abr-projects/genesis-5-11-project ↩︎

    Stardust

    Our words affirm who we think we are.

    Beyond their truth values, they are powerful spells. They bless. They curse. Though others might get in the way, we ourselves are the ones who are blessed or defiled by what comes out of our own mouths.1

    A song written by Joni Mitchell called Woodstock2 in 1969 influenced me through the early 1970s. In the final refrain is a declaration of what Mitchell thought we were.

    We are stardust
    Billion year old carbon

    However, as I’ve come to realize, there is no natural way that we could be stardust and as a metaphor the idea is sentimental nonsense.

    There are those who fantasize how that stardust to man might have happened, but the only thing they proclaim is their rebellion against a Creator. Dust from a supernova cannot get back together again no matter how often one waves a magic wand – or a professor’s hand – insisting on billions of years of evolution.

    And yet, back in the 1970s, I had no problem believing such mythology. I had no more problem with it than an ancient Greek would have had with Zeus or a Hindu with Krishna. Those were the words spoken to me and those were the words I chose to listen to. Today, I repent of that misleading idolatry.

    That our bodies come from the earth is true.3 However, the dust of the earth has never been stardust no more than it has ever been pixie dust.

    The words we speak and the words we listen to matter. I can testify – first hand – that God is not mocked. What we sow we shall reap.4

    I can also testify that repentance brings more joy than delusion, rebellion and disobedience5.

    1. Matthew 15:17-20 KJV – 17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? 18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: 20 These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. ↩︎
    2. https://jonimitchell.com/music/lyricsprint.cfm?id=75 ↩︎
    3. Genesis 2:7 KJV – 7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. ↩︎
    4. Galatians 6:7-8 KJV – 7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. ↩︎
    5. Luke 15:10 KJV – 10 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. ↩︎

    Biblical Prayer

    Matthew 6:10 KJV – Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

    Biblical prayer is a command spoken to the earth that the Lord’s will be done throughout it.

    That includes not merely the problems we face, but ourselves as well.

    Matthew 6:7 KJV – 7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

    Prayer is not a powerless, showy, vain speaking.

    Prayer is our thoughts and words confirmed by our actions conforming only to the Lord’s will, not to our own.

    When we get our thoughts, words and actions in line with the Lord’s will we pray effortlessly and without ceasing, because we then no longer know how to do anything else but insist that the Father’s kingdom come and that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

    Holes in the Net

    Christian apologists who accept evolution do not realize how huge the holes are in their gospel nets.

    What they don’t see is that the Bible offers not only a viable explanation of the universe we live in, but it offers the only viable explanation for it. The others are impossible modern mythologies masquerading as scientific theories.

    The problem for the atheist is that one would have to accept the God of the Bible for the biblical explanation to be viable especially with the age of the universe being less than 8000 years.

    • But isn’t the universe billions of years old?
      Under Newtonian physics, perhaps, but not under relativity physics. If relativity is true, distant starlight can no longer be used as a clock.1
    • But aren’t there fossils half a billion years old?
      Radioactive decay is not a clock either. If it were then all of the rates of decay, including erosion rates and biological decay that we notice today, would have to line up. That dinosaur fossils have soft tissue2 still in them suggests – no, it insists – that they are much, much younger than that.
    • But isn’t humanity hundreds of thousands of years old?
      Historical records only go back about 5000 years. Let that sink in. That length of time is what one would expect given a global flood occurring about 3300 BC. Real people leave historical records. The existence and age of these historical records confirm the biblical chronology that the universe is less than 8000 years old3 and that there was a global catastrophe about 5300 years ago.

    But that’s ridiculous! Once you realize that it is not, you will start taking the Bible seriously enough to mend the holes in the net.

    ______

    In a 13 minute video Calvin Smith presented arguments every Christian apologist who still accepts evolution needs to hear. Atheists already know these arguments: any god who would use the cruel and destructive means of elimination known as evolution to bring about creation is unloving and morally suspect. Christian morals should make one reject the very god those apologists witlessly try to promote.

    Smith described Christian apologists who accept evolution as casting gospel nets with holes in them.

    1. The reason relativity doesn’t allow the speed of light to be used as a clock to measure the age of the universe is due to the conventionality of simultaneity thesis which Veritasium explained rather well. Allen Janis’s article Conventionality of Simultaneity summarizes the thesis in more detail providing additional references. Jason Lisle applied it to solve the distant starlight problem of creationism in his paper Anisotropic Synchrony Convention, Answers Research Journal, 2010. Bottom line: We cannot tell how old the universe is by knowing the two-way speed of light and the estimated distance of a celestial object unless we go back to Newtonian physics. ↩︎
    2. Creation Ministries International provided a one-minute video summarizing the significance of the discovery of soft tissue in fossils: those fossils must have been laid down recently. That soft tissue exists in fossils at all marks the end of the evolutionary worldview unless one is addicted to that worldview much like those who promote a flat earth are addicted to theirs. ↩︎
    3. There are various biblical chronologies because there are multiple manuscript traditions. The ultimate original source is lost, but one can piece it together using parts from each of these traditions. The chronology I currently find most convincing comes from the Associates for Biblical Research. ↩︎

    He Made the Stars Also

    If the universe began with an explosion, how did all of that exploded stuff come back together again to form even one star? If a star should explode, how would the mess it made clean itself up to become another star?

    Not even gravity can put those explosions back together again.

    There’s more truth in the nursery rhyme about Humpty Dumpty than there is in the mythology of modern cosmology with its big bangs and stars forming from cosmic dust clouds.

    Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
    Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
    All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
    couldn’t put Humpty together again.

    One of the blessings of our universe is that things don’t naturally compress through gravity to the point that a thermonuclear reaction starts. If they did, the waters over the earth (along with all of the land) would have collapsed to the center of what once was the earth long ago.

    The reason stuff like that doesn’t happen is because of hydrostatic equilibrium. Gravity draws things together. Sure, but an opposing outward pressure keeps stuff from collapsing beyond an equilibrium point. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be here.

    Some claim that if there were a multiverse, an infinite number of universes all starting with explosions, then at least one of them would have to look like ours. Wrong. Blow things up an infinite number of times (or more) and none of those explosions, because of hydrostatic equilibrium, would turn into a universe with planets and stars.

    Every one of those exploded verses in that multiverse would remain a mess forever.

    ______

    It is written.