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On Wednesday, 23^rd October, The Daily Declaration published a favourable review by Akos Balogh of the book A Timeline of Origins — Toward Better Integration of the Bible and Science written by Michael Russell.[1] The thesis of Russell’s book is that modern science and the Bible can be reconciled by the idea of two worlds, one in which the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve are found and the other in which the evolution of modern humans takes place. The first was destroyed in the Flood, and Noah, his family and the animals with him on the Ark, were ‘brought across’ to this present world.

Balogh describes this as a ‘novel hypothesis’, and it certainly is that (new), but is it helpful?

Although I have not read Russell’s book, based on Balogh’s review of it, I conclude it is nonsense of the highest order, completely devoid of evidence, either scientific or biblical. Worse still, Russell’s hypothesis displays an ignorance of the limitations of science, a disregard for the inerrancy and inspiration of the Scriptures and is oblivious to the gospel implications of what it proposes.

The justification for Russell’s book was apparently to propose a way of reconciling the Bible with modern science and so avoid the problem that many non-Christians are not interested in Christianity because of science.  The reason for this, according to Russell, is the “failure from the Christian side to provide a timeline of human history that sits comfortably with the findings of mainstream science and a high view of Scripture.”

This clearly defines the fundamental problem.  Russell places the authority of modern science above that of Scripture, although he would probably deny this.  Why should Scripture be made to sit ‘comfortably with the findings of mainstream science’? If Scripture is the authority, it must surely be the other way around!

If the timeline is a problem for unbelievers, what do we do with the virginal conception and the resurrection? Should we deny the revelation of God’s word on those matters, too?

The Bible is quite unambiguous that God created the universe in 6 earth-rotation days, just like the days we experience today.  Not only are the 6 days of creation described in Genesis 1, but they are affirmed in Exodus 20:11 and 31:17. The meaning of the word ‘day’ is made clear by the context of these passages. Furthermore, the biblical timeline, so clearly spelt out in Genesis 5 and 11, precludes the putative millions of years that are an essential part of evolution.

We should bear in mind that the evolutionary story is essentially an attempt to explain the existence of the universe without God.  This is a naturalistic, secular or atheistic worldview. Science, however, is limited to observable, repeatable experiments and seeks to understand how the world works. This is not the same as trying to discover how the world came to be, which is not repeatable and therefore is not accessible to experimental science. But God, in His grace and mercy, has given us His own eyewitness account of what He actually did at the very beginning, so the Bible is like a history book of the universe. Science studies repeatable things.  History studies unrepeatable things.

God, who was there at the beginning, loves us, and would not deceive us.  He is all-powerful and all-knowing and quite capable of ensuring that the human authors of the Bible wrote only what was in accordance with his purposes and without error.  This is what the inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures mean.  Had he taken millions of years to create, he could have said so unambiguously, but there is not one hint of vast ages anywhere in His Word.

Balogh makes a fleeting reference to carbon dating in his article, which I won’t address here, but if readers are wondering how to respond to the claims of radio isotope ages that are inconsistent with the biblical timescale, I refer you to chapter 4 from The Creation Answers Book.[2]

Let us consider each of the four sections of Balogh’s review of Russell’s book.

1. The Timeline: Fitting Old Earth and Evolution (Modern Science) with the Genesis Genealogies

Evolution requires deep time with the age of the universe said to be around 13.8 billion years.  The Bible gives an approximate age for the universe of only about 6,000 years[3].  The Flood occurred around 1,656 years after the creation, and the Tower of Babel ‘in the days of Peleg’ from around 1,757 to 1,996 years after creation.  There is an abundance of observable evidence to show that creation was recent[4] and certainly not billions of years ago.

These two timelines are utterly irreconcilable.  Attempts to do so invariably compromise the plain reading of the Scriptures whilst leaving the speculations of secular scientists largely untouched.  Once again, secular science is placed in authority over Scripture.

2. The Two Worlds: To Where was Cain Banished?

The question “Who was Cain’s wife?”, which is related to this heading, is an old canard which has long been answered.[5]  Russell seems to argue that there must have been other people in existence who were not descendants of Adam and Eve, and these people may have been on some other world.

However, the Bible is unequivocal that Adam is the father of all human beings (even Eve came from his side), not only in Acts 17:26 but also in Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:22 and 45.  Jesus was a descendant of Adam (Luke 3:23-38) and came to be our kinsman-redeemer, so if anyone had not descended from Adam, they would be outside of his redemptive act on the cross.  Paul is clear that the “last Adam” (Jesus) came to pay the price for the first Adam’s sin.

Adam and Eve had other children (Genesis 5:4), so Cain was given a mark to protect him from being killed.  If there was another group of people from another land, not descended from Adam, why was the mark necessary?  Only kin would be interested in revenge. It was necessary because they were all family, and they all knew what Cain had done.

3. Is Theistic Evolution Unbiblical?

Theistic evolution is profoundly non-biblical and has been examined in-depth and found wanting.[6]  In essence, any model of the past that places the death of nephesh chayah (“breath of life”) creatures in any form, human or animal, before the Fall undermines the basis of the cross.

The reason Jesus came into this world was three-fold:

• To pay the price of mankind’s sin (1 Corinthians 15:3)
• To bear our infirmities and diseases (Isaiah 53:4-5, 1 Peter 2:24)
• To redeem the fallen creation (Romans 8:20-22)

Theistic evolution undermines all three of these purposes.

If death and suffering were in the creation before the Fall, then God is to blame for these things, whereas Paul is unequivocal that it was Adam’s sin that plunged creation into its present broken decaying state.  If the first Adam’s sin had not brought death into the world, there is no need for the last Adam to give his life to pay the price of our sin for us.  He died physically because Adam brought physical death into the world.

The curse of sin also spread to the animal kingdom.[7] God created all the animals and man to eat plants, so there was no carnivory and bloodshed before the Fall.  Also, death is described as “the last enemy” in 1 Corinthians 15:26.  God would hardly have used this enemy as the agency of creation.

If God had used evolution to create, then suffering and disease were part of his original plan.  Did Jesus die because we were evolving?

According to Romans 8, the whole of creation is in bondage to decay but will one day be restored to perfection.  Will it take billions of years for God to create the new heavens and earth? Will it be a place of death and suffering? (No!)

If God had used evolution to create, then the reason Jesus went to the cross was because of how God made the world.  But if the Fall was the cause of suffering and death, then Jesus died because of our sin. Clearly, the latter is what the Bible teaches.

Therefore, belief in theistic evolution impugns God’s character, denies the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, and undermines the gospel message.

4. How the Great Flood Fits In

Russell seems to question whether our planet was once subject to the global catastrophic flood as described in Genesis 6–9.  Perhaps it was the ‘other’ world?  His reasons for this bizarre proposal are:

• “The animals in our world don’t look to be distributed around the globe as though they came from the Ark 5000 years ago”.

On the contrary, the distribution of animals around the world today is best explained by the onset of a single Ice Age immediately after the Flood,[8] which would have been around 4,500 years ago.  Warm oceans and cold land, likely resulting from the mechanisms of the Flood, would lead to high evaporation rates, precipitating onto the land as ice and snow.  The sea levels would have been lowered, producing land bridges permitting the animals to spread out over the earth, followed a century or more later by people after the Tower of Babel.  At the end of the Ice Age, the ocean levels would have risen to approximately today’s levels, cutting off the land bridges and isolating animals and people.

• “If our world had been covered in water for 150 days, this would have destroyed all plant and tree life.”

Large floating mats of logs and vegetation would have redistributed plants around the globe.[9] Many seeds can survive for long periods underwater, contrary to Russell’s assertion.

• “The long lifespan of the people in Genesis accounts.”

Given the genetic perfection of the original humans, it is not surprising they lived for centuries.  In fact, the longevity of the patriarchs affirms the truth of the Genesis account. The precise mathematical (exponential) decline in ages following the Flood affirms their reality.[10]

The evidence for a global flood is extensive. A simple search on creation.com will yield a range of articles providing such evidence, including a dedicated chapter in The Creation Answers Book.[11]

Geology shows that the major landforms in the world today are best explained by a catastrophic global flood.  Sedimentary layers (laid down by water) of rock show little or no time elapsed between them and the vastness of these deposits, some the size of continents, defy explanation by present-day processes.  Something dramatic happened in the past that we don’t see happening today.  Sounds like the Flood of Genesis 6–9 to me!

In those sedimentary rocks we find the remains of once living things, now fossilised.  The fossil record shows evidence of rapid deep burial, not slow gradual processes that we are taught in evolutionary textbooks.  The fossil record is powerful, confirming evidence that this planet was subjected to a massive global watery catastrophe, just like that described in Genesis.  It also fails to support the predictions of evolution as Darwin himself recognised, although he believed as more fossils were found, the fossil record would support his theory, but it doesn’t.

5. The Tower of Babel

The account in Genesis 11:1–9 of the Tower of Babel is straightforward narrative, with no suggestion of the people belonging to two separate worlds.  Incredibly, man was rebelliously seeking to make a name for himself rather than humbly obeying his Creator, so soon after the cataclysmic judgement of the Flood! Recognising that Noah was still alive at this point in Earth’s history, it is extraordinary how defiant mankind had become in such a short time.  But there is no case here for the existence of another world inhabited by people who did not descend from Adam.

Russell apparently sees a problem with the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 coming before the description of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11.  However, the Table of Nations follows logically from the conclusion of the genealogical information on Noah at the end of chapter 9.  The Tower of Babel account is given in explanation of the dispersion before the text resumes the genealogical account from Shem to Abram.

6. Conclusion: A Plausible Fit Between the Bible and Modern Science?

Absolutely not!  The summary Balogh provides for the plausibility of Russell’s two worlds model shows that it verges on being ridiculous, at the risk of sounding harsh.  It essentially reduces to this issue: “The idea that the flood destroyed the world left behind, rather than our world, allows us to say with Scripture that the world was completely flooded, without us having to ‘defend propositions that clash fundamentally with mainstream science’”.[12]

Here again, we see the root of the issue — the elevation of modern historical ‘science’ over the Scriptures.  Why would a Christian seek to incorporate an atheistic philosophy into their worldview?  Only because they feel they have no choice because science has apparently proven the evolutionary story to be true.  That is why ministries like Creation Ministries International exist and serve a vital role in providing credible answers that affirm the reliability of the Bible, in particular its Genesis history.

Confidence in the Authority of the Scriptures

So many Christians feel overwhelmed by the secular scientific establishment which attempts to undermine the authority of the word of God, not realising that the Christian can stand confidently on the rock-solid truth of the Scriptures!  As the atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett said: evolution is the universal acid that eats up everything.

No one can know all the answers to the challenges our culture constantly serves up against the Christian, but we can know that there are answers and where to find them.  We are called upon to always be prepared to give an answer (1 Peter 3:15) and those answers can remove intellectual blockages to someone coming to faith.  They also greatly encourage believers when they realise that they don’t have to leave their brains at the church door!  Encouraging and equipping believers empowers them for effective witnessing.

I found Balogh’s approving review very disappointing and, judging by the comments the article received, so did many others.  Balogh accepts many of Russell’s arguments uncritically, failing to stand on the authority of the Scriptures to refute them. Both Balogh and Russell have failed to avail themselves of the copious material available from sources such as Creation Ministries International’s website at creation.com, which adequately addresses all Russell’s erroneous meanderings.

Unlike Akos Balogh, I cannot recommend A Timeline of Origins by Michael Russell.  I cannot see how it could serve any valuable purpose.  On the contrary, it would be most likely to confuse the Gospel message and discredit the Scriptures to an unbeliever.

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[1] Akos Balogh, “Does the Bible Speak of Two Worlds? A Fascinating Rethink of Genesis“, The Daily Declaration, October 23^rd 2024.

[2] The Creation Answers Book, Chapter 4, “What about carbon dating?” creation.com

[3] Lita Sanders, “How does the Bible teach 6000 years?” Creation 35(1):54–55, January 2013.

[4] Don Batten, “Age of the Earth“, Creation.

[5] The Creation Answers Book, Chapter 8, “Who was Cain’s Wife?“, Creation.

[6] Philip Bell, Evolution and the Christian Faith: Theistic evolution in the light of Scripture, published by Day One and available from creation.com.

[7] Paul Price, “Animal death before the Fall: Cruelty to animals is contrary to God’s nature“, Creation.

[8] Michael Oard, “What caused the Ice Age?” Creation 36(3):52–55, July 2014.

[9] Dominic Statham, “Phytogeography and zoogeography—rafting vs continental drift“, Journal of Creation 29(1):80–87, April 2015.

[10] Carter, R., “The rapid decline in biblical lifespans: Mathematics tells us the numbers are not made up“, Creation, 5 Oct 2021.

[11] The Creation Answers Book, Chapter 10, “Was the Flood Global?“, Creation.

[12] Ref 1.

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