I admit that I am a young Earth creationist.
To say so today automatically paints one as some sort of naive fundamentalist, but I don’t care. I’ve always been one for romance and fairy tales.
Because I believe in a world that is a little over six thousand years old and was once populated by giants, witches, magicians, dragons and all manner of creatures that no longer exist, (or do they?!) I am inclined to take chronology and legend very seriously.
While browsing through the famous Creation Museum, I found a small book, shoved way back in a corner, written by Bill Cooper, called ‘After the Flood.” Mr. Cooper relies solely on lineage documents from various peoples of European descent and is able to trace the royal families all the way back to Noah! His book was so exciting to me, that I read it through in one sitting.
It was from Bill Cooper’s website that I learned about Mike Gascoigne’s book “Forgotten History of the Western People: From the Earliest Origins.” Cascoigne’s book promised to be a more in-depth look at the same sort of genealogical study.
They say that a student should never read a good book when there are so many great books out there! So, is Mr. Gascoigne’s book good or great? Well, after reading it I can’t say it’s a great book, although, against common wisdom I would nevertheless advise the student to read it. It provides a succinct and interesting overview of history and the movements of people groups from the perspective of a Young Earth creationist.
Mike Gascoigne is not a professional genealogist, nor is he a historian. Instead, like Cooper, he is a laymen who is interested in the subject, though he does have a background in chemical engineering. Many of the arguments he makes are vauge and sometimes I found it hard to determine which source was being spoken about.
So, do I think Mr. Gascoigne has it entirely right? No, I can’t say that I do. However, I think he’s got it mostly right, even despite his ambiguities. History, in my opinion, happened something like the way he describes.
He starts by comparing ancient legends of the Babylonians, Greeks, and the Bible. It must be confessed that there are striking parallels that I had never heard of before. For instance, in the Babylonian flood account, their patriarch builds a giant boat for his family and friends, escapes a world-wide flood, and afterwords, releases birds to see if the flood waters had receded yet. These similarities make sense if you believe that all humanity dispersed from Noah’s three sons.
Some of Gascoigne’s less-concrete cases occur when he argues from some of the more obscure Greek myths and find parallels there with the OT scriptures. The premise is that the gods of the Greek legends at one point represented real people, and thus can be compared to Noah, Noah’s wife, and his three sons. From this idea, he associates different gods with Noah’s sons based on vague reasoning and comes up with a direct descent from the “gods” to the city of Troy, where we join the story of Brutus before he founded the city of “New Troy” or, “London.”
Oddly, Gascoigne seems to disagree with Cooper on one point. Cooper’s studies imply that the Celts originated from Shem. This is verified by the theory of E. Raymond Capt put forth in his book “Missing Links Discovered.” However, Cascoigne maintains that the Celts are from Japeth, and even names one of the patriarchs as “Celtus.”
It’s all quite confusing, and I doubt if we’ll ever know for sure unless major archeological discoveries are made. (And I daydream about that happening.) At any rate, as I said above, I believe something like this happened.
Apparently, after Babel the people were dispersed in different language groups that corresponded loosely with their family groups. For instance, it may be the case that Japeth’s family was divided into three different languages, each of whom migrated with each other in the same general westward direction? Gascoigne doesn’t speculate about this. What happens is, Troy becomes the next greatest established city. Troy is destroyed, as we all know, and Brutus’ father escapes. Brutus comes back later and gathers the remaining Trojans and sets off to find a new homeland.
Along the way, he battles giants and magicians, and ends up on the island of Albion, where he founds the city of London. From here, we see the battles with the invading Saxons, who eventually force the Britons into, what is today known as, Wales.
Gascoigne shows hows the Britons resisted the new Roman Catholic Christianity in favor of their more organic and direct faith, which eventually lead to the slaughter of 1200 monks and the subjection of the Britons as a people.
The story and speculation about the first church built in England was fascinating. There is very good historical evidence that suggests Joseph of Arimathea traveled north with a small band of followers and built it there. There is also speculation and legend that says the apostle Paul, and perhaps even Jesus Christ Himself once visited the isle. But, contrary to E. Raymond Capt (for instance) Gascoigne rejects the latter but admits that it’s possible that Paul could have had a third missionary journey to Britain.
There are many fascinating stories along the way, and much of this was new and inspiring for me. His book isn’t that long, and is not filled with repetitive, mundane, or overly technical language. If you’re interested in genealogies and ancient texts, you’d love it!
