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Most of modern scientists assume that all life today evolved from single-celled organisms over the past several billion years. Since that assumption is pretty settled for the majority, biologists don’t bother questioning it. Instead, they assume it to be true, and spend time trying to figure out the evolutionary relationships of animals. What is the nearest common ancestor of both the frog and the newt? What are the ancestors of modern birds and how did they gain the ability to fly? How is this animal related to that animal, and where do they both fit in the evolutionary family tree?

Enter cladograms. A cladogram is simply a branched, tree-like diagram that is used to put evolutionary relationships in order [see links below]. Plants or animals are arranged along the branches according to the order in which they evolved from common ancestors. Cladograms can be useful in sorting out closely related creatures….provided there actually is a relationship.

The study of cladistics is based on the concept that animals with similar structures and body parts are related. All vertebrates have a backbone, therefore evolutionists assume they all descended from a common ancestor with a backbone. Organisms are placed onto different branches based on similar characteristics, called "characters." Characters might include number of toes or number of sacral vertebrae. They might be, "has a jaw" or "chisel-like teeth". Characters can get very specific, like "Bifurcated neural spine in cervical vertebrae." The more similar characteristics different organisms have, the more closely they are considered related.

It would be nice for evolutionary theory if the taxa being placed on a cladogram lined up nice and neatly, step-by-step. But, that’s often not the case. Let’s say organisms A B and C are being ordered on the cladogram based on four different characters. If A had characters #1 and #2, B had characters #1, #2, and #3, and Organism C had characters #1, #2, #3, and, #4, it would be reasonable to say that C evolved from B, and B evolved from A in neat and tidy single-transition steps.

Organism	Character 1	Character 2	Character 3	Character 4
A	Yes	Yes	No	No
B	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
C	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

In real life, cladograms are not so simple. What if organism A has characters #1, #2, and #3, B has characters #1, #3, and #4, and C has #2 and #4? Which organism came first? Which came second?

Organism	Character 1	Character 2	Character 3	Character 4
A	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
B	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
C	No	Yes	No	Yes

If A is presumed to be the oldest organism of the three, then a significant bit of wriggling has to be done to demonstrate an evolutionary relationship; C has to lose characters 1# and #3, B has to lose character #2, and B and C both need a hypothetical transitional ancestor who possesses character #4. If you make C the oldest organism of the group,  you have the same kinds of problems. Any way you work it, at least one organism has to lose a character and gain another for them to have been connected in the evolutionary past.

The loss or gain of characters is called a "transition." In making a cladogram, all the possible arrangements are worked out, and the arrangement with the fewest total transitions is called "parsimonious."

Cladograms are an excellent tool for categorizing organisms according to shared and unshared characteristics. They cannot prove evolution, though, for several reasons:

1. Cladograms are notably free of true transitional forms. They are full of organisms with alleged common ancestors, but those common ancestors are never available for examination. In his article "Creationists Are 'Liars' (?)", Tas Walker analyzes a cladogram by Kevin Padian, and points out: the serious dearth of true transitional forms available for the diagram (after 150 years of looking for them.):

"So, does this diagram demonstrate that evolution is a fact as Padian claims? Let's look at the evidence. Is there evidence for the animals shown on the tips of the cladogram? Yes, lots of it. We have many examples of ray-finned fish, lungfish and living tetrapods. And we have fossil evidence of the other animals shown, such as tiktaalik. So the evidence exists and it is at the tips of the cladogram, or the tips of the bush.

"Do we have evidence of the common ancestors that are indicated by the intersection of the lines on the cladogram? For example, do we have evidence of the common ancestor that gave rise to the living tetrapods and fossil tulerpeton, as required by the intersection of their lines? No, we don’t. What about where the other lines intersect, do we have examples of those common ancestors? No, we have none at all."

Walter ReMine notes something similar in his book The Biotic Message:

"Illusion is created with tree-structured imagery, such as cladograms and phenograms. These are said to be evidence for evolution, but they do not identify a single ancestor-descendant relationship."

Evolutionists will say that certain characters are more prone to rapid evolutionary change - change that hasn't been preserved in the fossil record, or are prone to converge with unrelated lineages, or have simply not yet been found just yet. The reality is that these scientists are still making up reasons for why they don’t have all the transitional forms they'd hoped for.

2. Cladograms give the illusion of relationship without any real evidence. While evolutionists seek to find the most "parsimonious" path of evolution when constructing a cladogram, they are still choosing which characters to compare – and therefore are placing organisms in a specific order on the diagram - according to their opinions. Four cladograms constructed by four different scientists can give four different results. 

In Padian’s cladogram on the origin of tetrapods, he shows the number of digits on the limbs of organisms in the lineup drop from 8 digits to 7 digits to 6 digits. If one just read that on paper, it could sound convincing. Yet a good look at the actual limbs that those 8,7, and 6 digits belong to show three very different skeletal structures.  The humerus bones of the creatures get fat, then thin, then fat again. The radius and ulna bones go from relatively small, to large, then back to small and thin again. There are other ways in which these animals could be logically arranged.

(That these bones even have the names "humerus" or "radius" and "ulna" is a human decision, an effort to find similarities between all vertebrates. The massive differences between the creatures, like the fact that the "distal elements" of the various organisms are all quite distinct from each other, doesn’t seem to bother Padian.)

3. It’s nigh impossible to falsify a cladogram, because reversals are allowed. One organism in the order can gain a character, the next can lose it, and the next one can pick up that character again in order to make the cladogram "work". As John Jackson points out, "Lineages of animals have a way of evolving a feature, then removing it, and then re-evolving it again, in a way they have often had to be spoken to about."

Evolutionists who accept evolution as a fact a priori may not have a problem with reversals, because they believe that evolution is a driving force in nature. But for anybody skeptical of Darwinian evolution’s ability to produce brand new characters in the first place, reversals present a massive problem. To insist that the same character has evolved independently in different creatures, not just once but twice or three times, comes off as absolutely ludicrous. And since it can’t be proven by the fossil record, there is no legitimate scientific reason to accept it.

Cladograms can be a useful tool in categorizing animals, especially those that are truly closely related. The genetic code obviously allows plenty of variability for the adaption of plants and animals to different environments. However, cladograms only prove "macro" evolutionary relationships to those who already believe that organisms are all ultimately related. If one believes that the similarities between different plant and animal groups are due to specific engineering by a great Designer, then cladograms don't prove anything.

Peace between Israel and the Palestinians appears as elusive as ever. The Israeli government has agreed to a settlement freeze in order to coax the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, but the Palestinians say it isn't enough. At the same time, to Israel's consternation, the EU has drafted a statement calling for a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians broke down nearly a year ago and have been slow to start up again. The Palestinians have refused to negotiate with Israel unless Israeli settlers stop all building in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, something Israel has been reluctant to agree to. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally ordered a freeze on construction in West Bank settlements, but not in East Jerusalem.

Netanyahu made it clear that the building freeze was only going to last for a temporary 10-month period until peace talks worked out more permanent decisions. Any final, lasting agreement on the West Bank land "will be determined at the end of negotiations and not a day earlier," he said at a conference sponsored by the Calcalist financial newspaper.

Inspectors were immediately sent out to the settlements to enforce the order and met with opposition from the settlers who live there. In at least four settlements, inspectors were blocked from entering. According to Netanyahu, the freeze "was not an easy decision, not for the settlers and not for me." (It apparently was such a difficult decision for some settlers that they've refused to agree to it.)

The Palestinians, on the other hand, have said the freeze hasn't gone far enough. It doesn't affect public buildings, like new schools, and it also does not apply to construction in East Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is a very emotional issue for both sides. Israel captured East Jerusalem during the 1967 war, reuniting the city, and Netanyahu has on many occasions stated that he will never budge on keeping Jerusalem whole.

The current president of the European Union, from Sweden, has recently proposed a statement recognizing East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. The text, quoted by Haaretz, refers to a "two-state solution with an independent, democratic, contiguous and viable state of Palestine, comprising the West Bank and Gaza and with east Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side in peace and security with the state of Israel."

The drafted statement, which hasn't been voted on and is not official, drew immediate fire from Israel. Israel's foreign ministry criticized the EU president, declaring that the EU would lose its credibility with Israel by siding wholly with the Palestinians on such a major issue. "The move led by Sweden damages the ability of the European Union to take a role and be a significant factor in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians," the statement said.

The unity of Jerusalem will continue to be a major issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and is one on which neither side plans to move an inch.

The book of Ruth is a book of only four brief chapters that is both a classic love story and also an essential book of prophecy. One cannot understand Revelation Chapter 5 without it.  It even has implications for our Christmas season.

Background
The family of Elimelech, due to a local famine, leaves its home in Bethlehem and immigrates to Moab. The two sons marry local girls, but the father and the two sons subsequently pass away, leaving his wife, Naomi, and her two daughters-in-laws destitute. Hearing that things are now better back home, Naomi decides to return to her native Bethlehem. She urges the two young girls to remain in their homeland and begin new lives, but Ruth refuses and insists on accompanying Naomi.

When property is sold in our culture, title is usually passed 'in fee simple,' in perpetuity to the buyer. However, Israel's land was granted, in the days of Joshua, to the tribes to be retained within the family. (That's one of the reasons genealogies were so important.)

When someone 'sold' a property to pay debts, or whatever the transaction was what we would view as a lease: there were provisions for the land to eventually return to the family. A 'title deed' included the terms that a kinsman of the family could perform to 'redeem' the property to the family.

The Law of Levirate Marriage
There was also an unusual procedure to assure the continuation of a family in the event of the death of a husband without issue. If a widow had no son, she could request the next of kin to take her and raise children to continue the family bloodline.

It is from this background that we understand Naomi's opportunity in Ruth Chapter 3. She realizes that Boaz is a kinsman; therefore, there was an opportunity to regain the family properties lost by her deceased husband 10 years earlier and also a chance for Ruth to have a new life.

A Nearer Kinsman?
It seems that there is a nearer kinsman who would have to first step aside for Boaz to assume his role. This is a cloud over the otherwise joyous proceedings. Boaz takes on the task of confronting this nearer kinsman, in front of the city council, to force the issue.

When a widow requested the next of kin to perform the role of the goel, or kinsman-redeemer, he wasn't forced to. In fact, there were three conditions to be met:

1.He had to be qualified as a kinsman;
2.He had to be able to perform;
3.He had to be willing.

There were two issues at stake: the redeeming of the land for Naomi and the taking of Ruth to wife. As far as the land is concerned, the man appears to be willing. But for some undisclosed reason, he is unable to perform where Ruth is concerned. That clears the way for our hero, Boaz, to fulfill his role as the goel.

A Closer Look
This elegant love story is a classic in literature, and it also gives us some interesting insights into the life of ancient Israel.

But if we look more closely, we will discover that it is much more than that. The plan of God appears to be hidden among its colorful symbols and roles. The Bible frequently deals in symbols, models, or 'types.' As we examine the role of Boaz as the goel, or kinsman-redeemer, we can easily see how he, in some ways, pre-figures our own kinsman-redeemer, Jesus Christ. Through his act of redemption, Boaz returns Naomi (Israel) to her land, and also takes Ruth (a Gentile) as his bride. This suggests a parallel with the Church as the Gentile bride of Christ.

The parallels between Boaz, Naomi, and Ruth with Christ, Israel, and the Church have been widely recognized, and it is remarkable to notice how many additional details of the story are consistent with this viewpoint... 

For further study on this remarkable book, see our additional studies on Ruth.