Puritan Sailor
Puritan Board Doctor
Alright guys. I know I promised this essay along time ago on the Antedeluvian thread. So here goes. Please feel free to offer your constructive criticisms as this is only the beginning to my thoughts regarding the subject. Perhaps it will spark some brainstorming in others. Hopefully it will be publishable some day.
_________________________________
A Biblical Explanation of Man's Development in Ancient History
By Patrick Severson (aka. Puritan Sailor)
----------------------------------------------------
Over recent months I have been pondering the doctrines of creation as taught in Genesis and their associated scientific proofs. It has been remarkable to me how correct and reliable the Scriptures have been when point after point, year after year, evolution and all it's worldly philosophical cousins are refuted. Granted, no one outside the Church really advertises this fact but still it has inspired me to reconsider other assumptions in this life that I have been raised to believe. My predominate thought was on the false assumptions of modern historians regarding the record of mankind. Unfortunately, evolution has hijacked that science over the last century or so. We are taught that man evolved from apes and wandered for millions of years as nomadic tribes, learning primitive survival skills, essentially like the brute beasts of the earth and then slowly developed language and basic skills like crude tools and hunting weapons. Evolutionary explanations to history assume that God is not involved with mankind, that mankind began is a very primitive ignorant species, and that this process to get mankind from cave man to the intellectual giant that he is today took millions of years. Even those in the church who despise the theory of evolution still tend to portray Adam and Eve as some idiot cavemen who had to start from scratch.
But as I sat and reflected on this I realized these evolutionary assumptions contradict the Scriptures, particularly the book of Genesis. For one, mankind didn't have millions of years to roam and develop in the earth, the earth being only a few thousand years old. Two, we are told plainly in Genesis where many of our first social skills and technologies come from. Third, the Bible teaches us that man did not begin as a primitive cave man with low intelligence, but began as the crown jewel of God's creation endowed with all the necessary skills required to subdue the earth. As Christians we have privileged information in the Scriptures to help unlock the history and origins of mankind. God has not left us without an explanation as to how we came into existence or why the world is the way it is today. There is plenty of information out there establishing the biblical view of creation and refuting evolution so I will primarily focus here on a correct understanding of ancient history and the technological development of mankind from a biblical perspective. Let us consider these things as we browse through the first few chapters of Genesis.
[i:4d58faf697] The first man, Adam. [/i:4d58faf697]
In the church today, we readily testify to the fact the Adam was created morally upright with a complete understanding of God's moral law ingrained in his very nature. But we must also understand that Adam was also given a basic knowledge to enable him to obey God's command to subdue the earth. Whether he was created with this knowledge or learned it by his conversations with God is not completely known and really isn't important. What is important is that Adam was no ignorant cave man. He was also given a great ability to learn more and develop ideas to further this end as can be shown by his lack of the knowledge of good and evil. Much of this is simply implied in the biblical narratives. After Adam was created, he was set in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it. This required at least some basic knowledge of agriculture. He also named all the animals giving him a general understanding of each kind with their special skills or capabilities and how they could be used. Thus, the beginnings of animal husbandry. Adam learned how to make clothing by seeing God make him clothes from animal skins after his fall. And God plainly tells Adam in the curse that he must toil in the fields to make his crops and keep back the weeds and thorns. As silly as it may sound, we see here that Adam quickly learned how to weed a garden.
[i:4d58faf697]Cain and Abel.[/i:4d58faf697]
It would seem that much of this knowledge passed on to his sons because we find that Abel is a shepherd and Cain is a farmer or "tiller of the ground" (Gen. 4:2). Abel brought forth gifts from his flock to God and Cain produced gifts to God from his crops showing at least a basic understanding of animal husbandry and agriculture. It would seem that Cain and Abel, and probably Adam himself improved upon Adam's basic knowledge of animals and agriculture. And these would be no measly crops either. How much wheat or fruit does it take to feed a single man for one year? Quite a bit I'd imagine. We also find the first city mentioned in the Bible built by Cain and named after his son Enoch. This probably occurred within the first 100 years of man's creation. Yet the evolutionary view would teach that over millions of years nomadic tribes would have eventually settled down and formed little villages around stable food resources eventually forming into larger communities. Now we are not told how big Cain's city was but it did occur relatively quickly after man was created completely contradicting the speculations of evolutionists.
[i:4d58faf697]Cain's descendents.[/i:4d58faf697]
We see that Jabal founded a tribe of those who dwelt in tents and raised livestock. Again skills, previously known and most likely learned and developed from Cain and Abel. It's not much of a stretch to figure out that animal skins will work as a tent just as well as for clothing. Genesis tells us that Jubal invented some musical instruments, hence the first recorded musical skills of men. Yet how many millions of years do evolutionists speculate it took for man to develop such skills? Tubal-Cain was an instructor in bronze and iron craftsmen. Curious how evolutionists will make a separate bronze and iron-age in history yet Genesis tells us these skills were developed at the same time by the same man shortly after man's creation. And why would these men pursue knowledge in these areas at all? It is entirely possible that they worked from a foundation of knowledge in these areas from Adam though it is not necessary to hold to that. Either way, it demonstrates that early man was no less intelligent in figuring things out than they are today. Notice, this most likely occurred before Seth was born to Adam as implied by Gen. 4:25 showing a remarkable amount of knowledge developed in the first 130 years of man's history.
[i:4d58faf697]Family structure[/i:4d58faf697]
Consider the building of the family structure. Evolutionary historians teach that over time men became dominate over women simply because they were bigger and stronger. Yet, Genesis teaches that God placed man over the woman and that man and woman should cleave to one another as husband and wife. Together they were to raise children. And interesting enough, the basic family structure is still the same today despite the sinful perversions that have tried to pollute it over man's entire history of existence.
[i:4d58faf697]The institution of religion [/i:4d58faf697]
We also see the institution of religion in these first chapters of Genesis. Evolutionary histories argue that religion developed over millions of years as man tried to find reasons to explain the anomalies of their primitive lives. Yet Scripture states that God established true worship and religion with Adam and Eve. They worshipped and fellowshipped with God in the Garden and were even appointed a specific day to enjoy this worship, the Sabbath day. The religion was later developed after man's fall where God promised to them one who would come that would crush the deceptive serpent and remove the consequent curse. We see this worship followed by Abel, and with the birth of Seth we find the first mention of congregational worship as "men began to call upon the name of the Lord." So this continued from Seth through his descendants down to Noah. Yet we also see the founding of the first false religion in Cain who refused to worship God as God commanded, and instead set up his own standards of conduct which he also passed on to his children after departing from the presence of the Lord (Gen. 4:16). And so, these chapters show us how the greatest division in mankind developed between the true worship of God and the false.
[i:4d58faf697]The first spoken language.[/i:4d58faf697]
We may also notice that mankind was created with a spoken language and able to communicate even in the Garden of Eden. And, it was no mere series of grunts, groans, or whistles as the evolutionists would have us believe human language evolved from. Adam spoke with God in the garden and he spoke with Eve. He even selected Eve's name with a purposeful meaning, that she would be the "mother of all living", suggesting he had some sort of linguistic framework from which to derive such a name for her. We see this also with the purposeful naming of Cain and Seth. We see Cain speaking with God and later with Abel. Lamech as well speaks to those around him. All this indicates that mankind at least had a complex spoken language, which would obviously aid Cain's city, Jabal's tent tribes, and Tubal-Cain's instructions in metal crafts. We are not told as to what extent these people learned how to commit the language to writing symbols though much can be accomplished in hundreds of years. The long life spans of the people would not necessarily require them to write because oral tradition would be a much more reliable tool than it would be today with our short generations. After all, if you consider the dating of the Genesis genealogy to be correct, there are only 3 overlapping generations from Adam to Noah, (Adam- Methusela- Noah) which would allow for very little distortion in passing on oral history. We must also consider the great advantage to having the whole world speak one language. There was no need for interpreters, no loss of information due to translation, and no verbal barriers to separate great minds from sharing their research and knowledge.
[i:4d58faf697]The benefit of longer life spans.[/i:4d58faf697]
We may also note how greatly enhanced the learning curves for these people would have been. In our time, we have roughly 70 years to learn and develop our knowledge and skills to pass on to others. It is often the case today that men are cut off at the peak of their intellectual developments. Yet, before the Flood, men lived for hundreds of years. Such long life spans would provide people like Tubal-Cain and Jubal immense time to develop their crafts with great thoroughness and research. Cain's descendants would have hundreds of years to master farming methods. This would also apply to Cain's city building technology. Cain and his descendants would have hundred's of years to figure out what structure and infrastructure designs better suited city life and what forms of government best worked. And again, considering the long ages of his descendents, they would have long overlapping life spans to better learn from each other's mistakes and pass on the lessons learned to more long-living generations.
[i:4d58faf697]Noah and his sons [/i:4d58faf697]
Thus we see a great possibility for tremendous growth in knowledge by the time Noah was born. And all these things we have only considered assuming God was not involved at all in these affairs after Eden. Yet we know that it was God who taught much to Adam. And we also find that it is God who taught Noah and his sons how to build the ark. Noah also lived 500 years before the flood (and his sons about one hundred years each themselves) which would have been plenty of time to learn all the basics in farming, animal husbandry, clothing, tent making, iron/bronze working, music, city building, and finally ship building and wood working. We even see that at some point Noah learned how to grow vineyards and make alcohol. Noah lived 350 years more after the flood and Shem lived for 400 years after the flood. That is plenty of time to pass on to your descendents all the basic technologies learned from the old world, especially when the next three generations lived for 400 years each too. And it would seem that soon after the flood, man put this knowledge to work in creating the city and tower of Babel with bricks and mortar. We are not told whether the old world had the knowledge of brick making but it would seem implied since mankind had already known how to build cities. In any case we still see how intelligent man was before and after the flood and how quickly civilization began to grow within a few generations after the flood despite all the catastrophic changes made to the earth due to the flood.
All this takes place in a period of about 2000 years (sticking strictly with the biblical dating of generations). Evolutionary historians would think this to be completely ludicrous today yet look how far man has come in the last 2000 years! When considering these factors in the development of knowledge it is no wonder that man could build the Pyramids, the tower of Babyl, the Babylonian hanging gardens, the Colossus, or any other great wonder of the ancient world, without too much difficulty. Contrary to the opinion of the evolutionary historians, the ancients were not idiots. The great empires of the ancient world could build themselves up quickly because Noah and his sons could already provide mankind with a great wealth of information about the technologies needed to survive and "subdue the earth", especially when combined with man's great ability to learn and develop even further.
[i:4d58faf697]The consequences of Babel[/i:4d58faf697]
We may ponder the question why the learning seemed to have slowed. For it seemed that for many hundreds of years after the flood there was very little development until perhaps the Greek and Roman empires appeared and began the great increase in knowledge once again. It may be explained in many ways but most likely it had to do with the consequences of the tower of Babel. One can only imagine the utter chaos involved when God divided the world into several languages. Further, hindrances also developed as man began spreading throughout the world thereby separating the great minds of innovative men not only by language but also by geography. We could also find setbacks due to the lost knowledge by the consequences of war, isolation, disease, and famine, and the shortening life span of the generations after the flood. It is amazing how much advancement is made when great amounts of people are united under a common language and geography, as seen throughout history with the Greek, Latin, and English languages and their related empires and nations.
When critics argue that such events don't explain how the American Indians, Pacific Islanders, and Aborigines got to their respective homelands we may refer to the book of Genesis. The world was divided after Babel by languages. Man already possessed technologies for survival, including the knowledge of shipbuilding learned from Noah and his sons. When such things are taken into account, it isn't hard to figure out how men could settle in isolated parts of the world a few thousand years ago. I may add that such an explanation is much more believable than assuming the individual races and cultures evolved at different times over millions of years at different rates of growth and development.
It is at this point that a remark must be made regarding the origins of racism. Modern racism is a product of evolutionary thinking because they teach that different races of men are further developed than others. This is the "scientific" explanation as to why various groups of humans are more advanced than others. But a study in the book of Genesis, and for those scientists out there a study in genetics, prove that all men are descended from one common ancestor, Noah. There is no such thing as different races of men. There is one human race. "Inferior" groups of people are not so because of any genetic differences but because of a different cultural development. History has repeatedly shown that men from simple cultures can learn and succeed in advanced cultures with out much difficulty and their children also when raised in "advanced" cultures are no different than any natives of that "advanced" culture, something which could not be done if they were genetically inferior. The biblical explanation for such differences is shown in the vast genealogies of Genesis. The sons of Noah spread out everywhere across the globe. But those civilizations that remained in close contact had the benefit of learning from each other. Thus we see in the Mediterranean region throughout the last 3000 years. Greek, Arabian, and later Latin scholars built up there knowledge by learning from each other's works. Nations who fight in frequent wars are obviously going to learn more efficient ways of warfare. Those tribes who were isolated from these interactions could not benefit from the knowledge acquired. The great ancient cities that formed for commerce and military defense were not necessary to the survival of isolated tribes with few if any military enemies. It is interesting that it was the cultures surrounding the initial settlements of Noah and Shem that had the greatest advancements in ancient history while those far off didn't enjoy as great a wealth of knowledge, with a few exceptions. Such is one explanation for the differences in technological development among different cultures. With this understanding it is easy to see why the isolated cultures in the Pacific gained much less knowledge over thousands of years than the European and Asian cultures.
Though such meditations are wonderful to speculate on, what are the practical consequences to this more correct and biblical understanding of ancient history? Well, first, it demonstrates the complete inadequacy of anti-christian philosophies to explain the origins of man. As shown above, an approach to the biblical evidence actually provides a much more realistic and rational approach in understanding the origins and ancient technological and cultural development of mankind and a perfectly reasonable explanation of ancient history if one is willing to admit God is the Creator and interacts with his creation and that the Scriptures are history instead of mythology. A literal interpretation of the first 11 chapters of Genesis therefore provides a perfectly reasonable history of mankind without any conflict with geology or archaeology, especially when the un-provable assumptions and speculations of evolution are rejected and discarded. Such is the great reliability of the Scriptures despite all the opposition of the superstitious "intellectual" elites of our day.
Secondly, seeing how reasonable and easy it is to explain history in light of the origins described in Genesis, Christians must be emboldened to attack the false assumptions of evolutionists knowing that God has provided the truth concerning the origins of mankind. It has long been the policy of many evangelicals to compromise on these issues because they feel the weight of the speculations and superstitions of science to be so powerful. Yet when analyzed by the Word of God and by scientist's own scientific method, their worldly philosophies are exposed for what they really are, simply a rebellion against the true God. Such must be the mindset of the Christian. We must not be blind fanatical enemies to the evolutionists. We have perfectly reasonable and much more credible explanations of the origin and history of mankind in the Scriptures and so we must respond confidently on that level.
Thirdly, consider the great potential and accomplishments of this creature made in God's image. And yet this greatness is only the product of a miserable fallen race. As Thomas Boston once analogized, fallen man is like the ruins of a mighty ancient castle. One could only imagine the possibilities if man were to have remained faithful in the Garden. But the Scriptures also provide us with great warnings. Man was endowed with the remarkable abilities to learn, develop, and grow in knowledge, yet the Scriptures tell us that by the time of Noah, man had become violent and wicked to the point that he must be destroyed. Even after the flood, man using his wealth of knowledge built the great tower of Babyl as an act of defiance against God. Thus, we see that no matter how great in knowledge man becomes, no matter how great his technological advances, he will never be able to solve the problem of sin. He is a fallen and cursed creature who uses his great endowments and abilities to rebel against the one who created and equipped him. Without the intervention of God man de-evolves into moral anarchy. The great evolutionary progress of mankind exists only in fictional stories and fantasies.
There is only one way for man to improve beyond this fallen and cursed life and that is to be born again, to be re-created in the image of God, and restored back to a right relation with Him. This is only done through trusting the second Adam, Jesus Christ, who has taken the penalty of our sin upon himself, has crushed the head of the serpent, and justifies us before our Creator. Man was created to use his abilities to further develop his knowledge of God. Man has found no end to the study of nature and technology, and yet these are finite things. How much more is there to know about the infinite God? Though the study of nature is enjoyable, how much more enjoyable is the study of the great God who made it all? And so, believers in Jesus Christ must exercise that great privilege we enjoy, to use all our great abilities and gifts to pursue the knowledge of God and carry out his will, to glorify God and enjoy him forever! Such is the chief end of our creation. And, though we are set back by lingering sin, Christians have been born again and renewed, not to give ourselves and our gifts to the world but to God for his use and glory.
[Edited on 1-5-2004 by puritansailor]
_________________________________
A Biblical Explanation of Man's Development in Ancient History
By Patrick Severson (aka. Puritan Sailor)
----------------------------------------------------
Over recent months I have been pondering the doctrines of creation as taught in Genesis and their associated scientific proofs. It has been remarkable to me how correct and reliable the Scriptures have been when point after point, year after year, evolution and all it's worldly philosophical cousins are refuted. Granted, no one outside the Church really advertises this fact but still it has inspired me to reconsider other assumptions in this life that I have been raised to believe. My predominate thought was on the false assumptions of modern historians regarding the record of mankind. Unfortunately, evolution has hijacked that science over the last century or so. We are taught that man evolved from apes and wandered for millions of years as nomadic tribes, learning primitive survival skills, essentially like the brute beasts of the earth and then slowly developed language and basic skills like crude tools and hunting weapons. Evolutionary explanations to history assume that God is not involved with mankind, that mankind began is a very primitive ignorant species, and that this process to get mankind from cave man to the intellectual giant that he is today took millions of years. Even those in the church who despise the theory of evolution still tend to portray Adam and Eve as some idiot cavemen who had to start from scratch.
But as I sat and reflected on this I realized these evolutionary assumptions contradict the Scriptures, particularly the book of Genesis. For one, mankind didn't have millions of years to roam and develop in the earth, the earth being only a few thousand years old. Two, we are told plainly in Genesis where many of our first social skills and technologies come from. Third, the Bible teaches us that man did not begin as a primitive cave man with low intelligence, but began as the crown jewel of God's creation endowed with all the necessary skills required to subdue the earth. As Christians we have privileged information in the Scriptures to help unlock the history and origins of mankind. God has not left us without an explanation as to how we came into existence or why the world is the way it is today. There is plenty of information out there establishing the biblical view of creation and refuting evolution so I will primarily focus here on a correct understanding of ancient history and the technological development of mankind from a biblical perspective. Let us consider these things as we browse through the first few chapters of Genesis.
[i:4d58faf697] The first man, Adam. [/i:4d58faf697]
In the church today, we readily testify to the fact the Adam was created morally upright with a complete understanding of God's moral law ingrained in his very nature. But we must also understand that Adam was also given a basic knowledge to enable him to obey God's command to subdue the earth. Whether he was created with this knowledge or learned it by his conversations with God is not completely known and really isn't important. What is important is that Adam was no ignorant cave man. He was also given a great ability to learn more and develop ideas to further this end as can be shown by his lack of the knowledge of good and evil. Much of this is simply implied in the biblical narratives. After Adam was created, he was set in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it. This required at least some basic knowledge of agriculture. He also named all the animals giving him a general understanding of each kind with their special skills or capabilities and how they could be used. Thus, the beginnings of animal husbandry. Adam learned how to make clothing by seeing God make him clothes from animal skins after his fall. And God plainly tells Adam in the curse that he must toil in the fields to make his crops and keep back the weeds and thorns. As silly as it may sound, we see here that Adam quickly learned how to weed a garden.
[i:4d58faf697]Cain and Abel.[/i:4d58faf697]
It would seem that much of this knowledge passed on to his sons because we find that Abel is a shepherd and Cain is a farmer or "tiller of the ground" (Gen. 4:2). Abel brought forth gifts from his flock to God and Cain produced gifts to God from his crops showing at least a basic understanding of animal husbandry and agriculture. It would seem that Cain and Abel, and probably Adam himself improved upon Adam's basic knowledge of animals and agriculture. And these would be no measly crops either. How much wheat or fruit does it take to feed a single man for one year? Quite a bit I'd imagine. We also find the first city mentioned in the Bible built by Cain and named after his son Enoch. This probably occurred within the first 100 years of man's creation. Yet the evolutionary view would teach that over millions of years nomadic tribes would have eventually settled down and formed little villages around stable food resources eventually forming into larger communities. Now we are not told how big Cain's city was but it did occur relatively quickly after man was created completely contradicting the speculations of evolutionists.
[i:4d58faf697]Cain's descendents.[/i:4d58faf697]
We see that Jabal founded a tribe of those who dwelt in tents and raised livestock. Again skills, previously known and most likely learned and developed from Cain and Abel. It's not much of a stretch to figure out that animal skins will work as a tent just as well as for clothing. Genesis tells us that Jubal invented some musical instruments, hence the first recorded musical skills of men. Yet how many millions of years do evolutionists speculate it took for man to develop such skills? Tubal-Cain was an instructor in bronze and iron craftsmen. Curious how evolutionists will make a separate bronze and iron-age in history yet Genesis tells us these skills were developed at the same time by the same man shortly after man's creation. And why would these men pursue knowledge in these areas at all? It is entirely possible that they worked from a foundation of knowledge in these areas from Adam though it is not necessary to hold to that. Either way, it demonstrates that early man was no less intelligent in figuring things out than they are today. Notice, this most likely occurred before Seth was born to Adam as implied by Gen. 4:25 showing a remarkable amount of knowledge developed in the first 130 years of man's history.
[i:4d58faf697]Family structure[/i:4d58faf697]
Consider the building of the family structure. Evolutionary historians teach that over time men became dominate over women simply because they were bigger and stronger. Yet, Genesis teaches that God placed man over the woman and that man and woman should cleave to one another as husband and wife. Together they were to raise children. And interesting enough, the basic family structure is still the same today despite the sinful perversions that have tried to pollute it over man's entire history of existence.
[i:4d58faf697]The institution of religion [/i:4d58faf697]
We also see the institution of religion in these first chapters of Genesis. Evolutionary histories argue that religion developed over millions of years as man tried to find reasons to explain the anomalies of their primitive lives. Yet Scripture states that God established true worship and religion with Adam and Eve. They worshipped and fellowshipped with God in the Garden and were even appointed a specific day to enjoy this worship, the Sabbath day. The religion was later developed after man's fall where God promised to them one who would come that would crush the deceptive serpent and remove the consequent curse. We see this worship followed by Abel, and with the birth of Seth we find the first mention of congregational worship as "men began to call upon the name of the Lord." So this continued from Seth through his descendants down to Noah. Yet we also see the founding of the first false religion in Cain who refused to worship God as God commanded, and instead set up his own standards of conduct which he also passed on to his children after departing from the presence of the Lord (Gen. 4:16). And so, these chapters show us how the greatest division in mankind developed between the true worship of God and the false.
[i:4d58faf697]The first spoken language.[/i:4d58faf697]
We may also notice that mankind was created with a spoken language and able to communicate even in the Garden of Eden. And, it was no mere series of grunts, groans, or whistles as the evolutionists would have us believe human language evolved from. Adam spoke with God in the garden and he spoke with Eve. He even selected Eve's name with a purposeful meaning, that she would be the "mother of all living", suggesting he had some sort of linguistic framework from which to derive such a name for her. We see this also with the purposeful naming of Cain and Seth. We see Cain speaking with God and later with Abel. Lamech as well speaks to those around him. All this indicates that mankind at least had a complex spoken language, which would obviously aid Cain's city, Jabal's tent tribes, and Tubal-Cain's instructions in metal crafts. We are not told as to what extent these people learned how to commit the language to writing symbols though much can be accomplished in hundreds of years. The long life spans of the people would not necessarily require them to write because oral tradition would be a much more reliable tool than it would be today with our short generations. After all, if you consider the dating of the Genesis genealogy to be correct, there are only 3 overlapping generations from Adam to Noah, (Adam- Methusela- Noah) which would allow for very little distortion in passing on oral history. We must also consider the great advantage to having the whole world speak one language. There was no need for interpreters, no loss of information due to translation, and no verbal barriers to separate great minds from sharing their research and knowledge.
[i:4d58faf697]The benefit of longer life spans.[/i:4d58faf697]
We may also note how greatly enhanced the learning curves for these people would have been. In our time, we have roughly 70 years to learn and develop our knowledge and skills to pass on to others. It is often the case today that men are cut off at the peak of their intellectual developments. Yet, before the Flood, men lived for hundreds of years. Such long life spans would provide people like Tubal-Cain and Jubal immense time to develop their crafts with great thoroughness and research. Cain's descendants would have hundreds of years to master farming methods. This would also apply to Cain's city building technology. Cain and his descendants would have hundred's of years to figure out what structure and infrastructure designs better suited city life and what forms of government best worked. And again, considering the long ages of his descendents, they would have long overlapping life spans to better learn from each other's mistakes and pass on the lessons learned to more long-living generations.
[i:4d58faf697]Noah and his sons [/i:4d58faf697]
Thus we see a great possibility for tremendous growth in knowledge by the time Noah was born. And all these things we have only considered assuming God was not involved at all in these affairs after Eden. Yet we know that it was God who taught much to Adam. And we also find that it is God who taught Noah and his sons how to build the ark. Noah also lived 500 years before the flood (and his sons about one hundred years each themselves) which would have been plenty of time to learn all the basics in farming, animal husbandry, clothing, tent making, iron/bronze working, music, city building, and finally ship building and wood working. We even see that at some point Noah learned how to grow vineyards and make alcohol. Noah lived 350 years more after the flood and Shem lived for 400 years after the flood. That is plenty of time to pass on to your descendents all the basic technologies learned from the old world, especially when the next three generations lived for 400 years each too. And it would seem that soon after the flood, man put this knowledge to work in creating the city and tower of Babel with bricks and mortar. We are not told whether the old world had the knowledge of brick making but it would seem implied since mankind had already known how to build cities. In any case we still see how intelligent man was before and after the flood and how quickly civilization began to grow within a few generations after the flood despite all the catastrophic changes made to the earth due to the flood.
All this takes place in a period of about 2000 years (sticking strictly with the biblical dating of generations). Evolutionary historians would think this to be completely ludicrous today yet look how far man has come in the last 2000 years! When considering these factors in the development of knowledge it is no wonder that man could build the Pyramids, the tower of Babyl, the Babylonian hanging gardens, the Colossus, or any other great wonder of the ancient world, without too much difficulty. Contrary to the opinion of the evolutionary historians, the ancients were not idiots. The great empires of the ancient world could build themselves up quickly because Noah and his sons could already provide mankind with a great wealth of information about the technologies needed to survive and "subdue the earth", especially when combined with man's great ability to learn and develop even further.
[i:4d58faf697]The consequences of Babel[/i:4d58faf697]
We may ponder the question why the learning seemed to have slowed. For it seemed that for many hundreds of years after the flood there was very little development until perhaps the Greek and Roman empires appeared and began the great increase in knowledge once again. It may be explained in many ways but most likely it had to do with the consequences of the tower of Babel. One can only imagine the utter chaos involved when God divided the world into several languages. Further, hindrances also developed as man began spreading throughout the world thereby separating the great minds of innovative men not only by language but also by geography. We could also find setbacks due to the lost knowledge by the consequences of war, isolation, disease, and famine, and the shortening life span of the generations after the flood. It is amazing how much advancement is made when great amounts of people are united under a common language and geography, as seen throughout history with the Greek, Latin, and English languages and their related empires and nations.
When critics argue that such events don't explain how the American Indians, Pacific Islanders, and Aborigines got to their respective homelands we may refer to the book of Genesis. The world was divided after Babel by languages. Man already possessed technologies for survival, including the knowledge of shipbuilding learned from Noah and his sons. When such things are taken into account, it isn't hard to figure out how men could settle in isolated parts of the world a few thousand years ago. I may add that such an explanation is much more believable than assuming the individual races and cultures evolved at different times over millions of years at different rates of growth and development.
It is at this point that a remark must be made regarding the origins of racism. Modern racism is a product of evolutionary thinking because they teach that different races of men are further developed than others. This is the "scientific" explanation as to why various groups of humans are more advanced than others. But a study in the book of Genesis, and for those scientists out there a study in genetics, prove that all men are descended from one common ancestor, Noah. There is no such thing as different races of men. There is one human race. "Inferior" groups of people are not so because of any genetic differences but because of a different cultural development. History has repeatedly shown that men from simple cultures can learn and succeed in advanced cultures with out much difficulty and their children also when raised in "advanced" cultures are no different than any natives of that "advanced" culture, something which could not be done if they were genetically inferior. The biblical explanation for such differences is shown in the vast genealogies of Genesis. The sons of Noah spread out everywhere across the globe. But those civilizations that remained in close contact had the benefit of learning from each other. Thus we see in the Mediterranean region throughout the last 3000 years. Greek, Arabian, and later Latin scholars built up there knowledge by learning from each other's works. Nations who fight in frequent wars are obviously going to learn more efficient ways of warfare. Those tribes who were isolated from these interactions could not benefit from the knowledge acquired. The great ancient cities that formed for commerce and military defense were not necessary to the survival of isolated tribes with few if any military enemies. It is interesting that it was the cultures surrounding the initial settlements of Noah and Shem that had the greatest advancements in ancient history while those far off didn't enjoy as great a wealth of knowledge, with a few exceptions. Such is one explanation for the differences in technological development among different cultures. With this understanding it is easy to see why the isolated cultures in the Pacific gained much less knowledge over thousands of years than the European and Asian cultures.
Though such meditations are wonderful to speculate on, what are the practical consequences to this more correct and biblical understanding of ancient history? Well, first, it demonstrates the complete inadequacy of anti-christian philosophies to explain the origins of man. As shown above, an approach to the biblical evidence actually provides a much more realistic and rational approach in understanding the origins and ancient technological and cultural development of mankind and a perfectly reasonable explanation of ancient history if one is willing to admit God is the Creator and interacts with his creation and that the Scriptures are history instead of mythology. A literal interpretation of the first 11 chapters of Genesis therefore provides a perfectly reasonable history of mankind without any conflict with geology or archaeology, especially when the un-provable assumptions and speculations of evolution are rejected and discarded. Such is the great reliability of the Scriptures despite all the opposition of the superstitious "intellectual" elites of our day.
Secondly, seeing how reasonable and easy it is to explain history in light of the origins described in Genesis, Christians must be emboldened to attack the false assumptions of evolutionists knowing that God has provided the truth concerning the origins of mankind. It has long been the policy of many evangelicals to compromise on these issues because they feel the weight of the speculations and superstitions of science to be so powerful. Yet when analyzed by the Word of God and by scientist's own scientific method, their worldly philosophies are exposed for what they really are, simply a rebellion against the true God. Such must be the mindset of the Christian. We must not be blind fanatical enemies to the evolutionists. We have perfectly reasonable and much more credible explanations of the origin and history of mankind in the Scriptures and so we must respond confidently on that level.
Thirdly, consider the great potential and accomplishments of this creature made in God's image. And yet this greatness is only the product of a miserable fallen race. As Thomas Boston once analogized, fallen man is like the ruins of a mighty ancient castle. One could only imagine the possibilities if man were to have remained faithful in the Garden. But the Scriptures also provide us with great warnings. Man was endowed with the remarkable abilities to learn, develop, and grow in knowledge, yet the Scriptures tell us that by the time of Noah, man had become violent and wicked to the point that he must be destroyed. Even after the flood, man using his wealth of knowledge built the great tower of Babyl as an act of defiance against God. Thus, we see that no matter how great in knowledge man becomes, no matter how great his technological advances, he will never be able to solve the problem of sin. He is a fallen and cursed creature who uses his great endowments and abilities to rebel against the one who created and equipped him. Without the intervention of God man de-evolves into moral anarchy. The great evolutionary progress of mankind exists only in fictional stories and fantasies.
There is only one way for man to improve beyond this fallen and cursed life and that is to be born again, to be re-created in the image of God, and restored back to a right relation with Him. This is only done through trusting the second Adam, Jesus Christ, who has taken the penalty of our sin upon himself, has crushed the head of the serpent, and justifies us before our Creator. Man was created to use his abilities to further develop his knowledge of God. Man has found no end to the study of nature and technology, and yet these are finite things. How much more is there to know about the infinite God? Though the study of nature is enjoyable, how much more enjoyable is the study of the great God who made it all? And so, believers in Jesus Christ must exercise that great privilege we enjoy, to use all our great abilities and gifts to pursue the knowledge of God and carry out his will, to glorify God and enjoy him forever! Such is the chief end of our creation. And, though we are set back by lingering sin, Christians have been born again and renewed, not to give ourselves and our gifts to the world but to God for his use and glory.
[Edited on 1-5-2004 by puritansailor]
