1/7/00
Mark Roberts wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: M.B.Roberts [mailto:topper@robertschirk.u-net.com]
>Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2001 10:09 PM
>To: Glenn Morton; asa@calvin.edu
>Subject: Re: Creation Ex Nihilio and other journals
>> Michael Roberts wrote:
>>
>> >P.S. How many YECs can you name in 1860? Can you exceed my list of 6?
>>
>> Who is on your list?
>
>uk ; Phillip Gosse, B W Newton
>
>USA Moses Stuart, Dabney, Thornwell?, I have forgotten the other one Ted
>Davies will know.
>
>If you want old earthers there are so many that I cant give them all
Didn't ask for old earthers! But I will give you some more creationists of
that era.
In response to Allan and Roy, Mark Roberts wrote:
>The question YECs need to ask themselves is why were Evangelicals so rarely
>YEC until the aftermath of the Genesis Flood in 1961?
I strongly disagree with you that YECs were such an insignificant minority
until ole Henry the Morris and John The Whitcomb published Genesis Flood. I
will point you to an earlier post of mine for information about a YEC from
the early part of the 19th century, Granville Penn, who was still
influential among many as late as 1860. See
http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200010/0284.html
But in 1857, Hugh Miller in his book Testimony of the Rocks, felt the need
to spend three chapters, about 20% of the book arguing against the concept
of a global flood and a young-earth. Surly you are not suggesting that
Miller, a well-known writer of the 19th century spent that much time aiming
a book at those 6 fellows? Miller writes:
"There are three different parties in the field, either directly opposed,
or at least little friendly, to the men who honestly attempt reconciling the
Mosaic with the geologic record. First, there are the anti-geologists,-- men
who hold that geological questions are to be settled now as the Franciscans
conteporary with Galileo held that astronomical questions were to be settled
in the seventeenth century, or as the doctors of Salmanca contemporary with
Columbus held that geographic questions were to be settled in the fifteenth.
And they beleive that geology, as interpreted by the geologists, is entirely
false, because, as they think irreconcileable with Scripture; further that
our planet had no existence some seven or eight thousand years ago, --that
the apparent antiquity of the various sedimentary systems and organic
groupes of the earth's crust is wholly illusive,--and that the very oldest
of them cannot be more than a few days older than the human period. IN fine,
just as it was held two centuries ago by Turrettine and the Franciscans,
that the Bible as interpreted by them was the only legitimate authority in
astronomic questions, so this class now hold that the Bible as interpreted
by them is the only legitimate authority in geologic questions, and further,
that the Bible being, as they contend wholley opposed to the deductions of
the geologist, these deductions must ov necessity be erroneous. Next there
is a class, more largely represented in society than in literature, who,
looking at the general bearings of the question, the character and standing
of the geologists, and the sublime nature of their discoveries, believe that
geology ranks as certainly amnt the sciences as astronomy itself; but who,
little in earnest in their religion, are quite ready enough, when they find
theologians asserting the irreconcileability of the geologic doctrines with
those of Scripture, to believe them; nay, not only so, but to repeat the
assertion." Hugh Miller, Testimony of the Rocks, (Edinburgh: Thomas
Constable & Co 1857), p.379-380
Here you have in 1857 a serious discussion of the leaders of YECs and the
followers who go along unthinnkingly with the pronouncements of their
clergy. Surely they all didn't change there minds during the 3 years
between 1857 and 1860.
Miller cites the Statesman and Record Oct. 6th 1846 where a writer, cited an
M. Gironde, who determined the average layer of sediment laid down each year
along the Nile and measured the thickness of the 'Nile' sediments and
concluded that the inundations had 'commenced 5650 years before the year
1800, when the experiments were made,--a number which only differed 159
years from the Mosaic date." ( Miller, p.410) [I might point out that
already we have the pattern of the YEC citing half century old information
in support of this theology--grm] The problem with this calculation was that
Gironde didn't measure the full thickness of Nile sedimentation which
reaches 3.5 km under the delta.
In that book, Miller mentions a guy named P. McFarlane who for the period
1843 to 1857 had produced a series of books on the infidel geologists and
why they were wrong. (See Miller p. 398; I might mention if you have the
american version of this bookthe page numbers are different.)
There was an anonymous book published by a clergy of the Church of England
entitled A brief and Complete Refutation of the Anti-Scriptural Theory of
Geologists,(London: Wertheim & Macintosh, 1853)
And don't forget this gem from 1853:
"... or have asserted with a most Protestant lecturer who addressed an
audience in Edinburgh little more than three years ago, that, though God
created all the wild animals, it was the devil who made the flesh-eaters
among them fierce and carnivorous; and, of course shortened their bowels,
lengthened their teeth, and stuck formidable claws into the points of their
digits." Hugh Miller, Testimony of the Rocks, (Edinburgh: Thomas Constable
& Co 1857), p.386
The note at the bottom of the page to this event says:
"What he set himself specially to 'demonstrate' was, as he said, that the
geologic 'theories as to antiquity of the earth, successive eras, &c. were
not only fallacious and unphilosophical but rendered nugatory the authority
of the sacred Scriptures."
In the post 1860 era, Ellen White has already been mentioned by Allan, but
here is a quote from her from 1864, four years after Darwin.
"[After the flood] The beautiful, regular shaped mountains had disappeared.
Stones, ledges, and ragged rocks appeared upon some parts of the earth which
were before out of sight. Where had been hills and mountains, no traces of
them were visible...
Before the flood there were immense forests. The trees were many times
larger than any tress which we now see...At the time of the flood these
forests were torn up or broken down and buried in the earth. In some places
large quantities of these immense trees were thrown together and covered
with stones and earth by the commotions of the flood. They have since
petrified and become coal, which accounts for the large coal beds which are
now found. This coal has produced oil..."
"White claimed that Noah's flood had caused a great deal of geological
commotion. Price reasoned that if all of the geological evidence for an old
earth could be explained by this commotion, then he did not need to abandon
White's 24-hour creation days. So Price took on the immense task of
rewriting the entire science of geology to conform it to White's visions of
the creation and the flood." ~ Ellen White, Facts of Faith in connection
with the History of Holy Men of Old, (Battle Creek, Mi: Steam Press, 1864),
p. 78-79 cited by Don Stoner, A New Look at an Old Earth," (Eugene, Oregon:
Harvest House Publishers, 1997), p. 122-123
Shortly after this, one can not forget the memorable Isaac Newton Vail
(whose parents had high hopes for their youngster which obviously were
disappointed). Vail was the fellow who in 1874 first proposed the canopy
theory (resurrected and altered by Henry Morris). His book was quite
successful, although forgotten today:
“It was this independent research in a very wide field of
thought that led me to enlarge the pamphlet of 1874 to a book
of 400 pages in 1885; and again it was revised and enlarged in
1902; and I have been greatly encouraged by the fact that this
last edition is now used in some of the colleges, and in at
least two universities as an educator.
“When the first volume was published in 1874 it was a rare
thing to meet with a scientist who would admit that the earth
had a ring system; to-day it is as rare to meet with one who
does not concede the great fact, and the great problem is
resolving itself into this form: How did the earth’s rings fall
back to the surface of the planet?” ~ Isaac Newton Vail, The
Earth’s Annular System, 4th ed. (Pasadena: The Annular World
Co., 1912), p. v
He claimed that this was the source of the global flood waters.
I think you have forgotten Howorth's 'THE MAMMOTH AND THE FLOOD,' published
in 1887. This was a truly bizarre theory of the flood.
Then of course, there was George McCready Price, already mentioned above in
the quotation about White. He published from around 1907 to the 1930s. His
credits include:
George McCready Price, The Fundamentals of Geology, (Kansas City: Pacific
Press Publishing Assoc., 1913),
George McCready Price, "Revelation and Evolution: Can they be Harmonized?"
Journal, Transactions of the Victoria Institute 57:169 (1925),
George McCready Price, Evolutionary Geology and the New Catastrophism,
(Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Assoc., 1926),
George McCready Price, The Geological Ages Hoax, (New York: Fleming H.
Revell, 1931),
And lets not forget the forgotten, William A. Williams, whose book went
through over 50 printings from 1925 to 1953. He was the first person I know
of who used the population growth argument.
"But let us generously suppose that these remote ancestors, beginning with
one pair, doubled their numbers in 1612.51 years, one-tenth as rapidly as
the Jews, or 1240 times in 2,000,000 years. If we raise 2 to the 1240th
power, the result is 18,932,139,737,991 with 360 figures following." ~
William A. Williams, Evolution Disproved, (privately published, 1925), p.
10.
And of course, Harry Rimmer, that model of racial intolerance, was a widely
known and published creationist from the 1930s. He wrote many books and
articles and lectured nearly everywhere. His credits include:
THE HARMONY OF SCIENCE AND SCRIPTURE, by Harry Rimmer, written in 1936
Of this, I might note that my copy of Rimmer's book was republished by
Eerdmans in 1973 AMAZINGLY STILL CONTAINING THE RACIST LANGUAGE AT THAT LATE
DATE!
“In the course of the evening’s relaxation, a young medico who was one of
the party introduced an ingenious game. He gave to each contestant a line
from the famous, familiar old nursery song, ‘There was an old nigger, and
his name was Ned, and he died long, long ago.’ The rule of the game demanded
that each man should reduce the line in his possession to the best
scientific language at his command.” ~ Harry Rimmer, The Harmony of Science
and Scripture, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1936) 22nd printing 1973, p.
61-62
**
“We had the audacity to maintain that the Hivites were the shrewdest people
that ever lived. This seems reasonable in the face of the fact that they
were the only people in history who have ever beaten all the Jews in a
bargain at the same time! If the reader doesn’t think that that requires
brains, try it on one child of Abraham, and see how far you get!” ~ Harry
Rimmer, The Harmony of Science and Scripture, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.
Eerdmans, 1936) 22nd printing 1973, p. 259-260
And he compared blacks with chimpanzees in an absolutely disgusting passage:
“If the quadrumanes would pick cotton they would displace the darkies of the
South in one year’s time.” ~ Harry Rimmer, Modern Science and the Genesis
Record, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1952), p. 257
Don't forget the 1951 very popular book by Alfred M. Rehwinkel, The Flood.
It was published by Concordia press arguing for a young-earth and a global
flood. I think I recall this still being sold in the stores in the 60s.
And one year before Morris's book, Mixter put out an anthrology of
anti-evolutionary, anti-geological arguements. Evolution and Christian
Thought Today, ed. R.L. Mixter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959)
To claim as you have that YECs were not very numerous prior to Whitcomb and
Morris, is simply wrong. Morris simply provided a rallying point--nothing
more. And YECs will be with us in significant numbers til the end of time.
glenn
see http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 07 2001 - 07:04:08 EST