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Volume 2, Issue 1
January 2,  2012
Review and Preview

Greetings,

The first newsletter this year is a time to summarize the past year's reporting on new evidence of Noah's Ark and on a new understanding of the historicity of the Flood. I will also preview things that might be reported this coming year.

1.  Foremost among the reports was NAMI's discovery of the giant maritime-looking artifact buried under volcanic rock and ice at about 14,000 feet on Mount Ararat. It is constructed of heavy timbers and appears to have once housed animals. I anticipate another news cycle this year as NAMI releases new information from exploration of this artifact.

2.  The understanding presented in my book that the multitude of elaborate burials under mounds in valleys and plains (though exposed in highlands) that archaeologists interpret as inspired by religion can only be explained as due to a worldwide Flood. Next year, I plan to discuss some of these burials in telling detail.

3.  My trace of a second dispersion of mankind about 4300 years ago in the Ancient Near East to its origins on Mt. Ararat. That was soon followed by a worldwide dispersion from the Middle Bronze inhabitants of the city of Uruk that lies on the plains of ancient Shinar. Some of this year's newsletters will report fascinating details of these archaeological traces. 

4.  How the language-derived views of ancient history currently in use together with biblical criticism that supposes Noah's Flood borrowed myth developed from the special needs of German nationalism but lacks historical and documentary support. Though I don't expect to see it this year, I would love for biblical scholars to weigh in on how well they understand the embarrassing history lying at the foundation of their discipline.

5.  A reminder that evidence now presented as from the Ice Age is better explained by its former diluvian interpretation and that worldwide mega-fauna extinctions supposed to accompany the end of the Ice Age are better understood in the light of a worldwide Flood.

6.  That scientific dating of the remains of ancient man is not independent of archaeological interpretations established prior to the advent of radiocarbon dating. The current archaeological chronology is based on the recent-earth geological history that Charles Lyell specifically designed to prevent evidence from being examined in the light of Noah's Flood. Next year, I plan to discuss these periods in detail showing how they were established and how this masks the manifest evidence of Noah's Flood.

7.  That when species due to geographical isolation are seen as a single kind, the Ark is plentifully large to have carried the ancestors and a year's supply of food for all the earth's present animals. That floating islands that had to have been created by the Flood explain ocean migrations as well as the distribution of the kinds of native animals found today.

8.  That much evidence points to plentiful water in outer space and beneath the continents, more than enough to have covered the mountains. Archaeological evidence reveals the highest mountains and spreading ocean floors and basins are recent. Evidence from every continent show a great change in climate from about 5000 years ago at which time the earth's desert belt was well watered. Next year, I may discuss how the evidence better supports an aqueous cosmology and geology in line with the teachings of the early chapters of Genesis.

There is in the newsletter archive that can be accessed at the top right of this page plentiful details about these and related evidence and explanation of Noah's Ark and Flood. Not only there but also in The Archaeological Evidence of Noah's Flood, I believe that I have convincingly addressed the familiar arguments against the historicity of the biblical Flood. 

Importantly, other than our agreement about a worldwide Flood, young earth Creationists would agree with me concerning the great difference between the understanding of the Flood reported here and their own. Of course, it also differs from the current scientific explanations not only in its interpretation of the evidence but its recognition that our Creator has changed the earth during the period of man's habitation. If these reports are as solid as I claim, it means that the Scriptures most widely regarded as myth are an essential and powerful  light for understanding the history of the earth and man. 

And that means, in turn, that instead of living in a time of enlightenment, we live instead in a time of great darkness, at least so far as concerns the big issues of our world and its origins. In the coming year, I will explain how returning to the truth about our beginnings becomes a firm foundation for rebuilding community in our increasingly fragmented world. 

May we find new hope this coming year,

Philip Williams
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In this issue
Review and Preview
How these topics relate to us today
Pagan evidence of man's origins in Noah's family
The Enlightenment's origins in biblical prophecy
How these topics relate to us today  
The chain of reasoning that connects these discoveries to issues facing us today
 
Interviewed on ABC's Good Morning America following NAMI's 2010 announcement, biblical archaeologist Eric Cline explained the popularity of searches for Noah's Ark: "If you can find a piece of Noah's Ark, then the Ark must be real, then the Flood must be real, then the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament must be real. I mean, you can make it go layer by layer...."
 
How much better to find the Ark essentially in one piece! Of course, the truth of one item in this chain does not logically entail the truth of all. But I have explained how the challenge to the truth of the Bible was in fact anchored to the apparent disproof of Noah's Flood. Widespread skepticism of the Bible immediately followed the scientific challenge to the early chapters of Genesis. I have little doubt that we would see the chain return from disbelief to belief much as Cline explains it.
 
We should remember how the so-called disproof of miracles was deeply involved in challenging the truth of the Bible. I look forward to seeing how scientists might be able to explain NAMI's discovery without invoking miracle. Likewise, I look forward to archaeologists explaining why the evidence from the ancient world consists mostly of elaborate burials with no evidence of settlements and houses where the people buried must have lived. 
 
Dr. Michael Brown reports his experience of seeing NAMI's videos from inside what appears Noah's Ark. His reaction was to exclaim, "God's judgment is real!" Of course, we don't need reminding that our world is getting into a lot of trouble. My reaction at seeing this same video was the wondrous awareness that the Ark that saved a people through the great judgment was also real.
 
In coming newsletters, I plan to detail the role of the Bible in providing a foundation for holding together Europe when the Roman Empire crumbled, a peaceful community of faith that transcended national boundaries. I will also explain how the Bible became the common denominator for the numerous nationalities and sects that migrated to America, also how social and economic progress in developing nations is indebted to Christian missions. 
 
On the other hand, decadence and decline always follow the erosion of biblical foundations.
The Ark that we need to save us from our current problems is a worldwide community built on those same biblical foundations. That is a wonderful hope as we enter another troubling year.
Pagan evidence of man's origins in Noah's family 
A preview of one of this year's topics

Why the worldwide spread of burnt sacrifice?*
  
There is a tendency today to treat the Bible as if it were but one of a zillion conflicting religious accounts of man's origins and past, the God of the Bible as but one of numerous contenders. This superficial observation not only ignores the Bible's place in the religion of more than half the world's people, but the testimony to the biblical account of man's origins even from pagan sources and gods. 
 
There are cultural facts and religious practice that are so universal that we often fail to consider their peculiar nature. Consider, for example, the seven-day week, a division found even in pagan Europe, from whose gods the names of our current week derive. Wednesday is named after Woden, a god of the Germans. Thursday is named after the Norse god, Thor. Another example is the peculiar rite of animal sacrifice, the notion of sin or offense to some or another heavenly power. Because these practices predate the famous Law Giver, neither the seven-day week nor animal sacrifices could possibly have come, as is sometimes supposed, from the spread of the teachings of Moses. 
 
Modern Christians tend to believe that their faith began with the Apostles, but the Apostle Paul was himself keen to remind the pagans of their common ancestry and Creator which they had only forgotten. In truth, most of what may be found in the early chapters of Genesis, is preserved in confused form throughout the many pagan nations. Why indeed did the very notion of religion, rule by some unseen heavenly king, become so widespread among mankind? The ancient Chinese were aware of our Heavenly Father, American natives of the Great Spirit.
 
Many are aware that most of the world's natives also remember the Flood. Fewer are aware that many pagans remember their origins in Noah's family. These are present in the names of their gods: the Assyrian Asshur being from the family of Shem; the Greek Iapetus and the Roman Jupiter, remembering Noah's son Japheth; and Javan the father of the Greeks being also the son of Iapetus (Japheth). Next year, I may explain the natural process of how ancestors turn into pagan gods, their ancestral homes into the temples of these gods, and how heirlooms suggesting legal title became household gods. Religious knowledge tends to be passed on and identified with our fathers, but in increasingly idolatrous form.
 
*Oil painting above by Daniel Maclise, c. 1847
NAMI's Ark documentary
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The Enlightenment's origins in biblical prophecy 
A preview of a coming topic: millenialists role in shaping our secular age 
  

The article at left explains how vestiges of man's ancient history that is recorded in the first chapters of Genesis are found among pagans prior to their contact with the Bible. Ironically, it is the worldview of the modern secular world that is indebted to the Bible, though to the Bible's prophecies, which the modern world despises even more than its history.

 

Those who celebrate the Age of Enlightenment may be surprised to discover its origins in a Puritan version of biblical prophecy. It was due to their seeking an explanation as to why Christianity suffered so long in Catholic darkness and how to explain their recent recovery of truth. Following a trend among the renaissance humanists, they called the medieval era the Dark Ages. They also found in the Scriptures an explanation for their recovery of the light of biblical truth, a time at the end of the age when Zion would shine forth her light. Soon to be understood as the beginning of the wonderful biblical millennium, this latter day glory of the church came to be known as the Enlightenment.

 

The great historian of ideas, the late Richard Popkin, chronicled how much these biblical ideas played in the seventeenth century expansion of ideas, especially those centered at Cambridge University under Joseph Mede. These Puritans also noticed in the Book of Daniel a time at the end of the age when knowledge would increase. (Dan 12:4) This inspired them to begin the sponsorship of what would become modern science. Mede's disciples were among the founders of the group that became England's Royal Society (of science).

 

The symbol on the back of the American dollar shows just how much America is indebted to the Enlightenment and the new secular age. America's characteristic optimism and its simultaneous embrace of both the Bible and science - something that confounds Europeans - are explained by these millennialist roots. But it is not surprising that our post-modern world, having cut itself off from this source, is also loosing its optimism. This year, I will explain how the truth about our origins can help us return to a hopeful vision that begins with building community upon a foundation of truth.

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Christian Leaders & Scholars is the newsletter and publication site of Philip Ernest Williams, author of The Archaeological Evidence of Noah's Flood (2011). The site is also a ministry not only to Christian leaders and scholars but all who are interested in the more difficult issues pertaining to the Bible and its implications for science and history. (Read more)