136 - Rescuing Inerrancy with Hugh Ross

In this episode, Dr. Hugh Ross joins Brian Auten and Chad Gross to discuss his book "Rescuing Inerrancy: A Scientific Defense." Dr. Ross, an astrophysicist and Christian apologist, explains how modern scientific discoveries actually strengthen the case for biblical inerrancy rather than undermining it. He argues against the notion that science forces a redefinition of inerrancy, showing how the latest findings in fields like genetics and cosmology align with a literal, historical interpretation of the Bible's creation texts. Dr. Ross' book is available at https://a315.co/3xfWniE


A major focus of the discussion is the debate around human origins and the historical existence of Adam and Eve. Dr. Ross presents scientific evidence supporting the descent of all humanity from an original couple created by God, refuting claims that genetic diversity requires a larger founding population. He also discusses William Lane Craig's model positing Adam living hundreds of thousands of years ago and explains why he sees this as inconsistent with biblical and scientific data pointing to a more recent origin of humanity during the last ice age.

The conversation covers other important topics like Dr. Ross' moderate concordist approach to harmonizing science and Scripture, the influence of Old Testament scholar John Walton's "Lost World" writings, and the nature of Noah's Flood which Dr. Ross sees as regional rather than global based on exegetical and scientific considerations. Listeners are encouraged to explore Dr. Ross' other resources at https://reasons.org including his forthcoming book on Noah's Flood. The podcast reminds Christians that modern science can be a powerful evangelistic tool when properly understood.

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hello, and welcome to the Apologeticsthree fifteen podcast with your hosts Brian Auten
and Chad Gross join us for conversationsand interviews on the topics of apologetics,
evangelism, and the Christian worldview.How are you, lady, Hello and
welcome to the podcast. This isBrian Auten and I'm Chad Gross. And

(00:25):
joining us today is astrophysicist Hugh Ross. Hugh Ross is founder and senior scholar
of Reasons to Believe, an organizationthat researches and communicates how discoveries about nature
harmonize with the words of the Bible. His books include The Creator and the
Cosmos, Why the Universe Is theWay it Is, Improbable Planet, and

(00:46):
Designed to the Core. And Chad, you'll remember that we had a previous
episode, number one oh four wherewe talked to doctor Hugh Ross about his
book Designed to the cor which wasreally cool and fascinating. Indeed, today
we're going to be Toald talking tohim about another book. It's called A
Rescuing Inerrancy, a Scientific Defense.So this is different for Hugh. What

(01:07):
are your thoughts on the book andwhat are we going to be talking about
today? Well, first of all, I was going to say, I
mean, out of all the astrophysiciststhat I've had conversations with, Hugh is
my favorite. Yeah, Yes,indeed, definitely, I really really enjoyed
this book. I agree with you. It was definitely a different approach from
Hugh. Usually he's coming at thingssolely from the scientific perspective and dealing with

(01:30):
things like cosmology and physics and things. And this of course deals with the
topic of an errancy, which Iplan on asking him what is in errancy?
But it deals with questions of howare we to wrestle with conservative evangelicals
who are beginning to question the interpretationof Genesis, even saying things like God

(01:52):
allowed them to write errors in theBible. How do we think about those
things? Is science valuable in demonstratingthe truth of scripture? Is it dangerous
to try to use science? Andalso, of course the topic of concordism,
which I really really thought that wasfascinating how he has those three types
of concordism and how in one senseeverybody is a concordist, and I thought

(02:14):
that was an interesting argument that Ialso plan on asking him about. But
all in all, Man, Ireally enjoyed the book. I think it's
an important contribution and it should definitelybe on people's reading list, especially for
the topic of inerrancy. You know, it's interesting that someone like an astrophysicist
would be coming at the topic ofinerrancy and saying, hey, listen,
from a scientific perspective, there's nothingI've found in the Bible that makes me

(02:38):
think that it is failing in itsdescription of the world. In fact,
it confirms science is confirming the Bible'sdescription of the world. Well, I
really appreciated in the book where hetalked about in this kind of piggybacks on
what you said. He talks abouthow sometimes when scientists are doing their work,
they're not always mindful of the theologicalimplications of their work, and a

(03:00):
lot of times when theologians are doingtheir work, they're not always aware of
how their work has implications for theology. And I think Hugh is unique in
that because he clearly has his expertisein training in science, but anybody who's
read his books knows that it isquite aware that he knows the scripture well

(03:20):
too, and so it's nice tosee somebody who has this scientific training but
also knows the scriptures really well,come to this and try to be aware
of both the scientific implications of whathe's saying and the theological implications. All
right, looking forward to the interview, Let's go to it. Let's get
ready. Switch me on, doctorHugh Ross, thanks for coming back on

(03:42):
the podcast. Oh my pleasure.Well, we've really enjoyed your book talking
about inerrancy, and you've written variousbooks about creation and the universe and the
design of the planet and things,and then rescuing it in the air a
scientific defense. Now, the onlything that seems expected there is the scientific

(04:04):
part. But in erronsy, likeI was saying to Chad before we started,
as like, most people would thinkthat an astrophysicist or someone like that
who's into the sciences, that wouldbe the very person who might have doubts
about the reliability of the Bible andthings like that. So talk a little
bit about your book and why you'vewritten it. Well. Originated by several

(04:26):
theologians coming to me and saying,Hugh, you need to write this book
because there's a lot of theologians withinthe conservative Christian evangelical community are saying we
can no longer defend biblical inerrancy asdefined by the International Council Biblical in Ernsy.
And they're saying science forces are redefinition. But the theologians saying that are

(04:49):
not scientists. So a team oftheologians say, hey, Hugh, you're
a real scientist. Actually look atthese claims, tell us if they have
any scientific validity, and basically thebook points of it. Hey, rather
than science challenging biblical in ersity,the latest scientific discoveries actually give us a
far more powerful case for biblical inerssingthan we had in the nineteen seventies.

(05:13):
In the nineteen eighties when three hundredtheologians around the world crafted the Statements of
the International Council of Biblical Inersity.So, just for our listeners who might
not be familiar, when you saybiblical inerrancy, what do you mean by
inerrancy? Yeah, I think itwas wonderfully defined by the International Council the

(05:34):
Biblical Inerirsity. They spent ten yearstrying to carefully define what biblical inersity is
and what it is not. Andthey also, in their human inertic statements,
actually explain how God's Book of Natureand God's Book of Scripture engage one
another. So they pointed out,based on Ps. Nineteen and Romans one,

(05:58):
that God indeed has given us tooutterly trustworthy and reliable books. They
overlap to some degree, not completely, but they overlap to some degree.
And where they overlap, they cooberateone another and affirm one another, similar
to what you've seen the court oflaw, where you've got two independent expert
witnesses cooberating one another, which givesa jury confidence, hey we're hearing the

(06:23):
truth. And so likewise, theInternational Council Biblical Errancy made that point.
They also indicated that the Bible isclear when it's wanting to be figurative or
symbolic, and that we take theBible, particularly the Creation Text, literally
and historically because these texts in theBible, we don't see any signs within

(06:48):
the texts that they're to be interpretedin some symbolic, mythical or figurative way.
And that's been the main challenge.You've got modern day theologians saying,
for example, genusis one to elevenis not history, it's not science,
it's allegorical or mythical. And Ipartly agree with that. I think there

(07:10):
is a strong allegory in the firsteleven chapters of Genesis to the Gospel message.
But I also argue that it's predominantlyintended to be taken literally and historically.
In fact, I can't find anyother passage in the Bible that's got
more textual clues telling the reader thisis to be understood literally and historically and

(07:32):
chronologically. Now would you say,is an errancy a new kind of recent
idea or did early Christian thinkers holdto an errancy? Well, I have
a chapter in the book because whata lot of modern day theologians are saying
it's a recent doctrine. The truthis that through it all a church history,

(07:55):
Christian theologians, Bible scholars held thebiblical nay, but they didn't use
that term. And so I actuallycite from their writings where they say,
every word in scripture is the truecommunication from the God that created the universe,
just like the Bible never uses theword trinity, but it teaches it.

(08:16):
Likewise, these Christian scholars over twothousand year period clearly believe in biblical
inerrancy as it's now defined by theInternational Council of Biblical Inherency. They just
use different words. Yeah, Anda lot of those people that you quote
in that chapter, I mean,many of these are like heavyweights of the

(08:37):
church. So we're not talking aboutsome obscure fellows that no one's ever heard
of. No, we're talking toAugustine, We're talking to Quinas. Yeah,
we're talking Calvin Luther. I mean, these are the giants of a
church history. Indeed. Well,one of the things you mentioned in the
book is that you were at thisETS meeting in twenty twenty one and the

(08:58):
alogend Wayne Grudem is giving a talkand one of the things he said was
every generation of Christians must fight thebattle for biblical inerrancy. So what did
he mean by that? That statementencapsulates a greater idea. Maybe you could
unpack that and how maybe it impactedyou. While there's always generations of Bible

(09:18):
scholars who back away from inerrancy,so it says you can expect that there
will be in every generation an attemptto erode it. And you know,
the kind of the point I makeis, if you let go of scientific
in errancy, the next step isto let go of historical in errancy,

(09:39):
and then moral in errancy. Soyou know you've heard the slippery slope term.
I think it really does apply.Well, what parts of the Bible
are you going to consider an errant? And I think we need to avoid
what happened in the Reformation, forpeople were saying, say from a Roman
Catholic or an Orthodox Christian perspective,only we priests know how to interpret the

(10:03):
Bible and what God is communicating andsaying to us. You know, the
Protestant Reformation was, Hey, theBible is accessible to every human being who
reads it, and you don't needsome experts saying this part of the Bible
you can trust, this part youcan't. And that's kind of why I
wrote the book, because we gotmodern day theologians saying, hey, this

(10:28):
is where science contradicts the Bible.And they developed this new idea of defending
an ersy where they say, well, the Holy Spirit speaks, it's an
errant, but the Holy Spirit partnerswith the human author and tolerate some mistaken
views of the human author. Right, Well, now you need this theologian
expert to tell you where the HolySpirit is speaking in scripture and where the

(10:52):
mistaken human author is a speaking Andso it's basically resurrecting this idea of a
pre Hey, you can't understand theBible. I'll tell you what parts you
can understand and interpret and what partsyou can't believe. Well, yeah,
and I also see such a dangerin that, because can't it also turn
into well, the parts of theBible I like, I'm going to say

(11:16):
the Holy Spirit spoke, but theparts of the Bible that might challenge me
or make me uncomfortable or I mighteven find distasteful, Well, then I
can just say, well, thatwas the human author making a mistake.
Yes, And that what I seehappening within the latest generation of theologians is
saying, well, the International Councilof Biblical Erroitcy had the wrong definition of

(11:39):
biblical in Eransy, And you know, we're misreading these texts by the Apostle
Paul on sexuality, and they're tryingto incorporate a new gender ideology. And
I've even cited theologians are saying,you know, we've overestimated Paul for twenty
centuries. He's not the great scholarthat we always thought he was. After

(12:01):
all, he made mistakes on humanorigins based on the presumption that we can
no longer scientifically defend the doctrine thatall human beings are descended from one female
and one male individual Adam and Eve. And so this is now being used
to say, well, if Paulgot it wrong on that point, maybe

(12:22):
he got it wrong on original sin, and he got it wrong on original
sin. Maybe we got the wrongperspective on sin today, and so all
based on the idea only those scholarsliving in the twenty first century have a
true understanding what scripture is saying.And so I raised the issue if the

(12:43):
Bible really is a communication from God, demand is he going to have nineteen
centuries of readers getting it wrong andonly one century of readers getting it right.
It seems like the Holy Spirit's goingto communicate in a way to all
generations. Hmmm. That's good whenwe're talking about like defining inerrancy. When
it comes to something like the ChicagoStatement, it's quite detailed. It has

(13:07):
a lot of different things that itunpacks. It's not just inerrancy as this.
I'm wondering if you think people maybe rejecting inerrancy out of hand without
really thinking about some of the thingsthat have been laid out in that statement,
well, I think all modern dayconcernative Bible scholars do pay good attention
to the International Council of Biblical Inerrancy. What I'm saying is what I'm seeing

(13:31):
as some are saying they think itwent too far and actually giving too narrow
a definition of biblical inerrancy. Myown opinion is that they were really quite
fair and defining what it is andwhat it is not. They acknowledge that
their places, for example, thatthe Bible uses hyperbole and figures a speech,

(13:52):
but they make the point that thetext will clearity designate that in a
way that's unambiguous. And I runinto scholars to say, you know what,
I can sign on to the doctoralstatements of the International Council of Biblical
on Ersy, but they will notsign on to the Hermonutic statements. And
to me, it's the Hermeneutics statements, which came out a few years later

(14:15):
in nineteen eighty three. It alreadydefine how we're to take the God's two
books, the Book of Nature andthe Book of Scripture and integrate them.
But I see about a lot ofmodern theologians is wait a minute, they're
claiming the Bible is not a sciencetextbook. We shouldn't read any science in
the Bible at all. I quotescholars who are basically saying the Old Testament

(14:39):
has no science and whatsoever, includingthe early chapters of Genesis, And what
they're trying to do is comport theBible with what people are claiming that science
now gives us overwhelming evidence that wecan explain the origin and history of life
without any direct intervention from God,basically the theistic, evolutionary or the atheistic

(15:03):
science interpretation of the history of life. And they're basically saying, Hey,
these scientists I talk to, Idon't understand what they're saying, but they
can't be wrong, and therefore Ineed to incorporate this into my understanding of
scripture. And so I'm basically challengingthese theologians, why cave in when you

(15:24):
admit you don't understand the science,and look at the science and not only
look at what these scientists are claiming, see what other scientists have to say.
And so what's wonderful today is thatwe have archived databases of the scientific
literature. NASA has one for thephysical sciences, PubMed has one for the

(15:46):
life sciences, and anyone can gointo those databases and quickly get an idea.
Is this scientific claim undisputed or arethere dozens of papers saying no,
we don't really go along with this, And so trying to basically equip people.
You don't have to be a scientistwith a PhD to be able to

(16:07):
get some sense of what's in thescientific literature. And so I have several
chapters in the book where I basicallysay, this is what the latest science
tells us about human origins and whyfrom a scientific perspective, we've got a
stronger case today than we had,say twenty years ago, that indeed,
the entire human species is descended fromone man and one woman. And also

(16:33):
looking at what the Bible says aboutthe flood but science says about the flood,
and basically making a point nothing inscience compels us to back away from
a literal, consistent, historical interpretationof the Bible's creation text. With one
important caveat there's more than one creationstory in the Bible. I mean when

(16:56):
impressed me, you know, Iwent through the different religions of the world
before I became a Christian. TheBible has over two dozen chapter length accounts
of creation, and so you wantto integrate them all consistently, because Genesis
is not going to contradict Isaiah orHebrews or Romans. And so basically making

(17:18):
that point that we need to integrate. Also, I'm trying to make a
point in the book, if weback away from science apologetics, guess what's
going to happen. The Muslims,the Buddhists, and the Hindus will take
over. And so, because that'swhat a lot of theologians are saying,
we must not take a risk onbeing wrong about science and the Bible.

(17:42):
Well, that means you lose yourevangelistic opportunity to use the Book of Nature
to bring people to the Book ofScripture and into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
I can kind of imagine some peoplelistening and maybe they're have a Young
Earth view of creation. They maybe aware that you hold to an Old

(18:03):
Earth view right, or that youmaybe if you want to talk about that,
you can. But maybe the questionwould arise along the lines of,
well, if you got these twobooks, or the Book of Scripture and
the Book of Nature, surely theScripture is going to be number one,
and you're going to use that andif science doesn't agree, then the science
must be wrong. So I've kindof heard that sort of an idea.

(18:26):
What's your view on how you wouldintegrate the two or how one would inform
the other. Someone from a YoungEarth perspective would probably think that you're looking
at modern science and saying, well, this preempts of the obvious reading of
scripture something like that. Right,While there's a difference between the Book of
Nature and science, sciences are interpretationof the Book of Nature, just like

(18:53):
there's a difference between the Book ofScripture and theology. Theology is a human
attempt to interpret the Book of Scripture, and the Bible is clear that both
the Book of Nature and the Bookof Scripture are utterly trustworthy, reliable revelations
from God about himself, his personalattributes, and the nature of the physical

(19:15):
world in which we live. Andso if we have our interpretation of the
Book of Scripture contradicting our interpretation ofthe Book of Nature, we know it's
our fault. It's not God's fault, it's our fault. We've misinterpreted one
or both. And this should besomething that compels the Christian to say,

(19:37):
you know, what I need todo a deeper study here, and what
I point out in the book isthat often that deeper study is simply integration.
I need to look at more thanone scientific discipline. I need to
look at more than one book ofthe Bible. There's sixty six books in
the Bible, so take advantage ofthe content. As a pastor, I

(20:00):
tell people in our church, don'tdraw a conclusion from scripture until you've seen
everything that the sixty six books sayson that topic. And so I train
our people go through the Bible ifyou're interested in a particular question and collect
all the relevant passages on the topicthat you want to investigate, then read

(20:21):
and study them and look for thoseinterpretations that are consistent with one hundred percent
of the Biblical content. And youmight wind up with two or three or
four different hypotheses, but now atleast you've got something that's consistent. And
in the case of the creation textsin the Bible, it's like, okay,

(20:41):
consistency we demand, but we alsowant to read it literally and consistently.
And I do have a chapter inthe book on Young Earth creationism where
I point out that irrespective of thescience just using that rule, we're going
to look at all the creation textsin the Bible literally and consistently. It

(21:02):
basically eliminates a young Earth creationist perspective. Number of scholars I'm not alone have
argued, you can't defend biblical inerrancyfrom a young Earth perspective, but it's
eminently possible to do so from anOld Earth perspective. And it's just comforting
to realize the scientific record sustains that. Now, a couple of one covey

(21:26):
at this here. Yes, theBook of Nature tells us the universe is
old, the Earth is old billionsof years old, but humanity is relatively
recent. So I'm young when itcomes to humanity. I think that God
created Adam and E sometime during thelast Ice Age, so you know,

(21:47):
that's a few tens of thousands ofyears ago, and that's something you see
in the Bible. Humanity is thelast of God's creation acts, so we
should expect that to show relatively recentlyin the scientific record. And something else
I hint at in the book too, is that, you know, I
didn't really meet any younger creationists untileight years after it became a Christian.

(22:11):
I'm a Gideon Convert. I didn'treally meet these folks until I left Canada
and came to the United States,and the first time I met someone that
thought I was young, I thoughtthey were referring to the debate that happened
amongst astronomers in the early part ofthe twentieth century, where we had the
astronomy communities split into two camps,those who thought that the universe was quadrillions

(22:36):
of years old and those who thoughtof his only billions of years old.
And so I foolishly identified myself asa young universe astronomer because I believed to
his only billions of years old.But was interesting in that debate, the
astronomers pushing for quadrillions of years weredoing so to rescue Charles Darwin. They

(22:59):
knew it was only that couldn't bedone. There's no way you can sustain
a naturalistic interpretation of a history oflife if it's only billions of years old.
So what's interesting. I differ withthose pushing quad brillions of years by
six zeros. I differ with myyounger friends by six zeros, and my

(23:19):
appeal to them is we shouldn't letsix zeros get between us and fellowship with
the Lord right right, only sixzeros. The atheist need thousands of zeros.
I like that. So you mentionedCharles Darwin, and one of the
things that I run into a lotof discussions about Christianity, and you interact

(23:41):
with this topic of course in thebook is the topic of evolution and to
particularly Darwinism neo Darwinism. However,you want to unpack that or define it.
And people have this idea that it'slike if you question that, it's
like questioning gravity. There's just so. I mean, I've even seen bumper
stickers that say that. So whatis your take on that? How do

(24:06):
you navigate that discussion? Well,I'm trying to communicate to theologians and pastors
is that when you look at thescientific literature, there's no debate about whether
the Earth is flat or spherical.It's just not there. That's true.
Similarly, there's no debate about theEarth being thousands of years old or billions
of years old. There is nodebate. When you look at the scientific

(24:30):
literature, there's a vigorous debate goingon. Is a history of life something
we can explain materialistically or can wenot do so? And so I have
a chapter in the book where Isay, hey, if you especially look
at the last twenty years, yousee there's a growing scientific consensus we can't
explain the history of life from amaterialistic perspective. I mean, we have

(24:52):
atheists, paleontologists, and geneticis makingthat declaration. So the very fact that
you see this debate and this scientificliterature tells us, hey, there's no
reason to throw out a literal readingof the Bible's creation text if indeed this
vigorous debate is going on this scientificcommunity. And when I try to point

(25:15):
out that debate is going against somematerialists, it's going in favor of the
theis. So theism is winning andis winning at a very rapid rate.
And so this is something we shouldbe eager to incorporate into our biblical interpretation.
And one of those claims that youtalk about in the book, and
you've brought it up in the interviewearlier, is this idea of historical Adam

(25:38):
and Eve. I know that youand you and I believe doctor Rhana have
written a book on that. Right, You've talked a little bit about the
importance of that, and how Ithink you demonstrated too that it can lead
to that slippery slope that you weretalking about by denying it. But can
you talk about a couple pieces ofscientific evidence for Adam and Eve? Yeah.

(26:00):
While the challenge is, and thisis really what caused this concern amongst
theologians, hey we have to comeup with a different definition of inerrancy.
Is the fact that they were lookingat the genetics and saying, hey,
it really looks like if we examinethe genetic diversity of humans alive today,
it points to an ancestral population ofthousands of human beings, not just two.

(26:26):
But I point out that in geneticsthere's huge systematic effects that are not
even identified. You know, andwhen we do field experiments, and field
experiments have now been done on eightdifferent species of birds and mammals, and
it's always consistently shows if we knowthe original genetic state of these animals and

(26:51):
then let them populate for several generations, you always wind up with way more
genic diversity than what the genics models. So when they say, for example,
in Francis Collins The Language of God, the ancestral population of humans as
ten thousand individuals, that's an upperlimit. It could be that high or

(27:12):
lower, and two is within therealm of possibility. And I cite different
geneticists who point out measuring a currentgenetic diversity is a useless tool for getting
an ancestral population. The other thingthat's interesting you look at these eight different
species, is that the longer thegeneration time, and that's the time between

(27:37):
an animal being born and being ableto give birth, the greater the departure
you get from what the genetics predicts. In other words, you'll generate more
genetic diversity the longer the generation time. Well, guess what, We humans
have a generation time and excess thetwenty years, so you're going to get
the greatest departure with the human species. All this points to the fact that

(28:03):
there is no scientific challenge to allof humanity being descended from Adam and Eve.
Now Here Again, there's a caveat. If you look at Genesis chapter
two. It says that God createdAdam and Eve and placed him in a
garden, the garden of Eden,where four named rivers come close together,

(28:25):
the Tigris, the Euphrates, theGihan, the Pichon. The Gihan the
Pischon today are dry, but duringthe last Ice Age they were big rivers,
just like the Tigris and the Euphrates, and those four rivers only come
close together. And what is nowthe southeast portion of the Persian Gulf today,
it's more than two hundred feet belowsea level. During the Last Ice

(28:49):
Age it would have been above sealevel. And so I do agree that
trying to put Adam and Eve,say six thousand years ago, you run
into huge scientific problems with that lateof a date. But if you put
Adam and Eve sometime during the LastIce Age, there is no problem.
You now got Adam and Eve farenough back in time that eliminates any rational

(29:15):
scientific challenge to that doctrine. Andalso I point out that there's nothing in
the text that would say that Goddid not give Eve genetically distinct reproductive eggs.
To me, that would make sensebecause God is wanting to ensure that
with brother sister marriages and the firstfew generations of humanity, we're not going

(29:40):
to run into the propagation of geneticdefects. A good way to avoid that
just give Eve genetically distinct aids.So and with that case you can explain
a huge amount of genetic diversity inthe present human population. And actually geneticis
point out that there isn't that muchgenetic diversity in the present human population.

(30:03):
The lack of genetic diversity is consistentwith us having a relatively recent origin,
not a million years ago, butsomething in order of several tens of thousands
of years ago. Wow. Yeah, that's interesting. Maybe we'll come back
to this topic of historical Adam andEve here in a few minutes. But
one thing I wanted to talk abouta little bit more before we go there

(30:27):
is the influence of the Old TestamentProfessor John Walton and his works, starting
with the Lost World of Genesis oneat the book you wrote right, followed
by other Lost World books. Yeah, John and I have talked a lot,
so I got a pretty good ideawhere he's coming from. Yeah,
so maybe I'm familiar generally with hisperspective. I don't know if I could

(30:49):
adequately describe it to our listeners.Maybe you could talk a bit about his
influence, because to my mind,I'm seeing that being quite an influence on
maybe some of what you're kicking backagainst. This idea that well, you
know, we haven't been reading theBible right the whole time, you know,

(31:10):
because we weren't thinking like the ancientNear Eastern peoples, et cetera,
etc. So could you kind oftell our listeners a little bit about what
that influence is, John Walton,and as colleagues have now written, I
think five books on the Lost World, Lost World of the Flood, the
Lost World of Genesis one, theLost World of Adam and Eve, that
goes on. But it's all basedon the fact that we did not have

(31:33):
an accurate understanding of human origins untilrecent archaeological discoveries in the ancient Near East,
and so today we have knowledge ofyou know, previous generations, so
Christians didn't have. And he's arguingon that basis, we need a radical
reinterpretation of what the Bible teaches,especially about early human history, and we

(31:57):
need to interpret these the Bible inthe context of what ancient Near Eastern peoples
understood. And probably the biggest differencebetween John Walton and myself. He presumed
that the ancient Near Eastern peoples wereignorant about science and didn't care about science
and therefore believe things that today weknow are absurd, whereas I take the

(32:23):
position based on I took a courseon the history of astronomy from Donald Fernie
at the University of Toronto, andhe was the world's foremost expert on the
history of ancient astronomy. And Iagree with Donald Fernie. The ancients weren't
stupid, and they were deeply interestedin cosmology and science, exactly the opposite

(32:47):
of what John Walton and his colleaguesclaim. In fact, they invested more
of their national wealth in the pursuitof science, astronomy and cosmology than we
do today by more than a factorof ten and sometimes by more than a
factor of a thousand times. Sobasically document how Stonehenge is not an exception.

(33:10):
The ancients build thousands of these stoneobservatories, and if you don't have
a telescope and you want to makeaccurate measurements of what's going on in the
heavens, you basically use these giantstone structures as gun sights. And then
the astronomer stands like a mile awayand uses these stone structures as gun sights

(33:34):
to get accurate position measurements of thestars and planets. And if you do
that, you can increase your abilityto measure the positions relative to what you
could do without the stone structures bymore than a factor of three, And
so the ancients are willing to investa lot of their treasure in building these

(33:54):
structures to get those accurate measurements andemploy those accurate measurements and the building of
the pyramids, zigarattes and other structures. And I also make the point that
people like John Walton are failing todistinguish between the science literature of the ancient

(34:15):
here Eastern peoples and their fantasy literature. So I use the analogy, what
of archaeologists fifteen centuries from now,were the rummage through the ruins of Hollywood
and they uncover these film canisters andbasically say, wow, people in the
twentieth century serves were very stupid andignorant. They actually thought that the dinosaurs

(34:37):
could be made pets and could usethem in stone quarries, referring to the
flintstones. And we would be makinga stake of looking at these films of
the flintstones and concluding this is whatpeople in the twentieth century believed about the
world. No, it was theirfantasy literature. While all generations of humanity

(35:00):
they have had a rich fantasy literature. And so the Seventh Day Adventists,
for example, actually did a detailedstudy refuting the belief propagated by John Walton
that all the ancients believed that theworld was flat, that there was a
metal dome over the earth, withwater above the dome, with little sluice

(35:21):
spots for the rain, and howthe stars were painted on the inside.
And so what I've done in thebook is to say clearity. None of
the ancients believed that they knew howfar away the stars were. They knew
that stars were bodies like the sun. They could measure the distance of the
Sun and the distance of the Moon. Now they only got it accurate about

(35:42):
a factor of two, but theyknew they were much farther away than a
metal dome above a flat earth.They understood Archimedes principle there's only there's a
limit to how far up you canpump water. So they all knew that
liquid water supply over a metal domeof the earth certainly didn't match reality.
They understood that because they were irrigatingtheir agricultural fields and knew they can only

(36:07):
pump water up a few feet thatwas a limit. So they weren't dumb,
And moreover, they were deeply interestedin science. Back, I would
argue that the average ancient Sumerian orEgyptian was far more interested in science than
people live in the twenty first century. Interesting, I've heard it before myself.

(36:29):
But also there are some popular Christianthinkers who they kind of frown upon
the term concordism. Particularly I'm thinkingof someone like William Lane Craig. You
know, I've heard him speak illof it, if you will. But
you argue in the book that,first of all, not all forms of
concordism are created equal, if Icould say, right, and you even

(36:50):
suggest that you hint at anyway,that everyone at some level is a concordist.
Yes, can you unpack that alittle bit? The book has basically
written in response to scientific concordism,where they're saying, we have to concord
atheistic evolutionary theory what the Bible teachit, which is a type of concordism.

(37:12):
That's a type of those people,yeah, or people thinking, well,
I mean, now, you know, the science is saying Neanderthals are
fully human and we need to concordthat. What the early chapters of Genesis
and the Book of Romans are saying. So we're all engaged in concordism.
And what I try to do inthe book is to define different forms of

(37:35):
scientific concordism. I talk about softconcordism, moderate concordism, and hard concordism.
Now, the soft concords are thosewho are so timid they say we're
not going to read any science intothe Bible. Well, we're only we're
going to stop at just saying theuniverse has a beginning. We're not going
to go beyond that. But Iargue there's a lot of chaps in the

(38:00):
Bible that are very heavy on scienceand creation content and so and from what
I can tell, the rationale forsoft concordism is to avoid the embarrassment of
being proven wrong by advancing science.But I'm a scientist. It's like we
advance science by taking risks, andwhere we go too far, we say,

(38:22):
you know what, I need toadmit, I made a mistake there,
and you back up. But there'salso times where you realize I didn't
go far enough, and so Imade a mistake here, there's more here
in the text and what I realizeand so there's a fluidity which you see
with moderate concordism. Hard concordism iswhere you read way more into the Biblical

(38:45):
text scientifically than what the text warrants. And so I have a chapter in
the book where I look at theconcordism scientific concordism of Islam, Hinduism,
Buddhism, jo Witnesses, the Mormons. They all engage in hard concordism reading

(39:06):
things in the text set it's crazy, you know, simply are not there.
But a moderate concord is will basicallysay, okay, this is what
the text clearity reveals, and thisis how it comports with the Book of
Nature. Emphasis on what it clearlyreveals, and to me, clarity if
it's stated in more than one bookof the Bible and stated in a consistent

(39:28):
way, I think we ought touse that as a tool to persuade people
that the Bible is the inspired andtheir word of God. But if it's
a single word or a single sentence, there needs to be caution. And
so I actually have a chapter inthe book where I feature a debate between
two theologians, John Ray and VernonPoythras, and both of them agree that

(39:52):
the Bible teaches three of the fundamentalfeatures of Big Bang cosmology. They debate
whether it teaches four and so basicallysaying note they're all they're both moderate and
chord is saying yes, the Biblepredicted three fundamental features of big Bang cosmology.

(40:13):
We can use it as a toolto persuade people that the Bible is
inspired word of God. Maybe itcommunicates a fourth feature, but I don't
need that as a tool for evangelism. But it might be appropriate to mention
that. I say, hey,there's this a strong possibility that they're fore
features instead of three. So basicallydemonstrating how moderate concordism works, or you

(40:39):
push forward or you back up andtry to figure out where it is.
It's dynamic, whereas soft concordism andhard core chordism is not dynamic, where
they retreat so far back that they'renot developing any evangelistic tools from science at
all, or they go so faror I mean, the example I'd give

(41:01):
with is Islam is where they saythe Koran predicted the men would walk on
the moon. Well, if youactually look at the Koran that mentions man
on one page and four pages ofother words, it mentions the moon.
There's no connection between them. Sothey're clearly reading into the text what they
want to read, right, SoI wanted to ask about William Lane.

(41:23):
Craig has a work that he's doneon the historical atom, and so a
lot of people love Wildlane Craig's stuff, and then when he as soon as
he started getting in the historical atomstuff, everybody's like, wait a minute,
what are you doing here? Andso partially because they misunderstand maybe his

(41:44):
endeavor, others because they're unwilling totouch evolution at all or even consider it.
Could you describe how you see hiswork and maybe where this plays into
this debate about inerrancy and concordism andstuff. Well, I've known Bill for
over thirty five years. We've actuallybeen on the platform together over the years.

(42:05):
We have a good communication, andhe's got an advanced copy of my
manuscript and he called me and said, hey, I'd like changes. So
I said, okay, what doyou want? He says, well,
I do believe in the doctrinal statementsof the International Council of Biblical Inerrancy.
I said, well, based onwhat you've written, I can accept that,

(42:25):
but you clearly deny the hermeneutic statements. And so I said, well,
and he said, you know,my position has changed since I wrote
the book. And he basically toldme over the you know, in an
email exchange that I wrote that bookas a thought experiment, basically saying,
let's just assume evolution is true,that all happens naturalistically. How do we

(42:51):
make that comport with a Bible?What do we have to do with the
Bible's creation text? Now? Myresponse to Bill was, look, I'm
a scientist. Don't write five hundredpage thought experiments. When we do a
thought experiment, it's maybe one ortwo pages, and we tell readers right
up front, this is a thoughtexperiment. This is not a model.

(43:12):
This is a thought experiment, andwe close the thing out by reminding them
to the end, this is athought experiment. If you write a five
hundred page book with all the footnotesthat you see in Bill Gret's book,
I said, there's a reason whypeople interpret your book as a model that
you hold. I mean, lookat the detail and what I've noticed since

(43:34):
the book has come out, he'sbeen doing a lot of speaking and writing
on that. I think he reallydoes see it as a model. If
I could interrupt, I'm sorry,doctor Ross, but I concur with that.
I listened to his podcast. Ilistened to him a good bit and
I've even heard him, I wantto say. It was either a podcast
or maybe one of his defenders classesor something, and I distinctly remember him

(44:00):
sharing new scientific data and he usedthe language that comports with my model.
Yes, so, and that's beensince obviously the release of the book,
So I would agree with that,right. Yeah. But I did include
in the book a quote from himthat he asked me to put in the
book, just basically clarifying where hestands now relative the time when he wrote

(44:22):
the book. So I put hisquote in there verbatim. So, and
you know, I did make itclear. He's not saying that all of
Genesis one to eleven is mythical.He calls it mytho history. But if
you read his book, it's predominantlymythical with some historical elements. And as
far as I understand, Bill stillstands by that position. And I'm basically

(44:47):
taking the position it's not mythical atall. It's entirely historical and literal.
But I think a big difference betweenBill and me. He thinks that if
you read the flood literally and historicallyit's talking about a flood that's globally extensive
that occurred within the past, say, six thousand years. And you know,

(45:09):
he wrote in his book what hethought my flood model is. He
didn't get it right. So I'veactually just finished writing a book on Noah's
Flood, Oh, where I basicallyclarify in detail where we had reasons to
believe stan on Noah's flood, andwe believe that the flood of Noah was
before the great dispersal of humanity,and we got good carbon fourteen dates when

(45:34):
that occurred. Basically, what yousee is evidence from carbon fourteen dating that
humanity was constrained to the region ofthe nearer Middle East in eastern Africa,
and then aggressively and suddenly migrated fromthere and settled all of Asia, Australia,
New Guinea, Northern Europe, SouthernEurope, and all of that Africa.

(46:00):
And those dates all come in atsomewhere between forty two and forty seven
thousand years ago, which means thatNoah's flood would need to be before that
date, and just before that date. There's no scientific objections to a flood
actually wiping out all of humanity exceptfor those on board the art and all

(46:22):
the animals associated with reprobate humanity.So I argue that the account of the
flood in Genesis, and also makethe point Peter deals with the flood.
You got the Psalms and Job andProverbs all dealing with Noah's flood. So
don't just look at Genesis. Youneed to see what the entire Bible has

(46:46):
got to say about the flood andbasically demonstrate that. If you look at
Job and Psalms and Proverb and secondPeter, it rules out a flood that's
globally extensive. It does stain offlood that wipes out one hundred percent of
ungodly people and all the animals associatedwith him. And I argue that's consistent

(47:07):
with a doctor and a God's judgment. I believe that that's a more important
issue. Interpret the flood and thecontext of what the entire Bible says about
judgment, and what you notice there. God always limits the expression expression of
his judgment wrath upon reprobation to thelimits of human reprobation. He wiped out

(47:31):
Sodom and Gomorrah, He left theamorits alone. What did he say to
Abraham, I will not touch him. Your descendants four hundred years from now
will take care of him, becausethen their wickedness will reach reprobate levels.
But he says it's not there yet. I'm only going to take care of
Sodom and Gomorrah. And so ifyou don't have ungodly people in Antarctica,

(47:54):
why flood Antarctica? And you're notflooding Antarctica. They're there's no need to
take emperor penguins on board of thearc. It's good and you know this
eliminates all the scientific objections to Noah'sflood. Read literty and historically. Wow.
Yeah, I think one of themost important points that I've garnered from

(48:15):
your teaching over the years. Andyou were the first person I ever heard
this from. Actually, I wishI could remember when, but you encouraged
me as I was listening to yourteaching to look at all of what the
Bible says about creation, and youreferred to how many different texts there were,
And that was the first time Ihad ever because I had always focused

(48:36):
on and I think unfortunately some ofour Young Earth friends do this as well.
They focus on mainly, you know, Genesis one and two, and
you do get a very much broaderpicture when you begin looking at all the
techs. So that was really helpful. Yeah, just I wanted to jump
back, if you don't mind,to the historical Adam and Eve, particularly

(48:58):
about Adam. So one of thepoints you make in the book is that
some modern theologians claim that Paul mightnot have been talking about a historical atom.
It might have been a literary atom. As you've studied and looked into
church history and things like that,was that a view that people have held

(49:22):
throughout the history of the Church oris that relatively new? Because to me,
the reason I'm asking specifically, andI apologize to the wordy question,
is because it seems to me thatI have a hard time believing a first
century Jew would be thinking that,oh, that's just a literary atom.

(49:43):
Yeah, the literary atom view,the literary atom view is relatively new.
I mean, if you look atChurch history, you see a consistent belief
that all humanity is descended from oneman and one woman that God specially created.
It's only with the advance of evolutionarytheory and the genetic analysis of a

(50:06):
human genetic diversity that people have cometo the conclusion, Hey, it can't
be one man and one woman.It's got to be a population. But
I've already talked about how the scienceis certainly consistent with all of us being
descended from one man and one woman. But you've got people like Bill Craig
and Peter Enz and John Walton saying, hey, if Francis Collins is right,

(50:30):
then the doctrine of all of usbeing descended from one man and one
woman has got to be incorrect.Or what Bill Craig says, Well,
I'm going to uphold Adam and Eve, but I'm going to put Adam back
three quarters of a million years.And so he points out, Hey,
I can keep it consistent with someof these genetic papers if I put Adam

(50:54):
back far enough. But now you'vegot the problem that you have to include
the the and the dinos Sovans andHomo rectas has been part of the progenitors
coming from Adam, and so Iargue in the book is that there's no
way that the Neanderthals and the denusSovans are human. You know, we're

(51:16):
anatomically different, we're behaviorally different.Our brains are radically different. They are
distinct species. They don't have theimage of God. Only anatomically modern humans
have the image of God. Butthat means we have a relatively recent date
for Adam and Eve. And I'marguing that the science is completely consistent with

(51:38):
God creating Adam and Eve not amillion years ago, but say one hundred
thousand years ago or several tens ofthousands of years ago. I do agree
it's hard to make the science comportwith a Bible. If you put Adam
and Eve at six to ten thousandyears ago, it's got to be earlier
than that. And hey, wegot carbon fourteen evidence that tells us definitively

(52:02):
that humans have been around at leastforty thousand years. Well, Hugh,
there's so much in the book that'sreally helpful and a lot of clarifying thoughts,
a lot of things that make mewant to go read all your other
stuff and go to Reasons dot org. The book is predominant an evangelistic tool.

(52:22):
I want to give people reading theBible of confidence. This is a
book I can use to reach myskeptical friends, and you know, I
can defend the Bible scientifically historically andmorally, and so I talk about not
just scientific concordance, but historical concordance. Does the Bible really predict future historical

(52:43):
events just like it predicts future scientificdiscoveries? And if it does that consistently
and accurately, I can use historyand science as tools to bring people to
the Book of Scripture and into arelationship with Jesus Christ. So my passion
for writing the book is that itwould become a tool that Christians can use

(53:05):
to bring their unsaved friends and associatesand relatives to faith in Jesus Christ.
For me, it was discovering thatthe Bible was accurate and everything it could
communicated. That was a key stepin my giving my life to Jesus Christ.
Amen, well, thank you somuch for coming on. We really
appreciate your work and your faithfulness andeverything that you've contributed in your work.

(53:28):
And I look forward to the nextbook is coming out. When I finished
the book, it's now in oureditorial department. It'll probably be a year,
maybe a little more before it showsthe light of day. But there's
already several articles at reasons dot orgthat people can write to get an advanced
piece super all right, great,Well, we'll point people to your resources

(53:50):
in the show notes that's reasons dotorg and point people to the book as
well in the show notes. Sothank you so much for joining usull You're
very welcome. Thanks for listening tothe podcast. If you have a question
you'd like us to address, orjust a message for us feedback good or
bad, you can either email usat podcast at apologetics three fifteen dot com,

(54:12):
or leave a voice message for ususing speak pipe. Just go to
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(54:32):
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find Chad's apologetic stuff over at truthbombapologetics. That's truthbomb dot blogspot dot com.
This has been Brian Auten and ChadGross for the Apologetics three fifteen podcast

(54:57):
and thanks for listening.