1/31/17

"THE GOSPEL OF MARK" Mindful Of The Things Of God (8:31-33) by Mark Copeland

                          "THE GOSPEL OF MARK"

                 Mindful Of The Things Of God (8:31-33)

INTRODUCTION

1. As Jesus travelled near Caesarea Philippi, He made the first of three
   predictions concerning what awaited Him in Jerusalem... - Mk 8:31; 
   cf. Mk 9:31; 10:33-34
   a. He must suffer many things
   b. He must be rejected and killed, and rise again in three days

2. Peter's response was adamant...
   a. He took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him... - Mk 8:32
   b. Peter's words:  "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen
      to You!" - cf. Mt 16:22

3. In turn, Jesus looks at His disciples and then rebukes Peter...
   a. "Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of
      God, but the things of men." - Mk 8:33
   b. Matthew reveals that Jesus also said:  "You are an offense to
      Me..." - Mt 16:23

[Peter's outburst of concern for Jesus was only natural.  But Jesus'
rebuke reveals an important lesson in being "Mindful Of The Things Of
God."  Let's first consider that...]

I. GOD'S WAYS ARE NOT OUR WAYS

   A. AS STATED...
      1. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My
         ways" - Isa 55:8
      2. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways
         higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts."
         - Isa 55:9

   B.  AS ILLUSTRATED...
      1. By His view of suffering in the scheme of redemption 
         - Mk 8:31-33; Lk 24:26-27,44-46
      2. By His view of greatness versus ours - Mk 10:42-45
      3. By His view of beauty versus ours - 1Pe 3:3-4
      4. By His view of money versus ours - Lk 16:13-15

[Clearly the mind of God and the things of God come from a higher plane
than the mind of man.  Peter failed to appreciate this.   How can we be
sure that we are ever "Mindful Of The Things Of God"...?]

II. MINDFUL OF THE THINGS OF GOD

   A. WE CANNOT TRUST OURSELVES...
      1. Our feelings
         a. This is often the standard of right and wrong for many
            people
            1) Who go by whatever "feels right"
            2) Who place stock in a religion "better felt than told"
         b. Yet the Bible declares the danger of trusting in our
            feelings
            1) "There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end
               is the way of death." - Pr 14:12
            2) "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool..." - Pr 28:26
      2. Our conscience
            a. "Let your conscience be your guide" is the motto of many
         b. But consider:  "O Lord, I know the way of man is not in
            himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own
            steps." - Jer 10:23
         c. Our conscience is not always reliable
            1) Paul had served God with a good conscience throughout his
               life - Ac 23:1
            2) Even at a time when he was persecuting Christians! - cf.
               Ac 26:9-11
      3. Our wisdom
         a. Many feel that through their own wisdom they can determine
            right and wrong
         b. God has chosen to save man in a manner designed to confound
            the wise - 1Co 1:18-29
         c. For us to know God's will, it was necessary for Him to
            reveal it to us - 1Co 2:9-12
            1) This He has done through His Spirit-inspired apostles
            2) Who in turn shared it with us through their writings 
               - Ep 3:1-5

   B. WE MUST TRUST IN GOD...
      1. In how to be saved
         a. Some seek to be saved by good works
         b. Others by faith only
         c. We must trust in Jesus and His apostles 
            - Mk 16:15-16; Ac 2:38; 22:16
      2. In how to worship
         a. Some want to offer what pleases them
         b. Others want to offer what pleases others
         c. We must trust in the commands and will of the Lord 
            - Mk 7:6-7,9; Col 3:17
      3. In how to live
         a. Some want to make themselves #1
         b. Others want to make work or family #1
         c. We must trust Jesus and the Word of God - Mt 6:33; 1Ti
            6:17-19; 2Ti 3:16-17; 2Pe 1:3

CONCLUSION

1. We can only be "Mindful Of The Things Of God" when we...
   a. Humbly submit to what is revealed in the Word of God
   b. Refuse to let our feelings, conscience, or wisdom be our guide

2. Otherwise, we are "Mindful Of The Things Of Men", where we...
   a. Become an instrument of Satan! - cf. Mk 8:33
   b. Become an offense to Jesus! - cf. Mt 16:23

Have you given much thought as to whether you are "Mindful Of The Things
Of God"...?

   "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are
   above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your
   mind on things above, not on things on the earth." - Col 3:1-2

   "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
   renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and
   acceptable and perfect will of God." - Ro 12:2
 
Executable Outlines, Copyright © Mark A. Copeland, 2016

"THE GOSPEL OF MARK" Who Do You Say That Jesus Is? (8:27-30) by Mark Copeland

                          "THE GOSPEL OF MARK"

                Who Do You Say That Jesus Is? (8:27-30)

INTRODUCTION

1. On the road from Bethsaida to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked His
   disciples two questions...
   a. "Who do men say that I am?" - Mk 8:27-28
   b. "But who do you say that I am?" - Mk 8:29-30

2. The responses to such questions concerning Jesus' identity...
   a. Have been many and varied
   b. Both in Jesus' day and today

[It is the most important question people could ask themselves, for
their response determines their destiny both in this life and the life
to come.  Let's take a look at...]

I. WHAT PEOPLE SAID THEN

   A. JOHN THE BAPTIST...
      1. King Herod thought this when he heard about Jesus - Mk 6:14
      2. Perhaps motivated by guilt for having beheaded John - Mk 6:16

   B. ELIJAH...
      1. Likely based on their misunderstanding of Malachi's prophecy
         - Mal 4:5
      2. Which Jesus explained referred to John the Baptist - Mt17:10-13

   C. JEREMIAH...
      1. As mentioned in Matthew's account of this conversation - Mt16:14
      2. Who some Jews expected to be resurrected as a precursor to the
         Messiah

   D. ONE OF THE PROPHETS...
      1. One of the old prophets risen again
      2. As mentioned in Luke's account of this conversation - Lk 9:19

   E. BEELZEBUB...
      1. Some had identified Jesus with Beelzebub, that is, Satan - Mt10:25
      2. So thought some of the scribes and Pharisees - Mk 3:22; Mt12:24

   F. MENTALLY DERANGED...
      1. So thought some of His family - Mk 3:21; cf. Jn 7:5
      2. As did many others - Jn 10:30

   G. CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD...
      1. As per Mark's gospel, Peter said "You are the Christ" - Mk 8:27
         a. Christ (Greek) = Messiah (Hebrew)
         b. Meaning, "the Anointed One"
      2. As per Matthew, Peter added "The Son of the living God" 
         - Mt 16:16
         a. God's Son in an unique sense, not true of any mortal
         b. As confessed by others (Nathanael, Martha, John)  - Jn 1:49;
            11:27; 20:31

[Opinions of Jesus' identity were quite diverse during His ministry.
Today, it is not much different...]

II. WHAT PEOPLE SAY TODAY

   A. FABRICATION...
      1. Some skeptics deny He ever existed
      2. Yet the Encyclopedia Britannica uses 20,000 words to tell about
         Jesus and never hints that He did not exist

   B. GOOD MAN...
      1. Many say He was simply a good man, a good teacher, akin to
         Mahatma Gandhi
      2. Yet the Biblical claims do not leave us this option:  "You can
         shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a
         demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.
         But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His
         being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.
         He did not intend to." - C. S. Lewis

   C. PROPHET...
      1. Many believe He was a prophet of God, but not the Son of God
      2. So teaches the religion of Islam

   D. CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD...
      1. As professed by Christians today, and to them He is so much
         more!
      2. As indicated by this list:

              * 100 Biblical Names And Titles Of Jesus *

CONCLUSION

1. We have seen what people said about Jesus...
   a. Then - during His earthly ministry
   b. Now - by atheist, agnostic, skeptic, and believer

2. But the key question today is this:  "Who do YOU say that Jesus
   is...?"
   b. Your answer will determine your eternity 
       - cf. Mt 10:32-38; Ac 17:30-31
   a. Your answer will determine how you live today - cf. Mt 28:18-20

My prayer is that you would join with Peter and countless others and
confess to Jesus:

            "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Why not confess Jesus now, as you obey the gospel of Christ (e.g., Ac
8:35-38).  For you will either confess Him now, or confess Him later
when it is too late...! - cf. Php 2:9-11
 
Executable Outlines, Copyright © Mark A. Copeland, 2016

Responding to the Skeptic’s Attack Against Nazareth by Kyle Butt, M.Div.


http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=3579

Responding to the Skeptic’s Attack Against Nazareth

by  Kyle Butt, M.Div.

The town of Nazareth is “located in the southern end of the hills of Lower Galilee at about 1200 feet above sea level” (McRay, 1991, p. 157). Nazareth is about four miles southwest of Sepphoris. During the time of Christ, Sepphoris was the capital of Galilee, a major center of political and economical activity, and home of Herod Antipas (DeVries, 1997, p. 318). Primary research was done on the city in the mid-1950s by Bellarmino Bagatti. He discovered that the village during the time of Jesus was “an agricultural settlement with numerous winepresses, olive presses, caves for storing grain, and cisterns for water and wine” (1969, p. 25). McRay noted that pottery found in Nazareth dates “from Iron Age II (900-600 B.C.) to the Byzantine period (330-640), including Roman pieces from the time of Christ” (p. 158). Bagatti stated:

The entire village of Nazareth has very many subterranean cavities, some used as
The Church of the Annuciation in Nazareth
stores, some used as tombs. The earliest documentation is indicated both by their form and the ceramics found therein. The latter put us in the presence of tombs already existing in the Middle Bronze Period, and silos already in use in the Iron Period (1969, p. 25).
During Bagatti’s digging in the 1950’s, he excavated an area underneath the modern Church of the Annunciation in an attempt to find any previously existing structures that dated before the 4th century A.D. Not only did he say, “The excavations in Nazareth have revealed grottos and basins of pre-Constantinian times which served for baptism” (1971, p. 243), he also noted:

From the excavations it emerged that the Byzantine church was not the first to be erected on the site, but it had been preceded by a religious site, of which notable remains still exist within the refill of over two metres height over the native rock.... We can, therefore, hold that the first edifice, raised on the traditional site of the Annunciation, was erected in about the 3rd century in the synagogal form of the edifices mentioned (1971, p. 125).

RENÉ SALM’S ATTACK OF NAZARETH

In 2008, the American Atheist Press published a book by René Salm titled, The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus. The thesis of the book simply is that Nazareth was uninhabited at the time of Christ, thus the Bible writers could not have been correct in their statements concerning Christ’s life there. The publishers are so positive that Salm has effectively proved his thesis, that the back of the book cover includes tremendously brazen statements by those who have read the book. The cover quotes Frank Zindler who says: “Christianity cannot survive unless this book can be refuted,” and “By proving scientifically that Nazareth was uninhabited at the time Jesus of Nazareth and his family were supposed to be living there, Salm strikes the Achilles’ heel of a very popular god.” Robert Price’s comment on the back cover states: “I am amazed by your work and can’t wait to see the pathetic attempts to reply.” According to his “fans,” Salm’s book must be answered in order for Christianity to remain a reasonable, historic religion.

The fact of the matter is, the skeptical community often writes and publishes material that makes such brash claims about its potency. One reason for such hubris is that outlandish claims of this nature excite the curiosity of those in both the Christian and skeptical community. Such bold assertions often draw the attention of those who are weaker in the faith and who do not understand that this tactic is used regularly by the skeptics. In truth, Salm’s book can be refuted. But more importantly, if no one in the Christian community chose to turn a page of the book or write a sentence in response, Christianity as a whole would certainly continue to survive.

SALM’S CASE AGAINST NAZARETH HABITATION DURING THE TIME OF CHRIST

Salm focuses his attention on the town of Nazareth because he says:

Unlike aspects of the gospel story that are quite beyond verification—the miracles of Jesus, his bodily resurrection, his virgin birth, or even his human nature—the existence of Nazareth two thousand years ago can be proved or disproved by digging in the ground. Because the archaeology of a site is empirically demonstrable, “Nazareth” is in a category apart. To this day, it preserves the explosive potential to either prove or disprove the gospel accounts. Upon that determination depends a great deal, perhaps even the entire edifice of Christendom (2008, p. xii).
Salm claims that work done by Bagatti and other researchers like Père Viaud are “unabashedly apologetic” in their attempts to prove that Nazareth was inhabited during the time of Christ. He also says that most people who study Nazareth go to Bible dictionary and encyclopedia articles about the site, and not to the direct sources. He claims that this reliance on “secondary literature” causes the average person to be “two steps removed from a correct appreciation of the site” (p. xiv). Salm then claims that his book “brings together all the primary reports for the first time, and allows an independent and objective opinion to be formed regarding the site’s history” (p. xv).

The irony of Salm’s statement is two fold. First, it is apparent from Salm’s title that his book is “unabashedly apologetic” in his attempt to disprove Nazareth habitation at the time of Christ. One could not read ten pages of his book without feeling the force of his blatantly one-sided attack against the biblical idea. Second, Salm’s book is “secondary literature.” He has not done primary excavations at the site himself, and while that fact does not disqualify him from writing on the subject, his accusation that secondary literature clouds the “correct appreciation” undermines his own work. In a very real sense, Salm is a biased author of secondary literature about Nazareth.

In his book, Salm acknowledges the numerous pieces of pottery and other excavated evidence that date the city of Nazareth as early as the Middle Bronze Age. He noted: “The Bronze Age finds at Nazareth come from five tombs and date to the Middle and late Bronze Ages (2200-1200 BCE)” (p. 36). He stated: “The fact that five tombs in the Nazareth basin already exist by the end of the Intermediate Period shows that this quiet and fertile location enticed a substantial group of people to cease their wanderings and settle down” (p. 40). In addition, Salm recognizes that artifacts from the site date to an extended period during the Iron Age, which he classifies as about 1100-700 B.C. He stated: “Combining historical data, the evidence from the ground, together with that from surveys of Southern Galilee, it is probable that a new group of people entered the Nazareth basin about 1100 BCE, and that they continued to live there for about four centuries” (p. 53). These statements are based primarily on the Bronze Period pottery Bagatti describes in Excavations of Nazareth (pp. 258-268) and pieces from the Iron Period (pp. 269-272).

It is at this point in his writing that Salm interjects his thesis. He claims that habitation in Nazareth ended within “a generation or two of the Assyrian conquest” and did not resume until the middle of the 1st century (50-100 BCE) (p. 53). “Thus,” writes Salm,

732 is a terminus a quo for the beginning of a long hiatus in the Nazareth basin. I call it the Great Hiatus (or simply the hiatus), a multi-century gap in evidence of human habitation. The Babylonian and Persian periods are entirely unattested by evidence in the Nazareth basin (p. 60).
Salm bases his Great Hiatus hypothesis on the claim that no artifacts have been found that date between about 700 B.C. to about A.D. 50. He mentioned excavations done in the area of the Church of the Annunciation during the 1930s in which no evidence of a Greek or Roman settlement was found. Salm then wrote: “The following year, R. Tonneau wrote an article in which he registered an amazing fact: no evidence of either Greek or Roman settlement had been found in the excavations” (p. 65).

Notice, however, that Salm stresses the lack of material being found. Throughout the rest of his book, he equivocates the absence of evidence with the absence of a settlement. In essence, he says that since the excavations did not find a settlement, that proves that no settlement existed. Salm’s assertion violates one of the most fundamental rules of interpreting archaeological information. It is a well-known truth that “absence of evidence” does not provide “evidence of absence.” A host of reasons exist as to why the settlement may not have been discovered by the excavations. It could be that the small area excavated was a field or a yard in a settlement that did not have any artifacts to yield. Yet Salm insists that because no evidence of such a settlement was found at that time, then that proves there was not a settlement. He wrote: “The fact that habitations and other domestic evidence have never been uncovered on the hillside confirms the obvious. It is clear that the settlement in all ancient periods was situated on the valley floor” (p. 68). Actually, the only thing that the lack of evidence of a settlement proved at the time was that excavations had not yet uncovered one, not that one did not exist. All it would take to refute Salm on this important point is simply to find evidence of a settlement.

Salm’s Missing Settlement is Found

Salm’s faulty reasoning became apparent in late 2009 when evidence of a domestic habitation was unearthed in the area he claimed was never a first-century settlement. In December of 2009, Nazareth made worldwide headlines. Archaeologist Yardena Alexandre and her colleagues uncovered a small structure that they dated to the time of Christ (Hadid, 2009). The Israel Antiquities Authority official press release hailed this discovery as the first of its kind in which a residential structure was uncovered. The announcement noted the importance of the discovery, and quoted Yardena:

The discovery is of utmost importance since it reveals for the very first time a house from the Jewish village of Nazareth and thereby sheds light on the way of life at the time of Jesus. The building that we found is small and modest and it is most likely typical of the dwellings in Nazareth in that period. From the few written sources that there are, we know that in the first century CE Nazareth was a small Jewish village, located inside a valley. Until now a number of tombs from the time of Jesus were found in Nazareth; however, no settlement remains have been discovered that are attributed to this period (as quoted in “Residential Building...,” 2009).
Alexandre based her dating conclusions on the clay and chalk pottery shards that were found in the house. The pottery shards date from the Hellenic Roman period from 100 B.C. to A.D. 100. The researchers suggested that the existence of chalk indicated that Jews lived in the town, since such chalk “was used by the Jews at the time to ensure the purity of the food and water kept inside the vessels” (Hadid, 2009). The Israel Antiquities Authority confirmed this statement, and added that using such chalk vessels was unique and exclusive to the Jewish community (“Residential Building...,” 2009). Hadid also reported that Yardena and her fellow archaeologists believe that the lack of fancier, more expensive materials such as glass indicates that the residents of the small village were “simple,” maybe traders or farmers.

The house on which Alexandre and her team focused their research seems to have been about 900 square feet in area. Due to constraints at the sight, however, the team believes the house could be larger than the area that they have uncovered, but Yardena does not foresee the chance to excavate the area further. The remains of the house include “a wall, a hideout, a courtyard and a water system that appeared to collect water from the roof and supply it to the home” (Hadid, 2009). In addition, the team also found a hidden entryway into a small cave that Alexandre believes the Jews living in Nazareth used to hide from Roman soldiers.

The dating method used by Yardena and her team, of matching pottery from the site to other pottery in an attempt to properly identify the time frame of the dig, is one of the most frequently used dating methods in archaeology. McRay mentioned this dating method as one of the most effective:

The potters of antiquity were careful imitators but reluctant innovators.... At any rate style did seem to change from period to period, slowly but decisively, and we are now able to observe those changes in style and from them establish a chronology. The methodology is not exact, but within reasonable limitations it does provide a workable typology upon which to construct a fairly reliable chronology (1991, p. 32).
Since Salm’s book was published in 2006, he could not have included the 2009 find in his writings. And while he may attempt to dismiss the new find, or re-work his information around it, the fact that only one year after his major publication a new archaeological find in the area overturns numerous assertions he made shows that his misguided reasoning is inherently flawed.

More “Absence of Evidence” Reasoning

In addition to his faulty reasoning from the absence of evidence regarding a first-century settlement in Nazareth, Salm applies the same type of reasoning to literature that does not mention Nazareth. He wrote: “Nazareth is not mentioned in Jewish scripture, nor in the writings of the first century Jewish general Josephus, nor in the Talmud of later times. How, then, was it possible for the town to exist and yet to evade mention for so many centuries?” (2008, p. 64). As we have seen, the fact that a city or settlement is not found, or is not mentioned, does nothing to provide positive evidence that it did not exist. In regard to Salm’s statement, one could easily respond that the New Testament documents do, in fact, mention the city and those documents happen to be among the best-attested and most historically accurate ancient literature available (see Butt, 2007). In addition, the New Testament testimony about the city reveals that it was most likely small and despised at the time. As Freund noted: “Although the city name of Nazareth might not have been known in antiquity, it is also possible that Nazareth is simply not mentioned in these other writings because it was a small, out of the way village” (Freund, 2009, p. 297).

Salm’s “Lack” of Evidence Lacks Evidence

It has been shown that Salm’s “lack of evidence” reasoning is inherently flawed. Furthermore, we have seen that a single new find can upset the most painstakingly devised assertions based on such thinking. Salm’s thesis runs into additional problems when one takes a close look at the evidence that is actually available, and that he acknowledges as authentic.

Bow-Spouted Lamps
As mentioned earlier, one of the most accurate ways to date any ancient location is by the pottery and lamps that are found there. In an attempt to prove his claim that none of the pottery or lamps
A bow-spouted Herodian lamp
found in Nazareth shows that the town was inhabited during the time of Christ, Salm must deal with the numerous pieces of pottery that others have dated to that time. He stated: “Ultimately, an accurate history of Nazareth can be determined only on the basis of datable material excavated on the site” (2008, p. 105). To describe evidence that he believed would meet that criterion, Bagatti wrote concerning the grotto he labeled #25: “Small pieces of ‘Herodian’ lamps found at the threshold and a little inside show clearly how this place was in use already in the first century” (1969, p. 46). Concerning the various “Herodian” lamps from this grotto and others around the site, Bagatti stated: “The ‘Herodian’ lamps give the known variants: without ornament, with circles near the wick-hole, the body with walls both roundish and angular” (1969, p. 309).

Concerning the lamps, Salm stated:

In 1961 P. Lapp wrote that undecorated bow-spouted lamps were current “75 B.C.A.D. 70.” In that same year, however, R. Smith tentatively dated the type from c. 37 BCE (the accession of Herod the Great). Smith even considered a later beginning for this lamp possible.... In 1980 J. Hayes wrote that such lamps were common in Jerusalem in early 1 CE. In 1982 Varda Sussman dated the appearance of this type in Judea to ‘the reign of Herod.’ A few years later, however, she was able to conclude: ‘Recent archaeological evidence suggests that their first appearance was somewhat later, after the reign of Herod (emphasis added). We will adopt the latter view in these pages. Thus, we can now date the first appearance of the bow-spouted lamp in Jerusalem to c. 1-25 CE. Because a few years must be allowed for the spread of the type to rural villages of the north, c. 15-c. 40 CE is the earliest probable time for the appearance of this type in Southern Galilee. Accordingly, we shall adopt 25 CE as the terminus post quem for the bow-spouted oil lamp at Nazareth (2008, pp. 168-169, italics in orig, emp. added).
This lengthy quote shows the inherent bias and subtle ways that Salm chooses to evaluate the available evidence. Notice that many writers date the Herodian lamp to much earlier than A.D. 1-25, yet with a quick scratch of the pen, Salm simply states. “We will adopt the latter view in these pages.” Yet the “latter view” happens to be the crux of the issue. Could it be that the latter view is not right—that the lamp dates to as early as 75 or 37 B.C.? Yes. Salm gives no verified reason why the reader must “adopt the latter view.” In fact, Salm’s primary reason to adopt that view is because he has to have it in order to construct his case that Nazareth was not inhabited from 75 B.C.

Furthermore, after arbitrarily adopting the “latter view,” he again gives a date of A.D. 1-25 for the lamp’s appearance in Jerusalem. Yet the “latter view” (that he arbitrarily adopted) only mentioned that the appearance was “somewhat after” Herod’s reign. Salm picks the dates of A.D. 1-25, when it just as easily could have been 4 B.C.-A.D. 4. Then he again arbitrarily pulls out of the air the idea that A.D. 25 is the earliest the lamp could have arrived at Nazareth. Salm notes that the lamp continued in use until about A.D. 135 and stated: “The time span, then, for the bow-spouted lamp in Lower Galilee is slightly over a century: c. 25 CE to c. 135 CE” (p. 169). Salm then writes: “In conclusion, the data clearly show that settlers did not come into the basin before c. 25 CE” (p. 172). Let us notice, however, that Salm’s conclusion is not “what the data clearly show,” but only what Salm arbitrarily adopts as his earliest estimates. Using other estimates that he mentioned from other writers as possible dates of the lamps, one could just as easily say that the data “clearly show” that the settlers could have come in the basin in 60, 37, or 4 B.C.

Furthermore, there is an extremely important point to be made about Salm’s biased dating of the lamps. Even if we allow him to use all the latest possible dates, adding to them arbitrarily designated times spans of how long it would have taken the lamp to get to Nazareth, his own statements show that Nazareth could easily have been inhabited during the time of Christ. Salm wrote:

The incipience of a village is not equivalent to the arrival of the first settlers at the site. No village springs up overnight. It requires a certain amount of time—perhaps a generation or two—to come into existence.... The presence of tombs [in Nazareth] indicates both permanence and population, and it is strongly suggestive of a “village.” Thus, the earliest tomb at Nazareth is a significant clue regarding the existence of a village. Determining its date will be an important goal of these pages. The period of tomb use can be revealed by dating funerary artefacts found in situ (pp. 156-157, italics in orig.).
In this regard, Salm further noted that several of the bow-spouted lamps were found in tombs. Thus, according to Salm’s reasoning, tombs show the presence of a village, and settlers in the area could/would have been in the area possibly two generations before that village came into existence. Using Salm’s personally concocted date of A.D. 25 for the earliest date of the lamps, that means that the earliest tomb could possibly date to A.D. 25. And, if settlers were in the area two generations before that (using 40 years as a generation), that would put people in the area in about 55 B.C. Taking that into account, there is absolutely no way that Salm can prove that Nazareth was not inhabited during the time of Christ. The most he can do is suggest that, if his arbitrarily chosen dates are adopted, it seems improbable. Yet even this “improbability” does not accord well with the ranges of dates that are often adopted for such artifacts as the “Herodian” lamps.

Kokh Tombs
One of the most prevalent archaeological features of the area of Nazareth is the abundance of tombs. Salm and others recognize approximately 20 tombs in Nazareth as “kokh-type” tombs. Salm admits that kokh tomb use began in Jerusalem about 150 B.C. But he does not believe that such an early date can be attributed to the tombs in Galilee and Nazareth. Thus, he states: “As regards to Nazareth, the failure to completely appreciate a lag time between the appearance of kokh tombs and bow-spouted oil lamps in Jerusalem and their appearance in Galilee has generally resulted in an early chronology for the site” (p. 158). Salm asserts

that kokh tomb use begins c. 150 BCE in Jerusalem, comes to prevail in that city after Herod’s accession, and spreads to Galilee only after c. 50 CE. Thus M. Aviam has noted that “no Jewish tombs from the Hasmonaean or Early Roman periods have yet been excavated in the Galilee.” In all, there is a 200-year delay between the first beginnings of kokh use in Jerusalem and its appearance in Galilee (p. 159).
Again, notice Salm’s “absence of evidence” argumentation when he claims that since M. Aviam states that no kokh tomb from Hasmonaean or Early Roman times has been found or excavated, that must mean that none exists. Such is simply not the case. Furthermore, if one were to date the bow-spouted lamps back to 75 or 37 B.C., that would put the tombs at Nazareth in the early Roman period, as Chancey and Porter stated: “One of the more commonly discovered lamps for the early part of the Roman period is the so-called ‘Herodian Lamp,’ which appears at sites all over Palestine. The wide distribution of these lamps is probably a result of their relatively easy manufacturing process” (2001, p. 184).


A typical Kokh tomb in the first century A.D.

Salm then reasons that the earliest kokh tomb in Nazareth could date to A.D. 50. Yet, again, his number is nothing but arbitrary determination. Are we supposed to believe that it was impossible for the tomb design to reach Nazareth in less than 200 years? Could it have been 50 years earlier that the tomb design reached Nazareth? There is no evidentiary reason to conclude that such is not a possibility. In addition, using Salm’s own admission that such tombs show that settlers had been in the area for possibly two generations, using 40 years for a generation would still put people in the area by 30 B.C., well before the early childhood of Jesus. Once again, even if Salm is correct about his date (which is most likely not the case), his reasoning could only be used to suggest that there “might not” have been a village in the time of Christ, based only on the scant excavations done up to 2006. But he has taken it upon himself to prove that there could not have been, which he very well has not, and cannot, do.

CONCLUSION

The excavations of Nazareth have stirred intense debate among scholars in recent years. In an effort to disprove biblical inerrancy, the skeptical community, led by René Salm, has attempted to prove that Nazareth was not inhabited during the time of Christ. Much of the argumentation used to come to this conclusion is based on a lack of evidence, and such reasoning has been repeatedly shown to be flawed. Furthermore, the recent find of a structure that corresponds with a domestic habitation in the area, with datable pottery, overturns a host of the skeptical community’s false assertions concerning Nazareth.

In addition, the dates for bow-spouted lamps and kokh tombs admit, at the very least, the possibility of a settlement in the area, even using Salm’s dating and reasoning. And to the unbiased observer, exhibit obvious signs of habitation during the time that Christ was said to be living in the area. Salm’s arbitrary dates, however, show an evident bias and subjective stance, and far earlier dates could most rationally be assigned to both of these archaeological artifacts. In summary, a reasonable investigator must recognize that Nazareth was inhabited as early as 2000 B.C., and its habitation by Jews between 100 B.C.—100 A.D. fits well with all the information currently extant from the site.

REFERENCES

Bagatti, Bellarmino (1969), Excavations in Nazareth From the Beginning till the XII Century, trans. E. Hoade (Jerusalem: Franciscan Press).

Bagatti, Bellarmino (1971), The Church from the Circumcision (Jerusalem: Franciscan Press).

Butt, Kyle, (2007), Behold! The Word of God (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Chancey, Mark A. and Adam Porter (2001), “The Archaeology of Roman Palestine,” Near Eastern Archaeology, 64[4]: 164-203.

DeVries, LaMoine (1997), Cities of the Biblical World (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson).

Freund, Richard A. (2009), Digging Through the Bible: Understanding Biblical People, Places, and Controversies through Archaeology (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield).

Hadid, Diaa (2009), “First Jesus-era House Found in Nazareth,” MSNBC, December 22, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34511072/ns/technology_and_science-science/.

McRay, John (1991), Archaeology and the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).

“Residential Building from the Time of Jesus Exposed in Nazareth” (2009), Israel Ministry of Foreign, December 21, Affairs, 21 December, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Early+History+-+Archaeology/Residential_building_time_Jesus_Nazareth_21-Dec-2009.htm.

Salm, René (2008), The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press).

Love is not Jealous, so Why is God? by Eric Lyons, M.Min.


http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=777

Love is not Jealous, so Why is God?

by  Eric Lyons, M.Min.

The argument goes something like this: (1) 1 John 4:8 indicates that “God is love;” (2) 1 Corinthians 13:4 says that “love is not jealous” (NAS); and yet (3) Exodus 20:5, along with several other passages, reveals that God is “a jealous God.” “How,” the skeptic asks, “can God be jealous when several verses say God is love and 1 Cor. says love is not jealous?” (McKinsey, 1992). Simply put, if love is not jealous, and God is love, then God logically cannot be called jealous. Or conversely, if love is not jealous, and God is jealous, then God cannot be considered loving. Right? How can these verses be anything but contradictory?
The term “jealousy” most often carries a negative connotation in twenty-first-century America. We pity the man who is jealous of his coworker’s success. We frown upon families who react to a neighbor’s newly found fortune by becoming overcome with jealously. And we are perturbed to hear of a jealous husband who distrusts his wife, and questions every possible wrong action that she might make, even going so far as demanding that she never leave the house without him. Add to these feelings about jealousy what various New Testament passages have to say on the subject, and one can understand why some might sincerely question why God is described at times as “jealous.” The apostle Paul admonished the Christians in Rome to “behave properly,” and put off “strife and jealousy” (Romans 13:13, NAS). To the church at Corinth, Paul expressed concern that when he came to their city he might find them involved in such sinful things as gossip, strife, and jealousy (2 Corinthians 12:20). And, as noted above, he explicitly told them that “love is not jealous” (1 Corinthians 13:4). James also wrote about the sinfulness of jealousy, saying that where it exists “there is disorder and every evil thing” (3:16; cf. Acts 7:9). One religious writer described such jealousy as “an infantile resentment springing from unmortified covetousness, which expresses itself in envy, malice, and meanness of action” (Packer, 1973, p. 189). It seems, more often than not, that both the New Testament and the “moral code” of modern society speak of “jealousy” in a negative light.
The truth is, however, sometimes jealously can be spoken of in a good sense. The word “jealous” is translated in the Old Testament from the Hebrew word qin’ah, and in the New Testament from the Greek word zelos. The root idea behind both words is that of “warmth” or “heat” (Forrester, 1996). The Hebrew word for jealousy carries with it the idea of “redness of the face that accompanies strong emotion” (Feinberg, 1942, p. 429)—whether right or wrong. Depending upon the usage of the word, it can be used to represent both a good and an evil passion. Three times in 1 Corinthians, Paul used this word in a good sense to encourage his brethren to “earnestly desire (zeeloúte)” spiritual gifts (12:31; 14:1,39). He obviously was not commanding the Corinthians to sin, but to do something that was good and worthwhile. Later, when writing to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul was even more direct in showing how there was such a thing as “godly jealousy.” He stated:
I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it (2 Corinthians 11:2-4, emp. added).
Paul’s burning desire was for the church at Corinth to abide in the love of God. As a friend of the bridegroom (Christ), Paul used some of the strongest language possible to encourage the “bride” of Christ at Corinth to be pure and faithful.
In a similar way, Jehovah expressed His love for Israel in the Old Testament by proclaiming to be “a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 4:24). He was not envious of the Israelites’ accomplishments or possessions, but was communicating His strong love for them with anthropomorphic language. The Scriptures depict a spiritual marriage between Jehovah and His people. Sadly, during the period of the divided kingdom, both Israel and Judah were guilty of “playing the harlot” (Jeremiah 3:6-10). God called Israel’s idolatrous practice “adultery,” and for this reason He had “put her away and given her a certificate of divorce” (3:8). This is not the “lunatic fury of a rejected or supplanted suitor,” but a “zeal to protect a love-relationship” (Packer, p. 189). Jehovah felt for Israel “as the most affectionate husband could do for his spouse, and was jealous for their fidelity, because he willed their invariable happiness” (Clarke, 1996, emp. added). Song of Solomon 8:6 is further proof that love and jealousy are not always opposed to each other. To her beloved, the Shulamite said: “Put me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, jealousy is as severe as Sheol; its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord” (NAS). In this passage, love and jealousy actually are paralleled to convey the same basic meaning (see Tanner, 1997, p. 158)—that (aside from one’s love for God) marital love is “the strongest, most unyielding and invincible force in human experience” (NIV Study Bible, 1985, p. 1012). In this sense, being a jealous husband or wife is a good thing. As one commentator noted, married persons “who felt no jealousy at the intrusion of a lover or an adulterer into their home would surely be lacking in moral perception; for the exclusiveness of marriage is the essence of marriage” (Tasker, 1967, p. 106).
Truly, love has a jealous side. There is a sense in which one legitimately can be jealous for what rightfully belongs to him (see Numbers 25). Such is especially true in the marriage relationship. Israel was God’s chosen people (Deuteronomy 7:6). He had begun to set them apart as a special nation by blessing their “father” Abraham (Genesis 12:1ff; 17:1-27). He blessed the Israelites with much numerical growth while living in Egypt (Exodus 1:7,12,19; Deuteronomy 26:5; cf. Genesis 15:5; 46:3). He delivered them from Egyptian bondage (Exodus 3-12). And, among other things, He gave them written revelation, which, if obeyed, would bring them spiritually closer to Jehovah, and even would make them physically superior to other nations, in that they would be spared from various diseases (see Exodus 15:26). Like a bird that watches over her eggs and young with jealousy, preventing other birds from entering her nest, God watched over the Israelites with “righteous” jealousy, unwilling to tolerate the presence of false gods among his people (see Exodus 20:3-6; Joshua 24:14-16,19-20). Such “godly jealousy” (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:2) was not what Paul had in mind in 1 Corinthians 13:4.

REFERENCES

Clarke, Adam (1996), Adam Clarke’s Commentary (Electronic Database: Biblesoft).
Feinberg, Charles Lee (1942), “Exegetical Studies in Zechariah: Part 10,” Bibliotheca Sacra, 99:428-439, October.
Forrester, E.J. (1996), “Jealousy,” International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (Electronic Database Biblesoft).
McKinsey, C. Dennis (1992), [On-line], URL: http://members.aol.com/chas1222/bepart56.html.
NIV Study Bible (1985), (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).
Packer, J.I. (1973), Knowing God (London: Hodder and Stoughton).
Tanner, J. Paul (1997), “The Message of the Song of Songs,” Bibliotheca Sacra, 154: 142-161, April.
Tasker, R.V.G. (1967), The Epistle of James (London: Tyndale Press).

How Long Were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? by Bert Thompson, Ph.D.


http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=157

How Long Were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?

by  Bert Thompson, Ph.D.

Q.

On occasion, those who defend the concept of an old Earth suggest that it is impossible to know how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden and that untold years may have elapsed during that time period. Is this a possibility? How long were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?

A.

The suggestion that millions or billions of years may have passed during the time Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden is a common ploy of those who, like progressive creationists and theistic evolutionists, advocate an ancient Earth. However, it is nothing but another failed attempt to try to insert vast ages of geologic/evolutionary time into the biblical record. Consider, in this regard, two popular arguments that frequently are offered in support of such a concept.
First, one theistic evolutionist, John N. Clayton, has suggested that since a part of God’s curse on Eve was that He was going to multiply her pain in childbirth (Genesis 3:16), she must have given birth to numerous children in the garden, or else God’s curse would have meant nothing to her. How could God “multiply” something if she never had experienced it in the first place? Furthermore, Clayton has lamented, rearing children is a process that requires considerable time, thereby allowing for the possibility that Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden for an extended period prior to being evicted after their sin. As Clayton has written: “Every evidence we have biblically indicates that mankind’s beginning in the Garden of Eden was not a short period which involved one man and one woman” (1980, 7[1]:5, emp. added).
The second argument (which is somewhat related to the first) suggests that Adam and Eve must have been in the garden for quite some time because after they left, it was said of Cain that “he builded a city” (Genesis 4:17). To quote Clayton, that would be something that “you cannot do with you and your wife” (7[1]:5). In other words, Cain had to have a large enough family to assist him in building “a city.” That, suggests Clayton, would have taken a lot of time.
Mr. Clayton is completely in error when he states that “every evidence we have biblically indicates that mankind’s beginning in the Garden of Eden was not a short period which involved one man and one woman.” The fact is, every evidence we have biblically proves conclusively that man and woman could not have been in the garden for very long. Consider the following.
First, regardless of what defenders of an ancient Earth may wish were true, the simple fact of the matter is that the Bible sets an outer limit on the amount of time that man could have lived in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 5:5 states clearly that “all the days that Adam lived were 930 years.” We know, of course, that “days” and “years” already were being counted by the time of Adam’s creation because in Genesis 1:14 (day four of the Creation week) God mentioned both in His discussion of their relationship to the heavenly bodies. Therefore, however long Adam and Eve may have been in the garden, one thing is certain: they were not there for any time period that exceeded Adam’s life span of 930 years. But there is additional information that must be considered as well. Genesis 4:25 explains that Seth was born after Cain slew Abel. Since the biblical account makes it clear that Seth was born outside the garden, and since Genesis 5:3 informs us that Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born, it is obvious that Adam and Eve could not have been in the Garden of Eden any longer than 130 years!
Second, surely it is not inconsequential that all the children of Adam and Eve mentioned in the Bible were born outside the Garden of Eden. Not one conception, or birth, is mentioned as having occurred while Adam and Eve lived in the garden (see Genesis 4:1 for the first mention of any conception or birth—only after the couple’s expulsion from Eden). Follow closely the importance and logic of this argument, which may be stated as follows.
One of the commands given to Adam and Eve was that they “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the Earth” (Genesis 1:28). [Interestingly, Isaiah would say many years later that God created the Earth “to be inhabited” (Isaiah 45:18).] In other words, Adam and Eve were commanded to reproduce.
Now, what is sin? Sin is: (a) doing what God said not to do; or (b) not doing what God said to do. Up until the time that Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:6), had they sinned? No, they still were in a covenant relationship with God and everything was perfect. Since that is the case, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that Adam and Eve were doing what God had commanded them to do—reproducing. Yet, I repeat, the only conceptions and births of which we have any record occurred outside the garden! In other words, apparently Adam and Eve were not even in the garden long enough for Eve to conceive, much less give birth.
Third, while the Bible does not provide a specific time regarding how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden, it could not have been very long because Christ Himself, in referring to the curse of death upon the human family as a result of its sinful rebellion against God, specifically stated that the devil “was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). [Of interest is the fact that in Luke 11:45-52, the account is recorded of the Lord rebuking the Jews of His day. He charged them with following in the footsteps of their ancestors. He foretold the destruction that was yet to befall them. And, He announced that upon them would come “the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world.” Then, with emphatic linguistic parallelism typical of Hebrew expression, He added: “from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zachariah....” Jesus therefore placed the murder of Abel near the “foundation of the world.” Granted, Abel’s death occurred some years after the Creation, but it was close enough to that event for Jesus to state that it was associated with “the foundation of the world.” If vast spans of time—that is, enough to accommodate evolutionists and their sympathizers—occurred while Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, then how could the shedding of human blood be declared by the Son of God to extend back to the “foundation of the world”?]
Satan and his ignominious band of outlaws (“sons of the evil one”—Matthew 13:38) have worked their ruthless quackery on mankind from the very moment the serpent met mother Eve in the Garden of Eden. When he and his cohorts rebelled and “kept not their proper habitation,” they were cast from the heavenly portals to be “kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6).
The conditions of Satan‘s surrender were harsh. Although he had been completely vanquished, although his armies had been thoroughly routed, and although the Victor had imposed the worst kind of permanent exile, Satan was determined not to go gently into the night. While he admittedly had lost the war, he nevertheless was planning future skirmishes. Vindictive by nature (Revelation 12:12), in possession of cunning devices (2 Corinthians 2:11), and thoroughly determined to be “the deceiver of the world” (Revelation 12:9), he set his face against all that is righteous and holy—and never once looked back. His anger at having been defeated fueled his determination to strike back in revenge.
But strike back at whom? God’s power was too great, and His omnipotence was too all-consuming (Job 42:2; 1 John 4:4). Another target was needed; another repository of satanic revenge would have to be found. And who better to serve as the recipient of hell’s unrighteous indignation than mankind—the only creature in the Universe made “in the image and likeness of God” (Genesis 1:26-27)? As the late Rex A. Turner Sr. observed: “Satan cannot attack God directly, thus he employs various methods to attack man, God’s master creation” (1980, p. 89). What sweet revenge—despoiling the “apple of God’s eye” and the zenith of His creative genius! Thus, with the creation of man, the battle was on. Little wonder that in his first epistle the apostle Peter described Satan as an adversary that, “as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (5:8).
Now—knowing what the Scriptures tell us about Satan’s origin, attitude, and mission—is it sensible to suggest that he would take his proverbial time, and twiddle his figurative thumbs, while allowing Adam and Eve to revel in the covenant relationship they enjoyed with their Maker (Genesis 3:8 relates how God walked with them in the garden “in the cool of the day”)? Would Satan simply “leave them alone for a long period of time” so that they could conceive, give birth to, and rear children in the luscious paradise known as the Garden of Eden? Is this how a hungry, stalking lion would view its prey—by watching admiringly from afar, allowing it hundreds or thousands of years of fulfilled joy, and affording it time to conceive, give birth to, and rear a family? Hardly—which is why Christ described Satan as a murderer “from the beginning.” Satan was in no mood to wait. He was angry, he was bitter, and he was filled with a thirst for revenge. What better way to slake that thirst than introducing sin into God’s perfect world?
What may be said, then, about John Clayton’s suggestion that Adam and Eve must have been in the garden for an extended period of time since God said that He was going to “multiply” Eve’s pain? How could He possibly “multiply” something she never had experienced? This quibble can be answered quite easily. Does a person have to “experience” something before that something can be “multiplied”? Suppose I said, “I’m going to give you $100.” You therefore stick out your hand to receive the $100 bill I am holding in mine. But I immediately pull back my hand and say, “No, I’ve changed my mind; I am going to give you $1,000 instead!” Did you actually have to possess or “experience” the $100 before I could increase it to $1,000? Of course not.
The fact God said He was going to “multiply” Eve’s pain in childbirth does not mean necessarily that Eve had to have experienced some pain prior to God’s decree that she would experience more pain. God’s point was merely this: “Eve, you were going to experience some pain in childbirth, but because of your sin, now you will experience even more pain.” The fact that Eve never had experienced any childbirth pain up to that point does not mean that she could not experience even more pain later as a part of her penalty for having sinned against God.
Last, what about John Clayton’s idea that Adam and Eve must have been in the Garden for an extended period of time because the text indicates that when they left Cain and his wife “builded a city” (Genesis 4:17). Clayton has lamented that this is “something which you cannot do with you and your wife” (1980, 7[1]:5). Of course he would be correct—if the city under discussion were a modern metroplex. But that is not the case here.
The Hebrew word for city is quite broad in its meaning. It may refer to anything from a sprawling village to a mere encampment. Literally, the term means “place of look-out, especially as it was fortified.” In commenting on Genesis 4:17, Old Testament commentator John Willis observed: “However, a ‘city’ is not necessarily a large, impressive metropolis, but may be a small unimposing village of relatively few inhabitants” (1979, p. 155). Again, apply some common sense here. What would it be more likely for the Bible to suggest that Cain and his wife constructed (considering who they were and where they were living)—a thriving, bustling, metropolis, or a Bedouin tent city? To ask is to answer, is it not? To this very day, Bedouin tent cities are quite commonplace in that particular area of the world. And—as everyone will admit—two boy scouts can erect a tent, so it hardly strains credulity to suggest that Cain and his wife would have been able to accomplish such a task as well.

REFERENCES

Clayton, John N. (1980), “Is the Age of the Earth Related to a ‘Literal Interpretation’ of Genesis?,”Does God Exist?, 7[1]:3-8, January.
Turner, Rex A. Sr. (1980), Systematic Theology (Montgomery, AL: Alabama Christian School of Religion).
Willis, John T. (1979), “Genesis,” The Living Word Commentary (Austin, TX: Sweet).

Dinosaur Extinction Rewritten Again by Kyle Butt, M.Div.


http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=1089

Dinosaur Extinction Rewritten Again

by  Kyle Butt, M.Div.

Since 1978, the scientific community has thrown heavy support to the story that a huge asteroid hammered the Earth 65 million years ago and caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. Beautifully illustrated books feature detailed pictures of the alleged event. Multi-million-dollar movies have presented the animated version of the purported catastrophe and indelibly ingrained the idea into the minds of millions. Of course, this epic mass-extinction never happened in real life. Young Earth creationists have known this truth for years. Besides the fact that the millions-of-years timetable is a myth, it is a scientific, historical, and biblical fact that dinosaurs went extinct only a few hundred years ago (see Lyons and Butt, 2008).
Now, however, even the evolutionary scientific community is calling the asteroid fable into question. Jeffrey Kluger wrote an article titled “Maybe an Asteroid Didn’t Kill the Dinosaurs” (2009). In the article, he reviewed a study in the Journal of the Geological Society, which he says throws the entirety of the asteroid theory “into question” (2009).
The study, done by geoscientists Gerta Keller and Thierry Addate, asserts that the massive die-off occurred 300,000 years after the asteroid impact. To arrive at this figure, they studied a 30-foot layer of sediment just above the alleged asteroid impact layer. Using uniformitarian assumptions, they claimed that the layers of the sediment were laid down at a rate of about one inch per thousand years, giving an approximate time of 300,000 years. Furthermore, they looked at “52 distinct species” below the 30-foot sediment, and the same 52 were present through the 30-foot layer of sediment. The die-offs of the species were not seen until 300,000 years after the supposed asteroid impact (Kluger). Thus, the authors concluded that the asteroid could not have caused the dinosaur extinction. [NOTE: We do not believe the uniformitarian assumptions, nor the vast amounts of geological time. They are reported simply to show that the evolutionary scientists themselves have a problem with the standard dinosaur extinction model.]
Kluger then asked the question that comes to many of our minds: “So if the Chicxulub asteroid didn’t kill the dinosaurs, what did?” He answered his own question, stating: “Paleontologists have advanced all manner of theories over the years.” Indeed they have, but the vast majority of these theories have been plagued by false uniformitarian assumptions, as well as the denial of the evidence that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time (see Lyons and Butt, 2008). There remains one cataclysm in ancient history that the atheistic scientific community refuses to factor into dinosaur mass destruction—the global Flood. The Flood persists as the best explanation for the massive dinosaur graveyards that exist today (Lyons and Butt, pp. 205-223). Furthermore, the Flood is a historical reality that simply cannot be written out of the record like so many false dinosaur extinction theories have been.

REFERENCES

Kluger, Jeffrey (2009), “Maybe an Asteroid Didn’t Kill the Dinosaurs,” TIME, [On-line], URL: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1894225,00.html?xid=rss-healthsci-yahoo.
Lyons, Eric and Kyle Butt (2008), The Dinosaur Delusion: Dismantling Evolution’s Most Cherished Icon (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).