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| Science Education Essentials for Christian Schools |
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| Black Tulip. |
“At twenty weeks into pregnancy, unborn children have pain receptors throughout their bodies connected by nerves to the brain’s thalamus, they recoil from painful stimuli, their stress hormones shoot up, and they are routinely anesthetized when undergoing fetal surgery. While we expect substantial resistance from abortion advocates, we believe most Americans agree in rejecting abortions that cause excruciating pain, and look forward to protective laws being given serious consideration in a significant number of states.”
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| "Reconstruction" of Neolithic farmers at work |
One could believe, for example, that at some point in evolutionary history God “chose” two people from a group of evolving humans, gave them his image, and put them in Eden, which they promptly corrupted by sinning. But this solution is unsatisfactory, artificial, and certainly not what the writer of Genesis intended.
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| Judean Desert Near Wadi Ze'elim |
An outcrop of laminated Dead Sea sediment can be seen at Wadi Ze’elim above the southwestern shore of the modern Dead Sea near the fortress of Masada. In this sediment outcrop is a distinctive one-foot thick “mixed layer” of sediment that is tied strongly to the Qumran earthquake’s onshore ground ruptures of 31 B.C. (see Figure 2 below).
Thirteen inches above the 31 B.C. event bed is another distinctive “mixed layer” less than one inch thick. The sedimentation rate puts this second earthquake about 65 years after the 31 B.C. earthquake. It seems that the crucifixion earthquake of 33 A.D. was magnitude 5.5, leaving direct physical evidence in a thin layer of disturbed sediment from the Dead Sea.
The 13th century exodus-conquest theory was formulated by William F. Albright in the 1930s, based largely on Palestinian archaeological evidence, and promoted by him throughout his career. In the years following Albright’s death in 1971, however, evidence for the proposal dissipated and most Palestinian archaeologists abandoned the idea. In spite of the fact that the theory runs counter to Scripture, a number of evangelicals continue to hold to this view, prompting Carl G. Rasmussen to comment, “the Late-Date Exodus/Conquest Model has been abandoned by many scholars…it seems that currently the major adherents to the Late-Date Exodus/Conquest Model are some evangelicals!” A strong advocate of the theory is Kenneth A. Kitchen, who recently gave a detailed exposition of it in his On the Reliability of the Old Testament.Old Testament seminary professors who continue to teach this late dating of the Exodus also go on to question the truthfulness of other Old Testament accounts, such as the accounts of Kings and Chronicles, Isaiah as the single author of the book of Isaiah, the prophecies of Daniel, the truth of the global flood, and the six-day creation. They also object to using the Old Testament as a source book for scientific truth...
The biblical account does not specifically mention an earthquake, but the earth would have been shaken by the wall's collapse. Archaeological excavations at Jericho confirm that the massive wall made of mud bricks did collapse at the time of the conquest, about 1400 B.C. The site of the ancient city of Jericho sits directly on top of a very large fault associated with the Jordan Rift valley. Surprisingly, the Dead Sea sediment core has a distinctive mixed sediment layer at a depth of 15.1 feet that is evidence of a big earthquake at about 1400 B.C.Actually, this is no surprise at all to those who are familiar with the early/late date controversy of the Exodus! 1 Kings 6:1 is correct, and so is the rest of the Bible.
