This past summer I lead a PhD seminar on Biblical Creationism at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. One of the texts that we critiqued was Dr. Andrew A Snelling‘s Earth’s Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation & the Flood (Dallas: Institute of Creation Research, 2009). Snelling’s two-volume work is an impressive geological extension of Whitcomb and Morris’s Genesis Flood. Because of Snelling’s outstanding geological credentials, his geological update to the Genesis Flood is profound. This is a must-read for both young-earth and old-earth creationists.
The two-volumes have 126 chapters organized into ten sections. Each volume has five sections. The point of the first volume “is to focus on the global Flood as described in Genesis, and with scientific evidence that has convinced many today, including Christian geologists, that Genesis must be taken seriously as literal history” (p. 10). The purpose of the second volume “is to construct a biblical geologic model of earth history, taking the data of the geologic record and placing them within the scriptural framework for earthy history” (p. 467). Here is the breakdown into each section.
Volume 1: The Genesis Record of Creation and the Flood Defended
Introduction (pp. 1-14)
Section I. The Biblical Record of the Global Genesis Flood (pp. 15-74)
Section II. Non-Geological Arguments Used against the Global Genesis Flood (pp. 77-122)
Section III. Noah, the Ark, and the Animals (pp. 125-82)
Section IV. The Framework for a Biblical Geology (pp. 185-292)
Section V. The Modern Geological Synthesis (295-417)
Selected Bibliography (pp. 421-30)
Color Figures (pp. 441-64)
Volume 2: Geological Implications of the Biblical Record for a Biblical Geologic Model for Earth History
Section VI. Geological Implications of the Biblical Geologic Model for Earth History (pp. 467-610)
Section VII: A Biblical Geologic Model of Earth History (pp. 613-793)
Section VIII: Problems in Biblical Geology Solved–Radioactive Dating and Geochronology (pp. 797-864)
Section IX: Contradictions in Geochronology–Support for Biblical Geology (pp. 867-906)
Section X: Problems for Biblical Geology Solved–Formations Imply Slow Deposition (pp. 909-1029)
Concluding Challenges (pp. 1033-42)
Selected Bibliography (pp. 1045-58)
Topical Index (pp. 1061-65)
Color Figures (pp. 1079-1102)
When I read the Genesis Flood back in the 1970s, I was convinced that Whitcomb and Morris had combined to make a strong biblical and scientific argument for a literal global flood in Noah’s day. Snelling’s work is a comprehensive and systematic geological extension of the Genesis Flood. His focus on presenting a biblical and geological argument for a global flood in Noah’s day is a biblically profitable read as well as effectively responding to the demands of uniformitarian geology. As was the case when I read Whitcomb and Morris, Dr. Snelling’s geologic expansion is an impressive and thorough argument. I highly recommend that you purchase and read Earth’s Catastrophic Past. To purchase the volume, click here.
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