“But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.”

Many miracles in the Bible Called by scholars: MythLegendFable FolkloreSuperstition Fiction

Gen.1-2  Created all in six days  God made man and woman  From dust – breath of life  Eve made from rib

“In the beginning God thought out the pattern of creation. The Lord said let matter and energy form atoms and let atoms combine and condense to form solids and liquids and let stars and planets evolve in their millions and it was so.”

“So man evolved, male and female, from higher animals by the spirit of God.” Theistic Evolution

Christ “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,'” Matt. 19:4 “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.” Mark 10:6

“If evolution is accepted, Adam and Eve go out !” You cannot logically accept both evolution and creation!

Gen.6-8  Man was wicked  Noah built the Ark  Flood covered whole earth  Only 8 people were saved

Modernist View Legends of a universal flood A physical impossibility Myth of the flood Like the creation myth

Christ’s view of flood "For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,” Matthew 24:38

Gen.18  Lot moved to Sodom  People were corrupt  God vowed to destroy  Fire and Brimstone  Wife became pillar of salt

Modernist View  Dealing with earthquake  Accompanied by lightning  Sodom and Gomorrah story  Adopted a popular saga

28. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29 "but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. “Remember Lot’s Wife” Luke 17:32

Modernist View of Lot’s wife Admixture of folklore “Her story is easily explained by the similarity of a standing column in the eroded country at the south end of the Dead Sea to the figure of a standing woman.”

Ex.7-12  Israel in Egyptian Bondage  Ten plagues on Egypt  10 th – death of first born  Pharaoh let them go

Modernist View “The plague stories are a legend or myth used by the Israelite community in its celebration of the Passover rite.”

“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29

Ex. 16  Wandered in wilderness  “Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you.” v. 4  Ate it for 40 years v. 35

Modernist Do not believe it  Early summer tamarisk tree  Sweet sticky substance  A natural substance  “The manna story”

"Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 "This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.” John 6:49-50

Num. 21  Israel had murmured  Serpents sent among them  Look at bronze serpent  He would live

Modernist View According to the cult legend preserved in Numbers 21 this object was constructed by Moses when the Israelites were attacked by ‘fiery serpents.’”

14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 "that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Jonah  Preach to Nineveh  On boat to Tarshish  Swallowed by whale  Vomited up after 3 days

Modernist View  Called the great “fish Story”  “If people would recognize it as fiction”  Fiction = an invented story

39.But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. Matt. 12:39

40 "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Matt. 12:40

Sermon by Arthur Pigman Evans Church of Christ 515 Gibbs Road Evans, Ga Sunday Evening March 15, 2009