Read this? The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth

[ChrissySC]

I was thinking of using it as a spine for a high-school science class - earth & space.

[Denise in Florida]

I have not read it but a quick look at the reviews made me want to put it on my 'to be read' shelf.  Sorry that's not much help.  :001_smile:

 

It sounds good and interesting to me. 

 

I have always felt that accurate teaching of evolution does *NOT interfere with faith. 

 

 

oops, edited to add the 'not'.  :sad:  That really ruined the meaning.

 

For clarification:  I believe in old earth, I believe in both micro and macro evolution over long spans of time. I am a Christian that believes God created the earth and the Bible tells the who and why but science tells the how. Therefore I do not see evolution being inconsistent with faith.

 

Sorry for any confusion

 

[kiana]

No, but it looks like at the very least a good supplement. I don't think it would really cover everything necessary for a spine.

[Jasperstone]

I have not read it but a quick look at the reviews made me want to put it on my 'to be read' shelf.  Sorry that's not much help.  :001_smile:

 

It sounds good and interesting to me. 

 

I have always felt that accurate teaching of evolution does interfere with faith. 

 

 

From what I could see it doesn't teach evolution. Only that the Earth is old and not young etc....

 

Most of those that believe in the Old Earth Creation, or *Gap* do believe in a literal six days of creation. The age of the human race has absolutely NOTHING to do with the age of the earth.

 

 

 

Psalms 102:25, “Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-Rocks-Time-Geological/product-reviews/0830828761/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R1557QE1UCW7BY

[Denise in Florida]

From what I could see it doesn't teach evolution. Only that the Earth is old and not young etc....

 

Most of those that believe in the Old Earth Creation, or *Gap* do believe in a literal six days of creation. The age of the human race has absolutely NOTHING to do with the age of the earth.

 

 

 

Psalms 102:25, “Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-Rocks-Time-Geological/product-reviews/0830828761/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R1557QE1UCW7BY

 

 

So sorry, please see my edited post above. I believe in old earth and in long span evolution. 

 

I do appreciate that some people separate age of earth and length of time of people. 

[ChrissySC]

I should edit to mention one of the spines ...a suppose that does classify as a resource.  :)  LOL

 

So, I went grabbed the Lifepacs for Geology and Space.  Nice little workbook format.  I am very pleased with the topical coverage, but now we need to elevate this material to AP/College-prep status.  :-/

 

OK, shoot me some ideas oh great hive ones.

[Jasperstone]

So sorry, please see my edited post above. I believe in old earth and in long span evolution. 

 

I do appreciate that some people separate age of earth and length of time of people. 

 

 

That's okay, I just wanted to bring it to attention that a belief in Old Earth Creation doesn't automatically equal to an evolution belief etc.... :)

[Pilgrim]

I have read it, though it has been a few years.  "The Bible, Rocks and Time" is probably the best book out there from Christian geologists supporting a traditional old earth perspective.  That said, I would hesitate using it as a spine for a high school class.  The writers teach at a university level and although they write for a large audience...I am sure that it is mostly geared to a college-age audience.  I do think it is an excellent book for the "teacher" to read and to make use of in various ways.  You could even assign sections or discuss some of his evidence and conclusions that run counter to YEC geology.  For those who believe in an Old Earth but not evolution, the authors only deal with geology in the book.  

[ChrissySC]

I have read it, though it has been a few years.  "The Bible, Rocks and Time" is probably the best book out there from Christian geologists supporting a traditional old earth perspective.  That said, I would hesitate using it as a spine for a high school class.  The writers teach at a university level and although they write for a large audience...I am sure that it is mostly geared to a college-age audience.  I do think it is an excellent book for the "teacher" to read and to make use of in various ways.  You could even assign sections or discuss some of his evidence and conclusions that run counter to YEC geology.  For those who believe in an Old Earth but not evolution, the authors only deal with geology in the book.  

 

Thanks.  I needed to hear that.  I need to find something with similar subject matter that is geared for a lower-leveled audience then.  I do think I will get it for me though.  It just looks awesome.  I am one of those old-earth Christians.  :)

[acreecav]

Hi,

I agree with Pilgrim that this book wouldn't work for most high school students.  I read it this winter, and I rely on it still to help me get back to sleep in the middle of the night--not because it's not interesting, but because parts of it are extremely dense and technical:  radiometric dating, eons of time with names like Eocene, Permian, Devonian, Mississippian . . . . zzZZZzzzz z z

 

If you are fine with an old earth, then any mainstream geology textbook would do, and you would need to supplement only the awe-and-wonder factor of recognizing geological processes as belonging to God.  Young's earlier book called Creation and the Flood might work better, but I haven't read it.

 

His book called The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence is also dense, but it's more of a narrative about how Christians through history have interpreted the flood story, and in particular how pragmatic Christians who knew all about feeding animals over a long winter without a nearby feed store focused on calculating, for example, how much feed you'd need on the ark to support so many animals for 4 months and how much room you'd need to store it, how much poop the animals would generate and how everyone would survive not being able to scoop it overboard if the windows couldn't be opened, etc  Once the age of exploration began and new worlds with new animals were discovered, all the calculations were redone to accommodate the new discoveries.  There's lots more to the story, but the short version is that the math never worked, the geologic evidence for a world-wide flood wasn't there, and lots of Christians through time have had to understand the Noah story as something other than literal.

 

What's interesting to me about geology is that the whole field came into being because Christian naturalists in the 1700s/1800s kept bumping into features of the earth--like extinct, eroded volcanoes in France,or sedimentary rock layers in Scotland stacked like pancakes, but up-ended or turned completely on their sides--that didn't fit their own belief that the earth was 6000 years old.  The more they looked, the more they found that they couldn't account for, and they concluded that the earth was much older than they'd thought, long before Darwin came along.  

 

I think it would be fun to teach geology through the eyes of these early Christians (Townsend, Hutton, Fleming, Lyell, and others) like a Crime Scene Investigation episode:  here's the evidence, now what could explain it?  How did they make sense of marine fossils in the Alps, and giant bones of unknown creatures dug up during the Industrial Revolution when mechanical diggers started excavating coal mines and deep foundations for taller buildings?  Who first noticed that the continents looked like jigsaw puzzle pieces, and if the continents had once fit together, what else would this model predict?  Such an approach would fit beautifully with the history of exploration beginning in the 15th century up through the Industrial Revolution and into the 20th century.

 

For studying space, I highly recommend Howard Van Till's The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens are Telling Us About the Creation.  It's probably too dense for your high schooler to read alone, but it would be easy for you to teach from it.  I have a slightly more detailed explanation of it on a guide to resources for teaching evolution and faith that I'm still putting together; the current version is available (free) at http://teachingscienceandfaith.net. 

 

Anyone interested in starting a social group on evolutionary creationism--old earth, ancient universe, evolution of all living things, and how all of this deepens faith?

 

 

[acreecav]

I forgot to say that the guy who put together http://oldearth.org has free curriculum on his website for historical geology.