Using the biblical flood as an example, Young contends that the church has not always handled evidence well in grappling with scientific matters and issues a call to biblical scholars to interpret the Genesis text more rigorously in light of current scientific knowledge.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In recent years, the search for the remains of Noah's Ark as archeological and historical evidence of the biblical flood has been a popular preoccupation among many Christians. Yet, ironically, ever since the pathbreaking scientific discoveries of Darwin and Lyell, many of these same Christians have been reluctant to look deeply into the extrabiblical evidence offered by paleobiology, geology and paleontology. Young, who teaches geology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., engages in a rather exhaustive survey of attitudes about the flood, from ancient Near Eastern history to recent theories and commentaries on the story of the deluge, to demonstrate the ambivalence toward extrabiblical evidence that has always existed in the Christian community. The great value of the text is in its interdisciplinary nature, for Young here examines not only theological materials about the Genesis account but also explores the history of science. In short, this is a brilliant book that offers a fine starting point for anyone wishing to go beyond the superficiality of the current crop of books on Noah and the flood.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Professor Young has done a superb job in collating how different scholars have responded to the Old Testament flood account through the centuries in the light of extra-Biblical data. This detailed study was largely in response to the rise of support in the last 40 years among some (not all) Christians for the global as an explanation for much of the geological record. Young shows repeatedly how this recent phenomenon is out of step with the way Christian scholars have dealt with extra-Biblical data over the last two millennia. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the interaction between science and Christianity, in the history of geology, and in modern young earth creationism.
14 of 18 people found the following review helpful
By Yak
Format:Paperback
I would go on about all the details of the book, but Young does a superb job. He traces the way scientists and theologians alike have viewed the flood in the light of increasing amounts of extrabiblical evidence. The greatest understanding I had taken away from his book is that science was once used to help better understand the true meaning of scripture. Today many Christians believe science is irrelevant, but when the evidence is as tremendous as shown in this book it only further forces one to realize maybe they are just being stubborn in the way they want to read things, and not rejecting God.
13 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As Stanley Jaki diagnosed in his "Genesis 1 Through the Ages", it was necessary for the Protestants, once they had rejected the infallible magisterium of the Catholic Church, to fall back on some other form of infallibility: that of the Bible. The problem, as Davis Young remarks (px) is that the Bible is not self-interpreting: it must be, as it has always been, interpreted within a certain context of "extra-biblical knowledge", i.e. our knowledge of the world around us which, being God's work, has a lot to say about Him.
That context of extra-biblical knowledge, fortunately, has not stagnated since men first attempted to make sense of the Bible. It has kept expanding and expanding, as observations and improved theories have accumulated in such sciences as geology, biology or geography, requiring ever finer and more informed interpretations of the texts.
In the process, a Biblical book or passage that may rationally have appeared to be historical to some of the greatest minds of the Church may now be revealed to be nothing more than a story, and just as fictional as one of Jesus's parables, whose value does not depend on our finding the bones of the Good Samaritan or the well-preserved oil-lamps of the foolish virgins buried somewhere on mount Ararat.
Taking the story of Noah as an example of the way increasing extra-biblical knowledge has transformed our understanding of Scripture, Young does for it what Jaki did (less charitably perhaps, but with a sounder ecclesiology) for Genesis 1, retracing more than two millenia of intellectual perplexity and progress in order to shed light on modern controversies.
Young clearly shows how problematic certain interpretations have become in the light of what we now know of the way things work: for countless evidential reasons, none of which have to do with "the rationalistic preconceptions of recent centuries", or any bias inherent in modern science other than a fondness for keeping one's eyes open, a literal reading of the Noah story has become untenable, all the efforts of the Woodmorappes of the world to make the impossible look plausible notwithstanding.
The book is not without its flaws. Being a Protestant, the author seems to believe in a Frankenstein monster of a "church" consisting of the Catholic Church until 1517, and then of the collective body of Protestants after that date, seen as having some sort of organic unity and as being continuous with the pre-Reform Catholic Church, while virtually none of the members of the post-1517 Church are deemed worthy of intellectual discussion, let alone of inclusion in the list of the "premier minds" of "the church."
Interestingly, when it comes to determining which aspects of the interpretation of the Bible are "non-negotiable", i.e. impervious to reinterpretation in the light of new evidence, Young has to fall back on pre-1517 decisions of the Catholic Church, since it seems hard to imagine how his patchwork "church" could ever produce any "settled interpretations" of its own (p308.)
That said, I highly recommend "The Biblical Flood" to anybody who wants to know what to think of the very vocal and self-assured defense made by certain modern Christians of a geographically or anthropologically universal Flood.
That context of extra-biblical knowledge, fortunately, has not stagnated since men first attempted to make sense of the Bible. It has kept expanding and expanding, as observations and improved theories have accumulated in such sciences as geology, biology or geography, requiring ever finer and more informed interpretations of the texts.
In the process, a Biblical book or passage that may rationally have appeared to be historical to some of the greatest minds of the Church may now be revealed to be nothing more than a story, and just as fictional as one of Jesus's parables, whose value does not depend on our finding the bones of the Good Samaritan or the well-preserved oil-lamps of the foolish virgins buried somewhere on mount Ararat.
Taking the story of Noah as an example of the way increasing extra-biblical knowledge has transformed our understanding of Scripture, Young does for it what Jaki did (less charitably perhaps, but with a sounder ecclesiology) for Genesis 1, retracing more than two millenia of intellectual perplexity and progress in order to shed light on modern controversies.
Young clearly shows how problematic certain interpretations have become in the light of what we now know of the way things work: for countless evidential reasons, none of which have to do with "the rationalistic preconceptions of recent centuries", or any bias inherent in modern science other than a fondness for keeping one's eyes open, a literal reading of the Noah story has become untenable, all the efforts of the Woodmorappes of the world to make the impossible look plausible notwithstanding.
The book is not without its flaws. Being a Protestant, the author seems to believe in a Frankenstein monster of a "church" consisting of the Catholic Church until 1517, and then of the collective body of Protestants after that date, seen as having some sort of organic unity and as being continuous with the pre-Reform Catholic Church, while virtually none of the members of the post-1517 Church are deemed worthy of intellectual discussion, let alone of inclusion in the list of the "premier minds" of "the church."
Interestingly, when it comes to determining which aspects of the interpretation of the Bible are "non-negotiable", i.e. impervious to reinterpretation in the light of new evidence, Young has to fall back on pre-1517 decisions of the Catholic Church, since it seems hard to imagine how his patchwork "church" could ever produce any "settled interpretations" of its own (p308.)
That said, I highly recommend "The Biblical Flood" to anybody who wants to know what to think of the very vocal and self-assured defense made by certain modern Christians of a geographically or anthropologically universal Flood.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
YOUNG TURNS HIS ATTENTION FROM "SCIENCE" TO BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION
Davis A. Young is Professor of Geology at Calvin College. He is also the author of Creation and the flood: An alternative to flood geology and theistic evolution, Christianity and... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Steven H. Propp
3.0 out of 5 stars
More Questions than Answers
There is a great deal to be admired in this work, it made me re-evaluate some of my strongly held beliefs that have been with me for decades, it made me think. Read more
Published on June 20, 2010 by Mark (Greek for "Hammer")
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gracious and Thorough
i thoroughly enjoyed this book, as i have another of his books; the bible, rocks and time. he treats the history with authority, and does so in a most gracious manner; so young... Read more
Published on March 4, 2010 by Sunny Ormsby
2.0 out of 5 stars
Of Limited Overall Value
The author does a fairly good job describing the history of the church's understanding of the Noachian Deluge. With few exceptions, the Flood had been accepted as universal. Read more
Published on December 9, 1999
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