Hi Glenn
Belief in a global flood does not make someone a young earther, at least not before
the 19th century. We can say they were erroneous in their belief, and point out how
this was erroneous in the light of contemporary knowledge (especially after the
1840's) or even present day knowledge. But we should not equate belief in global
dilluvialism with belief in a young earth.
As I said before almost all geological literate Christians, amny in positions of
leadership in the 19th century believed in an old earth. Clearly there were some
people on the fringes who did not. The big questions is why lay evangelicals seem to
have listened more to such people than their leaders.
The position today is slightly different. Today almost all geological literate
evangelicals support an old earth, just as they did in the 19th century. However
many evangelicals in leadership are sympathetic to a young earth (I am reading
MacArthur's book at the moment - shudder). We need to consider why people such as
Conybeare, Buckland, Miller, Fleming, Sedgwick, Henslow, Silliman, Dawson, Clarke,
and Edgeworth David (to name a few) were unable to convince lay people of their day.
Perhaps we might gain further insight into why the current generation of lay
Christians - and John MacArthurs and Francis Scahffers - are not convinced by van
Till, Young, Schrimmich, Davis, Roberts (or even Morton or Clarke).
Jon
Glenn Morton wrote:
> Michael wrote:
> >If this is your evidence then please read your books carefully and not
> >misread them.
>
> Michael, In your zeal to zap me, you didn't read carefully what I wrote. I
> wrote:
>
> "Currently I have in my personal library books from the following 19th
> century young-earth/global flood advocates:"
>
> Now, young-earth/global flood includes two categories not one. I din't say
> every one was young-earth.
>
> Michael wrote:
> >Figuier is not YEC either and accepted a local deluge.
>
> Figuier's flood (one doesn't know what Barstow's contribution to the book
> was) was so vast as to be classifiable at the very least as continental in
> size and is much larger than anything people would recognize as a local
> flood today. If you want to call the inundation of all of Asia 'local' go
> ahead. Note the use of the term 'prolongation of the Caucasus. He did
> beleive that there were inundations of Europe as well and he decided that
> the Asian innundation was the flood of Noah. THat is not a local flood by
> modern standards most certainly.
>
> “The Asiatic deluge—of which sacred history has transmitted to us the few
> particulars we know—was the result of the upheaval of a part of the long
> chain of mountains which are a prolongation of the Caucasus. The earth
> opening by one of the fissures made in its crust in course of cooling, an
> eruption of volcanic matter escaped through the enormous crater so produced.
> Volumes of watery vapor or steam accompanied the lava discharged from the
> interior of the globe, which, being first dissipated in clouds and
> afterwards condensing, descended, in torrents of rain, and the plains were
> drowned with the volcanic mud. The inundation of the planes over an
> extensive radius was the immediate effect of this upheaval, and the
> formation of the volcanic cone of Mount Ararat, with the vast plateau on
> which it rests, altogether 17,323 feet above the sea, the permanent result.
> The event is graphically detailed in the seventh chapter of Genesis.” Louis
> Figuier, The World Before the Deluge, edited and revised by H. W. Bristow,
> (London: Cassell Petter & Galpin, circa 1872), p. 480-481
>
> Now, if Ararat (the modern mountain) was covered with water, that is hardly
> a local flood! Do I need to remind you of the elevation of Ararat he
> mentions above?
>
> Here is his view of the European Deluge which he beleived occurred before
> man.
>
> “The physical proof of this deluge of the north of Europe exists in the
> accumulation of unstratified deposits which covers all the plains and low
> grounds of Northern Europe. ON and in this deposit are found numerous blocks
> which have received the characteristic and significant name of erratic
> blocks, and which are frequently of considerable size. These become more
> characteristic as we ascend to to higher latitudes, as in Norway, Sweden,
> and Denmark, the southern borders of the Baltic, and in the British Islands
> generally, in all of which countries deposits of marine fossil shells occur,
> which prove the submergence of large areas of Scandinavia, of the British
> Isles and other regions during parts of the glacial period. Some of these
> rocks, characterised as erratic, are of very considerable volume; such, for
> instance, is the granite block which forms the pedestal of the statue of
> Peter the Great at St. Petersburg. This block was found in the interior of
> Russia, where the whole formation is Permian, and its presence there can
> only be explained by supposing it to have been transported by some vast
> iceberg, carried by a diluvial current. This hypothesis alone enables us to
> account for another block of granite, weighing about 340 tons, which was
> found on the sandy plains in the north of Prussia, an immense model of which
> was made for the Berlin Museum. The last of these erratic blocks deposited
> in Germany covers the grave of King Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, killed at
> the battle of Lutzen, in 1632. He was interred beneath the rock. Another
> similar block, has been raised in Germany into a monument to the geologist
> Leopold von Buch.”
> “These erratic blocks which are met with in the plains of Russia, Poland,
> and Prussia, and in the eastern parts of England, are composed of rocks
> entirely foreign to the region where they are found. They belong to the
> primary rocks of Norway; they have been transported to their present sites,
> protected by a covering of ice, by the waters of the northern deluge. How
> vast must have been the impulsive force which could carry such enormous
> masses across the Baltic, and so far inland as the places where they have
> been deposited for the surprise of the geologist or the contemplation of the
> thoughtful.” Louis Figuier, The World Before the Deluge, edited and revised
> by H. W. Bristow, (London: Cassell Petter & Galpin, circa 1872), p. 424-427
>
> As to Cooper you wrote:
> >I have a copy of Thomas Cooper, Evolution, The Stone Book and the Mosaic
> >Record of Creation, 1884.
> >HE IS NOT YEC and takes a long day view of Genesis - p129-31 in my edition
> >of 1888.
>
> No he wasn't a YEC, but he appears to have been a global flood guy.
>
> “As I am simply sketching the history of the changes in opinion among
> geologists, I must not stay to do more than remind you that the tradition of
> the Deluge exists in the literature of Greece and Rome, as well as in that
> of China, and, according to Sir William Jones, in the Sanscrit literature of
> India; and that the ancient Scandinavians and Egyptians had similar
> traditions—while the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, as well as the tribes
> of North American Indians, and scattered islanders of the Pacific, also
> shared them; that the famous medal of Apames, in phrygia, is also held to be
> strongly confirmative of the verity of the Bible account; and that the
> recent discovery of a long cuneiform record by the lameted George Smith, of
> the British Museum, which must have been written in ancient Assyria, 600
> years before Christ, has brought still stronger confirmatory testimony to
> the front.” Thomas Cooper, “The Stone Book” in Evolution, The Stone Book,
> and The Mosaic Record of Creation, (London: Hodder and Stroughton:1884), p.
> 63-64
>
> And "But, of late, there have been some decided demurrers to the
> Uniformitarian theory, and there will be more. Nothing less than some sudden
> and mighty dislocation of the strata, can possibly account for the formation
> of deep valleys and gorges, which are beheld in many parts of the earth."
> Thomas Cooper, “The Stone Book” in Evolution, The Stone Book, and The Mosaic
> Record of Creation, (London: Hodder and Stroughton:1884), p. 66
>
> Once again, someone was buying these books on this topic. By the 1880s the
> entire idea fo the flood was out of scientific thought, yet Christian books
> continued to discuss it. THat implies that the laity were not following the
> leadership.
>
> glenn
>
> see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
> for lots of creation/evolution information
> anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
> personal stories of struggle
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