Tag: Genesis 1-11

Creation Matters, Because Christ Is Risen!

Posted on | by Douglas Smith

For the believer in Christ, an interest in creation studies must not stop at creation but must lead us to our Savior and to the hope of a new creation that we find in Him. When we consider the events of our Lord’s passion, leading to His death and resurrection for sinners, we find some amazing connections with the early chapters of Genesis, particularly with areas that we might be tempted to skip over quickly in the text: plants and gardens.

In the last days of Christ before His crucifixion and victory over the grave, the fig (Gen 3:7; Matt 21:18–22), olive (Gen 8:11), and grape (Gen 9:20–21; Matt 26:29; John 15:1–8) — plants named or implied in Genesis 1–11 — all make an appearance. A barren fig tree is cursed (Matt 21:18–22), Christ goes to the Mount of Olives (Matt 26:30), and says that the next time He drinks the fruit of the vine will be with the disciples in His Father’s kingdom (Matt 26:29). The vine itself illustrates a lesson His disciples will need brought back to their remembrance: that, like branches, their life is dependent on Him, the true vine (John 15:1–8).

The setting of the Garden of Gethsemane (meaning ‘olive oil press’) with Christ’s agony and betrayal by Judas (Matt 26:36–46), also recalls the first garden where disobedience led to misery and death in the world (Gen 2:8–3:24).

A crown of thorns, a reminder of the ground cursed on account of man’s disobedience (Gen 3:17–19), pierces the head of our precious Savior (Matt 27:29). Whereas death and a cursed world resulted from man taking from the forbidden tree (Gen 2:15–17; 3:17–19), Christ willingly goes to the cross, thus being fastened to a tree, where He becomes a curse for our sake and dies in our place that we may receive God’s blessing (Gal 3:13).

Our Lord’s body then rests in a garden tomb (John 19:41), from which He emerges alive and which the women and disciples find empty on the first day of the week (John 20:11-18). They see Him, sorrow gives way to joy, and they become witnesses to this glorious reality (Luke 24)!

In all these examples, plants or places associated with them serve as illustrations or settings for the reality that our God became a man to enter this world He had created, to defeat sin and its consequences through death and resurrection. The resurrection of Christ, as Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15, is what ensures that any of our labors that are done in the Lord are not in vain. Such labors include a faithful study of His Word and His world that encompasses but is not limited to creation. Because Christ is risen, creation matters–and we have a hope in a new creation!

Cogitations on Interdisciplinary Creation Research

Posted on | by Steve Boyd | Leave a Comment on Cogitations on Interdisciplinary Creation Research

A signal feature of the Creation Theology Society (CTS) is highly valuing interdisciplinary collaboration in creation research. This is immensely beneficial in both directions: the scientific, grammatical, and hermeneutical breakthroughs that can occur by proceeding from an accurate understanding of the biblical text; and the results which can obtain by applying scientific, linguistic, and mathematical methodology to the text—as the following testimony proves.

I’ve been involved in several interdisciplinary creation research projects and have seen firsthand the excellent results which can come from such undertakings. First, the RATE project (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth), which was very successful in looking at the problem of radioisotopic dating from a number of different perspectives: geology, geophysics, and physics and then my work on the genre of Genesis 1:1 through 2:3 using statistical methodology. (Employing such atypical techniques to the text has been the hallmark of my approach, beginning with my dissertation). In this case, instead of being satisfied with the usual qualitative approach to distinguishing genre from genre, I worked with two statisticians to develop a quantitative model (a logistic regression model) for predicting genre. The best model was based on the relative frequency of wayyiqtol (which traces the flow of the events in a narrative). At a statistical confidence level of 99.5% the model predicts that the probability that Genesis 1:1–2:3 is prose, not poetry, is between .999942 and .999987.

Second, was the FAST project (Flood Activated Sedimentation and Tectonics), which led to the third such effort, the Cataclysm Chronology Research Group, an ongoing collaboration between a team of Hebraists and a geologist, Dr. Andrew Snelling, in which a close reading of the text in terms of the real world implications of what it is saying show that there is temporal discontinuity in the text at points. This then led to challenging the long-standing understanding of the dominant Hebrew narrative form and developing a semantic methodology for ascertaining sequence based on ‘temporal reasoning’, which will be applied to the 261 verbs in the Flood account. In addition, set theory and the concepts of general functions can be applied to the mapping of the recounting of Divine pronouncements and commands in the Flood account to their later reports of actualizations and compliance, respectively, by considering each verb as a point with multiple coordinates representing essential characteristics.


The fourth example is the documentary Is Genesis History?, which exemplifies a presentation to the public of the evidence from a range of disciplines for the historicity of Genesis 1-11.


And finally, in the fall of 2019 at the inaugural Bulwarks and Frontiers Conference scientists and scholars from diverse specialties had an opportunity to listen to, learn from,  and query one another as they each presented their assessment of the status of creation research in their particular discipline.

The birth of CTS promises such interdisciplinary collaboration on a grand scale between rigorous study in the Hebrew text and the hard sciences and consequent amazing results. Come join us and experience the thrill of discovering how God’s Word and world interface!