All language subtitles for Is Genesis History (2017) [BR 720p]

You know, I grew up
in country like this.

My dad and I were riding
our horses up to these amazing...

high mountain lakes.

We'd ride back in to some pretty
remote wilderness areas with...

incredible streams, and meadows,
and, and wildlife.

I love it here.

Look at this canyon.

It reminds me of
the Grand Canyon.

You got this old stream.

You got these steep canyon walls.

How long do you
suppose it would take

for a stream this small

to remove this much material

and cut the canyon this deep?

This rock has a story.

Just like I do and
just like you do.

It came from somewhere.

A lot of these rocks
have been dated to be

350,000 years old,
up to 2 million.

That is pretty old.

But, it might surprise you
to know

that all the geological formations
that we see here,

the cannons,

the layers,
even the plants,

are younger than I am.

When I was born,
there was nothing here,

but the vast forest,

hundreds of feet below where
we're standing right now.

In fact, before 1980,

most people had never even heard

of Mount Saint Helens.

It was in that year,
on May 18th

that molten rock created a steam blast

with the force of 20 million tons of TNT.

Avalanche debris and
other flows of the eruption

lay down all of those layers rapidly

up to 600 feet thick.

A couple of years later,

uh, there were some more
volcanic activity

that created a mudflow

that cut out this entire canyon.

It also cut through deep bedrock,

all in a couple of days.

Isn't it amazing,

what a little bit of information
from the past can do

to help change your view

of the present and
the present world around you?

There're a lot of assumptions
made by a lot of people,

about the history
of the Earth around us.

The question is,
how do those assumptions

affect how
we view the history?

But more importantly,

how do they play in
how we view science

and the Bible?

Did God create the world in a few days

or billions of years?

Is humanity descended from apes?

Or did God created us instantly,
in his image?

Was there a global flood that
destroyed the Earth?

Or is that a myth?

In other words,

is Genesis history?

When we think about
the history of the Earth,

there are a lot things
we need to consider.

But one of the most fascinating
is the account of the Flood.

Was the whole Earth
covered with water?

Genesis says the waters prevailed
so mildly on the Earth

that all the high mountains
in the whole heaven were covered.

So if the Flood was truly global,

wouldn't there be a lot of evidence?

I had heard of a scientist
who has spent over 40 years

studying this question.

When I spoke with him,
he said he had a great place

where we could see evidence
for the global Flood.

Steve, I got to admit,
I, I've been here several times

but every time I come here,
it is breathtaking.

Uh, besides being at home,

- our Grand Canyon is my favorite
- Yeah.

- place on Earth.
- Yeah.

So, Steve, tell me,
what, what do you see here?

When we look at
the Grand Canyon,

we see the inside story
to the ground beneath our feet.

And we kind of have
a layered cake here, don't we?

Of Strata

that have been eroded
for our benefit

to see the inside structure
of the Earth.

These same layers are also in Colorado.

Well, also in Illinois,
also in Pennsylvania.

So when you say, sedimentary strata,

you're talking about
the layers that we see?

Yes. So the lowest layers
are formed first.

Little sediment grains
that were mixed,

separated, and flowed in here
from different directions

and accumulated one ontop of another.

And then, of course,

naturally, they convert to rock.

So you're saying that the solid ground
we're standing on right now

if we went back in its history,

- it'd be liquid?
- Yes.

So the ocean is doing
some amazing things

and water of, of incredible power

is depositing the layers
we see in the canyon.

And are there fossils
in all those layers?

There are marine fossils
through all the layers.

Uh, but the standard explanation is,

there were 17 different
advances and retreats

of the ocean over
the north American continent,

and it was extended over
hundreds of millions of years.

And what is the evidence
that you see here

that would say that
doesn't seem to make sense?

The 4,000 feet of flat line
strata in the canyon are flat.

And relative to one another,

we look in between
the strata layers

and we don't see the passage of time

in between layers.

You mean erosion?

Erosion, specially,
and channeling

uh, on any great scale is not visible.

And then we look at
the strata themselves,

they provide evidence of rapid,

very rapid sedimentation.

Just minutes or hours is all
it's needed to make layers.

Well, tell me about
the story of these layers.

I mean, how did they get here?

"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life,

from the second month of
the seventeenth day of the month,

the same day were all the fountains
of the great deep broken up,

and the windows of heaven were opened."

My understanding is
the ocean floor upheaval occurred,

- some type of magma or...
- Uh-huh.

earthquake propelled
the oceans over the continent.

So that's why we get

uh, these marine fossils
in these layers?

Yes. And we have six months

the waters prevailed upon the earth.

Another seven months or so
for the water to subside.

The 4,000 feet of strata
probably represent the early

and middle part of the global Flood

right here in the Grand Canyon.

We have other strata

locally in this Grand Canyon region.

That's called "The Grand Staircase".

We have about 10,000 feet,
two miles thick of strata

- on top of the Grand Canyon.
- Higher than where we are.

Higher than where we are,

now represents uh,

the later stages of the Flood
and the retreat of the flood water.

This surface was beveled by
the retreat of flood waters.

And as the flood retreated into
the newly formed ocean basins,

then the continents probably uplifted

and the Ark,
of course, was landed

in high country
in the Middle East.

Well, there are some people
who say that, that...

record is about a local flood.

I believe it's a global flood.

And "all the high hills
or the whole heaven were covered",

the universal statement,

but mountains have risen since then.

And we shouldn't measure
the depth of the floodwaters

by the present mountains of the Earth,

which largely created during
the Flood and after the Flood.

Well, the fact that we have
all of these layers, um...

would be unknown to us
if we were standing on them

you know,
somewhere else,

but they're known to us
because they've been cut out.

How did that happen?

Well, it was the story that
we all learned in grammar school.

OK, Colorado River,

over tens of millions of years,
cut the Grand Canyon.

Most geologists have jettisoned that idea.

It's hard to sustain a canyon like this

for uh tens of millions of years.

Uh, uh, you can't imagine a canyon
enduring that long with erosion

Is that because it would, eventually,
the sides would have collapsed and...

- Yes.
- broken down?

Then how in the world that
we get this all carved out?

Well, uh,
there are a lot of theories,

and personally,
I like the idea...

of catastrophic erosion

by drainage of lakes.

So after the flood,
we have these large bodies of water,

these lakes that are trapped.

There is evidence of the big lake
in the Painted Desert,

- a place called "Hopi Buttes",
- Hhh.

about 500 cubic miles
of water in this huge lake...

And so the dam breaks and
all of that massive amount of water

then is now pouring out
and carving this.

Yes. And how long would it take
to erode Grand Canyon?

Maybe weeks.

But not, uh, millions of years.

- Time is not a magic wand...
- Uh-huh.

that solves all the geological
problems of the world.

Jettison that way of thinking

about millions of years
and then start thinking...

about catastrophic processes
like you see in Mount St. Helens...

and that will help you
understand Grand Canyon.

Everywhere we looked,

Steve showed me evidence of
the incredible power of moving water.

They quickly laid down
these enormous layers,

then quickly eroded them away.

Steve wanted to show me
where the floodwaters

first hit the continent.

So he took me deeper
into the canyon.

Steve, when you said
you're gonna bring me to the bottom,

you, you weren't kidding
when you word

the word "the bottom", are we?

We are in this uh, big side canyon
to the main Grand Canyon...

and we are looking at
the granite basement rock,

which is the, the core
of the continent, if you will...

and then we see the flat
lining strata on top of it.

The boundary between
the granite rock below

and the Tapeats sandstone above

is this surface we call
the Great Unconformity.

Why, why does it appear
to be such a, a stark line?

I mean, it's clear.

I think it's an erosional
boundary of colossal scale.

We're looking at something
that uh, shows the,...

the magnitude of flood flow...

over a surface.

And this is just here?

The Great Unconformity
is continent wide.

I've seen it, I believe,
in the Middle East.

It's over in Europe.

Uh, it's in Africa.

And here it is uh, under
the North American continent.

So, we got this uh, layer,
how thick is this layer?

What goes up from here?

Well, we have the Sauk
Megasequence here,

if you will,
a thousand feet of...

sandstone, shale, limestone
that go continent wide.

- There are four other big sequence
- Hmm.

packages of strata
that sit above it.

Those are also
very continuous like this.

What we're seeing here
is rather representative

of the rest of the world.

It makes one uh,
really question the notion

that this all happened
because of a small local flood.

We're talking about
something enormous.

The power of moving water
was beveling and pulverizing rock,

depositing great thicknesses of layers...

and calling our mind
to think about the global flood.

The conventional story is
entirely different, though.

It would say that
there is a lot of time...

between each of these layers.

Some people have said that
the Great Unconformity

boundary here represents
half of billion years.

You mean, between the granite
we see and that

first layer of sedimentary rock?

Yeah. They say that maybe
half of billion years there.

Ok, and that's what their
explanation of Earth history

would ask them to consider.

Yet, when you come here
and look at this...

nearly a featureless plane.

It's not an exactly a plane,

but it's a gently...

- rolling surface.
- Uh-huh.

And would that be the product
of billions of years...

or would that be the product
of the power of water...

- planing off a surface?
- Hhh.

Time is foreign to...

- a good explanation here.
- Uh-huh.

And so we want
to explain what we see.

Everywhere we look,
we see the power of water.

And it's water on
a colossal scale.

And that's the story here
at Grand Canyon.

It's not a little of water
and a lot of time.

It's a lot of water in a little time.

Time really is the essential issue

when talking about
the history of the Earth.

How much time did it take
to form what we see around us?

It seemed clear to me that
the global Flood would have

transformed the Earth quickly.

Yet I know,
many people think

that the world formed slowly
over billions of years.

What was the real difference
between these two views of time?

I needed to talk to someone
who could tell me more about

science and history and time.

Since my background is
in computer science,

we met in a place
we had personally

experienced some of that history.

As we looked at the exhibit,

I was reminded how much smaller

and more powerful
computers have become

since I first started using them.

Paul said that changing
assumptions about computers

were really a series
of paradigm shifts.

So when I was 19,
I read Thomas Kuhn's classic.

"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions",

where he described
this notion of paradigms.

A paradigm is a framework,
within which you interpret evidence.

So really, science isn't
just about the evidence,

it's about how
you interpret that evidence.

So, this room for example,

we got so-called "minicomputers" here.

But really, they're not mini at all,

in terms of our current paradigm.

- Yeah, today, right?
- Yeah.

- This.
- Yeah.

Right?

So really, to understand
this question of origins

you really need to begin

by looking at
the governing paradigms,

the two major views
that we currently have...

about the history of life
and history of the Universe.

And what are those?

On the one hand,
we have

- the conventional paradigm.
- Uh-huh.

In the conventional paradigm,
you got deep time.

13.7 billion years

along which, this gradual process

beginning with primal simplicity,

ending in what we see today.

All the complexity in life
has to be built bottom up

by strictly physical processes,

where no mind,

no creator,

no design is present.

The second view,
we can call, let's say,

the historical Genesis paradigm.

Everything starts with
a divine mind, a creator,

an intelligence that
plans and superintends

and brings in to existence reality.

Events are happening at
a much more recent time scale.

The universe,
the solar system,

our planet,
life itself,

all of that begins fully formed
as a functioning system.

It's not hard to see

there is a radical difference
between those two

in terms of time.

When we look at the history
of life on this planet,

we got a body of data.

But depending on the paradigm
that one adopts,

that data will be interpreted
in very different ways.

It seems that one paradigm is

drawing on a history that was

- given to us?
- Yes.

And another paradigm is
constructing that history.

Is that how you see that?

We have a witness to those events.

And that witness is telling us...

this is what happened

and we have to take that
into consideration

when we evaluate the data.

Well, Paul, the,
the reason has become s...

serious.

As we're not talking
about a history of just...

boiling water at
a certain temperature.

- Right.
- We're talking about a history...

that deals with the origin
of the universe;

it deals with the origin of life,

the origin of humanity,

the origin of sin and
why there is evil in the world,

the origin of geological formations

- that we have around us,
- Yeah.

the origin of language.

I mean, this is a history
that is not minor.

- Yeah.
- This is dealing with

major, major elements of humanity

- and where we are today.
- Yeah.

You're talking about the origins
of literally everything.

And I think,
if we zoom out from that

and say, well,
"what really is the difference

between these two paradigms?"

It isn't a question of...

science on the one hand
versus religion on the other.

Because both of them are scientific

in the sense of looking at
the common body of data.

Really, at the deepest level,

the difference is two
competing views of history.

What is the true history
of our cosmos?

That does seem
to be the real question.

What is our true history?

What actually happened?

The conflict is not between
two views of science,

but between two competing views of history.

Since Genesis was written in Hebrew,

I wanted to talk to Hebrew expert.

What was actually
in the original text?

The first word in Genesis is "Braichit".

Braichit uh, uh.

Genesis 1:1 is Braichit...

So, this is the beginning
of the Toledot of uh, of Noah.

Just think that word Toledot
is a very interesting word.

Translated, sometimes, as "genealogy".

Sometimes, it's translated "history".

And what follows then...

- is the account of the Flood.
- Uh-huh.

Steve, it seems that...

there is a lot of
history in the Bible.

Is that how you see it?
Is...

Oh, absolutely.

In, in fact, the first thing is,
it is an accurate historical account.

Uh-huh.

The presentation is such uh,
in, in the perspective of writers...

that they believe they were
talking about real events.

- Okay. In...
- It's very, it's very obvious that...

because of the way in which...

uh, they insisted
the next generation learn...

- you know, learn their history.
- Uh-huh.

When you look at these
early chapters in Genesis,

what do you see?

Can you take us through this?

It starts with:

In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth.

There's, there's no word
in the Hebrew for Universe.

This means,
He created everything.

- Uh-huh.
- And then...

the next thing we find
in Genesis 1:2...

uh, we, we find a waterball...

- that is in space.
- Uh-huh.

God, in the subsequent days,
is going to fill that universe.

You're talking about days here.

Do you see these as literal days?

Is that what the text is telling us?

Or, you know what
other people think,

that this, this is just a poetic

- uh, different point of view?
- Well, first of all, it's not poetry.

The world greatest Hebraists
all affirm that this is the narrative.

Uh-huh.

Uh, and uh, they, they say that,
that one of the unique features...

of, of the Genesis account...

of creation...

and the Flood,

is that they are narratives.

Because the ancient Near East,

they are done in epic poetry.

Which is very different.

And here we have...

a narrative to indicate
that this is historical.

What that means is that the,
you should understand the words...

the what, the normal way in which
these Hebrew words were understood.

The word "yom",...

it means "day".

Uh, the foundation of its usage...

is what we mean by a day.

It's a 24-hour day.

The only way you'd want it to mean
a long, longer period of time...

is if, as if you impose...

an alien uh, concept...

- to the text.
- Uh-huh.

And say, well, I think that,
that these are ages.

And therefore,
"yom" has to mean ages.

What you have to do
is start with the text.

Yeah.

If we start with the text,
"yom" means day.

So when we come to...

uh, the passage that
talks about the creation of...

- of Adam and Eve,
- Uh-huh, yeah.

um, you're seeing that
as a clear historical event...

which would stand
in direct opposition

to the conventional paradigm
that, that man evolved off

of a long, long process.

The biblical text...

is not compatible...

- with the standard...
- Hmm.

uh, the conventional paradigm.

The Bible teaches us that
the Lord God formed man.

Artistically breeding
in the breath of life,

created man in His image.

And then, of course,
woman is created.

We have marriage.

Uh, we have the fall.

And then in Noah genealogy,
we have the entire Flood account.

And the Flood,
is it a global flood?

Well, I mean...

I don't know how many times,
I think, 35 times or so,

the word "kol", which is "all",
occurs in the Flood narrative.

Uh, if this is a judgment on mankind,

then it has to be global.

We continue through these...

first eleven chapters of Genesis,
we come to chapter ten,...

which is called, which is called
the table of nations,

which are the sons of Noah.

Uh, it mentions in that chapter...

that the people are in their
different nations and their languages.

So Moses goes back
in Genesis 11:1 thru 9...

and explains how
the languages develop.

And so we come to
the Toledot of Terah.

Uh, and the Toledot of Terah
is not going to be about Terah.

It's going to be about
his famous son,...

- Abraham.
- Uh-huh.

It just seems so apparent that...

that there is,
there is no disconnect

between all of that and everything
that we see in the beginning.

It's, it's, it's just one long
historical narrative, is it not?

It, it is.
As a matter of fact,

the ge, the genealogy
form the structure,

uh, not just for Genesis,

but the, the narratives are
embedded in the genealogies.

The genealogies are picked up
and actually call the Toledot...

in the book of Ruth...

to establish that David is
a descendant of Judah.

Which is required by Jacob prophecy.

And then we move in
to the New Testament...

How is the pedigree of Jesus established?

With, with two genealogies:

One going back
through, uh, Mary's line...

all the way back to Adam.

Steve, in the light of all this
that we, that we have seen,

um, how important is
the historical narrative

that we find throughout Genesis,

including all of the, uh,
the generations that are led up?

How important is that to Christianity?

It shows that Christianity
has a historical basis.

It's what the Scriptures say

and the scriptures represent
actual historical, uh, data.

So Christianity is,
is not a leap in the dark.

It is an understanding that has
very strong historical bases,...

and that our Savior
is also our Creator.

These genealogies are
incredibly important.

If Jesus is descended from Adam,

and Adam was created
on the sixth day of creation,

then the Earth can't be very old.

So where do the millions
of years come from?

I met a geologist at a place

where he said we could
understand this better.

You see there...

- the quietness expands?
- Yup.

Nothing to disturb you.

Yet you got the reminder that
there was an explosive in the past.

There was a volcano back here,
the cinder cone volcano.

And it built steps this lava flow

that spilled out
across this country side.

Just a huge amount of,
of basaltic lava.

Yeah, but it's actually small, uh,

compared to the lava flows
that we see in many places.

And there're, there're some like
thousand of these volcanoes around here.

And the little one
behind us here,...

we call that a cinder cone volcano.

- You call that "a little one"?
- Yeah, well, it is.

I mean, these volcanoes are small.

Mount St. Helens in 1980
when it erupted, ok?

The top two and a half thousand feet
of the volcano blew off,

but that was small compared
to historical eruptions.

We can go back a little further

to the great Yellowstone eruption,

and some of the volcanic ash
was down in Texas.

It blew that far away.

You think about
lava flows in India...

where you have an accumulation
up about to a thousand feet...

over an area a third
of the size of the...

subcontinent of India.

What we see in the present
is really only...

a, a minuscule by comparison
to what we've seen in the past.

And that's telling us something
about the historic past.

We can't use present day rates
of these processes to understand...

how quickly and how majestically,
in terms of scale,...

the geological record accumulated.

Well, that is the point
that has brought me to you.

- Because,
- Uh-huh.

how do we determine
the age of these rocks?

Well, the important...

first thing is to recognize
that this lava flow is uh,

in a sense,
an instant in time.

It's an event.

And when that's molten,...

you got all the different elements

that uh, uh, come out
of the volcano all mixed up.

And the rock starts to crystallize.

Any of those atoms
that are radioactive,...

they now start to accumulate...

what we call "the daughter products",
the decay products.

Now, the point is that,
that this rate of decay is so slow...

when we measure in the present...

that uh, you know,
it takes millions of years...

for parent atoms to decay
to daughter atoms.

And so, that's ultimately where
the millions of years come from.

The fact that the decay rates
in the present are slow.

But we would say
that the present...

is not really the key to the past,

because, obviously,...

the past holds
some massive, massive

- catastrophic events...
- Right.

that are not going on today.

In fact, the Bible would say that

- the past is the key to the present.
- Mmm.

If you want us, want to understand
why the way the world is today,...

you got to understand
what happened in the past.

So we got lots of hints...

that geological processes haven't been
at constant rates through time.

And we have other hints...

that the, the decay rates
might not have been constant.

So we've taken rock samples
from a number of places.

Lots of samples in the Grand Canyon,
in each of these rock layers.

I've done it in New Zealand.

We've done in other parts of the world.

And what we've done is
we submitted...

the same samples...

to more than one
of these dating methods.

And so,
what we found is

on the same samples
with more than one method,

we were getting ages
that were different

by hundreds of millions of years,

- even...
- Hmm.

even a billion years
in some instances.

We're seeing huge differences
by using different, different methods.

Well, if, if, if there is
that kind of difference

between all of these
dating method, methods...

then that would seems
to confirm the fact

that we have
an open system here,

- Correct.
- not closed one.

And if we have an open system,

that means,
we can't trust it...

uh, to give us
dependable dates...

for, for those rocks.

And that changes the whole thinking
about the history of the Earth.

Because suddenly now,

these, these radioactive
clocks are not reliable.

Uh, we got evidence that
rates were faster in the past.

Suddenly, we, we might not be
thinking in terms of millions of years.

We might be thinking
in terms of a history...

that is much more
much shorter.

But you were saying that
this kind of evidence...

uh, is in the open literature now.

Yes, yes.

Why, why is it not making impact?

Well, I, I, I've been asked that

when I've spoken in universities'
geology departments.

And the answer is: Because...

there is a commitment
to the millions of years.

And so, once people
get lock in to that focus...

anything outside
their field of view that...

conflicts with that focus...

uh, is, is marginalized.

And the reason why
the millions of years are important,

If, if, if we go back in history
of, of scientific thought,

Charles Lyell in England...

proposed millions of years and
they multiplied the ages for the rocks.

And that was the foundation
on which Charles Darwin built.

In fact, he read Charles Lyell's book...

and was convinced of the millions
of years of geological evolution,

so he could say,
now given enough time...

what we now see
happening in the present,

we might not only see
small changes in the present,

given millions of years,

the small changes can
add up to big changes.

And so, if you want to have a way
of looking at the hist of history...

that uh, says that
we got here by chance,

random processes
over millions of years,...

then you got to have rocks
that are millions of years old.

Otherwise, you'd
undermine that whole...

that whole foundation
of that view of the history.

So time becomes
the critical element

- Yes.
- for the conventional paradigm,

- Exactly.
- and that time has to be a deep time.

Andrew said when
you study the rock formations,

they show evidence of a young earth
transformed by a global catastrophe.

So he took me south to Sedona
to see it for myself.

The important thing
to note is that uh...

this landscape is actually very stable.

There was lots of erosion in the past...

- Oh, yeah.
- to carve out this...

- whole terrain.
- Uh-huh.

But those cliffs...

and, and the valley floor
are very stable,

which is why you got
the vegetation.

Today, everything is much,
much quieter.

Today's processes are extremely slow.

But they can't explain
how we got this erosion,

how we got these layers,

how we got these cliffs.

Alright. So,...

you wanted to come here
because you see evidence...

uh, of a young Earth...

uh, because of, of what's here.

- What do you see?
- Yes. Well,...

the first thing we've noticed
is the extent of these layers.

It's like a stack of pancakes.

For example, the red unit

- that goes all the way across
- Uh-huh.

our field of view,

that's the Schnebly Hill Formation.

And above that,

you can see the first white unit,

it's Coconino Sandstone.

And above that, you got
the Toroweap at the horizon,

you got the Kaibab limestone,

which is the, the rim rock
of the Grand Canyon.

And, you know,
here we are,...

70 more miles from
the Grand Canyon

- and these layers are still here.
- Yeah.

It's almost hard to imagine

the volume of material
that that represents.

Yes.

Take the Coconino sandstone,

We can trace it from here

right across New Mexico,

Colorado,

right over towards Kansas
and Oklahoma, even in Texas.

We're talking at least
200,000 square miles...

- Mmm.
- for this one rock unit...

that's consistant for miles
after miles after miles.

That's not the scale
that we see today,

with localized sedimentation.

And to get a flat line like this...

over such a large area,

it's like you have to make
your pancake all at once

- very rapidely.
- Uh-huh.

And so, these layers show
evidence of rapid sedimentation,

the, the extension of these layers.

Well, Andrew,

you, you were talking about
that red formation, but...

that doesn't sound familiar to me.

No, that's the Schnebly Hill Formation.

That's not in the Grand Canyon.

In the Grand Canyon,
we go from Coconino...

into the Hermit formation.

There's no face boundary,...

and there's no evidence
of erosion there.

Which means that the Hermit
formation was rapidly deposited...

and then immediately the Coconino
that was deposited on top of it.

But here,...

we come 70 miles
from the Grand Canyon...

and we got this Schnebly Hill
formation between...

- the Coconino and the Hermit.
- Hmm.

And, and this Schnebly Hill formation,

800 to 1,000 feet thick,...

over an area of a, a,
a 1,000 square miles,...

had to have been formed very rapidly.

If, if, if that took millions of years,

we ought to see millions
of years of evidence

- of millions of years of erosion
- Uh-huh.

- back in the Grand Canyon
- Uh-huh.

at that same boundary.
We don't.

So that means that this Schnebly Hill
formation in this area...

had to form in a matter of hours.

So it told you that not only
there's lack of erosion

but there's no time
between those boundaries.

- So the whole sequence of layers
- Hhh.

was very rapidly deposited.

So we have this,
this large extent of layers.

We have the lack of erosion
between the layers.

What other evidence do you see?

Well, if we look closely,

for example,
the Coconino Sandstone,

we see the bedding
that this bands within

- that is, that is sloping.
- Hhh.

We call those cross-beds.

What they indicate is that

you had underwater sand waves...

were moving along.

The comparison is in the desert.

It is important to recognize that
there's a difference in the angle...

in the desert dune.

It is usually 30 to 34 degrees
of these, these sloping beds.

Under water, it's usually
25 degrees or less.

And Dr. John Whitmore...

has combed the hills
around here with his students...

hundreds and hundreds
of measurements...

of these cross-beds.

And they all come
in the range of

- 15 to 25 degrees.
- Hhh.

So it was underwater deposition.

And so, these layers
are accumulating

in hours, weeks, and,
and within months,...

you got this whole stack
of pancakes layers...

over such wide areas.

So it isn't difference in believing

in those layers that exist.

- Not at all.
- It's, it's the difference

- of time, isn't it?
- Correct.

It's not a question of
science versus the Bible.

When we're talking about
the Flood paradigm

and the conventional paradigm,

we're actually talking
about two different views

- of the Earth history.
- Uh-huh.

Those views really are different.

Of course, I grew up being taught
the conventional view

with this long ages and
slow uniform changes.

But what was the history
of the world according to Genesis?

Kurt Wise took me from
one fascinating place to another,...

showing me evidence of fossil forests,...

explaining the rapid formation of coal,...

and talking about the complex
design of biological systems.

Everywhere we turned,

he showed me something new
about the Earth and its history.

We ended up at the entrance
to an old abandoned coal mine.

This is leftover remain

of the Dayton Coal and Iron Company,

built about 100-110 years ago.

What's amazing is uh,

if, if you didn't know that history,
and if you look at these rocks,

you would think
they were very ancient.

In fact, if we were in Greece,

you might think
they're thousands of years old.

It's hard to tell just looking
at the structure itself.

Well, Kurt, then I need
for you to do something,

because I know that
the conventional paradigm...

looks back in Earth history
as a straight line,...

a lot of uniform processes
and so forth.

But, the Genesis history
is telling us that...

it's, it's not that uniform.

Yes, that's a good point.

In 2nd Peter chapter 3,

it talks about

people in the later days saying,

"Where is the promise of His coming?

For all the things continuing
as they were

from the beginning of creation".

- That concept that...
- Uh-huh, uh-huh.

what you see in the present,
what's happening now,...

what's happening
in the creek down below,

what's happening in
every place on the Earth

is the way
it has always been.

It has always been
for all of Earth history.

The passage goes on to say,

"For this, they're willingly

- ignorant.
- Uh-huh.

They are not just ignorant
of these truths,

they're purposely
rejecting these truths,

and lists of the Creation...

and the Flood.

These are apparently events,
according to the Bible,

that aren't like the present.

Right.

And the neat thing is
that's what we see here.

That cliff isn't actually in place.

That cliff, it belongs
about a 1,000 feet up.

- It slid down to its current location.
- Uh-huh.

- That's a pretty big bolder.
- That's huge.

Okay now, now, what kind
of process in the present...

slides blocks that big down?

- This thing continues for a mile.
- Uh-huh.

- Uh-huh.
- But inside those rocks...

are yet, further evidence
of an event...

before that,
it's even bigger,

- even more unlike the present.
- Uh-huh.

And then, inside those rocks,
are also fossils of a time period...

- that's very different from the present.
- Uh-huh.

So that, according to
the claim of Scripture

and according to
my own experience...

you can't use the present to...

to judge the past,
to understand the past.

But if you go all the way back
to the beginning, you'll realize...

that the Bible lays out...

what I would call
epochs of Earth history,

- Major occurence of time?
- periods just,

just different things happening

during each of these epochs.

But if you live in anyone
of the other epochs,...

- you would never understand...
- Hhh.

the previous epoch,
because they're so different.

The first one is
the creation itself.

In six days, God created
the entire universe.

He created the planets and the stars.

And He stretched out the universe
with His outstretch arm.

That's obviously not happening today.

- Yeah.
- He's not creating planets.

In fact, at the end of that passage,

it says He ended...

- His creation work.
- Hhh.

And then we move into
what I call the Edenian Epoch,

the period of time when Adam and Eve
are in the garden of Eden.

- And it's very different from the present.
- Right.

We get the impression
from that passage,

for example, that Adam and Eve
if they had not sinned...

would have lived forever.

It's hard to even conceive
of human being living forever.

- So it's a different world.
- True.

- Wildly different.
- Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

How long it lasts?
We do not know.

But it suddenly terminated
with Adam and Eve

eating of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil.

- Rebelling the...
- And God cursing the creation.

- He changed the rules
- Uh-huh.

in the, in the universe.

Now, no longer is the sun
gonna be able to burn forever.

No longer are we gonna
be able to live forever.

So it's hard for us
to even imagine...

- Theory.
- what that would be like...

because we only see the laws...

And we wouldn't have
come to that conclusion

- if we didn't have the Word of God.
- Hhh, it's true if we didn't have this...

With, and, and that's what
I think the Word of God

- has been given to us for.
- Right.

So we slide into
the third epoch of time,

what I call the Ante-Diluvian period,

the period before the flood
and after the fall of man.

Uh-huh.

It's a world that's different
than the present.

It's gotten the same
natural laws going on.

Uh-huh.

But it's a different set of critters,

- a different set of plants.
- Yeah.

It's a little warmer Earth.

The continents are in
different positions

from what they are now.

It looks significantly different.

Well, and that's what
we see in, in Peter,

where it talks about...

that world being destroyed.

So, the Flood was not
just soaking everything.

This was a radical,
radical change, wasn't it?

Yes, if we're right about
what we've understood so far,

we got continents moving,

smashing together,
creating mountains.

The mountains are rising
to tens of thousands of feet.

You got water washing
across the entire continents.

We're, we're reaping tens of,
of thousands of feet of sediment

off of the old continents...

and then depositing thousands of feet
of sediment on top of them again.

- Yeah.
- It's...

We're looking at earthquakes
of astonishing power.

So this changed then from the...

what you call the Ante-Diluvian epoch,

now into uh, the post-Flood...

Basically, the, the Earth
has gotten to recover...

from a global Flood.

The atmosphere has
gotten to recover.

The geology, the rocks have to recover.

Plants and animals have
to spread across the Earth.

You got lots of water,

humongous earthquake,
humongous volcanoes.

And more or less,
that period of recovery...

is a slow...

decrease in intensity...

and frequency of those things.

So would it be in that period
that we would see the Ice Age?

For example?

Yes. That's ironically,

the Ice Age turns out to be,

in our modeling,

a consequence of
the heating of water...

during the flood.

The water is evaporating
off the oceans.

- That cools the oceans.
- Uh-huh.

The water is then moving
over the continents

and dropping enormous
volumes of water.

Now in certain places, the rain
is gonna come down as snow.

- They're coming down so rapidly
- Okay.

and without break,

that can't melt and
accumulates into thick...

- sequences of ice...
- Uh-huh.

- until they're miles thick.
- Uh-huh.

And then when the oceans
have cooled enough

that that rain generation
system has stopped,...

then those glaciers then collapse
under their own weight,

melt back to the current position,
and they're continuing to melt.

Now this thing global warming, it is.

It's recovering, the Earth is still
recovering from the flood.

So that was really a fairly
tumultuous era uh, right then...

and but then you have
one final epoch.

- So the modern epoch is...
- Uh-huh.

you can study present processeses

and understand things...

fairly literally back to...

Yeah.

where within a couple
centuries of the Flood.

And so that would leave one
to think that these processes,

if you take it all the way back.

- Precisely.
- You're right.

You, you take the present processes
and extend them into the back.

And, and that's what
2nd Peter says.

That's the error people make.

It's reasonable.

Take the present and
extend it into the past,

not unreasonable.

So you need to go to the Bible...

to find out the necessary information

- to, to reconstruct it.
- Uh-huh. Yeah.

And looking at the other way,...

if you start from the Bible,...

You only get the beginning of the story.

Right.

God has given us the ability
to read the rocks

- and fill in the rest of the story.
- Yeah.

And we need to, to fully
understand the Flood,

we start with the Bible.

But then we go to the rocks.

Speak to the rocks
and they shall tell...

Right.

what has happened in the past.

Kurt made a good point.

The Bible records historical events...

but it doesn't explain how
those events happened.

That's what these scientists were doing.

They were trying to
interpret the evidence

in the light of biblical history.

But Kurt said there was
evidence inside the rocks.

What was that evidence?

I love coming to
the Natural History Museums.

Uh, uh, for me as a paleontologist,
it's like a chance to go to a zoo.

That's all the animals that
used to live before the Flood.

Uh-huh.

It's like a chance
to step back in time.

It is like a zoo,
except they are not alive.

- They're all dead.
- Right, I know.

And they don't smell.

- So that is pretty good.
- Yeah.

And, and the Natural History
Museum isn't just about...

telling us what was there.

It's also trying to
give us a story line.

- Right?
- Uh-huh.

And we...

we got two possibilities,
we got these two paradigms

between a naturalistic view
and a, a biblical view.

And all the Natural History
Museums in the country,

most of them around the world,

all give you just...

- one of those views.
- Uh-huh.

Only giving you a naturalistic
old Earth view of the world.

But the same data,...

this dinosaur,

is able to be understood

in an alternate paradigm.

So when I'm thinking about
these types of creatures,

I'm thinking about a world
just right before the Flood.

I mean, this is a real picture
of a violent world.

- Yeah. And...
- Yeah.

This is why God said:
"Behold, the end of all flush".

- It wasn't just mankind.
- Uh-huh.

Man and all the animals
on which we rule...

- are juged at the time of the Flood.
- Uh-huh. Yeah.

Well, Marcus, can you kind of
give us an overall picture...

of the fossils and how
all these stuffs fit together?

Yeah.

Fossils tend to be found
in distinct layers where the...

very, very large numbers
that have been destroyed.

Untold billions.

And so every time we see

a layer of rock that this thick,...

we're thinking about an event
that probably took minutes...

- to, to make. Not...
- Hhh.

thousands of years.

Minutes for just this
one package of rocks.

Sometimes, even seconds.

Now, where these pulses
of water from the Flood are...

moving over the continents,

grabbing ecosystems,

or dragging marine ones up
from, from deeper in the ocean...

and pulling them onto land.

And as one gets deposited,
and the waves come back,

They start pulling and piling
additional stuffs on top of that.

And it's, it's a graveyard on top
of a graveyard on top of a graveyard.

It's, it's a sort of thing
that speaks to a catastrophe,

not the sort of thing
where the fossil record

is gradually accumulating

bone by bone,
shell by shell,

- little by little,
- Uh-huh.

over untold eons of time.

So you're saying that
we have these...

uh, marine fossils all over,

- even on mountains.
- Yes.

Yeah, further back over
uh, in the Museum,

they got sections
with things like mosasaurs,

- big swimming reptiles.
- Hhh.

Mosasaurs are globally distributed.

And, and they're distributed
on continents.

So looking at these things,
you're saying:

what is it that has the power,

what is it that has, has a capacity

to take the marine world

and throw it on top
of the continents

in such violent and
destructive manner.

And, and the Flood makes
perfect sense with this.

When we were in
the Grand Canyon,

we saw that Great Unconformity.

- Yeah.
- And there were no fossils

to speak of really below that.

And then all of the sudden,
we start getting a lot.

What, what does that say
to you as a paleontologist?

Well, the Great Unconformity is telling me

that there's some sort of
massive erosion

and sheering that is happening
across the continent.

And then once we start getting
to those nice sedimentary rocks,

they have all the wonderful
fossils in them.

The pattern uh, starts to emerge.

The ecosystem that has
the first animal tenet

shows up very suddenly.

In conventional Paleontology,

they call this
the Cambrianic Explosion.

It's the first appearance
of a wide diversity

of different types
of marine animals.

All of the sudden, you have
this complex and whole ecosystem

that shows up,
basically, out of nowhere.

Now that makes perfect sense from
the Creation and Flood perspective

because the Flood is about
destroying ecosystems.

Whereas in the evolutionary view,

uh, these ecosystems are
going to have to arise

a little more gradually

as organism diversify evolve

and respond to one another
in their environment.

But that's not what you see.

Instead, you see...

an explosion of life...

that is complex,

whole,

the ecosystem is integrated
with one another.

You can see where all
the different organisms fit,

- Uh-huh.
- with respect to one another.

And that's just the first
time that that happens.

Every time you move up
in the geological column,

in this fossil record,

you start seeing snapshots of
more and more ecosystems.

You got one ecosystem that is destroyed,

and then you got another one.

It's gotten slightly different creatures,

there're different interactions going on.

And as the floodwaters
move higher and higher,

they're getting closer
and closer to the shore,

destroying more and more
organisms in the shoreline,

- and eventually up onto land.
- Yeah.

So I, I think I see
what you're saying here.

And that is,
it's, it's the paradigm

that uh, we're all taught,

that conventional paradigm...

is trying to tell us that
the fossil record is...

an evolutionary picture
of life as it's developing...

as oppose to the Genesis
paradigm that is saying no,

all of that life,
all the complexity of life

- already was there...
- Yeah.

and now, we're looking at
the graveyard of all that life.

Exactly.

Well, what are some other data

that you're seeing that,
that convinces you of this paradigm?

Sure. Well, one very curious
situation with the fossil record,

so if you're thinking
vertically about things,

it, it's not the hard parts
of the animal,

but the trackways.

They are the footprints.

This is a pattern that we see
in several different groups,

where their footprints are first
and body parts are later.

Uh-huh.

For the trilobites, for the amphibians,
for the dinosaurs,

the first time I find evidence
of them in the fossil record

is from trackways,

- not hard parts.
- Interesting.

From an old Earth perspective,

that's really weird
and hard to grapple with,

because you have millions of years...

between the trackway production...

and ultimately,

- the animal that made it.
- Uh-huh.

But that obviously doesn't
make a whole lot of sense.

Uh, because if there're trackways,
there are animals.

And these animals have bones
and teeth and shells to them.

Why aren't they fossilized?

Instead, the pattern is telling us
something different.

There's no time...

between when somebody leaves a track
and when somebody gets buried.

But the fact that those
trackways are still there,

that, that should tell us
something as well, shouldn't it?

One, it tells us that the deposition

or the, the placement of
the next layer on top of them

had to happen very, very quickly.

Because, again, you go on to uh,
a beach and you walk in the sand,

your trackways are, are destroyed

- very, very quickly.
- Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

But the fossil record is showing us
something very different from today.

This is death in a moment.

- Yes.
- This is death in an instant.

And we're talking about
a, a world that was complex,

whole, integrated,

and the Flood is destroying
that world, sequentially,...

- and burying it in a vertical fashion.
- Uh-huh. Yeah.

And so I think,

looking at the fossil record
as a record of life is...

partly correct.

But it's not about life development.

It's about life attempts
to survive an event...

that ultimately consumed all of them.

Well, that would make sense then,

because, when God was talking
about destroying the Earth...

uh, with the flood,

it wasn't just
the destruction of human life,

it was the destruction of all life.

And so, now the world we live in

is, as you said,

radically different

- than what that was before.
- Yeah.

When we look at the T-Rex,
when we look at the Mosasaur,

when we look at...

uh, all these animals
as ferocious carnivores,

and they really are.

I mean, they terrify.

But that's not what they were
initially created to be.

And so these sharp teeth,

these devastating claws,

and the behaviors
that go along with them,

all seem to be part of the curse.

And part of that is genetic.

Part of it might also be
just thru some modifications.

- But, uh, these organisms...
- Uh-huh.

by the time we see them,

and it is important for us to remember

when we come to
a Natural History Museum,

that you're not seeing
the world at creation week.

Right.

You're seeing the world...

as it existed in the Flood.

And that world was the one
that was filled with violence,

and was, was a pretty
terrible place to live.

I realized that the billions of
creatures buried in those layers

are a silent testimony
to God's global judgment.

I decided I wanted to see one of
those layers of fossils for myself.

If dinosaurs died suddenly in the Flood,

wouldn't that be obvious?

What we're dealing with here,

this is in the Lance Formation.

This is a "Upper Cretaceous"
sedimentary deposit.

And what we have here is
what's called the bone-beds.

It's, it's, an accumulation of bones...

that's about a meter thick,

a little less than a meter,

and in this meter,

we find the bones present
as a graded bed,

with little bones at the top and
bigger bones at the bottom.

And you can see here,...

looks like,...

Erline is working on
another vertebrate.

Here, this is a cervical vertebra
of a duckbill dinosaur.

This is where the spinal cord goes.

- Right there.
- Hhh. Uh-huh.

When I, when I look at
these bones in the quarry, I...

I often I think of them as being...

- inside the animal alive.
- Oh.

- And just imagine what is,
- Sure.

what is like to be...

seeing these bones
for the first time.

So, so this is just full of bones.

And, and it's not like we have to go
looking for where the bones are.

We just have to sit down
and start digging.

What is mainly different about...

the site that you're digging here,

as oppose to,
what we would say,

a general dinosaur dig somewhere?

Well, there're, there're dinosaurs
found all over the world,

but, this particular site is unique,...

in there is probably one of the largest

collections of bones in the world.

And there are the remains of, between,

I would say, between
5,000 and 10,000 animals,

each 20 to 40 feet long,

in this, in this deposit.

These are big animals,

- and there are a lot of them.
- Uh-huh.

- Let's step back for just a second.
- Okay.

Okay, so we had,
we had a duckbill dinosaur

roaming around the Earth.

And all of the sudden, it dies.

Would it become a fossil?

Fossilization requires
very special circumstances.

Normally, we know,

for example, if a coy...,
if a coyote dies on the desert,

its, its body is soon gone.

Yet these bones are
all perfectly preserved.

They have never been
subjected to the weather,

they are just all there,
They're...

Today, it would be very difficult
to imagine how you could do that.

To some extent,
we would really say that

to find a fossil is rare.

Eventhough, we have
many, many fossils,

in terms of things that die,

- Right.
- it's rare if it'd become fossilized.

It is rare.

- It requires special circumstances.
- Uh-huh.

Not, not the least of which
is the rapid burial.

Hhh.

These, these animals had to die...

and then their carcasses
had to have time to rot.

So, we're talking days
or weeks or months...

during which time, the,
the bones and tissues

were either eaten away
or rotten away.

and then the bones or remains

were deposited instantaneously
in, in this environment.

Because they're in a graded bed

where big bones at the bottom
and little bones at the top.

And you can see that here.

- The big bones are all down at the bottom.
- Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

And when they start digging up here,
they start to find small bones.

So that condition requires
a sorting process.

It can only take place during
a catastrophic emplacement.

So when we look at
the dinosaur fossils,

rather than looking at them
from the standpoint

that we have early dinosaurs,

then middle dinosaurs,
and later dinosaurs,

you're looking at proof

from the perspective
that all those dinosaurs

were in existence.

They were all living,

and then there was
this huge catastrophe

that brought them to an end.

The dinosaurs are already dinosaurs

when they first,
when they first appeared.

They looked just like...

anyone would sit,
think of a dinosaur looked.

And this is a conundrum

for, for those who believe in
the evolution of the dinosaurs.

But we hear a lot
about transitional forms.

What's, what's the real story there?

Scientists have been able to...

lay out some forms
they think are transitional,

and some of them are very interesting,
some even challenging.

But, there are
the exceptions to the rule.

The rule is there are
no transitional fossils.

And what we find
in the fossil record...

and contrary to Darwin's hopes,
this is the rule,...

is that a form exists
in the fossil record,...

it basically stays unchanged,

and it disappears
from the fossil record

without him had been changed.

That has gotten to mean
somethng besides evolution

because we don't never see

changes from this form into this form

in the, in the rocks themselves.

So it's coming from somewhere else.

It's a, it's a paradigm that is
being imposed on the data...

rather than the data is...

- providing the paradigm.
- Uh-huh.

So I think it's very easy
for me to be a creationist

just based on my understanding of...

the complexity of life forms.

And when we look at
the fossil record,

we can see the complexity
is all there from the beginning

- and this, this begs a question of:
- Uh-huh.

Where did all this complexity come from?

It's one thing to have faith.

I have faith that God...

was a creator,

but that's substantiated
by what I see around me.

Uh-huh.

To say I have faith that,
that evolution produced this...

when I can't even see
how it could've happened,

that's blind faith.

- That's a leap in the dark.
- That's a leap in the dark.

It seemed that everywhere I looked,

there was a growing body of evidence

that fits the historical record of Genesis.

It wasn't just one thing.

It was many things pointing
in the same direction.

When I was with Art,

he told me about some recent discoveries
of material inside dinosaur bones.

So I traveled to a lab in Arizona
to talk to a scientist...

who is doing some
of that research himself.

- This is a fragment of Triceratops horn.
- Hhh.

Uh, when we pulled it out the ground,

it fragmented.

And then, of course, we had
to continue to fragment it,

in order to do analysis of it.

Uh, in 2012,

the Creationist Research Society
sponsored Mark Armitage and I

to go to the Hell Creek
Formation in Montana,

which is very popular place
for finding dinosaur bones,

and we instead dug out

a, almost, four foot long
Triceratops brown horn.

Now, it's just in crumble pieces now.

So we can't really,
you know, put it together

- and show you a horn.
- Uh-huh.

But yet, you have
to recognize that...

pieces susch as this,...

we have found tissue...

with cells,...

- Oh, that's amazing.
- And potentially...

proteins such as collagen.

It's so difficult to understand

how you could have this material
still in a dinosaur fossil...

that is supposed to be 65, 75,

- 80 million years of age,
- Uh-huh.

because tissue, cells,
proteins break down.

They don't just,
they're not concrete.

They don't just exist
for eons of time.

They break down.
And, in fact,...

they tend to break down
fairly quickly,

depending upon the conditions.

And certainly in Hell Creek,...

the conditions would be

warmed up, cooled down,
warmed up, cooled down.

And any biochemist can tell you

that is the fastest way
to destroy material.

It's difficult enough
to envision it surviving

for 4 or 5000 years.

- But, 60 million years?
- Hhh.

70 million years?

See, that really becomes
very difficult to make

any kind of biochemical

- basis for how it could have survived.
- Uh-huh.

Okay, so,
once you find a, a,...

- a sample like this,
- Uh-huh.

what do you do next?

So, what we do is
we soak the fossil material

in a solution called E.D.T.A.

And what you'll have
after dissolving the fossil,

the tissuewill be remaining

because the EDTA won't
dissolve the tissue.

- Hhh.
- So then I bring this over to...

uh, what we call a dissection...

- microscope.
- Uh-huh.

This is, in essence, dissolved...

Triceratops horn.

Magnified...

And so, you can see
what it looks like.

Just like of little,
little pieces of rock.

Well, Kevin,
what did you find then...

uh, when you, when you were
looking at the sample

and you actually found
some, some tissue?

Okay, here is what we found.

This is actually Triceratops tissue.

It's stretchable.

It's pliable.

- It's not an impression
- Hhh.

of the soft part of the dinosaur.

This is truely soft.

It is squishy.

It is stretchable.
It is tissue.

That blows your mind, huh?

Absolutely.

And if you look at them
in the closer magnification,...

what we see then, this is using
scanning electron microscopy,

you can see the extreme
detail of the cells.

And that picture and this picture,

and particularly like,
look at this picture...

we would not expect,

we didn't expect to see such
enormous and elaborate detail.

I mean, these structures
are incredibly small.

You know, this is
our 20 micron bar here.

You see how small
these structures are...

- still intact.
- Yeah.

It would take very little
to break those.

So at best, you would expect
that all that would have broken off

- and been long gone.
- Uh-huh.

So, that has, has to have...

shaken up the scientific community.

What has been
the response to all of this?

The initial response,

when Dr. Schweitzer
first published her work,...

which is what became
very popularized in 2005,

it generated a lot of response.

And so initially, some of
the reaction was rejection.

Oh, it's contamination.

You know, those,

- Oh.
- that's not really dinosaur.

It's bacteria.

Because bacteria can look
kind of strange sometimes.

So, you have a lot of
proposals of what it could be.

And to her credit,
Dr. Schweitzer did more work.

They began to find protein.

You break open some of these cells,

you look in them

at the matrix these cells are
attached to and their protein.

Okay, so once that is uh,

- understood,
- Yes.

then, what happens?

No, this is shaking it up, I guess.

That becomes part of the controversy.

Because, clearly,
you now face with

How could you explain
the survival of this?

- The pristine survival...
- Hhh.

of this.

Not only for so long,

- but in very unpristine condition.
- Uh-huh.

And so then,
the controversy has been,

How do you explain it?

- Uh-huh.
- And...

if you read some of the literature,

there is almost like desperation of,

because they recognize...

what the implications of this could be.

Now, some people would claim:
Well, it means nothing,

because we know how old they are,

and therefore, it just means
it survived somehow.

Big deal.

But, how do you know
how old they are?

Would you use methods?

Suppose methods of dating.

Well, this is a method of dating.

The tissue itself can't be discounted

- as part of a method of dating.
- Hhh.

So, why do you say that doesn't count,
but this does count?

Well, it's all about the paradigm
drives your conclusions.

The paradigm is,
it has to be old,

therefore, methods that give us
an old fossil are what we choose.

Something that doesn't give us
an old fossil, like tissue,

- we have to reject or explain away.
- Uh-huh.

At least to me, and I, of course,
I'm not a microbiologist, but...

I think most people uh, would say:

Well, that, that just seems
reasonable to think that,

maybe, these are not that old.

Clearly, this is in violation of
the dating process.

It challenges...

- the entire dating process.
- Uh-huh.

If the fossils of dinosaurs
have been dated incorrectly,

which I would say, this is
a clear evidence they have,

then it's very likely

the fossils of any organism
had been dated incorrectly.

And therefore then,

the geological ages
themselves are incorrect.

What you're saying is that
if you pull out the notion of

a long period of time,...

uh, you're pulling out a major...

- foundation...
- Hhh.

uh, for the conventional paradigm.

Absolutely.

In fact, time is the critical
component for evolution.

If you're going to say that...

a simple cellular system became
a multicellular system,

and then became fish,...

and the fish then...

jumped up on land and grew legs

- and started breathing air,
- Hhh.

and then that creature

grew feathers and wings
and started flying...

So if you give us time,

we'll claim to account
for all of this...

massive change of organisms.

But, we got to have the time.

Everything seemed to come back
to the question of time.

I remembered Andrew saying that

Charles Darwin accepted
the millions of years first,

then fit his theory of evolution
to that assumption.

But why is time such
an important element to evolution?

Rob Carter is a marine biologist.

So we took this scuba diving...

to get a glimpse of a world
most people don't see.

His specialty was coral.

And he knew a lot about
the incredible creatures

that inhabit the reefs
around St. Thomas.

Oh man, we got the sharks here?

The mean in which how they move,

and it's almost like effortlessly

glide along.

I wish I could swim like that.

Engineers wish we could
make boats like that.

Yeah.

Submarines that could move
as efficiently as a shark,

we can't quite do it.

So from your perspective
as a marine biologist,

and I know that you've studied
the whole area of genetics alot,...

Yes.

when people talk about
evolution, what is it?

How do you define evolution?

The word means "change over time".

But, I believe in change over time.

But I'm not an evolutionist.

So how does one figure this out?

Really, evolution is a belief...

that enough change over time,...

over enough time,...

can lead to the common ancestry
of all species on Earth.

Alright.

So that's the part I reject.

Of course, species change.

I mean, look at these sharks here.

We have several different
species of sharks.

When God created,

He put in to those organisms the ability

to change,
to adapt,

- to respond dynamically...
- Uh-huh.

to the environment.

But, they're still sharks.

And when we look at
the fossil record,...

- they're still sharks.
- Uh-huh.

Yeah, people have heard
the phrase the "missing link",...

and they usually think of
between man and monkeys.

No, this missing link is between

almost every major group of animal,

and almost every other major
group of animal and plant,

and bacteria throughout
the entire fossil record.

Which indicates very strongly...

that these are actually
different creations.

So we don't get one kind
becoming another kind?

No.

Evolution theory requires that...

small, random changes
can explain everything we see.

- Uh-huh.
- But, it can't.

And why can't it?

Because life is so complex...

that small changes can't explain it.

Just like you can't take
a computer operating system,...

Uh-huh.

and look at it and say,
oh yeah, this is built up

- one digit at a time...
- Right.

over any length of time.

No, it took an intelligent
person to sit down...

and put it together.

Well, I can guarantee you
as one who is in that world...

that if anyone in the area of
computer science would have said,

we just randomly change some things
in this operating system,

it'll get better.

I mean, no one would
agree with that.

No, we're not gonna get the shark...

to evolve into a bird.

The, the, the number of changes

and the type of changes...

- are not something you could do...
- Uh-huh.

one change at a time.

This is a sea urchin.

Looks spiny.

It's pointy.
You have to be careful.

- Am I gonna get stuck if I touch it?
- No, no, no.

It's pointy, but...

Oh my goodness,
they, they're moving.

Yes, they're moving.

And then between the spines,
there are little tube feet.

Especially, in the bottom.

Oh, look at that movement.

- So he walks with his spines...
- Huh.

but his little tube feet in here,

and that's what he uses
to grab on to things...

But look, looking carefully...

there is one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven...

there are actually ten
radial parts to this animal.

Huh!

Actually, the starfish is his cousin.

Are you seriously?
You can't be serious.

Absolutely.

A starfish here is
also an echinoderm.

But note, it has five full symmetry...

- instead of 10.
- Uh-huh. Yeah.

This starfish does.

At the bottom, look...

we see the spines,
we see the tube feet.

- His mouth is in the center there.
- Huh.

So there are some similarities here?

- Similarities...
- Eventhough,

externally, looks a lot different.

A lot different...

You want to see something
that looks a lot different?

- Sure.
- Which is cousin to the starfish

- and sea urchins.
- Okay.

Alright.

It almost looks like a rock.

Yes, yes, I got to be careful.

He's squirting on me.

- This is a sea cucumber.
- No.

- I'll be...
- He has spines.

He has...

Huh.

- tube feet.
- Oh my goodness.

You'd never know until
you study really hard...

that this is also an echinoderm.

He's not very happy
to be out of water

- so let me put him back in.
- Yeah.

So these are all related

eventhough, they look
very, very different.

Related in their creation.

- Uh-huh.
- Not in an evolutionary sense,

but, our Creator...

took this phylum of life,...

the echinoderms,

and created this and this and this

on a similar pattern.

And that's what we see
across the entire realm of life,

- Uh-huh.
- similarities and differences.

So, what makes them different?

Well, genetically, they share...

most of their genes in common.

But, they develop mental genes,

they're called Hox genes,

that set up these patterns

in the animals as they develop.

They develop from a single cell.

Then in one of them,
they set up a five-fold symmetry.

in another, they set up
a ten-fold symmetry.

Another one, they make
this long skinny animal.

They control the development...

of the embryo in these amazing ways.

So what you're saying,
when we look at this from uh, um,...

a molecular or genetic perspective,...

uh, what we're finding is
really a fascinating design...

- in all of this.
- Absolutely.

But, what we heard in
the conventional paradigm,

the conventional story tells us...

that is those random changes

that has brought about all of this.

Sure.

Back in the eighteen hundreds,

- when life was simple,
- Uh-huh.

when they didn't know what
was happening inside the cell,

they didn't know
how complex genetics was,

you could imagine
all sorts of things.

But now that we know
what actually happens

- behind the scence,
- Hhh.

the story gets a lot more complicated.

You see, I like to say
that the genome...

- is four-dimensional.
- Hhh.

We, we have a one
dimensional string called DNA.

And if you want to draw that out,

you have to write all the letters of DNA,

I don't, all three billion of them,

and then you have
to draw lines or arrows...

from one part to anotherpart
because this part turns this part off,

this part interferes with this,
this part enhances this.

It is a huge two dimensional
interaction network.

that's a way you have
a two-dimensional genome.

Hey, let me, let me

- stop you for a second,
- Alright.

because this is really amazing...

to think about this because...

um, I think, in terms of
a computer program

that is fairly static.

- I mean, the instructions are there.
- Yeah.

But, you're talking about a program

- that is reprogramming itself.
- Oh.

That's modifying its own instructions.

Wait until you get to fourth dimension.

Oh, okay.

Because there is a third dimension first.

The information in that first dimension,
that linear string,...

has to be organized in such a way...

that when it folds
into the third dimension,

it still works.

Oh, that's amazing.

Genes that are used together
are next to each other.

- In 3D space.
- I'll be...

Are you saying that once
this thing gets folded up,

It's almost like we have...

- a new set of instructions?
- Yes.

And new level of information.

- Unbelievable.
- That...

whoever programmed that first level...

needed to understand
what was gonna happen...

have it work in the third level.

But, you said there is
another dimension even.

Oh yeah.
The fourth dimension is time.

And how does that work?

The genome changes shape...

over time.

Maybe, you eat something
that's bad for you...

and your liver says,
I can get rid of that toxin.

Now, the chromosomes in
the liver will change shape,

expose that new protein gene,

make copies of it,...

build the brand new protein
that can kill off that toxin,...

and when it's not needed anymore,

- they change shape again and fold back.
- Oh my goodness.

Dynamic programming.

All three levels...

change in the fourth level time.

Rob, that's so far beyond
anything that we know.

Even in our most complex
software systems

that it, it's almost beyond
imagination to think...

that someone would look at that

and say,
it all happened by chance.

Yes, and only brings glory to God.

It does.

You can't build something like that up

- one thing at a time.
- Yeah.

You need it function.

In, in all its interlocking
four dimensional complexity,

it's not something you can do...

one letter at a time...

- with natural selection.
- Uh-huh.

It all has to be there.

Yeah, in the same way
when we talk about

the environment down here
at the coral reef.

If you don't have all these
interlocking pieces in that puzzle,

you don't have that ecology.

The system would come crashing down

if you just remove
a couple of very important

- factors that are there.
- Uh-huh.

They have to be together
or it doesn't happen.

So not only do we have
this uh, interdependency,

this mutualism, so to speak,
down at the genetic level,

now we even make it
more complex by saying,

there is that same mutualism...

- at the higher level as well.
- Yes.

In fact, the entire
world has mutualism.

It's impossible to think...

that all of this could have happened...

just by a series of slow processes
over billions of years.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

It's clear that the world we live in...

is incredibly interdependent.

From the smallest biological system...

to the largest ecosystem.

There are complex mutual
relationships everywhere.

I realized the creation in six days
makes the most sense,

from an engineering perspective.

You need everything working together

at the same time

for everything to function properly.

And that's exactly how
Genesis says, God created it.

Rob also said,
God created animals

with the ability to change

and adapt to their environments.

Is it possible, this ability to change...

has been mistaken for evolution?

As Todd Wood and I
walk through the zoo,

we saw incredible beauty
and amazing design

wherever we looked.

I noticed the great diversity
between some animals,

as well as a remarkable
similarity of others.

As, as a biologist,

what do you see when
you see all of these creatures?

Yeah, when I look at this,...

look at these lions,...

specifically, I'm seeing cats.

And so, and all the other cats
they have here at the zoo,

they all have this underlining...

catness to them...

- Hhh.
- that's really apparent.

It's really apparent when
they start playing, right?

You see them play with some sort of ball
or something and they look...

- Look just like a cat.
- They look like a cat.

You know, scientists would put that
to a family called Felidae.

And I would understand
the felines to be...

representatives of a single created kind.

So the continuity,

the similarity there is so significant...

that I'd say, yeah,

these guys are all
descended from a single...

pair of critters...

- Hhh.
- that was on the ark...

and that eventually generated
all the different sorts of cats

that we have today.

So rather than just uh,
a, a random accident,...

it appears as if all of these
different species are coming

from a really

- elaborate design.
- Oh, absolutely.

And it's not just the design,
like God, you know,

designed and created the lion,

it's God created something
that could make a lion.

- Uh-huh.
- So it's more like, you know,

a multi-purpose tool
or a Swiss Army knife,

where you got all these pieces that
you just pop out whenever you need them,

but it's all just one thing.

So give me some other
examples of created kinds.

Yes, so, you got the grizzly
and the polar bear.

Those are all members
of the bear kind.

You got ducks, swans and geese.

The thing about the dog kind
is really interesting.

So, you take just
this wolf-like creature...

and we can breed in only
a few hundred years...

many different breeds.

Well, Todd, that's kind of
fascinating now,

to think about
what God was doing

when He was bringing

uh, two of every kind.

What do you think
was going on there?

Oh yeah.
I mean, He's...

He doesn't have to bring
every little variety onto the ark.

So when you actually
do the calculations,

and, okay, so we don't know exactly

how many created kinds
that were on the ark.

Maybe, couple thousands,...

and they're small.

Most animals are quite small.

So, you have room to spare.

- Literally, room to spare.
- Hhh.

And all of that diversity
that we have today

is built in to those two of a kind.

Well Todd, we're looking
at the zebras and...

they're all unique,

and yet all of these creatures,

there is so much
complexity and diversity.

How does the standard story,

the conventional paradigm,
explain all of that?

Well, they would use evolution, right?

So...

Millions of years,

random variations,

all things that are alive now,

that cactus,
that zebra,...

the grass here, is all related.

We all go back to a common
ancestor that lived

billions of years ago.

And through the process of mutation
and genetic variation...

uh, and natural selection,

and that's where we get
the stuffs that we have today.

So, natural selection...

uh, what is it?

Does it have the kind of creative

potential that we need
for all of this?

Natural selection uh,
is basically all about

killing off things that aren't
fit for the environment.

So, if you're a finch
in the Galapagos,...

and you have a really tiny beak,...

and the only food
available to you is really

- big hard seeds,...
- Uh-huh.

you're gonna die.

And that's exactly what we observe.

And so, we can watch
over the generations

that the beak sizes
of finches change

in the Galapagos.

But, they're still finches.

They're still birds.

The notion that natural
selection can generate

all of the diversity we see,

that's not been demonstrated.

- Uh-huh.
- What we find,

most often,
with natural selection

is that natural selection
does a lot of fine tunings.

So right over here,
we got these oryxes, right?

Beautiful creatures,...

and very, very pale colors.

The wild ranges of the oryx is right on
the southern end of Sahara Desert.

- And so you can see...
- Uh-huh.

yeah, their coloration makes sense.

If you get a really dark color one

that's gonna be very easy for

- predators to find,
- Uh-huh.

and so they end up being
these really beautiful light colors.

Uh, and that's an example of
where selection would take...

a variation and turn it
into an adaptation.

And that brings us back
to the notion that...

a really exquisite design
in the beginning.

- Oh, I think so.
- It...

- Oh, absolutely.
- Uh-huh.

It has provided these creatures
with the ability

to survive and to, to change

- for their benefit.
- Absolutely.

So the ability to be able
to change your coloration like that,

to be able to fit in an environment,

that's got to be built into
the system before it starts.

Now, don't get me wrong.

I mean, that those selections and
random variations can do amazing things.

I mean, it, it's pretty astonishing...

the kind of changes that we can see,...

but we don't see one kind
changing into another.

All we see are variations...

- that happened within a created kind.
- Uh-huh.

There is a felid tree
which has all the cats on it.

There is a canid tree
which has all the dogs on it.

There is an ursid tree
which has all the bears on it.

There is an equid tree
with all the horses on it.

Each individual created kind then
has its own individual tree.

So that you end up with
something like an orchard or forest.

As a scientist,

it seems, what you're saying is
the Genesis paradigm...

answers all of this data better.

Ultimately, I think it does,

because it embraces both
similarity and difference.

Now, as we already said,

there are just, there are a lot of
questions that are still out there.

But,...

uh, I'm pretty confident,
given what...

our paradigm can explain,

I am very confident that those
answers are going to be found.

After we left the zebras,

we made our way to the gorillas.

Todd wanted to talk about
the question of human evolution.

Todd, we see it all the time,

a new discovery,
new skulls,...

new skeletons that...

supposedly solidify this whole link.

- Yeah.
- What do you see there?

Absolutely. Well, I got some
right here in my bag.

Oh, a skull.

So, this guy...

is a Neandertal.

Very, very low forehead.

- To we have very tall foreheads.
- Uh-huh.

Uh, the face,

the mid-face has been pulled out.

- Uh-huh.
- Uh, but at the same time,...

well, it looks very human.

- So that's the Neandertal.
- Okay.

- You want to hold it on for me?
- Yeah, yeah.

Okay?

We have others
that are very different.

Oh, yeah.

Now, this one is...

Australopithecus Africanus.

So, you can see,...

really no forehead at all.

- It's just slopes right back.
- Uh-huh.

Very, very small brain case,...

uh, muscle sticks way out,...

so the flace faces slope forward.

What do you do with this stuff?

I mean, there is many more
that we can show,

many more pictures,
many more skulls,

and you can see looking at the...

- Bringing them together, they're really...
- Yeah. Uh-huh.

- There is a lot of difference there.
- Yeah.

Well, here's the thing.

So all that created kind stuffs
that we already talked about,

I can show...

again and again and again
with multiple studies...

that I can find the discontinuity
between humans...

and nonhumans.

So this thing lands
on the human side.

This Neandertal here is one of us.

- This thing is not.
- Hhh.

It is different.

But, this would be just
another one of those...

varieties of living things that
God made in the beginning

and it survive the flood
and board the ark.

So when we look at uh,
Neanderthal man,...

uh, we're looking at a, a human,...

uh, but it's a human that
just like we find in dogs,

we have a lot of
varieties of, of dogs...

We got a lot of varieties of people.

So even looking back here at the gorilla,

we can see...

the obvious differences
between us and him.

Not the least of which is
that he's in there...

and we, we can go home
when we're done.

And so those differences
are really huge, aren't they?

Uh, yeah, absolutely.

The image of God...

entails this idea of...

being God's representatives
here on this Earth.

Part of that, there is having
dominion and having authority.

A spiritual quality
that we have, you know,

- that we don't share...
- Uh-huh.

- with animals like that.
- Yeah.

It's obvious we're different
from the rest of creation.

Because we were made in God's image.

We're the only ones to create zoos.

So, we can see the beauty
of God's animals.

And we're unique in tracking time

and want to know our own history.

But, where does our concept
of time come from?

It was a beautiful night.

Danny took me far outside the city.

And kept me up very late

in order to show something
I will never forget.

Oh my goodness!

Now you're gonna
make me buy a telescope.

You know, we have some purposes
that were given from the stars.

In, in Genesis 1:14 to 19,
that's day 4...

uh, creation calendar, mentions
the stars and other heavenly bodies

- that mark time,
- Hhh.

to rule over the night,
to be for sign,

seasons, festivals and so forth.

Uh, people have been using the stars

- for, for marking, passing of time.
- Uh-huh.

The patterns repeat every night.

They repeated every year.

They, they come back.

And the season,

- it's a lot of regularity going on here.
- Uh-huh.

Uh, what about the design
of the sun and the moon?

Well, there're a couple of things
I can talk about.

On rare occasions, the, the moon
passes between us and our sun.

- Uh-huh.
- Doesn't happen very often.

And when that happens,

the, the moon just barely
covers the sun up.

If the moon were a little smaller
or little farther away,

it wouldn't do it at all.

If it were larger or closer to us,

it would be grossly over total.

- Uh-huh.
- And uh,

So these eclipses are,
are spectacular and rare,

and this is the only planet
on which it matters.

And it's the only planet
on which it happens.

And you got to think either just
that's the way the world is,...

for no apparent reason,...

or the world is that way
for a purpose and design.

And to me,
that speaks of creation.

Okay, high over head here,

we have the great square of Pegasus.

it is this big regtangle.

Now coming off of Pegasus is
a little fuzzy spot right there.

- You see it?
- Yeah.

That's the Andromeda Galaxy.

That is the most distant object
that you can see with the naked eye.

It's a little over,
we think, a little over

two million light years away,

and it contains a couple
hundred billion stars.

Wow.

Okay, Danny,
that brings me to...

a big question, a big question
in a lot of people's minds.

If we have stars
that are that far away,

million of light years away,

and if the Earth is young,

as we believe,

then how in the world
can the starlight be here?

Yeah.

We call this the, the light
travel time problem.

And I'll try to phrase it for you
little, little differently.

Uh, we believe that if creation is
only thousands of years old,

uh, say 6,000 years,
7,000 years,

- something like that.
- Uh-huh.

And I just pointed out
something to you

that we think, it's 2 million
light years away from us.

I think those distances
are reasonably correct.

And uh, we creationists
need to answer this question.

And we've offered several
different solutions to that.

- I'll discuss with you my solution...
- OK.

on this.

Several, several things jump out
at me in the creation account.

One, there are a lot
of process going on,

very rapid process, but still process.

Uh, if you look at
the day 3 account,

it talks about plants,
rising up above the ground.

It says, let the Earth
bring forth these plants,

and the Earth brought forth.

I think if you would have been there,
it would have looked like

- a time lapse movie.
- Hhh.

Growth might take normally decades,

taking place in a matter of minutes
or hours at the most.

Uh, normal growth,...

- abnormally fast.
- Hhh.

I believe, you can interpret...

one day of creation
in terms of another day.

So I turn to the day 4 account,

not much information is given there.

But I think, God also
rapidly made the stars

and other astronomical bodies.

And then, in order for them
to fulfill their function to be seen,

He had to rapidly
bring forth that light.

Just as He brought plants
and matured quickly,

- He had to bring light here.
- Uh-huh.

I'm suggesting when we
actually look at these objects,

like the Andromeda galaxy
we saw a few minutes ago,

we're looking at light
that actually left that object.

Yes.

So I think, there is rapid maturing

- took place.
- Yeah.

Danny, are there some
other things that you see

that would point to
a young universe?

I think so.

For instance, uh, spiral galaxies.

So, Andromeda Galaxy,
we talked about,

- is a spiral galaxy.
- Uh-huh.

Our own is.

And the inside of the galaxies
should spin faster

than the outside of the galaxies.

So after few rotations,

you ought to wind up or smear out.

Those, those spiral patterns,

they ought to disappear
after few rotations.

Now, most astronomers think
that the spiral galaxies are

10 billion years old.

So, why do we still see
spiral patterns?

- You shouldn't see those.
- Right.

And it has been long
recognized this is problem.

But also, if we look at the um,

the outer planets of the solar
system, the gas giants,

they all have rings.

And we also know that
these things are changing.

They're wiping out.

They've actually documented changes that
have taken place within the ring system.

You have all these gravitational tugs
from the other satellites, orbiting around.

So these ring systems are fairly young.

Doesn't prove that
the solar system is young,

but it proves that these
ring systems are young.

- Uh-huh.
- And that's interesting.

Well, you mentioned a, a lot of...

theories about the spirals
and, and so forth,...

uh, that brings us to...

what most people see as the big theory,

- concerning cosmology and the universe,
- Uh-huh.

and that the Big Bang.

Uh, how do you see that?

Is it holding up over time?

I don't think so.

I think it's, it's getting
some problems.

- Hhh.
- So much so that

more than a dozen years ago,

I think, in New Scientist Magazine,

there was an open letter,
protesting the Big Bang theory.

And it has hundreds of signatures since.

And most people signing are atheists.

They are not even creationists.

So, this idea that the Big Bang model's
universally accepted is not true.

There are many people out there,

well, well, known people,

very famous physic
and astronomy people

that have real problems with the Big Bang.

And, and I don't see any way
that you can reconcile

the Big Bang with the Bible,

though, a lot of people
seem to think that you can.

I think, the temptation
they have there

is to try to interpret...

uh, Scripture in terms of
the current cosmological thinking.

That's nothing new.
That has happened before,

as it turns out,
with disastrous results.

So I, I think when you look at
the history of science,

the way we have discarded
theories over time,

We've had theories
that were supposedly...

uh, beyond dispute...

- Uh-huh.
- and then later on discarded.

Uh, when you see
that lesson from history

and then you want to wed Genesis,

you want to interpret Genesis
in terms of ruling paradigm,

- I think you need to be very careful.
- Hhh, yeah.

I realized, Danny was
re-orienting our perspective.

We need to interpret the Universe,
in terms of Genesis,

not the other way around.

And Genesis tells us that God
created the sun, moon, and stars

to be a magnificent clock
to track the passage of time.

Even the ancient built towers
to follow the stars.

But what does Genesis say
about those people

and the languages they spoke?

Doug took me to one of the best
archaeological museums in the world,

to show some of the unique artifacts

that relate to Genesis.

Well, the events of
the Bible are unfolded

in the ancient Near East.

So, all these lands are extremely
important to understanding...

uh, how and what took place
in the biblical text.

So, this picks up the events
we've been looking at in, in Genesis,

from Creation and the Flood,

and now, we're to
the dispersion of mankind

out of Noah and his family.

Exactly.

And the, the dispersion
would have taken place

somewhere in the mountain range
to the northwest of Mesopotamia.

And what we see in the biblical text
and the narrative is that

a number of people have migrated

uh, down to southern Mesopotamia,
to the land of Shinar,...

and move toward the process
of urbanization,

- Uh-huh.
- city living.

And that's the famous
Tower of Babel.

Absolutely.

Do we know where that is?

There are about 7 or 8 Babels,

- cities of Babel,
- Huh.

in the ancient area of Mesopotamia.

And so, one at a time,
I studied all of those areas...

and found only one that
meets all the criteria of...

- the famous site of the Tower of Babel.
- Hhh.

And that is site of Eridu,

which is in southeastern Mesopotamia.

We have signs of
the expansion to the North,

to the South,
to the East,

to the West,
all the way as far as Egypt.

And when you say evidence, uh,

that is the artifacts
that we find in these...

archaeological digs?

Exactly.
There is an enormous

a, amount and very
specific kind of material culture...

that attest to this expansion of people.

And I'm connecting to
the post Babel dispersion.

Uh, here are the beveled rim bowls,

- these two,
- Uh-huh.

just that Riemchen brick...

- that we see up there,
- Oh, yeah.

and those two spouted jars,

all these diagnostic forms
of pottery and material culture,

they're found throughout the Near East.

The Bible describes an event that's not
just the confusion of language,

but the dispersing of people...

- far from that city.
- Uh-huh.

And because we see language

or, or the written
expression of language,

- just pop up out of nowhere.
- Hhh.

And then different languages

being represented
through cuneiform script

or through hieroglyphic script
or, or other means.

So you do not have
a universal plan

that's followed among
all of those languages.

You see great diversity
in the forms of grammar,

from language to language
even in ancient languages.

It, it seems then that

the event recorded in Genesis...

about the Tower of Babel,

that's a very, very event
for archeology.

It is.

So all of this fits perfectly

with what we, we would see
as the biblical account...

of how languages took place.

It's, it's really the only way
of explaining this.

So the integrity of biblical history,

ultimately, is justified,...

by the expression of these languages.

Now, most of us think today
of a tower the kind of thing

we see in big cities,
they have big straight walls.

Is that what they were building?

Well, essentially,
it's a variation of the pyramid.

And there were four sides to it

and several stairways
that would go up to the top.

At Eridu,
we have a temple...

that existed in 18 different phases,

and in every phase,
it grew in its size and complexity.

Uh-huh.

And that final temple,
that final phase of the temple,

it was abandoned immediately,

right at the time
of the late Uruk

- expansion.
- Hhh.

Cater-cornered to the temple was
an absolutely enormous platform.

You think that could be the foundation
of the Tower of Babel?

Absolutely.

And I would suggest to you...

- that this late Uruk expansion...
- Hhh.

where this technology began...

was something that spread
with the people.

We find forms of these ziggurats...

all around the globe.

We find them in China.

We find them in India.

We find them in various parts of Americas.

- Hhh.
- We find them all over.

Well, obviously, we have
evidence here of civilization

and people beginning to gather
together in communities, even cities.

Do we have any
other evidence of that?

Absolutely.

We can move forward
to the time of Abraham.

Because we know that
Abraham lived at the site of Ur,

which was also in
southern Mesopotamia...

at the end of
the third millennium BC.

That brings us to the end
of Genesis chapter 11.

Exactly.

In fact, you see some pottery,
some cuneiform tablets,

all dating to the period
of the Third Dynasty of Ur.

It, it's amazing just as we're sitting here
and thinking about that, you know,

thinking uh, about Abraham

and that this represents the culture
and civilization that he lived in.

It's a great tie to that
record in Genesis for.

It is fascinating and
it gives you a feeling of...

- put your hands around the events
- Hhh.

- that go on in the biblical text.
- Right. Yup.

When I looked through history,

I realized each of these cultures

had been impacted by
the events recorded in Genesis.

But, what is the importance
of Genesis to us today?

George Grant wanted to meet me
at a garden near his home.

He said it was a good reminder
of where our history began.

So it's something significant about

uh, the Genesis text

in which Adam and Eve
were then placed

into a garden to tend it.

Uh, that's more than just a story.

It's much more than just a story.

One of the things that
you see in Genesis chapter 1...

is the structure for time.

Uh, the universe is created
for a 24-hour day.

And so everything from
the way our sleep cycles

and the way our work cycles work,

all come from that

definitive historical account there.

When we get to uh,
Genesis chapter 2,

we start to see the meaning
and purpose of man.

Of course,
in Genesis chapter 3,

we see disruption of
everything by the fall.

The implications of a historical fall,

an actual man and
an actual woman,

who actually yielded
to actual sin...

have then implications off
through the rest of the Bible.

If you remove a literal Adam and Eve,

That, that changes the whole
shape of what the history is...

and how history is remembered.

Is that because when
we pull an Adam and Eve

out of the historical record,

we can then pretty much...

make up what
we think about man,

and marriage,
and even sexuality?

Absolutely.

The apostle Paul
understood the events

of the uh, early chapters of Genesis

as formative, not only

for our understanding of history,

but for relationships

between men and women
and their children,

uh, the character and
nature of marriage,

uh, rightness and wrongness in
moral relations, including sexuality.

- All of that is assumed...
- Hhh.

from those early chapters of Genesis,

often time quoting the passages verbatim.

It, it seems that even Peters

is taking that event of the Flood,
for example, as a historic event,

and laying it in

the context of which is pointing to
a judgment that will, that will come.

So even judgment is a part...

of, of understanding
that historical record.

You cut things off from history...

and lose sight of the meaning of all of it.

I think most Christians,
uh, when we talk about...

uh, for example,
the life of Christ,

those are understood
to be historical...

- accounts.
- Right.

Why is it that when we look at
the account in Genesis,

that we have a tendency
not to want to do that?

We have a tendency not to do it
because we're constantly exhorted...

to not see it that way.

From the culture around us?

The culture around us,
uh, from theologians,

uh, modern theologians
who are trying to,

some how in their minds,

fit the truths of Scripture with the...

- the so-called discoveries of science,
- Uh-huh, uh-huh.

which if you know anything
about the history of science,

- you know it's incredibly unreliable path.
- Uh-huh, uh-huh.

So we are constantly bombarded...

with this message that
we have to adjust our view.

But I think there are a lot of
Christians who have a sense...

that the historicity of Genesis...

is just not that important
to their Christianity.

I, I think we have been sold
the bill of goods on that.

When you, somehow,
make those chapters

a different category altogether,

and non-historical,

What, what are you doing to
all of the rest of the Bible?

The Bible that assumes that is true,

the Bible that treats it
as historical true,

and the Bible that refers back to
all of the characters that are there,

does that then negates
the whole of the Bible?

Well, yes.

And that's exactly
what the strategy was

of the higher critics

in the 18th and 19th centuries.

They knew...

if you could, somehow,
attack the first three...

or first eleven chapters of Genesis...

you're done away with the whole thing.

Well, George, all of this
brings us back in to...

the notion that the history...

uh, that is recorded in Genesis
or any true history at all is critical...

for us, in terms of understanding
what's going on around us.

Yeah.
In, in fact,...

it reminds us of how
important history is...

and anchoring all of
the other human disciplines.

Uh, it is the history
that helps to inform science.

So that science can begin
its journey of discovery in the world.

So what the history does
is it tells us what happened.

Then what science
attempts to do is...

it, it asks the question,
well, how did it happen?

And then,
it, it begins to explore

the how, the mechanics,

- the structures
- Hhh.

uh, that were present in those events.

If you try to reverse that,

if you try to make science...

- uh, saying what actually happened,
- Uh-huh.

uh, then you, you wind up
having a worldview

that is constantly shifting
where nothing is certain.

And moral relativism...

is the necessary outcome.

And God has given us that bedrock.

He has given us that foundation

in that historical record.

He has given it to us
in that historical record...

going all the way back
to Genesis chapter 1...

- and the garden.
- And the garden.

In the end, I suppose
we always return home.

And for me, home is Colorado.

I always think more clearly...

when I'm out in the beauty
of God's creation.

We've been in a lot of places
and seen a lot of things,...

but considering everything together,...

it's clear that nothing
in the world makes sense,

except in the light of Genesis.

I love being in the mountains,

especially, ones like these.

They help give us
a good perspective,...

help us realize
that we're small and...

finite, and vulnerable.

They humble us.

And we need to be humble
because we have...

a tendency to base our ideas...

on our own small...

set of experiences.

That's why the wisdom of the ages
has told us over and over again...

to know history.

Everything that we've done
up to this point...

has looked at the evidence

that shows us that
the word of God,...

the history that has been
laid down for us in Genesis is true.

God created the world in six days.

There was a real Adam,
a real Eve.

There was a real fall.

It really was a flood...

that destroyed the world
and produced all of this.

It is glorious, but it represents
the judgment of God.

Everything supports...

what God has told us.

Genesis is history.

True history.