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Sophomore Sparks Student Movement

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Sophomore Sparks Student Movement Tuesday February 19, Creation Science Evangelism attended the Florida State Board of Education meeting where the Board voted to include �the scientific theory of evolution� as �the fundamental concept underlying all of biology� into law in its public school science standards. Subsequently, Florida followed a trend sweeping the nation in an attempt to eliminate a teacher�s freedom to question evolution. View a news report and press release regarding this decision.

One by one, other states can expect similar attempts to silence teachers. But while a teacher may or may not have the academic freedom to question evolution, one thing still remains � a student can always bring up the discussion, freeing the teacher to openly discuss the weaknesses of evolution.

One student did just that. In January, sophomore Kayla Manicks contacted CSE offices with a prayer request for her high school. After a number drug- and alcohol-related fatalities, bomb threats, and suicide attempts by her peers, Kayla said, �Everything [in our school] is going haywire.�

Kayla, acknowledging that evolution has much to do with the reason the majority of students in her high school are atheists and agnostics, was burdened to make a difference. Creation Science Evangelism was happy to help and encouraged her to seek the support of her local church. Two days later we equipped her with dozens of our Are You Being Brainwashed? booklets and informed her of her rights as a student to challenge the indoctrination of evolution and distribute the material to her classmates.

Just two weeks later, Kayla contacted us with amazing testimonies! She led an effort with her youth group to distribute the booklets and in one week two of her peers have been saved, two more are coming to church, her youth group is �fired up,� and even some atheists have begun questioning evolution. Kayla says, �I am so excited for our school and the lost students. God is doing such a wonderful work in some of the students� hearts and some of the students� consciences.�

Creation Science Evangelism wants to empower more students to use their rights in the classroom to respectfully question the flaws of evolution and lead classmates to the truth. Do what Kayla did and help get this life-changing material into the hands of public school students. Beginning today, you can get Are You Being Brainwashed? as a FREE download (PDF) or purchase quantities of 120 at a special rate of $240. All we ask is that you distribute these to fellow students and write to us with your testimonies. We can�t wait to hear how God uses the voices of students to proclaim the truth!

Related Resources

Are You Being Brainwashed? Case of Booklets - $240 Are You Being Brainwashed? Individual Booklet - $3.50 Students' Legal Rights
Book - $8.75 Lies in the Textbooks
DVD - $17.95

National Geographic News: ��Hobbit� Human Was Unique Species, Wrist Bones Sugges

A new study of the wrist bones of one “hobbit,” found among a hobbit group in 2004 in Indonesia, suggests the hobbit was a unique species, not a diseased modern human. The study is the latest contributor to a debate over the hobbits’ true status.

On one hand (excuse the pun) are researchers who claim this hobbit is sufficiently different from modern humans to occupy its own species, named Homo floresiensis. On the other hand are scientists who claim the diminutive human was diseased with microcephaly, a condition resulting in, among other problems, small head size. The hobbit’s skull size, based on remains found, was approximately the size of a grapefruit.

Matthew Tocheri, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, is the lead author of a Science study that examined the hobbit wrist bones, concluding that the wrists were more primitive and similar to those of gorillas, chimpanzees, and other early human ancestors (which Answers in Genesis would consider to also be apes, not human ancestors). National Geographic News reports:

Before conducting his hobbit study, Tocheri had found that a particular wrist bone is wedge-shaped in great apes and early human ancestors but is squared-off in modern humans and Neandertals. That wrist bone in the hobbit retains the wedge shape, he found.

Those from the “unique species” side of the debate add that the wrist evidence coincides with previous studies that “identified primitive shoulder joints and jawbones in the hobbit, as well as unpublished reports of primitive features in the foot.” Tocheri and his colleagues caution that more fossil specimens are needed.

However, biological anthropology curator Robert Martin of Chicago’s Field Museum (which, by the way, is no ally of creationists) says the possibility that the Indonesian fossil is a modern human has not been undone. Martin has already authored two papers arguing that the hobbit is a microcephalic human.

Martin points out that Tocheri’s study failed to compare the hobbit’s wrist bones to those of a modern human with microcephaly. Microcephaly, in addition to affecting head size, causes deformations throughout the skeletal system—including possibly affecting wrist bones.

“I stick to the suggestion that [the hobbit] is more likely to be a pathological modern human than any kind of new hominid species,” Martin said.

At this point, it seems the debate will go on in evolutionary circles; without more specimens, it is impossible to determine if this hobbit was abnormal or not, and scientists can only speculate on the degree to which disease could have altered the hobbit skeletal structure. All this underscores the difficulty of unearthing bones and trying to recreate the past without actual eyewitness accounts of what went on. For this reason, presuppositions are at the heart of how anyone reconstructs the past and interprets artifacts in the present. Starting with the presuppositions of uniformitarianism and Darwinism, some scientists hypothesize numerous species, even where only one is actually necessary; these scientists promote artists’ reconstructions that decorate sparse bones according to leading evolutionary theory (e.g., making Lucy look more human than she was and making Neandertal man look more ape than he was).

Starting with the presuppositions of the Bible and the eyewitness account in Genesis, we can understand that, though we don’t know all of the details, God created human beings unique, fully formed, and set apart from the animals. Furthermore, we expect some variation among humankind, both in the past and present, which is why we dig up human fossils of slightly different shape, size, and so forth. Creationists see these as variations on the original human “kind,” but evolutionists “wedge” the fossils into a lineage of human evolution. It all depends on your starting point.
Source Answers in Genesis http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/09/29/news-to-note-09292007

A Young Earth�it�s not the issue!

A Young Earth—it’s not the issue!

From Answers in Genesis
By Ken Ham

Time and time again I have found that in both Christian and secular worlds, those of us who are involved in the creation movement are characterized as ‘young Earthers.’ The supposed battle-line is thus drawn between the ‘old Earthers’ (this group consists of anti-God evolutionists as well as many ‘conservative’ Christians) who appeal to what they call ‘science,’ versus the ‘young Earthers,’ who are said to be ignoring the overwhelming supposed ‘scientific’ evidence for an old Earth.

I want to make it VERY clear that we don’t want to be known primarily as ‘young-Earth creationists.’ AiG’s main thrust is NOT ‘young Earth’ as such; our emphasis is on Biblical authority. Believing in a relatively ‘young Earth’ (i.e., only a few thousands of years old, which we accept) is a consequence of accepting the authority of the Word of God as an infallible revelation from our omniscient Creator.

Recently, one of our associates sat down with a highly respected world-class Hebrew scholar and asked him this question: ‘If you started with the Bible alone, without considering any outside influences whatsoever, could you ever come up with millions or billions of years of history for the Earth and universe?’ The answer from this scholar? ‘Absolutely not!’

Let’s be honest. Take out your Bible and look through it. You can’t find any hint at all for millions or billions of years.

For those of you who have kept up with our lectures and our articles in Answers magazine, you will have heard or read quotes from many well-known and respected Christian leaders admitting that if you take Genesis in a straight-forward way, it clearly teaches six ordinary days of Creation. However, the reason they don’t believe God created in six literal days is because they are convinced from so-called ‘science’ that the world is billions of years old. In other words, they are admitting that they start outside the Bible to (re)interpret the Words of Scripture.

When someone says to me, ‘Oh, so you’re one of those fundamentalist, young-Earth creationists,’ I reply, ‘Actually, I’m a revelationist, no-death-before-Adam redemptionist!’ (which means I’m a young-Earth creationist!).

Here’s what I mean by this: I understand that the Bible is a revelation from our infinite Creator, and it is self-authenticating and self-attesting. I must interpret Scripture with Scripture, not impose ideas from the outside! When I take the plain words of the Bible, it is obvious there was no death, bloodshed, disease or suffering of humans or animals before sin. God instituted death and bloodshed because of sin—this is foundational to the Gospel. Therefore, one cannot allow a fossil record of millions of years of death, bloodshed, disease and suffering before sin (which is why the fossil record makes much more sense as the graveyard of the flood of Noah’s day).

Also, the word for ‘day’ in the context of Genesis can only mean an ordinary day for each of the six days of Creation

Thus, as a ‘revelationist,’ I let God’s Word speak to me, with the words having meaning according to the context of the language they were written in. Once I accept the plain words of Scripture in context, the fact of ordinary days, no death before sin, the Bible’s genealogies, etc., all make it clear that I cannot accept millions or billions of years of history. Therefore, I would conclude there must be something wrong with man’s ideas about the age of the universe.

And the fact is, every single dating method (outside of Scripture) is based on fallible assumptions. There are literally hundreds of dating tools. However, whatever dating method one uses, assumptions must be made about the past. Not one dating method man devises is absolute! Even though 90% of all dating methods give dates far younger than evolutionists require, none of these can be used in an absolute sense either.
Question: Why would any Christian want to take man’s fallible dating methods and use them to impose an idea on the infallible Word of God? Christians who accept billions of years are in essence saying that man’s word is infallible, but God’s Word is fallible!

This is the crux of the issue. When Christians have agreed with the world that they can accept man’s fallible dating methods to interpret God’s Word, they have agreed with the world that the Bible can’t be trusted. They have essentially sent out the message that man, by himself, independent of revelation, can determine truth and impose this on God’s Word. Once this ‘door’ has been opened regarding Genesis, ultimately it can happen with the rest of the Bible.

You see, if Christian leaders have told the next generation that one can accept the world’s teachings in geology, biology, astronomy, etc., and use these to (re)interpret God’s Word, then the door has been opened for this to happen in every area, including morality.

Yes, one can be a conservative Christian and preach authoritatively from God’s Word from Genesis 12 onwards. But once you have told people to accept man’s dating methods, and thus should not take the first chapters of Genesis as they are written, you have effectively undermined the Bible’s authority! This attitude is destroying the church in America.

So, the issue is not ‘young Earth’ versus ‘old Earth,’ but this: Can fallible, sinful man be in authority over the Word of God?

A ‘young-Earth’ view admittedly receives the scoffing from a majority of the scientists. But Paul warned us in 1 Corinthians 8:2, ‘And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.’ Compared to what God knows, we know ‘next door to nothing!’ This is why we should be so careful to let God speak to us through His Word, and not try to impose our ideas on God’s Word.

It’s also interesting to note that this verse is found in the same passage where Paul warns that ‘knowledge puffeth up.’ Academic pride is found throughout our culture. Therefore, many Christian leaders would rather believe the world’s fallible academics, than the simple clear words of the Bible.

At Answers in Genesis, we believe this message needs to be proclaimed to the Church as a challenge to return to Biblical authority, and thus stand tall in the world for the accuracy of God’s Word. Ultimately, this is the only way we are going to reach the world with the truth of the Gospel message.

Let’s start 1998 by putting more and more pressure on our Christian leaders to take a long, hard look at how they are approaching the question of the authority of the Bible! Please help us fulfill our mission statement: to bring about reformation in the Church!

New science can�t save an old farce

New science can’t save an old farce

From Answers in Genesis
March 16, 2007

A field of evolutionary research is explored in-depth in this week’s issue of Newsweek (whose cover reads “The Evolution Revolution”). In “Beyond Stones & Bone”, author Sharon Begley describes how geneticists are increasingly relying on the technique of comparing genomes in the search for dates, as opposed to the old method of digging up fossil bones. Focusing on the evolutionary account of human origins, Begley writes, “Fossils and tools testified to our ancestors’ origins in Africa, the emergence of their ability to walk upright, the development of toolmaking and more. But now two new storytellers have begun speaking: DNA and brains.”

This “new science” is illustrated by Begley’s description of anthropologist Mark Stoneking’s work investigating lice. (That’s right, lice.) Stoneking, hoping to determine when clothing replaced hair as the prime human covering, compared the DNA of head lice (which live in hair) and body lice (which infest clothing). Then, using estimates for how quickly DNA ac*****ulates changes, Stoneking and his colleagues calculated that the “fork” in the louse family tree (when head lice and body lice went their separate ways) occurred “no more than 114,000 years ago.” Deducing that this divergence took place at the same time a new habitat (clothing) appeared, Stoneking concludes that humans first fashioned clothing right around 114,000 years ago. (One wonders if compromisers will fit this in with Genesis 3:7, 21)

It’s explorations like the above that led Begley to write:

Although we tend to see the march of species down through time as a single-file parade […] the emerging science shows that the story of our species is far more complicated than Biblical literalists would have it—but also more complex than secular science suspected. […] The neat traditional model in which one species gave rise to another like Biblical “begats” has been replaced by a profusion of branches, representing species that lived at the same time as our direct ancestors but whose lines died out.

Begley then describes various applications of the idea of the “molecular clock.” The idea of the molecular clock is that by extrapolating the present, observed rate of changes in DNA back into the past, then comparing the differences in two genomes, scientists can use math to determine how long ago two genomes diverged (hence Stoneking’s estimation of the louse divergence). For instance, the article reviews how the molecular clock indicates that humans and chimps diverged “5 to 6 million years ago” (although Begley mistakenly claims human and chimp DNA are “no more than 1.2 percent” different).

The article then runs into some of the inconsistencies in which this dating technique has resulted (for evolutionists, anyway). Begley describes alleged apeman “Toumai,” a supposed non-chimp ancestor of humans who would have, according to the traditional evolutionary model, evolved after the human-chimp split (which, as mentioned above, is placed at 5–6 million years ago according to the molecular clock). The problem is that other dating techniques place Toumai at 7 million years old; of course, this inconsistency doesn’t appear to shake these evolutionists’ faith in their dating methods.

Begley then explains how other new fields of research, such as “paleoneurology” (the study of fossil skulls and braincases), have similarly turned traditional evolutionary history topsy-turvy. According to the article, Homo erectus was “almost certainly a[n evolutionary] dead end,” rather than being our ancestor, as scientists have traditionally thought.

But inconsistencies such as these are only the first problem with these “revolutionary” evolutionary sciences. Another problem is the assumption of a constant rate of DNA change in the “molecular clock” model. Since scientists have only observed the rate of DNA mutations in the present, they must extrapolate that rate into the past using uniformitarian assumptions.

Of course, there are some legitimate “evolutionary” (i.e. variation within a kind) relationships. All dog species today are legitimately related as descendants of the original, created dog kind—having diverged since the creation, about 6,000 years ago.

Ultimately, the way in which a person interprets facts depends on their beginning assumptions. When an individual begins with the Bible, he or she sees how the diversity of life today fits into the Bible’s account of the history of the universe. When a person rejects the Bible’s account and relies on extrapolation into an “unknown” past, what does he or she get? Contradictions and more unknowns when trying to solve, as Begley puts it, “the age-old quest to understand where humankind came from and how we got here.” It’s a quest that’s put to rest when one finds the answers in Genesis.

The New Fascists?

The New Fascists?

From Answers in Genesis
by Mark Looy, CCO, AiG–U.S.
March 8, 2007
You can see them gathering on the horizon. Ready to take over America after the next 9/11-like crisis … and then destroy American democracy. These are the new "fascists," according to a book just published by a former New York Times correspondent. Who are they? Well, if you’re an evangelical peering off into the horizon to view the looming threat for yourself … well, you’re looking into a mirror. The new fascists are … evangelical Christians. And the growing legions of creationists are on the frontlines, suggests author Chris Hedges.
Book cover from American Fascists by Chris Hedges
Worse, Hedges says that at the next 9/11 of its kind, evangelicals are poised to take over the country: “Those arrayed against American democracy [i.e., evangelical Christians] are waiting for a moment to strike, a national crisis that will allow them to shred the Constitution in the name of national security and strength” (pp. 201–202). Already, declares Hedges, “this minority … is taking over the machinery of U.S. state and religious institutions” (p. 19).
I’ve never been called a fascist, but this new book by a former divinity student essentially calls me that. In Hedges’ book, with the inflammatory title American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, he calls evangelicals the new fascists and draws many comparisons to the Nazis of Hitler’s Germany. He targets creationists as a major ally in the fascistic effort. Hedges especially highlights our soon-to-open Creation Museum near Cincinnati, which he describes as a place that “presages a society where truth is banished” (p. 128).
Hedges’ bizarre premise is that theologically conservative Christians (including biblical creationists) are attempting to take over America … fascist-style. In so doing, he essentially insults, among others, those Christian heroes of World War II who risked their lives fighting fascism. Allegations of Christian fascism are terrible slaps in the face of prominent creationist leaders such as Dr. John Whitcomb (whose 1961 book The Genesis Flood—co-authored with Dr. Henry Morris—ignited the modern creationist movement) and famed creationist debater Dr. Duane Gish, both of whom risked their lives fighting fascism in WWII. However, knowing these two gracious Christian men rather well, I believe they would simply shrug off Hedges’ creationist-fascist claim as silliness.
While it would be tempting to dismiss this over-the-top book as the ranting of an anti-Christian, it should be pointed out that 1) Hedges is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School who grew up in a Presbyterian home (and today describes himself as a Christian); 2) he was a prominent foreign correspondent with The NY Times (and was on an investigative team with the Times that won a Pulitzer prize in 2002); 3) he is an author with a major publisher that has tremendous marketing clout (Simon and Schuster); and 4) he is a frequent interview guest for major newspapers and other media outlets.
His book merits particular attention from AiG because chapter 6 devotes huge chunks to us (and our future museum). Hedges views AiG as a group that proclaims a “subversive message … that it’s OK to believe what we want, to believe lies” (p. 115). More dangerously, he asserts that the goal of the creationists “is the destruction of the core values of the open society” (p. 116). (How ironic, we should note, that our so-called open society of today won’t tolerate any questioning of the evolution belief system in schools and other public places.)
Our review of American Fascists will primarily examine chapter 6, and the review of that chapter will come in a follow-up article soon. But for the remainder of this part of the review, a few comments about the rest of Hedges’ text are in order so that the creationist section is seen within the broader context of the entire book.
Hedges’ biggest concern about the evangelical church is an element within it called “dominion theology.” While he does admit that not all Christians subscribe to a belief that there is a mandate to set up a theocracy in America (he acknowledges that “fundamentalists” have traditionally avoided political activism, but that some are no longer doing so today), Hedges believes that most prominent evangelicals are banding together to advance a subversive “religious right” agenda.
As someone who has been in ministry since the early 1970s and who has had first-hand contact with the leaders of many prominent evangelical ministries and influential churches over the years, I have never seen any evidence of what Hedges has supposedly discovered for himself: that Christians are plotting a takeover of America, and are just waiting for the right opportunity to act.
Hedges admits that the dominion movement is “small in number” (and indeed it is), but he gets around that difficulty by stating that they are “influential” (p. 10) and adds that “the potency of this radical movement far exceeds its numbers” (p. 19). He is, of course, grasping at straws. Because he admits that he can’t find many theocrats among evangelicals, he thus overstates their significance to make his point.
A few pages later, and in one of the many unintentional ironies in the book, Hedges attempts to undermine one of the evangelicals’ oft-cited claims: that humanists, not evangelicals, have the major influence in society (in politics, academia, the media, museums, etc.). He counters with the feeble argument that there are only 3,000 members of the American Humanist Association (p. 27). So his argument is that because this particular group is small, the humanist movement can’t be influential or potent whereas the even smaller Dominion Theology movement (which has no such large national association) is supposedly controlling the evangelical world.
Time and time again in his book, Hedges singles out a particular Christian leader in an attempt to make him (sometimes “her”) represent the whole of the Church. He points, for example, to a major televangelist and his “name it and then claim it” theology, to indicate that the so-called prosperity gospel is dominant in the church (which is false, although it certainly is promoted by some mega-churches). Similarly, Hedges told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (January 14) that a belief system exists among many Christians that “God will not only take care of you but God will also make you successful, often in economic terms.” That is a gross distortion of what most evangelicals believe.
Hedges also told the Journal-Constitution that the antics of “prosperity” televangelists are similar to the “despotic movements, [where] figures are often laughable and buffoonish.” Note, however, that this type of televangelist typically does not get sidetracked into political causes; instead, they seem to have another goal in mind (financial prosperity). According to Hedges, though, if you’re a buffoonish Christian on TV and have millions of viewers, you are well on the road to despotism. We can think of certain over-the-top TV commentators—with strong political views (Jerry Springer, Bill Maher, Keith Olberman, et al.)—who might be better candidates in leading a national uprising.
As another example of his constant over-generalization and implication of sinister motives, Hedges accuses the mega-ministry of Focus on the Family with having the primary mandate of recruiting believers into a political movement and, correspondingly, pushing dominion theology. Now, Focus on the Family certainly encourages its supporters to be involved in the political process, but its president, James Daly, has publicly spoken against theocracy. Daly also says that Christians should act lovingly towards those who may push a humanist agenda. But because of Focus’s size and influence, Hedges demonizes them as leading the theocracy movement. So much for careful and honest reporting!
Interestingly, the alleged impending uprising by Christians, with which Hedges is so concerned, is lacking a major hallmark of fascist groups: committing acts of violence. Except for a few isolated exceptions over the years, Christians (even those who might embrace dominion theology) rarely engage in violent acts against society. I can’t think of a single act of violence committed—or encouraged—by any of the dozens of evangelical leaders that Hedges mentions in his book. This is an obvious counter to his thesis that the religious right is fascistic and is waging a revolution on liberty.
Hedges points out that there are paramilitary groups that identify themselves as being Christian based (p. 29), but he acknowledges that they are “obscure” and “shadowy” (hence not significant, I would add). Further, I don’t believe that many of their members would even think of calling themselves evangelicals. Lacking hard data, Hedges relies on anecdotes to build his case that evangelicals are on the march to take over America. In a relatively short, small-format book (207 pages), Hedges tells many stories about evangelical leaders—particularly as he cites disgruntled former employees to help portray their previous evangelical boss as fascistic. A disgruntled former staff member is not the most objective of witnesses.
To be fair to Hedges in one respect, Christians do use language from the Bible that has military metaphors. This would include phrases in Ephesians 6 such as: “put on the whole armor of God,” “the shield of faith,” “the sword of the Spirit,” etc. Taken out of context, such words can feed the false belief held by Hedges and others that evangelicals can be militaristic; yet when a typical ministry employs such biblically based words and phrasing, it is almost always used in the context of the spiritual warfare the Apostle Paul writes about in his letter to the Ephesians and elsewhere.
Who are the better candidates to be the fascists of the 21st century? It’s those non-Christians who, in the name of tolerance, will refuse to tolerate those labeled as “intolerant” (especially if the “intolerant” ones hold to absolute moral standards, as most evangelicals do). In fact, Hedges quotes (sympathetically) the late philosopher Karl Popper, who once wrote that we can “therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant” (p. 1). The inconsistency is so glaring to us; Hedges’ bizarre adherence to his own version of tolerance is hypocritical at its core.
Another irony is this: while Hedges sometimes alludes to the possibility of Christians becoming violent, he hopes that all Americans will “do everything possible to defend tolerance” (p. 207) [emphasis ours]. Now, just 4 pages previously, he approvingly recalled a former professor presenting the argument that if there were 1,000 people who came together in “heroic resistance,” they would have stopped Hitler. Such wording—“everything possible” and “heroic resistance”—seems to indicate that Hedges comes close to tolerating violence himself. Hedges apparently sees himself as engaging in his own righteous cause against American evangelicals.
His inconsistency should not be missed by anyone. But Hedges’ alleged open-mindedness and tolerance absolutely fall apart as he attempts to rationalize his blatant hypocrisy. In fact, he has even publicly chastised liberal humanists (of which he is one) who believe in inclusiveness and express any willingness to dialogue with evangelicals.
In addition, Hedges ironically notes (correctly) in his book that despots often caricature their enemies (e.g., how the Nazis depicted the Jews) to advance their cause. Yet here we have a book by Hedges that caricatures Bible-believing Christians in such a way! This irony has somehow eluded him.
It is Hedges and his friends who see Christian bogeymen, with whom Americans should be concerned, around every corner. These kinds of anti-evangelicals manifest an intolerance of anything that goes against their own deeply held religious (but anti-biblical) worldview.
So, what does AiG have to say about Christians influencing the culture? For our part, we would declare that it's not our “job” to directly change the culture—it's our task to disseminate information, proclaim the gospel, and stand on the authority of God's Word … and then see hearts changed for the Lord.
Now, if these changed lives impact the culture, and if God blesses that, then we're happy to see it. But we're not going to be an activist ministry in the sense of legislating, litigating, or lobbying key leaders to mandate change in society.
Regarding Hedges’ treatment of AiG and the Creation Museum, there are many factual errors about AiG and other creation groups. Some are so egregious that they only help to expose Hedges’ bias towards biblical Christianity. Time and time again, Hedges manufactures his own straw-men and then turns them into bogeymen, parading them out in an alarmist fashion to showcase a (non-existent) threat on American liberty.
In a follow-up article to this piece which will be posted in a few days, I will examine these claims and then refute them. Incorrect assertions by Hedges include: erroneously suggesting that AiG is a political organization; erroneously suggesting that creationists blame Darwin for social evils like racism; erroneously describing the exhibits inside the future Creation Museum; and totally misrepresenting events in the school system of Dover, Pennsylvania, regarding the teaching of evolution and intelligent design, etc.
Check back soon for a follow-up article that discusses these and other errors made by Hedges in his book.
Recommended resourcesNotes and References
1.       Well, there was a leftist professor I once had in graduate school who asked me (not quite accusing me, yet it was close): “Are you a fascist?” He knew I was a Christian and did not share his leftist ideology, and so that apparently led to his odd question.
2.       Including a long-time AiG volunteer who survived the terrible cold of the famous “Battle of the Bulge” in the Belgian forests during the winter of 1944/45, as he and his comrades fought the forces of fascist Germany in a momentous and bloody struggle.
3.       Dr. Whitcomb is also is a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge. Today he still suffers from the effects of his time in the terrible cold of the 1944/45 winter. He gets cold very easily today—if you shake his hand, you’ll often receive an icy grip from a warm and friendly man. On a personal note, my father, as a teen, lived through the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, and my mother endured a Nazi occupation of her homeland of Estonia. There is definitely a family history of repulsion about totalitarianism.
4.       Sadly, we must acknowledge that there are some creationists who do subscribe to dominion theology; but they are a distinct minority, and as best as we can tell, their views are personally held. I don’t see many of them becoming activists in this regard. In addition, if “dominion theology” is so prevalent in the church, I submit that most Christians are not even aware of it, much less endorsing it. I asked a family member who has been a Christian since childhood (and who has worked in a few ministries) if she had ever heard the terms “dominion theology” or “reconstructionism,” and she had not. Yes, another bogeyman of Hedges.
5.       Hedges estimates that there is a “militant core” of “traditional” evangelicals who should be called dominionists, and that this “radical movement” numbers perhaps 7% of the total U.S. population (p. 19)! That’s because he chooses to classify virtually anyone in the so-called religious right as a dominionist . This would probably surprise many evangelicals who may be active in their communities to advance certain causes, including political ones, but would not consider themselves to be anything near a dominionist. Rather, they are simply concerned citizens responsibly exercising their constitutional rights of free speech, free assembly, and political and social involvement.
6.       As stated in a speech on “Book TV,” C-SPAN2, January 18, 2007. In this broadcast, he also ridiculed the Creation Museum (e.g., its teaching that dinosaurs co-existed with humans and that they were on the Ark).

�Jesus� tomb found� claim as empty as Jesus� [real] tomb

“Jesus’ tomb found” claim as empty as Jesus’ [real] tomb
From Answers in Genesis

March 5, 2007
It’s the latest variation in a long line of lies that started as recorded in Matthew 28:11–15: a claim that the tomb—and ossuary (bone box)—of Jesus has been found and, along with it, the ossuaries of other members of Jesus’ family, including His mother Mary and His alleged wife, Mary Magdalene. Over 25 years ago, the bones in the boxes were removed and reburied in unmarked graves, but bone fragments remain in multiple ossuaries—including in that alleged to be Jesus’ coffin.
The implications are staggering to orthodox Christian belief, which is both built and focused on the Resurrection, divinity, and Lordship of Jesus (see, in particular, 1 Corinthians 15:1–4, 12–22). If the remains of Jesus have been found (or, more precisely—as we’ll see—remains of the remains of Jesus), our faith is in vain. Thus, like the debate over origins, it is imperative that Christians closely examine and boldly answer the challenge, both to strengthen our own faith and to be ready to “give an answer” to an unbelieving world.

A close examination
Let’s now take a look at the claim, as delivered to the media in a press conference on February 26 and telecasted to the American public in a Discovery Channel TV special, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, on Sunday evening (March 4). The press conference was led and the film was directed by Canadian Jew Simcha Jacobovici, with the help of executive producer James Cameron, well-known director of such films as Titanic. (Jacobovici previously collaborated with Cameron on the 2006 film The Exodus Decoded, an exploration of the Hebraic exodus out of Egypt; Jacobovici has also coauthored a companion book to The Lost Tomb of Jesus, titled The Jesus Family Tomb.)
The claim, put simply, is that a Jerusalem tomb belonged to the family of Jesus, and that the ten ossuaries found in the tomb belonged to Jesus, Mary (mother of Jesus), Mary Magdalene (alleged wife of Jesus), Judah (alleged son of Jesus), Jose (brother of Jesus), James (brother of Jesus), Matthew (alleged relative of Jesus), and three other individuals whose names are not inscribed on the ossuaries. The tomb is known as the “Talpiot Tomb” after the southeastern Jerusalem neighborhood in which it is located.
It’s important to note that this tomb, and the ossuaries contained therein, were not recently discovered. The site was unearthed in 1980, and it, along with its contents, have been largely ignored since then, save for a 1996 BBC do*****entary that received little attention. The bones in the ossuaries were removed and reburied in unmarked graves, and the ossuaries themselves have been sitting in an Israeli warehouse. William Dever, professor emeritus of near east archaeology at the University of Arizona, emphasizes this: “The fact that it’s been ignored tells you something. It would be amusing if it didn’t mislead so many people.” Amos Kloner, a professor who led the excavation in 1980, seconds Dr. Dever: “Their movie is not serious. They [say they] are ‘discovering’ things. But they haven’t discovered anything. They haven’t found anything. Everything had already been published. And there is no basis on which to make a story out of this or to identify this as the family of Jesus.”
Jane Root, president of the Discovery Channel, obviously disagrees: “The evidence is compelling. The consequences are enormous.”
The film maintains an ominous tone throughout, with eerie tones underscoring the narrator’s gravely baritone voice. Reenactments of various scenes—Jesus teaching; Jesus on the Cross; Jesus’ burial; Jesus and Mary Magdalene—along with computer-generated 3-D visuals pepper the film, attempting to add legitimacy to controversial ideas. The film also consistently suggests the idea that the Resurrection spoken of in the New Testament was merely some sort of “spiritual ascension” of Jesus, and that it shouldn’t surprise anyone if we find His bones. Of course, this contradicts the actual account presented in the New Testament, which indicates that Christ’s body had disappeared from the tomb, and which records Christ’s reference to His post-Resurrection body as containing holes in the side and hands from the Crucifixion.
As for the names on the ossuaries, Jacobovici connects each to Jesus’ family, but the connections require various levels of faith. Keep in mind that most of these names were very common during the time of Christ; for example, the film indicates that 4% of Jews were named Jesus, and some 25% were named Mary.
Jesus, son of Joseph — Without this inscription, the Talpiot Tomb would probably have been overlooked entirely. Although the name appears convincing as Christ’s, the relative popularity of both names (Jesus, in Hebrew, being the same as Hebrew hero Joshua, and Joseph being the same as Joseph son of Jacob in the Old Testament) means this is not such an unusual combination. At least one other ossuary inscribed with “Jesus, son of Joseph” has been found, for example.
Furthermore, Lost Tomb notes that the inscription is “informal,” “messy,” “cursory,” “graffiti,” and overall difficult to read, although it gives no indication that the inscription is anything other than “Ye[ho]shua,” the Hebrew name treated in Western languages as “Jesus.” Yet Stephen Pfann, an expert in Semitic languages, claims: “I don’t think it says Yehoshua [Jesus]. It says Hanun or something.” (Pfann viewed high-resolution images of the inscription.) So from the get-go, the argument that the Talpiot Tomb belongs to the family of Jesus is under fire.
Mary (mother of Jesus) — The next inscription the film tackles is “Maria,” which Jacobovici identifies as Jesus’ mother, Mary. Although this is admittedly straightforward, the fact that (as noted earlier) a quarter of Judean women at the time were named “Mary” means this is relatively inconsequential.
Matthew (alleged relative of Jesus) — One ossuary carries a form of Matthew, “Matthia,” which is not recorded as the name of anyone in Jesus’ immediate family. However, the film points out that various ancestors of Mary used variants of the name Matthew, and that it is therefore likely that Jesus may have had a close relative with a form of this name.
This unfalsifiable hypothesis highlights the nature of the whole film, which is essentially trying to prove conclusions it starts out with. Upon discovery of the Matthew ossuary, the filmmaker simply asks how it “fits in” with Jesus’ family, assuming it will somehow. By this logic, innumerable names could be said to “fit” somehow. Indeed, as the film moves along, the presuppositions of its creators—that Jesus did not rise from the dead, that the biblical record is unreliable, that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married, etc.—are increasingly obvious.
Jose (brother of Jesus) — “Jose” is a diminutive form of the common Hebrew name “Joseph.” Because one of Jesus’ brothers is referred to by this name, Jacobovici asserts that this is a strong indication that this is the “Jesus family tomb.” Although the film states that this form of the name Joseph was uncommon, there is no definitive way to determine how “uncommon” a name was; it is easy to note that a name was common when records are filled with references to that name (such as Mary), but relatively few mentions of a name does not make it necessarily uncommon, especially if it was reserved for youths, for instance.
Mary Magdalene (alleged wife of Jesus) — At this point, the film has built up a “connection” between the first four ossuary names and the family of Jesus. It briefly interviews various individuals, asking the impact if an ossuary were to be found that “said Mary Magdalene” on it (notice the wording). In response, the various individuals all claim this would be a major indication that the tomb belonged to the family of Jesus.
Yet as the segment continues, the wording distinctly changes. Rather than an ossuary that features Mary Magdalene’s actual name, the program begins to refer to an ossuary that “could be connected to Mary Magdalene.” This subtle alteration of wording makes sense upon the viewer’s discovery that the next ossuary features the mysterious inscription “Mariamne e Mara.” Not only is the wording unusual; so is the fact that the inscription is the only one in Greek.
To set the stage for the claim that this ossuary contained the remains of Mary Magdalene, the film refers to the apocryphal “Acts of Phillip,” a fourth-century Christian text that uses the name “Mariamne” for a person some have argued is Mary Magdalene. Based on this feeble evidence from at least two hundred years after Mary Magdalene’s life, Jacobovici concludes that this ossuary contained Mary Magdalene’s remains. The “Mara,” he argues, is a term synonymous with “master” or “lord,” which makes sense, because (Jacobovici asserts) Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ “most trusted apostle.”
The connection is extremely tenuous, for it requires one to agree with one interpretation of a certain name in an apocryphal fourth-century text; and to agree that Mary Magdalene was the “most trusted apostle” of Christ, and to accept that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus, giving her right to be buried with him. Naturally, all these ideas are palatable to Jacobovici. To back up his ideas, he turns to DNA testing and collects bone fragments from the Jesus and Mariamne ossuaries.
In the media over the last week, the relation between the DNA in the “Mariamne” ossuary and the “Jesus” ossuary has been consistently misconstrued, even by Jacobovici. For example, a Washington University (in St. Louis) news release adapted into a ScienceDaily article states that they [Mariamne and Jesus] were not related. A National Geographic News article reported that “[r]esults showed that the two were not related by blood” and included Jacobovici’s erroneous comment that “[t]he forensic archaeologist concluded that they were husband and wife.” Contrary to these statements, the program made clear that, because no nuclear DNA could be recovered from bone fragments, all that could be determined about the relationship between Mariamne and Jesus was that they were neither siblings nor mother/son. Jacobovici seems to want to jump to the conclusion that these two were married (based on his presupposition that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married, and that this is the Jesus family tomb), but given that this was the tomb of an extended family, it is quite reasonable that this could be some other familial relationship such as aunt/nephew, cousin, paternal grandmother / grandson. Even so, what if this “Mariamne” and this “Jesus” were married? This would still only indicate that a Mariamne and a Jesus of the first century were married, not that this was Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdalene.
James (brother of Jesus) — Now the film presents viewers with a mystery: the original mapping of the tomb showed ten ossuaries, but the Israel Antiquities Authority only has a record of nine. What happened to the tenth? The film conjectures that the tenth ossuary was stolen and resurfaced a few years ago as the “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” ossuary. This ossuary has undergone considerable and nearly continual criticism and counter-criticism as a forgery, partial forgery, or genuine ossuary belonging to Jesus’ brother James.
The evidence that the James ossuary is actually the tenth ossuary comes from a scan of the patina (ac*****ulated mineral debris) on the ossuary. The filmmakers assert a match between the Mariamne and James ossuaries, and quickly show slides that—they say—indicate that the James ossuary does not match the patinas on ossuaries from other tombs. The data aren’t on the screen long enough for the viewer to review, however. Furthermore, LostTombOfJesusChrist.com notes that the 1996 A Tomb with Inscribed Ossuaries in East Talpiot paper, in reviewing the site, states that the tenth ossuary had no inscription. This would seem to raise the likelihood that the either the ossuary is not from the tomb or the inscription is a forgery.
Judah (alleged son of Jesus) — Finally, the film reviews the last inscribed ossuary: that of “Judah, son of Jesus.” Again, these were common names and do not suggest anything on their own about Jesus having a son, but when coupled with the filmmaker’s belief in a marriage between Mary Magdalene and Jesus and, apparently, the non-divinity of Christ, a son apparently makes sense.
The film notes that there is nothing in the Bible to indicate that Jesus didn’t father a son, and then proposes that the Bible actually does speak of Jesus’ son in the gospel of John: the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” The film indicates that the interpretation of the “disciple whom Jesus loved” being the apostle John is wrong (apparently ignoring John 21:20–25). Instead, the film attempts to validate this view by citing John 19:26–27 as not referring to the apostle John and Mary, mother of Jesus, but rather to Jesus’ son Judah and Jesus’ wife / Judah’s mother, Mary Magdalene. Thus, Jesus—in apparent redundancy—was emphasizing that Judah and Mary Magdalene should look out for one another after He died. This twist is effectively too absurd to merit significant comment, other than to say that this view does not line up with the Gospel of John itself (for example, John 19:27b makes no sense according to this interpretation) and has absolutely no basis in any biblical text, any apocryphal text, or any church tradition or legend whatsoever!

A bold answer
Despite the film’s obvious bend toward a liberal interpretation of theology and expected reliance on apocryphal texts, the case it makes may easily seduce viewers not familiar with Scripture, including both non-Christians and young Christians. And we certainly don’t wish to dismiss it out of hand; the fact that ossuaries with these names were found in the same tomb is intriguing, after all; if such theories were run-of-the-mill, there wouldn’t be so much media attention on this one. But beyond dismantling the findings of Jacobovici as erroneous (for the reasons listed above), we must give a positive answer that explains why Scripture presents a true account of history.
Many of the traditional arguments given in support of the historicity of the faith apply in this situation. For example, take the classic “who would die for a lie?” argument, which asks why followers of Jesus would allow themselves to be persecuted and killed if they knew Jesus’ Resurrection was a farce. One must ask why, if the disciples knew Jesus did not rise and had themselves stolen his body, they would have gone to fatal lengths to give testimony to the opposite. Furthermore, if the tomb of Jesus’ family was in plain sight in Jerusalem, why would opponents to the early church not have paraded this fact in opposition to Christians? Beyond that, why would there be no historical record testifying to this tomb—either from the church’s opponents, who would have wished to spotlight the error on which Christianity was based, or by early Christians, who would have venerated (or, at least, respected, cared for, and recorded the location of) such a site even if it only contained the bones of Jesus’ mother, and not Jesus himself?
Ultimately, the debate over the Talpiot Tomb (and other archaeological controversies related to the Bible, the early church, and the “historical” Jesus) have remarkable similarities to the debate over creation/evolution. In each case, the debate concerns unrepeatable, historical events that were not observed by those of us living today. In each case, the scientific evidence we find cannot prove anything on its own; it can merely be interpreted based on our presuppositions. Within a naturalistic worldview, “raw” evidence such as a canyon’s depth and a river’s erosive power is combined with the presupposition of uniformitarianism; the result is an estimated age. When inserted into the formula of the biblical worldview, such raw evidence sometimes gives completely different results.
So it is with archaeology, history, anthropology, and so forth—the raw evidence is combined with the presuppositions of a worldview to generate a resulting belief. Certain beliefs are non-negotiable, because they form part of the “root level” of a worldview. Thus, a naturalist cannot, by definition, accept divine creation ex nihilo or the Resurrection of Christ. Similarly, a biblical Christian who accepts a plain reading of Scripture cannot, by definition, accept millions of years of evolution or the mortality of Christ.
And, as with the creation/evolution debate, there are compromisers. For example, included in a short segment of the do*****entary is a DePaul University professor who claims the Christian faith would not be undermined if this tomb was that of Jesus’ family, and that Christians should simply let science handle the physical details. “I leave what happens to bodies up to God,” he claims in clear disagreement with the doctrine of a bodily Resurrection. This attitude promotes duplicitous thinking whereby the Bible can be true on a “spiritual level” while being false on a physical level.
We are therefore faced with a choice in the realms of these debates: accept the Bible’s historical account, or try to trust fickle sciences that cannot and do not give solid answers. No one can prove, using only science that this tomb isn’t that of Jesus’ family, and no one can prove that it is. So it is with the miracles of Christ, the miracles of the Old Testament, and the creation of the universe. A Scientific American article on the tomb put it this way: “Both sides of this debate are extraordinarily difficult to prove given the paucity of historical evidence, something this controversy has in common with nearly all archaeological and historical disputes.”
Thus, apart from God’s Word, we are left with conjecture; with His Word, we have certainty—a certainty that weathers the perpetual storms that amass against Christianity.
As for the ongoing debate, we encourage you to visit other critiques of Lost Tomb (benwitherington.blogspot.com, christiancadre.blogspot.com, bible.org, and LostTombOfJesusChrist.com) as well as visiting the film’s official pages (www.jesusfamilytomb.com and discovery.com).

Recommended resourcesNotes and References
1.       http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/26/jesus.sburial.ap/index.html
2.       http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-jesus-tomb.html
3.       http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-allen4mar04%2c0%2c5342162.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary
4.       http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=14A3C2E6-E7F2-99DF-37A9AEC98FB0702A&catID=4

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