Resources Defending the Literal Truth of Genesis 1-11

Following are recommended resources for further study or to suggest to others in your ministry who have questions. Most of them are available at Answers in Genesis.

For DVDs, we have given the links for where to purchase in the USA. The format of those DVDs may not work in other countries. The AiG UK web site (reached through a tab near the top right corner of the AiG-USA site) likely will have most of these in the PAL format.

To Begin…

For a good short summary of why we should not follow the scientific majority in their dogmatic claims about origins, see this article by Dr. Andrew Snelling:

Some of the most asked questions

Below we list a few of the 130 questions addressed in the 4-volume New Answers Book. The location of the question/answer is listed as volume:chapter. In some cases the chapters are also linked to the place on the AiG web site, where they can be freely downloaded. If you are interested in the question of:

  • What are the 10 best evidences for a young earth? See this article and its links.
  • How can we see stars and galaxies that are millions of light-years away if the universe is only 6000 years old? See 1:19.
  • How did the animals spread all over the earth (including marsupials to Australia) after the Flood? See 1:11.
  • What really happened to the dinosaurs? See 1:12.
  • Where do the ice ages fit into the young-earth creation view? See 1:16.
  • How did the amazingly designed attack and defense structures in animals come about? See 1:21.
  • Did humans evolve from ape-like creatures? See 2:8.
  • What about the similarities of human and chimp DNA? See 3:10 and this and this.
  • What are the created “kinds” in Genesis 1? See 3:4 and this and this and this.
  • Is there a gap for the millions of years somewhere between Gen. 1:1 and 1:3? See 1:5. The most thorough refutation of the gap theory is Weston Fields’ book, Unformed and Unfilled.
  • How did the Grand Canyon form? See 3:18.
  • Why don’t we find human and dinosaur fossils together? See 1:13
  • Doesn’t the order of fossils in the rock record favor long ages? See 2:31

Two good periodicals are the quarterly family-oriented Answers Magazine, presenting articles for all ages on creation and the biblical worldview, and the Answers Research Journal, a peer-reviewed online technical journal.

Nature of science

On the powerful control of uniformitarian naturalism in science (which is the driving force behind the idea of millions of years), see Dr. Terry Mortenson’s article Philosophical Naturalism and the Age of the Earth: Are they related?. See also his article on the historical development of the geological timescale.

The DVD “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” exposes the censorship of arguments and persecution of scientists that oppose evolution strictly on scientific grounds. This is a “must-see” film to understand the atheistic control of science today and why it is virtually impossible for young-earth creationists to get their best research published in secular science journals and have therefore had to develop their own peer-reviewed technical journals. This exposes the lie, so often heard, that “creation scientists aren’t real scientists evidenced by the fact that they don’t publish in the peer-reviewed literature.” In fact, they do. It’s just not their young-earth creationist papers that get into the secular scientific literature, for reasons revealed in this DVD.

Following the same theme, Dr. Jerry Bergman documents the persecution of scientists who question evolution in his revealing book, Slaughter of the Dissidents. Although Bergman has nine degrees (including 2 PhDs), has taught in secular academia for years, and has a voluminous publishing record in the secular scientific journals, he himself has been one of the persecuted.

Evolution and the promotion of Atheism

The Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey TV series of 13 programs aired in America in Spring 2014. It is having a worldwide impact as it aggressively promotes atheistic (cosmological, geological and biological) evolution and attacks the truth of Genesis 1-11 (thereby attacking the gospel that is rooted in that literal historical truth). The series was viewed by millions of people in 70 countries and now is a DVD-based curriculum that will be widely used in schools in America and many other countries in the years ahead to indoctrinate hundreds of millions of children in an atheistic worldview. In Question Cosmos(based on her weekly web reviews of each TV program)Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell provides a study guide to help students and parents see through the deceptive arguments masquerading as proven science. Also, considerthis short article, which analyzes some of the skeptics’ responses to the AiG web reviews.

Biology

Dr. Terry Mortenson’s DVD lecture Origin of Species: Was Darwin Right? gives a good layman’s introduction showing that the fossils, natural selection and mutations do not prove evolution but confirm the truth of Genesis.

that the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria offers no support for molecules-to-man evolution.

explains the difference between the scientifically demonstrable fact of adaptation within a kind (in this case, beach mice) versus the evolutionary belief in the transformation of one kind of creature into a different kind (i.e., microbe-to-microbiologist evolution).

explains why the change in beak sizes of Darwin’s Finches offers no support for molecules-to-man evolution.

This semi-technical article by veterinarian Dr. Jean Lightner shows how rapid variation can arise within a created kind, in this case a lizard population. Other articles related to this issue of rapid variation, even producing a new species (but which is not evidence of evolution of one kind into another kind) are:

  • “Sizeable Sturgeons Set Evolutionary Speed Records,” shows sturgeon fish producing rapid variation but remaining sturgeons,
  • “Human Evolution: Faster than a speeding bullet”
  • “The Origin of Species: Creation Style!”
  • “Speedy Species Surprise,”
  • This is an easy-to-understand 3-minute video summary of the topic of rapid speciation. The video is one of many scattered throughout the AiG Creation Museum.

by Dr. Georgia Purdom (PhD, molecular genetics) and several others discusses mediated design, which is likely one mechanism for helping us understand the source of information necessary for rapid speciation (within a kind) after the Flood. Related to this is:

  • Related to this is Dr. Jean Lightner (DVM), “Meiotic recombination—designed for inducing genomic change,” Journal of Creation 27:1 (2013), pp. 7-10, which discusses recently discovered evidence of design-programmed mutations (i.e., mutations are not all accidental errors in the genetic code, as evolutionists have assumed), which on-going research will likely show to be a partial explanation for rapid speciation (not evolution) after the Flood.

Plant geneticist John Sanford shows that mutations are fatal to the theory of evolution in Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome (FMS Publications, 2014). Dr. Sanford is a highly qualified research geneticist at Cornell University and for much of his career he was an evolutionist. This semi-technical, but layman friendly book shows that Neo-Darwinian evolution can neither explain how biological information got into the genome of living creatures nor how it could remain there. A devastating critique that no evolutionist can responsibly ignore (but they are ignoring it and instead raising ad hominem arguments). See a summary of this book in his DVD lecture, “The Mystery of Our Declining Genes,” available from Creation Ministries, Int’l.

The 38-minute downloadable DVD Evolution vs God contains interviews with atheist science students and atheist science professors at major universities. Their own words reveal the scientific bankruptcy of evolution. A great witnessing tool, too. View the trailer here.

Donald DeYoung & Derrick Hobbs, Discovery of Design. Take a fantastic journey into the intersection of science and God's blueprints for life - discovering answers to some of the most intricate challenges we face.

Metamorphosisexplores the remarkable world of butterflies (especially the Monarch) as few ever have before. Filmed in the rain forests of Ecuador, Mexico’s Trans-Volcanic mountain range, and leading research centers, this DVD is a powerful documentary revealing the amazing design of these creatures, which cannot be explained by the blind, purposeless, directionless process of evolution. The film features incredible slow-motion photography. Unfortunately, it doesn’t explicitly give glory to God.

Anthropology

Marvin Lubenow, Bones of Contention (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004, 2nd ed.). The result of over 25 years of study, this is the best young-earth creationist critique of the evolutionist evidence and arguments in support of human evolution. A Colorado State University professor of anthropology, who once debated Lubenow, commented, “Like a true scholar, Lubenow has researched in depth the literature in scientific journals, sifting the evidence, searching out the areas open to interpretation. He is a pleasure to fence with intellectually.” The first edition of this book (now out of print) included a very revealing appendix on the dating of skull 1470 (a famous supposed ape-man fossil appendix, which shows how unreliable radiometric dating is. Lubenow’s short summary of that appendix is here.

Where are all the human fossils? See here.

Could mankind possibly have descended from a single pair just 6000 years ago? Definitely. See and The first is a little less technical than the second.

What about the claimed evidence that human and chimpanzees DNA is 98% the same? Not true. For an introduction see and then follow the links at the end of the article. Related to this is the DVD and Did Neanderthals and Modern Humans Share a Common Gene Pool?.

Several DVDs present scientific and biblical evidence powerfully demonstrating that Adam and Eve were supernaturally created and were unique from all other creatures. Humans are not descended from apes: Ape-men: the Grand Illusion, Three Ways to Make an Ape Man, The Hearing Ear and the Seeing Eye, and The Uniqueness of Man.

A number of helpful articles on why a literal Adam matters for the gospel can be found in the spring 2011 issue of the Journal of Theology from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY:

In the 2013 four-views book on Adam, Dr. Bill Barrick argues for a literal Adam and against the old-earth views of Denis Lamoureax, John Walton and C. John Collins.

On the gospel necessity of a literal Adam, Dr. John Byl (Reformed theologian and astronomer/mathematician in Canada[1]) has written an insightful blog article at

Critique of C. John Collins, Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011). In this recent work Collins identifies and describes the various views concerning the existence and identity of Adam and Eve. He concludes that Adam and Eve were indeed historical individuals and that their existence is significant theologically. The weakness of the book resides in the fact that Collins does not offer a thorough analysis of the various views, does not clearly identify to which view he himself adheres, and does not offer argumentation strongly supporting the view he takes. When he touches upon other aspects of the creation account (such as the six days), he avoids an explicit statement of his position (which is an old-earth “analogical days” view). For a helpful review of Collins’s book, see Richard Belcher’s blog: Feb 2012.

For a thorough critique of John Walton and NT Wright, The Lost World of Adam and Eve (IVP Academic, 2015), see Steve Ham, “The Lost World of Adam and Eve: A Response” Answers Research Journal 8 (2015):371–383. It will be posted at on July 29, 2015.

What has the Church historically believed about Adam? See the scholarly work of William VanDoodewaard, The Quest for the Historical Adam (Reformation Heritage Books, 2015), which shows that belief in a literal Adam made from dust and a literal Eve made from Adam’s rib and a literal historical Fall is historic mainstream Christian orthodoxy.

Geology

Dr. Andrew Snelling’s 2-volume work, Earth’s Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation and the Flood (Dallas, TX: Institute for Creation Research, 2009), updates and greatly expands the biblical and geological arguments in Morris and Whitcomb’s The Genesis Flood (1961). No old-earth creationist can responsibly ignore this work resulting from 30 years of geological research. It contains extensive sections on radiometric dating and deals with many geological formations that old-earth geologists claim require millions of years to form. Dr. Snelling also has a DVD lecture series on these subjects.

Terry Mortenson, The Great Turning Point: The Church’s Catastrophic Mistake on Geology—Before Darwin (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2004) is a shortened version of his PhD thesis and explains how the millions of years idea developed in the early 19th century on the basis of using anti-biblical (deistic and atheistic) naturalistic, uniformitarian assumptions to interpret the rocks. The book focuses on a number of Christian authors who became known as the “Scriptural geologists” and wrote biblical, philosophical and geological arguments against the old-earth views and the various Christian attempts to harmonize millions of years with Genesis (e.g., day-age, gap, local flood views). A 1-hour DVD lecture based on this research isMillions of Years: where did the idea come from?

On the evolutionist belief in multiple ice-ages over the course of millions of years, see creationist meteorologist Mike Oard’s DVD lecture, The Ice Age: Only the Bible Explains It. There is clear evidence for only one ice age.

Evolutionists have long claimed that the Coconino Sandstone formation in Grand Canyon was deposited in a desert and therefore proof of the myth of Noah’s Flood. Geologist Dr. John Whitmore proves them wrong from multiple lines of evidence he has discovered in his extensive field and lab research. See technical articles here and here and a layman’s article summarizing this research will be posted on soon.

Links to various articles regarding radiometric dating:

Two short but revealing articles exposing how the different dating methods apparently confirm each other are here (on the dating of the famous human-like skull KNM-ER1470 found by Richard Leakey in Kenya in 1967, which took 10 years of debate to be dated at an age the evolutionists could accept) and here (which explains what evolutionists do with inconsistent data). See also two of the DVDs in the 5-lecture set by Andrew Snelling, “Geology, a Biblical Viewpoint on the Age of the Earth”. A layman’s book explaining why Christians do not need to bow the knee to radiometric dating is Don DeYoung’s Thousands, not Billions.

is the Internet’s most complete catalog of peer-reviewed scientific journal papers confirming the existence of original biological tissue found in dinosaurs bones! For insight on the evolutionists’ suppression of the truth, listen to the very revealing 7-minute phone conversation (click on the picture of the red blood cells in dinosaur bone) between Dr. Jack Horner (one of America’s leading evolutionary dinosaur experts) and Bob Enyart (a young-earth creationist radio talk-show host), who initially offered Horner $10,000 to date a dinosaur bone by Carbon-14. And after the phone call Enyart upped it to $23,000 (see letter at the end of the phone clip above). Horner still refused. Good example of “suppressing the truth in unrighteous” (Rom. 1:18)

Critique of “Christian” old-earth geology: John Reed has a PhD in geology and is also an elder in the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). In this paper he presents a summary of a longer semi-technical critique of an article written by eight old-earth geologists in the PCA arguing that the church should accept millions of years. The old-earth article was published in Michael Horton’s journal Modern Reformation.

Questions about Noah’s Ark: In his thorough book, Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study, researcher John Woodmorappe answers numerous skeptical questions raised by non-believers and Christians regarding the Ark. Without invoking any miracles or technologies that would not reasonably be at Noah’s disposal, Woodmorappe answers such questions as how many animals were on the ark, how eight people could care for all those animals, how they got fresh air and fresh water, what they did with all the manure, and what the carnivores ate after leaving the ark. Fascinating reading in a question-answer format that is understandable to serious-minded students and lay people, but fully documented for the person who wants to dig deeper.

Astronomy/Cosmology

On the question of distant starlight (how we can see stars and galaxies millions of years away if the universe is only 6000 years old) at a layman’s level see Jason Lisle’s (PhD, astrophysics) layman’s article and DVD lecture. For a technical article explaining Dr. Jason Lisle’s proposed young-earth creationist solution to the distant starlight problem see this technical article. See also this earlier 2011 technical article on other ideas that creationist cosmologists should consider.