"All Scripture is inspired by God..." 2 Timothy 3:16

Just how reliable are the Scriptures? This is one of the great challenges that face a Christian college student, and the rest of us as well.

This week, Focus on the Family is releasing the second set in the TrueU series, taught by Dr. Stephen Meyer.

I just finished reviewing the final DVDs and I believe they will be extremely valuable for students and parents and anyone who wishes to learn more about the archaeological evidence that backs up the Bible’s historical claims.

A very influential professor of theology, Julius Wellhausen, in the late 1800’s, claimed that the Bible was merely the natural evolution of man’s thoughts and writings that had progressed from animism to polytheism to monotheism. His “Documentary Hypothesis” became a popular basis for believing that the Bible was not a divinely inspired revelation from God, but merely nothing more than another book of man, filled with his wishes and hopes and, of course, his errors.

Coupled with the natural hostility toward God, this led to the modern skepticism found within much of academia that views the Bible as an unreliable text, of little worth in the world of higher education.

However, the archeological evidence continues to mount and to reaffirm over and over again that the Bible gets the historical facts and details right. Those who scoffed at the existence of the Davidic Kingdom

My recent Utah trip posts provoked several comments that raised questions regarding the notion of a global flood.

I want to respond by listing some of the reasons why I believe that catastrophe really did occur. (It also allows me to slip in a few more trip pictures even though they will have little to do with the discussion! :) )

Now, most of those comments were couched in the “old” versus “young” universe controversy.

I think that is a distraction to the issue.

In other words, an “old” universe does not automatically preclude the possibility of a global flood. So, let me make an appeal to those who think the universe is “old”: don’t let that presupposition “muddy the waters” for you.

Okay, here they are in random order:

There is a strange “formation” within Canyonlands National Park called “Upheaval Dome”. The ranger told us that scientists don’t know exactly how this thing was formed.

It is a mystery.

It is as if some force reached down into the insides of the belly of the earth and sucked up the layers below into an almost teardrop shape.

From the air, evidently one can see concentric circles around the center of the dome.

It is quite an awesome sight. A friend and I hiked halfway around it to get a better perspective.

I can tell you what it looked like to me.

But you have to watch this video clip first.

After you’ve watched it, then we can talk about what may have happened at Upheaval Dome. . . . Did you watch it yet?

I’m not an expert in iguanas, so those of you who are can correct me, but I think it is a green iguana…iguana iguana.

So several of you were right. It was a close-up of his front legs.

I also think it is a male because of the fold of skin under his neck (called a dewlap).

He was kind enough to let me take a lot of pictures. The few iguanas I have run into before have been pretty skittish, but he actually posed for me…first this side, then the other, then a straight-on look...for effect, of course.

I felt like a fashion photographer.

I asked him to stand up and give me his impression of the Geico Gecko, but he wasn’t interested.

Anyway, here he is. He was hanging around the patio of my room in Weston, Florida a few weeks ago. From nose to tail tip, I believe he was about five or six feet long. His tail was over half of that. Maybe, for some of you, this is common. But he looked huge to me. The others I had seen weren’t close to this size.

He fascinated me.

He looked like he was covered in mail armor and with the spines on his back I thought he would make a great Jurassic Park creature if he were just 10 times bigger. He looked “dinosaur-ish” to me…especially his head. Now, we don’t know how dinosaurs “really” looked, because we have creatively made up a lot of the soft tissue on their skeletons. But whatever they did look like, I can't imagine some of them not appearing a lot like this guy on the outside...just in jumbo scale.

A sixty-foot iguana...now that would be a scary thing to run into in a dark alley!

Well, I’m sure those of you who have lived around iguanas are wondering what in the world I got so excited over. Well, a guy who grew up in Idaho finds these things to be exotic creatures. The only reptiles we had there were things like rattle snakes...not the best thing to do a personal photo-shoot with.

It's hard not to see the intricate design in this guy.

By the way, his tail is made so it can break off if a prey grabs it. He just simply grows a new one.

Isn't God's creation amazing!