Two Critical Books about Young-Earth Creationism

I was delighted to provide an endorsement for Derrick Peterson’s new book Flat Earths and Fake Footnotes which will be out soon. Here’s what I wrote:

Derrick Peterson combines painstakingly detailed historical research with a delightful writing style to tell the story of a famous war that never actually happened. Through primary source after primary source Peterson uncovers the neglected truth that the supposedly eternal conflict between religion and science is a myth, not only in the technical sense of a symbolic story that people tell to express their worldview, but also in the popular sense. Despite being something that everyone knows, it never happened. Perhaps because the story of something that didn’t happen is hard to tell compellingly, this truth that is known to many historians, scientists, and theologians is little known to the wider public, and is even unfamiliar to some who ought to know the truth. Peterson shows himself a gifted storyteller as well as scholar, combining true accounts of famous events (which prove no less interesting than the legends that have grown up around them and in some cases have replaced them) with the story of how those events were overlaid and refashioned into the myth so many treat as common knowledge today: the untrue history of the war between religion and science. In an era full of so much untruth, Peterson’s book is a breath of fresh air.

Ben Stanhope also has a new book out that I recommend. The title is (Mis)interpreting Genesis: How the Creation Museum Misunderstands the Ancient Near Eastern Context of the Bible. In it he asks great questions such as, “Why would God beat up a poor Liopleurodon at the end of days in Isa 27:1?” Ben Stanhope has dedicated many years to combatting the misinformation circulated by young-earth creationists in print and online. In this book, we see the fruit of his labors and a clear demonstration of his love for the Bible and dedication to understanding it in its historical and cultural context–something that young-earth creationists refuse to do. The result is a monumental work spanning hundreds of pages that doesn’t merely show what is wrong with exhibits and claims associated with the Creation Museum and the organization behind it Answers in Genesis. The book offers a positive and remarkably thorough survey of the relevant biblical texts (both the ones young-earth creationists twist and the ones they conveniently ignore) as well as of relevant archaeological data that helps us understand how those texts would have most likely been understood in their own time and place. In short, the book offers a compelling case for how to interpret the biblical material about creation that is more honest and more genuinely biblical in character than what one finds in the homeschooling and other literature promoted by the Creation Museum and other organizations like it. All those concerned not only about the state of science education in the United States, but also the decline in biblical literacy, owe Stanhope a debt of gratitude.

Here are the contents of his book: