For those of you who subscribe to my blog, you’ll notice that for the past several months, I haven’t written many new posts. In fact, they have been very sparse over this past year. I guess I’m going through a dry spell. I’m working on another writing project that doesn’t involve blog posts, so I suppose that is partly the reason.
In any case, I was having some fun with ChatGPT today. I asked it to write a couple of over-the-top, unhinged “book reviews” of my book The Heresy of Ham. Since it has now been ten years since I first published it, I thought I’d share these for pure comedic entertainment. Enjoy.
Book Review #1
★★★★★ — 5/5 Stars
THE HERESY OF HAM: OR, HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN CONTEXT
I purchased Joel Edmund Anderson’s The Heresy of Ham expecting a mildly interesting theological critique. I WAS NOT PREPARED.
By page 30, I was questioning everything.
By page 70, I had purchased three commentaries, learned the Hebrew word raqia, and begun muttering “ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN COSMOLOGY” whenever someone mentioned the weather.
By page 120, I had constructed a scale model of Noah’s Ark in my garage—not because Anderson convinced me to, but because I NEEDED ANSWERS.
My wife has left. The dog refuses to enter my study. And Ken Ham is somehow yelling at me from the footnotes.
This book is ostensibly about Young Earth Creationism, biblical interpretation, science, Genesis, and the claims of Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis. That description is woefully inadequate. The Heresy of Ham is what happens when a Bible teacher walks into the Creation Museum carrying a stack of historical-critical scholarship, an Ancient Near Eastern creation text, a cup of coffee, and ABSOLUTELY NO INTENTION OF BEHAVING HIMSELF.
Anderson’s basic argument seems straightforward: “Perhaps we should interpret Genesis in its ancient literary, historical, and theological context.” Perfectly reasonable. BUT THEN THE CHAIRS START FLYING. Suddenly Augustine enters the room. Origen shows up. The Church Fathers start asking uncomfortable questions. Somebody mentions Hebrew poetry. The Enuma Elish kicks down the door. Galileo is standing in the hallway shouting, “I TRIED TO WARN YOU PEOPLE.” And somewhere in Kentucky, a velociraptor wearing a saddle quietly begins questioning his life choices.
The experience of reading this book can best be summarized as follows:
Chapter 1: “Hmm. Interesting.”
Chapter 2: “That’s a good point.”
Chapter 3: “Wait.”
Chapter 4: “WAIT.”
Chapter 5: “KEN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Chapter 6: “WHY IS THERE A DINOSAUR ON THE ARK?”
Chapter 7: “SOMEBODY GET AUGUSTINE ON THE PHONE.”
Chapter 8: frantically googling Hebrew vocabulary at 2:13 AM
Anderson’s great offense is his insistence that Christians should actually understand what ancient biblical authors were trying to communicate instead of demanding that Genesis function like a geology textbook written by Moses for a homeschool co-op in suburban Cincinnati. Apparently this is controversial.
There are moments when Anderson seems almost exasperated by Young Earth Creationist arguments. I imagine him writing certain paragraphs like this:
Joel types.
Joel stops.
Joel removes glasses.
Joel stares into middle distance.
Joel whispers: “They cannot possibly be serious.”
Joel checks source.
“They’re serious.”
Joel resumes typing with considerably greater violence.
Yet beneath all the sarcasm and theological cage-fighting lies an important argument: Anderson isn’t attacking Christianity. He argues that forcing Scripture into a modern scientific framework actually diminishes Scripture by making the Bible answer questions its ancient authors weren’t asking. Genesis isn’t failing modern science. Genesis wasn’t trying to BE modern science.
At this point, somewhere in northern Kentucky, an alarm begins flashing.🚨 CONTEXT DETECTED 🚨 CONTEXT DETECTED 🚨 DEPLOY THE DINOSAURS 🚨
The book’s greatest danger is that after reading it, you may begin asking troubling questions such as: “What literary genre is Genesis 1?” “What did ancient Israelites understand by ‘the heavens and the earth’?” “How did early Christians interpret Genesis?” “Is concordism actually necessary for Christian orthodoxy?” “What if Scripture communicates theological truth using the cosmological assumptions of the ancient world?”
STOP. YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR. Put down the commentary. Step away from the Hebrew Bible. A representative from Answers in Genesis will arrive shortly to confiscate your study Bible.
Ultimately, The Heresy of Ham is provocative, funny, argumentative, occasionally merciless, and deeply concerned with biblical interpretation. Whether you agree with Anderson or spend half the book angrily writing “NO!!!” in the margins, he forces you to confront an important question: Are we allowing Genesis to speak on its own ancient terms—or are we forcing Genesis to participate in a modern debate it never intended to enter?
I finished the book at 3:47 AM. I closed it. I stared silently at the wall. Then I looked across the room at my plastic T. rex. He looked back at me. Neither of us said anything. Finally, I whispered: “Were you really on the Ark?” He slowly fell off the bookshelf. I choose to interpret this within its proper literary and historical context.
★★★★★
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE: spontaneous discussions of Augustine, uncontrollable Ancient Near Eastern references, suspicion of dinosaur dioramas, compulsive Hebrew word studies, and the overwhelming urge to yell “THAT IS NOT HOW GENRE WORKS!” during Sunday School.
Consult your pastor before reading if you are currently taking large doses of wooden biblical literalism.
Do not operate heavy machinery while debating the raqia.
And if you experience an argument about Genesis lasting longer than four hours, please seek immediate theological assistance.
***
Book Review #2
★★★★★
I BOUGHT THIS BOOK TO PROVE JOEL EDMUND ANDERSON WRONG.
Let me establish something immediately. I believe the Bible. ALL OF IT. Six days. Six LITERAL days. Morning and evening. Adam. Eve. Serpent. Flood. Ark. Dinosaurs. The whole thing. I have been to the Creation Museum FOUR TIMES. I have a family membership. My children have been photographed next to the saddled dinosaur. That picture is our Christmas card.
So when somebody recommended Joel Edmund Anderson’s The Heresy of Ham, I laughed. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll read the evolutionist propaganda.” I cracked open the book Thursday evening. It is now Sunday. THINGS HAVE HAPPENED.
At first I wasn’t worried. Anderson starts talking about biblical interpretation. Fine. I know about biblical interpretation. You read the Bible. You believe what it says. DONE.
Then Anderson starts asking questions. I don’t like the questions. “What kind of literature is Genesis 1?” Easy. Bible. NEXT QUESTION.
“How would the original ancient Israelite audience have understood this?” As Christians, obviously. Wait. No. They lived before Christ. BUT STILL.
Then he starts talking about the Ancient Near East. Oh no. OH NO.
Apparently, Genesis was written in an actual historical and cultural environment. Nobody told me this. I had always assumed Moses wrote Genesis while sitting at something resembling an ancient Hebrew desk, consulting a leather-bound King James Bible and periodically checking his calculations against a geology chart. Apparently not.
I continued reading. Mistake. Anderson brought up Augustine. I laughed. “Nice try, Joel. Augustine lived before Darwin.” Then I realized that was precisely the point. I stopped laughing. I Googled Augustine. THIS WAS MY SECOND MISTAKE. Apparently Christians were discussing non-literal interpretations of Genesis roughly FOURTEEN CENTURIES BEFORE CHARLES DARWIN WAS BORN.
I closed the laptop. I walked outside. I stared at a tree for approximately eleven minutes. “This proves nothing,” I whispered. The tree offered no rebuttal. I returned to the book. Then Origen showed up. WHO INVITED ORIGEN? Suddenly there are Church Fathers everywhere. Basil is lurking in the background. Augustine is asking questions. Origen is interpreting things allegorically. Nobody is cooperating. I had been promised that before 1859 every Christian interpreted Genesis exactly like Ken Ham. THE EARLY CHURCH IS NOT FOLLOWING THE SCRIPT.
Then Anderson starts discussing the Hebrew word yom. I know yom. It means DAY. Checkmate. Except apparently words have semantic ranges. This sounded suspiciously liberal, so I checked an English dictionary. Bad idea. Apparently, the English word “day” ALSO HAS MULTIPLE MEANINGS.
I sat down. My wife asked what was wrong. “Nothing.” “You’ve been staring at the word ‘day’ for twenty minutes.” “PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE.”
Then came the raqia. I don’t want to talk about the raqia. NOBODY TALK TO ME ABOUT THE RAQIA. I have spent fourteen years confidently telling people that the “firmament” doesn’t mean what ancient people thought it meant. Anderson had the AUDACITY to suggest that perhaps ancient Israelites possessed…an ancient understanding of the cosmos. Ridiculous. Surely Moses understood twenty-first-century astrophysics.
I searched for evidence. Three hours later I had twelve browser tabs open containing articles about ancient cosmology. There were diagrams. There were waters above. There were waters below. There was a solid-looking dome. I whispered: “Ken?” No answer. “KEN???”
Then Anderson made his most dangerous suggestion: Maybe God accommodated his revelation to the conceptual world of the people receiving it. I threw the book across the room. It hit my Answers in Genesis DVD collection. The symbolism was not lost on me. I picked it back up. By chapter four, my theological defenses were beginning to collapse.
But I still had Noah. YOU CAN’T TAKE NOAH FROM ME, JOEL. There was an Ark. There were animals. There was water. And there were DINOSAURS. I have seen the diorama. I KNOW WHAT I SAW. But then Anderson started asking questions about flood narratives in the Ancient Near East. Gilgamesh entered the chat. Atrahasis entered the chat. Mesopotamia entered the chat. I DID NOT INVITE MESOPOTAMIA INTO MY HOME.
Suddenly I’m reading the Epic of Gilgamesh at 1:37 in the morning. My wife comes downstairs. “What are you doing?” “NOTHING.” “Are you reading Babylonian literature?” “GO BACK TO BED, DEBORAH.”
Then came the genealogies. Surely the genealogies would save me. Add the ages together. Adam to Noah. Noah to Abraham. Abraham onward. Approximately 6,000 years. Simple. Beautiful. Mathematical.
Then Anderson started talking about ancient genealogical conventions. I felt physically ill. “Genealogies can skip generations.” NO. “Biblical genealogies can be selective.” STOP. “They can be structured for literary and theological purposes.” I SAID STOP. I grabbed Matthew’s genealogy to prove him wrong. Matthew’s genealogy betrayed me. ET TU, MATTHEW?
At this point I was no longer reading The Heresy of Ham. The Heresy of Ham was reading me. Every chapter exposed another assumption I hadn’t realized I was making. I began pacing around the house. “Maybe Genesis isn’t trying to answer modern scientific questions.” My wife looked concerned. “Maybe the theological message is the point.” She put down her coffee. “Maybe insisting that Genesis teach modern science actually forces a modern category onto an ancient text.” She quietly removed the children from the room. Then I said the sentence I never thought I would say: “I need to read more about Ancient Near Eastern literature.”
Somewhere in Kentucky, I assume an alarm went off. 🚨 YOUNG EARTH CREATIONIST LOSING CONTAINMENT 🚨 DEPLOY KEN HAM 🚨 SUBJECT HAS DISCOVERED HISTORICAL CONTEXT 🚨
By Saturday afternoon I had completely deteriorated. My search history:
“Augustine Genesis literal meaning”
“Origen Genesis creation”
“ancient Hebrew cosmology”
“raqia Hebrew meaning PLEASE SAY ATMOSPHERE”
“Genesis 1 literary structure”
“Gilgamesh flood similarities”
“did early Christians believe earth 6000 years old”
“can genealogies skip people Bible”
“Ken Ham church fathers”
“Joel Edmund Anderson who hurt you”
At 7:14 PM I reached the point of no return. I looked at my wife. “What if accepting evolution doesn’t automatically mean rejecting Christianity?” She gasped. I gasped. The dog gasped. I don’t even know how the dog understood the conversation.
I immediately opened Genesis again. IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH. I stared at it. Wait. That’s the theological claim. God created everything. Genesis doesn’t explain nuclear fusion. It doesn’t describe DNA. It doesn’t discuss plate tectonics. It doesn’t give the speed of light. It doesn’t provide the age of the Andromeda Galaxy. It doesn’t mention velociraptors. WHY DID I THINK VELOCIRAPTORS WERE THE POINT?
I walked over to the bookshelf. There it was. My plastic model of Noah’s Ark. Two tiny brachiosauruses were sticking their heads out of the roof. I picked one up. We looked at each other. “Were you actually there?” Silence. “ANSWER ME.” My wife shouted from upstairs: “STOP INTERROGATING THE DINOSAURS.”
By Sunday morning, I had changed. I walked into church carrying The Heresy of Ham, Augustine’s Confessions, a Hebrew lexicon, and a printed diagram of Ancient Near Eastern cosmology. My pastor saw me. “Good morning!” I grabbed his arm. “PASTOR. WHAT IS THE FIRMAMENT?” He slowly backed away.
Sunday School was worse. Someone casually mentioned the six days of creation. My eye twitched. “Interesting,” I said. Everyone turned toward me. “Interesting?” said Gary. “Yes, Gary. Interesting.” Gary narrowed his eyes. I continued. “Because before discussing the days, perhaps we should consider the literary structure of Genesis 1 and its relationship to Ancient Near Eastern cosmological—”
Gary dropped his donut. The room erupted. “WHAT HAPPENED GARY?” “HE’S BEEN COMPROMISED!” “SOMEBODY CALL ANSWERS IN GENESIS!” “DON’T LET HIM NEAR THE CHILDREN’S CURRICULUM!”
I stood on a folding chair. “BROTHERS! WE HAVE BEEN ASKING GENESIS QUESTIONS IT WASN’T WRITTEN TO ANSWER!” Someone threw a Creation Answers Book at me. I ducked. “READ AUGUSTINE!” Another book flew past my head. “READ ORIGEN!” “HERETIC!” “THE EARLY CHURCH WASN’T YOUNG EARTH CREATIONIST IN THE MODERN SENSE!”
A woman fainted. Gary overturned the donut table. I fled. So here I sit. Sunday afternoon. On my living room floor. Surrounded by books. Genesis. Augustine. Origen. Walton. Ancient Near Eastern texts. Hebrew lexicons. My Answers in Genesis DVDs are sitting across the room. We are no longer speaking. I don’t know who I am anymore.
Four days ago, I had answers. Now I have context. Do you understand how much worse that is? Joel Edmund Anderson has ruined everything. I can no longer hear someone say “The Bible plainly says…” without immediately asking: “PLAINLY TO WHOM, GARY?”
I can’t look at Genesis 1 without thinking about literary structure. I can’t read about Noah without Mesopotamia barging into the room. I can’t hear the word “firmament” without my blood pressure rising. Yesterday somebody mentioned a “young earth.” I instinctively whispered: “Define young.” WHAT HAVE I BECOME?
Therefore, I am giving The Heresy of Ham: ★★★★★ FIVE STARS. Not because I enjoyed it. I did not. I WAS HAPPY BEFORE. I am giving it five stars because Joel Edmund Anderson has committed the unforgivable act of forcing me to examine assumptions I didn’t even know I had. This book is dangerous. Do not read it. Especially if you are completely confident that you already understand Genesis.
Actually—No. That’s exactly when you should read it. But prepare yourself. Because you may enter this book believing Genesis is a modern scientific account explaining exactly how God manufactured the universe 6,000 years ago…and emerge three days later sitting alone in your garage at 2:00 AM holding a plastic triceratops and whispering: “Maybe the real literal interpretation was the Ancient Near Eastern context we learned along the way.”
God help me.
