RE: [asa] YEC prior to 1950

Hi Ted-

You wrote:
" Nearly all publications I've seen from the early to mid-20th century, coming from conservative Protestants, endorse or allow either the gap view (probably that was more popular, since it was taught in the Scofield Bible) or the day age view (Bryan's view). Rimmer liked the gap, while his even more widely known friend William Bell Riley (first president of the Worlds Christian Fundamentals Association) like the ages; they even debated this issue publicly on one very well known occasion, with Rimmer (as usual) claiming victory. ASA member Frank Roberts told me many years ago, that he had surveyed the books about origins at (I think) Dallas Seminary, the books that were published in this period, and he found almost nothing other than gaps or ages. That's consistent with what I've seen myself, and I've looked at a lot of books from this period."

From the many books you've seen... did they talk about the age of the Earth and ever mention the consequences of Adam? Either a long age would say there was no Adam or else there were pre-humans and Adam was the first called by God...?

Any general opinion on that?

I'm guessing they avoided the topic because it was too controversial? It is easy to debate the age of the Earth, but debating Adam can cause one to be called a heretic, right?

,,,Bernie

-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Davis [mailto:tdavis@messiah.edu]
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 6:01 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu; Dehler, Bernie
Subject: RE: [asa] YEC prior to 1950

The standard account of the history of YEC, from Ron Numbers (himself a
former SdA believer) is as follows.

(1) The combination (key word) of young (probably 6-8k years) earth and
flood geology (virtually all fossiliferous rocks are produced by Noah's
flood in human history) was mostly gone from conservative Protestantism in
the period between (roughly) the Civil War and Eisenhower's presidency.

(2) In the latter part of the 19th C, it was the official view of
Seventh-day Adventists, who took it from their prophet, Ellen White. She
claimed to have seen a vision of the creation, in which God showed her both
a recent creation and flood geology. [Ted: Ron's biography of White, which
I've only skimmed quickly long ago, shows how she "cribbed" various other
things from specific writings already out there in the culture; I wouldn't
be the least surprised if her "vision" of creation pretty much came out of
American or British scriptural geologists. By the 1830s, the scriptural
geologists were gone from serious geological circles, but still had a fairly
wide popular following that, IMO, never entirely disappeared. This is a
place where a graduate student in history of science or religion could find
a dissertation topic.]

(3) White's most influential disciple, Canadian school teacher George M
Price, popularized this well outside of SdA circles, starting in 1906 but
really taking off in the 1920s. [Ted: He wrote numerous articles for the
Sunday School Times and the Westminster Theological Journal (among others)
at that time. I have a couple dozen such on file.]

(4) [Ted: But Harry Rimmer and other fundamentalist leaders did not
generally adopt the flood geology. They *did* typically believe that
geology supports the historicity of Noah's flood, whether global or local,
but they did not typically endorse flood geology. They *loved* Price's
antievolutionist stuff, however. Bryan wanted to have Price as a
"scientific" witness at the Scopes trial, but Price was abroad at the time.]

(5) John C Whitcomb, Jr., wrote a dissertation on Price and Genesis in the
1950s at Grace Seminary. Not long after he encountered Henry Morris, an
admirer of Rimmer, and they collaborated on The Genesis Flood. In that
version of Whitcomb's dissertation, the influence of Price is greatly muted
though it is minimally acknowledged.

(6) Since the 1960s, this has taken off and gone worldwide.

As for the long intermediate period between 1860s and 1960s, I don't think
we really know very much about what was going on at the level of popular
religion in conservative Protestant circles. It's much easier to see the
books and articles by the leading theologians and preachers and biblical
scholars, even the small number of scientists associated with
"fundamentalists" in the Scopes era such as L Allen Higley at Wheaton (where
the president absolutely forbade the teaching of evolution). My suspicion
is, that there was quite a bit more of the YEC stuff out there, but I don't
have hard data to point to, only anecdotal evidence from various people at
the time such as Kirtley Mather (a leading geologist who went to Dayton to
testify at the trial). Among the more visible stuff, however, Ron's general
account is right: genuine YECs were thin on the ground, and mostly confined
to SdA or very conservative Lutheran circles (Lutherans were among the most
conservative Protestants around, on science issues, in the 1920s. There is
hard data for that.)

Nearly all publications I've seen from the early to mid-20th century, coming
from conservative Protestants, endorse or allow either the gap view
(probably that was more popular, since it was taught in the Scofield Bible)
or the day age view (Bryan's view). Rimmer liked the gap, while his even
more widely known friend William Bell Riley (first president of the Worlds
Christian Fundamentals Association) like the ages; they even debated this
issue publicly on one very well known occasion, with Rimmer (as usual)
claiming victory. ASA member Frank Roberts told me many years ago, that he
had surveyed the books about origins at (I think) Dallas Seminary, the books
that were published in this period, and he found almost nothing other than
gaps or ages. That's consistent with what I've seen myself, and I've looked
at a lot of books from this period.

Finally, this thread has 1950 in the title, but the key year is 1961. No
Whitcomb & Morris, which has sold more than a quarter million copies, then
no scientific creationism today. Ron was right: they wrote the "bible" of
the movement.

Ted

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Received on Mon, 25 Aug 2008 11:03:43 -0700