First published:
Journal of Creation 13(2):22–30
November 1999Browse this issueSubscribe to Journal of Creation
Exposé of The Genesis Question*
Serious biblical and scientific errors deceive evangelicals
by Dr Jonathan Sarfati
Introduction
The astronomer Hugh N. Ross now seems to be the world’s most prominent ‘progressive creationist’ (PC). While he is insistent about distinguishing himself from ‘theistic evolutionists’ (TEs), Ross adopts the same basic philosophical approach. That is, he makes uniformitarian (i.e. essentially materialistic, billions of years, etc.) ‘science’ his authority over Scripture.
This means that he must try to fit billions of years into Scripture, with corollaries of a local flood and pre-Adamite soulless man-like creatures, and death of nephesh animals before sin. The only real difference between the two positions is that PCs deny transformism, the changing of one kind into another. Amazingly, Ross claims that his approach is ‘a literal reading of the Genesis creation chapters’ (p. 86). This is surely a very non-literal usage of the word ‘literal’!
Ross’s popularity in evangelical Christendom is based on several factors:
His books are published by the once-biblical NavPress, the publishing arm of the Navigators.
Ross name-drops a number of Christian leaders who appear not to realise that Ross’s departure from Scripture involves far more than the age of the earth.
Ross gives the impression that his books will help Christians defend their faith in a scientific age.
It’s clear that for the last few years, NavPress has opposed straightforward biblical creation. In this recent Ross book [see also our introductory chapter critique of Ross’ June 2004 book release A Matter of Days: Resolving a Creation Controversy], NavPress appears to have even resorted to somewhat misleading marketing tactics, i.e. the dust-jacket has some ‘praise’ from allegedly prominent authors, one of whom is:
SAMUEL CONNER, PH.D.
candidate in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Formatted as above (starting a new line and changing the font style from small capitals to italics after ‘Ph.D.’), this gives the first impression to a skimming reader that Conner has a Ph.D., because only after careful inspection is it clear that he is a Ph.D. candidate, i.e. not actually qualified.
The canonisation of ‘nature’
The worst part of Ross’s teaching is the gross liberties he takes with the scriptural text. He does this to fit the canonical 66 books into what he calls the ‘67th book’, nature.1 What he means by ‘nature’ is the uniformitarian interpretation of nature. However, the creation is cursed (Genesis 3:17–19, Romans 8:20–22) and man’s heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9) and the thinking of a godless man is ‘futile’ (Romans 1:21), while Scripture itself is ‘God-breathed’ (2 Timothy 3:15–17). So a biblical Christian should not reinterpret the perfect, unfallen Word of God according to fallible theories of sinful humans about a world we know to be cursed (Genesis 3:17–19, Romans 8:20–22).
Ross’s heterodox canonisation of nature has been thoroughly rebutted by Van Bebber and Taylor.2 Their book, Creation and Time: A report on the Progressive Creationist book by Hugh Ross, is valuable reading for defenders of the biblical worldview, as it answers point-by-point Ross’s earlier theological and historical errors.1 However, The Genesis Question repeats many of the same errors.
Ignorance of Hebrew
Ross routinely gives audiences the impression of being very familiar with Hebrew. However, in a meeting with Dr Ross on 12 April 1999, Dr Russell Humphreys asked Ross in Hebrew: ‘Do you speak Hebrew?’ and Ross was clearly uncomprehending. Humphreys then said (in English): ‘You must respond in Hebrew’, to which Ross admitted his inability by responding (also in English) ‘I can’t.’ Humphreys hastens to add that he himself is not expert in Hebrew, and nor am I, but we at least know enough to understand the question and to reply using the Hebrew word for ‘no’.
Ross’s ignorance of Hebrew shows when he tries to discredit the common creationist identification of behemoth in Job 40:15–24 with a sauropod [see Could Behemoth have been a dinosaur?], because he believes the dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago. Ross writes (p. 48): ‘The Hebrew word for “behemoth” appears in its plural form, behema, …’ However, even beginners in Hebrew know that –a is often a feminine singular and –oth is a feminine plural. So Ross got it back-to-front: behema is the singular form, while behemoth is grammatically plural. It is a figure of speech known as an intensive plural or plural of majesty, where ‘the referent is a singular individual, which is, however, so thoroughly characterized by the qualities of the noun that a plural is used’,3 ‘beast of beasts’. The context says that behemoth is the largest beast God made. And Job 40:17 says: ‘His tail sways like a cedar’ which certainly doesn’t fit Ross’s suggestion of a hippopotamus (unless it was a bonsai cedar, maybe).
Fanciful eisegesis4
One of Ross’s major aims is to show that Genesis can be fitted into uniformitarian astronomy and paleontology. To avoid the plain teaching of Genesis—that land dinosaurs were created with man and after whales—Ross also claims (pp. 52–53):
‘The list [of creatures created on Day 6] does not purport to include all the land mammals God made. … Though remes refers occasionally in Hebrew literature to reptiles, the opening phrase of Genesis 1:25 makes it clear that these are mammals. … Both behema and chayyāh refer to long-legged land quadrupeds. The former group encompasses those that easily can be tamed or domesticated for agricultural purposes, and the latter, those that are difficult to tame but have the potential to become excellent pets. Remes refers to short-legged land mammals, such as rodents, hares, and armadillos.’
However, this is typical of Ross’s imaginative eisegesis. Genesis 1:25 teaches nothing so restrictive. And his analysis of Hebrew terms has no basis—Ross’s own source, the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT),5 doesn’t support him. Chayyāh is simply a generic word for a living creature although it can often refer to wild animals (TWOT 1:281)—the phrase נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nephesh chayyāh) is used of sea creatures in Genesis 1:20, and of man in Genesis 2:7. Behema refers to both wild beast and domesticated animal (TWOT 1:92). Remes describes small creeping animals ‘especially reptiles’ (TWOT 2:850). The TWOT shows that Ross is ‘over-defining’ these terms.
Van Bebber and Taylor6 pointed out the same errors in Ross’s earlier book,1 and it’s tiresome to see Ross repeating discredited nonsensical arguments time after time.
Note that even if we grant Ross’s contention that remes means ‘short-legged land mammals’, it still doesn’t match the uniformitarian order in the fossil record. Such creatures are alleged to have appeared millions of years before whales, which Ross identifies as created on the millions-of-years-long ‘Day 5’. And mesonychids, the alleged predecessors of whales, were certainly ‘long-legged mammalian quadrupeds’, so would fit even Ross’s descriptions of Day 6 creatures.
Those who promote Ross’s material as sound science should thus think again. It is doubtful that secular people will be impressed by Ross’s claim that the order of Genesis matches ‘science’. When they point out exceptions, Ross redefines terms so that Day 6 doesn’t really refer to any creature that appeared before whales. And when all else fails, he claims that the ‘days’ overlapped.7
The conclusion to this article can be read at: