| Critical Review by:
Jason Bradfield, Reader
Amazon Review: June 27, 2009
"In short, this book attempts to merge old earth science with preterism (fulfilled eschatology). While the book itself does not get into the details of old earth science, it paves the way for such exploration by removing the physical creation origin from Genesis. In other words, if Genesis 1 is not about the creation of planet earth, then we are allowed to explore those questions through science. The authors believe science give us truth. Vaughn is a professional scientist by trade.
The means by which they remove physical creation in Genesis is through their so-called "consistent" preterist hermeneutic. They argue, for example, that if Revelation is about the passing away of a "covenant creation" (the heavens and earth of old covenant Judaism), then the "first" heavens and earth, of which the second is the anti-type of, MUST be "covenantal" as well, and thus not a reference to physical trees, stars, etc.
In my opinion, they exercise the same faulty reasoning as many futurists. Whereas the futurist makes an exact one to one comparison of physical to physical (thus, the preaching of an "end of the world"); BCS goes to the other extreme of non-physical to non-physical. Neither group seem to understand the principle of "first the natural, then the spiritual."
What God gave as types in OT, many of which were physical in nature; the anti-types are spiritual in nature. There is a "transformation".
The stars in Genesis 1, for example, were the actual stars we see in the sky. And they were put there to "rule" the night. This meaning is then later transferred to "rulers" of nations and the "falling of stars" later becomes language of national judgment. It is both/and; not either/or as BCS suggests.
There is an assumption all throughout the book that science gives us truth and even a short attempt later in the book to justify an "empirical" epistemology. Unfortunately, they provide very little in support and what little they wrote creates massive problems elsewhere.
This backward thinking also becomes evident in their preterist sections. While i am a preterist and can agree with some of their preterist conclusions; the means by which they arrive at their conclusions is backwards and leads people to a bad way of doing exegesis. They start from history (Josephus) and read that back into the Scriptures to "prove" fulfillment...again, totally backwards. A Christian is to BEGIN with Scripture as their axiom and whether or not historical or scientific "data" can be had to "prove" the "truth" of scripture is irrelevant.
These fundamental assumptions certainly play a role in the author's biases and leads to a lot of "bad exegesis", because their presuppositions are forcing them to do things with the text that are not required.
As an antidote, i highly recommend the writings of Gordon H Clark, who deals thoroughly with the problems of empiricism. While Clark did not reach preterist conclusions, he does provide a more firm foundation in how to approach Scripture; ie, let the Bible speak and not let old earth science influence that.
The authors believe they are presenting a true and consistent preterism. I beg to differ; as do many others. [...]
click here for full review source
Update: January, 2012
"Here’s a little testimony i wrote out for an individual who asked me how the Lord delivered me from the error of full/hyper preterism...
Looking back now, i can see that what was needed was something to jar me out of this wishful thinking…get my head out of the clouds. Something to force me to answer these systematic/reformed questions. That’s when ‘Covenant Creationism’ showed up.
Covenant Creationism is a movement within full preterism that began to take the 'local', 'Israel only' eschatological understanding of full preterism and read that back into the Creation account. They argued that if full preterists were going to be consistent, they needed to match the end of the Bible with the beginning. Thus, Genesis 1 is no longer about creation. It’s about the formation of Israel as a nation. And many of the elements (lights, seas, etc.) were turned into metaphors...
I began to notice that many of the arguments Cov. Creationists used to make their case were very similar to how full prets argued in general. Things like, 'well how would the original audience have understood it?' and 'well if that word means this here, then it must mean that there'... "
Why I Left HyperPreterism
[Editor's Note: The reader should note that Jason's description of Covenant Creation is false. The Covenant Creation view of Genesis 1 is neither a "local" or "Israel-only" view of Genesis creation. As the name implies, Covenant Creation is a covenantal view of Genesis creation which matches Covenant Eschatology. While the origin of Israel is an important element in Genesis creation (i.e. man in the land/garden), Covenant Creation also encompasses the themes in creation highlighting the non-Israel jurisdiction and component of the old covenant order. For example, God gives a covenant blessing on the fish of the sea and birds of the air (Gen. 1:20-22) as well as man on the land (Gen. 1:28). For an accurate demonstration of Covenant Creation, see the presentation titled "The Promised Land of Lot: Deep Structure in the Old Covenant Creation" from the 2009 Covenant Creation Conference recordings.]
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