If
anyone is familiar with the name of the book, "Beyond Creation Science", and is
NOT a hyper preterist, but an old earther, you will probably agree with me.
I am really disappointed that Hyper-preterism got to this argument
before the Orthodox Preterists did. And I UNDERSTAND why DeMar did what he did
by having the authors of the book on his show, but I nonetheless disagree with
his decision. It took me a lot of research to finally figure out that the
authors, Timothy Martin and Jeff Vaughn were hyper-preterists. Which is why I
know a LITTLE BIT about the movement now. First I wondered why on there website
there weren't ANY endorsements from guys like maybe Hannagraff, who is
sympathetic to an Old Earth (though NOT Theistic Evolution), or maybe even Hugh
Ross, an old earther, who is open minded about eschatology. All the endorsements
came from guys like Walt Hibbard, and Don K. Preston. So I had to find out who
the heck these guys were. and of course, they're all hypers. I finally found
something online (this was before Dee Dee mentioned them in her blog) that said
that Martin and Vaughn were both hypers, so I decided it would be best if I
didn't get the book, because I didn't know orthodox Preterism well enough yet,
and the book could be deleterious to my faith. And of course, DeMar didn't help
because he made me think they were orthodox preterists. I'm pretty sure I
listened to the entire interview and NOT ONCE did he say that he disagreed with
them about the resurrection, which is a pretty darn big issue.
There is
nothing unorthodox about thinking that the flood was local instead of global.
There are biblical difficulties when you get into whether it was an
anthropologically Universal flood, meaning it killed all people at the time,
since they were still in Mesopotamia, or an anthropologically local flood. Of
course, this position will probably be associated with Hyper Preterism now,
because they got to the argument before us orthodox people did. I thought about
getting the book, because it could define two views I hold in one book, but
thought It'd be best to get two separate books that are both orthodox instead..
One view that the book does define that I DON'T hold is hyper-preterism. Is
there anyone else who wishes Orthodox Preterists made the argument before the
hypers did?
I suppose we could discuss how a local flood and Preterism
work together from an orthodox viewpoint.
It frustrates me that I bet a
lot of people like John Macarthur would probably feel vindicated through "Beyond
Creation Science" because he could say "see, if you're gonna hold to preterism,
look how it affects the rest of your theology", or "IF you're gonna hold to a
local flood, look how it affects the rest of your theology", meaning a local
flood leads to hyper-preterism, or a Preterism leads to hyper preterism, and a
local flood. It really frusterates me. Hyper Preterism shouldn't be connected
with a local flood one bit. : )