As many of you know, I have been working on a book that I have entitled, The Heresy of Ham. In it, I am not only arguing that the claims of young earth creationists like Ken Ham have no scientific support, and the way they interpret Genesis 1-11 is exegetically unsound, but that in actuality, their claims have never been the dominant view throughout Church history. What’s more, many of their claims should be considered outright heretical when one considers the creeds of the early Church.
In any case, I am in the midst of editing it and trying to cut it down to size so it can get published eventually. One of the things I am currently doing is putting in footnotes to document their various claims. In the process of doing this, I came across a certain article on the Answers in Genesis website, and I noticed something I found rather astounding—it had to do with what were ultimately two incompatible claims about the effects of Noah’s flood that were part of the already impossible claim that 4,000 years ago the earth was completely engulfed in water within a span of 40 days.
Here are the two claims, found in two different articles.
All the Pre-Flood Advanced Technology
In the June 5, 2015 post, “Answering Claims About the Ark Project,” one of the objections Ken Ham addresses is that Noah did not have the technological capabilities to build such an Ark. Ken Ham’s answer consisted of two parts: (A) Noah probably hired thousands of workers (literally, a thoroughly unbiblical claim), and (B) in the pre-flood world, because human beings had super intelligence due to their more perfect genome, and because they lived for hundreds of years, they were able to develop supremely advanced technology—and that’s how the Ark was able to be built (again, this is a claim that has absolutely no biblical support). [See Claim # 7 in the article]
The logical rebuttal to that claim would be rather simple: “If that were the case, then why is there absolutely, 100% no evidence whatsoever, anywhere, throughout the entire planet, to support this claim of ancient, advanced technology? Why has no one ever dug up an ancient bulldozer, crane, or flux capacitor that would prove the ancient people were so technologically advanced?”
Ken Ham’s answer is thus: “For those scoffers who say that if Noah had such technology we would find evidence of it, they need to understand the sheer destructive processes of the global Flood. It essentially obliterated the pre-Flood world. Or as the Apostle Peter put it, “the world that then existed perished, being flood with water” (2 Peter 3:6). Our geologist, Dr. Andrew Snelling, suggests much of the original continent was subducted into the mantle anyway. We have remnants of some of the pre-Flood life preserved in the fossil record, but the vast majority of these are sea creatures—which is expected since it was a marine catastrophe (Genesis 6:7)!”
So there you have it. We don’t have any evidence of that glorious pre-flood technology because it was completely obliterated by the sheer destructive force of the flood. Got it? Good…Because here’s the next claim in question.
The Post-Flood Carnivorous Diet for Animals that Came Out of the Ark
On October 15, 2013, an Answers in Genesis post by John Woodmorappe addressed questions surrounding the animals on Noah’s Ark. Near the end of the post, he addressed the question, “Didn’t the Ark-Released Animals Eat Each Other?” The specific objection Woodmorappe addressed was this: “Those who attack the Bible say that the carnivores released from the ark would have soon eaten up the herbivores, leading to the eventual extinction of both.”
Not so, says Answers in Genesis! The “answer in Genesis” that Answers in Genesis gives (which, incidentally, is not actually found in Genesis) is this: “The post-Flood world must have had plenty of rotting corpses of various animals that were not buried in the Flood sediments. Experience has shown that most carnivores prefer to eat carrion than to kill live animals for food. …These alternative sources of food must have diverted the attention of predators for a considerable period of time after the Flood. This would have allowed the prey populations to build up to an appreciable size before they became the main target of the predators.”
Let’s Think About This For a Moment
So, do you see the incompatible problem (aside from the obvious problem that in both cases, the answers AiG provides don’t have any biblical support whatsoever)? Let me spell it out for you.
In the first post, we are told that Noah’s flood was so destructive that all the advanced technology of the pre-flood was completely obliterated—totally, utterly, obliterated. All the bulldozers, cranes, trains, rockets, computer-guided missile systems of the ancient world were so obliterated, that there is absolutely no trace of any of it, anywhere, because of the destructive power of the flood.
In the second post, we are told that despite the fact that the flood completely obliterated, disintegrated, and otherwise vaporized all the heavy machinery of the pre-flood advanced technology, the bodies of the animals who perished in the flood somehow remain intact throughout the entirety of the flood, and thus were able to be the food for the carnivorous animals who came off the Ark.
Do you see the problem yet? Let’s use one more example. Let’s say we built a giant-sized blender, the size of Ken Ham’s Ark. And let’s say we put in it all the bulldozers and trucks used to build his Ark, along with a few hundred animals from a local zoo. And let’s say we turned that giant blender on, to “liquefy.” I guess, theoretically, if you kept the blender on long enough, those bulldozers and truck would eventually be obliterated beyond recognition, but here’s my question: what would get obliterated first, a bulldozer or a sheep? A truck or a cow?
Yes, that’s right: Answers in Genesis is making two claims that are completely incompatible with one another (much less being impossible in their own right). If bulldozers and trucks were obliterated in the Flood, it’s safe to say that there would be no way that the bodies of dead animals would have survived intact. If you don’t believe me, go to Kentucky Fried Chicken, order some chicken, and then tear into a drumstick with your teeth—you can do it, right? Now go to your car, take out the engine, and then tear into it with your teeth—you can’t do it? Why? Because the body of a chicken is easier to disintegrate than a car engine.
This is What Answers in Genesis Does
This is what I find so fascinating about Ken Ham’s organization. Not only are all the “answers” they give actually not in Genesis (let alone anywhere in the Bible), but the answers they give are nonsensical in and of themselves.
Ken Ham likes to claim that he is a “biblical creationist,” but the fact is, he isn’t. It’s about time we stop letting him use that title. His claims about the natural created world are not biblical at all. Not only does he reject basic science, not only does he make up supposed biblical answers that aren’t actually in the Bible, but he ignores the historical and literary context in which Genesis 1-11 was written.
He is so obsessed with trying to prove Genesis 1-11 is a modern scientific description of origins, that he willfully ignores basic rules of biblical exegesis, rejects basic scientific facts, and comes up with completely impossible and incompatible claims that he doesn’t even take the time to recognize are impossible and incompatible…with each other.
Simply fascinating.
How convenient. The evidence that might support Ham’s wild ‘technology’ claims of 5 June 2015 has all been obliterated! Yet he STILL goes around indoctrinating kids with “If there really was a global Flood, we would find billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the Earth” in an attempt to ‘confirm’ a recent worldwide flood with ‘science’ whilst trying to debunk conventional scientific explanations (involving those millions of years and more) of the pattern(s) of the fossil record (ie if evidence can be twisted to ‘confirm’ YEC timescales then the evidence has not been obliterated when “the world that then existed perished”). Incidentally – without knowing any Hebrew – I always assumed that ‘perished’ meant that all land-based life died, not that all evidence of its very existence was obliterated.
And they still say things like “The remains of some animals have been found in rock layers we believe were deposited in the centuries after the Flood. Others, like the dinosaurs, are known only from sediments laid down during the year long Flood.”
https://answersingenesis.org/noahs-ark/reimagining-ark-animals/
(That post was discussed here: http://thenaturalhistorian.com/2015/12/15/ken-hams-darwinism-on-the-origin-of-species-by-means-of-hyper-evolution-following-noahs-flood/)
The ironic thing, though, is I really don’t think Ken Ham thinks he’s indoctrinating kids. He puts out these clearly contradictory claims, and he honestly doesn’t see it.
And how long would those predators had had to eat carrion until their preferred prey species built up enough numbers to be back on the menu?
I too came to this conclusion, though with a slightly different approach. The flood created fossil beds of jellyfish, delicate feathers, flowers, and small bones, but was so destructive that any stone structures resembling human settlements were completely obliterated.
The problem of simultaneously claiming that the Flood was wildly catastrophic and gently preserving things at the same time is drastic. The second law of thermodynamics shows that supplying and removing enough water to flood the globe would produce enough heat to melt it. Similar problems occur with speeding up plate tectonics to all occur within a year. Another popular set of contradictory claims comes from the sequence of fossils. Scott Huse’s Collapse of Evolution claims that the sequence of fossils is based on the relative escape ability of the different creatures, that it is based on the flood sequentially inundating different environments, and that it’s a lie invented by evolutionists. They are mutually incompatible, besides being based on complete ignorance of the fossil record. The first oysters occur at the same time as dinosaurs and the last occur well after, for example.
The contradictory claims were made in two different articles by two different people even though they appeared on the same web site. It’s not unusual for this to happen.
They’re probably both wrong. Noah had decades to build the Ark so probably didn’t need advanced technology to do it. But according to Genesis metal working was already established so he would have had adequate tools. Woodmorappe’s idea about scavenging carcasses is probably also wrong because I doubt much edible would be left after a year in flood water.
I’m annoyed every time I hear the words “biblical model” from the likes of Ham or the Hovinds. Their pseudoscientific baraminology is nowhere to be found in the bible, even given the most generous reading, yet every time I criticise its many shortcomings I’m accused of criticising the bible. It’s such a blatantly dishonest tactic, yet they probably don’t even see it themselves. Fascinating, yes, but also deeply troubling.
I’ve seen the same. I used to be a YEC myself, but since changing my mind I’ve discovered how amazingly difficult it is to convince them. I think this is because they have been brainwashed by YECs. With this I mean some YECs would claim that any other view is BECAUSE of corrupt science, that we only compromise Genesis because we are trying to make it fit with evolution. So no matter what you say, they would simply say you are saying what you’re saying because you are holding on to evil atheist evolution.
What killed YEC for me was discovering two things: that traditionally – BEFORE EVOLUTION – many Christians historically, like Augustine, did not view Genesis to be literal. And secondly, as John Lennox pointed out, Genesis 1 itself does not advocate this: there are four definitions of the word “day” in Genesis, not one of them points to 24 hour days.
I did not read all of this. I simply want to make a comment on advanced pre-flood civilizations. There is one influential YEC book, called “The Puzzle of Ancient Man” by Chittick which goes through interesting finds, such as immensely heavy stones used in ancient architecture (Pyramids, Stonehenge, etc.), gold artifacts found in coal, and similar things. I am in no way a young earth creationist anymore, but this is worth a look. I haven’t read it again since I’ve changed my mind on the age of the earth, so I don’t know how valid the claims in it actually is.
Thanks for pointing to this post, which I must not have seen before.