For over four decades prominent Bible scholars, apologists, pastors, and other Christian leaders have endorsed one or more of Dr. Hugh Ross’ many books and promoted his organization. They include Wayne Grudem, Frank Turek, Norman Geisler, Sean McDowell, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, R. C. Sproul, C. John Collins, James Tour, Walter Kaiser, John Ankerberg, Bill Bright, Earl Radmacher, Theodore Cabal, Craig Keener, and Walter Bradley, to name just a few.
These endorsements have encouraged millions of Christians to accept the big bang theory as proven fact and the evolutionist view of 4.6 billion years of earth history. Accepting that evolutionary “history” includes rejecting the global Flood of Noah and accepting millions of years of animal disease, death, and extinction, and other natural evils, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and asteroid impacts.
Should these leaders and scholars be trusting and promoting Hugh Ross’ teachings? To answer that question, we need to take a careful look at his ever-changing date for the creation of Adam. It reveals the critical problem with Dr. Ross’ handling of Scripture and the scientific evidence related to the question of origins—especially the age of the creation.
The Fingerprint of God (1991): 6,000–50,000 Years Ago
In 1989, he published The Fingerprint of God. In the 1991 second edition, after stating that several scientific methods “reveal a level of consistency that permits the secure conclusion that the universe is roughly 16 billion years old,” Ross says, “The best Hebrew scholarship places the biblical date for the creation of Adam between 10,000 and 35,000 years (the outside limits being 6,000 and 50,000 years).” But he cites no Hebrew scholars who support this statement, for the simple fact that there are none!
Creation and Time (1994): 6,000–60,000 Years Ago
In 1994, Ross expands the upper limit of when Adam and Eve were created to 60,000 years: “Some scholars argue that the biblical genealogies can be stretched indefinitely. Such stretching seems unwarranted by relevant biblical and scientific data. The most reliable and conservative Hebrew scholarship I have read places the biblical date for the creation of Adam and Eve between about 10,000 and 35,000 years ago (with the outside limits at about 6,000 and 60,000 years).”
But then he adds, “Worship is the key evidence of the spiritual quality of the human race, . . . but religious relics and altars date back only 8,000 to 24,000 years. Thus, the secular archaeological date for the first spirit creatures is in complete agreement with the biblical date.”
Again, he documents no “reliable and conservative Hebrew scholars,” who he claims to have read and who he says agree with him. But also note that he hasn’t given a “biblical date” for Adam, and even the ranges of thousands of years (appearing one page apart) don’t match. So it is utter deception to talk about “complete agreement” between the nonexistent “biblical date” and the “secular archaeological date.”
Why are his endorsing evangelical leaders not recognizing this as unbiblical and unscientific nonsense? Because they are wowed by his PhD in astrophysics and they don’t read carefully.
Who Was Adam? (2005): 10,000–100,000 Years Ago (or 40,000–100,000 or 50,000–70,000?)
This book was written by Dr. Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross. Dr. Rana is the president and CEO of Reasons to Believe (RTB), taking over in 2022 from Ross, his longtime boss and founder of RTB.
In their bullet-point summary of “RTB’s Human Origins Creation Model Predictions,” they say that “humanity’s origin dates back to between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago.”
But 30 pages later, they say, “For now, the first unequivocal appearance of human beings in the fossil record occurred around 40,000 years ago. Though imperfect, the fit between the fossil record and the predictions made by the RTB model seems adequate.” So then, their model summary really should say that humanity originated 40,000–100,000 (not 10,000–100,000) years ago.
But at the end of the book, they say, “The RTB model views Adam and Eve as historical individuals––the first human beings––originating by God’s miraculous intervention approximately 70,000 to 50,000 years ago.”
So do Rana and Ross date Adam at 10,000–100,000 or 40,000–100,000 or 50,000–70,000 years ago? It depends which page of the book you are reading. But no worries. It fits well with Scripture in any case, they assure us!
Navigating Genesis (2014): 60,000–100,000 Years Ago
Dr. Ross trusts all the radiometric dating methods, which is a huge mistake. As a result of carbon-14 dating (which is seriously unreliable) related to the breaking of the Bering Land Bridge (“some 11,000 years ago”), he says that “Noah would have been alive roughly 40,000 years ago and Adam and Eve anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 years ago.” So that means the gap between Noah and Adam was 20,000–60,000 years, whereas Genesis 5 says that from the creation of Adam to the birth of Noah was only 1,056 years.
Who Was Adam? (2015): 100,000–200,000 Years Ago (or 15,000–50,000?)
This is the updated and expanded version of Rana and Ross’s 2005 book. Following the seriously erroneous reasoning and dogmatic claim of William Henry Green’s famous 1890 article on the Genesis genealogies, Rana and Ross say, “Gaps in the genealogies and the ambiguity of key words in the original Hebrew text render the best attempts at a biblical date for Adam and Eve as estimates only. If few gaps exist, the date calculates to around 10,000 years ago. If many gaps occur, the date falls closer to 100,000 years ago. It may be possible to limit the date for Adam and Eve’s creation, at least to some extent, by using extrabiblical sources to calibrate the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies.”
Note that sources outside the Bible are the authority for determining the correct meaning of Scripture (Genesis 1–11 and related biblical texts). This has always been the method of Bible interpretation at RTB and ever since Hugh Ross was 17 years old, when as a non-Christian he read Genesis 1 for the first time one night and after a mere two hours of “study” concluded that Genesis 1 “perfectly matched” the big bang theory. On the basis of Ross and Rana’s complete trust in radiocarbon dating, they say on the next page, “Radiocarbon dating places the breaking of the Bering Land Bridge at 11,000 years ago. This event made human migration from Eurasia to North and South America virtually impossible until the development of modern ships. If life spans in the Genesis 11 genealogy are proportional to the passage of time (which may not be the case), then the dates for Abraham and Peleg place Noah’s flood at roughly 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, and the creation of Adam and Eve at a few tens of thousands of years earlier.”
Note that in just one year (since Ross’ statement in Navigating Genesis quoted above), the dating of Noah dropped 10,000–20,000 years and Adam is now much earlier than 100,000 years ago (unless Ross and Rana want to expand the gap between Noah and Adam 10,000 to 20,000 more years).
A few pages later, Rana and Ross give the same RTB model of human origins as in the 2005 book, stating that Adam and Eve originated “between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago.” Twelve pages later, they say, “This study indicates that women appear to have had a relatively recent beginning (171,500 ± 50,000 years ago) from a small population. The mtDNA genetic fingerprints paint a picture of humanity’s origin consistent with the biblical account and RTB’s model.” That means Adam and Eve were created 121,500–221,500 years ago. Two pages later, after more discussion of mitochondrial DNA, they say, “However, when complicating factors are qualitatively considered, it seems reasonable to conclude that the date for humanity’s origin may come in under 100,000 years—consistent with the prediction made by RTB’s human origins model.” In other words, it doesn’t matter what the evolutionist dates are, they match RTB’s model range of 10,000 to 100,000 years (which, of course, is consistent with Scripture, they claim).
But another 30 pages into the book, after discussing archaeological evidence, they tell us, “Genetic and archaeological evidence indicates that humans appeared on Earth recently, perhaps as recently as 40,000 years ago.”
At the end of the chapter titled “Better Dates for Humanity’s Genesis,” we learn, “History places the first evidence for symbolism, which we take as a reflection of God’s image in humans, between 70,000 and 80,000 years ago (and arguably as far back as 160,000 years).” Then at the end of their chapter on the scientific evidence concerning when modern human behavior began, they inform us, “A decade of ‘wider and more overt’ testing has helped determine the definitive emergence of modern human behavior. It also narrows the gap between the origin of humanity (100,000 to 150,000 years ago) and evidence for the image of God (now at 70,000 years ago if not earlier).” So when did creatures made in the image of God appear?
At the end of their 400-page book on Adam, under the heading “Where Science Has Challenged Our Model,” Rana and Ross conclude (with their admission of substantial error), “In 2005, we predicted that God created human beings between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago. The latest results from molecular anthropology place humanity’s origin between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago. We were wrong. However, the new dates line up with estimates of humanity’s origin from the fossil record (between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago). Though these dates are older than those reported in the first edition of Who Was Adam?… We argue that they still harmonize with Scripture. After carefully reconsidering our interpretation of the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11, we now take the position that the biblical text implies that Adam and Eve were created while an ice age, probably the most recent one, was in effect.”
But they never give an argument showing “that [these dates] still harmonize with Scripture.” They simply assert that it is so and then expect their readers to take it by faith. In fact, in none of Ross and Rana’s books have they ever attempted to show how the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 fit with any of their dates. In contrast, in my five-minute closing of the 2024 debate with Hugh Ross about inerrancy and the age of the earth, I showed that those genealogies cannot allow for an addition of even 4,000 years, much less many tens or even hundreds of thousands of years, as Ross imagines.
In the quotation above from page 376, Ross and Rana footnote the last statement about the last ice age to send the readers searching for their copy of Navigating Genesis (if they have one). The footnote points to page 75 in Navigating Genesis, where Noah is dated at 40,000 years ago and Adam at 60,000–100,000 years ago. It also points to pages 96–100, where the most recent ice age is said to be 15,000–50,000 years ago, during which, according to Ross and Rana, Adam was created. And the footnote points to pages 156–160, where Ross says the oldest human settlement has been dated by evolutionists to be 31,000–143,000 years ago. Of course, Ross and Rana expect readers to trust these highly imprecise dates as accurate (if they have a copy of Navigating Genesis and bother to look up those pages to get those dates). But in 2015, they say that Adam and Eve were created “probably” sometime during the last ice age (which in 2014 Ross says was 15,000–50,000 years ago). This clearly contradicts the date range of humanity’s origin (100,000–200,000 years ago), as established by evolutionists and accepted by Ross and Rana in Who Was Adam? (2015)!
But readers of the 2015 second edition of Who Was Adam? will never see this contradictory thinking, unless they have a copy of Navigating Genesis (2014) and do the careful detective work that I did. Furthermore, if Ross and Rana were wrong about the dating of Adam in 2005, as they admit in 2015, why in the world should Christians trust what they say in 2015, when their view is based on the ever-changing evolutionist dates for humanity’s origin? Why do Christian leaders and theologians trust Ross and Rana? Because wowed especially by Ross’ PhD in astrophysics, they blindly trust the scientific claims of Ross and Rana, and they don’t read Ross and Rana’s books carefully. It is as simple as that.
Fazale Rana’s Chapter 2017: Roughly 130,000 Years Ago
In the multiauthored, debate book, Old-Earth or Evolutionary Creation? (2017), Dr. Rana defends RTB’s view and asserts, “In light of the scientific data, we estimate humanity’s origin to be roughly 130,000 years ago. We maintain that this date for humanity’s origin comports with the biblical account of humanity’s genesis.” So now Rana (and therefore RTB and Ross) are giving a more precise date for Adam: roughly 130,000 years ago. He confidently tells his readers that this is based on “scientific data.” And this date “comports” (i.e., agrees) with what Genesis teaches.
But in 1994, RTB said that a date for Adam between 8,000 and 24,000 years ago “is in complete agreement with the biblical date.” And in 2015, they said that Adam was created “probably” during the last ice age, 15,000–50,000 years ago. So clearly for Ross and Rana, the Bible can be made to fit any date the evolutionists say. But this twisting of Scripture and use of deceptively faulty scientific arguments to fit the ever-changing dates of the evolutionists into Genesis is typical of Ross and Rana, as explained in geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling’s recent six-part, thorough refutation of Dr. Rana’s book, Dinosaur Blood and the Age of the Earth.
Rescuing Inerrancy (2023): 45,000–250,000 Years Ago
In his claimed defense of the inerrancy of the Bible in his 2023 book, Ross now informs us that the creation of Adam was during one of the two most recent ice ages (13,000–120,000 years ago and 132,000–230,000 years ago). He adds that carbon-14 dating shows that humans have been on earth “for at least the last 45,000 years.” But he does say 14 pages later that “statistical errors in the carbon–14 method at such an early date can be significant. In this particular case, the probable error is at least ±5000 years.” The bottom line of all this is that, “If the origin of the human race occurred during one of the two most recent ice ages, the biblical clues would align well with the best scientific estimates. . . . The most accurate date scientists can provide for the origin of anatomically modern humans is sometime between 45,000 and 250,000 years ago.”
Conclusion
Let me use this chart to summarize Dr. Ross’ dating of Adam over the years, always in keeping with the ever-changing dates of the evolutionists.
