This is a rush transcript from the “Creation Today Show,” released January 19, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Overview

Join in on this week’s episode of Creation Today, where hosts Eric Hovind and Paul Taylor discuss questions regarding contradictions in the Bible. Are there any, or is the Bible true from beginning to end? Find out on Today’s episode of  Creation Today.

Transcript

Eric Hovind: How do we know the Bible is true, if it seems to contradict itself? From the CTN studio in Pensacola Florida, this  is the Creation Today show with Eric Hovind and Paul Taylor.

Paul Taylor: And we’re gonna be tackling issues today like what was the reason why the Bible was written, and is the Bible actually accurate when it talks about the number of legs a locust has, or the value that you can calculate for pi.

Eric Hovind: I like pie.

Paul Taylor: And we also have a special treat listening to a superb song by singer/songwriter Bob Smith.

Eric Hovind: You are gonna enjoy today’s show. If you’ve got questions, we’ve got the answers. Send them into [email protected]. And we’re really looking forward to today’s show.

BREAK

Eric Hovind: Welcome back,  the new year is in full swing, and we’re enjoying 2012. Isn’t God supposed to be coming back this year?

Paul Taylor: That’s what I’ve heard, and the Mayan calendar comes to an end or something

Eric Hovind: I saw a great comic on that. It’s the guy going to the Mayan Emperor saying hey I only had room to go out til 2012 with this calendar. And the Emperor goes that’s really gonna freak somebody out one day.

Paul Taylor: Now of course we’re not saying that Jesus wouldn’t return this year, it’s perfectly possible, because that’s up to God. God’s got the timing. But we do know that in 2011 we saw two predictions just pass by. The important thing is to stick to what Scripture says and concentrate on that.

Eric Hovind: And it says “he that winneth souls is wise.” So win souls. Hey we’ve got some great announcements and some things going on this year that are just incredible.

Paul Taylor: Some amazing things going on. Remember that the registration is now open for the Proof of God conference, which is gonna be in October of this year in Orlando in Florida. There’s gonna be some great speakers there. You and I will be there, and we’ve got Carl Kirby,

Eric Hovind: Reason for Hope Ministry

Paul Taylor: That’s right, and we’ve got Sye Ten Brueggencate

Eric Hovind: From Proof that God exists

Paul Taylor: We’ve got Mark Spence

Eric Hovind: From Way of the Master

Paul Taylor: And hopefully we’ll have you so get registering for early bird registration there’s a discount and you know how Christians love discounts.

Eric Hovind: We do like discounts,  we like free. We’re gonna have some free stuff there as well for you.  But you’ve got to pay to get there

Paul Taylor: Yeah, what else have we got

Eric Hovind: We also, hey, this February 11th, Paul and I will be at the Northwest Creation conference in

Paul Taylor: That’s in Oregon..it’s quite close to Portland Oregon, yes, the Holiday Inn

Eric Hovind: So if you can either travel there or get there, you need to go to the website is creationNW for creation northwest dot org, creationnw.org, and  get a hold of the guys who are putting that on and register for that conference, we’d love to see you there this February.

Paul Taylor: That’s gonna be great.

Eric Hovind: So we’ve got that, we’ve got the Proof of God conference. The Genesis series is amazing. We’re gonna have to bring to you guys some of the behind the scenes footage of what’s going on with the Genesis project. So far  he’s been modeling an entire garden of Eden that all this is gonna take place in, and so I’m really excited about the 3D portion of this whole film that we’re putting together, it is really really exciting. Id’ love for you to get on board, and just look at the trailor. Go to genesisseries.com,  you can also sign up to get more information about details on that project, it’s gonna be a nice one.

Paul Taylor: That’s gonna be amazing, and again it was genesisseries.com , that’s great stuff.

Eric Hovind: We’ve got some great questions today.

Paul Taylor: We have indeed, we have some superb questions. Let’s start with one from Matt, and Matt starts by saying, he says “I need a little help here.”

Eric Hovind: We all do

Paul Taylor: That’s right. We’ll try and do our best. He says “I know the Bible clearly states that we should be prepared to give an answer and defend our faith in all situations.  A few weeks ago my boss and I began talking about religion, and he quickly pointed out that he did not believe in God. He said He believes the Bible was invented by old world kings and or leaders to keep slaves from misbehaving and rebelling. And that kind of makes sense” he says,” because it probably would keep slaves in line. Anyway, I’d never heard of this belief” he says, “ nor do I have a good answer or response to this statement. While I was able to discuss other aspects of my faith I wasn’t able to respond directly in regards to his belief. Can you help give me some direction on what would’ve been or can be a good reply?”

Eric Hovind: You know this ties in real closely with something we hear on a regular basis from scoffers or skeptics who say religion was just created to control people. You know all that’s designed to do is just control people and that’s why it was made.

Paul Taylor: Yeah, and this is a very broad brushed statement, and you know you should always watch out when any one comes out with any broad brushed statement, because usually it means that they don’t know anything at all about the details.

Eric Hovind: Well, here’s just from our perspective as we talked about this question, we said first of all, if someone was going to invent a religion to try to control slaves, this ain’t the one that you would invent, I’ll tell you that right now. One that talks about slaves going free?

Paul Taylor: Well yeah, I mean what about the book of Exodus, I mean what’s all that about? The very name means getting away from slavery. It’s talking about an entire nation of people getting out from under the yoke of slavery, God leading them, doing miraculous things to bring them out, and actually taking them to a promised land and I mean that’s not very much a manifesto for slavery, is it?

Eric Hovind: No, it’s not. This is a historical account, it’s a historical record. Now I know what the skeptics or scoffers would say when we say well what about that? But they’re gonna say hang on, doesn’t the Bible say that you need to be a good slave, if you are a slave? And that’s maybe that’s a whole other topic for another day but that brings up the difference between that kind of slavery that the Israelites or that the Egyptians had over the Israelites and the type of slavery that’s later talked about, a bondservant and things like that.

Paul Taylor: Well, I mean that’s right. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not Eric, but I’m British. And you can probably tell by the way that I talk . And you know the famous British politician called William Wilberforce, and he was the one who introduced the bill to get rid of the slave trade from Britain.

Eric Hovind: I saw the movie Amazing Grace, it was great

Paul Taylor: Slavery was removed from Britain by peaceful means therefore. Elsewhere it was warfare but in Britain it was removed by peaceful means. But what you need to remember about William Wilberforce is he was a man who believed the Bible to be absolutely true.

Eric Hovind: That was all based on Scripture, the reason he was doing that.

Paul Taylor: What people need to do is read things in context, don’t they? SO when you have a verse in Scripture that says you know slaves should be good slaves for their masters, that is not in any way condoning slavery. It’s simply talking to them in their situation saying if that’s the situation you’re in, yet globally that’s not a good thing, that’s not what the Bible teaches, but if that is the situation you’re in, you’ve gotta be a good witness in that situation.

Eric Hovind: Yeah, so how would you answer this question when it comes right down to it, was the Bible invented to control, help control slaves, or the broader brushed picture, was religion created just to help control people?

Paul Taylor: Well, it’s an interesting point, isn’t it? And I think what you need to do with a question like that is you need to start by looking at what’s the presupposition behind the question. And this is a thing that we like to hammer home all the time on this show. What’s the presupposition behind a question like that? The presupposition seems to be that the Bible is wrong and..

Eric Hovind: It’s not the Word of God it was invented by people.

Paul Taylor: But you know there’s plenty of other philosophies that are being developed that really are for controlling people. Have you tried reading the Communist manifesto?

Eric Hovind: You know, I pulled that up because that is a very interesting thing. If you really wanna look at what people would create to control people, that’s the kind of system you’d come up with. It’s got ten planks, the Communist Manifesto does, abolition of private property, nobody has private property, heavy progressive graduated income tax, this is disturbing it’s sounding kind of familiar, abolition of rights of inheritance, confiscation of property of all immigrants and rebels, centralization

Paul Taylor: That’s easy for you to say

Eric Hovind:..of credit in the hands of the state you know, central bank. It goes through these ten planks of here’s how to bring it in. and that’s the kind of thing you would do if you really wanted to control people.

Paul Taylor: That’s right, and of course the Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx, who was of course an evangelical Bible believing..oh no he wasn’t. No, let me remember, oh he was an atheist. That’s right.

Eric Hovind: See when you go according to God’s word, here’s what you’ll discover. You’ll disvoer exactly what we’ve put right here in the “God-onomics” series, that God has given man the ability of liberty, so that we can have prosperity. The most prosperity comes from liberty, from freedom. And that’s what our country was founded on and that’s what we love to talk about. That’s so important to have that.

Paul Taylor: It is so important. As a British person I can probably recommend the Citizens Rulebook so you can find out more about the godly foundations of this nation that we’re in here.

Eric Hovind: That is a great book on the subject because it really just gives our constitution and other great things of here’s the way our country was founded.

Paul Taylor: Well, speaking about great things, Eric, in the next segment, we’re going to be sitting back and listening. We’re gonna be listening to a song by singer/songwriter Bob Smith, and then I got the opportunity to interview him about why he wrote this song a couple of weeks ago.

Eric Hovind: Nice.

BREAK

Paul Taylor: Welcome back, you’re watching the Creation Today show with me, Paul Taylor, and with Eric Hovind. And Eric what do you get if you’ve got a musician who wants to proclaim the Creation message? You get someone like Bob Smith.

Eric Hovind: Bob Smith, he’s been writing music for over twenty years, used to do secular music, now is doing all Christian music, isn’t he?

Paul Taylor: That’s right, and he has a CD out called “Eagle’s Wings”, which you can get from let me think

Eric Hovind: I think you get that at creationstore.org

Paul Taylor: Cause there’s lots of good products there lots of good stuff

Eric Hovind: There is a ton of great stuff at creationstore.org, really good stuff

Paul Taylor: Well, I got to meet Bob recently, because he came by Pensacola, he dropped in at the offices, and I got the chance to chat to him, have a look at the video of the song, and I got the chance to talk to him about his ministry and about his song.

Eric Hovind: Now, I wanna hear that interview, cause I was out of town, and I missed that so I wanna hear that here in just a second, but I wanna hear a piece of one of his songs first. Cause he’s got some music videos up I know some of them are on YouTube with him talking about it. Which one are we gonna hear here?

Paul Taylor: What we’re gonna hear is “We are Created”, which is his creation song.

Eric Hovind: That’s right, it’s kind of catchy, the chorus will get stuck in your head. So, let’s watch this and see if this chorus gets stuck in your head.

MUSIC PLAYING

Paul Taylor: I’ve got with me here in the studio today Bob Smith who is a songwriter who produced that clip, wrote the song, and performed it that you’ve just seen. And of course as you heard, the song is on the subject of creation and evolution. So, welcome to the Creation Today studio, Bob.

Bob Smith: Thank you Paul, it’s great to be here.

Paul Taylor: It’s great to have you with us. And I mentioned that you’re a singer and songwriter and you have a musical ministry, is that right?

Bob Smith: That is correct.

Paul Taylor: How long has that been going for approximately?

Bob Smith: Well, in 1985 I went from writing secular music to  giving it all to the Lord.

Paul Taylor: Now, the song that we’ve just listened to is called

Bob Smith: We are Created.

Paul Taylor: “We are Created”, and that is on the album

Bob Smith: Eagle’s Wings

Paul Taylor: “Eagle’s Wings.”

Bob Smith: Correct.

Paul Taylor: Now, tell us a little bit of the background to this particular song, because in a sense this song is a bit of a departure for you, isn’t it, from some of the material you’ve done elsewhere?

Bob Smith: Well it is, Paul. I wrote the song primarily for Christians. To become what I am now, and not what I was 5 years ago.

Paul Taylor: SO if you wrote it for Christians, and there’s a message in it, it’s talking about creation. You think that there’s a number of Christians out there who have not got this message that Genesis is true.

Bob Smith: Absolutely, I was you might say a New Testament Christian five years ago. I believed in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, but as somebody questioned me about Genesis 1,  I was pretty ambivalent toward the subject. And I started to become interested when a friend of mine named Eric turned me on to a Creation video series, and I became more than interested. I became passionate about it, and very recently I have decided that it was time to take what can be a scientifically complicated subject and turn it into a very simple 3-minute song, and hopefully get people to dig deeper.

Paul Taylor: Does it really matter that much to you whether people believe that or not, I mean surely we should just be believing in Jesus

Bob Smith: No, it’s very important. If you’re going to believe that the Bible is literal, if you’re going to believe that God inspired it all, you’ve got to believe that Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 is God’s Holy Word, too.

Paul Taylor: What are you hoping are going to be the outcomes from that, that somebody sees this video, what are they going to get from it?

Bob Smith: Well, what I hope if they video that they just saw did not have me speaking at the end, if they go to my website, go to the links page, and click on the video, they’ll get the YouTube version, and when they go to that version they’re gonna hear me talking at the end, and referring people to certain sites, and certain documents, where they can dig deeper into this. Certain books, your website is on there as well.

Paul Taylor: You can get Bob’s latest CD “Eagle’s Wings” from creationstore.org.

Eric Hovind: And we’re back in the studio. Which is where we just were, or you were.

Paul Taylor: It’s where I was but

Eric Hovind: I liked your shirt.

Paul Taylor: I recorded that a few weeks ago, a while ago, cause I can’t change my shirt quite that fast.

Eric Hovind: Gotcha, plaid, that was nice. Nice. I’m going with the dark. Hey this is a CD you can get of Bob singing, you can check that out creationstore.org called “On Eagle’s Wings” and really nice guy, right? You were telling me a little bit about him.

Paul Taylor: Great guy, and his own website is message-songs.org.

Eric Hovind: Message-songs.org

Paul Taylor: That’s right, yeah.

Eric Hovind: And all these songs do have a message.

Paul Taylor: That’s right, and it’s great you know when people want to take the opportunity to do something creative. You know and maybe there’s others of you out there who think you know I’ve got talents and things I might not be a speaker but there’s other things I can do. I can write, I can sing, I can do other things. It would be great if people were out there doing something creative.

Eric Hovind: We need a creation dance, creationists need their

Paul Taylor: That would be a good one. Yes, I like that idea. But I’m not taking part in that.

Eric Hovind: Well, we’ve got a great segment coming up, cause we’re gonna talk about the Bible, what’s it say about locusts. Do locusts have six legs or four legs? What about Pi, what’s the truth about Pi?

Paul Taylor: Well, I like Pumpkin Pie.

Eric Hovind: I ate my fair share at Christmas, let me tell you.

Paul Taylor: That’s good, but we’re actually talking about Pi, P-I, or the Greek letter, 3.14159 and I saw a really boring book once, the most boring book in the world. It was Pi calculated to 10 million places.

Eric Hovind: Oh my goodness.

Paul Taylor: Yeah, So if you want something really boring to get someone as a birthday present sometime I recommend that one.

Eric Hovind: Send it in, send it in.

Paul Taylor: Well, that’s all coming up after this break.

BREAK

Eric Hovind: The next question we have comes from Rob, and Rob’s got a question here that I’ve heard too many times. But let’s talk about it. He says “Would you guys mind if I ask you a question? I wanna ask, how do the leaders of your faith reconcile the scientific inaccuracies in the Bible?”

Paul Taylor: Who are the leaders of our faith, by the way? Is that you?

Eric Hovind: That’s a good question. Is he asking if we’re the leaders or do we need to go ask the leaders?

Paul Taylor: Could be.

Eric Hovind: We need to ask the leaders of our faith how do we reconcile the inaccuracies, scientific inaccuracies in the Bible? Cause as everybody knows there’s lots of scientific inaccuracies in here, right?

Paul Taylor: Well, that’s always a good question that people like to bring. I mean as you said it’s a very very old one. There’s one in particular that he mentioned that he wanted to talk about , oh it’s two he mentioned.

Eric Hovind: Well, I’ve gotta stop right here, he’s assuming, his question makes an assumption.

Paul Taylor: It’s an assumption that the Bible is wrong.

Eric Hovind: Exactly. It’s not really a valid it’s a loaded question. And that’s different than a leading question. A loaded question is making an assumption. He’s assuming that there are scientific inaccuracies in the Bible, but alright, let’s go ahead and talk about the two that he talks about here. But your question has the wrong assumption, just so you know.

Paul Taylor: 1.Kings Chapter 7, and verse 23: “And he made the Sea of cast bronze, ten cubits from one brim to the other; it was completely round. Its height was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference.” Hold on, that doesn’t work, does it? That’s the contradiction. You’ve got a diameter of ten cubits, and this is where we talked about Pi.

Eric Hovind: This would be a big pie, ten cubits.

Paul Taylor: It’s a very big pie. I don’t know whether it’s a steak and kidney pie, or whatever, but it’s a very large pie. But the point is that the circumference if it’s ten cubits across, then that’s ten multiplied by 3.14, 31.4 the nearest thing if you can figure it’s 31 cubits around. And the Bible says 30, so clearly the Bible’s wrong, it has nothing to tell us on salvation, we should close down our ministry immediately and all go home. Hold on.

Eric Hovind: What.

Paul Taylor: We’ve forgotten something. This thing had a brim! Hold on, he says here in verse it had a brim, and in actual fact it goes on later to say how wide that brim was. Verse 26 it says it was a hand breadth thick.

Eric Hovind: Ok, now a hand breadth is one quarter of a cubit

Paul Taylor: That’s right, one quarter of a cubit. My hand doesn’t quite work, I can probably fit a bit more, cause I’ve got thin fingers, but the way that they did the cubit was certainly one quarter of a hand breadth. So you’ve got a quarter on this side, you’ve got a quarter on this side, that’s a half altogether.  SO the inside diameter, is 9.5 cubits, nine and a half cubits. Now, get your calculators out. So let’s punch some numbers in then. 9.5 multiplied by 3.14 and that gives you the answer, 29.8.

Eric Hovind: Point eight.

Paul Taylor: Right, 29.8. To the nearest significant figure because you’re not going to do 0.2 of a cubit, you got the nearest significant figure, it’s 30.

Eric Hovind: So the Bible is right there.

Paul Taylor: Isn’t that amazing?

Eric Hovind: The inside circumference is 30 cubits, the outside is 10 cubits diameter from outside to outside.

Paul Taylor: That’s right, from the outside of the brim to brim, and it actually specifically says from brim to brim. SO the Bible gives you the information.  Listen, we’re not twisting anything here, we’re not reading anything, it’s exactly what it says, from brim to brim and then it goes on to say the brim is a quarter of a cubit so the Bible, surprise surprise, is absolutely scientifically accurate.

Eric Hovind: It fits, there isn’t a scientific contradiction or a mathematical contradiction in the Scripture. You know, I’ve seen lots and lots of these supposed contradictions, and we need to mention real quick that if I was really answering an atheist, if I was talking to somebody that was really just simply downplaying the Bible, I don’t mind solving the supposed contradictions cause there aren’t any, and there’s some great books out there on that. But, first of all, to the unbeliever, I would have to ask them, what’s wrong with contradictions?

Paul Taylor: Yes.

Eric Hovind: Are contradictions absolutely wrong? Is it wrong to have contradictions? Cause what you’ll find is that the atheist, the unbeliever continually uses our world view, the Biblical worldview, which says there can’t be contradictions, in order to try to argue against the Biblical world view, which says there can’t be contradictions.

Paul Taylor: Yeah, you know I’ve seen, I mean another good example of that is, I’ve seen many websites mentioning my name, mentioning your name, mentioning the names of other well-known creationists around. The phrase that’s often used of them is that these are liars for Jesus, I’ve seen that quite a bit. But you know if you’re an atheist and you don’t believe the Bible to be true, why does it matter if we were liars?

Eric Hovind: I know. I had a debate with a guy recently on Twitter, and we were gong back and forth and then he called me a liar for Jesus. I said what’s the matter with lying in your world view? And he couldn’t give me an answer, he said well lying, you’re stealing money from people. I said, well, what’s wrong with stealing money from people? Well, they could be using it for something else. I said, well, who cares? What difference does it make, if you’re world view is true.

Paul Taylor: Survival of the fittest would suggest that it’s a good idea to steal money from people so that you can

Eric Hovind: It helps you to survive

Paul Taylor: That’s right, the stronger person should have the money so they can survive and pass on their genes to the next generation so the next generation can evolve better.

Eric Hovind: Well then I’m not gonna fight with you.

Paul Taylor: It makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? But isn’t it interesting, those two things, lying and stealing, are in the ten commandments.

Eric Hovind: Exactly, where do you think they get these things from they’re accusing Christians of? They get them from God’s Word. They’re saying God’s Word isn’t true, and they’re this standard in order to judge it.

It’s wrong to lie, why is it wrong to lie? Because the majority of people say so? Tehre have been many nations in history where the majority of people have made mistakes and done something wrong. Don’t forget, we could say something like the fact that Hitler was elected to power democratically. Remember?

Eric Hovind: That’s true.

Paul Taylor: Into first place. Now, people realized their mistake subsequently and so I’m not accusing people of anything at any particular nation. There’s been plenty of things done wrong in the name of democracy in the United States, in the United Kingdom as well. That’s not the point. The point is that the only reason why we can say that a lie is wrong, or that stealing is wrong is because God’s word says so.

Eric Hovind: That’s exactly right. Otherwise it’s arbitrary. Otherwise there isn’t really a standard. One atheist we were arguing with or debating with said you guys tell lies to people. We said well tell us one lie that we’ve told. He said ok, you guys say that everybody believes in God. And we went, well that’s what the Bible says, we’re quoting from the Bible. And he said well you’re a liar for saying that. For saying that everybody really does believe in God. And everybody knows He exists. And I’m going so basically anybody that quotes from the scripture is a liar is what he’s saying.

Paul Taylor: If I said that it’s a truth universally acknowledged that a single man with a certain income is looking for a wife, and you said that’s a lie, then you’re not saying I’m a liar, you’re saying Jane Austen’s a liar, which could well be, but it’s who you’re quoting, isn’t it, that matters. So, it’s a very important point. Of course, when you go to the ten commandments, only one of those commandments has got a reason, hasn’t it? It’s the fourth commandments, and what’s the reason again? The reason is that God made the World in six days and rested on the seventh. So it brings us right back to creation. And talking about creation things that God made. People have a problem, this same question, had a problem with things that God’s made. He says something about Leviticus 11 verse 20 talks about all flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you, there are some winged creatures that fly on all fours you made the ones that are jointed legs or hopping on the ground like the locust, the cricket, the grasshopper, things like that. And he says well clearly wrong, the Bible’s in contradiction because locusts do not have four legs, they’re insects, so they have six legs.

Eric Hovind: Well, I just pulled up a picture of a locust here on my screen here to check out, and let me see here, ok I am seeing six ——— there. But if you notice, how many does it walk on? It walks on four legs. Now it’s got two big giant legs in the back, and those are used for jumping.

Paul Taylor: That’s right.

Eric Hovind: But the ones that is actually walks on are the four.

Paul Taylor: Yes

Eric Hovind: It’s got four legs, I think the Bible is accurate here, exactly what it’s saying. You’ll even notice sometimes they’ll talk about the spider who taketh hold with her hands and you’ll notice spiders don’t, I mean I know we say eight legs, which is what they’ve got, but they really use the front two as their hands.

Paul Taylor: That’s right. But it’s all idiomatic, isn’t it. And that’s absolutely right, you can see from the picture that point, but you’ve also got an idiom that it was a Hebrew idiom to say some things walking on all fours didn’t necessarily mean fours, it was just saying they walk on all fours.

Eric Hovind: Yeah, guys we will never get tired of saying we believe God’s word is absolutely true and scientifically accurate from the very beginning, and that can be defended. The only reason you would refuse to accept that  is if you don’t want to accept that. You  have to say that there’s contradictions and you can’t even account for contradictions. You have to say it’s got mathematical problems and you can’t even account for the laws of mathematics. God’s word is true from the beginning.

Paul Taylor: Well, we love answering your questions, and if you’ve got any other questions, please send them to [email protected]. And you can join us on Twitter @creationtoday, and Facebook

Eric Hovind: Facebook.com/creationtoday