As a kid I attended religious class nearly every Tuesday
morning at my local public school in Sydney .
I certainly didn’t have a choice about it; we all had to do it whether we
wanted to or not. We sang songs about Noah and the Flood and it was all very
innocent and simple. It all seems so long ago now, especially since religious
education is no longer compulsory in government schools these days, but back
then Tuesday morning was the time we let God into the classroom. Later at high
school in the 1980’s we occasionally had an Australian Army Chaplain come and
talk to us, as my school was located near a large army base. In all the classes
I ever had to sit through back then not one of my Scripture teachers ever said
that the Ice Age was a Biblical event.
When we read about the Ice Age or see a documentary about it
on television it is usually in regards to the most recent Ice Age, as research
has revealed many Ice Ages over many millions of years. The Pleistocene Epoch
ended with the last Ice Age about 10,000BC and it is that Ice Age that saw the
emergence of modern peoples around the world. During this time huge glaciers
grew and slowly crushed their way down mountains with such force that they
created entirely new valleys. Europe was particularly
hard hit by the Ice Age with much of the north of the continent permanently
under enormous volumes of ice. To the south of the ice was arctic-like tundra
and then open grasslands. Forests grew much further in the south. To us, much
of it would seem an almost inhospitable environment but out ancestors not only
survived but even thrived there. If I could go back in time I would love to
visit Europe during the most recent Ice Age. The art
from that era and continent is so incredibly beautiful; caves systems such as Lascaux , Altimira, Les Trois Frères and the recently
discovered cave of Chauvet
When I was fifteen I came across a novel called ‘The Clan of
the Cave Bear’ by Jean M. Auel about the adventures of Ayla, a young Cro-Magnon
(fully modern human) girl who, after being orphaned from her family, is adopted
and raised by a Neanderthal clan. Though her mental abilities are greater than
her adoptive family, she is treated as an outsider until eventually she is
forced to leave for good. It was a wonderful story full of intricate detail
about that era that was thoroughly researched by the author over many years.
Since then Ms. Auel has written further books which continue the European Ice
Age adventures of Ayla with the most recent one being ‘The Shelters of Stone’.
(Incidentally, one of AiG’s UK /
European writers, Philip Bell, wrote an article for ‘Creation’ magazine about
Tarpan horses and in the footnotes to his article he clumsily wrote,
‘17. The ‘prehistoric’ horses which
feature in a recent children’s novel, The
Shelters of Stone (by evolutionist Jean M. Auel), were inspired by the
Tarpans from the Stroebels’ Genesis
Equines ranch.’ (Vol.26 No 2. March-May 2004 page 51).
How many ‘children’s’ novels does Philip Bell know of that
are 765 pages long and feature graphic and intimate details of sexual
intercourse? My guess is, since the book was by an ‘evolutionist’ Bell
didn’t even bother to read it. ‘The Shelters of Stone’, ‘The Clan of the Cave
Bear’ and the rest of the books in the series are not children’s books at all.
Since he considers them to be ‘children’s’ books, I wonder if he has given them
to his children to read? Probably he hasn’t, since he made it so very clear in
his footnotes that the author Jean M. Auel is an ‘evolutionist’. Anyway, the
past had come to life for me from these books, and it started my journey into
Europe’s ancient past that culminated in my traveling to Europe at the age of
twenty-one to further my study into the lives of my ancestors.
Ask the folks though at AiG about the Ice Age and they’ll
tell you that it followed Noah’s Flood. Why would they claim such a thing? Not
only did none of my Scripture teachers say that the Ice Age followed Noah’s
Flood, but it seems nobody else has ever said such a thing ever, except AiG. I
looked through the Bible and found no mention of the Ice Age. I went to my
local Christian bookshop and found no mention in any of the books there about
the Ice Age. I looked in Bible companions, I looked at illustrated Bibles,
Bible commentaries, the lot, and none of them mentioned the Ice Age as a
Biblical event.
‘In summary, the Flood and its
aftermath provide the volcanic dust and gasses that bring the summer cooling
indispensable for the Ice Age. Water from the “fountains of the great deep” and
mixing during the Flood provides a warm ocean. In the mid and high latitudes
the warm ocean would cause copious evaporation and produce massive amounts of
snow’ (‘Frozen in Time’, Michael Oard, page 76)
The “fountains of the great deep” referred to above is from
Genesis 7:11. The author of the article seems to believe that the ‘fountains’
is something like a volcanic eruption, though the Bible makes no mention of
volcanism in this instance. Again, it is their interpretation which we are
dealing with, an interpretation designed solely to support their notions of
what they think occurred. In fact, they are reading far more into ‘fountains of
the deep’ and using it as an excuse to introduce volcanism to the Flood/
post-Flood world. Scientists tell us that the most recent Ice Age lasted from
about 110,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago which allowed the glaciers to
slowly grow in size and begin their gradual advance down mountains and in the
process carve new valleys and other geologic features.
Eventually, as the climate again warmed up, the glaciers
retreated and melted causing the world’s oceans to once more rise. Ice Ages
affect the entire Earth and have a profound effect on virtually all creatures
and environments. It is indeed a long process. But AiG give the whole thing
only seven hundred years for the glaciers to form, move hundreds perhaps
thousands of kilometres, grind and crush smaller mountains while simultaneously
creating new valleys. Then, just as fast, the whole thing reverses itself and
the Ice Age abruptly vanishes. The implication here is that, for example, the
Egyptian civilisation emerged during the Ice Age, for AiG maintain that Egyptian
civilisation began about 2,188 BC and
the Ice Age ended about either 1650 or 1750 BC. This means that the pyramids
must have had snow on them in winter! Is there any mention in any Egyptian text
of an Ice Age? None that I could find, and the reason for that is simple, ancient
Egypt
AiG have adopted the Ice Age as a Biblical event when in
reality the Bible makes no mention of it, despite AiG trying to pretend that
certain passages in the Book of Job are references to such an event. It seems
AiG knew that they couldn’t just act as if the Ice Age never occurred, for
evidence of ancient global cooling is, well, global. Even AiG admit that there
is evidence of this drastic change in world weather. Therefore, since they had
accepted that the Ice Age was a real event, they knew they had to try and fit
it somewhere into the Bible. With the issue decided upon they must have then
scanned the Old Testament for anything that sounded ‘cold’ and found one or two
things in the Book of Job. The issue of the Ice Age is a classic example of AiG
trying to make the Bible fit their version of history. Under the heading ‘Is
The Ice Age Biblical?’, ‘The New Answers Book 1’ states,
‘It is possible that the Book of
Job, written about 500 years or so after the Flood, may include a reference to
the Ice Age in Job 38:29-30 which says, “From whose womb comes the ice? And the
frost of heaven, who gives it birth? The waters harden like stone, and the
surface of the deep is frozen”. However, Job could have observed frost and lake
ice during winter in Palestine ,
especially if temperatures were colder because of the Ice Age. The reason the
Ice Age is not directly discussed in the Bible is probably because the
Scandinavian ice sheet and mountain ice caps were farther north than the region
where the Bible was written. Only an increase in the snow coverage of Mt.
Hermon and possibly more frequent snowfalls on the high areas of the Middle
East would have been evident to those living in Palestine’. (Michael Oard, page
216)
Since Noah and his family experienced the Flood, the
volcanoes, the new landscape and the Ice Age, it does beg the question that
since Noah lived for nearly a thousand years, why he or anybody else never
found the time to write about their experiences. Why was it that only the Flood
got into the Bible and the other geologic, meteorological events didn’t? An Ice
Age is a pretty big thing to overlook so why no clear mention of it? It seems
so unbelievable that neither Noah, nor his family or their descendants thought
the Ice Age worthy of mention. In Ken Ham’s book ‘Did Eve Really Have an Extra
Rib?’ on page 63 he asks himself the question, ‘Was there really an Ice Age?’,
and then answers himself with a befuddled explanation about volcanoes and
continental breakup which caused the Ice Age. He excitedly ends his
conversation with himself with,
‘The answer’s in Genesis and its
account of the Flood!’
Actually it doesn’t seem to be there at all. Ken’s just
saying it because he hasn’t actually got any real evidence and that the Bible
clearly makes no mention of the Ice Age whatsoever.
AiG is fond of saying that they take the Book of Genesis
literally, that a literal reading of it is the cornerstone of their
organisation. Consider the fact that there is no scriptural basis for an Ice
Age whatsoever. So, AiG interpret the passage ‘Out of whose womb comes
the ice?’ to mean an Ice Age so that it can support their own version of past
events. How peculiar it was then to read in ‘TJ’ magazine,
‘…it is unwise to read more into
biblical texts than the context warrants.’ (Volume 18(2) 2004 page 44).
This was from an article about Job, the Pleiades cluster and
the Orion constellation and was about how creationists (seemingly as opposed to
Christians), should be wary of trying to find real cosmological data in the
Bible, at least in the Book of Job. Why then is the Ice Age supposed to be a
real event as described in Job? Clearly, the Bible is not talking about an Ice
Age and AiG is clutching at straws. Even AiG’s former resident weatherman
Michael Oard (who jumped ship to ‘Creation Ministries International’) in his
book ‘Frozen in Time’ said,
‘The Ice
Age is not mentioned in the Bible; it is a climactic deduction from the
biblical event of the flood.’ (pages 132-133)
By believing in an Ice Age interpretation without any
Scriptural evidence, AiG seems to be ignoring what the book of Job is really
all about. (A man losing all he has and yet he never turns against God). The
messages and lessons to be learned from the Book of Job are being smothered and
diluted by all this nonsense of an Ice Age. Just drop the whole Ice Age shtick
and let The Book Job get on with what it is trying to say.
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