Project Artifact book review

All kids need to experience adventure. They need to explore the world, get dirty, build forts and pretend they are re-living the epic stories of the past. 

These stories remind us of the grain of reality defined by our Creator. That we are made by a good and loving Creator, truth is objective, God judges human wickedness and rescues those who trust in his provision. What’s more, God has not only acted in history, but has spoken clearly in His Word so that we may know the hope of His rescue plan.  God has not left any of us without an excuse of being able to discover His grand story of reality. 

One of my favorite bedtime stories was the Hobbit by Tolkien growing up. This was because it reflected my desire to hear stories about good versus evil, positive growth of relationships, mythical creatures being harnessed for good or the evil ones defeated through an alliance of good. Tolkien’s work reflected basic assumptions of a Biblical worldview, that helped inculcate truths of loyalty, sacrifice and overcoming temptation.

Likewise, in our day  we need to keep writing captivating stories that help us uniquely engage with the reality of God’s Word and world. We need to hear the truth and feel the emotional weight of its implications. My kids have had the opportunity growing up with a father that leads a creation ministry and thus have been on many creation tours, seen dinosaur soft tissue and many fossils on hikes. Many times they have really enjoyed these adventures and then (like most humans) they can take for granted these precious truths. Consequently it may take a variety of circumstances to wake us up to the importance of being saturated with Biblical truth, particularly when it comes to origins. 

One of the most frequent ways we are stirred out of our dogmatic slumber is through engaging with someone about the gospel and we quickly discover that they deny God’s special creation of humans, the fall that led to death and suffering, the global flood and with that a denial of God’s solution to human sin, Jesus. Another way we are stirred out of our occasional apathy is our own trials that reminds us of our frailty and need for God. A third way we may renew our passion for God’s truth is when we read a great book or watch a movie like It’s a Wonderful Life. Great stories stir our hearts as we truth collide with goodness and beauty. 

I recently had the opportunity to read the book Project Artifact: The Spear by Trey Bowling and it accomplishes this well! This book is published by the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). This is exactly the kind of book that the church and Biblical Creation movement needs right now. It is a great blend of creative storytelling and nuggets of truth to spark interest in the evidence for the Biblical timeline.

This book is set in the future in the year AD 2257 and focuses on advanced AI-technology that is discovered by the character Dr. Gates to unlock truths about ancient man after Noah’s flood. It unites that boy's heart that loves to dig up the past and imagine holding a powerful spear and acting out epic characters that shaped world history. In many ways archaeologists and geologists are similar in that they are trying to piece together the past through various clues and imagine what story the evidence is telling. This book is great at bringing to life the search for truth in ancient artifacts and making it accessible and exciting for the young mind!

 I have always enjoyed reading material from ICR, but this one was certainly a different approach than their previous work. I have always had a hard time getting into comic books, but this one held my attention.  My six year old son initially thought this book would just be a fact book, so it took him a bit of convincing to read it with me. However, once we started reading it together he kept begging me to read it with him every night until we finished! He wanted to know what happened to the main character, Dr. Gates, and his friends as the conflict in the story continued to unfold. The animation by Lori Fausak was top notch quality and the story and chapters were the perfect length for him to digest each night. Furthermore, not only was my son enjoying the story, he was connecting with a story that was teaching him the importance of the true origins of humans and the sinful suppression of the truth. It gave us a fun taste of sci-fi, yet in many ways it echoes the reality of the battle for truth and lies in our culture today.

My hope is that parents will get this excellent book, Project Artifact, read it with their kids and then take them out on an adventure to discover their own set of fossils and begin imagining what the world would have been like before, during and after Noah’s flood. What’s more, I pray that young and older minds will internalize the Biblical truths in this book that point to God’s Word and grow in their passion for the gospel. Indeed, the gospel starts with God’s creation, moves towards a real fall, and a real solution in the gospel where Jesus died to pay for sinners' debt to God (Colossians 2:14). 

We live in a time period that is lacking in a lot of great stories and thus we need more Christians to lead the way in telling stories consistent with what is truly good and beautiful. Thanks for leading the way, Trey Bowling! We can’t wait to read the next volume in this series! 

You can purchase this book from ICR by clicking here!

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