Ken Ham/Answers in Genesis ignores much of the Bible: revising Ham's 7 C's

Answers in Genesis has posted a way of looking at history, by Ken Ham and Stacia McKeever. They hang human history on 7 C's, as follows:
Creation
Corruption
Catastrophe
Confusion
Christ
Cross
Consummation

In their discussion, each of these C's has scripture describing that particular event, or stage.

Others have noted -- I can't remember who -- that since Confusion is about the story of the Tower of Babel, which is in Genesis 11, and the next stage is Christ, their scheme leaves out almost the entirety of the Old Testament.

No Abraham, no plagues of Egypt, no Moses, no Exodus, no Mount Sinai, no Ten Commandments, no Tabernacle, no system of celebration and sacrifices, no prophets, no wisdom literature, no Psalms, no David, no Solomon, no Temple, and much more -- you get the idea. More than half the Bible left out!

Bible scholars are by no means unanimous on the dates and geographic extent of events in Genesis, but by the reckoning of Answers in Genesis, the Tower of Babel (Confusion) was in 2242 BC. (Or 2246 BC.) Thus, about 2240 years of the history of life on earth are ignored in the 7 C scheme. Answers in Genesis says that creation took place in 4004 BC. So their scheme leaves out about 37% of what they believe to have been earth's history, and more than half of the times, and most of the events, covered by the Bible. Amazing, for a Bible-based organization.

I propose, for those who want a C scheme, an 8th C -- Covenant, between Confusion and Christ, and that the scripture associated with this be taken from Genesis 12 through Malachi. Captivity would also fit in.

There is, no doubt, some value in the 7 C's scheme, even if one doesn't agree with the dates put forth by Answers in Genesis, or their ideas on the geographic extent of the Flood. But there's a lot of God's revelation left out.

On January 25, 2022, I added this:

Not only does the 7 C's scheme leave out some important scriptures and people, but it includes a minor story, that of the tower of Babel. That story occurs in only one chapter of Genesis, and, so far as I can determine, is not referred to anywhere else in the Bible.

Thanks for reading! (The title was revised on May 31, 2022)

Sunspots 739

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: Gizmodo shows us some amazing photos of flowers and insects.

(And Science) NASA's entire media library is now free for public use.
Relevant displays some amazing mobiles. Really amazing.
Christianity: FiveThirtyEight analyzes a recent poll on what Americans know about religion (not just Christianity). Not as much as they should. 

He Lives discusses the chronology of creation.

Computing: Several experts don't believe that a recent ruling by the government will have any affect on Facebook's use of our private information for its own purposes.

Relevant reports on a study that says that 88% of us are looking at some screen while we eat.

Politics: Catherine Rampell on the severe anti-immigration actions of the Trump administration.

Catherine Rampell also points out that President Trump and other Republicans have been acting as socialists a lot lately.

Michael Gerson on Mueller's appearance before Congressional committees.

Politico on how environmental concerns are being set aside, and the Trump administration is pushing for fossil fuel development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I thank one of my brothers, who pointed me to this article.

Relevant on what the Christian community should be doing about gun violence. 

Science: An article on the largest organism on earth, which seems to be dying.

Listverse tells us some interesting things about tears and crying.

Sports: FiveThirtyEight suggests that really tall players will be featured more often in the National Basketball Association, as they used to be.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.
 
Thanks for looking!

Some nuggets from the "Begats"

Some time ago, as part of my regular Bible reading, I read from the "begats" from 1 Chronicles. These are not usually considered to be very inspiring, although some people think that the Prayer of Jabez, which is found in this part of the Bible, is inspiring.

Here is some of what I found.

The Israelites were occasionally commanded to preserve racial purity, but clearly there were exceptions. There were at least two Egyptians who were part of the Israelite congregation, both of them married to members of the tribe of Judah.
1Chronicles 2:34 Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. 35 And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife; and she bare him Attai. (All scripture quotations in this post are from the King James Version.)

1Chronicles 4:17 And the sons of Ezra were, Jether, and Mered, and Epher, and Jalon: and she bare Miriam, and Shammai, and Ishbah the father of Eshtemoa. 18 And his wife Jehudijah bare Jered the father of Gedor, and Heber the father of Socho, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah. And these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, which Mered took.
It is interesting that one of the two Egyptians was a servant, and the other was apparently from the Egyptian royalty.

1Chronicles 6:1 The sons of Levi; Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 2 And the sons of Kohath; Amram, Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel. 3 And the children of Amram; Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam. The sons also of Aaron; Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.

Some have tried to use genealogies in the Bible to establish dates, such as Ussher's chronology. These verses cast doubt on the validity of doing that. According to Exodus 12:40, the Jews were in Egypt 430 years. The only person in that list who could have spent his entire life in Egypt was Amram. By this time, people were not living much longer than they were today, so there aren't enough people to fill a 430 year time span. (Exodus 6:16-20 says that Levi lived 137 years, Kohath 133 years, and Amram lived 137 years.) Almost certainly, some people were left out. Francis Schaeffer, for one, did not believe that the genealogies were meant to be used to develop a chronology, or could be used to develop an accurate one. (Genesis in space and time: the flow of biblical history. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1972, pp. 122-125. See also here.) He cites a number of other verses which indicate the unsuitability of the genealogies for developing a chronology.

In chapter 7, I discovered that a woman is given credit for building some towns:

1Ch 7:22 And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him. 23 And when he went in to his wife, she conceived, and bare a son, and he called his name Beriah, because it went evil with his house. 24 (And his daughter was Sherah, who built Bethhoron the nether, and the upper, and Uzzensherah.)

That was remarkable. Since two of these villages are mentioned in Joshua 10:10-11, which was before the division of the land among the tribes, it seems possible that Sherah rebuilt the two Bethhorons, after they were destroyed by Joshua and his army. The Bible doesn't say if she did the planning and the physical labor involved, if she financed the building, if she supervised the building, or some combination of these. Two of these villages are still in existence.

Do I have all the answers? Certainly not. Neither do you. But the Bible seems always capable of introducing us to new nuggets of truth. Thanks for reading. Read the Bible.

How important is a doctrine of origins to Christians?

When I started thinking about this topic, the initial reaction was: "of some importance, but not primary importance." One reason I thought this is that there is little in the New Testament about origins, except as it relates to the person of Christ. (I'm thinking of John 1, for example. All Bible links are to the ESV) The Sermon on the Mount doesn't mention origins directly, and I'm not sure there are any indirect references. The discourse Jesus gave in John 14-17 doesn't, either. Neither does Peter's sermon at Pentecost. Paul's sermon on Mars' Hill does include this part of Acts 17:24: "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth . . .," but there is little or nothing about origins in Paul's writings. (Peter does mention the subject.) There seems to be much more in the New Testament about, say, how to treat the poor, or how Christianity is not about following man-made rules, than about origins. So it must not be very important.

However, I decided to look at two of the historically important creeds. I had forgotten that both the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed begin by saying that the believer believes in a God who created*. The Nicene Creed begins like this: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. So, in the sense that two of the historic Christian creeds begin with it, origins is fundamental.

That being the case, maybe the late Henry Morris really wasn't far off when he wrote about the most important verse in the Bible. (Genesis 1:1) Here's another article, saying much the same thing.

Why do Morris, and others, think like this? They think so because they see, correctly in my view, that the Bible teaches that God caused things to be the way they are. Things are not here by purposeless chance, or just because that's the way they had to be. If God did create, then God has authority (He's the author!) over His creation. There is a purpose for our existence, and there are purposes for our individual lives. Without this basic truth, Christianity, and almost all other religions, for that matter, make little or no sense.

I believe that most people would say that not only does Christianity (and some other religions) deny it, but common sense (whatever that is) rejects the idea of a purposeless universe, here solely by chance.

Well, if God's creation is an important doctrine, what about the age of the earth? Is a belief in a recent creation important? Some certainly think so. (See here for an example.)

Others, including Bible scholars who are vigorous in their defense of the integrity of scripture, believe that the Old Testament does not necessarily teach that the universe, the earth, and humans all originated only a few thousand years ago. This is not the place for a discussion of the various interpretations and conclusions, and, if it was, no doubt some readers would disagree with my discussion. Perhaps they would be right. But I note that neither the Nicene or Apostle's Creeds, nor Paul, in Acts 17, give any indication about the date of origins. Genesis 1 gives some indication, but the other scriptural texts referred to in this post (with the possible exception of 2 Peter 3) do not. A date must be inferred, based on other scriptures, and on assumptions as to how they are meant**. It is not given directly. The opening statement of the Bible directly says that God created. So do other Biblical texts.

I conclude, for what it's worth, that the most important doctrine for Christians is a proper view of the person and work of Jesus Christ. A belief that there is a purposeful God who created the universe, and did it in such a way that we have an earth, and human beings, including you and me, is almost as important. The two beliefs make full sense only in the light of each other. I don't see that belief in a recent creation is required by scripture, but I understand that others think it is.

*The Westminster Confession is a much longer document than either of the Creeds mentioned above. It has a section on Creation.
Both the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed speak as if God the Father was the Creator. John 1, Colossians 1:15-20, and other passages, make clear that God the Son was deeply involved, perhaps even the main agent of creation. No doubt God the Holy Spirit was involved, also (Perhaps Genesis 1:2 refers to the Holy Spirit).

**I changed these two sentences on August 30, 2006. I hope I made them clearer. I originally said that no scripture gives any indication of the date of origins. That is not true. I also added the link to 2 Peter 3.

From Perez to Solomon, how many years?

I've got a question about one of the genealogies in the Bible. Here it is:

1 Chronicles 2:5 The sons of Perez: Hezron and Hamul. 6 The sons of Zerah: Zimri, Ethan, Heman, Calcol, and Dara, five in all. 7 The son . . . of Carmi: Achan, the troubler of Israel, who broke faith in the matter of the devoted thing; 8 and Ethan's son was Azariah. 

9 The sons of Hezron that were born to him: Jerahmeel, Ram, and Chelubai. 10 Ram fathered Amminadab, and Amminadab fathered Nahshon, prince of the sons of Judah. 11 Nahshon fathered Salmon, . . . Salmon fathered Boaz, 12 Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse. (ESV) (The ellipses represent references to footnotes that don't affect this discussion.)

Let me list the generations in the line I'm concerned about: Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse. Jesse was the father of David, who was the father of Solomon. That's eleven generations, including Perez, one of Judah's sons, and Solomon.

So what's the question? Here it is: Is this list complete?

Why do I ask? Here's why. In 1 Kings 6:1, we are told that Solomon began to build the temple in the 480th year after the Israelites returned from Egypt. Exodus 12:40-41 tells us that the Israelites lived in Egypt for 430 years. This means that at least one of these 11 people was alive during each year of a span of more than 910 years. (Perez must have been born in Canaan, before the departure for Egypt, according to Genesis 38. Clearly Solomon was born before he assumed the kingship, and before he started having the temple built. He lived for a number of years after the building of the temple started, as he reigned for 40 years.) Let's say that one or more of these 11 were alive during a span of at least 946 years, and probably several years longer than that. That's 946 divided by 11, or 86 years, per generation, not per life. Generation length, of course, doesn't consider the overlap between, say, Jesse and David. In other words, these 11 men either must have lived a century or more each, or the genealogy given is not complete. There are scholars who know the Bible, and take it very seriously, as the Word of God, and believe that at least some of the genealogies are not meant to be used for chronological purposes, but were meant to show the main characters in lines of descent, with some names being omitted. There is scriptural evidence that names were omitted in some genealogies. It seems that this part of the genealogy in the Bible probably is one of those that has names omitted.
Any thoughts? Thanks for reading.

Here's a discussion of the genealogies in Genesis, and elsewhere in the Bible, by a Bible scholar.

This post was edited on October 17, 2018 

Here's a post, noting some other occasions where the Bible, itself, indicates that people have been left out of the supposed genealogies.

Ussher's chronology

I received an e-mail query, asking if I had a copy of Ussher's chronology on file. I don't, and hadn't really thought about having one, before the query. (For any who don't know, Ussher believed that the earth was created in 4004 B.C., based mainly on his interpretation of the genealogies in the Bible.)

I did some research on-line, and haven't discovered any such file. Perhaps some reader has, and can point me to one? If so, please do.

I did find what seem to be excellent Wikipedia articles on the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar (Lightfoot also published a chronology at about the same time as Ussher.) and on Ussher, himself. Answers in Genesis has an article on Ussher, which indicates that that organization has re-published Ussher's history, and offers it for sale. I hoped that Project Gutenberg had re-published something by Ussher, but they have not. (He seems to have written entirely in Latin.)

As the Wikipedia articles indicate, there is considerable controversy over Ussher's date of 4004 B. C. for the age of the earth. Conservative, Bible-believing scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries did not believe that the genealogies used in Genesis could legitimately be put to the purpose of determining dates. Neither did Francis Schaeffer, and many others, in the 20th century. However, there are Bible scholars living today who disagree, and think that they were meant to be so used.

The most complete Ussher's chronology I have ever seen is in a bible given me by my maternal grandmother, over a half-century ago. It has dates, based on Ussher's chronology, for many biblical events, as part of its center-column reference system. I don't know if all these dates were based on Ussher's work.

*  *  *  *  *
On February 9, 2015, I added the material in parenthesis to the first paragraph.  Thanks for reading!