The Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, has questioned the historicity of the Bible according to Newsweek’s Cristina Silva. The paper reportedly said, “No evidence of the events described in the book of Genesis has ever been found.”
I am sure the absurdity of such a statement is lost on those who want to jump to the same conclusion. It is a logical fallacy to say events did not occur because there is no evidence of it. It is called an argumentum ex silentio, an argument from silence.
There are plenty of unsolved murders that have not been cleared because there was not enough evidence to prove who did it and secure a conviction, it does not mean someone is not dead. To say there is no corroborating evidence does not mean something did not happen; it just means there is no evidence of how it happened. Those are two entirely different things.
There is a universe that is evidence of something that happened. Without a shred of evidence some scientists believe in the Big Bang Theory. But since they have no evidence I’ll stick with the Big God Theory. I guess Haaretz calls the universe “no evidence.”
With a global population pushing eight billion people that is evidence that someone was fruitful and multiplied. Scientific research into mitochondrial DNA has suggested the human race had a single female progenitor. Researchers called her “Eve,” but that is what Haaretz calls “no evidence.”
Here’s a news flash, “No evidence disproving the events described in the book of Genesis has ever been found.” You can quote me on that. The whole scientific community is not in possession of a single observable fact about how the universe or life began, so if they do not know what happened, they cannot say what didn’t happen.
Not only does such a statement lack any factual support, it is a logical impossibility to prove a negative. If something did not happen the evidence it did not happen does not exist, because it did not happen.
I have often thought this may be the reason God inspired the psalmist to write, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God,’” Psalm 14:1, because of the inability to prove a negative. This is why atheists retreat into agnosticism and say they do not know if there is a God, because they eventually recognize the foolishness of trying to prove His nonexistence.
But just because the agnostic says he does not know if there is a God, does not mean there are not others who do know Him. When man repents of his sin and exercises genuine faith in Christ he is introduced to the knowledge of God the unbelieving and uninitiated will never know. Though “we walk by faith,” we “know whom [we] have believed.”
All creation is evidence of an ordered universe operating by identifiable physical laws that suggest an Intelligent Designer, but Haaretz says that is “no evidence.” I wonder what kind of evidence Haaretz needs.
Leave a Reply