Questioning History
- Part 2
by Gary DeMar
In
yesterday’s article, I pointed out that the record of history
has been used, manipulated, and even forged to manufacture results in
order to support a questionable paradigm. This is most evident in the
area of the sciences. The Copernican Revolution and the Galileo affair
are two of the major pillars holding up the science versus religion
scam. (In reality it’s scientism versus religion.) A helio-centric
(sun-centered) solar system was not self-evident by simple observation.
It required a great deal of mathematical proofing to overturn what was
observable common sense.1
Furthermore, for the average person there was little to be gained from
moving to a geo-centric to a helio-centric cosmology. In fact, if you
check your local newspaper, the cosmologically inaccurate “sun rise” and
“sun set” are still used. Unless we’re trying to predict the observed
phases of Venus, we can get along quite well with geo-centrism.
It’s unfortunate that some
authorities in the church adopted the bad science of the day and used it
as a grid through which the Bible was interpreted. Aristotle became the
exegetical touchstone when it came to cosmology and ethics. Galileo was
doing the church a favor by moving away from a paradigm that was
misrepresenting the Bible. Here’s how Peter Harrison explains it in the
Introduction to The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural
Science:
“It is commonly supposed that
when in the early modern period individuals began to look at the
world in a different way, they could no longer believe what they
read in the Bible. In this book I shall suggest that the reverse is
the case: that when in the sixteenth century people began to read
the Bible in a different way, they found themselves forced to
jettison traditional conceptions of the world.”2
Galileo’s problem was that he could
not supply the requested support evidence when challenged by the
scientists of the day.3
His arrogance didn’t help either.
Challenging those who appeal to
history to make their case is a valid investigative and apologetic
approach. Paul didn’t condemn the Bereans when they wanted to check his
claims against the text of Scripture (Acts 17:11). Ad fontes,
“to the fountain,” that is “to the sources” should be the Christian’s
constant rallying cry.
So I was pleased at one level when I
received the following email from a professor at a Christian college:
"I was recently challenged by one
of my students when I made reference to your article in the
October/November Biblical Worldview in reference to the
prophecies of Daniel. In that article you referred to Hal
Lindsey’s intimation in his 1970 “Late Great Planet Earth” that the
“this generation” of Matthew 24:34 could mathematically come about
in 1988. My student said that no such date had ever been suggested
by Lindsey and that I had no proof of his asserting 1988. I informed
him that Lindsey himself had suggested he would be viewed as a “bum”
if 1988 did not pan out. He was not convinced. When I tried to
recover the April 15, 1977 Christianity Today in which Ward
Gasque questioned Lindsey on this matter, I was not successful.
Could you help me find this 1977 article? Would it be possible for
you to send an attachment copy of it? I would like to help this
student but I don’t think he will be convinced by your article
alone. Your magazine is excellent. Thank you for your good work.
Thank you also for any help you could provide regarding the above."
The skeptical student did a good
thing in questioning the source of my claim. The professor should also
be commended for attempting to track down the support document that I
used to make my claim against Lindsey. I’m a bit dismayed, however, with
the attitude of the student. He had not done his historical research to
assert dogmatically “that no such date had ever been suggested by
Lindsey” and that there was no proof that he had made the 1948–1988
connection. The student put himself in a precarious position. If
incontrovertible proof is found to support my thesis over his claim,
what happens to his tightly held paradigm?
I suggested to the professor that he
ask the following questions of his student before he shows him the
evidence I supplied to him:
-
“If I show the supporting
documentation that Mr. DeMar used to make his points, what will this
mean to you?”
-
“Will it change the way you
understand this subject?”
Sometimes arguments like the one
voiced by this student are smoke screens. Once the evidence is supplied,
they will move on to another objection. “Yes, Lindsey may have been
wrong, but his misguided statements don’t mean that the belief system as
a whole is wrong.” True enough. This is why I often ask skeptics to lay
all their objections on the table. After they do this, I then ask: “If I
answer all of them, will you then believe?” This is a test question to
see how serious they are about the truth.
So, did Hal Lindsey make the
1948–1988 connection? He certainly did. There are millions of copies of
The Late Great Planet Earth floating around. You can read his
claim in chapter 4, “Israel,
O
Israel” under the heading Perfect Parable.
The article by Ward Gasque is more
difficult to locate. You won’t find a copy anywhere on the Internet. It
is cited a number of times, most of them by me. I first saw it in a book
written by Samuele Bacchiocchi in
Hal Lindsey’s Prophetic
Jigsaw Puzzle: Five Predictions that Failed!4
After some research digging a few years ago, I was able to find a copy.
Here is the section where Lindsey admits he made the 1948–1988
connection:
Take note of a couple of things.
First, Lindsey changed his view on the length of a generation. In
Late Great Planet Earth he wrote, “A generation in the Bible is
something like forty years or so. If this is a correct deduction, then
within forty years or so of 1948, all these things could take place.
Many scholars who have studied Bible prophecy all their lives believe
that this is so.” Notice in the 1977 interview with Gasque that
Lindsey changed his time scale for a generation from “forty years or so”
to “somewhere between sixty and eighty years.” Second, he states (see
the red section), “There are a lot of world leaders who are pointing to
the 1980s as being the time of some momentous events. But I feel
certain that it will take place before the year 2000.” Third,
notice how Lindsey appeals to unnamed “scholars” and “world leaders” to
lend support to his unsubstantiated claims. Fourth, he brushes off the
significance of his prophetic claims as if they would not call into
question the integrity of the Bible: “But if I’m wrong about this, I
guess I’ll become a bum.” Fifth, Lindsey knew the claims he had made in
1970 and how people interpreted them. He was counting on the people who
first read Late Great Planet Earth to forget what he had
written or at least forgive him for going out on a prophetic limb,
hoping a new generation of prophecy seekers wouldn’t check his older
works, and breathing a sigh of relief that an obscure 1977 interview
would never see the light of day.
Of course, Lindsey is not the
only one who treats history this way. Secularists have been getting away
with it for centuries. It’s time to call them on it.
Gary DeMar is the President for
American Vision.
FOOTNOTES
-
See Simon Singh, Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe (New
York: 4th Estate, 2004), 68–69.
-
Peter Harrison, The
Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), Introduction.
-
For a helpful
accounting of this history, see Philip J. Sampson, “Galileo,”
6 Modern Myths About Christianity and Western Civilization (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 27–46.
-
Samuele Bacchiocchi,
Hal Lindsey’s Prophetic
Jigsaw Puzzle: Five Predictions that Failed! (Berrien
Springs, MI: Biblical Perspectives, 1987), 54. For an
update by Bacchiocchi of similar end-time speculations that have
fallen flat and the repeated reference to the Gasque-Lindsey
interview, go to
website link here.
