Seraphim Hamilton

The following review was published on Seraphim’s Web site Apologia Pro Ortho Doxa in late February 2017.

I went last night to see the special showing of the new creationist documentary Is Genesis History? The film represents a major improvement upon previous creationist documentaries because those interviewed represent intellectual honesty, creativity, and the best in modern creationism. Kurt Wise, Arthur Chadwick, and Todd Wood are all prominently featured. This makes the film an excellent introduction for those interested in the state of creationist scientific argument today. But even referring to this as a scientific “argument” somewhat misstates the nature of this work, because it is not principally about apologetics. Instead, it represents the classical Christian view of scholarship: faith seeking understanding. Beginning from a position of trust in the God who gave the Scriptures, these scientists seek to understand Earth history simply because of the joy of understanding the creation of the Almighty.

We are introduced to Steve Austin and Andrew Snelling’s fascinating work on the sedimentary record, showing that there are certain features of that record which imply rapid deposition on a worldwide scale. For example, major sedimentary layers in the Americas have counterparts not only across the American continent, but across all continents. This is very significant: instead of arguing, as older creationists unsuccessfully did, that the geologic column is simply a fiction, these scientists point to the very existence of a worldwide pattern in deposition as evidence that the deposition must substantially be the product of a worldwide catastrophe. Indeed, the fact that there is a geologic column is powerful evidence of a flood. Moreover, between sedimentary layers are “unconformities,” thought to represent hundreds of millions of years of “missing time” where there was no sedimentary deposition. Yet, the surfaces of the sedimentary rocks are relatively flat, which is difficult to account for if there were millions of years of weathering and erosion.

Dr. Kurt Wise, arguably the founder of the modern creationist movement, takes a look at fossils, suggesting that the order of fossils in the record are the result of a succession of ecological zones in the antediluvian world. The suggestion that a flood would deposit fossils in mixed heaps simply misunderstands how sedimentation works: floods bury animals basically in place. They don’t float around in the water for an extensive period of time before being buried from fossils from other areas. Since the original creation was created with zones in place, the antediluvian world had an intelligently organized ecosystem with different zones, instead of the modern ecological system, which represents the contingent events of post-flood dispersion and intrabaraminic diversification.

Dr. Todd Wood looks at the creationist view of the kind, or baramin, suggesting that the creationist “kind” is roughly on the level of the biological family, and that after the flood, there was rapid and significant diversification. He extends this to humankind, noting that statistical baraminology, which was developed before it was applied to humans and generally identifies the baramin along the lines of the family, generates a real distinction between humans and other apes, confirming a key creationist prediction. I wish the editors of the film included more material dealing with Wood’s arguments, because it is essential to note that the mechanism of diversification in the creationist model is not Darwinian, but epigenetic. God intentionally frontloaded information into all baramins giving them an intrinsic potential for diversity.

Finally, the film looks to the history of the Tower of Babel, interviewing Douglas Petrovich. It is here that I disagree with the arguments set forth. Dr. Petrovich is a defender of the conventional chronology of the ancient world, which is irreconcilable with the biblical chronology. His archaeological setting of Babel at Eridu cannot be sustained within a creationist framework, because the archaeological context is post-Stone Age. On the creationist model, Stone Age remains postdate the dispersion from Babel. The life of Abraham (archaeologically the late Chalcolithic) occurs merely centuries after the end of the Stone Age, and the traces of Stone Age culture in Genesis are significant — note the use of caves by Abraham and Lot’s home in a cave. These were used by early settlers after Babel until populations were sufficiently large to construct advanced cities — which is misinterpreted by modern anthropologists as the invention of agriculture and civilization. This means that the remains of Babel must predate the so-called Paleolithic, and will likely be conventionally dated anywhere from 200,000 B.C. to 1,000,000 B.C. depending on one’s view of Neanderthals and other hominids. These are undoubtedly human, but I think they represent small dispersions from Babel before the main dispersion. During the time when the majority of the human family lived together in the Near East, I suggest that they homogenized into H. Sapiens, as other families who had left beforehand, during the period of major intrabaraminic diversification, became H. Neanderthalensis, H. Erectus, H. Naledi, H. Floresiensis, and probably A. Sediba. Hence why these fossils generally predate the arrival of Sapiens. Local legends of a small, talking, clothed (speech and clothing are the biblical criteria for humanity) people on the island of Flores suggests that H. Floresiensis may have survived until about 200 years ago.

Anyway, this is to say that Petrovich simply cannot be correct.

Overall, I would highly recommend this film for an accurate, though somewhat dry, presentation of the state of creationist science today — but I would strongly recommend pursuing the writings of these scientists to gain a more comprehensive look.