Dr. Del Tackett: There are many questions about the history of the earth. What major events might have occurred to shape it? Was there a global flood, a big bang? How did the earth become filled with so many amazing and diverse creatures? I'm Del Tackett, the creator of the Truth Project, and I've spent a year asking a wide variety of scientists to help me better understand the world we see around us.
Roger Marsh: Well greetings, and welcome to Family Talk, the listener supported broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. On today's program, we're featuring the first half of a very special classic interview featuring Dr. Dobson and his good friend, Dr. Del Tackett. For the next two days, they'll be discussing Dr. Tackett's 2017 film called Is Genesis History? Before we go right into that program, though, let me tell you about today's guest. Dr. Del Tackett is the creator of the worldview curriculum called the Truth Project. He previously served more than 20 years as an officer in the United States Air Force. He holds three earned degrees. His doctorate in management from Colorado Technical University, a master of science from Auburn University and his bachelor of science from Kansas State University.
Dr. Del Tackett is also the creator of the Engagement Project, which is his most recent worldview curriculum for small groups. Del and his wife, Melissa have four grown children and they make their home in Colorado. Dr. Tackett has also been working on some new projects, including a video series produced by the team here at the JDFI. We're calling this series "Worldview Moments with Dr. Del Tackett." In the videos, Dr. Tackett provides commentary and advice on relevant topics like screen time among teens, the purpose of the family unit and spiritual growth. To see these Worldview Moment videos, just visit drjamesdobson.org/deltackett. That's drjamesdobson.org/deltackett. Well, with that said, here now is Dr. James Dobson with his guest on today's classic edition of Family Talk.
Dr. James Dobson: Today I am deeply honored. I have in the studio with me today a great friend and colleague, and I know many of you, probably the majority of you already know him as the writer and teacher of the Truth Project, Dr. Del Tackett. That powerful worldview program has been seen now by an estimated 15 million people worldwide. And it's been translated into dozens of different languages. And the Lord has simply reached out and blessed Dr. Tackett with this message. Now, we were working together at that time. We were both on the staff of Focus on the Family. I was the president and for a period of time, Dr. Tackett was one of my executive vice presidents, and we had a great time together during that time.
Dr. Del Tackett: We had a ball, Dr. Dobson.
Dr. James Dobson: A lot of laughter.
Dr. Del Tackett: Oh, we had a lot of laughs. A lot of laughs.
Dr. James Dobson: There were three EVPs, and so we would get together every week and talk about whatever was on our minds and whatever was going right and what was going wrong. Del, talk about the Truth Project. We have discussed that certainly when it first came out, but since then as well. But did you ever expect the reception to that project to be as great as it has been?
Dr. Del Tackett: You know, Dr. Dobson, I don't think it would've been possible for any of us to have even dreamed that God was going to put His hands so deeply on that project and send it all the way around the world. And it's not just the numbers. It's what I hear from people in the airports and even pilots and aircraft. I talk to them and we talk about what God has done in their life. What an amazing thing. And it's not because of me. We both realize there's no way that we're going to snatch His glory away from him because it's because of Him.
Dr. James Dobson: You have done so many other things of note. Before getting into what you're doing now, you were actually on George Bush's staff in the White House, weren't you?
Dr. Del Tackett: That's correct.
Dr. James Dobson: You were actually in the Air Force.
Dr. Del Tackett: I was in the Air Force for 20 years.
Dr. James Dobson: And describe what your assignment was, because I've always been impressed by that.
Dr. Del Tackett: Well, I was appointed by President Bush, Bush one, Bush senior, to the National Security Council. My formal title, I was a director of technical planning for the NSC, and it was a privilege to work for him. He was a real gentleman.
Dr. James Dobson: That's the word that I would use to describe him. I loved that man. I didn't always agree with his policies. I don't always agree with Shirley's policies. So how could I always agree with the president? But we developed a friendship very quickly. He was that way with everybody. My mother died in June of that year, and he wrote me a handwritten note of consolation with regard to the loss of my mother. I tell you something else that happened. I had a heart attack in 1990, and I went to a local hospital and the hospital and our staff were worried that people were going come up to see me and keep me from resting and all that. So I was under an assumed name, and the nursing staff didn't know what my name was. And George Herbert Walker Bush called me at the hospital one time and from that point on, they knew who I was because he called from his limousine.
Dr. Del Tackett: He let the cat out of the bed.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah.
Dr. Del Tackett: I was at the White House, and it was during the national day of prayer that you and I first met. And there was an event in the White House and that's where we met.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah. Well, you're now just finishing another project that I am fascinated by. It's called Is Genesis History?
Dr. Del Tackett: That's correct. And it's a full featured film, runs about an hour and 40 minutes, and it is packed. It is full of information. Basically, I am going around the country, meeting with scientists and we're meeting them in the field, looking at scientific evidence basically to support the fact that the history that's given to us in Genesis is in fact history.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, we had lunch together a while back, and you are flying all over the world. I mean, it is incredible what's taking place with you. You are a celebrity. And I don't mean that in an insulting way, but you're speaking and you're promoting the things that God has given you to say to the Christian world.
Dr. Del Tackett: Well, that's the Lord, and this is a season of life. I am on the road a lot, but the opportunity to meet God's people and to have the chance to be able to speak into their life. And I mentioned to you last time we were together that I just came back from Brazil where we launched the Portuguese translation of the Truth Project. And what a blessing it was to go around that country and meet believers that I never would've never gotten the chance to meet. It's a delight actually.
Dr. James Dobson: Before we get to Is Genesis History? Tell those who don't know what the Truth Project is because it's still out there. It's still being seen all around the world. Explain for those who haven't seen it.
Dr. Del Tackett: Well, the Truth Project is a DVD series that will take people through a biblical worldview. The purpose is to help build that comprehensive, systematic biblical worldview in the body of Christ and to help people get healthy as a result of seeing that God has spoken in every area of life. And so it's meant to be done in a small group where people have the opportunity to watch a DVD and then to discuss, to ask questions, to talk about it. But most importantly, because it's being done under the deep prayer of the host of that small group. That's when God works.
Dr. James Dobson: I remember the very first episode of the Truth Project. You talk about Jesus being grilled shortly before He was crucified, and He told people why He came.
Dr. Del Tackett: Yes, yes.
Dr. James Dobson: He told us in one sentence what His purpose was.
Dr. Del Tackett: Correct.
Dr. James Dobson: Answer the question. Why did Jesus come?
Dr. Del Tackett: That was the great question that was asked before Pilate. And as you recall, Paul refers back to that moment and he said, "This was when Jesus made the good confession." And I love that because the Scripture, I think the Scripture is the greatest book of the understatement. You know? So, when God creates, He says it is good. And Paul refers to Jesus before Pilate when He made the good confession. Well, that means the great, the grand, the awesome confession. And it was at that moment that Jesus said, and the only place that He said, why He was born, He said, "For this reason I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth." And that is what drove the whole Truth Project. From that point on, it was all about trying to understand the truth of God in a culture, in a nation unfortunately that has walked away from the truth of God that, has turned its back on the absolute truth of God.
Dr. James Dobson: When I'm talking to Christians who don't really understand orthodox theology very well, and sometimes I think I don't. I often ask them a simple question. Stephen was stoned to death because of his faith. He was the first martyr and died of horrible death. But when he died and he went to Heaven, Jesus stood when he arrived on the other side. Well, I asked them, what's the difference between Stephen's death as a martyr and Jesus' death on the cross? Is there anything different? Explain what it is that Jesus came to do that puts Him in a totally different category than this wonderful man Stephen who died for his belief system.
Dr. Del Tackett: Well, of course the big difference is that Jesus was God. He is the son of God, but He is God. And so, this was God Himself providing the sacrifice, the propitiation for the sins that we rightly should be separated from God for eternity. But Jesus paid that penalty. But when Jesus came and when He lived, when He walked on the face of the earth, everything that He did, even the miracles that He performed were performed so that people would believe that he was who He says He was. That He was truly the son of God. And of course that in the final crescendo, I guess you could say of God's affirmation that Jesus was not just some other guy. He wasn't just a good prophet. He wasn't just a good teacher. But the affirmation that Jesus was who He said He was was in that glorious moment when He was raised from the dead. So yeah, there's a world of difference between Jesus and Stephen. And yet Stephen is in Heaven because of what Jesus did.
Dr. James Dobson: Stephen's death does not relate to my sin at all. It's not a thing he could do about my sin.
Dr. Del Tackett: None.
Dr. James Dobson: But Jesus eradicates it and brings salvation and justification before an almighty God.
Dr. Del Tackett: Amen. And that could only have been carried out by God Himself. As much as I respect you, Dr. Dobson, you could in no way, just as you said, Stephen in no way could satisfy God's wrath for you. You could not satisfy the wrath for me. I could not for you. We cannot do that. That is the plight of sinful man. We are so separated from God that it required the eternal sacrifice of Christ in order for us to be reconciled to Him.
Dr. James Dobson: And that's why the last words He spoke on the cross is, "It is finished."
Dr. Del Tackett: "It is finished."
Dr. James Dobson: It's done. The prescription, the remedy has been provided for sinful man.
Dr. Del Tackett: Yes.
Dr. James Dobson: And all we have to do is reach out and take it.
Dr. Del Tackett: That's right. That word that He spoke, tetelestai is a word that means paid in full. It was a word that was used when someone was in prison and they were paying off their debt. That when they had finally paid off their debt, they were given a piece of paper, tetelestai. That means it was paid in full. When He finished that work, he said, "It is paid. Paid in full." And you and I can't add anything-
Dr. James Dobson: Praise the Lord.
Dr. Del Tackett: Amen. Amen to that.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, let's get to your new project, Is Genesis History?
Dr. Del Tackett: Yes.
Dr. James Dobson: Question mark.
Dr. Del Tackett: That's correct. That's the name of the film.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah. And it implies you've got the answer to that.
Dr. Del Tackett: Well, what it implies is that we are on a quest in the film to look for the scientific evidence that would support one reading the Genesis narrative, especially Genesis one through 11 as historical narrative, not as myth, not as poetry, not as some kind of simile or not as-
Dr. James Dobson: Metaphor.
Dr. Del Tackett: Yeah. Metaphor. Not any other kind of literary genre except historical narrative. And that's what the quest is about to see is there scientific evidence that supports that.
Dr. James Dobson: The essence of it is that many conservative Christians, many who are Orthodox or think they are do not believe that Genesis is history. They have other explanations for it. They can't believe the flood really happened. They can't believe that Adam and Eve were created by the creator and that they were not evolved animals. It's just too dramatic and too unbelievable to accept as truth. But it's also part of the truth that you've talked about.
Dr. Del Tackett: It is. And that is what is really driving me. That's why I decided I was going to jump into this and do this film, because I had a sense that there was a growing disparity among God's people as they were listening more and more to the current scientific paradigm. And that was eroding their faith in the record that God has given to us, that historical record that He had given to us. And so I wanted to do what I could to help people see that there is scientific evidence that supports that. And you know what, Dr. Dobson? It's really not a lot different than what we've done before in other areas of the Scripture where the history that God has given to us has been assailed.
You know, as well as I do that there were for years and years, we were made fun of because we believed that the Jews were captive in Egypt or that they migrated or that there was a King David. And yet archeological studies have now vindicated that and shown that the Bible gets its history correct. And that's essentially what we're doing here as well. Except now we're pointing to the history that's given to us in those first chapters in Genesis.
Dr. James Dobson: And yet our understanding of the Scriptures and even of Jesus' birth and death and resurrection, all of that depends on a traditional understanding of the history laid out in Genesis. If you don't believe in that, you don't believe in Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. You don't believe in Noah or the flood. You don't believe in the other stories that are included that all point to the Christ. It all unravels if you don't have a clear understanding of Genesis.
Dr. Del Tackett: It really does. And I'm working on a follow on DVD series to the teaching that we did in the Truth Project. And in that series, I was struck myself by how often I am telling people we have to go back to the garden to understand this. In reality, a biblical worldview is rooted and founded in those first chapters of Genesis. Because one thing that's happening is that when we begin to deny the historicity of Genesis, we begin to then think that there was no Adam and Eve. And if there is no Adam and Eve then there is no original sin. If there is no original sin, there is no judgment on the world. We do not live in a fallen world. And that then to me also wipes out one of the greatest things that was ever recorded in that historical narrative.
And I put it this way. You think about Adam and Eve now standing before God. They have rebelled. They have sinned. And the consequence that God said would happen, happened. The world is now tipped in the other direction. It's no longer tipped towards life and fruitfulness. Now everything is tipped towards death and decay and destruction and fruitlessness. And Adam and Eve are standing before God in the midst of that destruction and God should have, if He'd been me, I would've probably have wiped it all out just like an artist. If somebody spills coffee on your sketch, you wad it up and throw it in the can. But instead of God breathing in a breath and letting out a roar that evaporated everything and started from fresh, He took in a breath and He breathed out the promise of the gospel, and He breathed out the promise. He said, "There will come the seed." Meaning the Messiah that would eventually put everything right again. And all that is embedded in the middle of this historical narrative in Genesis.
Dr. James Dobson: Let me share with our listeners the Scripture in Romans 5:12. This is absolutely pivotal. "Therefore just as sin entered the world through one man, Adam, and death through sin and in this way, death came to all people because all sin." Then we jumped down to verse 15, "But the gift is not like the trespass for if the many died by the trespass of one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many." So one man brought sin into the world. Another one brought salvation to mankind. And if you don't take Genesis literally, what's the connection there?
Dr. Del Tackett: Exactly. It all falls apart. That's what happens to our theology. That's what happens to then our view of all of the Scripture. If we begin to twist it into what we want it to be, Paul is hanging everything on that.
Dr. James Dobson: On that relationship.
Dr. Del Tackett: Everything right there, because that's really, that's the good news. Is it not? We were all lost. It came through one man. We all fell. We were all lost, but it's through that one man, Christ, that we're now reconciled to God.
Dr. James Dobson: Boy, if you won't shout over that, you won't shout over anything. That is marvelous.
Dr. Del Tackett: Amen to that. Yeah. And that's why the history that God has given to us in those first chapters in Genesis, one through 11 in particular, is so critical to a biblical worldview. Our understanding of salvation.
Dr. James Dobson: Why then is a large percentage of the Christian community questioning the historicity of Genesis?
Dr. Del Tackett: Well, I think they do it through ignorance, quite frankly, Dr. Dobson. I don't know that a lot of it is done out of a specific desire to do that. But most of Christianity is living under the reign of a scientific paradigm that pounds them. It pounds them in the classroom. It pounds them in their textbooks. It's in the media. It's in the signage, in the museum. Everywhere that causes them to think that they have to somehow read the Scriptures differently. But I don't think many people recognize the connection that you just made when you read that Romans passage. And that's one of the things we want to do in the film, is to help people see just how critical the history that God has given to us is to our faith. And-
Dr. James Dobson: You really can't take it or leave it.
Dr. Del Tackett: No, you can't.
Dr. James Dobson: If you're going to understand both the Old Testament and the New, they all depend on the beginning point. And in fact, it starts with in the beginning. We're out of time, Dr. Tackett, but I really want to have you here again tomorrow to talk about the flood. And it's really the flood that makes people wonder if there isn't something kind of strange about this, right?
Dr. Del Tackett: I think so. Yes. I'll be here. I'll be back.
Dr. James Dobson: All right. We will pick up right here next time.
Dr. Del Tackett: Great. Thank you.
Roger Marsh: Well, what a great way to begin our conversation on the reliability of the biblical book of Genesis as history. There is clearly a reason this God inspired book is the opening chapter of the Bible. I absolutely love it. I'm Roger Marsh. And you just heard Dr. Dobson with his special guest, Dr. Del Tackett and the beginning of their discussion around Dr. Tackett's 2017 documentary film called Is Genesis History? Make sure you join us again tomorrow as Del and Dr. Dobson will tackle some of the more historically controversial stories and statements in the book of Genesis.
To learn more about Dr. Del Tackett, the Truth Project and the film, Is Genesis History?, along with his other ministry projects, visit us online at drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. Dr. Tackett is also in the fundraising stage of a production of a sequel to the film Is Genesis History? You can learn more about that project as well when you visit drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. Well, thanks so much for joining us on today's broadcast and be sure to listen again tomorrow as you'll hear Dr. Dobson and Dr. Del Tackett continuing their conversation around the topic of Dr. Tackett's 2017 film called Is Genesis History? I'm Roger Marsh. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again next time right here on another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
Roger Marsh: This July, the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute has partnered with best-selling author, Shaunti Feldhahn, to host a 30 day kindness challenge for all of our listeners. To join, visit drjamesdobson.org/kindnesschallenge. You will choose one person whom you want to have a better relationship with. Then, you will practice three simple elements of kindness for 30 straight days. Go to drjamesdobson.org/kindnesschallenge for more information.