Testimony of Adoptive Parents in Ukraine

"I minister as a deacon, and my wife serves as librarian in our church. For 13 years we did not have children and it was a tragedy for us. We did not understand why this happened - we blamed God.

"Now we know that we had to change our own lives before trying to influence a child's life. We were thinking about adoption, but we were not sure about it. We hesitated until our friends fostered three children through the New Hope Orphan Care ministry here in Ukraine. We decided to visit the orphanage and that day we met Ruslana there.

Orphan children

"We discovered that she ended up in the orphanage because her parents were deprived of parental rights. We decided that we could help Ruslana and she could fill the emptiness of our family.

"Today she is eight years old. She struggles with some light mental delays and defects in her speech. We love our daughter very much and we hope to raise her as a Christian and protect her from evil."

(from November 2010 newsletter from New Hope International, New Hope Orphan Care Program - Ukraine. For information on supporting foster parents in Ukraine, click here)

The Crucifixion Earthquake left its Mark

A distinctive mixed layer less than one inch thick of laminated Dead Sea sediment proves that there was a Jesus who was crucified - by the mark of the earthquake that God sent. As recorded in Scripture!

The New Testament testifies to an earthquake at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Matthew 27:50-51 recounts that "when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split."

Judean Desert Near Wadi Ze'elim

Dr Steven A. Austin, Senior Research Geologist of Logos Research Associates, travelled to Israel's Wadi Ze'elim to study sediment deposits of the Dead Sea.  As he describes in his article Great Earthquakes of the Bible:

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 Bible is confirmed yet again, by Science! Jesus was crucified - and God sealed his death with an earthquake that leaves its mark even to the present day.

Christ rose from the dead, and He leaves his mark in our lives and all over eternity. That is good news!

The walls of Jericho really did fall in 1400BC, just like the Bible says.

Once again, the early date for the Exodus is proven, this time by earthquake records! From analysis of the uppermost 19 feet of laminated sediments of the Dead Sea. Pay attention, seminary professors...

One of the many battle lines for the truth of the Bible is the date for the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt.

In 1 Kings 6:1 the Bible states "In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the LORD." If this construction is to be dated about 966 B.C., the Exodus would thus have taken place about 1446 B.C. The destruction of Jericho would then have occurred forty years later after the wanderings of the Israelites in the wilderness were completed, when Joshua led them into the Promised Land.

During the 20th century, this literal Biblical date for the Exodus was heavily disputed by Biblical critics, who instead argued that the Exodus happened some two hundreds years later. Wood (2008) explores this late date theory for the Exodus, which has now been largely discredited, but which is still taught at many evangelical seminaries:

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...

Now, additional evidence for the early dating of the Exodus comes directly from scientists! Austin (2010), a geologist and creation scientist, evaluated the findings by Migowski et al. (2004), Agnon et al. (2006), and Ken-Tor et al. (2008). They are mainstream geologists who investigated the chronology of earthquake disturbances in the Dead Sea area. Austin took Migowski's data on the uppermost 19 feet of laminated sediment of the Dead Sea and plotted it to make a 4,000-year sediment chronology. The sediment core was drilled at the shore of the present lake near En Gedi.

Austin notes that: 

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.

Marko Malyj
M.S. Physics, Drexel University
M.Div. Pastoral Ministry, Westminster Theological Seminary

References

Agnon, A., C. Migowski and S. Marco. 2006. Intraclast Breccias in Laminated Sequences Reviewed: Recorders of Paleo-earthquakes. In New Frontiers in Dead Sea Paleoenvironmental Research. Enzel, Y., A. Agnon, and M. Stein, eds. Geological Society of America Special Paper 401, 195-214.

Austin, S. 2010. Greatest Earthquakes of the Bible. Acts & Facts 39(10): 12-15.

Ken-Tor, R. et al. 2001. High-resolution Geological Record of Historic Earthquakes in the Dead Sea Basin. Journal of Geophysical Research. 106 (B2): 2221-2234.

Kitchen, K.A. 2008. On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI. Eerdmans.


Migowski, C. et al. 2004. Recurrence Pattern of Holocene Earthquakes Along the Dead Sea Transform Revealed by Varve-counting and Radiocarbon Dating of Lacustrine Sediments. Earth and Planetary Sciences Letters. 222 (1): 301-314.

Wood, B.G. 2008. The Rise and Fall of the 13th Century Exodus Conquest Theory. Associates for Biblical Research.

He asked for prayer!

"Paul, that great warrior of the gospel, witness to miracles, survivor of the wrath of angry mobs, asked the believers at Ephesus to pray that God would give him boldness to preach (Ephesians 6:18-20).

"Sometimes we think heroes of the faith do not need us, that they are at some "higher level" of spiritual strength and courage. We need their testimonies to inspire us, but they all still need our prayers.

"Our persecuted brothers and sisters in the jungles of Vietnam, in the Middle East, in Africa and around the world ask us to pray for them. The body of Christ is a living entity - pain here, joy there, abundance here, poverty there, courage where needed. We all exchange strength with each other - please lift our family up in prayer this year. Paul needed it. So do they."

(Tom White, from Voice of the Martyrs, October 2010)

Similar Features Show Design, Not Descent

"Before Darwin, the common attributes shared by different types of, say, fish or birds were useful for classifying the living things of nature. But they were only that—common attributes. Just like “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest,” common ancestry is the self-apparent explanation for common features only because the thinking is circular.

"Evolutionists have effectively sold the idea that when people see similarities, they actually “see” remnants of common ancestry. If evolutionists believe a similar feature is from a common ancestor, it is due to “divergent evolution.” And if organisms share a similar feature not due to common ancestry, it is conveniently called “convergent evolution.” The main point is that explanations for the presence or absence of similar features are totally arbitrary. Evolutionists never tell us that there really are not tidy, logical threads of traits from a common ancestor down all the paths to different types of creatures—forcing them to pick and choose which traits to showcase or to make excuses.

"Given the failure of evolution to prove you are related to chimpanzees, shouldn’t you consider starting a worthwhile relationship with your Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ? For those related to Him by faith, He prayed, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory” (John 17:24)."

Randy J. Guliuzza, P.E., M.D.
(Click here for the full article from Institute for Creation Research)