Forrest Gump famously said, “Life is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re going to get.” That saying most certainly does not apply to YECism in general, and Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis in particular—you always know what you’re going to get when you read their material and watch their videos: pseudo-scientific…
For anyone who is familiar with Ken Ham, his talking points and tactics are as predictable as they are bewildering. His book, Already Compromised, is no different: the standard YECist talking points interspersed with back-handed (but no less savage) condemnation of anyone who dares question the YECist literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11. The only difference…
In my previous two posts on Ken Ham’s book, Already Compromised, I outlined how Ham (and co-author Greg Hall) “set the stage” for their book by arguing that his survey uncovered some very disturbing things in many Christian colleges today. Ham shared that even though there was near unanimous affirmation among Christian colleges regarding the…
“We are at war. We are at war with weapons far greater than any bomb, missile, or gun. And these weapons are aimed at targets far more strategic than any building, land mass, or army, because ‘our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of…
In my previous post, “I Was the 16-Year-Old Godfather of Answers in Genesis,” I not only told a little story of a paper I had written for a high school Bible class when I was 16 years old, I actually shared a major portion of that very paper. I said it served as a segway…
Over the past week, I have been doing some reminiscing of my high school days—in particular, I’ve been posting some of my artwork from the high school art classes I took back in the mid-80s. Now, as I was rummaging through my old high school things, I came across a paper I had written for…
We now come to the final post of my six-part extended book review of John Walton’s most recent book, The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest, and in this post, we will address the controversial question, “Did God really tell the Israelites to commit genocide by wiping out entire populations, including women and children?” To…
As we come to Part 5 in my series about understanding the conquest of Canaan, I want to address a point John Walton makes that stems from his propositions I addressed in Part 4. It is here where I take issue with some of Walton’s claims. Simply put, I’m not convinced. I think he overstates…
In his latest book, The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest, John Walton attempts to present the conquest narrative in the Book of Joshua in its historical and literary contexts in order to correct two common misconceptions regarding Israel’s conquest of Canaan: (1) those who justify the conquest by claiming the conquest was God’s punishment…
Before I cover the sections in John Walton’s book, The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest where he discusses (1) how the Bible depicts the Canaanites (i.e. their identity), and (2) how the Mosaic Law relates to the Canaanites (i.e. their fate), I feel it is necessary to lay out my own understanding of the…