Combating Culture Issues with Tim Chaffey

[00:00:00] thanks for being here this evening you’re with kevin conover on educate for life radio and we are broadcasting from

[00:00:05] southern california k praise 12 10 a.m uh down here all over southern california

[00:00:11] and uh i have a guest on our show this evening that that uh was also on the show a while back talking about the

[00:00:17] nephilim and uh if you’ve if you’ve uh you’ve probably heard of it nephilim are one of the most popular

[00:00:22] uh discussions that takes place in the bible and and uh just because they’re so mysterious and so interesting but if

[00:00:29] you’re interested in that you can check out our our former radio show our previous radio show where we talked about that um tim has actually

[00:00:36] written a book on the nephilim and uh and it explains everything goes into a great detail about the nephilim and what

[00:00:42] they are and and uh his book is called fallen the sons of god and the nephilim and uh tim thanks a lot for being on the

[00:00:49] program this evening hey thanks kevin it’s good to be with you fantastic and um you work as the content

[00:00:55] manager um with uh answers in genesis the in the attractions division um i

[00:01:01] think that’s pretty cool that you have get to um lay out the attractions with the ark and all that’s going on and

[00:01:07] answers in genesis that’s got to be a pretty exciting job yeah it really is um it’s it’s a dream

[00:01:12] job i tell people i never get up on a monday morning and say oh it’s monday i don’t have to because i love what i do

[00:01:19] i love the people that i work with uh it’s it’s really uh fantastic and um you know you

[00:01:25] mentioned the nephilim and then you mentioned my job right there i should probably throw on a disclaimer that answers the genesis doesn’t take an official position on the sons of god in

[00:01:32] the nephilim so what people would read in my book would be a would be representing my view and not necessarily those of the ministry but um

[00:01:39] yeah i get to work with the design design team i’m the writer um a writer i’ve got an assistant who helps with

[00:01:45] that too and so that means what you read when you go through the arc or through any of the new exhibits at the museum uh that’s

[00:01:51] what i’m responsible for for developing and writing and i work with extremely

[00:01:57] talented uh designers and artists who make all the exhibits that you see in both places they’re they’re really incredible

[00:02:04] yeah that is phenomenal i i mean um the you know when people visit the the ark

[00:02:09] and everything they talk about how uh just amazing it is how well done it is and um

[00:02:14] and it’s also really interesting to me that you you’re looking into a lot of the stuff historically with noah and the ark and

[00:02:21] these sorts of things and you’re kind of filling in a lot of the gaps that um you know when you read the text you don’t

[00:02:26] necessarily think about all the different things but when you actually have to build a boat right build the

[00:02:32] actual arc you have to think about a lot more details that you don’t necessarily think about just reading the scripture

[00:02:38] yeah we you do and one of the things we did about it maybe six months after we opened um

[00:02:44] we put up a series of signs at the very beginning when you walk in it’s called arctis license

[00:02:50] um because funny yeah well what was it what was happening is we decided to name the women on the

[00:02:56] ark and we we know the bible doesn’t do that and when we were clear that we’re using artistic license we put that in a

[00:03:01] few exhibits where where that was more prevalent than others but we would get about once a week we’d

[00:03:07] get complaints that would be sent to me either through phone or through email um you know how dare you guys add to

[00:03:13] scripture by naming the women and you know those sorts of things but they would never complain about how the people looked what the animals looked

[00:03:20] like uh yeah what um what the ship looked like you know what the ark looked like everything that you

[00:03:26] see in there in a sense is artistic license we know the size we know the three decks we know two of each kind

[00:03:33] and you know seven pairs of some had to be on board the arc as well so we know certain details but the the look and

[00:03:39] feel of it and and all of those things that all of that has artistic license and for some reason

[00:03:44] naming the women was the thing that really upset a lot of people and uh but we did that because we wanted people to

[00:03:50] think of them as real individuals and yes sometimes people say well why not just mrs ham or mrs noah because that

[00:03:56] wasn’t their name that’s funny we don’t know what they were but we gave them names uh to help you realize that

[00:04:02] they were real people yeah you know and um along those same lines i think it’s um interesting you um

[00:04:09] you co-authored the truth chronicles um and you also

[00:04:14] wrote extensively about kind of the backstory of um noah and the ark

[00:04:20] um you have that series i believe noah man of destiny no a man of resolve and noah man of god yeah the remnant trilogy

[00:04:27] yeah can you tell us a little bit about that and how um you know why you moved forward with that and and uh just what

[00:04:33] the experience was writing that because that’s really interesting yeah so you mentioned the truth chronicles that’s a youth fiction series

[00:04:40] that uh actually i just finished we had done six books uh we started back in

[00:04:45] 2010 uh to the nines when we started writing them but the first the first few were published in 2010 then we did three

[00:04:51] more over the next few years and then because of the arc and because of this noah series i’m going to talk about those books got put on hold for a long

[00:04:58] time and last year i finally returned to it and now there’s 10 of them in the series i’ve got a lot of really positive

[00:05:04] feedback you know time travel events referred for junior high students

[00:05:09] junior high on up and uh and those are those are apologetics oriented is that right yes absolutely yeah that was the

[00:05:15] goal is you’ve got um this young lady who’s defending her faith to her you know with her friends who at the start

[00:05:21] of the series are unbelievers i don’t want to spoil it as far as what happens i can’t say that they don’t all remain

[00:05:27] that way um but yeah it really gets into apologetics especially concerning genesis 1 through 11 so from creation

[00:05:33] all the way up through babel and then also what it means to have a biblical worldview and how you can witness to

[00:05:39] your friends and there’s even a study guide that goes along with it as well um so one of the things we did with the

[00:05:45] noah series uh the the remnant trilogy i wanted to have well i was asked for one of our exhibits

[00:05:51] to write a fictional backstory for noah and uh how he could have acquired the

[00:05:56] skills that he obviously had based on the very few details we have in scripture and so i came up with a storyline and

[00:06:03] started sharing that with the people i was working with and with my supervisors and and a lot of people really liked it

[00:06:08] and somebody said you should turn that into a novel and i thought i don’t want to write a novel about noah

[00:06:14] yeah someday i’m going to meet him and yeah i don’t want him to slap me or say what were you thinking yeah where

[00:06:20] did you get that from yeah exactly i was way smarter than that what were you thinking um and so i

[00:06:25] thought you know if there’s a way that i can continually point people back to scripture

[00:06:31] and help them separate story from scripture you know my ideas are things

[00:06:36] that we’re filling in from god’s inspired word and also cause them to think deeper about scripture then i’ll do it and so

[00:06:43] that’s what we did throughout all three books in the series uh it take it takes you on a it’s a historical fiction takes

[00:06:49] you from noah as a young man setting out on his own up until the time of the flood and you get to see uh some of the maybe what that world was

[00:06:56] was like uh how it started to get as bad as it was and

[00:07:02] uh what it would be like to be a godly man in that society and um yeah there’s a lot of adventure uh

[00:07:08] there’s some a lot of fun especially in the first book book and a half it’s uh it can be a little more lighthearted

[00:07:14] but the world’s got to go dark and so yeah it was tricky how do you how do you display or how do you depict an

[00:07:19] extremely wicked world in a family-friendly way and that was a challenge we we had with that series and the challenge we had

[00:07:26] with the ark as well you know if you if you depict that pre-flood world is too mild

[00:07:32] then it makes god look cruel and unjust but if you depict them in a if it’s

[00:07:39] overly you know if you’re showing too much then you’re gonna offend your supporters and people come and it’s not

[00:07:45] appropriate for families and so there’s always that fine line to walk and some people think we crossed it some people

[00:07:50] think you should have gone a lot farther and i think we for the most part i think we were on that line yeah so what was um

[00:07:57] what was the most interesting part about writing that that the backstory for noah um what are some of the things that you’ve you found to be really uh

[00:08:04] engaging for yourself yeah while trying to figure out what he would have been like you know you you

[00:08:10] hear the traditional view of noah that he you know a lot of the different books that are written about him you know he

[00:08:15] maybe he grew grapes you know before the flood and and maybe he liked his drink a little too much and it’s like the bible

[00:08:22] actually says he became a man of the soil and that’s after the flood it doesn’t say that’s what he was doing beforehand so the way we depicted him is that

[00:08:30] you know maybe he was already a shipbuilder because the way that god often does things just he prepares his people for

[00:08:36] the tasks that he’s going to call them to you know so by the time god says hey come and do this the person’s okay i can

[00:08:42] do that you’ve been preparing me for the last 30 years or whatever i didn’t know that’s what i was going to do but god knew

[00:08:48] and so maybe noah was already a shipbuilder so when god says no build the arkey okay how big yeah

[00:08:54] okay well that’s really big but it’s gonna take a while um so how long how long did it take for noah to build the

[00:09:00] ark yeah we would say it’s a maximum of 50 to 75 years now there’s some people who

[00:09:05] think oh it was 120 because genesis 6 3 says man’s days will be 120 years and

[00:09:10] even if that’s a reference to the flood which i i there are that’s not what the majority of scholars would say they said

[00:09:16] it’s a reduction of man’s lifespan but even even if that is a of countdown of the flood it never says this is when noah started building the ark or god

[00:09:22] told noah this message at this time uh the blood and the ark aren’t mentioned for several more verses

[00:09:28] and um when god told noah to build it he said it’s going to be for you your wife your sons and your son’s wife’s with you

[00:09:34] that’s who that covenant is going to be made with it sounds like the boys were already grown up and married when god said noah build the ark and since the

[00:09:40] oldest was born of noah was 500 the flood came and he was 600 you’ve got that hundred year window for the boys to

[00:09:46] be born grow up get married and god say noah build the ark so if it takes 25 to 50 years for the

[00:09:52] boys to grow up and get married subtract that from the 100 years and you get a 50 to 75 year window and maybe it didn’t

[00:09:58] even take that long and i mean if you think about building something out of wood for 50 years you start way down on one end and you

[00:10:04] finally finish all the way down on the other end you’ve probably got repairs to do down here because wood doesn’t do a great job

[00:10:10] out in the elements

[00:10:17] um yeah i don’t i don’t have your audio oh sorry about that tim i was i was saying uh if if you’re just

[00:10:24] tuning in if you’re listening and you’re just tuning in my guest this evening is tim chaffee and he’s with answers in genesis.org but you can also check him

[00:10:32] out on his own apologetics website as well risenman.com that’s an apologetics

[00:10:39] ministry that he started risen ministries risenman.com and he’s got quite a few different books that he’s

[00:10:44] written on a variety of different apologetic subjects but i think if you’re a if you’re a

[00:10:50] parent and you’re looking for something to really engage your kids with um that they can also learn about god

[00:10:56] but also find entertaining there’s a great series that he has for

[00:11:01] youth on noah as well as um uh the truth chronicles also so you can check that out yeah thank you well the

[00:11:07] one thing i should mention about the noah series is it’s written in conjunction with the exhibits at the arc so every book has a has a section at the

[00:11:14] end called encounter this because i knew the props we were making i knew the animals that were being sculpted i

[00:11:20] knew all the things we were putting in the exhibit so i wrote a lot of those into the story and it’ll say hey remember this thing that noah does in

[00:11:26] chapter 12 well you can go see that on deck three in this exhibit it’s gonna help that kind of helps to come to life a little bit all a lot of the signs when

[00:11:32] we’re talking about the the the family members they’re integrated with what’s in the series so if you read

[00:11:38] that book series before you go to the ark you’re going to see a lot of things that most people won’t catch that’s

[00:11:44] great and now along those same lines you know with the the ministry building the ark was phenomenal and you guys have had

[00:11:50] uh millions of visitors through there checking it out it’s had such an incredible impact and

[00:11:56] in my classes i teach uh 12th grade apologetics and i put up um a little cartoon map that answers in genesis

[00:12:03] published quite a while ago and it has the ark in it but then off to the side it has the tower of babel and uh my

[00:12:10] students always look at it and they’re like wait a second they’re gonna build the tower of babel and uh i go well

[00:12:16] it looks like that might be on the horizon and and they’re always like mr conover but do you think that’s really a good idea i mean what’s going on is god

[00:12:23] gonna change the languages again right so it’s pretty funny but um so tell us about that what’s what’s going on with

[00:12:30] um the tower of babel with answers in genesis you know it’s interesting that your students are responding that way because we’ve we’ve got quite a few

[00:12:36] responses like that as well whether it’s through facebook or emails or phone calls and people are pretty up some people are

[00:12:43] really concerned that we’re doing that um and it’s to me it’s interesting because

[00:12:48] that map you’re talking about that was done back in 2010 that has always been part of the the plan the entire park is

[00:12:55] that we would have a babel attraction and and the reason for that is it’s a huge part of the biblical

[00:13:02] worldview when we talk about what we call the seven seas of history beginning with you know this perfect creation and

[00:13:08] then corruption when man sins you’ve got the catastrophe of the flood and then the next one is confusion which is the

[00:13:14] babel event and so we use that to talk about the origin of languages the origin

[00:13:19] of the different people groups that we see around the world and it’s a big component of those seven c’s and so

[00:13:26] that’s always been part of the plan and i i don’t know if it’s just people didn’t remember that or maybe they weren’t aware of that at the time

[00:13:33] and yeah there are people who are concerned like well this is something that god wasn’t in favor of so why would you be building something that god is

[00:13:39] not in favor of well we’ve got exhibits on babel in the ark and also at the creation museum to

[00:13:45] explain you know the details i just mentioned and there doesn’t seem to be any concern there

[00:13:51] um but for some reason they think if you’re building this tower that’s something

[00:13:56] that is you know not honoring god but we’re not building the tower of babel

[00:14:01] we’re building a modern structure that is meant to um

[00:14:07] to teach people about that event and how man rebelled against god once again

[00:14:12] after the flood after god gave them an opportunity to restart um and they didn’t they rebelled and then

[00:14:18] god judged them you know through this confusion of language and and the other things that took place there

[00:14:25] so it’s again it’s another picture of god’s just judgment on on wicked humanity and also

[00:14:32] you know babel plays a huge role in the theology of scripture that a lot of people overlook and what we what we see

[00:14:38] at pentecost is a reversal in many ways of babel you know at babel god does this miracle of language

[00:14:45] where he you know confuses their language and suddenly you have all these languages that pentecost the disciples are speaking and everybody hears them in

[00:14:51] their own language um at babel god scatters the nations and he essentially

[00:14:57] says you know i’m done with you you look at deuteronomy 32 8 and he he kind of he disinherits the nations

[00:15:02] and then he said but i’m going to start with one man and i’m going to you know bring my plan

[00:15:08] to fruition and of course he calls abram in the next chapter and then at pentecost was they say now

[00:15:13] take it out to all the nations you know they met rather than just through that one man through that one nation israel now it’s going to go out to the rest of

[00:15:19] the world yeah and so babel and pentecost uh really

[00:15:24] kind of balance um maybe that’s not the right way but are two ends of this this

[00:15:29] narrative that you see in scripture yeah and uh yeah i think it’s really important not only to understand scripture rightly

[00:15:35] but also not understand who we are uh as human beings in this world today to take

[00:15:40] that back to babel yeah there’s so much that’s uh incredibly interesting about that and um you know that the

[00:15:48] what we’re dealing with with racism especially recently with the um crt is in the schools now and

[00:15:55] it’s causing all kinds of problems um i was just reading about a teacher that was just recently fired for

[00:16:01] uh in i believe indiana for um uh calling out the the school board and

[00:16:08] everybody else about that this was being taught in the schools and and we’re seeing segregation it’s bizarre it’s like some sort of twilight zone uh

[00:16:16] situation where you’re you never i had never thought this was gonna we were gonna go backwards but now we’re seeing

[00:16:22] literally segregated um uh playground times and we’re seeing segregated

[00:16:28] uh you know whatever picnics and all kinds of crazy stuff that you’re you’re like what is happening

[00:16:34] um and the tower of babel really is relevant to that issue because people say well if god may if everybody came

[00:16:41] from two people um then how did all the races develop and and you know what happened there um can you give us a

[00:16:47] little bit of apologetics on that uh you know what is the biblical world view there and and you know really the

[00:16:53] scientific explanation for um the races and how that originated from the tower bevel

[00:16:59] yeah and just to clarify what we refer to when we’re when we’re talking about brt critical race theory um the way that

[00:17:05] it is spun to a lot of people is well we’re just teaching the history about race in america no that’s not what

[00:17:10] critical race theory is critical race theory is what you talked about it’s segregation it’s ranking

[00:17:16] people it’s judging people based on the color of their skin if if you’re if you look more like me if your skin color

[00:17:21] then you’re obviously a racist or you obviously are favored or you you have these advantages and people who who have

[00:17:29] a darker skin shade that they’re disadvantaged and therefore they deserve these things you know i’m privileged

[00:17:34] they’re not and it it’s judging people based on the color of their skin which has always been the definition of

[00:17:41] racism yeah um but the way they they pitch it is no we’re you just don’t want people to

[00:17:46] learn about the the wrongs in society or the things that have happened no teach those things and teach the good as well

[00:17:53] teach the you know from growing up when i did in the 80s and 90s

[00:17:59] racism was quickly becoming a thing of the past now i’m not saying every single place

[00:18:05] that no matter where you went in america that that it never was there that’s not what i’m saying but for the most part it it was

[00:18:13] in the rearview min mirror at least quite a ways and we were taught to not see color

[00:18:19] it’s not that you don’t know that somebody has a different skin shade or something but yeah you don’t

[00:18:25] treat them differently as a you know because that’s how i was raised and um and i think that’s the right way because we’re all human yeah there truly there’s

[00:18:32] only one race the human race and yet this critical race theory what it really is

[00:18:39] it’s a it’s a it’s part of marxism where you will you stir up as much

[00:18:45] division and strife as possible you want division you don’t want unity and so you divide people by uh gender you divide

[00:18:52] people by religion you divide people by quote-unquote race you divide people as as much as you can so that they’re

[00:18:58] constantly fighting and the government has to step in to control more and more and more yeah this is if divide and conquer is really what what’s happening

[00:19:04] and uh absolutely well think of how how much that contrasts with martin luther king jr

[00:19:10] you know what what did he say that you know that uh um

[00:19:16] black or white protestant or catholic would be able to join hands and sing in the words of free at last you know

[00:19:22] that that people would be judged by the content he wanted his kids to be judged by the content of their character not by

[00:19:27] the color of their skin yep amen to the i mean what a radically different

[00:19:32] message that’s being preached by crt and groups like blm uh in total contrast to martin luther

[00:19:39] king jr and what what he was advocating yeah actually if if i were to say those words today somebody would somebody from

[00:19:46] crt would brand me as a racist it’s just martin luther king jr it’s remarkable um so how does babel uh

[00:19:54] address that issue well what we’ve always taught at answers in genesis is

[00:20:00] and i think many creationist organization organizations have done this as well um we believe that all

[00:20:07] humanity goes back to noah and his wife and before that back to adam and eve you

[00:20:12] know god didn’t make a whole bunch of different people you know some of them white some of them dark he made adam and eve

[00:20:18] and we believe that they were probably somewhat middle brown and from that you can get any one of the

[00:20:24] skin colors throughout the spectrum and uh when you get down to noah and his

[00:20:29] wife and then the their sons and their wives maybe there was more

[00:20:34] diversity by that point uh you’d think that noah you think that the suns would be rather similar

[00:20:40] not necessarily but they’re they’re close very closely related their genetics would be more similar right than the than their wives

[00:20:47] yeah most likely yep yeah and unless they married three sisters or something yeah but it’s possible what’s happened right i

[00:20:54] think so yeah yeah and um yeah so

[00:20:59] they would be more similar the diversity you see on the ark would probably be among the daughters-in-law for the most part um but after the flood

[00:21:06] you know people stayed together for the most part they were supposed to fill the earth and they refuse they

[00:21:11] gather together so you’re gonna continually have this mixing so you’re probably going to be for the most part close to middle brown

[00:21:17] you’re not going to be getting um you know really really light and really really dark until people separate and

[00:21:24] are com and are separated by uh whether it’s rivers or mountains or oceans or other things and you just have

[00:21:31] a smaller group continually mixing just with but with

[00:21:36] themselves then you’re not going to get this broader swath of genetic diversity so

[00:21:44] that’s a i have a question about that does answers in genesis have a position on do they believe that that’s that was

[00:21:51] god’s reasoning for wanting people to you know spread out um

[00:21:57] and uh what is there a is there an answer in scripture on that or is that something that we’re um you know kind of

[00:22:03] theoretical on well i think that we can i think there’s certain assumptions that we can make that are pretty safe and

[00:22:10] some things we can say theologically that i think are very are very safe uh one of the reasons god wanted us to

[00:22:15] spread out and you look back at what he told adam be fruitful multiply it fill the earth and subdue it um so he wanted

[00:22:21] man to rule over the earth uh to uh to study it to learn about it to um

[00:22:28] well to rule over it that’s what he he called this dude it doesn’t mean that when he gave us dominion it doesn’t mean to dominate that you abuse things we’re

[00:22:35] supposed to use those things for our good and his glory and when

[00:22:42] at the time of babel one of the things that happens is you see when people come together

[00:22:50] and they’re congregating evil tends to um increase at a much faster

[00:22:56] rate and interesting so one of the things that if if he says if um

[00:23:02] you know that he wanted them to scatter but they refused if they do this thing nothing will be withheld from them so he came down he

[00:23:09] confused their language which forced them to separate it was a way of curbing their wickedness oh that’s interesting

[00:23:16] yeah which is what a lot of people think was happening in genesis 6 3 2 where he says man’s days will be 120 years rather

[00:23:21] than used to live to 900 something yeah and look at how wicked you became now because of that you know just 120 years

[00:23:28] it’s a way of curbing man’s wickedness and ultimately that he’s going to bring his messiah that bring the savior into

[00:23:34] this world um so people yeah in a sense he is scattering them so

[00:23:40] they will fill the earth like he wanted uh so that that wickedness is um

[00:23:46] is um kind of different yeah mitigate it yeah yep um and so i think those are a couple

[00:23:53] of reasons and yeah there’s something else going on that a lot of times people don’t realize in scripture at that point

[00:24:00] deuteronomy 32 8 i mentioned before 8 9 god disinherits the nation he puts them

[00:24:06] under the control of other um of other beings i’ll leave it at that for now and but then he says in verse

[00:24:13] nine israel is my heritage jacob is my allotted portion so in other words um

[00:24:19] i’m going to let the nations go off on their own and i’m not going to rule over them in a sense

[00:24:25] and i’m going to start my own out of this one guy and i’m still going to win

[00:24:31] and that’s what happens yeah and so um so put the nations under the the power

[00:24:36] of um like spiritual forces evil spiritual forces yeah and um

[00:24:42] so i wanted to also ask you about that where he says

[00:24:48] because this is an interesting phrase where in some versions of the bible it says um nothing

[00:24:54] nothing that they uh do will be impossible for them or uh you

[00:25:00] you phrased it um will be withheld from them um can you can you break that down for

[00:25:05] us theologically what what’s going on there why does god say uh because it almost in in one sense i had a student

[00:25:10] say to me well mr connor isn’t that a good thing i mean they could do anything i mean just you know teamwork

[00:25:17] we can do anything right and uh so so um what what can you explain that to us

[00:25:23] yeah if man’s intentions were good that would be a good thing

[00:25:28] but man’s intentions are not good and if what they’re trying to do is is overthrow god’s rule or to

[00:25:36] you know to try to stop his plan from coming to fruition

[00:25:41] no that’s not a good thing you know if not that man is powerful enough to stop god from what he’s doing but if

[00:25:49] you know somehow man was able well for example if

[00:25:54] um later on in scripture during the years of the divided kingdom when uh

[00:25:59] baby joash is hidden by jehoiada’s wife uh from

[00:26:04] athaliah the evil queen if if if jehoiada’s wife did not hide that little baby joash and athaliah killed

[00:26:12] joash as well as all the rest of the brothers jesus can’t come as a descendant of david oh wow yeah and so that messianic

[00:26:19] line gets down to just this one king and if it’s not for that

[00:26:25] or the kingly line gets down to just one one baby boy and if it wasn’t for that action then

[00:26:32] then this promise that he’d be a descendant of david is not going to come to pass

[00:26:37] yeah that’s uh that’s one of the things i’ve i’ve always thought is that um you know one of the the ways the devil i

[00:26:43] think thinks he can win is by making god out to be a liar and so if he can thwart prophecy that

[00:26:49] got the promises of god for the future then he figures that i’ve proven your your word is false and so he’s he’s all

[00:26:56] over the place trying to uh figure out what god is doing and at the same time trying to stop that from happening

[00:27:02] yeah absolutely well what other chance does he have he can’t overpower him yeah

[00:27:07] and um yeah so even if he what would happen if if somehow he

[00:27:13] made it so god did lie which he won’t i mean he can’t because god can’t lie but he keeps crying and so i think he’s

[00:27:19] going to take as many of us with him as he can yeah exactly so um one other thing i thought was

[00:27:25] really interesting um and i uh you may or may not know the answer to this but

[00:27:30] uh i believe one of the flood stories i was reading about actually references um

[00:27:36] the tower of babel it’s um it might be the aztec legend i can’t remember which one it is but it it

[00:27:43] specifically says that they wanted to build the tower so

[00:27:48] that they would not if a flood came again that that they wouldn’t die that it would be tall enough that they could

[00:27:54] go to the top of it and escape the waters um is that have you heard that

[00:27:59] yeah i’ve heard that there there are certain uh there are several groups that that think that’s why

[00:28:04] the people were building this tower um i don’t think that’s why they were doing it but i can see how

[00:28:10] as these legends get handed down year after generation after generation and you get these little distortions or you

[00:28:16] get a a melding of them so you have flood legends all over the place you have creation myths that are very similar you

[00:28:22] know man being made from the dust to the ground yeah the wind coming along making them live or a great spirit you know

[00:28:28] breathing into them um you have the reason man dies and the man or the man is sinful

[00:28:33] now has something to do with a tree and or a serpent you find that all over the globe yeah

[00:28:38] you have the the flood legends and you in many places you have these babble legends so i can see how those could

[00:28:44] kind of get fused together and so maybe there’s a that confusion over the confusion with babel and

[00:28:52] with what itself unintended right but i don’t think that’s what they were doing i think what

[00:28:57] was probably going on there talks about who’s top is in the heavens you know building this tower they want to make a name for themselves

[00:29:03] there are a lot of people who think that what they were doing what the top had to do something with um

[00:29:11] you could say false words worship of false gods or something that they it was a religious thing uh that was not um

[00:29:18] not what not worshiping the true god if you look at the so many cultures around the world uh especially around the

[00:29:25] middle east you have the people that with this idea that they would meet their god or gods on the mountains or

[00:29:31] their god dwelt on the mountains so you have you know the greeks for the olympic with the olympian gods is

[00:29:37] probably the most famous but then you also have the canaanites uh you know thought that uh baal was on top

[00:29:44] of a mountain you know the ugaritic people thought that l was on top of one of the mountains you had all these different ideas all around israel

[00:29:52] so if you don’t have a mountain in your region what do you do you build one and if you look at the names of a lot of

[00:29:58] those different temple structures or some of you know ziggurats throughout the middle east it’s a lot of times it’s

[00:30:04] like this uh stairway between heaven and earth and you know this connection point where they’re going to meet with their

[00:30:10] with their deity and i think you know god uses that in a way to speak

[00:30:16] to the israelites where does he meet moses yeah top of a mountain yeah and

[00:30:22] yeah so um you know a while back uh maybe a year or

[00:30:27] so ago maybe a little more i had on um doug petrovich uh archaeologist

[00:30:33] uh maybe you’ve heard his name and um he was actually saying that he he he

[00:30:38] thought that he knew where the tower of babel actually was um does answers in genesis have a

[00:30:43] particular view on uh you know whether that there there are remnants of

[00:30:48] that left over or where it would have might have been yeah i think our position is that at

[00:30:55] this point we don’t know um it would be nice to to find it or you know to figure it out

[00:31:01] i know i’ve met doug petrovich once before he was at the creation museum for um i think it was

[00:31:07] the premiere of his genesis history that dvd that he was part of yeah yeah and so i talked to him for a little

[00:31:14] bit afterwards but i think one of the disagreements we would have with his position i think his position

[00:31:20] on where babel was is dependent upon people a lot of people already being scattered

[00:31:26] at the time of the babble event and i think that would make a make us uncomfortable because it

[00:31:32] the language in genesis 11 seems to strongly imply all the people were still

[00:31:38] together they had scattered and so i i don’t know that his view does

[00:31:44] does the best job with the text of what it’s saying there you know i appreciate people trying to figure out where it was

[00:31:49] sure and i think that would be great to to if somebody were to discover that but i

[00:31:55] don’t know if we know at this point but yeah keep coming up with different ideas and then keep yeah you know studying and

[00:32:01] trying to figure it out yeah and um when you were when you were doing the

[00:32:06] back story for noah and these sorts of things um i i know it’s one of your one one of the

[00:32:13] guys that was i know he was at answers in genesis for a while he wrote a book on i believe um

[00:32:20] pre-flood history and i believe he references the book of jasher um

[00:32:26] have you are you familiar with this at all um i’m not sure who you’re talking about um

[00:32:32] you know i wish i could remember his name offhand but i can’t but i just i found it very interesting because the book of jasher is mentioned multiple

[00:32:39] times in the bible yeah mentioned in what joshua and in first or second samuel second samuel

[00:32:46] one of them yeah yeah and um do you do you have a view on that what are your thoughts on that yeah as far as

[00:32:52] we know you know you can go on amazon today and you can type in book of jasher and you can order this this book but

[00:32:59] that is not the one being referred to in scripture it is almost certainly like a 18th century forgery or somebody wrote

[00:33:05] that to make it seem like this is what the bible was referring to uh there are some people who think that it goes back

[00:33:11] to around the eighth or ninth century that maybe there was a hebrew version of it that a jewish person had done that at

[00:33:18] some point and then that got translated uh but i think the stronger arguments are for the much later date you know

[00:33:24] just maybe it’s a couple hundred years ago um so it’s not what you find in scripture but there was a book of jasher

[00:33:31] uh i just don’t think that we have it and i don’t know that it would have been something that was pre-flood there’s

[00:33:36] um book of jubilee speaks of the pre-flood world but that’s an inner testamental book book of enoch speaks of the pre-flood

[00:33:43] world but that’s also an inter-testamental book and so i don’t know that we have anything that

[00:33:50] that survived the flood in terms of writing yeah that’s interesting there’s so much

[00:33:56] there to to speculate about and to research um do you have um what kind of

[00:34:02] research are you gonna i know for the for building the ark there was a tremendous amount of research done

[00:34:08] on the biology you know animals and what animals would have existed that that have gone extinct

[00:34:14] now and what would the different species have been like and these sorts of things yeah which ones belong in the same kind

[00:34:20] together all yeah yeah all of that sort of thing um are you gonna have to do research like that for the tower of

[00:34:26] babel or is that this this uh not take as much research uh well it does take a lot of research

[00:34:34] even with the animals and with the plants because what um when did the babble event occur um in

[00:34:40] terms of the uh sedimentary layers that we find you know how long after the

[00:34:46] the flood boundary and what plants do we find in that level and what animals do we find

[00:34:51] in that region of the world in that in that you know layering yeah so

[00:34:56] that if we’re going to depict animals and plants in the attraction well we want it to be as accurate as as possible according to you

[00:35:04] know the model that we use um so it takes research in that way um thankfully my assistant likes doing that

[00:35:10] kind of thing he loves sticking his nose in fossil books all day long so that’s great how

[00:35:16] everybody needs one of those guys yeah he does a great job that guy knows more about animal kinds than anybody i’ve

[00:35:22] ever met because that’s what he did for several years is awesome studied that all the time

[00:35:27] um so it takes a lot of research that way it’s going to take a um you know some genetic research which the research for

[00:35:33] the most part has already been done by geneticists and you know people who understand those things but for me to be

[00:35:38] able to write the things i need to write i’ve got to talk to them and figure out how we can bring that down to a level

[00:35:44] that i can understand because if i can understand it then other people can understand

[00:35:50] and so it takes research that way of course there’s biblical research as well one of the things we’ve been doing uh

[00:35:55] for the last several months now is figuring out uh you know thinking through things that i think most people have never considered

[00:36:02] how many people would have been alive at the time of the babble event that’s right that’s a really interesting

[00:36:07] one yeah for sure right if you think of the pictures you’ve seen you’ve seen this tower that’s just huge that you know it’s all all the way up

[00:36:13] into the sky but if it’s happening when usher placed it which i don’t think that it was but if it’s you

[00:36:19] know just just over 100 years after the flood by normal population growth numbers you

[00:36:24] only get about 20 to 30 people now i think that you’d have more than i think initially you’d have with those the

[00:36:30] three families noah’s sons and their wives um that each of them would have multiple kids in in scripture

[00:36:37] uh i think it lists their sons at five five and seven or something um

[00:36:42] and then assuming just as many girls that population is going to grow quicker than the normal growth rate but even if

[00:36:47] you use a very high growth rate you only have about 1500 to 2000 people wow

[00:36:52] within that first 100 to 150 years how big of a structure can you build and remember if it’s a ziggurat like

[00:36:59] structure which a lot of people think it was or something similar to that these are solids they’re not hollow like

[00:37:06] a castle they’re they’re making these bricks and they’re baking them thoroughly and they’re baked out in the sun so how long does it take to do that

[00:37:13] and so we’ve had people doing the research on that going out and making them and figuring it out we’ve had um

[00:37:19] you know not only these population studies we’ve had how far would they have to travel to get

[00:37:25] water to help make these bricks to do every single thing you can think of we’ve plotted into this spreadsheet that

[00:37:32] you can go in and change variables and it’ll tell you how many bricks are being made and how if you make a structure this big how

[00:37:39] many bricks do you need and if you make wow so we’re going through all those things to try to give make it as feasible as

[00:37:46] as we can possibly understand it of course there’s still some guesswork because the bible doesn’t tell us how big it was like it does tell us the size

[00:37:52] of the ark it doesn’t tell us the size of the tower now if you’re living that pre-flood world

[00:37:58] and you haven’t seen the ark the biggest building you’ve seen is probably a tent or a one or two-story

[00:38:05] home so if you build something that’s 40 feet tall that’s going to feel like it yeah it’s gonna feel like it’s up to the heavens

[00:38:11] in fact that same wording uh up to the up to the to the heavens whose top is in the heavens that similar or very same

[00:38:17] wording is used in the the land of canaan some of the cities their walls were up to the heavens well the walls

[00:38:24] were only 25 to 30 feet or so yeah um so i don’t know it’s funny because

[00:38:29] people are going to come to that they’re going to come to the ark exhibit you know and everybody’s blown away by the size they’re like whoa this is huge and

[00:38:35] then they’re going to go to the tower of babel and they’re going to be like whoa wait i thought it was way bigger yeah i mean

[00:38:40] we’re going to build ours more than 30 feet it does yeah it has to it is going to be an attraction it does

[00:38:46] have to house the exhibit you know the the um what we’re planning to do there and

[00:38:53] um we’ve been looking guys are you guys ever going to bring in roller coasters you’re going to well it’s not going to

[00:38:58] be a roller coaster what we’re looking at for this is what’s called the dark ride um i think i can announce it i think we’ve i think we’ve said that i hope so

[00:39:06] what we have now spoiler yeah i know that we’ve announced that that’s what we’re looking at it’s not a done deal at this point but that’s what

[00:39:12] we’ve been looking at so it would be something where you get into a car a vehicle with you know six or seven

[00:39:17] people and that would move you through different environments different scenes different

[00:39:23] you know maybe a 10 to 15 minute ride where you’re learning about the history

[00:39:28] about well you’re learning about the impact of it you’re learning uh what it means that we’re made of one blood and

[00:39:34] then we all go back to adam and eve and ultimately the the solution to all of these different

[00:39:39] problems that we see in our world whether it is racism which is you know it’s a

[00:39:44] form of prejudice it’s a form of pride it extends from pride that i’m better than this person all of those things are

[00:39:51] ultimately a result of sin and the solution to all of that is the lord jesus christ and his sacrifice

[00:39:56] on the cross and his resurrection from the grave amen that’s fantastic well that’s really

[00:40:02] exciting um do you guys have a time frame yet as far as like do you have do you have a a guesstimate on uh when that

[00:40:08] might happen um i i don’t know if we have an official date because we haven’t done the fundraising for it yet i think we begin

[00:40:15] officially fundraising sometime next year um i think sometime in the first half of next year is when that

[00:40:21] will i don’t again this i don’t think that’s set in stone yet so i think that’s when we’re gonna plan to start fundraising

[00:40:27] for that i think from that time it’s at least a three year build uh because we’ve got to build the

[00:40:34] the structure you got to build the if it’s going to be this ride system you got to be able to put that in there you

[00:40:39] got to do the theming you got to do the exhibits and uh so i think it’s a three-year at least three years out from

[00:40:46] when we do that are there any other um are there any other big kind of um you know

[00:40:53] attractions in that sense that uh answers that genesis has in uh on the horizon uh for

[00:40:59] adding to the park yeah actually one of the things we’re gonna probably have before babel is a a large

[00:41:07] huge model of first century jerusalem the we’re we’re planning on doing that

[00:41:14] in the next couple of years over the next couple of years and uh praying that israel will open up its

[00:41:19] borders again so that some of us can go over there and do some research yeah that would just be a shame you know to have to do that for work um but

[00:41:27] i know what a great i can see why you love your job so much that’s pretty great yeah that’s one of the reasons um

[00:41:33] yeah it would be fantastic to do that but um yeah we want to build a model of jerusalem from about 33 a.d you know

[00:41:40] around the time of jesus’s crucifixion you know there’s debate 30 or 33 80 but either way that’s what the city would

[00:41:46] look like there’s a huge model over in jerusalem at the israel museum it used to be in the king david hotel and that’s

[00:41:53] bigger than what we’re going to be building that’s an outdoor one now and that was from representing jerusalem in

[00:41:58] 80 70 where it had expanded and had another wall on on the northwest side uh that we won’t be depicting that part of

[00:42:05] it because 40 years earlier it was it was smaller than that but it will still be

[00:42:10] pretty impressive that’s one thing um some of the plans that we had initially unveiled you know

[00:42:16] with the entire park being open is we wanted to do like an old testament history or you’re moving through uh from

[00:42:22] abraham up to david maybe even having like the temple and then um moving from the temple on to

[00:42:30] up to the first century we’re gonna have like a first century village next to the the uh

[00:42:35] model of jerusalem and really move people up through the entire uh history of scripture

[00:42:41] yeah it’s it’s fantastic it’s amazing how um you know people always say you know when you when you do go to israel

[00:42:47] you visit israel everything comes alive you see things in a whole different way and in a lot of ways you’re really doing the same thing you’re providing that uh

[00:42:55] opportunity to you know walk through to see to hear and just to

[00:43:00] really get a whole new perspective on biblical truth so it’s really cool yeah that’s one of the things we hear from uh guests

[00:43:07] at the ark encounter a lot is they they never imagined what it would have been like to live on the ark and so when they

[00:43:12] walked through the living quarters that they think could have really been like this well we’re not sure but um

[00:43:18] you know if you go in there they’re pretty nice and people are surprised at it because i think we often just think well they’ve found a place in the hay to

[00:43:25] yeah to lie down yeah but if that’s their if they’re bringing all their belongings from before the flood or at

[00:43:30] least a lot of the ones they want to keep why not have something nice maybe they lived on the ark for a couple of years prior to the flood while they were

[00:43:37] still building it maybe they had an area you know why walk really far every morning yeah was

[00:43:42] probably more like a more like a cruise boat yeah maybe not quite like that but

[00:43:48] um but then a lot of times people remark about you know how do they get rid of the the waste and how do they get fresh air

[00:43:55] and fresh water and sunlight and all and we have an exhibit that goes through that and people are

[00:44:01] they think i never thought of those things before well we had to think through all of that and

[00:44:06] how and we want to do the same thing with babel or any exhibit that we work on yeah my students always say um

[00:44:13] you know how how could he have been smart enough to to build a boat that big and everything and i’m like the guy had

[00:44:19] the guy had a 600 years you know to accumulate knowledge he was probably

[00:44:24] he probably could do everything you know he could speak well there were not multiple languages but you know whatever there was to do he he

[00:44:31] could do it you know so that’s pretty cool yeah that’s well that was one of the reasons why in the backstory i wrote

[00:44:36] that we had him as a shipbuilder um you know one of the other reason for that that i liked is the um if you think of

[00:44:43] how jesus is foreshadowed in the old testament in some ways you know this the you know

[00:44:50] moses is is similar to jesus in certain ways you know god tells moses he’ll raise up a prophet like himself but you

[00:44:55] know moses was in the wilderness for 40 years well jesus is going to be in the wilderness for 40 days so there’s this

[00:45:00] somewhat of a parallel that people can make this connection and you see the same thing with david and and jesus and

[00:45:06] a lot of the key figures in the old testament foreshadowed jesus in some way well what about noah

[00:45:12] yeah maybe with the fact that he was a woodworker uh maybe that’s maybe that’s what it is um yeah that’s

[00:45:18] one of the reasons i like the shipbuilder idea is that in that way then he would foreshadow the son of the carpenter

[00:45:23] i love it well tim we’re just about out of time here if you’ve been listening my my guest is tim jaffe and he is with

[00:45:30] answers in genesis if you haven’t been out to the ark exhibit uh it’s phenomenal um it’s in kentucky and

[00:45:38] you know it just brings the bible alive brings genesis alive for you and really answers a lot of the questions that

[00:45:43] people have about you know where did the water come from where did the water go you know how did the water cover all the

[00:45:50] mountains you know and every other question that were that that people have and you know it’s very relevant when it comes to things

[00:45:56] like race and and racism and and you want to be able to have those answers um so that you can be a light to the people

[00:46:02] around you and begin to crack the door of their heart maybe they haven’t considered these things and they start to hear it and they go you know what hey

[00:46:07] you know what this is this makes sense when they find out that their flood story’s all over the earth when they find out

[00:46:13] that there are stories about creation in all the different cultures around the world where did they all come from why

[00:46:18] is it that there are no languages that are older than 6 000 years right why why

[00:46:23] do we have no calendars that are older than 6000 years and as you begin to ask those questions

[00:46:28] people begin to go whoa wait a second and they start to reconsider their views about the bible and and that’ll give

[00:46:34] them the opportunity to know jesus christ so um check it out you can also check out um tim’s website risenmin dot

[00:46:42] com if you want to learn more about tim and the books that he’s written he’s written quite a few different books on all kinds

[00:46:48] of things if you’re interested in the nephilim there’s not too many people that know more than that

[00:46:54] more than tim on that subject so that’s another one you can check out you guys know my website educate4life.org i’ve

[00:47:00] got all kinds of resources on there for your junior high and high school students apologetics classes and curriculum and we’re building an

[00:47:07] elementary curriculum so uh to 2000 2022

[00:47:13] we are putting together a new apologetics curriculum for kids and so um if you want to check that out and

[00:47:18] what we’re developing that’d be wonderful also and we’ll be back again next week uh tim thanks again for being

[00:47:24] here it’s been a real big blessing to have you and uh uh really glad that you’re doing what you’re doing so thank

[00:47:30] you you’re very welcome kevin thanks for having me on i am just extremely blessed to to do what i do and then to get to

[00:47:36] talk about what i do obviously i think you can tell i enjoy it yeah absolutely very very good to me

[00:47:42] praise god and um and we’ll probably have you on again sometime in the future to talk about when when things start

[00:47:48] developing more too so thank you so much that’d be great okay goodbye everyone we’ll see you next time

[00:47:54] take care

[00:48:08] you