Creation Science Rebuttals
Creation Magazine (Ex Nihilo)
North American Origins
Ex Nihilo, Volume 1, Issue 1, June 1978
Review by Greg Neyman
© Old Earth Ministries
This article reports on several findings concerning the origins of the native peoples of North America. It starts off with information from a book called America B.C., published in 1975 by Barry Fell, a Harvard marine biologist.
Several claims are made; Europeans were in North America as early as 800 B.C; the Phoenician god Baal and Celtic god Bel are the same, and were found in inscriptions in New Hampshire; ancient Celts built many shrines in Vermont; there was extensive mining of copper in Minnesota and a thriving fur trade; Egyptians, Libyans, and Celtic Iberians lived together in a colony in Iowa in 900 BC; Micmac Indian hieroglyphs are at least half Egyptian, and one family of Micmac tribes has hundreds of Egyptian words in their dialect.
Tracking the veracity of these thirty years after the claims were made brought up some interesting results. There are many proponents of Fell's work on the internet, but there are also his detractors. For instance, his argued that the country of Chile had ancient Egyptian visitors, but Chilean authorities labeled him a fraud. 1 His claim that the Micmac language was related to Egyptian is now considered to be wrong.2 In fact, it is hard to imagine that someone with training in Egyptian hieroglyphs could make this mistake (as a marine biologist, one must wonder about his qualifications in this area).
Fell certainly was energetic in his pursuits, and he had many credible discoveries, but his findings are still controversial, and must be taken with a grain of salt. He had a cult-like following, and this is evident from the internet pages he turns up on. Nevertheless, they should be considered.
What impact does this have on the creation science debate, and why did the creation science magazine Ex Nihilo comment on it? It has no impact whatsoever. The fact (or non-fact) that Egyptians and Celts were in North America in 900 BC makes no difference to anything related to the age of the earth. In fact, when one considers that North Americans have been here since at least 12,000 BC, it makes no difference at all.
Why was it included in Ex Nihilo? It is a side-issue of interest to any person studying origins, and thus is nice to know. Also, this was a time that Fell's teachings were being discussed, and thus creationists were probably concerned about his work.
From an old earth creationist perspective, this article, and Fell's work, no matter if it is valid or not, have no impact.
1 https://web.archive.org/web/20040621095956/http://www.cristobalcolondeibiza.com/2eng/2eng15.htm
2 http://www.native-languages.org/iaq3.htm#5
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