The date of the pyramids is factored in by atheistic archaeological science. And the answer is that we do know the date of the pyramids. Now, the Westminster fathers did not know, because they did not know any Egyptian. The Egyptian language was deciphered after the Rosetta Stone was discovered by Napoleon's people. in around 1800. And then, in the Sampoagian, deciphered the Egyptian language. But now we have lists of the Egyptian pharaohs going back to around 2000 BC. And we have the different periods, the old period, the intermediate period, the Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom. And we have the names of these people. And we have the names of the builders of the pyramids. So the dates of the pyramids, very closely established by written evidence, and there's no reason to doubt the validity of that written evidence. So the dates of the pyramids are established. Were they established, it says, by atheistic archaeological science. I think that there's a misunderstanding there. They are dated by data that have been discovered. These discoveries have been made sometimes by Christian people, sometimes by non-Christian people. Atheists are not always wrong. I have a computer at home, and I'm not sure whether Bill Gates is an earnest evangelical Christian or not. I have my doubts. Too rich? But I use that computer. I don't use it very well, I make mistakes, and all that. Atheists aren't always wrong. If their data is valid, we can use it. If their data is not valid, we cannot use it. If the data is on some, shall we say, non-specific subject, you would naturally trust it if it's well presented. If it is on some subject, like for instance, is it right or wrong to be a homosexual, Well then the background and the opinions and the prejudices of the atheists come out. The prejudices of the atheists don't always come out. We can use atheistic information. The mathematics, the tables that I learned when I was in grade school, 2 by 2 times 2 is 4. And it's still 4, whoever says it. So the fact that some archaeological information is by atheists does not mean that it is wrong. On the other hand, archaeology is a place where opinions do differ, and the interpretation of data is significant. The dating of the fall of Jericho by Kenyon, I think, is quite wrong, and I think it's because of a prejudice. So you have to watch out for prejudice. Sometimes Christians make mistakes because of prejudice, too. So we have to be careful in our evaluation of data. From this particular point, there's so much data. There's no question that the flood did not, could not have occurred. David Jericho. I picked out from the wall, the remaining wall of Jericho, a little pot myself when I was down there with my son. It was just sitting out of the wall. I pulled it out and it came out a pretty complete pot. And the state of the pot can't give you a date for that pot. And this is not at the bottom of the territorial walls at all. And this pot is older than the upper state of the flood. And you can show that by comparing it with other places. So, I would say that it is quite true that the upper state for the flood is impossible to be held and that nobody holds it. ICR people don't hold it. that the reserved towns deliberately inflated the data for the purposes of aggrandizement, and there's very thorough work to protect that, and also it's time to say that these OTEP providers also inflate the numbers. But have you come across any of that? Because just invading these towns is quite Well, it depends. Different eras, of course, have different dates. And we're not dependent on the Rosetta Stone for all these dates. We're dependent on the Rosetta Stone for the keys to decipher the landings. The Rosetta Stone is in three languages. And some of the things are labeled there. So it may well be that some of those dates are in place. But there's a massive evidence not just one single stone. If in the history of exegesis of Genesis 1 prior to the emergence of Lalian uniformitarian geology, the only known alternative understanding of the days of creation has been Augustine's instantaneous view, why should we expect that the three non-24-hour views presented here would ever have emerged apart from the pressure of old earth geology? I don't know that you need to suppose they would have ever emerged had it not been for that. They may not. It may well be that a scientific discovery or revolution advance or even a scientific error may prompt a re-examination of the Bible which could actually turn out to be an improvement upon a previous understanding even if the scientific belief itself turned out to be an error. It goes on to say, since old age geology has occasioned a re-examination of our exegesis of Genesis 1, how can it not be the case that such an old age geology is an alternative, coordinate, or even superior authority to that of Scripture itself, prompting the principle of sola scriptura? Well, I think I tried to say that I adhere to sola scriptura. And although old age theology's development, even if it turns out to be an error, may well have prompted the reexamination, it can never be the authority. If we come to a change of our view of what the Bible teaches, it must be for good biblical and exegetical reasons. My guess would be, had it not been for the Copernican Revolution, we would have continued to believe that Psalm 93, Psalm 96, and Joshua 10 established, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the sun did not move and the earth did not move. But with the result of the revolution, we had to re-examine the text and we came to see that what we thought the Bible taught at that time, it didn't do. They were in debt to Galileo, Copernicus, and the others on that. But the reasons that we have now for accepting that are not because they have established beyond a shadow of a doubt their truth, but because they prompted a re-examination of the Scripture, leading us to believe that we have taught this thought what in practice it meant. Thank you, Matt. I want to answer a general question here. It really has more to do with the layout of the conference than what we've done. I appreciate the tone that you established at the beginning of the conference, and the respect and welcome you gave to the men who presented this in view. But I was disappointed by the unbalanced and inadequate treatment given to the presentation of scientific evidence. Is this an oversight, or does it indicate a low regard for scientific investigation of God's general revelation? a revelation of God's glory that was so effectively presented last night by Professor Terry. I think that's a valid question. I'll say, just by definition, If you look historically, I think that Smith-Bruckhauer does this, but we're really misusing general revelation when we start talking about scientific investigation of human science. General revelation really has more to do with what God has said about himself, not about our scientific pursuits on the basis of that. But with respect to the order of the conference, the reason we did not have time, the reason that we did not have a scientist come and offer evidence for old Earth is two or three things. One is a lack of time. Unfortunately, we are bound by normal days and hours, and you're tired. Actually, one of our errors is we did not give sufficient time as it were. And so, second, what we wanted to do was to show that our exegesis is not trying to accommodate itself to Old Earth, but in fact demands a new look at the data of examination. And what we wanted to show was, as Dr. Kelly does in his book, that there is good science being done that is working within the parameters. I'm not saying that Genesis 1 is a textbook on science, but it lays down foundations and walls in which we must operate, and I believe all of us are operating within those walls. Our interpretation, though, says that we believe that a Christian who is a scientist operating within these exegetical parameters can deal with the data and do good science. That was our purpose in Dr. Patterson's presentation. That's why we didn't see a need to have another side speaking. We all know the claims for the scientific data for We have a high regard for the scientific investigation of the creation, not of God's general revelation, but of the creation. You see, part of the problem with that is that we assume that because there is a revelation there, that it then leads to a natural theology. It doesn't. It's suppressed. Again, that's the only place that Brother Dave and I disagree. And so we have a high regard for scientific investigation. I think everybody up here today has said that we don't see a conflict between the observable conclusions of true science with proper interpretations of physics. But that was why we ordered it the way that we did. Dr. Smith, do you want to tackle that one or not? We've got about six minutes. I have a question about the Isaiah 65 passage in Deuteronomy from verses 65, 17 through 25. It begins, For behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in that I create. For behold, I create the earth and let it rejoice in it. And then it speaks in particular, No more shall an infant from their lived but a few days, nor an old man who was not fulfilled his days, for the child could still die one hundred years old. And part of the question is, doesn't this really describe the post-mill kingdom on this present earth? I think certainly the idea of dying is not part of the future eternal state, and it may well be that Isaiah is looking to the Messianic age that would be in this present period rather than the eternal state. The language, of course, New Heavens and New Earth is picked up in the book of Revelation, which is speaking about the final eternal state. And it uses that same language, creating a new heaven and a new earth. And I was citing particularly out of Revelation when I included that in my section on the eschatology. But I think the commentators would vary on this. One of the men that was a Princetonian, J.A. Alexander, in his commentary on Isaiah, and Young used to say this was the greatest commentary that had ever been prepared on any book. And he has the concept of what he calls generic prophecy. And he's suggesting not so much a double prophecy, one for one period and one for another future period, but generic prophecy. that you have in the Old Testament prophets, for example, references to the judgment. Judgment coming upon Israel, upon Jerusalem, the destruction of Jerusalem. And yet that is foreshadowing the final day of judgment, the generic concept of prophecy. So this idea perhaps might fit with this, that creating a new heaven and a new earth, that may well be speaking of, if we move into a post-millennial age, in this present age, in other words, Messianic period in which we are now living culminates in a post-millennial age that it may well be that it's a generic crop to deal with that, but yet even that is a foreshadowing of the final eternal state. also called under the same language, created a new heaven and a new earth. I'm not sure I'm answering that question as fully as they may want, but that's at least a stab at it. The other reference, the other question that I had was about Taylor Lewis and his possibly being influential in the historical development of the analogous understanding of creation with respect to the particular 1855 work. In the citation I had about him, he did a philological study of the words create and He concluded the word create did not mean absolute creation, but only the arranging of previous existing material. Thus he viewed the Genesis account as a description of gradual development. The word day was not so much regarded as a reference to time, but rather a way of referring to the cycles of great phenomena, such as light and darkness. The term day in Genesis may be a way of speaking of cycles of indefinite duration. And the question of whether perhaps he anticipates This view I think Jack one of his contentions is he's not inventing a brand new view He's saying that theologians before have held something along the same sort of line that he is presenting So it may well be that you have something of an anticipation of this view in Taylor Lewis our librarian tells me that they told me this morning that we've just received in our library a study that may well be worth your getting into if you're interested in this study. A doctoral thesis by a man, I believe, by the name of Gundlach, about the study of the evolutionary controversy or the evolutionary development at Princeton Seminary. And I think that would be a fascinating study to get into. We've just gotten it in the library here. But some of you may want to make a note of that and refer to it in other libraries. Thank you, Dr. Smith, and thanks to all of our panelists. We maybe didn't get to every specific question, although we got to the great majority of them, but I believe every category of the questions has been dealt with, which is more than I thought we would accomplish. We could get a lot done in just a couple of hours. We could get 12, which we could accomplish. But... I again want to thank all of our participants, but particularly our guests. They have been gracious. They've been helpful. I hope that we will listen to each other and continue to do exegesis in the areas. We're glad that four of the members of the study committee could be here, along with an advisor to the study committee. A couple of others would have been here, but they had conflicts in their schedule. We will, Lord willing, have this book ready for the OT and the PCA assembly. which ought to help further discussion. Pray for us. I think all the writers will need to not just do grammatical things, but make sure that we're being faithful to each other and have listened to each other, but we've been told we can't expand, that we may shrink. But pray for us as we do that. Everybody has received the evaluation form. Just drop that off at the back desk downstairs at one of the secretary's desks on the cadenza. If you want to hit the bookstore one more time before you leave, the tapes are down there. And thank you for your patience. You were probably overly ambitious, and we put you through a lot of hard work, but at least you got more than your money's worth. Not many places you go to today that you get more than your money's worth. Let's stand and close.