Q&A with Bruce Malone Author of Brilliant: Made in the Image of God
1) What makes BRILLIANT: Made in the Image of God unique among other books about creation?
First, the topic is completely different than typical creation books. Most books on creation deal with the scientific evidence supporting the reality that we have a designer. Brilliant places creation in a real Biblical timeline of Earth history. If the Bible were given the same respect and consideration as any other book, it would have to be acknowledged that it clearly states that the Earth (and all life upon the Earth) was formed approximately 6000 years ago, death entered into all of creation because of mankind’s rebellion against God shortly after that, the entire Earth experienced a globe restructuring flood approximately 4350 years ago, and every culture in the world arose subsequent to these real events of Earth history. Brilliant takes the Bible seriously and every page contains an artifact from some ancient culture testifying to the reality of these true events of history. Every article also includes a timeline central to the subject discussed upon that page - showing where ancient cultures and artifacts fit into a biblical viewpoint of history.
Second, every page of Brilliant is exquisitely illustrated to draw the reader into the topic of that page before going onto a new artifact or topic on the next page. This book is the Christian version of Dorling Kindersley educational books but it makes the Bible central to its discussion of history and brings the biblical timeline alive to the reader.
Third, if Christians are going to make the Bible credible to the world around us we have to start treating it as credible from the very beginning. Re-establishing a biblical timeline of history is central to this and Brilliantdoes exactly this. Cultures throughout the world are filled with mysteries which do not fit the pervasive evolutionary time-frame but make perfect sense if the Biblical timeline of history is understood. Page after page confirms the credibility of the Bible’s timeline of history.
2) Are there any new revelations or findings included in BRILLIANT? If so, please elaborate. Every page is filled with revelations showing that the biblical timeline is correct and the millions-of-years evolutionary time-frame could not possibly be true. For instance:
Soft, non-decayed dinosaur tissue has been documented inside of numerous dinosaur bones. This is absolutely impossible if these bones are millions of years old but perfectly fits the burial of dinosaurs 4350 years ago during Noah’s flood. Yet professors showing this information to students have been fired. Other pages display ancient burial stones from Peru revealing drawings of dinosaurs and ancient medical technology – both testifying to mankind’s brilliance and recent creation.
The Ice Age was a direct consequence of the global flood. This is carefully explained and documented throughout the book. Following the flood, mankind was traveling the world looking for places to settle and seeking new sources of raw materials. One article documents an ancient map showing the coastline of Antarctica BEFORE it was covered by ice of the Ice Age. Modern textbooks place the start of the Ice Age starting 200,000 years ago - making this map an impossibility. The Bible would place the Ice Age after the flood - meaning the existence of this map confirms biblical reality because people after the flood would have been exploring Antarctica before it was covered with ice and documented what they found.
Carbon-14 levels would have radically shifted following the flood and the implications of this are explained so that readers clearly understand why this method of dating cultures gives erroneous dates and has mislead people as to the true age of ancient artifacts.
Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man were simply races of people living in a harsh Ice Age environment immediately after the flood. They were actually highly intelligent human beings who developed chemical glue compounds which even modern researchers have struggled to reproduce, and artwork few today could duplicate. There were obviously as intelligent and creative as modern man.
Ancient Chinese artifacts document events from the Garden of Eden in both the written symbols of their language and ancient bronze sculptures.
Pyramid structures build by ancient civilizations have been documented from around the world and had to have been produced simultaneous with the Egyptian pyramids. Even today it is debated how these ancient cultures could have developed such advance technology so early in human history. Brilliantshows how this knowledge came from a source which predates the flood of Noah (i.e. knowledge from brilliant people living before the flood would have come through the flood with Noah) and shows how multiple civilizations containing millions of people would have rapidly developed within 4-5 centuries of the flood.
In general, Christians are woefully ignorant of how to fit the Ice Age, ape-men, archeological discoveries, continental plate tectonics, and/or ancient Chinese/Egyptian/Peruvian/and other cultures fit into a real biblical timeline. Brilliant shows how all these things not only logically fit a Biblical perspective but confirm its accuracy while contradicting the evolutionary perspective.
3) What do you say to Christians who accept a hybrid belief of Creationism and Darwinism? If you do not treat the Bible like it actually means what it says at the very beginning, when do you start deciding it means what it actually says? If a book starts by saying that a foundation concept is “The sky is green”, how credible do you think the rest of the book will be? If Christians do not accept the absolutely crystal clear statements of God’s Word about creatures reproducing after their own kind (repeated 10 times in Genesis 1), death existing because of mankind’s actions (Genesis 3), a real worldwide flood (Genesis 5-9), and the creation of the universe and everything in it in 6 literal days (Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:11) then how can they say they take God’s word seriously? They are, in essence, saying the Bible cannot be trusted when it speaks on subjects dealing with biology, geology, ancient history, cosmology, or the age of creation. If Christians treat God’s Word with such disregard, is it any wonder our culture is increasingly treating the entire Bible as irrelevant?
Furthermore, all of this is absolutely unnecessary because evolution simple does not work to explain the origin of time/space /matter, the formation of life, the existence of the DNA code, the development of stars, or the transformation of one type of animal to a completely different type. So why believe what these same intellectuals say about the age of things? Blending creation with Darwinism is no different than blending atheism with Christianity. It simply does not work and it is pure foolishness to pretend otherwise. Romans 1:19-23 states that everyone is without excuse for belief in God because we can know God exists simply by observing what He has made (i.e., creation). Yet if Darwinian molecules-to-man evolution is true, there can be no evidence for God’s existence from examining creation because everything in creation is explained by natural processes. Our books are filled with page after page of examples of why Darwinian evolution is simply not true.
4) Are there any key scientific or archaeological facts that all Christians should be aware of to support the biblical account of Creation?
Brilliant and Censored Science are books about the scientific and archeological evidence supporting the reality that biblical creation is true and they form a powerful “one-two” punch to answer this exact question.
Censored Scienceshows the evidence for each major scientific discipline (first third - biological science, second third – earth science, last third – physics/cosmology) in a non-technical, easy to understand way. Briefly – the laws of science reveal that evolution is impossible. Matter cannot create itself…DNA is coded information and information cannot write itself…life only comes from pre-existing life and every experiment ever done testifies to this…there is not one missing link but systematic gaps between every different kind of body structure…gas always expands outward –never packs tighter together so stars could never form themselves – and no one has ever seen a new star form. Brilliant documents these and dozens of other examples of how we can know creation has a Creator and did not make itself.
Brilliant shows that the literal timeline of the Bible is absolutely correct and that mankind has been brilliant and creative from the beginning of creation. Had we come from apes there should be an extended period of slow development of technology, language, civilizations, and knowledge. Yet there is not. The “god’s” of ancient Greece have amazing parallels to the actual patriarchs of mankind – showing that even Greek mythology was based on a knowledge of early humanity; every culture in the world has a remembrance in the form of a story concerning the worldwide flood; an ancient worship center has been found at the very base of Mt. Ararat and worship was Noah’s first act after disembarking from the ark; ancient Egyptians and Chinese both have artifacts showing they understood the use of metalwork and this was listed as something mankind invented within four generations of Adam – yet these ancient cultures were supposedly still stuck in the “Stone Age” where no knowledge of metalworking should exist; working batteries have been found made from clay pots in ancient Babylon; examples of typesetting have been found in Greece - 2000 years before the process was “discovered” by Guttenberg. Every two-page article and illustration in Brilliant brings to life a different example of the biblical brilliance and creativity of mankind – because mankind was literally made “in the image of God”.
5) When did you start Search for the Truth publishing and what motivated you to form the company?
The goal of Search for the Truth Publications is to “awaken hearts and minds to biblical truth”. The Bible has become totally discredited in our culture because for the last 100 years Christians have largely quit explaining why it was trustworthy from the very beginning. They thought if we just concentrated on Jesus and spiritual stuff, nothing else really mattered. Yet Jesus never separated Scriptural statements about history from spiritual subjects. As a matter of fact in John 3:12 he stated, “If you do not believe me when I talk of worldly things, how will you believe me when I speak of spiritual things.” Search for the Truth exists to reconnect history and science with the Bible. All of our creation books conquer complex technical subjects with short, two-page summaries including accompanying photos. They are not long boring technical books seeking to turn people into science experts, but rather, they are interesting, relevant, extensively-illustrated books. These books show that modern science excludes the biblical viewpoint so it is misinterpreting the evidence from the world around us. We also make multiple copies of our materials available at extremely low cost so they are easy to share with others. For instance, both of our full color coffee-table quality sewn hardcovers are available for only $6.00 per copy when purchased 10 at a time in any combination with any of our books.
6) List some of the company's significant accomplishments.
We have published 12 different titles from six authors along with video presentations. Search for the Truth Publications currently has almost 200,000 copies in circulation – primarily creation related - but also materials dealing with sexual purity, escape from the addiction to pornography, a study guide for Christian living aimed at teenage girls, and a Christian adventure series for youth.
My background is in scientific research. I worked as a research leader for Dow Chemical for 27 years and have 17 patents. Now, I lecture frequently on the subject of creation and biblical history, and have spoken over 600 times in 12 countries. We have given away over 50,000 books to students and prisoners – every student who attends one of our lectures always receives the free resource of one of our books.
7) Talk about your fiction series and why you added that genre to your catalog.
Our youth need quality Christ-affirming materials in all venues. But let’s face it, typical Christian literature is all too often preachy and poorly written. The Freelandia adventure series is the Christian alternative to the Harry Potter and vampire fascination which has swept through the youth culture. I published this series because it is simply a phenomenally well-told story which keeps you wanting to know what is going to happen next. You fall in love with the fascinating principle characters (a young orphan with phenomenal musical talent, an ancient warrior in charge of a tiny nations hopelessly outnumber defenses, and a young man gifted with the ability to discern the outcome of current actions of future events). This Christian adventure trilogy is the epitome of a fast-paced page-turner yet the heroes truly desire to trust God in the midst of hopeless situations. A central theme woven throughout the books is the effect of a supernaturally, musically-gifted person to lift people beyond the natural concerns of life with her music. The results change individuals and entire nations in the process. Quoting the music director of a major church, “I have never read a more exciting Christian adventure portraying the power of worship to transform the lives of individuals (and entire nations) as it central theme. Once started, I couldn’t put it down! I highly recommend this book to anyone from 8 to 108.”
8) What future plans do you have for book acquisitions/ideas?
Our most popular books are creation related. We have two books (A Closer Look at the Evidence and Inspired Evidence) which are laid out in devotional format - with a short interesting evidence for the reality of biblical creation on each page - from 26 different areas of science and knowledge. Over 80,000 of these books are in circulation and our next publication will complete this series as a trilogy of creation devotional evidences. As a set, these books will document over 1000 different examples of why we can trust God’s Word to mean what it says.
Our full color hardcovers have shown why the Bible is scientifically accurate (Censored Science) and why the timeline of the Biblical is absolutely historically accurate (Brilliant: Made in the image of God). I am just starting a third full color hardcover which deals with another aspect of how mankind has been made in the image of God – we have been given the freedom of choice. This is the opposite of what evolution implies. If evolution is true then mankind is simply the product of chemical processes. Ultimately life has no meaning and we are just complex chemicals doing what chemical randomly came together to do. Thus in a broad philosophical sense, we ultimately have no choice nor are we ultimately responsible for our choices.
By being made in the image of God and given the freedom to accept or reject God, we were also created with a brain which is capable of rejecting or accepting the truth. Once we trade the truth for a lie we can reach the point where we fail to see the obvious truth even when it is right in front of our face. I plan to document examples through history of how rejection of the truth and departure from obvious biblical principles has blinded people and cultures to reality and has caused enormous and tragic damage. Our current age is being blinded by an acceptance of evolutionary principles and its accompanying timescale. This is the foundation battle raging within our culture. All other symptoms of our decaying morality (abortion, homosexuality, increasing crime, suicides, etc…) can be traced to the rejection of God’s Word as a basis for meaning and morality - and this rejection of God’s Word can be traced to the rejection of creation and the early parts of the Bible.