THE FLOOD AND THE FOSSILS

 

 

Geological Puzzles Explained by Genesis 6-9 by George Mulfinger

 

George Mulfinger, science faculty member at Bob Jones University, received his B.A. in chemistry, summa cum laude, and his M.S. in physics, both from Syracuse University.  He has pursued additional graduate studies in several of the physical sciences at Syracuse, Harvard, and the University of Georgia.  He holds membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the Bible-Science Association, Sigma Pi (Physics Honorary), Pi Mu Epsilon (Mathematics Honorary), Phi Beta Kappa (Scholastic Honorary), and is listed in Leaders in American Science.  His areas of special interest include Bible-science research, astronomy, cosmogony, experimental electronics, and the history of science.  He was the recipient of a National Science Foundation Research Participation Grant in 1964.  Mr. Mulfinger has authored a number of papers and articles demonstrating the fallacies of evolution.  These have appeared in the publications of the Creation Research Society, the Bible-Science Association, and the Regular Baptist Press.

 

Bob Jones University Press-Greenville, South Carolina

 

We are told in the second epistle of Peter that there are two things concerning which people are willingly ignorant – the Creation and the Flood.  It is far more appealing for the carnal mind to believe in an evolutionary process rather than a creative act, and in a limited or local flood rather than the worldwide cataclysm described in the Bible.  Yet there are seven good reasons for rejecting the idea of a local flood.1

 

First, the purpose of the Flood was to destroy all flesh from off the face of the earth, with the exception of that which was to be preserved in the Ark (Gen. 6:13, 17; 7:4, 19-23).

 

Second, the depth of the Flood was such that the highest mountains were covered (Gen. 7:19, 20; 8:5).  Since water seeks its own level it would be impossible to confine it to one locality.

 

Third, the duration of the Flood was, in all, somewhat over a year.  However, local floods being of a seasonal nature do not fit this picture.

 

Fourth, there would have been no need for an ark.  Noah and his family, having been warned of the impending flood, could simply have migrated to the north.

 

Fifth, the testimony of Jesus indicates a universal destruction: “They were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the Ark, and the Flood came and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:27).

 

Sixth, the statements in 2 Peter are unmistakably inclusive: “And did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly” (2 Pet. 2:5).  “Through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water” (2 Pet. 3:6).

 

Seventh, the covenant that God made with Noah after the Flood included a promise that the event which had just taken place would not be repeated (Gen. 8:21; 9:11, 15).  However, there have been many local floods since that time.

 

We have here, then, a description of a worldwide catastrophe.  The world that then was was obliterated and the topography of the entire globe was restructured.  Mighty torrents of water raged across the land.  The foundations of the earth were shaken.  Sediments from the ocean basins were dumped onto the continents.  Great upheavals ruptured the earth’s crust.  The lush vegetation of the antediluvian world was scoured from the land, transported, and dumped in layers, which, as a result of heat and pressure, formed the coal and oil deposits that we find in the earth’s crust today.  This picture differs greatly from the old “peat bog theory” that most of us have been taught, but there are many fossils and buried artifacts that can only be explained by the Flood.

 

Human skeletons have been found in coal.  In the mid-1800’s, a skull was found in a brown coal deposit in Germany.2  More recently, two giant human molars were found in the Eagle Coal Mine at Bear Creek, Montana, in 1926.3  We are reminded of a statement in Genesis 6:4 that “there were giants in the earth in those days” (just prior to the Flood).  In 1958, an entire human skeleton was found in an anthracite mine in Italy.4  These finds are impossible for the evolutionist to explain since, according to his theory, the coal was formed millions of years before people “evolved.”

 

In 1891, a lady in Morrisonville, Illinois, accidentally dropped a shovel full of coal onto the floor while carrying it to her stove.  A large chunk broke open, exposing an intricately structured gold chain, “neatly coiled and embedded.”5  How many more such incidents have gone unreported can only be surmised.  But the evidence clearly indicates that civilized man lived on the earth before coal was formed.  This agrees perfectly with Biblical chronology: In Genesis 4, metalworking was already highly developed.  Tubalcain was an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.  In Genesis 7 and 8, the deluge buried the antediluvian civilizations, encasing fossils and artifacts alike in what are now the sedimentary layers of the earth’s crust.

 

Recent pollen grains of flowering plants have been found in the lowest shale layers of the Grand Canyon.6  According to evolutionary dogma, these layers represent the very earliest stages of evolution.  Yet we see here the most advanced plant life already in existence.  The evidence is in complete agreement with Genesis; as soon as there were any plants on the earth at all, the very highest forms were immediately present.

 

One might wonder whether more substantial portions of flowering plants have been found in such layers where they do not “belong.”  They have indeed.  Fossil wood was discovered several hundred feet below the surface of ground embedded in “Precambrian” rock in an Iron mine in Canada.7  Although evolutionary theory would ascribe an age of a billion or more years to the rock, two consistent radiocarbon analyses indicated an age of only about 4,000 years for the wood.  For reasons such as these, we are convinced that the so-called “geological ages” are just so much science fiction.

 

In the Paluxy River bed at Glen Rose, Texas, human and dinosaur footprints are found side by side in “Cretaceous” rock.8,9 Evolutionists maintain that the dinosaurs came millions of years before human beings; yet the evidence indicates that they coexisted at one time.  A student friend of mine recently wrote to the Smithsonian Institute and asked for their explanation of such finds.10  They suggested “erosion” – that somehow running water had carved the footprints into the rock.  This is ironical indeed, because erosion is the very force that is destroying the prints.

 

One of the most recent and most spectacular discoveries is that of a sandal-shod human footprint in “Cambrian” rock at Antelope Springs, Utah.11  The most “advanced” fossils in the rock are trilobites.  Some five or six hundred million years supposedly separated trilobites and humans.  Yet the stubborn fact of the matter as inferred from this evidence is that the two lived on the earth contemporaneously.

 

Then, too, there are examples of human artifacts embedded in solid rock – chains, metal bowls, nails, and wires12,13 – remnants from antediluvian civilizations that were judged for their wickedness.  “Will you keep to the ancient path which wicked men have trod?  Who were snatched away before their time, whose foundations were washed away by a river?  They said to God, ‘Depart from us’” (Job 22:15-17a).  Fossil graveyards have been found in many parts of the world.  In these localities, the carcasses of many different species were chaotically thrown together and covered with sediment that later hardened into rock.  Very frequently, there are mixtures of fossils of marine and land-dwelling forms.  Sea shells have been forcibly crammed into the eye sockets of the skulls of land-dwelling animals,14 and a whale mummy has been found entombed with mammoth fossils in Siberia.15  These finds cannot be adequately explained by the evolutionist so are generally ignored.

 

In some cases, fossils bear the marks of damage suffered from the violence of the Flood.  One shark was compressed to the thickness of a quarter of an inch by the weight of the sediment that buried it.16  This fossil shark was found not under the ocean, but in a hill in Ohio.  The bones that are excavated at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah give evidence that the giant reptiles were washed into place by vast torrents of water and covered with sediment that later solidified.17  Marine fossils have been unearthed at great altitudes.  Seashells of various types are found in horizontal strata in the Alps, inter-bedded with layers of sand.18  Even evolutionists are forced to admit that these areas were once under seawater.

 

Polystrate (many-layer) fossils work such havoc with evolutionary dogma that they are systematically omitted from the geology textbooks.  Usually these are vertically or diagonally oriented tree trunks that penetrate several successive strata of rock.19,20  If each of these layers had required millions of years to form, the tree would simply have decayed and there would be no fossil.

 

Many tribes and nations around the world have flood legends that have been handed down from one generation to the next.  Practically all of these traditions agree in three major points: that there was destruction by water, that an ark was provided, and that human seed was saved alive.21

 

It is significant that Charles Darwin never used fossil evidence to support his theory.  He was well aware that such evidence worked against him.  Journalists have misled people into thinking that there is one particular “MISSING LINK” which, if found, would prove the common origin of two different forms.  As a matter of fact, there are millions of “missing links.”  It had been hoped that in the hundred or so years since Darwin popularized his theory that many of these intermediate species would be found.  They have not.  Rather than a gradation between forms in the fossil record, we find clear-cut gaps.  And these are the same gaps that exist between present-day forms.

 

The Biblical principle is that each living creature brings forth after its kind.  As we examine the fossil record we are struck by the remarkable persistence of types down through the alleged geological ages.  Fossils of plant leaves claimed to be 70 million years old – sycamore, birch, willow, poplar, grape, oak, hickory, walnut, palm, fern, and many others – are identical with their present-day counterparts.22  Where is the supposed “evolutionary development” between the fossil form and the present?  Starfish fossils dated at 750 millions years ago on the evolutionists’ fictitious timetable are indistinguishable from “modern” starfish.23  Shouldn’t they have changed into something else during all that time?  In comparative anatomy class, we were taught to pay our respects to the venerable coelacanth, “one of our fish ancestors that lived three or four hundred million years ago.”  Evolutionists claimed that they were able to detect from the fossils of these creatures that their front fins were turning into legs.  How great was their embarrassment when in recent years a living coelacanth was found off the coast of Madagascar with its front fins no further evolved than those of the fossil counterpart.24

 

There is probably no area of science more filled with nonsense and unscientific guesswork than that branch which deals with fossil man.  From a few fragments of bone, a generous supply of plaster of paris, and a vivid imagination, whole races of men are fabricated and colorful myths are constructed concerning their primitive beast-like mode of life.  I would like to discuss a few of the more significant fossil finds and their interpretations.

 

The Cro-Magnon Man presents an interesting problem for the evolutionist.  The evidence indicates, if anything, that we have degenerated: The average brain capacity of the Cro-Magnon paintings indicate a remarkably advanced culture.  They were skilled in the use of various chemical compounds for paint pigments.  These were combined with a vehicle and applied with brushes.25  The artistic value of their work appears to be superior to much of our modern art.

 

The Neanderthal Man has been the victim of gross misinterpretation.  Here again, the average brain capacity is greater than that of “modern man.”  In the case of the first specimen that was found, the individual had suffered from chronic osteo-arthritis, a bone disease that causes stooped shoulders and generally bent-over posture.  From that time forward, the art historians have pictured him as an ugly, bent-legged shambling caveman, almost apelike as to walking stance.  However, when normal specimens were subsequently found, it was realized that he walked just as erect as we do.26  This was known as early as 1935 yet our public school children in 1969 were still being deceived by the dishonest drawings in their textbooks.

 

The Piltdown Man hoax marked one of the low points in the history of science.  A practical joker filed down the teeth of a chimpanzee jawbone to pass for human, treated it chemically to give it the appearance of great age, and planted it in a gravel bed where it was subsequently “discovered” by a team of anthropologists.27  Many of the greatest experts in the field accepted it as a legitimate fossil.  In fact they were fooled for 41 years.  If the most eminent physical anthropologists in the world are so easily deceived, how far can we trust their pronouncements?

 

The Nebraska Man is another good example of the distortion of truth that can be wrought by the will to believe in evolution.28,29  The Nebraska find was used in the Scopes Trial in an effort to confound William Jennings Bryan.  Bryan stated very wisely that the evidence was too scanty.  What was the evidence?  A single tooth.  On the basis of one tooth, a whole new race of fossil man was created and dated at one million years ago.  The name chosen for this find was Hesperopithecus haroldcookii, in honor of its discoverer, Harold Cook.  Further study revealed, however, that the tooth was not human after all, but had belonged to an extinct pig.  In the meanwhile, though, the 13th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica had carried it as a legitimate human fossil with “all the honors.”  In the 14th edition, it became necessary to explain it away.  Rather than admit that it had been a wild pig’s tooth, the author simply stated that it had belonged to a “being of a different order.”

 

The well-known Java Man find consisted only of a small piece from the top of the skull, a fragment of a left thigh bone, and two teeth.30  These were found in sand in a river bed in central Java, over a span of about a year, and scattered over a range of 50 to 70 feet.  There is therefore no guarantee that the bones all belonged to the same creature.  Dr. Dubois, the Discoverer, took them to Europe where they were examined by 24 of the most eminent scientists of the day.  These leaders of the scientific world were unable to reach any agreement as to the identity of the bones.  Ten of them felt they had come from an ape, seven thought they were human and the other seven were convinced that they were from some kin of “missing link.”31  Dr. Dubois, who had originally sided with the latter group, eventually reversed his position and concluded that the creature was a gibbon.  There is still no agreement even today.  A second Java Man later turned up in the literature, based only on what was thought to be a part of a skull.  However, this turned out to be the kneecap of an extinct elephant.32

 

In 1959, the famous Zinjanthropus was found at Clduval Gorge in Tanzania, East Africa.  Since that time, three different artists’ conceptions have made the rounds of the various periodicals – one drawn like a man, one like a gorilla, and one like a chimpanzee.33  Originally hailed as one of our remote ancestors, the Zinjanthropus is now considered by its discoverer, Dr. L.S.B. Leakey, to be most like a gorilla.  He states that it was at least “95% ape” and had no connection whatever with “modern man.”  We should be willing to go the other 5% and say that it was 100% ape.

 

In the same location but at a lower level, Dr. Leakey’s team unearthed Homo habilis, which is now the oldest recognized fossil man.  It is indeed remarkable that it is virtually identical with “modern man” in every respect.34  Where, then, is alleged “evolutionary development” that supposedly took place between its time and our own?

 

Other impressive names such as Australopithecus and Maranthropus have appeared in the news.  These are nothing but extinct apes, having a brain capacity comparable to that of a modern gorilla.35

 

Just recently, we learned that Dr. Leakey had named a fossil man in honor of himself – Homo leakeyi.  Other anthropologists around the world are rapidly becoming disenchanted with all this hocus-pocus.  Writing in the March 21, 1969, issue of Science, Dr. C. L. Brace of the University of Michigan’s Museum of Anthropology called this an unfortunate blunder.  He wrote, “To this already disputed area Leakey now adds yet a new taxon, Homo leakeyi, without citation, justification, or discernable reason.  This appears to be just one more example of unwarranted name-giving indulged in by students of the hominid fossil record in the absence of definitive study, adequate information, or objective criteria.”36

 

In view of all this guesswork, it is totally reprehensible that evolution is taught as a fact in our public schools.  Our educators have departed from the truth and have turned to fables (2 Tim. 4:4).  The great truths of the Old Testament that God has revealed to us have been stricken from the curricula and replaced with doctrines of devils (1 Tim. 4:1).

 

What is the true Christian position in these questions of science and the Bible?  Obviously, whatever the Lord Jesus Christ taught should constitute the Christian position.  He in fact taught that the Flood was real and universal (Luke 17:27), that the Creation of man was by the direct act of God (Mark 10:6), and that the writings of Moses are authoritative and trustworthy.  “For had you believed Moses you would have believed Me; for he wrote of Me.  But if you believe not his writings, how shall you believe My words” (John 5:46, 47)?

 

REFERENCES

 

1.        John C. Whitcomb, Jr. and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood, The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Philadelphia, Penn., 1961, pp. 1-23.

2.         Ibid., pp. 175, 176.

3.         Frank Edwards, Stranger than Science, Bantam Books, New York, NY, 1959, p.77.

4.         Ibid., p. 77.

5.         Ivan T. Sanderson, Uninvited Visitors, Cowles Education Corporation, New York, NY, 1967, p. 195, 196.

6.         Clifford Burdick, “Microflora of the Grand Canyon,” Creation Research Society 1996 Annual, 38-50.

7.         Melvin A. Cook, Prehistory and Earth Models, Max Parrish, London, 1966, p.332, 333.

8.         Whitcomb and Morris, pp. 173-175.

9.         A. E. Wilder Smith, Man’s Origin. Man’s Destiny, Harold Shaw Publishers, Wheaton, IL, 1968, pp. 135, 142, 293-298.

10.      Edwin Simmons, Toccoa, Georgia, personal correspondence.

11.      William J. Meister, Sr., “Discovery of Trilobite Fossils in Shod Footprint of Human  in ‘Trilobite Beds’ – A Cambrian Formation,” Antelope Springs, UT, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 97-102, Dec. 1968.

12.      Cecil M. Cade, Other Worlds Than Ours, Taplinger, New York, NY, 1967, pp. 182, 183.

13.      Sanderson, op. cit., pp. 194-196.

14.      Byron C. Nelson, The Deluge Story in Stone, Bethany Fellowship, Incorporated, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1968, p. 93.

15.      Ibid., p. 126.

16.      Ibid., pp. 42-44.

17.      Harold W. Clark, Fossils, Flood, and Fire, Outdoor Pictures, Escondido, CA, 1968, p. 129.

18.      Nelson, op. cit., p. 40.

19.      Ibid., pp. 111, 112.

20.      N. A. Rupke, “Prolegomena to a Study of Cataclysmal Sedimentation,” Creation Research Society 1966 Annual, pp. 16-37.

21.      Nelson, op. cit., pp. 165-190.

22.      Byron C. Nelson, After Its Kind, Bethany Fellowship, Incorporated, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1967, pp. 51-58.

23.      Ibid., p. 59.

24.      Ibid., pp. 55, 56.

25.      G. E. Philbrook, Department of Chemistry, University of Georgia, class notes from course entitled Development of Chemical Concepts, Summer 1967.

26.      Arthur C. Custance, The Fallacy of Anthropological Reconstruction, Doorway Paper #33, available from Doorway Papers, Box 1283, Station B Ottawa, Canada, 1966, pp. 5-12.

27.      John W. Klotz, Genes, Genesis, and Evolution, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO, 1955, pp. 365-369.

28.      Custance, op. cit., p. 5.

29.      W. A. Criswell, Did Man Just Happen?, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, pp. 81-83.

30.      Nelson, After Its Kind, pp. 126-130.

31.      Criswell, op. cit., p. 84.

32.      Ibid., pp. 85, 86.

33.      Custance, Arthur C., Fossil Man in the Light of the Record in Genesis,” Creation Research Society 1968 Annual, p. 7.

34.      Clark, op. cit., p. 221.

35.      Robert J. Foster, General Geology, Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co., Columbus, Ohio, 1969, pp. 570, 571.

36.      C. L. Brace, “Fossil Hominid Taxonomy,” Science, Vol. 163, No. 3873, p. 1360, March 21, 1969.