Why it Matters

How the first 11 chapters of Genesis are foundational to the gospel

pic from ICR Discovery Center, Dallas

recent creation, the genius of Archbishop Ussher, a tribute to Henry Morris, founder of the Institute for Creation Research, and the Discovery Institute in Dallas, TX

first, a digression - about the Silicone Valley Bank (SVB) collapse, the aftermath, and what to do with your money

SVB collapse - 2nd largest in history

The trouble started when the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates last year. A lot of people get confused by this, but when interest rates go up, the market price of fixed debt instruments like bonds goes down. After 40 years of interest rates going down, eventually to an impossible rate of zero, or even negative rates in some european banks, investors and bankers had gotten careless. They couldn’t make any money the traditional way - by loaning money out at interest, so they invested in risky things like crypto, new business ventures called “startups”, Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), SPACs, and other risky schemes, to try to get a higher return on their investments. The problem with risky investments is that they’re risky. If all goes well, you can make a bundle. But if things go the wrong way, you can lose your shirt.

Once assets started going down instead of up, SVB’s balance sheet started to go negative. In other words, if they had to suddenly sell all their assets, they wouldn’t be able to raise enough cash to cover all their liabilities - they would be bankrupt. Once depositors smelled trouble, they started what amounted to an avalanche of withdrawals, in other words, a ‘run on the bank’. With today’s online banking apps, operable 24/7, the bank didn’t even have to be open for the withdrawal orders to start piling up.

what this means to your money and mine

The federal government took over the bank. Then they set up the biggest bailout in history. They removed the limit on FDIC insurance that protects our deposits. So no matter how many millions someone has in the bank, they’re covered. That’s nice, but it also means there is no limit on how much this might eventually cost us taxpayers, which means - you guessed it - more inflation. The value of the formerly almighty dollar is going to keep going down. That’s why the price of gold and bitcoin (and everything else) is heading higher in the long run. The only thing that can slow down the rise in prices is a recession, but that will be temporary - the long run trend will still be up.

now on to our main topic..

‘Why is Genesis so important? Summing up Genesis 1-11

Because all the major bible doctrines begin in Genesis. For example, the sanctity of life, being made in the image of God, the sanctity of marriage, and the blessing of children.   A few weeks ago I wrote “Sin and its consequences, sickness, disease, and death are explained in Genesis, and that leads to the necessity of a blood sacrifice for atonement, and that leads to the realization that God’s Son is the only One worthy to die in our place if we are to receive forgiveness and salvation. If Genesis is undermined, the foundation of the gospel is undermined.”

Stand up for the Truth

Since Genesis is so important to understanding the Gospel, and so contrary to the theory of evolution, it is a primary target of skeptics. The main areas under attack are the first eleven chapters. The sad fact is that even most Christian Churches, colleges and universities have compromised this part of the bible, or have failed to take a stand, thinking it’s too controversial and they might lose a few people. But were the prophets or the apostles or Jesus himself ever afraid of controversy? No, in fact, they were willing to die for their stand on the truth.

The bible very clearly says that God created everything in six days – ordinary days, with an evening and morning. It also very pointedly gives us an unusual genealogy from which we can precisely determine the total number of years from the creation of Adam to the year of Noah’s flood and on to the birth of Joseph. From that time on, we have enough historical records to bring us to the birth of Christ.

When it comes to losing people over this, it’s the young people that the church is losing. Why should they believe the Gospel if they’re taught they can’t believe Genesis? The church’s anemic stand has left them defenseless against the assault of all the anti-Christian public school curriculums and atheistic college professors. My hope and prayer is that these substack articles will reach at least some of them and guide them back to the Faith.

Ussher’s genius

Anglican Archbishop James Ussher, who has been ridiculed for publishing that the date of creation was 4004 B.C., actually was so much smarter and better educated than his critics that he puts them to shame. He used his vast knowledge of the ancient languages and historical sources to write the 1300 page “Annals of the World”. I have a copy, and am always amazed at his scholarship.  

https://www.icr.org/article/james-ussher-his-chronology-reasonable    article by Bergman

Ussher's “Annals of the World” is a 1300 page history of the world from the beginning of time to 70 A.D. He published it in 1650. His meticulous research of over 12,000 historical documents (many no longer available) and 2000 quotes from the Bible or the Apocrypha has been compiled into the most interesting history of the world you are ever likely to read.

Re-translated and re-published

We owe a great debt to Larry and Marion Pierce, who spent who knows how many hours translating the work into modern English.

Larry Pierce said in an interview “The first thing Marion and I discovered was that we could not scan the material as we normally do for commentaries we prepare for the Online Bible. The quality of the type was much too poor to scan, and it was the old English script. Fortunately, Marion became a very speedy typist over the course of the project. The second difficulty was the language. The whole thing had to be modernized to be understandable. Ussher’s English translation followed Latin sentence structure and was very hard to follow. Often a single English sentence would last a whole paragraph, and the pronoun references would quickly become ambiguous unless you could retranslate it from the Latin or check the source material from which the story was taken. Trying to update someone else’s old English is very difficult.”

Marion added  “The hardest thing for me was containing my enthusiasm! This project became a passion as I became more aware of the deep research and irrefutable sources Ussher used in ferreting out his information. Every footnote referenced cries out to the sceptic, ‘Here are my sources; check them out and see if you can prove me wrong!’”

https://creation.com/archbishops-achievement  -article- Sarfati interviews Pierces on Annals of the World

a tribute to Henry Morris

https://www.icr.org/article/the-importance-of-recent-creation  Jan.31 2019

Henry M. Morris, Ph.D was a hydraulic engineer. He co-authored “The Genesis Flood” with Dr. John Whitcomb in 1961 and it started the a whole area of modern research on the age of the earth. This work is one of the most important books of the past century. Prior to its publication in 1961, evangelicals were for the most part unprepared to answer evolutionists' and modern geologists' claims about the antiquity of the earth.

Henry Morris founded ICR, the “Institute for Creation Research”.

Bio from https://www.icr.org/henry_morris/

“Henry M. Morris is widely recognized as the founder of the modern creation science movement. He lectured and wrote extensively in defense of a literal interpretation of the Bible’s first book, Genesis—particularly the first 11 chapters.”
 
”Dr. Morris graduated in 1939 from Rice University in Houston with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He received his master’s degree in hydraulics in 1948 and his Ph.D. in hydraulic engineering in 1950 from the University of Minnesota. He worked as a professor of engineering at various universities, finally becoming department chair of civil engineering at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).”
 
”Shortly after Dr. Morris received his bachelor’s degree from Rice, he accepted the Bible as the infallible and inspired Word of God. In 1961, Dr. Morris and Old Testament expert Dr. John C. Whitcomb published The Genesis Flood, widely acknowledged as the founding document of the creationist movement. Drawing on data from the disciplines of hydrology, geology, and archaeology, Drs. Morris and Whitcomb demonstrated how science affirms the biblical record of the great Deluge during the days of Noah.”

Following is from    https://www.icr.org/article/vital-importance-believing-recent-creation/

“Those of us who still believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and that God intended it to be understood by ordinary people—not just by scholarly specialists in science or theology—have been labeled “young-earth creationists.”

“…It would be much more comfortable for us not to believe in a young earth, of course. Not only are the scientific and educational establishments committed to old-earth evolutionism, but so also are the supposedly more intellectual segments of the religious world. The seminaries and colleges of the mainline denominations have almost all capitulated to theistic evolutionism, …there is no genuine evidence for evolution.”

 “So, young-earth creationism isn’t a comfortable position to hold, especially for scientists or ambitious students, and it would be tempting either to give it up (as many have, under the persuasive influence of speakers such as Hugh Ross and other popular evangelicals), or else to just say it really doesn’t matter how or when God created (as do most modern churches and parachurch organizations) as long as we believe He is our Creator.”

“But it does matter, and that’s why the Institute for Creation Research was formed in the first place.”

ICR has always been very involved in scientific research. One of their ongoing projects is FAST –Flood-Activated Sedimentation and Tectonics

“Geologic research continues to play a significant role at the Institute for Creation Research, as it has since its founding. Recognizing that the great Flood of Noah's day accomplished significant geologic work opened the door to groundbreaking research. This insight provided solutions to many plaguing difficulties in creation thinking, and continues to inform it today.”

“ICR's latest geologic research has gone under the banner of FAST, or Flood-Activated Sedimentation and Tectonics. Numerous FAST projects are currently investigating specific questions under the sponsorship of the National Creation Science Foundation (NCSF), the research wing of ICR. Some are field studies, and others are vital theoretical and computer simulation projects, which together have the potential to add much to our understanding of Flood geology.”  https://www.icr.org/article/fast-model-for-underwater-debris-flows

Visit the ICR Discovery Institute in Dallas – a great trip for the whole family.

https://discoverycenter.icr.org/ - they have a 30 second video intro on web site

next week - living fossils? or home schooling? haven’t decided yet.