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ETS 2001: Boundaries on creation and Noah's Flood: Early 19
th
century British Scriptural Geologists
Terry Mortenson, PhD


tmortenson@AnswersInGenesis.org
P. 11
a number reflected his strong commitment to see good textbooks available for the education of
children, aged 10-18 years. Many of these books went through several editions and included class
books on the natural history of the earth, botany, geology, zoology, meteorology, physical
geography, and elementary geography. In 1829 he published the first thorough work on the nature
and cure of intestinal worms in the human body. His magnum opus discussing living and fossil
plants was his 700-page History of the Vegetable Kingdom, which first appeared in about 1841
and went through eight editions up to 1877. In addition to his books, Rhind published several
scientific journal articles on various topics: a species of worm in sheep (1830), the erroneous idea
of spontaneous generation of living creatures (1830), the geological arrangement of the strata
(1844), the hydrology of the British Isles (1855), and coal found in Seil Island, Argyleshire (1858).
His books dealing directly with geology at an adult level were three. In 1833 he produced a
book of excursions around Edinburgh, which illustrated the geology and natural history of the area
and received high scientific reviews, especially for its accurate geological information. In 1842 he
published The Geology of Scotland and Its Islands, a purely descriptive work, which he hoped
would stimulate further geological research by local geologists. But the work in which Rhind
discussed geological theory was The Age of the Earth, published in 1838. In it he presented his
Biblical and geological reasons for rejecting the old-earth theories.
The Scriptural geologists' BIBLICAL arguments against old-earth geology
As would be expected they did not write identical works. But there were a number of
Biblical and geological objections that were shared by many, and sometimes all, of the Scriptural
geologists.
With regard to Biblical objections, some of them gave quite detailed refutations of the
various old-earth re-interpretations of Genesis. But two important general criticisms commonly
appeared. First, they contended that these old-earth compromise views were only possible if
Christians superficially read Genesis 1-11 and ignored other relevant Scriptures. Nearly all old-
earth proponents ignored two critically important passages, even though they insisted that their
views did not contradict Scripture. Those passages were the account of Noah's Flood in Gen. 6-9
and the Fourth commandment in Ex. 20:11. Yet these passages were referred to by nearly all the
Scriptural geologists, who saw them as fatal to the old-earth theories. So the Scriptural geologists
insisted that one could not legitimately speak of the harmony between the Bible and old-earth
geological theory, if one paid scant attention to what the Bible actual says.
Another major Biblical objection of the Scriptural geologists was related to the Biblical
teaching about death. The old-earth theories postulated long ages of violence, death and
destruction in the creation before the creation and fall of man. But the Scriptural geologists argued
that the Bible says that God brought death into the world when He judged man and the whole
creation because of man's sin. So the vast geological ages proposed by the old-earth geologists
could not possibly have taken place. Rather the geological evidence of death, violence and
extinction pointed primarily, though not exclusively, to Noah's flood. Modern, young-earth
creationists are still using this argument today.
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For a popular treatment, see these Web articles: http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-191.htm and