Simon Turpin. Scoffers. Master Books, 2021.

Scoffers gets its title from II Peter 3:3 (some translations say “mockers”):

…knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (II Peter 3:3-7)

I personally remember discovering these verses years ago as I was reading the Bible. I said to myself, “This is an end-times’ prophecy that has already come to pass.”

Modern evolutionists embrace a Uniformitarian view of geology: that the natural processes all proceed slowly and gradually change things over long periods of time. If the flood of Noah were historical, then Uniformitarianism is wrong. The Catastrophists are right.

We see this prediction in II Peter having come to pass in other ways. There is a tendency for people today—I have observed this personally—to mock people who are skeptical of evolution or of a creation that is billion of years old. Scoffers or mockers, indeed.

Peter was even accurate about the specifics of the criticism of Christianity. Darwin wrote in his Autobiography that he abandoned biblical teaching on origins for two reasons: he was skeptical about the worldwide flood of Noah, and he called the idea of eternal punishment in hell a “damnable doctrine.” Wow! He “deliberately overlooked” specifically Noah’s flood and a future judgment by fire! God knows what is going on.

Scoffers takes these things and goes into great detail. The whole book is an in depth study of chapter 3 of II Peter. Turpin begins with Peter’s appeal to the authority and historicity of the ancient prophets of the Bible. So how can we be sure those Old Testament writings were accurate and the writers “carried along by the Holy Spirit”?

Then Scoffers gets into the part alluded to above. What did Peter mean by scoffers? What about prophecies about the end of the age? Do people really overlook creation? Have others besides Darwin deliberately rejected the first eleven chapters of Genesis including the Flood? What about judgment of “the ungodly”? Will there be a new heaven and a new earth?

Scoffers is wide-ranging, covering appropriate parts of the Bible, of science, of anthropology, of archaeology, of theology. Ultimately, Scoffers, in spite of its title, is very positive, uplifting, and hopeful. Even though we have read and reviewed other creationist books on these pages, this reviewer learned a few new things.

For example, I had never really noticed Genesis 19:9 before. When the men of Sodom demand that Lot send his two male visitors outside so they can sodomize them, Lot refuses and calls them wicked. Their response includes the complaint, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge!” Doesn’t that describe homosexual activists today? “Don’t judge us! Don’t be judgmental!” As Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 says:

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

Mr. Turpin also tries to avoid controversies among Christians. For example II Peter 3:9 says

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Turpin notes:

Christians who are Arminian in their theology understand that the “any” and “all” in 3:9 as referring to God’s desire to save every single person alive, whereas Christians who are Calvinistic in their theology generally understand the “any” and “all” to be an expansion of “you” in 3:9 and referring to God’s desire to save his elect people. (202 n.3)

Scoffers is rich in detail, evidence, and examples. It is well organized, well documented, and clear. And unlike the Scoffers whom Peter alluded to, it respects its audience.