Jonathan Sarfati was born in Ararat, Australia in 1964. He moved to New Zealand as a child and received his early education there. He graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Chemistry with two physics papers substituted, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry, based on his thesis: A Spectroscopic Study of some Chalcogenide Ring and Cage Molecules. He has also had papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals including co-authoring in the journal Nature on high-temperature superconductors in 1987, when he was 22.

Ethnically Jewish, Sarfati converted to Christianity in 1984. In 1996 he moved to Brisbane, Australia to work for the Creation Science Foundation (now Creation Ministries International) as co-editor of their magazine, Creation, and the peer-reviewed Journal of Creation. Sarfati has written numerous publications, including five books. Refuting Evolution, his first book, a rebuttal to the National Academy of Sciences' teachers' guidebook Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science, was published in 1999. It has since sold more than 450,000 copies. This was followed by a sequel, Refuting Evolution 2, a response to a major PBS/Nova 7-part series and a Scientific American article. In 2004, he wrote Refuting Compromise as a rebuttal of the day-age creationism of Hugh Ross, which treats the days of Genesis 1 as long ages, in an attempt to harmonize that account with the belief that the earth is billions of years old. "15 Reasons to Take Genesis as History" is a short book (co-authored with Don Batten) to summarize the theological case for taking Genesis at face value. A major book published in 2008, is By Design: Evidence for Nature's Intelligent Designer - the God of the Bible. His latest major book is The Greatest Hoax on Earth?, a detailed refutation of Richard Dawkins' book The Greatest Show on Earth. Sarfati has also authored a number of booklets, besides contributing chapters and articles to numerous books and magazines, as well as many of the articles on the Creation Ministries International and Answers in Genesis websites. He is a popular speaker at churches and conferences on the issue of creation versus evolution.

Sarfati also maintains a keen interest in chess. A former New Zealand national chess champion (1987/88), he represented New Zealand in three Chess Olympiads. In a tournament in Wellington in 1988, he drew with former World Chess Champion Boris Spassky. He enjoys playing chess "blindfold", i.e. playing from memory without sight of or any physical contact with the board, and has been known to play twelve such games simultaneously.