Ham, Ken. The New Answers Book: Over 25 Questions on Creation/Evolution and the Bible. Green Forest, Ark: Master Books, 2006. $14.99.
The New Answers Book is produced by Answers in Genesis, a Christian group that holds to a Young-earth creationist perspective, researching and teaching in order to promote that perspective. I've seen a couple of their videos and have always found their stuff to be interesting, even compelling at points, and well done. The founder of Answers in Genesis, Ken Ham, is the editor of this book and one of the article authors. The book is a YE creationist attempt to answer the objections raised against that view by others.
Overall, the book is an excellent resource for understanding the YE creationist perspective on the available scientific data. This perspective is built upon a serious reading of Scripture, particularly Genesis chapter 1-11, using the grammatical-historical hermeneutic. This reading is one that attempts to treat the Biblical text within its own linguistic setting (e.g. - reading poetry and narrative differently because they have entirely different uses in the Bible) and historical setting. This view is the one taught, by and large, by my own seminary and many other conservative theological institutions. The key here is that YE creationists first accept the Bible as true and authoritative and then take their view to the science, resulting in very different theories concerning everything from DNA to the geologic column and even light from distant galaxies. The alternative, common among moderate and liberal theologians, is to accept current scientific dogma (e.g. - the universe is 14+ billion years old and all life evolved over that period) and then read the Bible to figure out how to fit or bend the text to agree with the science. At least to me, the YE creationist view of science-theology makes more sense.
The best articles were: the two dealing with dating methods by Mark Riddle, the one concerning catastrophic plate tectonics and the flood by Andrew Snelling, that by Jason Lisle about distant starlight and the age of the universe, and the article about defense/attack structures in plants and animals by Andy McIntosh and Bodie Hodge. All of these were highly scientific, interesting, and vital for a YE view to stand up to scrutiny.
The problems with the book are mostly those of structure. Since the articles were written independently, there are frequent instances of repetitious information. However, one should expect this out of a source book like this one. The weakest article was the one by Ham answering the question, "Did Jesus Say He Created in Six Literal Days?" The article does well to point out many quotes of Jesus dealing with other elements of Genesis 1-11 as literal/historical facts, but he then goes further and tries to show that Jesus was speaking in several Old Testament passages that specifically refer to creating in six literal days. While I still think these passages are germane to the question, since God does not contradict Himself within the Godhead, I would hesitate to make Jesus the speaker in the Old Testament unless there is a lot of clear evidence.
Finally, as you might be able to tell, I have a great affinity for the YE creationist view. It seems to me that creationists and evolutionists (and all those who hold to naturalism) are each simply choosing their ideological (one might say theological and still be quite correct) commitments and then interpreting science or the Bible accordingly. To me, as a Christian, it only makes sense to remain committed to the Bible, the authoritative and inspired and inerrant Word of God, and then approach science than to accept what science (the majority dogma known collectively as science) says and then approach the Bible. Throughout this book, the various authors repeatedly point out the dangers in accepting a compromise view of Genesis 1-11: it opens the entire Bible to the charge of fallibility and irrelevance and ultimately undermines the salvation wrought by God in Christ Jesus.
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5 comments:
Good review! I'd like to read some of the articles you mention.
Glad to see you're reading AIG. Great resources! And sometimes repetition is a good thing when it comes to hearing important points mentioned several times, but I can sypathize with how it might have been redudant!
This appears to be the third or fourth edition of The Answers Book, which they keep updating and, sometimes, removing information from.
You and your readers may find this critical and detailed, chapter-by-chapter review to be interesting: http://www.answersincreation.org/bookreview/answersbook/abr.htm
The author thereof, Greg Neyman, is an old Earth creationist, more specifically a progressive creationist, and is the main guy behind www.answersincreation.org, a site critical of young Earth creationism.
Also of potential interest, but a bit more outdated, may be this listing of material in the 1990 edition but omitted from the 2000 version of the book: http://www.bibleandscience.com/otherviews/ham.htm
While I disagree with some of your presuppositions, I appreciate your review, which I find to be straight-forward and quite honest. Thanks for not implying that only YECs are real Christians.
No problem, and thanks for the links.
After perusing the links offered, I must point out a couple of things. Not to defend Ken Ham overmuch, but much of the arguments against the Answers Book in your first link are painfully dismissive of the book's assertions, as if simply stating that something is rediculous makes it so. It seems that, for the criticism to be acceptable, it must seriously deal with the assertions and not dismiss them. Additionally, criticizing the fact that the different versions of the book have changed is not much of an argument. I would hope that any position held by anyone would be maleable as it is discovered to have flaws. Thus, for Ham to update and correct his book is not nefarious but simply right.
All that to say, these articles do not dent my opinion of the book all that much.
I am interested in why someone would hold to Old Earth Creationism, however. Why accept the billions of years when you do not accept the evolutionary processes which causes scientists to first postulate them?
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