EVIDENCES - FAULTY EVIDENCE

Aesop said, "Appearances are deceiving." Jesus commented on this truism in Matthew 7:15 by saying that false teachers "come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." I have before me a sheet labeled "CHALLENGE PAGE." The geological column is pictured which, the directions say, is a time chart of life on earth. Rock strata of the geologic eras and ages are listed along with figures indicating the "millions of years ago" when they were formed. The Pliocene age, 5 million years ago, saw "ape-people," 2 million years ago "early humans' showed up. Some 0.01 million years ago "modern humans" appeared. I suppose Adam was among them. It doesn't say.

This sheet isn't from the public schools. No, the question posed to students indicates where it was used: "Can you match the fossil record with the Genesis record?" Blanks appear to the right for convenience in recording chapter and verse. Blanks are found opposite "early humans" and roughly between "ape people" and grazing animals. Descending the page (into the past) are blanks opposite "birds, snakes and lizards," "vertebrates with jaws" and "blue-green algae."

This is faulty evidence and is particularly disturbing because the report is that the material was used in a Bible study with youngsters of elementary school age. The evidence is faulty because no such "column" appears in nature. It is constructed not from actual fossil beds, but rather according to evolutionary theory which demands that "simple" life precede "complex" forms, roughly stated: "From ancestral viral, bacteria and protozoan forms to colonial aquatic forms and finally to complex marine and terrestrial forms including man." Actually fossil beds contain a plethora of animal and plant life forms. Some geologists admit that fossil bed evidence supports instantaneous creation not development of life forms through ages of evolution.

It is faulty evidence because the record of creation in Genesis cannot be matched to the neatly structured column. Reading the chart from bottom to top the labels clearly show that one is seeing the unfolding of earth's biological history from early to present time. In Genesis 1:9-13, on the third day, God formed the seas and created land plants. On the fifth day of Genesis 1:20-23, after the creation of terrestrial plants, sea life and birds were created. The column has land plants appearing during the Ordovician age some 500 million years ago after sea life and 70 million years after marine forms. Terrestrial animal life and man were created on the sixth day. Grazing animals appear on the column a mere 22 million years ago!

One can write scriptures opposite the creatures named indicating that God created them. The point to be made here is that the order of creation in the Bible is suggested to be the same as the column. The Bible order is: land plants, marine creatures, birds and man. The column is: marine life, land plants, birds and man. Also the column shows life appearing at widely dispersed points in time.