June 1 Assignment - due Monday June 4th:

THE Story from Start to Finish

The Bible tells a story...actually THE Story. Some people refer to it as HIS-Story (get  it--History?) Like any good story, there is a beginning, events and characters that lead up to an exciting climax, and a satisfying ending.

• The first book of the Bible sets the context/setting for the big story. It provides the setting, introduces some principal characters, and explains the main conflict or big problem that the story is all about.

·         A key idea of the Bible is "redemption," something that happens to set things right. The Big story of the Bible is about redemption, and most little stories are about redemption, too!

·         The historical events of the Bible show that God was at work throughout history to fix the mess of the big problem. E.g. God judged and even destroyed nations who did evil, He gave the nation of Israel laws for living, and He sent Jesus into creation to live, die and rise again.

·         The New Testament tells all about the climax, the big event that solves the big problem laid out in the beginning. 

·         The last book of the Bible shows what will ultimately happen because of that climax.

Read Genesis 3, Romans 8, and Revelations 21. Then answer the following questions. You will be marked for thoughtfulness and thoroughness. Please answer your questions neatly on separate paper.

1.       What was the creation like before Adam and Eve disobeyed God (the Fall)? What words did God use to describe it? How was it different than the world today?

2.       How did the curse (the Big problem) that God put on the world change things after the Fall?

3.       List phrases from the readings that support the view that the Curse affects the whole creation (not just humans or just souls).

4.       Can you think of a “little” Bible story that demonstrates redemption? Explain the redeeming part? (If you can't think of one yourself, the story of Joseph (in Genesis) has a redemptive quality. What part of that story is redeeming? In other words, what is the good that came out of the events?)

5.       What is the climax of the Bible Story? How does it solve the Big problem (curse)?

6.       What did Jesus redeem by dying and resurrecting?

7.       What is the connection between the chapters you read in Revelations and Genesis?

So what do you know about origins?

On Thursday, May 24th, the grade nine students will write a test on the topic of origins. The format will be a little different: students will work with a partner to answer the questions. To be prepared, please make sure you can explain the main ideas behind each of the various Christian views of origins. Also study the main evidences for an old earth and their limits: radiometric dating, geologic column, distant starlight, and human evolution. The authorship of Genesis is another topic you should understand.

Problems with Evidence

Over the last couple of classes, we talked about two evidences for a really old creation, radiometric dating and hominid fossils. We discovered that radiometric dating relies on some assumptions. Assumptions are guesses that cannot be proven right or wrong. Scientists who accept the million/billion year ages given by radiometric dating assume... 1. That the rate of radioactive decay has always been the same 2. That rocks always start out with all parent material and no daughter material 3. That nothing has been added or removed from the rock If any of these assumptions are incorrect, the reliability of radiometric dating breaks down. We also looked at the whole evolution of man-from-ape-like-creatures story. Theistic evolutionists think man developed through evolution. We went through the main stages of human evolution--Australopithecus Afarensis (Lucy), Home Habilis, Homo Erectus (Java), Neanderthal Man, Cro-Magnon Man, and Modern Man (Homo Sapien Sapien). The evidence is full of gaps, hoaxes, mistakes, very few fossils, and little hands-on research.

Evaluating some common evidences for long ages

In Bible class, we learned that scientific evidence does NOT speak for itself but must be interpreted. And scientists--the folks who do the interpreting--are just regular people with biases that can be wrong. So we need to be careful what we believe. Lately, we've been considering some well known evidences that "prove" that earth is billions of years old. The geologic column is one such evidence. The many layers with their fossils have been associated with the evolution of life over millions of years. We learned that the complete geologic column does not actually exist anywhere in the world. It's a theoretical compilation of layers located in different places. Also there are many problems with thinking the layers formed slowly (which supports the idea of vast ages). Unconformities (missing layers, lack of inter-layer erosion, polystrate fossils) and exteme folding are riddles that don't fit the long ages interpretation. The common interpretation is that geological layers and fossils show the sequence of life over millions of years. Here is another interpretation that, I think, fits the evidence way better: the layers and fossils show that sequence of death during the global flood as different environments were impacted. As water rose during the flood, Low lying marine environments were hit first; higher ground and animals that were mobile wereaffected later. Next we'll learn about radio metric dating, ape-men, and distant starlight.

I did a crazy little object lesson recently. I secretly wrote a mean message on the blackboard about me. Then when students arrived, we discussed that it was likely a disgruntled student that wrote it. I "fessed up" the next day. The point of the lesson was to help us understand the limitations of scientific evidence about origins:

1. Evidence does not speak for itself. It needs to be interpreted. And interpretations can be wrong!
2. Everyone has the same evidence. Creationists and evolutionists, believers in a young earth and believers in an old earth, examine the same fossils, rock layers, etc. Different groups don't have different evidence!
3. Everyone has a bias, including scientists. Their bias may fit or conflict with the Christian worldview.
4. Trustworthy eyewitness accounts trump any interpretation of the evidence. The Bible is God's account of what happened in the beginning--He was there, so He should know what happened!

For Friday, April 13th, please complete the following and hand in:
Summarize the seven main Christian views of origins. (I want to see if you understand the different positions)
Explain what you believe about origins and why.

Who wrote Genesis?

Did you know there's a debate about who wrote Genesis? Most Christians agree that Moses was involved. But there are some different ideas on how he did it. That's because many of the events in Genesis actually happened thousands of years before Moses' life. Just think about it: Moses writing about Adam is like you writing about Nehemiah--more than 2000 years later! Traditionally, it's thought that God simply told (inspired) Moses what to write down. Or stories of the distant past were passed down orally, and Moses wrote these accounts down with God's inspiration guiding him. While certainly possible because God was involved, every other book in the Bible was written by men who were eye witnesses or knew eye witnesses. For example, the book of Luke was written within 30 years of Christ's death and resurrection. The author knew people who witnessed Jesus' life and ministry. Because of this and other factors, we can have confidence that Luke got it right. (Note that there are people out there who are trying to discredit the Gospels by saying they were written hundreds of years later.) Here's another interesting idea about Genesis and Moses: Moses was the editor of early Genesis rather than the actual author. In other words, Moses included ancient written accounts for early Genesis, but he authored the later parts. According to this theory, people like Adam and Noah wrote down what they witnessed. These accounts were passed down though the generations to Moses. He used them because they were eye witness accounts, and he himself wrote about what he knew. The main evidence for this are unique sentences found throughout Genesis 1-11: "This is the account of ___." According to this theory, these markers come at the end of a passage and tell the reader who wrote the preceding account. If you ignore the chapter breaks and headings--which were added much later--this way of understanding early Genesis really works! So what does it matter? If early Genesis was written by people who actually witnessed the events--rather than hundreds to thousands of years after the fact--we have good reason to see this book as accurate history. Did you know that not everyone views Genesis 1-11 as history? Some see it as metaphor or even legend. That's one big reason why there are so many different ideas about origins, even among Christians.