<\/p>\n
For over four decades prominent Bible scholars, apologists, pastors, and other Christian leaders have endorsed one or more of Dr. Hugh Ross\u2019 many books and promoted his organization. They include Wayne Grudem, Frank Turek, Norman Geisler, Sean McDowell, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, R. C. Sproul, C. John Collins, James Tour, Walter Kaiser, John Ankerberg, Bill Bright, Earl Radmacher, Theodore Cabal, Craig Keener, and Walter Bradley, to name just a few.<\/p>\n
These endorsements have encouraged millions of Christians to accept the big bang theory as proven fact and the evolutionist view of 4.6 billion years of earth history. Accepting that evolutionary \u201chistory\u201d includes rejecting the global Flood of Noah and accepting millions of years of animal disease, death, and extinction, and other natural evils, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and asteroid impacts.<\/p>\n
Should these leaders and scholars be trusting and promoting Hugh Ross\u2019 teachings? To answer that question, we need to take a careful look at his ever-changing date for the creation of Adam. It reveals the critical problem with Dr. Ross\u2019 handling of Scripture and the scientific evidence related to the question of origins\u2014especially the age of the creation<\/span>.<\/p>\n In 1989, he published The Fingerprint of God. In the 1991 second edition, after stating that several scientific methods \u201creveal a level of consistency that permits the secure conclusion that the universe is roughly 16 billion years old,\u201d1 Ross says, \u201cThe best Hebrew scholarship places the biblical date for the creation of Adam between 10,000 and 35,000 years (the outside limits being 6,000 and 50,000 years).\u201d2 But he cites no Hebrew scholars who support this statement, for the simple fact that there are none!<\/p>\n In 1994, Ross expands the upper limit of when Adam and Eve were created to 60,000 years.<\/p>\n Some scholars argue that the biblical genealogies can be stretched indefinitely. Such stretching seems unwarranted by relevant biblical and scientific data. The most reliable and conservative Hebrew scholarship I have read places the biblical date for the creation of Adam and Eve between about 10,000 and 35,000 years ago (with the outside limits at about 6,000 and 60,000 years).3<\/p>\n But then he adds, \u201cWorship is the key evidence of the spiritual quality of the human race, .\u00a0.\u00a0. but religious relics and altars date back only 8,000 to 24,000 years. Thus, the secular archaeological date for the first spirit creatures is in complete agreement with the biblical date.\u201d4<\/p>\n Note that he hasn\u2019t given a \u201cbiblical date\u201d for Adam, and even the ranges of thousands of years (appearing one page apart) don\u2019t match.<\/p>\n Again, he documents no \u201creliable and conservative Hebrew scholars,\u201d who he claims to have read and who he says agree with him. But also note that he hasn\u2019t given a \u201cbiblical date\u201d for Adam, and even the ranges of thousands of years (appearing one page apart) don\u2019t match. So it is utter deception to talk about \u201ccomplete agreement\u201d between the nonexistent \u201cbiblical date\u201d and the \u201csecular archaeological date.\u201d Why are his endorsing evangelical leaders not recognizing this as unbiblical and unscientific nonsense? Because they are wowed by his PhD in astrophysics and they don\u2019t read carefully.<\/p>\n This book was written by Dr. Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross. Dr. Rana is the president and CEO of Reasons to Believe (RTB), taking over in 2022 from Ross, his longtime boss and founder of RTB.<\/p>\n In their bullet-point summary of \u201cRTB\u2019s Human Origins Creation Model Predictions,\u201d they say that \u201chumanity\u2019s origin dates back to between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago.\u201d5<\/p>\n But 30 pages later, they say, \u201cFor now, the first unequivocal appearance of human beings in the fossil record occurred around 40,000 years ago. Though imperfect, the fit between the fossil record and the predictions made by the RTB model seems adequate.\u201d6 So then, their model summary really should say that humanity originated 40,000\u2013100,000 (not 10,000\u2013100,000) years ago.<\/p>\n But at the end of the book, they say, \u201cThe RTB model views Adam and Eve as historical individuals\u2013\u2013the first human beings\u2013\u2013originating by God\u2019s miraculous intervention approximately 70,000 to 50,000 years ago.\u201d7<\/p>\n So do Rana and Ross date Adam at 10,000\u2013100,000 or 40,000\u2013100,000 or 50,000\u201370,000 years ago? It depends which page of the book you are reading. But no worries. It fits well with Scripture in any case, they assure us!<\/p>\n Dr. Ross trusts all the radiometric dating methods, which is a huge mistake.8 As a result of carbon-14 dating (which is seriously unreliable9) related to the breaking of the Bering Land Bridge (\u201csome 11,000 years ago\u201d), he says that \u201cNoah would have been alive roughly 40,000 years ago and Adam and Eve anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 years ago.\u201d10 So that means the gap between Noah and Adam was 20,000\u201360,000 years, whereas Genesis 5 says that from the creation<\/span> of Adam to the birth of Noah was only 1,056 years.<\/p>\n This is the updated and expanded version of Rana and Ross\u2019s 2005 book. Following the seriously erroneous reasoning and dogmatic claim of William Henry Green\u2019s famous 1890 article on the Genesis genealogies,11 Rana and Ross say,<\/p>\n Gaps in the genealogies and the ambiguity of key words in the original Hebrew text render the best attempts at a biblical date for Adam and Eve as estimates only. If few gaps exist, the date calculates to around 10,000 years ago. If many gaps occur, the date falls closer to 100,000 years ago. It may be possible to limit the date for Adam and Eve\u2019s creation, at least to some extent, by using extrabiblical sources to calibrate the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies.12<\/p>\n Note that sources outside the Bible are the authority for determining the correct meaning of Scripture (Genesis 1\u201311 and related biblical texts). This has always been the method of Bible interpretation at RTB and ever since Hugh Ross was 17 years old, when as a non-Christian<\/em> he read Genesis 1 for the first time one night and after a mere two hours of \u201cstudy\u201d concluded that Genesis 1 \u201cperfectly matched\u201d the big bang theory.13 On the basis of Ross and Rana\u2019s complete trust in radiocarbon dating, they say on the next page,<\/p>\n Radiocarbon dating places the breaking of the Bering Land Bridge at 11,000 years ago. This event made human migration from Eurasia to North and South America virtually impossible until the development of modern ships. If life spans in the Genesis 11 genealogy are proportional to the passage of time (which may not be the case), then the dates for Abraham and Peleg place Noah\u2019s flood at roughly 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, and the creation of Adam and Eve at a few tens of thousands of years earlier.14<\/p>\n Note that in just one year (since Ross\u2019 statement in Navigating Genesis quoted above), the dating of Noah dropped 10,000\u201320,000 years and Adam is now much earlier than 100,000 years ago (unless Ross and Rana want to expand the gap between Noah and Adam 10,000 to 20,000 more years).<\/p>\n A few pages later, Rana and Ross give the same RTB model of human origins as in the 2005 book, stating that Adam and Eve originated \u201cbetween 10,000 and 100,000 years ago.\u201d15 Twelve pages later, they say, \u201cThis study indicates that women appear to have had a relatively recent beginning (171,500 \u00b1 50,000 years ago) from a small population. The mtDNA genetic fingerprints paint a picture of humanity\u2019s origin consistent with the biblical account and RTB\u2019s model.\u201d16 That means Adam and Eve were created 121,500\u2013221,500 years ago. Two pages later, after more discussion of mitochondrial DNA, they say, \u201cHowever, when complicating factors are qualitatively considered, it seems reasonable to conclude that the date for humanity\u2019s origin may come in under 100,000 years\u2014consistent with the prediction made by RTB\u2019s human origins model.\u201d17 In other words, it doesn\u2019t matter what the evolutionist dates are, they match RTB\u2019s model range of 10,000 to 100,000 years (which, of course, is consistent with Scripture, they claim).<\/p>\n But another 30 pages into the book, after discussing archaeological evidence, they tell us, \u201cGenetic and archaeological evidence indicates that humans appeared on Earth recently, perhaps as recently as 40,000 years ago.\u201d18<\/p>\n At the end of the chapter titled \u201cBetter Dates for Humanity\u2019s Genesis,\u201d we learn, \u201cHistory places the first evidence for symbolism, which we take as a reflection of God\u2019s image in humans, between 70,000 and 80,000 years ago (and arguably as far back as 160,000 years).\u201d19 Then at the end of their chapter on the scientific evidence concerning when modern human behavior began, they inform us, \u201cA decade of \u2018wider and more overt\u2019 testing has helped determine the definitive emergence of modern human behavior. It also narrows the gap between the origin of humanity (100,000 to 150,000 years ago) and evidence for the image of God (now at 70,000 years ago if not earlier).\u201d20 So when did creatures made in the image of God appear?<\/p>\n At the end of their 400-page book on Adam, under the heading \u201cWhere Science Has Challenged Our Model,\u201d Rana and Ross conclude (with their admission of substantial error),<\/p>\n In 2005, we predicted that God created human beings between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago. The latest results from molecular anthropology place humanity\u2019s origin between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago. We were wrong. However, the new dates line up with estimates of humanity\u2019s origin from the fossil record (between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago). Though these dates are older than those reported in the first edition of Who Was Adam?, we argue that they still harmonize with Scripture. After carefully reconsidering our interpretation of the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11, we now take the position that the biblical text implies that Adam and Eve were created while an ice age, probably the most recent one, was in effect.21<\/p>\n In none of Ross and Rana\u2019s books have they ever attempted to show how the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 fit with any of their dates.<\/p>\n But they never give an argument<\/em> showing \u201cthat [these dates] still harmonize with Scripture.\u201d They simply assert that it is so and then expect their readers to take it by faith. In fact, in none of Ross and Rana\u2019s books have they ever attempted to show how the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 fit with any of their dates. In contrast, in my five-minute closing of the 2024 debate with Hugh Ross about inerrancy and the age of the earth, I showed that those genealogies cannot allow for an addition of even 4,000 years, much less many tens or even hundreds of thousands of years, as Ross imagines.22<\/p>\n In the quotation above from page 376, Ross and Rana footnote the last statement about the last ice age to send the readers searching for their copy of Navigating Genesis (if they have one). The footnote points to page 75 in Navigating Genesis, where Noah is dated at 40,000 years ago and Adam at 60,000\u2013100,000 years ago. It also points to pages 96\u2013100, where the most recent ice age is said to be 15,000\u201350,000 years ago, during which, according to Ross and Rana, Adam was created. And the footnote points to pages 156\u2013160, where Ross says the oldest human settlement has been dated by evolutionists to be 31,000\u2013143,000 years ago. Of course, Ross and Rana expect readers to trust these highly imprecise dates as accurate (if they have a copy of Navigating Genesis and bother to look up those pages to get those dates). But in 2015, they say that Adam and Eve were created \u201cprobably\u201d sometime during the last ice age (which in 2014 Ross says was 15,000\u201350,000 years ago). This clearly contradicts the date range of humanity\u2019s origin (100,000\u2013200,000 years ago), as established by evolutionists and accepted by Ross and Rana in Who Was Adam? (2015)!<\/p>\n But readers of the 2015 second edition of Who Was Adam? will never see this contradictory thinking, unless they have a copy of Navigating Genesis (2014) and do the careful detective work that I did. Furthermore, if Ross and Rana were wrong about the dating of Adam in 2005, as they admit in 2015, why in the world should Christians trust what they say in 2015, when their view is based on the ever-changing evolutionist dates for humanity\u2019s origin? Why do Christian<\/span> leaders and theologians trust Ross and Rana? Because wowed especially by Ross\u2019 PhD in astrophysics, they blindly trust the scientific claims of Ross and Rana, and they don\u2019t read Ross and Rana\u2019s books carefully. It is as simple as that.<\/p>\n In the multiauthored, debate book, Old-Earth or Evolutionary Creation? (2017), Dr. Rana defends RTB\u2019s view and asserts, \u201cIn light of the scientific data, we estimate humanity\u2019s origin to be roughly 130,000 years ago. We maintain that this date for humanity\u2019s origin comports with the biblical account of humanity\u2019s genesis.\u201d23 So now Rana (and therefore RTB and Ross) are giving a more precise date for Adam: roughly 130,000 years ago. He confidently tells his readers that this is based on \u201cscientific data.\u201d And this date \u201ccomports\u201d (i.e., agrees) with what Genesis teaches.<\/p>\n But in 1994, RTB said that a date for Adam between 8,000 and 24,000 years ago \u201cis in complete agreement with the biblical date.\u201d And in 2015, they said that Adam was created \u201cprobably\u201d during the last ice age, 15,000\u201350,000 years ago. So clearly for Ross and Rana, the Bible can be made to fit any date the evolutionists say. But this twisting of Scripture and use of deceptively faulty scientific arguments to fit the ever-changing dates of the evolutionists into Genesis is typical of Ross and Rana, as explained in geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling\u2019s recent six-part, thorough refutation of Dr. Rana\u2019s book, Dinosaur Blood and the Age of the Earth.24<\/p>\n In his claimed defense of the inerrancy of the Bible in his 2023 book, Ross now informs us that the creation of Adam was during one of the two most recent ice ages (13,000\u2013120,000 years ago and 132,000\u2013230,000 years ago). He adds that carbon-14 dating shows that humans have been on earth \u201cfor at least the last 45,000 years.\u201d25 But he does say 14 pages later that \u201cstatistical errors in the carbon\u201314 method at such an early date can be significant. In this particular case, the probable error is at least \u00b15000 years.\u201d26 The bottom line of all this is that,<\/p>\n If the origin of the human race occurred during one of the two most recent ice ages, the biblical clues would align well with the best scientific estimates.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. The most accurate date scientists can provide for the origin of anatomically modern humans is sometime between 45,000 and 250,000 years ago.27<\/p>\n Let me use this chart to summarize Dr. Ross\u2019 dating of Adam over the years, always in keeping with the ever-changing dates of the evolutionists.<\/p>\n In October 2024, I debated Dr. Ross at Southern Evangelical Seminary\u2019s 30th annual apologetics conference. The debate topic was, \u201cDoes belief in inerrancy of Scripture require belief in young-earth creation?\u201d28 As I said in my closing remarks in that debate, what Ross and Rana\u2019s dating of Adam shows is that\u2014contrary to Dr. Ross\u2019 claim to believe in (and even rescue) the inerrancy of Scripture (in his 2023 book)\u2014all that he has written over the last 30+ years in defense of his big bang, old-earth, local-Flood view of Genesis actually undermines<\/em> belief in the inerrancy of Scripture.<\/p>\n In the same year of his inerrancy book, the Journal of Human Evolution announced that new evidence showed that \u201cmodern human morphologies are present as early as 300 ka\u201d (300,000 years ago).29 If that date holds, I expect Dr. Ross\u2019 next book will adjust to match it at least as an upper limit for Adam\u2019s creation<\/span>, and he will continue to say that this \u201cperfectly matches\u201d or \u201ccomports well\u201d with RTB\u2019s model and with Scripture.<\/p>\n No Christian (including theologians and apologists) should trust any of Hugh Ross\u2019 and Reasons to Believe\u2019s teaching about the origin, history, and age of the creation, including Adam.<\/p>\n The bottom line of all this? No Christian (including theologians and apologists) should trust any of Hugh Ross\u2019 and Reasons to Believe\u2019s teaching about the origin, history, and age of the creation, including Adam. They are manipulating the Bible (like a wax nose) to constantly defend their claim that their view of origins beautifully harmonizes God\u2019s Word with the latest science.30 But that \u201cscience\u201d is not \u201cscientific evidence.\u201d Rather, it is simply the claims of the anti-biblical, indeed anti-Christ, secular, scientific majority about origins. In other words, Ross and RTB are mixing man\u2019s word with God<\/span>\u2019s Word, which is idolatrous syncretism. Instead, Christians should trust God<\/span>\u2019s Word supremely. It plainly teaches creation<\/span> in six literal days a little more than 6,000 years ago and a global, catastrophic Flood at the time of Noah about 4,500 years ago. \u201cLet God<\/span> be true and every man a liar\u201d (Romans 3:4)!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For over four decades prominent Bible scholars, apologists, pastors, and other Christian leaders have endorsed one or more of Dr. Hugh Ross\u2019 many books and promoted his organization. They include Wayne Grudem, Frank Turek, Norman Geisler, Sean McDowell, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, R. C. Sproul, C. John Collins, James Tour, Walter Kaiser, John<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[72,1234,9363,250,7221,393],"class_list":["post-32458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jesus","tag-christian","tag-heres","tag-hugh","tag-leaders","tag-ross","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Fingerprint of God (1991): 6,000\u201350,000 Years Ago<\/h2>\n
Creation and Time (1994): 6,000\u201360,000 Years Ago<\/h2>\n
Who Was Adam? (2005): 10,000\u2013100,000 Years Ago (or 40,000\u2013100,000 or 50,000\u201370,000?)<\/h2>\n
Navigating Genesis (2014): 60,000\u2013100,000 Years Ago<\/h2>\n
Who Was Adam? (2015): 100,000\u2013200,000 Years Ago (or 15,000\u201350,000?)<\/h2>\n
Fazale Rana\u2019s Chapter 2017: Roughly 130,000 Years Ago<\/h2>\n
Rescuing Inerrancy (2023): 45,000\u2013250,000 Years Ago<\/h2>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n