Is the Prophecy of the End of the World Fulfilled？

http://www.neverthirsty.org/pp/bible-questions/answer00910-what-is-the-meaning-of-joel-2-28.html

Dear friends, Have you ever wondered if the Prophecy of the End of the World in Joel 2-3 being Fulfilled？Not yet, but it is coming. At least all the stars are not falling from the sky.(* stars become black holes?)
Here below is a related answer for you to think about. You may click the above link for the whole article.

Question:What is the biblical meaning of Joel 2:28 and the following? Answer: Joel 2:28-3:21 is a prophecy about the future that began after Jesus' return to heaven. The prophecy begins with a description of the new ministry of the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28-29), refers to the return of Jesus Christ, the battle of Armageddon (Joel 3:1-17) and ends with the 1,000 year, earthly kingdom (Joel 3:18-21).  ( click the Bible verses to read the related Bible)

...The last part of the prophecy that predicts the future tribulation period which includes the return of Jesus Christ, the battle of Armageddon, and the establishment of God's 1,000 year kingdom has not yet occurred. Joel and Acts say that wonders will occur in the sky, the sun will darken, the moon will turn red. These have not occurred yet and neither has the Lord Jesus returned. Daniel 7 and the book of Revelation confirms this. This means that the Joel prophecy was partially fulfilled immediately after Jesus returned to heaven. That is why the Holy Spirit quoted only the first three verses and the first part of the fourth verse of the Joel prophecy in Acts 2:16-21. The references to the signs in the sky, the sun, and moon were apparently included so that the quote was not broken up, even though they will not occur until later. The rest of the prophecy will be fulfilled later.

It is important to recognize that it is common in scripture for hundreds and even thousands of years to occur between verses and in the middle of a verse. 

The study of the “Picture of the Antichrist” illustrates one such example. Another great example occurred in Luke 4:16–21 when Jesus was in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth and during the worship service quoted a portion of the prophecy in Isaiah 61:1-2. Jesus read the first verse and then stopped in the middle of Isaiah 61:2. The first part of the prophecy was about His first coming when He preached good news and healed many people. But He did not read the second part, since it is about the future - future judgment. That will occur in the end time. Old Testament prophecies frequently have large gaps of time in the middle of a verse and between verses.

Conclusion:The prophecy of Joel 2:28-3:17 is an important prophecy. Since it has been partially fulfilled, there is every reason to believe the rest of it will be fulfilled too! Praise the Lord.

( *Back to the beginning of this article )A quick comparison of the Acts quote of the Joel prophecy will reveal that there are a few slight changes in wording but nothing significant.
The Joel prophecy starts with the statement "I will pour out My Spirit." Acts records that this will occur in the last days and then quotes the Joel passage. Then just as the prophecy promised, the partial fulfillment occurred after Jesus established the New Covenant with His death and returned to heaven (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25; compared to Luke 24:49; John 15:26; 16:7). The New Covenant is described in Heb. 8 and Jeremiah 31:31-34. After Jesus left, the Holy Spirit came as promised and began convicting men and women of their sin. The Holy Spirit also gives people faith, seals, baptizes believers into the body of Christ, gives spiritual gifts, and seals believers as a promise of eternal salvation. The study “The Spirit's Ministry - Tongues and Prophecy” will provide these details about the ministry of the Holy Spirit after Jesus left. In summary, the Holy Spirit, who is called the Helper (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7), came after Jesus left this earth and indwelt the apostles and every Christian since. The Holy Spirit was poured out upon the believers and many miraculous events occurred. That is what the Joel prophecy referred to. Men also experienced visions and dreams. Acts 9:10-12 tells that a Ananias experienced a vision and Acts 10:17-19 reveals that Peter had a vision from the Lord. The Apostle Paul also had visions (Acts 16:9-10; 18:9; 2 Cor. 12:1-10).

Is the Holocaust Foretold in Bible?

Dear friends: 

This is the first time I ran into such an article which connects the prophecy of Daniel with Holocaust. Read and double check the Book of Daniel ( especially, Daniel 8) for your own benefits. The match is fascinating!

The Holocaust Foretold in Scripture?

During the Second World War the Nazi government of Adolph Hitler carried out what it called “the Final Solution” for the Jewish problem, and what others have since called “the Holocaust.”  Over a period of three and a half years Hitler operated death camps that he set up for the specific purpose of exterminating the Jewish people.  Six million Jews were killed. 

The camp at Chelmno, Poland—the first concentration camp built exclusively to kill everyone sent there—was established in November, 1941, and mass murder began there on December 8, 1941.  The last death camp, Mauthausen, was liberated three and a half years later in May, 1945.  (Concentration camps set up to house Jews existed before this, but camps set up specifically to carry out genocide were operational for just three and a half years.) 

Centuries earlier the prophet Daniel had foretold that an exceptionally cruel foreign ruler would hurt and kill the Jewish people over a period of three and a half years.  Did the Bible foretell the Holocaust?

Daniel lived around twenty-five centuries ago, but he received a series of visions and messages from angels sent by God to tell him about what would happen to his people, the Jews, in the distant future:

“‘Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.’”

—Daniel 10:14 NIV

He was told to

“‘seal up the vision, for it concerns the distant future.’”

—Daniel 8:26 NIV

God’s messengers told Daniel there would be “a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then” from which “your people . . . will be delivered.” (Daniel 12:1 NIV)

“‘When the end comes near for those kingdoms, a bold and cruel king who tells lies will come. This will happen when many people have turned against God. This king will be very powerful, but his power will not come from himself.  He will cause terrible destruction and will be successful in everything he does.  He will destroy powerful people and even God’s holy people.  This king will succeed by using lies and force.  He will think that he is very important.  He will destroy many people without warning . . .’”

—Daniel 8:23-26 NCV

Does that description fit the Nazi regime of Adolph Hitler that blitzkrieged its way across Europe and attempted to exterminate the prophet Daniel’s people? 

In a related passage the angelic messenger God sent to Daniel told him,

“‘This king will speak against the Most High God, and he will hurt and kill God’s holy people.  He will try to change times and laws that have already been set.  The holy people that belong to God will be in that king’s power for three and one-half years.’”

—Daniel 7:25 NCV

The angel also indicated that shortly after those three and a half years, the Jewish people would have their own nation restored—they would receive power to rule themselves again.  The cruel ruler who was killing the Jews would be

“making war against God’s holy people and was defeating them until God, who has been alive forever, came.  He judged in favor of the holy people who belong to the Most High God; then the time came for them to receive the power to rule.”

—Daniel 7:21-22 NCV

Daniel does not speak of them first as a “nation,” but rather as a “people”—which would fit the circumstances of the Jews at the time of the Holocaust.  In fact, it was shortly after the Holocaust that the nation of Israel was restored in 1948, and the holy people of the prophet Daniel were able to rule over the Promised Land for the first time in nearly two thousand years.

Was this what the prophet had been told would happen?

Demonic enemies of God tried to block their restoration to the Promised Land by annihilating the Jewish people. That attempt was implemented through what the Nazis called the “Final Solution” and what we today call the Holocaust.  God, who sees the future, appears to have foretold this significant event through his inspired human prophets, and had those prophecies recorded in Scripture.

“Then another king will arise, more brutal than the other ten, and will destroy three of them. He will defy the Most High God, and wear down the saints [the Jews] with persecution, and try to change all laws, morals, and customs. God's people will be helpless in his hands for three and a half years.”

—Daniel 7:24-25 LB

The Nazi “Third Reich” fits this description, and its extermination camps operated for three and a half years.  Old Testament writers used the term “saints” (Hebrew kodesh = ‘holy’ or ‘set apart’) to refer to the Jews.  At Mount Sinai, according to Moses, God gave his law to the “saints.”  (Deut. 33:2)  King David called true-worshipping Jews of his day “the saints who are on the earth.” (Ps. 16:2 NKJV)

In this case the prophet Daniel was given visions of “what will happen to your people in the days to come” (Dan. 10:14 Jerusalem Bible), including “a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then” from which “your people . . . will be delivered.” (Dan 12:1 NIV)  So, when Daniel used the term “saints,” he had in mind God’s ‘holy people’—Daniel’s own people, the Jews.

The New Testament book of Revelation seems to include a parallel of Daniel’s Old Testament prophecy.  Consider this possible interpretation [in brackets] of Revelation, chapter 12, which also speaks of three and a half years:...

(Read the whole article by clicking the following link)

http://www.unvsil.com/holocaust.htm

Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God

The odds of life existing on another planet grow ever longer. Intelligent design, anyone?

By ERIC METAXAS

Eric Metaxas: Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God

( for the whole article, click the link above)

...As factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn’t be here.

Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing.

Yet here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for it? Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Doesn’t assuming that an intelligence created these perfect conditions require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being?

There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.

Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?

Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term “big bang,” said that his atheism was “greatly shaken” at these developments. He later wrote that “a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Theoretical physicist Paul Davies has said that “the appearance of design is overwhelming” and Oxford professor Dr. John Lennox has said “the more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator . . . gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.”

The greatest miracle of all time, without any close seconds, is the universe. It is the miracle of all miracles, one that ineluctably points with the combined brightness of every star to something—or Someone—beyond itself.

Did Scientists Really Discover a Human Ancestor?

• 
• Hominid Hype and Homo Naledi: Did Scientists Really Discover a Human Ancestor? ( click this link for the whole article)

...For now, the promoters of Homo naledi are calling it an "anatomical mosaic." That terminology raises a red flag. In the parlance of evolutionary biology, that usually means the fossil is a unique organism that doesn't fit easily into the standard evolutionary tree.

Indeed, just four years ago Australopithecus sediba — also discovered and promoted by Berger — was the transitional form du jure between the australopithecines and our own genus Homo. Yet sediba had a very different set of traits from naledi. If the same researchers now want to advocate Homo naledi as the new "transitional form," they must radically revise their evolutionary story. Both species been called a "human ancestor," in recent years, but both claims cannot be true.

Another major challenge to claims for Homo naledi as a transitional form is the fact that the age of these newly reported fossils is currently totally unknown. For all we presently know, the fossils could be very young (say, less than 250,000 years old), and far removed from any hypothetical evolutionary transition between Australopithecus and Homo.

Homo naledi's promoters are suggesting it is between 2.5 and 3 million years old. But that date isn't the result of an objective geological dating analysis. Rather, that date is driven strictly by evolutionary considerations, because we have very few bones from that time period and very little to document the supposed transition between the apelike australopithecines and the humanlike members of Homo.

At present, there's no geological evidence that this species is from that time period and plugs some "gap" in the fossil record. Claims that it is a human ancestor are driven by hype, not evidence.

...This explanation is more consistent with the evidence, so why do naledi's discoverers claim the species ritualistically buried its dead? It's simple: they want a small-brained species with human-like behavior. Evolutionary considerations, not evidence, again, are driving the conclusions.

Lastly, there are controversies about whether "Homo" naledi even belongs in our own genus Homo. Biological classification is highly subjective, but given the species's small brain size and its australopithecine-like body, it's placement within Homo has already proven controversial.

Four years ago the media was claiming Australopithecus sediba was the newest human ancestor. But cooler heads prevailed and it was shown that sediba was from the wrong time period and had the wrong traits to be a link between humanlike members of the genus Homo and the apelike australopithecines.

What will become of "Homo naledi" remains to be seen. So far, however, its pathway resembles other hominin fossils whose "transitional" or "ancestral" status ultimately went belly up. When evaluating media claims of a "human ancestor," a strong dose of healthy skepticism is warranted.

(Also Read more at following link)

Were Adam and Eve Real? New Anthropological Evidence in 10-Year Update to Book (Interview)

CP: After the book was published there was an announcement of a major archaeological find, Homo naledi, in South Africa. What, if anything, from that discovery would you have included in the book if the news had come before publication?

This hominid is just another in a long list of recent fossil finds that have forced anthropologists to rewrite the human evolutionary story. Every time a new hominid is discovered, it throws the evolutionary paradigm into chaos, and H. naledi is no exception.

If a scientific theory is a good one, new discoveries should provide affirmation and greater clarity. On the other hand,
if new discoveries continually shake up the human evolutionary tree it is a sure sign that the evolutionary paradigm is in trouble.
...CP: In Chapter 3 you write that with your model, "creation is testable. The concept of creation has entered the scientific domain." Why is that important for your readers to understand?

Rana: Whenever a scientific case is presented for God's existence and Scripture's reliability, skeptics will often reject those arguments by asserting that they are outside the bounds of science. They use this objection as an excuse to ignore the scientific case for the Christian faith. By formulating the story of humanity's origin in scientific terms, replete with testable predictions, it forces skeptics to engage the powerful scientific evidence for Christianity.

(Photo: Reasons to Believe)Cover art for "Who Was Adam?" by Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross, Reasons to Believe, 2015.

Ten years after publication of Who Was Adam? by Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross, 13 new chapters detail the new scientific evidence on the origins of humankind in a second edition.

Rana and Ross are scholars affiliated with Reasons to Believe, which also published the new edition of Who Was Adam? RTB works to spread the Gospel by showing how science supports the truths found in Scripture. Rana and Ross both have doctorate degrees in the physical sciences, biochemistry and astronomy, respectively.

Unlike most second editions, this one leaves the original edition alone and adds the new chapters onto the original.

During an interview with The Christian Post, Rana explained they did it that way for transparency. Readers can compare their initial predictions with the decade of scientific research that came after that. Rana and Ross also use the additional chapters to respond to the critics of their first edition.

Rana also describes where he, and RTB, fit among the diverse viewpoints of the so-called "creation versus evolution" debate, and provides his thoughts on the discovery of Homo naledi, which was announced shortly after publication of Who Was Adam?

The following is a lightly edited transcript of that email interview:

CP: When the first edition of Who Was Adam? was published 10 years ago, what was your goal, and, looking back, how have you done?

image: http://images.christianpost.com/full/89316/fazale-rana-and-hugh-ross.jpg?w=262

image: http://images.christianpost.com/full/89316/fazale-rana-and-hugh-ross.jpg?w=262

(Photo: Reasons to Believe)Fazale Rana (left) and Hugh Ross (right), authors of "Who Was Adam?" and research scholars for Reasons to Believe.

Rana: With the first edition of Who Was Adam? we wanted to demonstrate that a scientifically rigorous case could be made for the traditional biblical view of human origins.

Many people, including Christians, believe that there is overwhelming evidence for human evolution. In light of that evidence, they feel as if they have no choice but to abandon the biblical view of human origins and accept the reality of human evolution. The problem with this approach is that it's impossible to reconcile the biblical account of human origins with the notion of human evolution.

The good news is that there is scientific evidence that suggests Adam and Eve were real people, and that all of humanity arose from a primordial pair. A growing number of anthropologists embrace the idea of human exceptionalism — an idea that comports with the biblical notion that human beings are uniquely made in God's image. There is an explosive appearance of sophisticated behavior, including artistic and musical expression, that coincides with the appearance of modern humans.

CP: What's new in this new and expanded edition?

Rana: A lot has happened in anthropology over the last decade since Who Was Adam? was first published. We thought it would be a good idea to see how our original ideas stood up to these advances.

We also thought this updated edition would be a good place to respond to critics of our creation model. For the sake of transparency, we left the original book intact and added over 150 pages of content.

CP: Within the "creation versus evolution" debate, there are a variety (more than two) of viewpoints. For Christians who don't follow the debate closely, it can be confusing. What are the most important points you would like Christians to understand about your own position?

Rana: The position we espouse in Who Was Adam? is called Old Earth Creationism. We think that the days in Genesis 1 are long, finite periods of time. Because of this view, we accept the scientific dates for the Earth's age and life's antiquity.

But we are Creationists. And as such, we are skeptical that evolution can account for life's origin, history, and design. We reject human evolution and believe in a historical Adam and Eve.

CP: In Chapter 3 you write that with your model, "creation is testable. The concept of creation has entered the scientific domain." Why is that important for your readers to understand?

Rana: Whenever a scientific case is presented for God's existence and Scripture's reliability, skeptics will often reject those arguments by asserting that they are outside the bounds of science. They use this objection as an excuse to ignore the scientific case for the Christian faith. By formulating the story of humanity's origin in scientific terms, replete with testable predictions, it forces skeptics to engage the powerful scientific evidence for Christianity.

CP: After the book was published there was an announcement of a major archaeological find, Homo naledi, in South Africa. What, if anything, from that discovery would you have included in the book if the news had come before publication?

This hominid is just another in a long list of recent fossil finds that have forced anthropologists to rewrite the human evolutionary story. Every time a new hominid is discovered, it throws the evolutionary paradigm into chaos, and H. naledi is no exception.

If a scientific theory is a good one, new discoveries should provide affirmation and greater clarity. On the other hand, if new discoveries continually shake up the human evolutionary tree it is a sure sign that the evolutionary paradigm is in trouble.

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-evolution-anthropological-evidence-who-was-adam-148337/#lyzHtv7yG1bM7bYz.99

CP: In Chapter 3 you write that with your model, "creation is testable. The concept of creation has entered the scientific domain." Why is that important for your readers to understand?

Rana: Whenever a scientific case is presented for God's existence and Scripture's reliability, skeptics will often reject those arguments by asserting that they are outside the bounds of science. They use this objection as an excuse to ignore the scientific case for the Christian faith. By formulating the story of humanity's origin in scientific terms, replete with testable predictions, it forces skeptics to engage the powerful scientific evidence for Christianity.

CP: After the book was published there was an announcement of a major archaeological find, Homo naledi, in South Africa. What, if anything, from that discovery would you have included in the book if the news had come before publication?

This hominid is just another in a long list of recent fossil finds that have forced anthropologists to rewrite the human evolutionary story. Every time a new hominid is discovered, it throws the evolutionary paradigm into chaos, and H. naledi is no exception.

If a scientific theory is a good one, new discoveries should provide affirmation and greater clarity. On the other hand, if new discoveries continually shake up the human evolutionary tree it is a sure sign that the evolutionary paradigm is in trouble

What Went Wrong with Serial Killer Ted Bundy?

...Respected counselors who work with child molesters, voyeurs, sadomasochists, and rapists say that pornography is usually a significant factor in these behaviors. Shortly before his execution, serial killer Ted Bundy invited Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family to interview him on death row. Bundy urgently wanted to warn people about the terrible dangers of porn. A report about the interview is featured on the web site, Family.org.

“I was a normal person,” Bundy said. “I had good friends. I led a normal life, except for this one, small but very potent and destructive segment that I kept very secret and close to myself.” And so an addicting behavior that began at age 13 when he found dirty magazines in a dumpster culminated in the brutal murders of 28 innocent women and girls.

While Ted Bundy represents the extreme, “Jeff” is more typical. He and his lovely wife live in a nice suburban home with their kids and are active at church. But Jeff never felt accepted by his father and used porn to soothe the hurt. This eventually led to squandering money on prostitutes. When his wife discovered his infidelity, she was shocked to learn that they were heavily in debt, his job could be in jeopardy, and he needed to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS. After intensive work and Christian counseling, Jeff was delivered from his addicting actions and their marriage was saved – but even so, it was a long time before Jeff regained his wife’s trust.
Yes, porn has a price – and it can cost you everything...( for the whole article, click the link below)

Addicted to Pornography - CBN.com

Can I Break an Addiction to Pornography?

Which Came First, Chicken or Egg?

Which Came First, Chicken or Egg?

Scientists in Britain have think they may have an answer to above question that's been around for a long time.(Originally posted Sept.2, 2011)

SCIENTISTS have cracked one of the world's oldest riddles – which came first, the chicken or the egg?

A supercomputer gave the team from Sheffield and Warwick Universities the answer – the chicken.
Here, a leading member of the team explains how they unscrambled the age-old conundrum.

OUR discovery was a very happy accident.
The original goal of the research was to find out more about how animals make eggshell.

Society underestimates chickens and we don’t realize the amazing process they perform each time they make an egg.

When you crack into your boiled egg in the morning, you are looking at one of the most amazing materials in the world.

Eggshell is incredibly strong yet very lightweight. Humans can’t get close to making anything like it.

A man-made equivalent would revolutionize our time.

But the problem is we just don’t know how chickens make eggshell.

They control this process in exquisite detail, yet we don't even know where to begin.Understanding how they build eggs would begin to tell us how we can do it ourselves.

And so we turned to the UK Science Research Council's super-computer based in Edinburgh called HECTOR (High End Computing Terascale Resource).

We wanted it to figure out how eggs are built, by looking at the process in microscopic detail.

First we programmed in the "ingredients" that chickens use to make egg shells. We then said: "Right, this is what chickens use — off you go and see what you can do."

This computer tinkered away on the problem for weeks and weeks.

A chicken, on the other hand, can do this pretty much overnight.

The funny thing is we weren't even originally going to use chicken eggs. We only chose them because the protein was simple to study.

It was only when we got our results back that we realized we had solved this timeless riddle. We were pretty amazed.

The results showed that a particular protein in chickens acts as a tireless builder, placing one microscopic section of shell on top of the other.

Without this builder protein, the eggs would not exist.

And yet it is only found in a chicken's ovaries.

This means the bird must have come first.

It initiates this building process before going off

to start on another part of the egg.

But where did the chicken come from?
(* Doesn't God's Word from Bible make a lot of sense?)

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures 

according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things 

and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it 

was so.( Genesis 1;24)

( *continuing from the article above)
...Our finding has lots of potential.
Because eggshell is made up of many tiny crystals, we could use this information to find out how to make and destroy other crystal structures.

For example, how to permanently eliminate limescale crystals that fur up kettles and pipes.

And because our bodies use a similar method to make teeth and bones, there could also be many medical implications and we could learn more about how to rebuild human bones.

I've got a feeling this work could go off in lots of directions — many of them we probably haven't even thought of yet.

But the most immediate result is we have solved this riddle — and my email inbox has already been flooded.

I've always been a great fan of cooked breakfasts.

But I don't think I'll look at those fried eggs in quite the same way again.
(For Chinese translation, click the link below.)
先有雞還是先有蛋？

(For the original news report, click the link below.)

Official: Chicken DID come before the egg | The Sun |Feature

Why Does the Information in DNA Point to God?

...The chance arrangement of information in DNA is prohibitively improbable, and there are no chemical or physical laws at work to dictate its existence. We are left, then, with a paradox: the laws and forces of nature cannot produce information, but information is required for life to begin. As Paul Davies laments, “we are still left with the mystery of where biological information comes from . . . If the normal laws of physics can’t inject information, and if we are ruling out miracles, then how can life be predetermined and inevitable rather than a freak accident? How is it possible to generate random complexity and specificity together in a lawlike manner? We always come back to that basic paradox.”

Given the utter inability of chance or natural law, and our observations related to the origin of information, intelligence is the best explanation. But this requires us to look for an intelligent source transcending the limits of the physical universe. Scientists trying to account for information by staying “inside the room” seem to be rejecting the obvious. In order to create information, the author of this information must have the ability to select between possible alternatives. This ability to choose selectively requires intelligence, will, and purpose. Unguided physical processes simply cannot accomplish the task. German engineer and IT specialist, Werner Gitt summarizes it this way: “A necessary requirement for generating meaningful information is the ability to select from alternatives and this requires an intelligent, volitional entity . . . Unguided, random processes cannot do this—not in any amount of time—because this selection process demands continuous guidance by intelligent beings that have a purpose.”

The selection process required in the creation of information requires an intelligent, volitional free agent. That’s why the information in DNA most reasonably points to the existence of God. For a much more thorough description of this evidence, please refer to God’s Crime Scene, Chapter Three – The Origin of Life: Does the Text Require an Author?

For the whole article, click the following link:

 Why the Information in Our DNA Points to the Existence of God

Could a Serpent Talk to Eve?

http://www.gotquestions.org/talking-snake.html 

Why didn't Adam and Eve find it strange that a serpent was talking to them?

Question: "Why didn't Adam and Eve find it strange that a serpent was talking to them?"

Answer: Interestingly, the serpent/snake speaking to Adam and Eve is not the only instance in the Bible where an animal speaks. The prophet Balaam was rebuked by his donkey (see Numbers 22:21-35). We have to remember that while animals are not capable of speaking (*human language), there are powerful * spiritual beings out there (God, the angels, Satan, the demons) who are capable of the impossible, including enabling animals to speak (*or communicate with humans). Most scholars hold that it was Satan in the Garden of Eden who was speaking through the snake, not the snake itself speaking on its own. Thus, the Genesis 3 account it is not suggesting that snakes were of an intellect that would have enabled them to speak coherently.

Still, why didn’t Adam and Eve find it strange that an animal was speaking to them? It is unlikely that Adam and Eve had the same perspective we do on animals. In our era, we know from experience that animals are incapable of speech on the same level as humans. Adam and Eve did not have a childhood, nor did they have other humans to learn from. Given that Adam and Eve had probably only been alive a matter of days, it is not unreasonable for them to believe that animals were capable of speech. It is also possible that this was not the first talking animal Adam and Eve had encountered. Perhaps Satan or even God Himself had used animals to communicate with Adam and Eve before. There are so few details given in the account that much is left to speculation and presumption.

Lastly, it was not unreasonable for Eve to answer the snake. After all, the snake was evidently speaking in a language that she understood and asking an intelligible question. It is also likely that Adam was nearby and could verify that she was not imagining things. It was not the serpent speaking that should have alarmed them. Rather, it was the fact that he was causing them to doubt God’s instructions (Genesis 3:1), contradicting God (Genesis 3:4), and calling God’s motives into question (Genesis 3:5). That should have been enough to cause both Eve and Adam to stop talking to the serpent.Recommended

Resources: The Serpent of Paradise by Erwin Lutzer and Logos Bible Software.
Further connection I dug out the link below:

Who was the serpent?

...What Jesus said
On one occasion Jesus said to some Pharisees who were trying to kill Him,

‘You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.’ (John 8:44).

To what event, involving lying and murder, from the beginning, could Jesus have been referring?

The temptation of Eve certainly qualifies as being in the beginning, as it is the first recorded event involving Eve after her creation. The serpent lied to Eve when he said, ‘You shall not surely die,’ and as this is the first lie recorded in Scripture, the title ‘father of it ’ [‘it’ = lies or lying] would seem to be a very apt description of the person doing the lying on this occasion.

Eighteenth century Bible commentator Matthew Henry comments on the passage,

‘He [Satan] is the great promoter of falsehood of every kind. He is a liar, all his temptations are carried on by his calling evil good, and good evil, and promising freedom in sin.’1

Finally, the serpent’s efforts resulted in the penalty of death falling not only on Adam and Eve, but on the whole human race. Jesus’ term of ‘murderer’ therefore certainly applies to whoever tempted Eve.

The work of the serpent is thus the enactment of everything that Jesus ascribed to ‘the devil ’ in John 8:44. Furthermore, there is no other event in recorded history that better fulfills this description of the devil than does the account of the temptation by the serpent in Genesis 3.

The serpent identified

Was the serpent then Satan? Although the Bible tells us that ‘Satan himself is transformed into an angel of Light’, or ‘masquerades as an angel of light’ (2 Corinthians 11:14), there are difficulties in assuming that something like this happened in the Garden of Eden. Theologian Henry C. Thiessen comments:

… the serpent is neither a figurative description of Satan, nor is it Satan in the form of a serpent. The real serpent was the agent in Satan’s hand. This is evident from the description of the reptile in Genesis 3:1 and the curse pronounced upon it in 3:14 [… upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy Life ].’3

The Bible tells us that, just before Judas left the Upper Room to go and betray Jesus, ‘Satan entered into him’ (John 13:26–27). Likewise demons can, under certain conditions, indwell either human bodies or animal bodies—for example, the time when Jesus cast out a legion of devils from a man, and they then entered a herd of pigs which ran down a steep place into the sea (Mark 5:1–13). It is therefore proper for us to conclude that Satan appropriated and used the body of a specific serpent on this occasion to carry out his subtle purpose of tempting Eve to sin.

It is also clear that the use of euphemisms about the serpent, such as calling him ‘the personification of evil’, or labelling the whole incident ‘myth’ or ‘theological poetry’, will not do. The Bible presents this episode as a personal encounter between Eve and Satan, as real as that between Christ and Satan in the wilderness.

The identification of the serpent as the one whose body Satan used raises further questions, such as does Satan speak audibly?
Satan speaking?

When Satan tempted Jesus, he did so with words. Jesus replied and their conversation is recorded for us in both Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels (Matthew 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13), although we are not told anything about the way Satan appeared on this occasion.

In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress , the description of Christian’s conversation and fight with Apollyon is no surprise to many Christians, who have had similar spiritual experiences. It is said that Martin Luther found conflict with the devil so real that on one occasion Luther threw an inkwell at him.

Concerning the temptation of Eve, Christian writer and expositor J. Oswald Sanders writes:

‘It has been suggested that just as the speaking of Balaam’s ass was a divine miracle, so the speaking of the serpent was a diabolic miracle.’4

click  also the following link for further discussions
Was Satan the serpent in Genesis chapter 3?

Dear friends: Please click the link for the whole article.
http://crossexamined.org/was-there-an-exodus-conquest/

Was There an Exodus & Conquest?

Frank Turek stands at a small section of the northern wall of Jericho that did not collapse during the conquest. Most sections of the wall fell outward as the Bible says allowing the Israelites to walk up and into the city.

By Ted Wright

...Of course, the origins of ancient Israel, the Exodus and Conquest, is an ongoing debate among NE archaeologists and scholars and I am sure it will be until Christ comes again! What I hope to show below are the main supporting pillars of the case that the Bible’s account of Israel’s exodus from Egypt and subsequent military excursion into Canaan happened exactly as the Bible states.

First, let’s review what we have established so far (in the previous blog articles)

Back to Chronology (What Time Frame Did it Happen?)

As we have stated before, the precise dating of the events in the Bible is the KEY to discovering them in the archaeological record! Another word for this, ischronology. To review, Eugene Merrill summarizes about the likely year in which the Exodus took place:

According to 1 Kings 6:1, the exodus occurred 480 years prior to the laying of the foundations of Solomon’s temple. This Solomon undertook in his fourth year, 966 B.C., so the exodus according to normal hermeneutics and serious appraisal of the biblical chronological data, took place in 1446 [B.C.].[1]

This dating scheme has been called the “Early-Date Exodus/Conquest Model” and if it is the correct time frame of the Exodus & Conquest, then this would place the supposed Conquest between the archaeological eras known as the Late Bronze I (1550-1400 B.C.) and the Late Bronze II (1400-1200 B.C.).[2]

The Identification of the Pharaoh – Amenhotep II

From this date (circa, 1446 B.C.), and knowledge of the 18^th Dynasty in ancient Egypt (which we discussed in a previous post), it was Amenhotep II who was the Pharaoh of the Israelite exodus and not Rameses II as many people currently believe. When we explore further into the life of Amenhotep II, a picture emerges which is quite consistent with what the Bible states concerning this king and some of the momentous events which happened during his reign. From what we know of Egypt’s pharaohs, inscribed on tombs, walls, and monuments, they didn’t record military losses, only victories. So it is highly unlikely that some future archaeologist is going to find an inscription where Amenhotep II touts that a foreign “god” [i.e. Yahweh of the Jews] made a mockery of the Egyptian gods (including the Pharaoh who was himself considered a god), defeated his armies in the desert, and safely delivered an enslaved people to freedom. What we do see in Amenhotep II, however, is a radical change in his foreign policy (which was very much unlike him), a re-alignment of his Naval forces which he used to launch military forays into Asia, and a religious “crisis” which led to the defacement of many Egyptian “gods” in the 9^th year of his reign.  Hmmm… I wonder what that crisis could have been?

The Abandonment of Avaris During the Reign of Amenhotep II

Archaeologist, Douglas Petrovich at the University of Toronto has written a fascinating article[3] which explores the precise timing of the abandonment of the ancient Egyptian city of Avaris during the Egyptian 18^thDynasty. In the article, Petrovich explores the various theories about the exact timing of the abandonment of the city of Avaris which seems to coincide with Amenhotep II. The significance of this and its possible relevance to the exodus, is that it is indirect evidence of a major crisis event which happened in the 9^th year of Amenhotep’s rule. That event could very well be the Israelite exodus. This is not exactly what Petrovich is stating in the article, but it could be what he is implying. The timing is exactly in line with the “Early-Date Exodus/Conquest” model.

At the end of the article Petrovich makes some starling observations in his conclusions:

More inscriptional evidence may attest directly to the Year-9 crisis is Amenhotep II’s commissioning of a decree for his couriers to destroy all the images of the gods, singling out Amun-Re in particular. Given that Thutmose III and Amenhotep II expressly ascribed praise to Amun-Re for military victories on their Asiatic campaigns, and that Amenhotep II originated and/or perpetuated the desecration of Hatshepsut’s images throughout Egypt, there is plenty of reason to hypothesize that the religious crisis—and subsequent decree to destroy all the “bodies” of Egyptian deities throughout the land—may be intricately bound to the military and political turmoil of his Year-9. Moreover, a potential interruption in the high priesthood of Amun during this time may also attest to this “perfect storm” of events. Therefore, a religious crisis focused on Amun-Re at this time may have been initiated by Amenhotep II as a result of a devastating loss in battle which coincided with the abandonment of their principle naval base from which military operations into Asia were launched, and led to an unavoidable shift in foreign policy.[4]

Why would Amenhotep II order the destruction of the images of Egyptian gods? Why was there major turmoil & upheaval in Egypt’s religious practices? Why was there a complete change of foreign policy with regard Egypt’s nearest neighbors in Asia [in the Levant] in the later part of Amenhotep II’s reign? This evidence alone does not prove the exodus, but it is certainly consistent with the behavior of an autocratic & military ruler such as Amenhotep II, if such an event such as the biblical exodus took place. The exodus was an event in which Egypt’s gods were rendered impotent and pharaoh’s military forces were drastically reduced. I submit that the exodus, as it is exactly described in the Bible, is the most reasonable explanation for this turn of event’s Amenhotep II’s rule.

...

POTTERY & THE RE-DATING JERICHO

All of the theories listed above assume an exodus date of around 1290 B.C. and none of them correspond to a military conquest like the one described in Joshua 1-11. Why then, do archaeologists and scholars not accept the biblical account of events and opt for more skeptical theories concerning the text? The short answer is that archaeologists are not as objective with the evidence as one might presume. The archaeological evidence must be interpreted and archaeologists have skeptical presuppositions and philosophical assumptions just like other scientists. A case in point is the dating of Jericho.

When John Garstang excavated in Jericho in the 1930’s and he dated city IV to the Late Bronze age, he was using pottery to date the site. As most people are generally aware, archaeologists have been using pottery to accurately date tells for decades. The science of dating archaeological sites by pottery is called “ceramic typology.”[9] Ceramic typology, or pottery dating, was established by such notables as William Foxwell Albright, G.E. Wright and Nelson Glueck.

In the early 90’s an archaeologist named Dr. Bryant Wood (PhD, University of Toronto), began to question Kenyon’s interpretation of the pottery and dating of Jericho.[10]

In short, Wood maintains that Garstang’s original dating of Jericho was correct and that Kenyon was wrong. Wood based his conclusions not on his opinion or his ideas about the Bible, but on the evidence of the pottery itself! If the dating of archaeological sites should be based on pottery and other historical considerations (such as the chronology of Egypt’s pharaohs), then all of the evidence from Tell Jericho argues for its destruction and burning around 1401-1406 B.C. All of the evidence from Jericho at this time (ca. 1401-6 B.C.) fits the biblical record in an amazing way, from the details about the city being burned along with everything in it [offered to God as a burnt offering] (see Joshua 6), to the walls having dwelling places [houses] where Rahab helped the Jewish spies enter the city to spy its defenses (Joshua 2).

Continuing research at Jericho and now new research at Tel-el Maqatir (biblical Ai?) is yielding results that confirm the biblical record of Joshua’s conquest in amazing ways. Most critical scholars place Ai at et-Tell but there is no archaeological evidence of a destruction there which fits the biblical description. However, just one kilometer west is another site (Tel el-Maqatir)which very well could be the biblical site of Ai. This conclusion is based, once again, not on opinion but on hard evidence.[11]...