Noah’s Ark It’s Final Berth

Taken from: http://www.galaxie.com/article/6340

Bill Crouse

Noah and his ark is from a late 13th-century Hebrew Bible and Prayer book in the British Library.

Since the early 1950’s the search for Noah’s Ark has been the subject of many books and movies.1 What gave rise to this interest was the distinct possibility that actual remains of Noah’s Ark might have been found. The spark which set off this burning interest among Christians was the claim in 1948 of an eyewitness who said he stumbled onto the Ark high on the snowcap of Mt. Ararat.2 Since that time others have made similar claims. Based on these alleged eyewitness accounts many expeditions have been launched, countless hours have been spent in research, and large sums have been spent to verify what many critics said was an impossible quest.

More recently in the decade of the Eighties, Col. James Irwin, the late moon-walking astronaut and his associates, combed most of the mountain on foot. Still not satisfied, they surveyed and photographed the mountain with various aircraft. While the efforts of Irwin and others have received much attention from the media, there is still no tangible evidence of an ark on Ararat. Indeed, many who have been involved in the search, are now becoming convinced that the Ark: 1) may have merged with the elements, or 2) God may not want it revealed at this time.3

In this article I would like to propose a third reason why the search for Noah’s Ark has been unsuccessful, namely, that it may have landed on another mountain and the remains may no longer be extant. From the perspective of history, there seems to be compelling ancient sources which argue for another site as the final berth of Noah’s Ark. Before we look at this evidence, it might be helpful to the readers of Archaeology and Biblical Research if we give some of the reasons why the search has been concentrated on Mt. Ararat in eastern Turkey.

FIRST, and foremost, are the alleged eyewitness accounts. If it weren’t for these, it is doubtful if a search would ever have arisen on the mountain the Turks call “Agri Dagh” and the Armenians, “Masis.”

A SECOND reason given for searching for remains of Noah’s Ark on Mt. Ararat, is its altitude. At nearly 17,000 feet it has a permanent icecap which would lend itself to the Ark’s preservation.4 Indeed an Ark perpetually frozen in ice would never decay. It could lie undisturbed for thousands of years.5

27 . 05 . 2011

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Village of the Eight

Amaic

After 20 years of research, a modern-day explorer recently made an adventurous solo incursion in to remote southeastern Turkey searching for the facts and remains of Noah and his Ark. Reminiscent of a 19th century explorer, Dr. Charles Willis traversed a region kept in turmoil by renegade local terrorist groups. Here Willis believes he located and photographed for the first time the tomb of Noah.

A veteran explorer to the region and a neuropsychiatrist by trade, Willis has led four expeditions up Mt. Ararat, the traditional site of the landing of Noah’s Ark. Yet, the results of his investigation on that mountain, as well as years of research into historical sources, suggested to him that Ararat is not the mountain of Noah or the Ark.

Furthermore, Willis does not believe the Ark is even intact. Noting the great time period since the event, the harsh topography, geology and meteorology of the region, and the Ark being a natural source of building material for generations, Willis does not expect to find any major portions still intact. Furthermore, despite all the reports of sightings, none have been substantiated by later exploration/investigation. “Those who continue to look for the Ark on Ararat are looking in the wrong place for the wrong thing,” Willis said.

His research suggests the mountain known today as Mt. Cudi is the best candidate for the Ark landing and the subsequent settlement of Noah and his family. Here, too, he believes Noah died and was buried. Called by different names over the years, including Mt. Ararat, Mt. Judi, Mt. Nisir, Mt. Nipir and Mt. Lubar, it is neither as high as Ararat nor as snow covered and treacherous most of the year. It was on this mountain’s Ark plateau in 1953, a few miles from the site Willis believes is Noah’s tomb, the German professor Friedrich Bender discovered pieces of wood he believed came from Noah’s Ark. The samples carbon-dated to 4500 B.C.

The Ark is not the real focus of Willis’ exploration. Evidence of Noah and his family in their post-Flood community is where Willis is concentrating. The structure he is looking for is the tomb of Father Noah, as Willis likes to refer to the ancient mariner. “After all,” Willis said, “the whole human race comes from Noah by way of his three sons – so is the Father of us all.”

Modern local tradition places the grave of Noah on the southern slope of Mt. Cudi. In 1911, British explorer Gertrude Bell recorded the location of Noah’s tomb on the mountain. She wrote “I ought to have completed the pilgrimage by visiting his (Noah’s) grave, but it lay far down upon the southern slopes of Judi Dagh. “In addition, the ancient “BOOK OF JUBILEES” states “Noah slept with his fathers and was buried on Mt. Lubar in the Land of Ararat” (10:13-17). One of the region’s major cities lies just north of the mountain, Sirnak. “Sirnak,” Willis noted, comes from Sehr-i-Nuh or “city of Noah.”

His recent trip to Mt. Cudi included traveling alone, staying in a local village and befriending its chief, sleeping under armed guards and carrying an AK-47, a gift from the village chief, for protection. From his accommodations in the village, Willis could see the ruins of Heshton (“Village Of The Eight”?) site of the first Noahic village according to local tradition. The site identified as Noah’s tomb is in a solitary location on a gentle slope of the mountain’s south side. It is overgrown and undisturbed. Cut out of solid rock as a horizontal cave, it has a facade of built stone.

Inside the tomb, Willis believes he may find texts from the early post-Flood period. But his real hope is to find some antediluvian written material. “I know that most scholars do not believe that man wrote that early, but there are ancient references to pre-Flood texts,” he said. “It seems reasonable Noah would have taken into the Ark any pre-Flood archives available to him. That would be the real find from Noah’s Ark.”

In conjunction with the Ancient World Foundation, Willis intends to mount a multidisciplinary campaign to the site of Noah’s tomb in the near future. He hopes his team of geologists, archaeologists, anthropologists and linguists will be able to study the area, excavate the tomb, examine remains and decipher ancient texts.

For further information:

Dr. Charles D. Willis, Ancient World Foundation, P.O. Box 3118, Pinedale, CA. 93650

Taken from:

http://www.ancientworldfoundation.org/tombofnoah.htm

27 . 05 . 2011

43 Comments

amaic australian marian academy of the immaculate conception Noah Eight saved great Genesis flood Mount Cud Dagh

The antediluvian patriarchs and the Sumerian King List

Amaic

Taken from: http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i3/sumerian.asp

First published:

TJ (now Journal of Creation) 12(3):347–357
December 1998

by Raúl Erlando López

First published in:
CEN Tech. J. 12(3):347-357
1998

The Sumerian King List records the lengths of reigns of the kings of Sumer. The initial section deals with kings before the Flood and is significantly different from the rest. When the kingdom durations of the antediluvian section are expressed in an early sexagesimal numerical system, all durations except two are expressed as multiples of 60². A simple tally of the ciphers used yields six 10×60² signs, six 60² signs and six 60 signs.

The lives of the biblical patriarchs, however, have a precision of one year. If Adam and Noah are not included (as in the King List), and the lives of the patriarchs are similarly rounded to two digits, the sum of the lives has six 10³ signs, six 10² signs and six 10 signs. In addition, if the number representing the sum of the ages was wrongly assumed as having been written in the sexagesimal system, the two totals become numerically equivalent.

It is suggested that the Sumerian scribe that composed the original antediluvian list had available a document (possibly a clay tablet) containing numerical information on the ages of eight of the patriarchs similar to that of the Genesis record and that he mistakenly interpreted it as being written in the sexagesimal system.

That the two documents are numerically related is strong evidence for the historicity of the book of Genesis. The fact that the Sumerian account shows up as a numerically rounded, incomplete version of the Genesis description, lacking the latter’s moral and spiritual depth, is a strong argument for the accuracy, superiority, and primacy of the biblical record. In addition, the parallels between the Sumerian and biblical antediluvian data open up the possibility of establishing chronological correlations between the rest of the Kings List and the book of Genesis.

Introduction

The early chapters of the book of Genesis contain numerical information about the ages of the biblical patriarchs and their chronological relationships during the antediluvian world. They also contain a description of the moral and spiritual condition as well as the history of that period. Although there are other, non-biblical, references to the antediluvian era, there is no other document in all of the extant records of the ancient world that provides the detailed and coherent information found in the book of Genesis. The Genesis account gives us a glimpse into that obscure portion of the history of mankind, and provides information for a chronology of that period. It has, nevertheless, been criticized by non-Christians as well as liberal theologians as being mythological, or at best symbolic and incomplete.

The Sumerian King List, on the other hand, contains an initial section that makes reference to the Flood and to Sumerian kings of extremely long reigns before the Flood.¹ The antediluvian portion of the King List is very different from the biblical account. It only contains eight kings, while Genesis has ten patriarchs. The Sumerian list assigns an average reign duration of 30,150 years, with a total duration for the period of 241,200 years, compared to an average age of the biblical patriarchs of 858 years and a sum of 8575 years for their full lives. It also lacks the detailed information of Genesis and its moral and spiritual emphases.

Nevertheless, Walton² has pointed out that the antediluvian portion of the King List does not include the Sumerian first man nor the Flood hero. If Adam and Noah are dropped from the biblical list, the number of people in the two lists is then the same—eight. Walton has also noticed that the total of the durations of the kingdoms and the total of the ages of the patriarchs are numerically related and are equivalent if the number base of the Sumerian list is changed from sexagesimal to decimal.

This is an important result and would imply that the two records relate to the same events in the early history of mankind. If so, then finding numerically related elements of the biblical account in the Sumerian King List would open up important avenues of research into the relationship of biblical and Mesopotamian chronologies. This paper carefully and thoroughly examines the numerical relationships between the two documents. In Section 2, the Sumerian King List is surveyed in the light of its chronological context. In Section 3, a study is made of the Sumero/Babylonian numerical systems to ascertain the development of the different methods used to represent numbers and the peculiarities and limitations of the different systems that could have possibly been used to represent the original antediluvian Kings List. In Section 4, the two lists are expressed in one of the early numerical systems and compared. Attention is paid to the internal characteristics of the two sets of numerical values and their formal similarity. Section 5 summarizes the results, presents a hypothesis for the similarities of both records, and comments on the importance of these findings.

The Sumerian King List

The Sumerian King List records in succession the names of most of the kings of Sumer and the lengths of their reigns.¹ The document begins at the beginning of history, the time when ‘kingship (first) descended from heaven,’ and goes up to the reign of Sin-magir (1827– 1817 BC³) towards the end of the Isin dynasty. The list is characterized by extremely long durations for the different reigns, especially the earlier ones. One quarter of a million years is assigned to the first eight kings before the Flood and more than 25,000 years for the first two dynasties after the Flood. By comparison with other historical documents, inscriptions and archaeological dating, it appears that the list does not correspond to a strict succession but that there is considerable overlap and contemporaneity between several of the dynasties that are presented in the list as having existed one after the other.

The documents

The first considerable fragment of the Sumerian King List was published in 1906.⁴ It was found in the temple library of Nippur at the turn of the century. Since that date, more than 15 different fragments and at least one fairly complete list have been found and published. Most of these manuscripts have been dated to the 1st dynasty of Babylon. All the documents show extensive and detailed agreement among themselves. Thus it appears that the extant texts ultimately descend from a common original, i.e., that they are copies, or copies of copies, of a single original document.⁴ In a now classical example of textual criticism, Jacobsen⁴ developed the genealogy of all the different variants and reconstructed the most likely original text of the King List in 1939. That reconstruction has been accepted and used by most scholars. The following discussion of the King List is based to a large extent on his original work.

The antediluvian section

A few of the manuscripts seem to have had an initial section dealing with kings before the Flood. That section, however, is significantly different from the rest of the list which deals with kings reigning after the Flood. First of all, it has a large degree of independence. The postdiluvian sections do not appear in other Mesopotamian manuscripts that are not fragments of the King List, and their contents have only been found in the King List.

In contrast, the antediluvian section has been found as a separate entity in a tablet dated to the end of the 3rd millennium without reference to lists of other rulers. This tablet also has particular linguistic features that show that it is not an isolated part of the King List (such as the total absence of the grammatical formulas so characteristic of the latter).

In addition, some of the phrases and information in the antediluvian section have been found in a Sumerian epic dealing with the beginning of the world.⁴ There is a close correspondence between the common phrases of these two documents, and the identical order of the primeval cities, which tends to indicate that they are literarily interdependent.

Figure 1. Relation between the sources of the Sumerian King List.

Furthermore, the antediluvian section has a particular set of formulas different from those used in the postdiluvian section. The formulas for the change of dynasty and the mention of their totals are very consistent in the postdiluvian part and are very different from those used in the antediluvian one. Jacobsen⁴ believes that the antediluvian section is a later addition to a King List that did not originally contain kings before the Flood. He stated that the new part was copied and adapted from information that

‘was current in various settings in Sumerian literature at the time when most of our copies of the King List were written … (and) that it was written later by a person different from the one who originally composed the postdiluvian section of the list … by a scribe who was bringing his copy of an older original up to date … ’ (See Figure 1).

The following is the translation by Jacobsen⁴ of his critical edition of the Sumerian text of the antediluvian section of the King List together with a few selected lines of the postdiluvian section for comparison (see the text following for explanation of the italics, bold and underlining):

1 When the kingship was lowered from heaven
the kingship was in Eridu(g).
(In) Eridu(g) A-lulim(ak) (became) king
and reigned 28,800 years;
5 Alalgar reigned 36,000 years.
2 kings
reigned its 64,800 years.
I drop (the topic) Eridu(g);
its kingship to Bad-tibira(k)
10 was carried.
(In) Bad-tibira(k) En-men-lu-Anna(k)
reigned 43,200 years;
En-men-gal-Anna(k)
reigned 28,800 years;
15 divine Dumu-zi(d), a shepherd, reigned 36,000 years.
3 kings
reigned its 108,000 years.
I drop (the topic) Bad-tibira(k);
its kingship to Larak was carried.
20 (In) Larak En-sipa(d)-zi(d)-Anna(k)
reigned its 28,800 years.
1 king
reigned its 28,800 years.
I drop (the topic) Larak;
25 its kingship to Sippar was carried.
(In) Sippar En-men-dur-Anna(k)
became king and reigned 21,000 years.
1 king
reigned its 21,000 years.
30 I drop (the topic) Sippar;
its kingship to Shuruppak was carried.
(In) Shuruppak Ubar-Tutu(k)
became king and reigned 18,600 years.
1 king
35 reigned its 18,600 years.
5 cities were they;
8 kings
reigned their 241,200 years.
The Flood swept thereover.
40 After the Flood had swept thereover,
when the kingship was lowered from heaven
the kingship was in Kish.

[end of the antediluvian section]

In Kish Ga … ur(?)
became king
45 and reigned 1,200 years;
.
.
.
Aka,
reigned 625 years.
.
.
.
Kish was smitten with weapons;
its kingship to E-Anna(k)
was carried.
In E-Anna(k)
Mes-kiag-gasher,
son of Utu, became high priest
and king and reigned 324 years.
.
.
.
Jacobsen translation is based on his critically edited text of the Wendell-Blundell prism in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford University (W-B 1923.444). This fairly complete text is referred to as WB. The line numeration refers to the lines of the WB prism.

The origin of the antediluvian section

The bold underscored lines are found in essentially the same form in the epic fragment referred to above. Thus it appears that the two documents are related. The phrases ending each dynasty (‘I drop Eridu(g)’, ‘I drop Bad-tibira(k)’, etc.), however, are totally out of place in the epic. They are also very different from the phrases repeatedly used for the ending of the different dynasties in the postdiluvian sections (e.g., ‘Kish was smitten with weapons’).

For those reasons, Jacobsen⁴ concludes that the scribe adding the antediluvian section was not copying directly from the epic but was using a different source (Document A) that was literarily related to the epic. There are three equally probable explanations for the relationship between the epic and Document A (see Fig. 1): (1) Document A was based on the epic but its author introduced the particular formulas. (2) The epic used A but dropped the formulas as they did not fit its style. (3) Both A and the epic were derived from a third document B that contained the common phrases and the formulas.

The information about the cities, the names of the kings, and their reigns are most probably also derived from source A, as there are strong indications that it was originally present in the complete text of the epic. All the text considered to have a high probability of being derived from source A is indicated above by bold letters. It is difficult to ascertain if the verb ‘he reigned’ after the various reigns and the city summaries of the number of kings and the total duration of their reigns were derived from source A or if they were added by the scribe. Since there are some evidences for both, they are indicated by Roman but not bolded letters in the transcription shown above.

The italicized lines correspond to phrases that Jacobsen considers were written by the scribe as he added the material of the antediluvian section to an earlier version of the King List, which he was also bringing up to date, in the middle of the Isin dynasty. They essentially represent attempts to bring the added section into conformity with the style of the rest of the King List. Those phrases are not present in the epic nor in the isolated list of the antediluvian kings mentioned above. In addition, they contain grammatical peculiarities also present in the very last section of the King List which he appears to have added. Phrases and words attributed to the scribe are indicated by italicized letters.

The isolated antediluvian list that has been mentioned above has many similarities but also marked differences with the antediluvian section of the King List. It is a short and concise list of the type that probably the original author of WB used for his source (Document A). However, it gives the impression of being a further condensed version with emendations (some probably of a political nature) of the material used by WB.

A consideration of that list, and the reconstructed portion of the source used by WB (text in bold letters), shows that the original information about the antediluvian kings did not claim that the different kingships were successive. In fact, the language of the change of dynasty gives the impression that it was trying to avoid saying so. According to Jacobsen, ‘This view, that the antediluvian dynasties were more or less contemporaneous, is clearly incompatible with the King List proper, which directly aims at following the route of the “the kingship” from one city to another.’⁴

The information contained in source A can then be summarized as follows:

When the kingship was lowered from heaven
(In) Eridu(g) A-lulim(ak)
reigned 28,800 years;
Alalgar reigned 36,000 years.
2 kings
reigned its 64,800 years.
I drop (the topic) Eridu(g);
(In) Bad-tibira(k) En-men-lu-Anna(k)
reigned 43,200 years;
En-men-gal-Anna(k)
reigned 28,800 years;
divine Dumu-zi(d), a shepherd, reigned 36,000 years.
3 kings
reigned its 108,000 years.
I drop (the topic) Bad-tibira(k);
(In) Larak En-sipa(d)-zi(d)-Anna(k)
reigned its 28,800 years.
1 king
reigned its 28,800 years.
I drop (the topic) Larak;
(In) Sippar En-men-dur-Anna(k)
reigned 21,000 years.
1 king
reigned its 21,000 years.
I drop (the topic) Sippar;
(In) Shuruppak Ubar-Tutu(k)
reigned 18,600 years.
1 king
reigned its 18,600 years.
5 cities were they;
8 kings
reigned their 241,200 years.
The Flood swept thereover.

Chronological considerations

Most of the existing manuscripts of the King List have been dated to the second half of the Isin dynasty. An examination of the grammar of the List, however, shows certain usages that had disappeared by that time. Jacobsen⁴ has compared these manuscripts with well-dated documents outside of the King List and has determined the time when these usages disappeared from the then current language. The postdiluvian portion of the King List shows that a large part of it has a high degree of stylistic similarity.

The concluding section of WB, however, shows a different style. By noting the date when these different grammatical usages also had disappeared from the language, and the dynasty in the List when the different writing style was introduced, Jacobsen⁴ came to the conclusion that the first part of the List was composed earlier than the reign of Utu-hegal of Uruk (2119–2112 BC)^1,3 and that the later section of WB was added by a different scribe as he brought an older copy of the List up to date with information about new kings and dynasties. The style of the concluding sections is also very similar to that of the antediluvian section which has been seen above to be an addition to the main body of the King List.

Jacobsen concludes that ‘The man who added the antediluvian section is also responsible for the last part of the list; his literary peculiarities appear in both places.’⁴ This scribe added the 3rd dynasty of Ur (2112–2004 BC)³ and the dynasty of Isin down to Sin-magir (1827–1817 BC), so the antediluvian section appears to have been also added after that time.

An inscription of Utu-hegal describing this victory over Gutium shows very close similarities in ideology and language to the earlier portion of the postdiluvian King List.⁴ The characteristic phraseology common to the inscription and the King List occurs in no other document. In both documents the idea is expressed that Babylonia had always been one single kingdom and that the capital had changed from city to city as rulers from different cities defeated the existing capital. It was considered that at no time was there more than one king. By defeating Gutium around 2119 BC, Utu-hegal had brought back the kingdom to Sumer. The Sumerian nationalism must have been stimulated by the newly-won independence from the barbarous Gutians. This would have been the right environment for the production of a work such as the King List that seeks to present the history of Babylonia as a succession of different national kingdoms passing from one city to another.

A detailed analysis of the structure of the King List⁴ indicates that the author of the first part took his material from lists that gave the names of local rulers in chronological order and the length of time that each had reigned. Apparently, the different cities each had their own separate list of local rulers, irrespective of any overlord the city may have had at the time. There are evidences that some of these local lists existed in pre-Sargonic times even as far back as the Fara texts (c. 2500 BC).

The author appears to have merged the independent local lists to a sequential list produced under the theory that there was only one king at a given time in all of Babylonia. The form of the final list shows that the author did not reject any material from the local lists. He should have eliminated some kings because ‘large sections in each of his sources would have been irrelevant because they dealt with rulers reigning at periods when their city was not in possession of the kingship.’⁴

Thus, many of the dynasties listed as consecutive were in reality contemporaneous. He apparently divided the larger of his source lists into smaller dynastic units and interpolated them separately to try to ameliorate the large errors that obvious synchronisms between well known rulers would have exposed by strictly merging all the sources one after another. In most cases, however, he cut the individual lists for interpolation along dynastic groups.

It has been indicated above how the later scribe who added the concluding sections of the King List and the antediluvian portion also followed the dogma of only one king at a time for all of Babylonia and only one capital. It is not likely that the original antediluvian source he used tried to present the antediluvian kings in such a consecutive way; it seems that the scribe forced this concept of his own in order to conform his new material to the style of the copy of the King List he was adding to.

Sumerian and Semitic number systems

Before comparing the Antediluvian portion of the King List to the Genesis record, it is important to review the characteristics of the number system used in Mesopotamia as deduced from the earliest archaeological findings. The following survey is based principally on the descriptions of Friberg,⁵ Flegg,⁶ Nissen,⁷ Walker,⁸ and the University of Wisconsin⁹ among others. Dates correspond to the conventional chronology which is probably quite accurate in the later periods but tends to give dates that are too old in the earlier ones.

Proto-Sumerian Period (3300–2900 BC)

The first indications of writing and numbers are found in the Late Uruk Period.⁷ At the beginning of this period, however, tally stones or tokens made of clay of different shapes have been found. These appear to represent different counting units and the objects being counted.¹⁰ The token method of counting was combined with the use of cylinder seals. The tokens were enclosed in a ball of clay covered on the outside with impressions of usually only one seal. In some cases there were also oblong impressions on the outside of the ball that represented numbers that corresponded to the tokens within the ball. In some instances, flat clay slabs have been found with the oblong symbols for numbers impressed on their surfaces together with many impressions of cylinder seals. Some tablets have compartments marked off with incised lines, each one containing a different number.

Tablets with true writing appear at the end of the Late Uruk Period (Uruk Level VI), where numbers are accompanied by pictorial and curvilinear symbols made with a pointed stylus. The texts found appear to relate to both simple and complex economic transactions. Although they are still not completely legible, they can be seen to correspond to allotments of food, lists of sacrifices, division of fields, herds of animals and textile and metal manufacture. Writing is well developed when it first appears in the archaeological records. Nissen⁷ rejects the theories that the earliest known writing must have had more primitive predecessors. He hypothesizes, however, that once the idea of writing arose somewhere in the administration, its value was immediately recognized and it was very quickly developed into a functional instrument.

Many tablets have been found with the information divided into three different sections. On one side of the tablet are many individual entries of numbers accompanied by pictorial symbols, probably signifying the objects being counted or the names of persons. On a separate section, are entries that correspond to subtotals of the individual numbers. Usually on the back side of the tablet, a third section contains a final total that adds up the previous subtotals. This practice, which Nissen⁷ calls ‘a strict bookkeeping mentality,’ was prevalent throughout the Middle East and is also found in the Kings List. Joshua 12:9–24 is an example of its use in the Bible.

Figure 2. Number symbols used during the Proto-Sumerian and Early Dynastic Periods (3300–2334 BC).

Very early, an oblong impression was used as the symbol for one. This oblong numeral was repeated several times to represent small numbers and this can be considered an extension of the method of tallying where there is a one-to-one correspondence between the objects counted and the inscribed marks. The indentations on clay were made by pressing a blunt stylus of circular section at an angle and had the appearance of a bullet (Fig. 2). The symbols were grouped by threes for a quick communication of the numerical information. For numbers larger than nine, a collective symbol that represented 10 units was used. This is the practice of cipherization found in all numeral systems around the world.

The existence of a sign for 10 does not prove that the system employed the base ten or that it had a combination of bases. Ten was essentially an intermediate cipher to avoid the need for extensive repetition of the sign for 1. An example of the use of intermediate ciphers is found in the Roman number system, where ciphers for 5 times the powers of 10 were developed even though the system was fundamentally decimal (V, L, and D for 5, 50, and 500). The symbol for 10 was made by pressing the stylus vertically into the clay and had the appearance of a circle. The presence or absence of symbols defined the number unambiguously and the order of the symbols did not matter. However, it was the convention to write the symbols for 10 together and not mix them with the symbols for 1. Thus, the early numeral system followed an addition principle and there was no need for a zero.

The early Sumerians used the base 60 for their number system. The reason for the adoption of such a large base is probably a reflection of the various units of measure used for commercial, administration and religious purposes. These were mostly sexagesimal because they afforded many convenient factors of the unit (halves, thirds, quarters, fifths, sixths, tenths, twelfths, fifteenths, twentieths, and sixtieths) all expressed as whole numbers of the next lower denomination.⁶

The next power of the base (60¹) was expressed as a large version of the units (60⁰) symbol. This was done by pressing the other end of the stylus at an angle. This end was also blunt but had a larger diameter, so it would produced the shape of a larger bullet. These symbols were repeated until 600 was reached when the symbol used for ten (a small circle) was impressed inside the large oblong symbol for 60.

For the next power of the base (60²), a large circle was used that was made by vertically pressing the larger end of the stylus into the clay. As with the symbol for 600, a small circle was impressed inside the larger circle (3,600) to multiply it by ten and represent 36,000. Although the Sumerian system had a sexagesimal base, the symbol for ten (the small circle) was used as an intermediate symbol between powers of sixty. This simplified the tallying procedure by grouping by ten the ciphers for the different powers. The resulting number was very easy to understand and used the multiplicative principle.

The system actually contained only two symbols in two sizes. The small number of symbols made the system very intuitive and available to the masses but needed a fair number of repetitions. Thus, to write the numbers up to 59, as many as 14 individual symbols were needed for the individual numbers. The small number of numerical symbols was, to a large extent, controlled by the method of writing numbers using a blunt stylus with a circular section to impress marks on wet clay.

The next archaeological phase, represented by the Jamdet Nasr, Proto-Elamite and Uruk Level III Periods, was marked by a simplification and acceleration of operations in every sphere.⁷ The pictographic signs began to lose their pictorial appearance, becoming more abstract and linear. In this phase, the first use of symbols with determinative value has been found. The language represented was probably Sumerian but that is not certain. Nevertheless, the tablets were written in an archaic pictographic script that can be recognized as a precursor of the Sumerian cuneiform script. The writing system was logographic, where one sign or sign-group was used for each term or concept without adding grammatical elements. The numbers as a rule were still made with the round end of a stylus and are easy to identify. A special bi-sexagesimal notation has also been found⁵ where two of the same large bullet signs, but with a less elongated impression, were pointed towards each other to signify 120. The same symbol with a small circular impression represented 10×120=1200 (Fig. 2).

Early Dynastic I–II Periods (2900–2600 BC)

The first identifiable use of purely phonetic elements and grammar appeared during this time. In this stage some signs were used to represent syllables. The language used is clearly Sumerian. Most of the material for this period comes from the Archaic Ur tablets. The same number system as in Jamdet Nasr is used. The script was not yet cuneiform, but the signs are more linear.

Early Dynastic II–III Periods (2600–2334 BC)

During this interval, writing became much easier and simpler to use, mostly through a change in writing techniques. The earlier method of incising to make the curvilinear pictorial symbols was gradually replaced by the technique of making impressions of short, straight lines by holding a stylus of triangular section at an angle. Writing now became much faster. The same symbols were used, but many had their form completely changed because the new method only allowed short straight lines. Superfluous details were omitted, and curved lines were replaced by short straight segments. The short strokes had a head, which was more deeply impressed and therefore wider. The lines resembled a wedge, and this became the reason for the name ‘cuneiform’ given later to this script. Many earlier complicated symbols disappeared.

Nissen⁷ speculates that the changes in the technique of writing may have had their basis in the increased demand for scribes in an expanding economy. The major groups of tablets for this period come from Fara (Shuruppak), Abu-Salabikh, and Ebla in Syria. From about 2500 BC onwards, the cuneiform script was also used to write Akkadian and Eblaite, which are Semitic languages. About eighty percent of the words written on the approximately 10,000 tablets found at Ebla are in Sumerian. Interspersed are the remaining twenty percent in Eblaite. At that time, the calendar used at Ebla was Semitic and the counting appears to be in Semitic units which were decimal.^11–14 The same is observed in Mari and Abu-Salabikh. The number system for representing the counting, however, remained the same as in the previous periods, with the same two different symbols (the bullet and the circle) and the same two sizes (Fig. 2).

Figure 3. Number symbols used during the Akkadian Period (2334–2154 BC).

Dynasty of Akkad (2334–2154 BC)

During the period of the Semitic dynasty of Akkad, the Akkadian language replaced Sumerian as the administrative language, as Sargon I of Agade conquered all of Mesopotamia and extended the empire to the Amanus Mountains to the West, and to the Zagros and Taurus mountains to the East and North.¹⁵ The Sumerian signs were used to write the Old Akkadian language which was Semitic. The wedges of the cuneiform symbols now appear only at the top or the left of the sign. This is a culmination of the tendency started in the Early Dynastic II Period of restricting the impressions of the triangular stylus ‘within a narrow segment of the possible directions the stylus could theoretically take.’ This meant that few changes in the direction of writing were necessary and the speed of writing could be increased.⁷

The number symbols, however, could be written in two ways: either as cuneiform signs, inscribed with a stylus of triangular section, or as circular signs made with the blunt end of a circular stylus.⁵ That means that two different types of stylus were used simultaneously. The new cuneiform numerals tried to reproduce with wedges the rounded impressions of the earlier numerals. Thus, an elongated wedge represented the number one and a vertically impressed triangular shape represented the number ten. These symbols were the equivalent of the small bullet and circle of the earlier system. The earlier large circle which stood for 60² was now represented by four long wedges making a diamond shape, and the large bullet with the small circle inside (10×60) was written with an elongated wedge and a triangular impression superimposed on its right side (Fig. 3). Similarly, the large circle with the small circle inside (10×60²) was substituted by a diamond made with four long wedges with a triangular impression inside. Sixty was represented by an elongated wedge which sometimes was larger than the wedge for one, but most of the time had to be differentiated from it by the context or the arrangement of the other numeral symbols.

Figure 4. Number symbols used during the Sumerian Period (2112–2004 BC).

Sumerian Period (2112–2004 BC)

This period is marked by the hegemony of the Sumerians under the leadership of Ur-Nammu, founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur, who conquered other Sumerian and Akkadian city-states. As a consequence, there was a revival of the Sumerian language, but only in religious and literary areas, as the language remained unimportant for administrative purposes. The scribal art reached an exceptional stage of precision. The round numerals, that had to be made with a different circular stylus, disappeared from current use and only the cuneiform representations, made with the triangular stylus, were employed from now on (Fig. 4).

Old Babylonian Period (2004–1595 BC)

Figure 5. Number symbols used during the Babylonian Period (2004 BC–75 AD).

Up to this time, a positional notation for sexagesimal numbers had not become established and separate signs were used for 1, 10, 60, 10×60, 60², and 10×60². A special sign for zero was not necessary. During the Babylonian Period, however, a quasi-positional notation was used that depended on only two signs: the elongated wedge used for the number one and the triangular impression used for 10. The wedge now also stood for the powers of 60 and the triangle for ten times the powers of 60 depending on their position within the sequence of ciphers representing the number (Fig. 5).

Eventually, a sign for zero was adopted in the Babylonian system, but it was only used to denote internal empty places, the new numerical symbol was not used to the right of a number as the last symbol.⁶ This meant that the numbers were not unambiguous and the actual value had to be determined very carefully from the context.

Summary of number systems

In conclusion, there were two different but related systems for representing numbers in the Sumero-Babylonian culture. An earlier one, based on round impressions using a blunt circular stylus, and a latter one, based on cuneiform impressions made with a stylus of triangular section. The first system appears during the Proto-Sumerian Period and was in use until the time of the Akkadian Dynasty. By the Sumerian Period of the Third Dynasty of Ur, the cuneiform system had totally replaced it. Because both systems were sexagesimal and had a limited number of signs, frequent repetitions of the same sign were necessary. An intermediate cipher for 10 was developed to ease the need for repetition and it was used by itself and to multiply the different powers of 60. The individual signs representing a number had to be added together to obtain the actual value of the number. The earlier system used only two different signs in two different sizes to write the numbers. The cuneiform system also employed only two elements, the wedge and the triangle, but used four wedges to represent the large circle of the earlier system. In both cases, the largest value represented by a single symbol was 36,000, although very large numbers could be expressed by the repeated use of the symbol for 36,000.

During the Babylonian Period, however, a quasi-positional notation was developed that allowed for the convenient representation of very large numbers. Only two signs, the wedge and the triangle, were used to represent the different powers of 60 and 10 times the different powers of 60 depending on the position of the symbol in the number string. A sign for zero was used to indicate internal empty positions.

No other culture in the ancient world used the base 60 for their number system. The Egyptians, for example, used a pure decimal notation as well as the Romans and the Greeks.⁶ The latter adopted the sexagesimal base for astronomical computations but a decimal notation was employed for other purposes. The Elamites apparently adopted the sexagesimal system from the Sumerians and only used a decimal notation when counting animals.⁵ Although the Semitic kingdoms of Ebla, Mari, and Abu-Salabikh adopted the cuneiform writing and the cuneiform numbers, the calendar was Semitic and the counting appears to be in Semitic units which were decimal.

Figure 6.List of the duration of the Antediluvian Sumerian reigns.Click here to see larger image.

King List and patriarchs chronology

The antediluvian portion of the King List appears to have been originally composed very early in Sumerian history. Therefore, the early number system, based on rounded signs, has been used to represent the numerical part of the list in Fig. 6. A representation based on the non-positional cuneiform system, however, would have been very similar. It can be seen that the majority of the symbols needed to express the duration of the reigns of the antediluvian kings are the large circle (60²= 3,600) and the large circle with the small circle inside (10×60²= 36,000). Only the last two numbers would have needed the symbol of the large bullet with a small circle inside (10×60 = 600). The symbols for one, ten, and sixty would not have been needed. Thus, in six of the eight numbers, the durations were given as units of 60², and in the last two with a precision of 10×60. Notice that all the numbers taken together yield three 10×60² signs, thirty-six 60² signs, and six 10×60 signs. To obtain the total of the eight reign durations, the scribe would have used the tallying method. So, for example, he would have counted ten of the large circle signs and written an additional large circle with a small circle inside. In case there were less that ten symbols of the same kind left, they were usually arranged in up to three rows of three symbols each. Thus, the thirty-six 60² signs would have yielded three more 10×60² signs for a total of six, with six individual 60² signs left. The six large bullets with a small circle inside could have been written as two rows of three signs each, following the convention of the maximum of three rows of three. However, because of the peculiarities of the system, six large bullets with the small circle inside also make a large circle. So, the six 10×60 signs could have been also expressed as an additional 60²sign for a total of seven (see Fig. 6). The resulting total is equivalent to 214,200 years. This number also has a precision of 3,600. It is curious that the 10×60 signs of the last two durations add up exactly to one of the 60² signs, the basic unit of all the other numbers and the overall total, and that the 10×60 unit was not used until the last two reign durations of the list.

A table with the total ages of the antediluvian biblical patriarchs is shown in Fig. 7. For comparison with the Sumerian King List, Adam and Noah are not included. The King List does not include the Sumerian first man nor the Sumerian Flood hero (Ziusudra). The third column is the representation of the ages as decimal-counting Semites would have written them using the early rounded stylus. Exactly what the convention would have been is not known. However, following the same rules for the selection of symbols to represent the different powers of the base as in the sexagesimal system, it would follow that the small bullet and the small circle would represent one and ten, the large circle the next power of the base (10²), and the large circle with the small circle inside ten times that power (10³). There would have been no use for the large bullet impression because the first power of the base was already represented by the small circle, and no use for the large bullet with the small circle inside because ten times the first power of the base was the square of the base which was represented by the large circle. According to that convention, the total ages of the antediluvian patriarchs would have been expressed as shown in column three. The precision of the ages is one year, and the majority of the ages have units.

Ages of antediluvian biblical patriarchs

Figure 7.List of the Ages of the Antediluvian biblical Patriarchs.Click here to see larger image.

A comparison of Figs. 6 and 7 shows that the ages have no relationship between themselves, and neither do the totals. However, if the ages of the Patriarchs are rounded to the two highest digits as in the Sumerian list (that appears to be rounded to the two highest sexagesimal ciphers), their representation would be as shown in column 4 of Fig. 7. A total of the eight ages of the patriarchs can also be obtained by tallying all the symbols employed in the individual numbers. The total would then have six 10³ signs, six 10² signs, and six 10 signs for a sum of 6600 years. If we do not incorporate the six 10×60 signs (large bullet with small circle inside) of the Sumerian total into an additional next higher order sign, the Sumerian total has 6 signs for 10×60², six signs for 60², and six signs for 10×60.

Thus, the totals of both the rounded Genesis and Sumerian lists obtained by a straight tally have six of the signs for ten times the square of the base, six of the signs for the square of the base and six signs for the next lower symbol. It should be noted that, although the particular form of the symbols used to represent the decimal numbers has been assumed, the relationship of the arithmetic structure of the totals is inherently independent of the symbols used. Nevertheless, the choice of signs employed in Fig. 7 to represent decimal numbers is entirely reasonable as it follows the same rules of the sexagesimal system. If this was indeed the system used, the resemblance between the totals would have been not only inherently but formally true as well.

A Sumerian scribe looking at a document containing the Genesis total would have interpreted the signs as sexagesimal. Thus, the first 6 signs would have represented 216,000 years (6 x 10×60²), and the next six, 21,600 (6 x 60²) for a total of 237,600 years. This is very close to the total in the Sumerian antediluvian document. The scribe would have been puzzled at the last set of six small circle signs. That sign was generally recognized as the cipher for 10. But why introduce 60 years (6 x 10) when already the first two sets of signs amount to more than two hundred thousand years? Also, it would have appeared very strange that no intermediate ciphers between 60²and 10 were used in the total. The scribe would have expected to see the next smaller cipher of the system, namely the large bullet with the small circle inside (10×60). It would have seemed very reasonable to assume that the signs were wrong and that the large bullet had been dropped. Given that assumption, the last three signs would have represented 3,600 (6 x 10×60) for a grand total of 241,200 years, the total appearing in the Sumerian list.

Our hypothesis for explaining the similarities in numerical structure and magnitude of the two totals is as follows: The Sumerian scribe that composed the original Antediluvian list had at his disposal a document (possibly a clay tablet) containing numerical information on the ages of eight of the patriarchs similar to that of the Genesis record. The numbers denoting the lifespans of the individual patriarchs were missing or obliterated. However, the document had a rounded total of the lifetimes of the patriarchs (possibly on the back of the tablet). Although this number was written using a decimal number base, the scribe assumed it was sexagesimal and incorporated it into his document after making some slight emendations. He then proceeded to assign approximate reign durations to the perceived antediluvian kings in an arbitrary manner but keeping the sum equal to the total he had copied from the decimal (Semitic) tablet. He only used two high order ciphers to represent the durations (in units of 3,600 years) but used a third smaller cipher in the last two reigns to conform to the structure of the total he had adopted.

Although this hypothesis cannot be proven at this time, it seem to afford a reasonable explanation of the similarities and differences between the two documents. The probability that the resemblance is fortuitous is very small in view of the fact that the two lists:

mention the Flood;
refer to the same (adjusted) number of personages;
have totals that are made up of the same number of symbols for ten times the square of the base, the square of the base, and the next lower symbol of the two different numerical systems involved;
and, have their totals correspond to each other numerically.

On the other hand, it is highly unlikely that the biblical account was derived from the Sumerian because:

the Genesis account has more numerical precision and more detailed information;
the ages of the patriarchs are much more reasonable than the extremely long reigns of the kings of the Kings List, the account is much more realistic and true to life;
and, the moral and spiritual qualities are immensely superior. For example, in the Sumerian account of the Flood (as given in the Gilgamesh epic) there is no reason given for the decision of the gods to destroy mankind. There are no allusions at all to a fault committed by man. The Flood appears as a capricious act of the gods rather than a divine punishment. In Genesis, however, God purposes to purge mankind because the thoughts and designs of men were continually evil, and the Earth was full of violence.

Another possible explanation is that, instead of a written document, the Sumerians had an oral tradition referring to the antediluvian account which was used in composing the early part of the Kings List, but that they had available only the general setting of the story, the number of personages involved (interpreted as kings), the rough magnitude of their ages (interpreted as durations of reigns), and the rounded total; originally in a decimal numerical system, but incorrectly assumed to be in a sexagesimal one at a later date. The main problem with this explanation is that there is a detailed numerical correspondence between the two lists that would have been difficult to remember from one generation to the other. On the other hand, the total of the lifetimes (which provides the principal numerical correspondence) has a structure (three sets of six ciphers each in strict decreasing arithmetical order) that would have made remembering that number much easier.

Discussion and summary

The Sumerian King List records in a chronological succession the names of most of the kings of Sumer and the lengths of their reigns. The composition is based on the theory that there was always only one king at a time for all of Babylonia, and a single capital. A few of the existing manuscripts of the List have an initial section dealing with kings before the Flood that is significantly different from the rest of the list. This antediluvian section was a later addition written by a person different from the one who composed the postdiluvian section of the list. This scribe appears to have adapted an earlier list of antediluvian kings to conform to the style and philosophy of the document he was bringing up to date. However, it is evident that his source for the antediluvian kings did not claim that the different kingships were successive. The original King List was probably composed during the reign of Utu-hegal of Uruk (2119–2112 BC) and the antediluvian section added after the reign of Sin-magir (1827–1817 BC) of the Isin dynasty.

Sumerians and Babylonians employed a sexagesimal number system. There were two non-positional ways of representing the different ciphers: an earlier one using a round stylus, and a later cuneiform way using a triangular stylus. In both systems the number of ciphers was very small requiring many repetitions of the same symbol, although grouping of the sexagesimal symbols by tens was employed. Later, during Babylonian time, a quasi-positional system was devised. No other culture of the ancient world developed a sexagesimal number system, although non-Sumerian groups adopted the Sumerian script to represent their languages and used their numerical system. This was the case of Semitic groups such as at Ebla and Mari, but although they used the cuneiform system, they retained a Semitic calendar and decimal counting.

When the kingdom durations of the antediluvian portion of the King List are represented with the early Sumerian numerical system, the total and all of the numbers except two need only two different symbols. These are the two largest units of the system, so that the numbers are expressed as multiples of 3600. The total (241,200) needs six 10×60² signs, six 60² signs, and six 10×60 signs. The duration of the lives of the biblical patriarchs, however, have the precision of one year, and the majority of the ages have units. If Adam the first man and Noah the Flood hero are not included to match the contents of the Kings List, their total ages would be 6695. If the ages are rounded to the two highest digits as in the Sumerian list, the final number has six 10³ signs, six 10² signs, and six 10 signs for a total of 6660. Thus, the totals of both the adjusted Genesis and Sumerian lists have six of the signs for ten times the square of the base, six of the signs for the square of the base, and six signs for the next lower value of their respective system. In addition, when the number representing the sum of the ages of the biblical patriarchs is interpreted as having been written in the sexagesimal system, the two totals become numerically equivalent.

The probability that the resemblance between the two documents is fortuitous is very small. On the other hand, it is highly unlikely that the biblical account was derived from the Sumerian in view of the differences of the two accounts, and the obvious superiority of the Genesis record both in numerical precision, realism, completion, and moral and spiritual qualities. It is much more likely that the Sumerian scribe that composed the original antediluvian list had available a document (possibly a clay tablet) containing numerical information on the ages of eight of the patriarchs similar to that of the Genesis record and that he mistakenly interpreted it as being written in the sexagesimal system. Another possibility is that the Sumerians had an oral tradition of the antediluvian world that only provided the general setting of the story, the number of personages involved, the rough magnitude of their ages and the rounded total, and that these numbers were originally decimal but were incorrectly assumed to be sexagesimal at the time of writing the antediluvian list.

The fact that numerical elements of the biblical antediluvian account appear so distinctly in the context of a secular Sumerian historical document such as the Kings List, is strong evidence for the historicity of the early chapters of the book of Genesis. The biblical description is not limited to the Hebrews, but it appears that there was an ancient tradition of the antediluvian world in the early stages of the Mesopotamian culture as well. On the other hand, the fact that the Sumerian account shows up as a numerically rounded, incomplete version of the Genesis description, lacking the latter’s precision and wealth of details, as well as its moral and spiritual depth, is a strong argument for the priority, accuracy and superiority of the biblical record. And finally, the clear parallels between the Sumerian and biblical antediluvian data, qualitative as well as numerical, open up the possibility of establishing some chronological correlations between the rest of the Kings List and the early chapters of the book of Genesis.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to my wife Evangelina V. López for her patience and understanding during the research and preparation of this work. Her help in editing and proof reading is also greatly appreciated.

References and notes

Kramer, S.N., The Sumerians, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 355 pp, 1963.
Walton, J., The antediluvian section of the Sumerian King List and Genesis 5, Biblical Archaeologist, 44:207–208, 1981. Also, see his later study on the Sumerian King List in Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural Context, Zondervan, pp. 127–31, 1989.
Morby, J.E., Dynasties of the World, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 253 pp, 1989.
Jacobsen, T., The Sumerian King List, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 217 pp, 1939.
Friberg, J., Numbers and measures in the earliest written records, Scientific American, 250(2):110–118, 1984.
Flegg, G., Numbers, Their History and Meaning, Barnes and Noble, NY, 295 pp, 1993.
Nissen, Hans J., The early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000–2000 BC, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 215 pp, 1988.
Walker, C.B.F., Reading the Past: Cuneiform, Trustees of the British Museum, British Museum, 64 pp, 1987.
University of Wisconsin, Sign, symbol, script: An exhibition on the origins of writing and the alphabet, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 88 pp, 1984.
Schmandt-Besserat, D., The earliest precursor of writing, Scientific American, 238:50–59, 1978.
Mattiae, P., Ebla: An Empire Rediscovered, Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1981.
Pettinato, G., Catalogo dei Testi Cuneiformi de Tell Mardikh-Ebla, Instituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, Naples, 1979.
Pettinato, G., Testi Administrativi della Biblioteca L. 2769, Instituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, Naples.
Pettinato, G., The Archives of Ebla, Doubleday, Garden City, NY.
Fiore, S., Voices From the Clay, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 254 pp, 1965.

Raul E. Lopez has an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University. He works as a research meteorologist with the National Severe Storms Laboratory. He has published about 50 journal papers and 90 conference papers and technical reports.

26 . 05 . 2011

26 Comments

amaic australian marian academy of the immaculate conception Noah’s Ark eight saved I Peter 3:20 Anne Catherine Emmerich Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations four ancestral couples

A Reconsideration of the ‘Eight’ Persons in Noah’s Ark

Amaic

Damien Mackey

Here I just want to pick up that point as raised above by a reader (letter of 15/01/11): “I always read Catherine Emmerich with some suspicion as there are too many discrepancies with the Bible (e.g. the number of people in the [Ark])…”.

Indeed, whereas the Bible (Old and New Testaments alike) seems to be perfectly clear that the number of persons aboard the vessel was eight, the German mystic – though quite aware of this – was however emphatic that she had seen many more persons than this on board, over one hundred people in the ark. Here is what she has claimed on the matter (The Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations, “Noe and His Posterity”):

There were over one hundred people in the ark, and they were necessary to give daily food to the animals and to clean after them. I must say, for I always see it so, that Sem’s, Cham’s [Ham’s] and Japhet’s children all went into the ark. There were many little boys and girls in it, in fact all of Noe’s [Noah’s] family that were good. Holy Scripture mentions only three of Adam’s children, Cain, Abel, and Seth; and yet I see many others among them, and I always see them in pairs, boys and girls. And so, too, in I Peter 3:20, only eight souls are mentioned as saved in the ark; viz., the four ancestral couples by whom, after the Deluge, the earth was to be peopled.

We might recall from a previous MATRIX that Blessed Anne Catherine had also apparently contradicted the literal meaning of the Book of Job, by saying that the holy man’s trials were not in immediate succession, but were separated, the one from the other, by some years. Traditionally (e.g. St. Thomas Aquinas) it has been considered that the repetitive verse: “While he was still speaking, another [messenger] came and said …” (Job 1:16, 17, 18), was meant to be taken literally. But what Anne Catherine has said is, I think, by far the more reasonable. [Though the people of Japan at present might argue and insist that three-fold disasters can occur in very quick succession: earthquake and aftershocks; tsunami; and radiation leaks]. What do our readers say?

The Hebrew of: “While he was still speaking, another came and said …” (NRSV Catholic Edition) is (transliterated) ‘od zeh m^edabbayr v^ezeh ba vayyomar …, which does have a continuous sense of while this was still spoken (reported), and so can probably correspond, basically, to Anne Catherine’s sense as thus explained by her:

Although in the Book of Job this narrative is given very differently, yet many of Job’s own words are therein recorded. I think I could distinguish them all. Where … the servants came quickly one after another to Job with news of his losses, it must be remarked that the words: “As he still spoke of it,” signify, “And while the last calamity was not yet effaced from the mind of men”, etc.

This may be especially so since zeh, the subject of the Hebrew verb m^edabbayr (a piel active participle), often means just ‘this’ and is not necessarily therefore masculine (e.g. referring to Job’s male messenger, “he”).

Now, similarly, I think that there are also strong, common-sensed-based reasons to think that Anne Catherine’s interpretation of the biblical ‘eight’, backed by her unique visions, is also the more likely; that these are to be considered the eight ancestral people, her four ancestral couples, from whom all humanity arose, including those many younger ones aboard the Ark. It is difficult to imagine that all of the children of the world were then so corrupt as to need to be wiped out. We recall that one of the reasons why God had spared Nineveh was because of the many children therein (at least according to some translations of Jonah 4:11). There are also the practical reasons of the need for many hands on deck in such a large vessel laden with so many animals, to which Anne Catherine (of farming background) refers.

That ‘creationist’ image of a ‘Queen Mary’-sized vessel with every single animal type aboard (sometimes including dinosaurs), and with only eight persons to feed and care for them and to clean up the appalling mess – a scenario that has delighted Professor Ian Plimer (Telling Lies For God), and justifiably so, I think – is nothing like the image that Anne Catherine portrays (far closer to Plimer’s own reconstruction of the Flood & Ark, incidentally). Genetics should be able to seal the matter scientifically.

This view of many more than eight on board also answers the query of one MATRIX reader who has wondered how a mere eight persons, living as recently as the early 3^rd millennium BC, could manage to have generated the millions of beings who arose in the world not that very long afterwards. Readers’ opinions are also invited on this!

How does the Ice Age fit into biblical history?

Taken from “Dancing From Genesis” blog:

http://dancingfromgenesis.wordpress.com/2008/12/17/biblical-ice-age

How does the Ice Age fit into biblical history? It fits very nicely, since the fountains of the deep of Noah’s Flood, which caused a much warmer-than-today ocean in the Flood’s aftermath, is the only way one can explain the cause of the Ice Age, afterall, greater evaporation is needed for the dense cloudcover for an Ice Age, and geothermally heated ocean water at that, because global warming of the ocean’s surface would cause more evaporation for more clouds, but those clouds would cool any global warming back down, a negative feedback mechanism, so the Ice Age, necessarily, was caused by geothermally heated ocean water, obviously from Noah’s Flood (see the free ebook download of my first book Old Earth? Why Not!)

And this Ice Age in the 2300 B.C. until 1500 B.C. timeframe is corroborated by hundreds of bronze age megalithic ruins which were submerged when the Ice Age ended (see category Submerged Ancient Ruins), and by the fact that there was a huge drying to desert in the middle latitudes, beginning circa 1500 B.C., which now leaves ruins of sophisticated bronze age cities in the middle of seas of desert sand, cities obviously built during the Ice Age, when it rained much more in the Middle East, Egypt, and other middle latitude regions, while the ice age snowfall in the extreme latitudes and high elevations raged on from that dense cloudcover caused by the warmer ocean in the aftermath of Noah’s Flood.

24 . 03 . 2011

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amaic australian marian academy of the immaculate conception Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich German mystic Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations “Noe and His Posterity” one hundred people in Ark eight ancestors four ancestral couples Creationist Queen Mary sized ark dinosaurs Noah Ice Age Great Genesis Noachic Flood Noah’s Ark eight saved I Peter 3:20

The Foundations of the Earth Shaken

Amaic

Pope Benedict, in his unscripted homily at the opening session of the Seventh General Congregation of the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops, proclaimed (following Psalm 82:5) that:

“[T]he foundations of the earth are shaken, because the inner foundations are shaken, the moral and religious foundations, the faith that leads to the right way of life. And we know that the faith is the foundation, and, without a doubt, the foundations of the earth cannot be shaken if the faith, the true wisdom, stands firm”. That, ultimately, is the goal of the Christian life and the life of the Church: “Thy kingdom come; Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” Through the faith of the simple, the heartfelt response to God’s gift of Himself, the Church can remake the world—not in the image of ideology, but in the image of the heavenly Jerusalem. And in building up the Body of Christ, the faith of the simple can even repair the world.

Our physical world has been shaken to the core with earthquakes (Christchurch, Japan); tsunamis (including ‘the inland tsunami’, or flood, that engulfed Queensland); cyclones. They have been described as: ‘Apocalypse’; ‘like the biblical Flood’; ‘like the end of the world’. While we pray for all involved in these tragedies, we can also say with King David (Psalm 46:2-3): “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be shaken, and though the mountains be removed into the midst of the sea. Though the waters roar and are troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof”.

God has the power to draw good out of even the most devastating of evils. And we invariably find that, in such severe crises, some human individuals rise to heroic levels. Here, for example, are two heartwarming examples of self-sacrifice from mere children in connection with the Queensland floods.

“No Greater Love …”

How Jordan Rice died to save his brother

Jordan Rice’s final act of bravery

——————————————————————————————————-

Cardinal Pell: “It is appropriate to add young Jordan Rice’s name to those of Simpson and his donkey, Caroline Chisholm, St Mary MacKillop, Weary Dunlop”.

“Our story – why it’s worth telling”, The Catholic Weekly, 06/02/2011

——————————————————————————————————-

Peta Doherty and Nicky Phillips

January 13, 2011

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/weather/how-jordan-died-to-save-his-brother-20110112-19obf.html

Rescuer Warren McErlean recounts the fatal moment when Jordan Rice’s heroic gesture saved his younger brother but cost Jordan his life.

IT IS almost unimaginable the fear 13-year-old Jordan Rice would have felt as the car he and his family were in was pummelled by a wall of water. But as it began engulfing the vehicle, Jordan, who could not swim himself, insisted his younger brother, Blake, 10, be rescued first. By the time his turn came, it was too late. It was a heroic gesture. One that cost him his life. And, like so many others who have risked their lives to save strangers, it almost cost the life of one of the rescuers, Warren McErlean.

Mr McErlean thought he got it wrong when he saw a water gauge on a street in Toowoomba rise 20 centimetres in 10 seconds on Monday afternoon. Five minutes later he was clinging to a pole, dodging cars and wheelie bins after he risked his life to try to save the Rice family. While Blake was rescued, Jordan and his mother, Donna, 43, perished when they were swept away in the flood.

”When I first saw the car the water was up to the number plate,” Mr McErlean, 37, a Toowoomba builder, told the Herald. ”I thought I would push it backwards but by the time I walked 20 metres, it [the water] was up on the bonnet and coming up the windscreen.” Mr McErlean grabbed a rope, tied one end to a post, the other around his waist and set out to rescue the woman and two boys but the fast-moving water swept him downstream. Another rescuer, known only as Chris, pulled Mr McErlean to safety before tying the rope to himself and approaching the car to grab Jordan.

But Jordan wanted his brother to go first so Chris took Blake, handing him to Mr McErlean part way across before heading back to the car.

”I had the boy in one hand, the rope in the other. I wasn’t going to let go but then the torrent came through and was pulling us down,” Mr McErlean said. ”Then this great big tall fellow just came out of nowhere, bear hugged us and ripped us out of the water. When I got back I turned to look at the guy [Chris]. He looked at me and we knew it was over. The rope snapped and the car just flipped.”

Chris, who had been holding Jordan’s hand until it was torn from him, flew metres in the air before locking his legs around a post in the centre of the road, said Mr McErlean.

”The others were just gone, just disappeared,” he said.

—————————————————————————–

The boy who gave everything to strangers

Paul Kent
From: The Daily Telegraph
January 21, 2011 12:00AM

DESHAN Malalage is seven, and we need more like him. Last week he watched the news with his mum and kept asking questions about what was happening, and she tried to explain as best she could the floods.

“What’s happening now?” he said.

“People are losing their homes,” his mother said.

Deshan, who goes into Year 2 this year at St Ives Primary (New South Wales), is a sensitive soul who wants to help people in need. Even when he doesn’t know them.

Watching the houses crumble, beginning to understand that children the same age as him now had nowhere to live, Deshan got to thinking.

He turned seven on New Year’s Eve and, for his birthday, he got a Nintendo DS. Nearby in his bedroom was the piggy bank where Deshan has stashed away the 5c and 10c pieces his mum and dad have thrown his way for the past three years, including his money from the tooth fairy.

He wanted to use the money to buy a game for his Nintendo, but the news got him thinking.

“I think they need the money in Queensland more than I do,” Deshan finally said to his mum, Thanuja.

Thanuja explained that once the money was gone it was gone forever. Deshan understood.

And with the wonderful purity of a young child’s mind, he simply figured the people of Queensland needed it more.

But Thanuja, who knows her boy, said: “When you give, when somebody else needs help, then maybe one day it will be your turn and somebody will help you.”

The next day Deshan and Thanuja dropped a great bag of coins on the bank counter, to give it all to the floods.

With no counting machine, other tellers were soon conscripted to tally the money and, as many sniffed back tears, counted out $89.

Deshan and Thanuja left but, unknown to them, the bank manager sent an email to the regional manager in Queensland.

It then went further up the chain, and at every level it had the same effect.

Last Friday the bank manager called Thanuja back.

He had a cheque from Queensland for Deshan for $100.

It was not a payback, but a small thank you to a small boy who enriches us all.

24 . 03 . 2011

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A Classic Polystrate Fossil

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by John D. Morris, Ph.D. *

[Taken from: http://www.icr.org/article/classic-polystrate-fossil/]

Years ago, National Geographic published a remarkable photograph of a polystrate fossil, a fossilized tree that extended stratigraphically upward through several layers of rock in Tennessee. Its roots were in a coal seam, and the overlying deposits included bedded shale and thin carbon-rich layers. An advocate of any form of uniformitarianism would believe that it took many, many years to deposit this sequence of layers (much longer than it takes for a tree to grow and eventually die and decay), yet one vertical fossil extends through them all. This one fossilized tree offered a direct contradiction to the evolutionary mantra that “the present is the key to the past.”

The specific strata surrounding the fossil provided a history. According to uniformitarianism, many years are required for a thick layer of peat to accumulate in a swampy environment. This type of location is quite different from the marine environment in which tiny shale-sized particles are deposited. Over “millions and millions of years” of heat and pressure generated by the subsequently deposited overlying marine sediments, the peat is thought to have metamorphosed into coal.

The tree was a mature tree, yet could not have grown in the location where the surrounding shale was deposited, since trees don’t live long under the sea. Furthermore, the time required for shaley sediments to accumulate must be added to the tree’s lifespan, as must the time to deeply bury the coal precursor and create the pressure to generate enough heat to alter the peat into coal. No scenario possible today could account for this sequence of events if evolution’s interpretation of earth history is true.

Creationists immediately recognized the educational value of this remarkable fossil, but evolutionists routinely ignore it. The name polystrate (“many layers”) is used only by creationists. You will seldom find it in the standard literature, even though the related concepts are easily grasped. Unfortunately, National Geographic requires a not-insignificant fee for the use of its photographs, and only on occasion was this one used by creationists. The fossil looked rather fragile, and since many polystrates are known, we never tried to go to the site and relocate this particular one.

Recently, however, creationist Ian Juby decided to try and track it down. Much to his surprise, it was still there, looking even better than ever. But there’s more–the fossilized tree stood in the neighborhood of numerous other trees. It suggests a significant dynamic event that uprooted, transported, and buried many trees in an upright position.

Just such an event happened at Mount St. Helens in 1980, when an eruption toppled a standing forest. The tree trunks were deposited in Spirit Lake. After a few years of waterlogging, the trunks sunk roots down, in life’s position but not life’s location. Today there are tens of thousands of upright trees standing on the bottom of the lake. They are being engulfed by fine particles of volcanic ash and clay, and if the underlying organic layer of bark were heated by a future eruption, it would likely metamorphose into coal and duplicate the scenario revealed in the photo.

The eruption at Mount St. Helens taught us much about the effects of dynamic processes. It provided a model for deciphering unseen past geologic cataclysms, and produced effects which before had puzzled us. Our understanding of possible events during the great Flood of Noah’s day was substantially expanded, including that rapid deposition of sediments and burial of fossils could be expected during such a deluge. The more evidence that science uncovers, the more it supports the biblical account of earth’s history.

1 . 03 . 2011

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Let There Be Light

Amaic

“Let There Be Light!”

Damien F. Mackey

Preamble

Things must have quietened down considerably for me even to think of replying to Brett Palmer, or to doing some crossword puzzles (always the sign of a lull). That great song by the band Chicago comes to mind, 25 or 6 to 4, mainly for its words “Should I try to do some more …”:

Waiting for the break of day

Searching for something to say

Flashing lights against the sky

Giving up I close my eyes

Sitting cross-legged on the floor

25 or 6 to 4

Staring blindly into space

Getting up to splash my face

Wanting just to stay awake

Wondering how much I can take

Should I try to do some more

25 or 6 to 4

Feeling like I ought to sleep

Spinning room is sinking deep

Searching for something to say

Waiting for the break of day

25 or 6 to 4

Enjoy it: Chicago 25 or 6 to 4

In this case, “should I” bother, or “should I” not, “feeling like I ought to sleep”, “try to do some more”, “wondering how much I can take”, and reply to Brett Palmer’s article:

Paradise: Dead & Buried

I Mean It This Time Folks. My Final Reply to Damien Mackey and the Four Rivers of Eden

http://www.thebibleskeptic.com/paradise4.html

And should I do this on Brett’s terms, constrained by his “five points”?:

“… For me to respond to Damien in the future, here are the points he’ll need to answer:

1.) How a flood, global or localized, which Genesis 6:13 states destroyed the earth along with all flesh nonetheless left the rivers of Eden intact (at least up until 200 BCE for “Pishon”).

2.) Find, don’t just speculate about, the actual “un-named source-river” that is claimed to have fed the four named rivers of Eden.

3.) Give overwhelming evidence, complete with peer-reviewed journal entries, that mainstream geochronology and dating methods are incorrect.

4.) Give overwhelming evidence (include fossil remains as well as DNA evidence), complete with peer-reviewed journal entries, that the human species is only c. 6,000 years old and had its origin in the Near East.

5.) Give overwhelming evidence, complete with peer-reviewed journal entries, that mainstream archaeology is wrong about Egyptian chronology.

Answering these five points (and all five points) would be sufficient enough for me to take another look at Damien’s musings. I think, however, you see why I’m confident to call this “my last entry in this saga.”

No to the “five points”, I say.

The great Jewish heroine, Judith, was appalled when her fellow townspeople had opted to yield their city of Bethulia (modern Mithilia, Mesilieh) to the Assyrians within five days if God hadn’t delivered them by then (Judith 8:9-11). Presuming to put time limitations upon a God who transcends time. But, since the Bethulians had bound themselves by oaths, Judith was now constrained to work within that time limit of five days.

But I am not bound to Brett’s “five” by any oaths, and certainly, like Judith, I am not bound to the “five” by any inclination. Whether or not I address any of these points incidentally in the course of this article will only be realised at the end.

For those interested in my argument that the Book of Judith is a real history of actual events, see Volume 2 of my university thesis, A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background. This argument impressed two international examiners (from the US and Cambridge Uni, UK), who thought that it deserved to be published. Full thesis accessible at: http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/5973

Now, to clear up some of Brett’s misconceptions.

Brett Got These Wrong

A. My Being a ‘Creationist’

Brett has “a soft spot for these guys”, meaning “creationists”, and including me. That is nice. However, I am not one of them inasmuch as I have actually undermined, on the Net – as unbiblical – two major foundations of Creationism as held by these sola scriptura people, and upon which they have built up their multi-million dollar evangelical empire: namely:

(i) the idea that the Genesis Flood was global, and that

(ii) Genesis 1 is recording that God created the heavens and the earth during six days.

According to Brett: “It is clear from the Scriptures that Yahweh was remaking the planet he originally formed in the first six days of creation. But, like most apologists who have a cherished belief to defend, Damien does not want to admit the obvious if it causes him to admit the source of these beliefs—the Bible—contradicts itself”. Or, more specifically:

Likewise, as a Young Earth creationist, Damien likely rejects evolution as a legitimate scientific theory and probably believes all creatures were specially created by an omnipotent, supernatural being in the span of a mere 24 hours, just as described in the first chapter of Genesis. Such creation included not only the fish of the sea (Gen. 1:21), the birds of the air (Gen. 1:20) and the cattle in the field (Gen. 1:24) spontaneously bursting into existence at the same time, but that this creation included such creatures as Dickinsonia, Tiktaalik, the ichthyosaurs, Monoclonius, Plateosaur and other dinosaurs as well as early mammals like the Hyaenodonts and Miacids known only to us through the fossil record. And all these animals, following Day Six in creation, would have lived happily side-by-side in the Paradise known as Eden with the first two humans of our species. ….

Well, I don’t entirely. Anyone who has actually bothered to read my “Book of Origins” article (http://genesis1.blog.com/2008/04/21/book-of-origins/) will know that I do not subscribe at all to a work of creation lasting for Six Days.

Further, in my article,

Just How ‘Global’

Was The Great Flood?

(Genesis 6-9)

http://genesisflood.blog.com/2008/04/07/just-how-global-was-the-great-flood/

I made it very clear that, whilst I greatly admire much of what the Creationists have done (to use Brett’s words I have “a soft spot for these guys”), I can also see value in some of the biblical interpretations of their critics, such as professor Ian Plimer, whose account of the Flood and the Ark (in Telling Lies for God – Reason vs Creationism, Random House, Sydney, 1994) I would consider to be rather closer to (though definitely not the same as) my own Flood and Ark model than are the standard Creationist versions of these. And, in this sort of context, I made this observation:

… there sometimes occurs the ironical – even humorous – situation whereby agnostic scientists will occasionally call for a more enlightened exegetical approach to Genesis than do the upholders of the biblical tradition; whereas the latter will at times arrive at a more accurate interpretation of the scientific data than do their scientific opponents.

So, whilst I appreciate that Brett may have “a soft spot” for believers, I do not appreciate those many ‘soft spots’ that he himself has in his thinking with its misconceptions, in his assessments, and in his logic. So, in this regard, my leading sentiment is one more of pity than a ‘soft’ fondness. But nor am I surprised that an assertive skeptic such as he should be in an habitual state of ‘soft’, woolly thinking. Ought not the logical position in Brett’s case be to assert nothing, to insist upon nothing, to be certain about nothing? Spy Johnny English (aka Mr. Bean) played the part truly: “He Knows No Fear. He Knows No Danger. He Knows Nothing”.

I don’t believe myself to be certain that Genesis 2 and 6 contradict one another, I am certain of it! There he goes.

“What is truth?” (John 18:38), asks Brett, borrowing the words of that archetypal skeptic and superstitious worshipper of idols, Pontius Pilate, when confronted by Truth incarnate. “I’m certain that “truth” is different for skeptics than it is for Christian apologists”, he answers. Now here is Brett the skeptic again expressing a certainty. You mustn’t say that, Brett! That is not a logical skeptical position. Skeptics ought not to be certain about anything! You are exceeding your skeptical portfolio. But, he insists: This isn’t about being a nice guy or a barbarian. It’s searching for truth. And, in the search for truth, the path is littered with faulty, out-dated, disproved and false theses from other people. Such is the nature of the advancement of knowledge. Conservatives like Mackey often get streamrolled by such advancement and wail while being run over, but their failed theses must make way for newer and better understandings of our world, regardless of the pain it causes them. That is not my take at all, of course. In my opinion, Brett has an a priori agenda, with a massive predisposition against the supernatural, that must be pursued at all costs, blithely ignoring the data of palaeontology and archaeology and geology and genetics. Whereas his worldview is continually being demolished by the findings of science, I shall be arguing (see section below, Science Catching up with the Bible) that mine has the capacity even to anticipate the science that is confirming it. Truth is harmonious, be it theological, philosophical or scientific truth. But it cannot be yoked to a pseudo science, to superstition, or to fairy tales.

For, it is the nature of science to be self-critical and self-correcting, he writes. Well, then, why not start by ‘correcting’ – I strongly recommend ‘correcting by dumping’ – all of that evolutionary pseudo-science and pseudo-philosophy. Brett is proud to mention that I have raised my children to cherish one word above all others in the English language; that word is “why.” One can only hope that his kids have sense enough to apply that question to their father’s pseudo-science. ‘Why’, dad, did you have to cling to that ridiculous scheme of things? Better rather to teach them: ‘Say, what …?’, ‘You can’t be serious, man!’, and ‘Get real!’

The same sort of rigid predisposition against anything to do with the supernatural has also its counterpart in the entrenched mentality of the typical (though with some notable exceptions) archaeologist of the Middle East today, to erase, or to misinterpret, all traces of biblical evidence. In this regard, we read at http://www.inplainsite.org/html/the_rocks_cry_out.html:

The Rocks Cry Out
The Historical Evidence For the Bible

From Grant R. Jeffrey’s The Handwriting of God

The last one hundred and fifty years of archeological exploration in the Middle East has provided students of the Bible with an unparalleled abundance of evidence confirming thousands of detailed historical statements found in both the Old and New Testaments. In this chapter, we will explore a small fraction of the powerful historical and archeological evidence that has been discovered in Israel and throughout the Middle East that throws new light on the pivotal events that have shaped our modern Western culture.

….

Professor Millar Burrows of Yale University discussed the findings of recent archeological digs and their impact on the views of the critics of biblical historical accuracy: “Archaeology has in many cases refuted the views of modern critics. It has shown in a number of instances that these views rest on false assumptions and unreal, artificial schemes of historical development” …. Dr. Burrows explained the underlying assumptions that creates this climate of rejection of the Scriptures: “The excessive skepticism of many liberal theologians stems not from a careful evaluation of the available data, but from an enormous predisposition against the supernatural.” His comments underline the fundamental role of presuppositions in the minds of all intellectuals as they approach any area of study. If you approach the Bible determined to reject any of the statements that reveal the prophetic and supernatural nature of God’s revelation to man, then you have determined your negative conclusions before commencing your study. ….

Biblical minimising of this nature is especially prevalent amongst the Israeli archaeologists of the Israel Finkelstein school. As Professor Gunnar Heinsohn of the University of Bremen has noted regarding the minimising activity of “Israeli scholars”, though wrongly attributing the problem to “biblical chronology: “The worst enemy of Israel’s history, indeed, is biblical chronology. …. Whoever puts his faith in it, cannot help but be tempted to extinguish Ancient Israel from the map. This is not only true for anti-Semites and anti-Zionists and neutral researchers, but even for the best and the brightest of Israeli scholars” (The Restoration of Ancient History, 1988).

But, whilst these archaeologists are denying all trace of the Exodus; of the wandering Israelites and the Conquest of Canaan; of David and Solomon, etc., always pointing to the wrong stratigraphical level (e.g. trying to discover the empire of David and Solomon in the impoverished, for Israel, Iron Age era of the Assyrian invasions) – while metaphorically ‘standing in’ the very strata in which these histories are embedded – others, using a more accurate chronological matrix are finding the appropriate data hand over fist. In a recent National Geographic article, “Kings of Controversy” by Robert Draper (David and Solomon, December 2010), Finkelstein is quoted as saying (p. 85): “Now Solomon. I think I destroyed Solomon, so to speak. Sorry for that!” What Finkelstein ought to be “sorry” for, however, is not the wise King Solomon – who continues to prevail as a real historical and archaeological entity, despite the confused utterances of the current crop of Israeli archaeologists – but for Finkelstein’s own folly in clinging to a hopelessly out-dated and bankrupt archaeological system that causes him to point every time to the wrong stratigraphical level for Israel’s Old Testament history, thereby doggedly “extinguish[ing] Ancient Israel from the map”. But the main thrust of the National Geographic article is that archaeologist Eilat Mazar is making immense discoveries regarding King David’s Jerusalem. And she is also predicting “The End of Finkelstein’s School”. See my recent articles on this at: http://amaic-kingdavid.blogspot.com/

And indeed “The End of Finkelstein’s School” will inevitably come about, just as will “The End of Darwin’s School”. But not yet, Finkelstein’s absurd system having recently been propped up by a four million dollar grant. And as far as Darwinism goes, we know how ruthlessly the establishment deals with any academics who dare dissent from its ridiculous tenets. In short, they lose their jobs.

In the minds of the wise and the prophetic, the real seekers after Truth, it is already the end of these schools. The prophet Jeremiah saw the end of Jerusalem long before any of his contemporaries did.

In my earlier university thesis, The Sothic Star Theory of the Egyptian Calendar, now accessible at (http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/1632), I, building upon the exemplary work of others (conventionalists and revisionists alike), scrutinised the very basis (documents and calendars) upon which the monolith of conventional Egyptian chronology has been erected – to which chronology Palestine and other nations are tied – and found it to be entirely wanting. This thesis, which I would think hardly ever, if at all, refers to the Bible, was passed by examiners on both its historical and – please note – its scientific (mainly astronomical) evidence. An examiner said that: “It is important to show the weaknesses or errors in our understanding of a theory in order to leave our minds free to think of a more acceptable alternative” [emphasis added]. According to my fast developing alternative, the mid 18^th dynasty of Egypt needs to be lowered in time by 500 years (as revisionists before me have recognised), with the presumably C14th BC Akhnaton and Nefertiti, for instance, becoming contemporaneous with the C9th BC biblical Ahab and Jezebel.

And the era of David and Solomon of c. 1000 BC becomes greatly expanded when the c. 1800 BC era of Shamsi-Adad I, Zimri-Lim and Hammurabi is slid down to synchronise with it (this further complementing the view of revisionists that the early 18^th dynasty of Egypt of the C15th BC should be re-aligned with David and Solomon). It is a Late Bronze Age scenario, not Finkelstein’s Iron Age. Needless to say, all of this would be quite unthinkable for the likes of Israel Finkelstein, and completely incomprehensible to him, he ‘sitting’ there on his unimpressive Iron Age pile and marvelling that he has managed to ‘dethrone Solomon’ (and probably usurped his throne as well).

Now, AD chronology needs to undergo a similarly rigorous scrutiny together with an underlying revised stratigraphy. Just as the revision of ancient history has erased the artificial ‘Dark Ages’ of c. 1200-700 BC, so now are scholars seriously investigating the ‘Dark Ages’ of 600-900 AD, and are finding a great dearth of appropriate archaeology – even for one as notable as Charlemagne himself.

The above-mentioned Biblical minimising mind-set archaeologist marvels, too, when he digs into New Testament era strata and finds at first no evidence for, e.g., the pool of Siloam. The New Testament is therefore wrong, he claims. It does not match the specific biblical description of it. This throws further doubt upon the existence of Jesus Christ. The nay-sayers rejoice, finding themselves fully justified. But, whoops, someone then digs a bit deeper, and, whoa, this is found (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6750670/ns/technology_and_science-science/):

Archaeologists identify traces of ‘miracle’ pool

Siloam Pool was where Jesus was said to cure blind

….

JERUSALEM — Archaeologists in Jerusalem have identified the remains of the Siloam Pool, where the Bible says Jesus miraculously cured a man’s blindness, researchers said Thursday — underlining a stirring link between the works of Jesus and ancient Jewish rituals.

The archaeologists are slowly digging out the pool, where water still runs, tucked away in what is now the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. It was used by Jews for ritual immersions for about 120 years until the year 70, when the Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple.

Many of Jesus’ acts are directly linked to Jewish rituals, and the miracle of the blind man is an example. According to the Bible, the man was undergoing ritual immersion in the Siloam Pool for entry into the Temple compound, and Jesus used the occasion to cure his blindness.

’100 percent sure’

In the last four months, archaeologists have revealed the pool’s 50-yard (50-meter) length and a channel that brought in water from the Silwan spring. In the past week, a section of stone road that led from the pool to the Jewish Temple was uncovered. ….

…. “The moment that we revealed and discovered this four months ago, we were 100 percent sure it was the Siloam Pool,” said archaeologist Eli Shukron. ….

Perhaps Jesus and the Apostles were there after all.

B. My View on Moses and the Authorship of Genesis

Brett has again completely misinterpreted me on Moses and the latter’s contribution to the Book of Genesis. “Damien wants readers to believe that when God inspired the text of Genesis 6:13 to be written –in his estimation by the venerable Moses himself …”. From where does Brett get these notions? Again, if one bothers to read my article, Tracing the Hand of Moses in Genesis (http://www.specialtyinterests.net/Tracing_the_hand_of_moses_in_genesis.html), one will learn that I attribute to Mosaïc authorship very little of this biblical document, Genesis: basically, just a few clarifying notes for the people of Israel, but also an Egyptian flavour. I shall come back to this. The Book of Genesis is clearly a sequence of pre-Moses patriarchal histories recorded on tablets, complete with catch-lines, parallelisms, and all of the features well known to archaeologists of ancient scribal methods in the case where written tablets are concerned. Each recorder then signed off his history with a colophon, another well-known literary feature, in the case of Genesis, a toledôt (or “generations”): “These are the generations of Noah” (6:9). “These are the generations of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth” (10:1). And, after the separation of the sons at Babel, simply: “These are the generations of Shem” (11:10). Abraham’s family history (or toledôt) is recorded, not by he, but by his two pre-eminent sons, Ishmael (25:12) and Isaac (25:19).

Now, what editor Moses will do will be to take geographical names in, for example, Abraham’s family history and update these for the Israelites about to enter their new land (the Promised Land). Thus Genesis 14:2 “Bela (that is, Zoar)”; 14:3 “Valley of Siddim (that is, the Dead Sea)”; 14:7 “En-mishpat (that is, Kadesh)”. Moses’s clarifying additions being usefully given in brackets.

The Valley of Siddim was, in Abraham’s day, “full of bitumen pits” (14:10). By the time that the wandering Israelites (archaeologically the Middle Bronze I people) had arrived in the region, centuries later, led by Moses, the Valley of Siddim had undergone the catastrophe of Sodom and Gomorrah (19:24), and had become the Dead Sea.

We can get some idea of the mayhem from the recent devastation of the NZ city, Christchurch. Man, with all of his much-vaunted technology, is helpless in the face of natural disasters. And this technology, too, can look pretty ordinary when it is all reduced to rubble. This is not meant to be any sort of judgment on poor Christchurch, by the way, which deserves our utmost sympathy and whatever help we may be able to provide for it. But, with a series of major disasters recently occurring in the Oceania region it might be timely to recall that general warning by Jesus Christ regarding catastrophism which still stands: ‘Do you think that they were more guilty than all the [others] because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish’ (Luke 13:1). Repentance is the foundational message of the Gospels.

But, getting back to the Dead Sea and the Israelites now on the borders of the Promised Land, Moses now needed to advise his people of such alterations to the geography, to the topography, or to the toponymy, of their Abrahamic history, since they were now going to occupy the very land in which Abraham himself had once dwelt. This is how instructive the true literary structures of the Book of Genesis can be.

My ‘Toledoth’ articles have been well read on the Internet and have elicited much comment. Just type in Toledoths or Toledoth at Google. Or type in Brilliant article by Damien F. Mackey …, and you will get a first page that looks like this, with some extras thrown in:

The “El” of Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible

- 8 min – 13 Jun 2010 – Uploaded by TruthCeeker333
Brilliant Article by Damien F. Mackey The “Toledoths” of Genesis: www.catholicintl.com Page 3 of article: “As one discovers from reading …
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· Biblical Maximalist Viewpoints from a Messianic Gentile

Brilliant Article by Damien F. Mackey The “Toledoths” of Genesis: http://www.catholicintl.com/catholicissues/jepd1.htm. Page 3 of article: …
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· The “El” of Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible « Biblical Maximalist …

10 Aug 2010 … Brilliant Article by Damien F. Mackey The “Toledoths” of Genesis: http://www.catholicintl.com/catholicissues/jepd1.htm. Page 3 of article: …
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By Damien F. Mackey. This article is all about the true structure of the Book of … As the brilliant Australian philosopher Gavin Ardley(2) pointed out, …
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· Sothic cycle – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sothic Dating Examined by Damien F. Mackey; ^ a b Grimal, Nicolas. A History of Ancient Egypt. p.52. Librairie Arthéme Fayard, 1988. ^ Grimal, Nicolas. …
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Damien Mackey has a Bachelor of Arts (majoring in ancient history and Latin) from the … New York, ch. xii, 1906; Petrie, F., A History of Egypt, 7th Ed., Vol. … Help keep these daily articles coming. Find out how to support AiG. …
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Finally, by way of summarising this section, Brett Got These Wrong, I repeat that often Brett’s arguments are aimed at the “creationists” for whom he has “a soft spot”, but they do not properly apply to me.

Science Catching up with the Bible

First Man in Israel

Were a person to cease believing that the Scriptures were the inspired Word of God, though still wishing to remain informed, he/she could apparently do nothing better than to read diligently the Book of Genesis to learn to where scientific research will lead in the future. Take the place of man’s origins, for instance. You see, Brett is still looking for early man in Africa,

The story [about Eden] has no real historical foundation other than the naming of some of the major geographical features of the time. The story sets the birthplace of humanity somewhere in Near East. Modern research, by contrast, has evidence that the first modern human population evolved somewhere in eastern Africa ….

but the palaeontologists have recently moved on. They have now finally caught up with my view, long held from reading Genesis 2 – {Brett’s not to be believed fable story of Eden, “The story has no real historical foundation other than the naming of some of the major geographical features of the time”} - that mankind originated in the midst of the Fertile Crescent, in Israel. I have always thought that it was in Israel, not Africa, and I had considered that geneticists and palaeontologists had only needed to combine their ‘mitochondrial Eve’ (and ‘Y-chromosomal Adam’, preferably ‘Noah’?) – {despite Brett’s I simply cannot … buy into a story … with … two people as the founders of the entire human species (Gen. 3:20)} – with any new evidence for first origins in Israel, and they would have the right (i.e., biblically-conforming) matrix. They would have arrived at Genesis 1-11. And now they have done just that, by locating first man in Israel:

AP – Mon Dec 27, 6:13 PM ET

Anthropology & Archaeology 188 Photos

Related Search Results

Was Israel the birthplace of modern humans?

Archaeologists have discovered evidence that places Homo sapiens in Israel as early as 400,000 years ago — the earliest evidence for the existence of modern humans anywhere in the world.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101230123554.htm

Was Israel The Birthplace Of Modern Man?

Findings from TAU archaeologists locate remains of Homo sapiens in Israel 400,000 years ago It has long been believed that modern man emerged from the continent of Africa 200,000 years ago. Now Tel Aviv University archaeologists have uncovered evidence that Homo sapiens roamed the land now called Israel as early as 400,000 years ago — the earliest evidence for the existence of modern man …

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1972097/was_israel_the_birthplace_of_modern_man/index.html?source=r_science

Was Israel the birthplace of modern man?

( American Friends of Tel Aviv University ) Tel Aviv University archaeologists have discovered evidence that places Homo sapiens in Israel as early as 400,000 years ago — the earliest evidence for the existence of modern man anywhere in the world.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-12/afot-wit123010.php

Professor Avi Gopher

Professor Avi Gopher, left, and Dr. Ran Barkai from the Institute of Archeology of Tel Aviv University inspect an archeological site where ancient teeth were discovered near Rosh Haain, central Israel, Monday, Dec. 27, 2010. Israeli archaeologists say they may have found the earliest evidence yet for the existence of modern man. A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in central Israel said Monday they found teeth about 400,000 years old. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half as old. Archaeologist Avi Gopher says further research is needed to solidify the claim. If it does, he says, ‘this changes the whole picture of evolution.’… Read more » ….

“This changes the whole picture of evolution”, Professor Gopher says. Hey, wait a minute, I thought that evolution was fixed and dogmatically certain. Only joking! That’s only what the skeptics try to tell us. Those who admit of no absolutes and no certainties are absolutely certain about the absolute certainty of evolution.

Brett may be critical of my having referred back to G.K. Chesterton,

… why not find someone a bit more contemporary; someone familiar with the skepticism of the 21^st century; someone who knows modern skepticism is informed by the advances made in science over the last century? Is there some sort of added validity if we read the opinions of an apologist from 100 years ago? Regardless, however, I fail to see the authority that someone like G.K. ….

Be that as it may, it still remains that Chesterton is the one who has made the most pertinent observations of all about evolutionists and their missing link: “The evolutionists seem to know everything about the missing link except that it is missing.” G.K. Chesterton. … (Final Conflict).
He also said: “All we know of the Missing Link is that he is missing – and he won’t be missed either.” There is indeed a missing link, but as Chesterton also noted, “If there were a missing link in a real chain, it would not be a chain at all”. ….

And that is the problem for the evolutionists with this whole particular paradigm of theirs. Their biological chain is seriously incomplete. The same applies to their geological ‘chain’. The Geological Column does not exist anywhere in the world as a complete entity. It is purely artificial.

Who would want to follow a ‘science’ like that, riddled as it is with so many holes? It seems that Brett would: Modern science is a reliable source of knowledge. That is why I feel more assured by its findings than I do those of a committed creationist. Thus, while Brett prides himself on his having rationality at the basis of all of his science (his “common rationality”), the fact is that he is driven by an a priori belief system. He puts it in the words of a creationist criticism of him as: “Oh! You have an epistemological bias! You approach everything a priori with naturalism!” And so there is an ironical ‘mirror psychology’ in his assertion: Accepting the historical claim of the Eden story doesn’t begin and end with accepting a physical location for a garden bisected by an ancient river. It means accepting a whole host of improbabilities standing behind that story, all of which accumulate into something impossible to accept if one’s critical faculties are not stunted by the desire for belief. But that is just what Brett is like! And so is this further bit of ‘mirroring’: Tapestry? Seems to me that Damien has constructed something more akin to a garish quilt. What he has is one ad hoc piece of jerry-rigged apologetic duct taped to another ad hoc piece of apologetic without regard for the plausibility of the base argument. His “quilt” is sewn from many different, unrelated parts until they begin to form a “whole” that is appreciated only by the apologist who doesn’t mind swatches of red and purple polka-dots next to swatches of green and silver stripes and orange paisley prints. So long as the finished product does a good job of insulating the creator from the harsh coldness of brute reality—that the story of Eden and the Flood are both fables and fictions– then the quilt has done its job. This desperate ‘jerry-rigging’, sewn from many different, unrelated parts until they begin to form a “whole”, reads rather like the Fossil Record and the Geological Column.

Brett likes to emphasise that I am anti science. I am not at all. I am anti pseudo science. It’s just that I baulk at fairy tales and science fiction masquerading as science. Evidence exists above that Damien Mackey has a motivation beyond the quest for unbiased truth when he criticizes scientific methods. Science isn’t interested in pragmatism. Scientific theories rise and fall upon the merits of their explanatory power, and upon nothing else. If a scientific theory has explanatory power one day, but subsequent research exposes weaknesses in that theory (science is nothing if not self-correcting), it is the mark of a robust and tireless science for that theory to either be altered in the light of this new research or for that theory to be abandoned altogether. Now all of that sounds eminently reasonable to me. All that remains therefore is for Brett to practice what he preaches. He, despite all of his apologetical protests (Can we falsify modern scientific evolution theory? Of course we can. All we need to do is find fossilized remains of a modern human inside the stomach cavity of something like a Tyrannosaurus rex. If we find evidence of Dimetrodons walking the tidal plains of the early Cambrian that would suffice as well. However, to date, no such falsifying evidence has ever been found), comes across as being quite incapable of shifting from his rigid position. Even if, as in the case of Pontius Pilate, truth is staring him right in the face. Just try the polystrate trees. Evolutionists just cannot handle this data. Why? Well, because it is as potent a testimony to the falsity of evolutionary dating as are Brett’s two examples above of potentially falsifying data. Brett, like others, impatiently dismisses the polystrate phenomenon without properly tackling it. This assertion is so packed with nonsense that I’m not really sure what Damien is trying to say. Is he suggesting he knows of a tree that has been found actively growing through sedimentary layers, each layer measured to be a million or more years different than its neighbor? I’m just not certain what he’s trying to argue. Usually, the subject of “polystrate” fossils is brought up by creationists as “evidence” for Noah’s global flood; but, as will be discussed shortly, Damien doesn’t buy into a worldwide flood for Noah, but a much more isolated catastrophe. The “polystrate” trees [5] in Nova Scotia then, for example, would be of little interest to Damien unless he’s trying to use these features to argue some other point. I think that point may be that these so-called “polystrate” fossils are an example that the mainstream scientific methods for dating the sedimentary layers are flawed. Yes, that’s exactly what I am saying. If that is the case, he’s going to need to present some sort of evidence of his claim as I am not aware of any such tree “growing through” sedimentary layers where each layer is dated to millions of years separate from another. Completely dismissive of polytrates, too, is professor Ian Plimer in his Telling Lies for God. And so was a geologist whom I approached at the University of Sydney, who knew nothing about the subject, and who had no answer when I explained it to him. And no interest. Clearly, this type of ignoring of real data does not possess that mark of a robust and tireless science for that theory to either be altered in the light of this new research or for that theory to be abandoned altogether, as described by Brett, who adds:

To be sure, creationists have claimed that such evidence exists. They’ve claimed to have found human footprints alongside dinosaur tracks, for example. Such claims, however, have been debunked. [2] Some claim to have found a modern hammer in rock believed to be millions of years old. Again, the claim is a false one. [3] Nonetheless, science is still open to the possibility that something like human remains alongside dinosaur remains, or modern artifacts embedded in ancient strata could one day be found and falsify current theories. This is a potential totally lost on Young Earth creationists like Damien Mackey. Not true. I have given examples above of the falsifying of current theories, but these make no difference to obstinate evolutionists.

Again, what about the explosive polystrate data?

The Dinosaurs

And now the dinosaurs are being re-considered somewhat as well (read on). People such as Brett can offer up a whole range of exotic dinosaurs and anthropods that supposedly lived several millions of years apart. … Dickinsonia, Tiktaalik, the ichthyosaurs, Monoclonius, Plateosaur and other dinosaurs as well as early mammals like the Hyaenodonts and Miacids …. Many of these, one suspects have been, like the concoctions of the witches of Macbeth:

In the cauldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble,

pieced together from bits of pig’s tooth, whale bones, ostrich toenails and human vestiges. For, just while news was breaking about first man hailing from Israel, I read that Australia’s only known large carnivorous theropod dinosaur may not even have been that after all (but was probably an overgrown emu):

Australia’s biggest carnivorous dinosaur forced to take a walk

…. Doubt has been cast over the only known piece of evidence that large carnivorous dinosaurs once roamed Australia, following new research by The University of Queensland (UQ).

A set of footprints at Lark Quarry Conservation Park, south of Winton in central-western Queensland, was the only evidence that Australia was once home to large carnivorous theropod dinosaurs as big as Tyrannosaurus rex or Allosaurus fragilus.

For the past 30 years, these footprints were believed to show a large meat-eating dinosaur chasing a herd of smaller dinosaurs. The site is world famous as it is also thought to be the only example of a dinosaur stampede.

However, a new study by palaeontologists from UQ has shown that these tracks probably don’t belong to a large theropod at all, and were most likely left by a large herbivore akin to Muttaburrasaurus.

UQ’s School of Biological Sciences PhD candidate, Anthony Romilio, led the research, which has been published in the latest issue of the journal Cretaceous Research.

Mr Romilio made the discovery after comparing the lengths and other characteristic measurements of the famous footprints.

“Making the distinction between the three-toed tracks of herbivorous ornithopod dinosaurs and the three-toed tracks of carnivorous theropod dinosaurs can be quite difficult,” Mr Romilio said. “This confusion has lead to numerous ornithopod dinosaur tracks being incorrectly identified as belonging to theropods, and vice versa”. ….

For further information about dinosaur research at UQ, visit www.uq.edu.au/dinosaurs

Brett wrote re dinosaurs:

Of course, the modern scientific theory of evolution has a different idea of what occurred in our earth’s past. Via many different lines of evidence, scientific theories demonstrate that the earth is very old and that life gradually evolved over eons. Creatures like Tiktaalik once made a living in shallow coastal waters but did not have to worry about being plucked from the shallows by an ichthyosaur or a hungry Flintstonian fisherman. The fossil record shows these creatures –early “fishapods”, tetrapods, dinosaurs and human beings … [Dickinsonia … Monoclonius, Plateosaur and other dinosaurs as well as early mammals like the Hyaenodonts and Miacids] —lived millions of years apart from one another.

But is this actually correct now in the light of the Lark Quarry dinosauric misinterpretation?

Could Brett’s Tiktaalik actually turn out to be an ancient clock, or a Doctor Who Daalik (Dalek); his Flintsonian fisherman be a primitive Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble, and the Muttaburrasaurus simply be Buttasaurus Face? And what the Dickens is this Dickinsonia? Does it team up with uncle Monocle-onius, or mon oncle, to purchase a monocle, and then, after feeding on a tasty plate of Plateosaur, hire an Orthodontist (Hyaenodonts), who duly removes from its mouth any harmful Mi-acids?

In a TV documentary on the dinosaurs of South America I recall the astonishment expressed by the palaeontologists with the fact that there is hardly any evidence, if any, for an intermediary stage of dinosaur leading to the largest ones. Is this yet another break in the chain, yet another missing link? And will eventually even the supposed large dinosaurs of South America be found to have been something lesser, just as in the case of Queensland’s Lark Quarry track-maker? Or did a selective meteorite simply wipe out all of the intermediary ones, leaving just an ‘Adam and Eve’ pair to generate those presumed later larger ones?

From all of my readings on palaeontology and archaeology in regard to Israel (perhaps even the Fertile Crescent as a whole) I do not recall ever having read about large land dinosaurs there. I am happy to be corrected on this.

I am by no means intending to assert that dinosaurs did not exist anywhere. But, by the same token, they do seem to me to be greatly overrated, over-numbered, and over sized – perhaps some of these were, for example, beached sea monsters.

I, also having a ‘soft spot’ for the ‘creationists’, wince when I see them standing proudly beside Ark models that include dinosaurs. And some Bible-believers can also claim that such large creatures are referred to in the Bible, for example in the Book of Job, with mention of the monsters, Behemoth (Job 40:15-24) and Leviathan (Job 41:1-34). As those in the know have shown, however, the Book of Job is saturated with Egyptianisms – just as is the Book of Genesis – indicating an author/editor who had spent much time in Egypt (as Moses certainly had – but I have also argued this for Job as a long time resident in Egypt) (http://bookofjob-amaic.blogspot.com). Now the word Behemoth is undoubtedly a Hebrew attempt to render the Egyptian, p-ehe-mau, ‘hippopotamus’, probably not found in Palestine. Leviathan is obviously, from its description, the crocodile. These fierce creatures were both natives of the Nile in Egypt. They were not dinosaurs.

But as wise commentators have also discerned down through the centuries, these Job-ian creatures also symbolically denoted demons. The hippopotamus and the crocodile were often depicted together by Egyptian artists as savage and vengeful demon-idols. The Egyptians, unlike modern skeptics, believed in the powers of darkness and worshipped them. In this they were philosophically advanced at least over the skeptics, then and now, who can believe in nothing beyond matter. Skeptics therefore cannot explain psychic phenomena, miracles, and diabolical possessions – in some cases of which even physically small people have been known to resist the efforts of six strong men to hold them down.

That the supernatural and preternatural are factors in the Book of Genesis, and indeed throughout the entire Bible – with cases of demonic possession being recorded in the New Testament – I find quite in keeping with reality in all of its totality, with the perennial philosophy (philosophia perennis) of humankind. The typical modern-day ‘philosopher’, due to his lack of courage to search for the whole truth, but preferring only bits of truth, lives on a flatlining level of existence, admitting nothing vertical or transcendent, nothing to relieve the bitter passions.

Professor Richard Weaver in his classical book of philosophy, Ideas Have Consequences, wrote (http://www.nyx.net/~kbanker/chautauqua/consequences.html):

Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encounter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals [or absolutes]. The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence. ….

Oppressed by matter, the typical modern-day ‘philosopher’ type is bored, tired and can even be suicidal. He is like those poor wretches in Plato’s Cave allegory, thinking himself to be ‘in the know’, but facing only shadows. His culture is one of death (Thanatos).

Someone once well described modern man as “that pathetic end product of a faked evolution”. I would accept that as a general observation only, and not to be applied to any particular individual. The fact is that man today (as always) is much in need of Light and Life. “Let There Be Light” (Genesis 1:3). It was Light and a civilising Culture that Jesus Christ, the true Philosopher King (“the Metaphysician par excellence”, according to St. Bonaventure), brought down to earth. “What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:3-5). He brought Light and Salvation to those who had been seduced by the ancient Serpent, beginning with Adam and Eve. And here is the marvellous symmetry of God’s plan. Man was to be redeemed in the very region where man had fallen, what we now call Jerusalem, but what was once Eden/Paradise. Man had been created to live, but died. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, was the only man born to die. He died so that man might live.

This highly-paid-for work of salvation, Christ’s Passion and Death, accounts for the remarkable dignity of each human person.

Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. He is the Lord of all History. And his history, as recorded in the Bible, seems to be correcting the misconceptions of the palaeontolgists and the archaeologists who think themselves self sufficient.

“What is truth?” (John 18:38). Jesus Christ is. He is “the Way, and the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6). It is all about Him!

Based on all of the above, then, I can accept a Garden of Eden in the middle of the Fertile Crescent, with a supernatural deity in male form (Jesus Christ as the Word) who walks and talks as He often did when upon earth, “… the Word [who] was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being” (John 1:1, 2-3). And mitochondrial Eve and her male partner as the parents of the entire human race. And the devil taking possession of a lower creature, to deceive man and woman. All this occurring just a few thousand years ago in what is now Israel. Brett, of course, will assert the opposite: … let me say plainly that I do not believe the story of the Garden of Eden for other reasons beyond the disconnect between Genesis 2 and 6. I simply cannot, relying upon the same common rationality available to anyone who wishes to exercise it –and not just the skeptic—buy into a story complete with a supernatural male deity who walks and talks in a lush garden (who is the creator of all physical reality but apparently powerless to know when people are hiding from him in the bushes [Gen. 3:8-9]), two people as the founders of the entire human species (Gen. 3:20), a forbidden tree with magical fruit (Gen. 2:16-17) and talking reptile (Gen. 3:1), all taking place a mere few thousand years ago in an oasis somewhere in the Near East. ….

Peer Reviewing

One can in fact be quite prophetic when availing oneself of the Book of Genesis and the Scriptures in general. Though, due to the slow progress of research, the prophet (e.g. one who might insist that first man arose in Israel) can seem for a long time to be in the wrong and to be completely out of step with the scientific research of the day, when it is the latter that is actually lagging behind. And that is why Brett Palmer’s constant insistences on the need for “peer-reviewed” evidence can leave me a bit cold. E.g:

I am yet to find the assertion represented in any peer-reviewed journal …

What Damien is suggesting is that we need to make sure we only follow the marginal members of the community when –although their views have been rejected by their peers—their arguments help sustain cherished religious beliefs. Any port in the storm is better than the ones with peer-accepted, well-evidenced and tested views that are nonetheless at odds with Damien’s religious faith.

Give overwhelming evidence, complete with peer-reviewed journal entries, that mainstream geochronology and dating methods are incorrect. ….

I have had a lot to do with peers in academic research. I am not against peers per se. But peers to my mind can often be academics ‘peering’ over their shoulders to find out what the succeeding lecturer is going to say, and to make the necessary adjustments so as not to ‘appeer’ foolish. I have seen that happen. It occurred once, for instance, when Dr. Kenneth Kitchen visited the University of Sydney. There was a lot of peering going on. Peers can be people like Israel Finkelstein ‘the wise dethroner of King Solomon’. Or a peer can be a muddle-headed skeptic. But peers can also be enlightened and wise individuals. So, it really depends upon which peer is peering into one’s research to review it.

My suggestion is that you read and study the Book of Genesis and then you will be cutting edge informed and will not need to peer about or grope in the darkness. God said: “Let there be light; and there was light”.

It is hardly a case that I essentially dismiss science or scientific research, as according to Brett: … he also criticizes the very heart and soul of science which, I am fairly certain, he praises in many silent ways (such as taking medicine when ill or accessing the internet to post his musings …”. I actually love genuine science and scientific research because it eventually comes around to confirming the Truth, the Scriptures (palaeontology; archaeology; astronomy; genetics).

But I do not rate evolution as science. It is just a fairy tale for grown ups. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is married to an actress, Sarah “Lalla” Ward who became known from her appearances as Time Lady Romana in the British science fiction favourite, DR WHO. Rather fittingly, then, John Cornwell tells that “the encomiums on the dust-jacket [of The God Delusion] feature a line-up of writers in the realm of fantasy fiction” (Darwin’s Angel, p. 10). These people apparently watch a lot of science fiction and then think to tell us that that is what our world is like.

I personally do not mind sci-fi at all. And, yes, I have always been highly appreciative of the Internet. Though too, as any reasonable person would admit, there is a huge downside to our technological world in that it is producing many obese, troubled, suicidal, neurotic people, and much suffocating pollution, traffic congestion and hideous utilitarian architecture. Likewise the Internet can create its own host of sociological and health problems. And of course, people can be trapped inside Plato’s Cave, but still have their Internet, mobile phones and Xbox. As long as there is nothing there to admit of transcendentals. Technology is of course perfectly legitimate as part of God’s invitation to man to “subdue the earth” (Genesis 1:28). But there is much more to it than that. There is also the whole spiritual level, far transcending technology in importance. And modern man has made less than spectacular progress in discovering and attempting to come to grips with this vast region: God, angels, the soul, mind and will, salvation. Pope Benedict XVI put this right into perspective when he wrote in one of his books:

“While our maps of the earth have become more and more complete, man’s inner self has become increasingly terra incognita, an alien region, in spite of the fact that there are greater discoveries to be made there than in the visible universe”. The Pope, Seek That Which Is Above, p. 18.

This is the great tragedy of our times. Man who has been “made little less than a god, crowned with glory and honour” (Psalm 8:5), has devolved today into “that pathetic end product of a faked evolution”. The Devil has done his job thoroughly wherever human beings have let him. He has had the devil of a good time promoting his devilish doctrine of evolution to disguise his deviluting devolution of humanity “made in the image and likeness of God” (Genesis 1:26).

Blind Dating

There seems to be just too much ‘monkey business’ going on in the case of the ‘missing link’ and modern dating methods. Though Brett can assure us that: Modern dating methods are a well-evidenced form of acquiring knowledge. As Niles Eldredge noted in his book The Monkey Business,

We now have literally thousands of separate analyses using a wide variety of radiometric techniques. It is an interlocking, complex system of predictions and verified results –not a few crackpot samples with wildly varying results, as creationists would prefer to believe.

Furthermore, Donald Prothero writes in his book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, regarding these “modern dating methods,”

Creationists don’t give scientists any credit for being skeptical and self-critical about their own data. But anyone who deals with geochronology knows that the dates are subject to constant scrutiny by multiple labs, and anything that is fishy is quickly challenged and rejected. The result is an extremely robust set of data, where multiple independent radioactive atomic systems (for example, potassium-argon, uranium-lead, and rubidium-strontium) are used on the same samples, so if any one of them is giving problems, it clearly can be thrown out. The creationists point to one or two examples of supposedly unreliable dates, but when three or more independent dating methods are run in different competing labs on the same rock and give the same answer, there is no chance that this is an accident. After nearly a century of analyses, with thousands of dates checked and rechecked like this, geologists are as confident about the reliability of radiometric dating as they are about any other field of science. The earth is about 4.6 billion years old; this is as much a fact as the observation that it is round! (p 77) ….

It all sounds hugely impressive. Hence I got a big shock this week when reading Steven Mithen’s After the Ice. A Global Human History 20,000 to 5000 BC (Weidenfeld & Nicholson 2003). The very first sentence, on the very first page, of Mithen’s very first chapter (p. 4), reads as follows: “Human history began in 50,000 BC. Or thereabouts. Perhaps 100,000 BC, but certainly not before”.

As if this were not bad enough, I then compared it with Professor Avi Gopher’s date for first man, 400,000:

400, 000 BC, 100,000 BC, 50,000 BC. Why not, then, about 4000 BC?

And yet Brett will take me to task for speaking of “Billions of years”? That’s an odd statement seeing as how the earth has only four of those billions if years in its history. I’ve never run across a study of the geologic column where one date given for a particular layer is dated “billions” of years differently than another. Notice that Damien offers no evidence of these accusations. He merely tells his audience that the dating methods are flawed and expects his readers simply to take his word for it. After all, the dating methods contradict his religious views so they must be false. Remember, nothing can falsify Damien’s cherished beliefs.

Brett, Brett, what are a few extra zeros between friends when you good people are so liberal in handing them out!

On p. 56 Mithen refers to the Dead Sea in the context of the 10,000 BC period. But the Genesis record provides us with signed, eye-witness accounts of the Palestinian geography and topography. The Dead Sea, we found, came into being some time after Abram (later Abraham) had entered the land during a period of famine. It should be possible for scientists to co-ordinate the two phenomena (a famine period and a catastrophe that turned a bituminous valley into a salty sea) and identify that era. By the time of the arrival of the Middle Bronze I Israelites, the region was occupied by the Dead Sea.

A Model from Bedrock to Abraham

The basic archaeological scenario of Mesopotamia and of the extremely ancient site of Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) proceeds from bedrock to early dwellings (considered Mesolithic and Neolithic in the case of Jericho), through more sophisticated levels. In Mesopotamia, these are the Cain-ite cities of the ‘Ubaid period, cities such as Uruk or Sumerian Unki (= Enoch); Eridu (= Irad); Larak (= perhaps Lamech); Badtibira, or ‘City of the Metal Worker’ (perhaps Tubal-cain’s); and Shuruppak, purported to have been the home of the Mesopotamian Noah.

‘Ubaidian art in fact inspired the early Australian aboriginal art of the Bradshaws. Or perhaps the ‘Ubaidians sailed down to NW Australia just to study the 40,000 BC aboriginal art?????

Then, when the Cain-ite culture had reached its peak of sophistication, technologically advanced, but Godless – seducing the Seth-ites: (Genesis 6:2, 11): “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence”, there occurred the great Flood (or Deluge) as archaeologically attested by the Flood evidence throughout Mesopotamia (but still to be properly synchronised amongst the various cities there, Ur, Kish, Shuruppak, etc.) and at Jericho. Whilst professor Plimer and others would admit a Flood (and even a corresponding Ark) that was limited to a part of the Mesopotamian region only, my own Flood model would extend right across the Fertile Crescent, where evidence for severe water erosion and long abandonment of sites would attest to the great Genesis Flood. Later, these major sites (at least) were re-occupied, with eventually the Abramic level. As I wrote recently in my article, “Evidence for the Genesis Flood at Jericho” (http://genesisflood.blog.com/2011/02/10/evidence-for-the-genesis-flood-at-jericho/):

… Pottery Neolithic B [at Jericho], would belong archaeologically to the time of Abram and the Amorites, as determined by Dr. John Osgood, who has nailed the archaeology of En-geddi at the time of Abram (in the context of Genesis 14) to the Late Chalcolithic period, corresponding to Ghassul IV in Palestine’s southern Jordan Valley; Stratum V at Arad; and the Gerzean period in Egypt (“The Times of Abraham”, Ex Nihilo TJ, Vol. 2, 1986, pp. 77-87). This was the time of Abram’s Pharaoh, Abimelech (= Lehabim), archaeologically of the era of Narmer. This historical phase preceded the Early Bronze Age. Courville tells further (op. cit., p. 157):

At Jericho, Early Bronze follows Pottery Neolithic B. As noted previously, the so-called Halafian culture in Mesopotamia and the Ghassulian culture from east of the Jordan Valley are regarded by some scholars as necessarily inserted in the time sequence between Pottery Neolithic B and Early Bronze. The period between Neolithic and Early Bronze is known as Chalcolithic, a name designated to indicate the combined use of copper and stone. ….

From bedrock to this Abramic level saw the passing of only about 2000 years.

28 . 02 . 2011

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amaic australian marian academy of the immaculate conception Brett Palmer Skeptical review Paradise Dead Buried My Final Reply Damien Mackey let there be light and there was light

Evidence for the Genesis Flood at Jericho

Amaic

Damien F. Mackey

“The most complete sequence of [pre-dynastic] cultures are to be found on the site of Jericho”.

Dr. D. Courville, The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, Vol. II, p. 154.

Introduction

On p. 157 of the same volume of The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, Dr. Courville offers the following summary of the archaeological sequence from bedrock to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age [EBA]:

The stone sanctuary resting on bed-rock.
The numerous floors beginning on bed-rock, each evidently representing the remains of mud hut dwellings and making up in total some 13 feet of clay.
Three successive building phases of a more solid type and included within the duration of the earliest wall.
Evidences of severe erosion for an undeterminable period.
Successive building levels ranging in number from 10 to 26 and belonging to Pre-pottery Neolithic B.
Further evidences of erosion over an undeterminable period.
The pit dwellings of Pottery Neolithic A.
The extension of Pottery Neolithic A into Pottery Neolithic B, with huts built in the pits carved out by the previous people.
Allowance for the Chalcolithic period, presumed to require insertion between the end of Pottery Neolithic B and the beginning of the Early Bronze Age.

Courville had, in the previous pages, provided a fuller explanation of each of these various phases that he has briefly summarized here.

The Biblical Context of the Jericho Sequences

My interest is to locate this sequential arrangement in its biblical context, based on my previous arguments that the Genesis (or Noachic) Flood did not annihilate all previous culture – whereas, according to Drs. Courville, Osgood and others, it did. If I am right, then archaeological evidence for the Genesis Flood should occur at one or more of the above stratigraphical levels at Jericho, just as it has in Mesopotamia.

[I also reject the term, “pre-dynastic”, since I believe that there were dynasties (Seth-ite and Cain-ite) even before the Flood].

Here is what I deem to be the actual Jericho sequence with reference to the Old Testament.

A. Bed-rock (Corresponding to Courville’s 1)

“In the beginning … God created the heavens and the earth …. And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”.” (Genesis 1:1, 9).

Courville’s description (op. cit., p. 154): “Excavations to bedrock at the Jericho site revealed that the limestone composing it was covered by about one foot of clay …”. If the Noachic Flood was global, and had erased all previous traces of culture, as Courville had maintained, then ought not there to have been miles of sediment covering this level?

B. First Buildings (Corresponding to Courville’s 1 & 2)

“Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord …” (Genesis 4:16).

Courville’s description (ibid., pp. 154-155):

… one foot of clay which had been removed over an extended area to provide a foundation for a building structure on the rock formation. At one end of this excavated area, a substantial wall of stones enclosed an area of about 10 by 20 feet. Since the structure was unlike any dwelling remains observed, it was presumed that this structure represented some sort of sanctuary.

Was this sanctuary – away from the main Adamic one at the site of Jerusalem, to where Abel had brought his worthy offering (Genesis 4:4) – an alternative sanctuary used by the Cain-ites? This is only surmise, of course. Early Jericho is thought to show evidence of ancestor worship, which would seem to suggest that this was a religion other than the godly Sethite one, unless it pertains to the later corruption of part of that line as according to Genesis 6:2: “… the sons of God saw that [the Cain-ite daughters] were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.

“Before 6,000 BC the people of Jericho also kept skulls in shrines. The skulls had plaster ‘faces’ added to them to make them look lifelike and they had cowrie shells in their eye sockets. We do not know why these plastered skulls were made. The people of Jericho may have practiced some form of ancestor worship but we will never know” (http://www.localhistories.org/jericho.html).

Anyway, whoever built this sanctuary was already very competent, for, as Courville goes on to tell (ibid., p. 155):

Interestingly, two large blocks of stone in the wall of the structure had holes bored through them to a depth of some two and one-half feet, an accomplishment somewhat surprising for the level of culture presumed to characterize this early period. The structure had eventually been burned; charcoal from the wooden beam in the roof yielded a date by the C-14 method 7,800 B.C. ± 210 years. The bases for the total rejection of this date and others subsequently referred to are presented in a previous chapter …..

In my opinion, one could probably halve this date approximately.

Around this sanctuary, dwellings began to be set up. Firstly (ibid.):

At another small area on the site, it was found that a deposit of some 13 feet of clay existed between bed-rock and the so-called Natufian culture. This 13 feet of clay revealed no signs of a solid structure and no evidences of the use of pottery. The clay deposit was made up of a large number of mud floors, one above the other, each bounded with slight bumps which were regarded as remnants of walls of the hut-like mud structures.

Then (ibid.) (Corresponding to Courville’s 3):

Only above this were evidences found of solid houses.

The remains of the more solid dwellings of the subsequent period were enclosed by a wall, suggesting danger from depradations by either man or wild beast. At one point on the wall, and extant to a height of some 30 feet, were found the remains of a stone tower built against the inside of the wall. The whole comprised “an amazing bit of architecture” for the era involved. Within this wall could be observed a sequence of three successive phases of dwellings whose combined period of life would seem to approximate that of the wall itself. The upper of these three buildings had been burned, and C-14 analysis of the charcoal from the beams gave a date 6850 B.C. ± 210 years. This culture was regarded as about 1000 years later than the stone sanctuary and 2000 years earlier than the earliest known village elsewhere in Palestine. From the similarity of flints and harpoons, this culture was correlated with the lower Natufian at Megiddo.

C. Culturally Sophisticated Man Pre-Flood.

This period, using flints, must also correspond to the antediluvian Chalcolithic period, approximating to the time of Lamech and his sons. Though according to Courville, referencing the standard view: “The Chalcolithic Age, which is presumed to be the connecting link between Neolithic and the dynastic period, is not represented at Jericho, however …” (ibid., p. 154). If this phase is really about a millennium (1000 years) after the earliest shrine, then it must have come not long before the Flood, since there were only 1656 years from Adam to the Flood.

“Furthermore the people of Jericho traded with their neighbours. Stones found in Neolithic Jericho came from as far away as Turkey showing that long distance trade was already established” (http://www.localhistories.org/jericho.html). Stronger walls and towers were now being built perhaps due to the violence in the land. Genesis 6:11: “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence”.

D. The Flood.

And surely enough the evidence for the Flood at Jericho occurs next (ibid., pp. 155-156) (Corresponding to Courville’s 4 & 6):

Evidences of severe erosion by water appeared in the upper levels of this culture, apparently representing a period of non-occupation following abandonment of the site. The length of this period of erosion could not be determined and “may have been a matter of years or of centuries”.

And again, supposedly later: “The end of Pre-pottery Neolithic B was also marked by severe erosion, the length of the period involved being again undeterminable”.

This would mean that, as in the case of the early Mesopotamian cities, the Flood evidences at different places (Ur, Kish, etc.) have not been properly co-ordinated, but have been separated in time by the archaeologists-chronologists, the one from the other, sometimes by as much as 500 years. This would mean also that Courville’s “more solid dwellings … enclosed by a wall” at 3, must synchronise basically with the Pre-pottery Neolithic B at 5, again with a wall and using flints.

Courville describes this level (ibid., p. 156):

….. Above this evidence of erosion, a new culture appeared which was still characterized by an absence of pottery. This culture was distinguished in name from its predecessor by designating it Pre-pottery Neolithic B. The flint artifacts would identify the people as the Tahunians, who had had a prior nomadic existence elsewhere but who now settled on the abandoned Jericho site. The culture could be distinguished archaeologically by the new type of architecture which must have been developed prior to occupation of this area but which has not been discovered elsewhere as yet. While no pottery of this people has been found on the Jericho site, vessels of limestone “finely worked and carefully finished” were in use. The first settlement by this people had no defensive wall about it, and the dwellings extended down the sides of the mound, indicating an increase in population over Pre-pottery Neolithic A.

A succession of 10 house levels could be traced at one point. At some time during the succession, a wall seems to have been built. At another point, 19 successive building stages were traced. In the I6th phase from the bottom, charcoal residues were obtained which gave a C-14 date 6250 B.C. ± 200 years, which date is another half millennium later than that attributed to Pre-pottery Neolithic A. At still another point, 26 building stages were traced, and the 9th from the bottom gave a date 5850 ± 160 years.

The end of Pre-pottery Neolithic B was also marked by severe erosion, the length of the period involved being again undeterminable. …..

E. Return to the Site After the Flood.

After some significant time [the Flood period], people returned to this site, building on the former pre-Flood ruins. These people have been designated as Pottery Neolithic A. Significantly, they comprised “a small population”. Possibly this was a result of the Babel incident dispersion. Courville tells of this new people (ibid., pp. 156-157) (Corresponding to Courville’s 7):

…. The culture that followed brought the art of pottery-making with them, but the cultural level otherwise represents a marked retrogression. This people lived in pits cut into the ruins of the earlier town, a type of life otherwise known in the Chalcolithic period near Beersheba. To this culture, Miss Kenyon gave the name Pottery Neolithic A. The origin of the culture is known only in terms of a few pottery fragments at various localities in Palestine, suggesting a wide distribution but a small population.

F. Era of Abram.

Next (ibid., p. 156) (Corresponding to Courville’s :

The subsequent culture, called Pottery Neolithic B, built their primitive huts in the pits dug out by their predecessors. The break in the culture at this point is not sharp. The pottery is more refined, but continues to be mixed with that of the preceding culture. Pottery like that of the new culture had been found also at Sha’ar ha Golan, just south of the Sea of Galilee.

This succeeding people, Pottery Neolithic B, would belong archaeologically to the time of Abram and the Amorites, as determined by Dr. John Osgood, who has nailed the archaeology of En-geddi at the time of Abram (in the context of Genesis 14) to the Late Chalcolithic period, corresponding to Ghassul IV in Palestine’s southern Jordan Valley; Stratum V at Arad; and the Gerzean period in Egypt (“The Times of Abraham”, Ex Nihilo TJ, Vol. 2, 1986, pp. 77-87). This was the time of Abram’s Pharaoh, Abimelech (= Lehabim), archaeologically of the era of Narmer. This historical phase preceded the Early Bronze Age. Courville tells further (op. cit., p. 157):

G. Egyptian Dynastic Era.

Then follows the early Bronze I period (Corresponding to Courville’s 9), of which I have written, “… immediately following this period [Ghassul IV etc.], there was a migration out of Egypt into Philistia, bringing an entirely new culture (= Early Bronze I, Stratum IV at Arad)”, and quoting Osgood (op. cit., p. 86): “In all likelihood Egypt used northern Sinai as a springboard for forcing her way into Canaan with the result that all of southern Canaan became an Egyptian domain”. This marked the beginning of Dynastic Egypt.

Conclusion

The Noachic Flood is stratigraphically represented at Jericho by the “evidences of severe erosion for an undeterminable period” at 4 & 6 above, following on from the archaeological phase designated Pre-pottery Neolithic B.

11^th February 2011

—————————-

A clarifying note from Dr. Osgood’s “The Stone Age – A Better Model”, EN Tech J., Vol. 2, 1986, p. 95, regarding:

… Jericho Neolithic – Ghassul Chalcolithic

Robert North … discusses an apparent 300-year gap at Jericho between the Proto-Urban and Early Bronze cultures. The Proto-Urban is described by different investigators in different terms, by some as Late Neolithic, by others as Chalcolithic of various stages. Certain features of Jericho culture during the Proto Urban or Level VIII (Garstang) reflects Chalcolithic, related to the Chalcolithic at Ghassul. However, the features are few enough to allow the majority of excavators to feel that the Jericho Proto-Urban culture is still Neolithic in type, and so a gap of some 300 years, resulting from the old evolutionary scale used, has to be inserted between the end of Proto-Urban and Early Bronze I in Jericho, not so much on solid evidence of such a gap, but simply because of the rigid evolutionary terminology. The biblical model, however, not only shortens the time of the necessary gap, if such ever occurred, but also allows a still conservative Neolithic type of culture in Jericho to subsist beside a progressive Chalcolithic culture across the Jordan at Ghassul.

The possibility of contemporaneity was slightly broached by Robert North when he says:

“From the very start, however. certain remote or rare similarities to Ghassul in the Pre-bronze Sultan materials have been noticed, always leaving open the chance that Ghassul could be a contemporaneous local variation due to immigrants.”….

He finishes with the statement:

“In any case Ghassul-Jericho comparison confronts us with an enigma still unsolved despite persistent efforts: in face of which there is need of bold innovating scientific hypotheses.”….

The biblical model is, in fact, the only reasonable ‘bold innovating scientific hypothesis’ that will satisfy the demands of this region. I conclude that it is reasonable to suppose that there was no considerable gap between Proto-Urban at Jericho and Early Bronze I, but rather that a conservative Jericho culture did in fact subsist beside a progressing Chalcolithic Ghassul culture across the Jordan River, with a different people in a different place, but at the same time.

The problem with such data as this is that the rigid evolutionary terminology does not facilitate easy bending to allow its adherents freedom to see such cultures as Neolithic and Chalcolithic as contemporary.

We find then, sufficient evidence to hold in question the rigid evolutionary sequential framework of Neolithic to Chalcolithic that has been held for so long. Evidence has been presented to show that there is contemporaneitv of previously claimed sequential Chalcolithic periods, and also contemporaneity between Chalcolithic periods on one hand and Neolithic on the other, certainly in Syria, and possibly also in Jericho and the Jordan Valley. If such is the case, then we have reason to call into question the long time periods and the sequential arrangement of other cultures from Paleolithic right through to the end of the Chalcolithic in the whole of the Middle East. It is much more reasonable to propose a model embracing the `pond ripple’ and `mushroom effect’ [as Osgood has discussed earlier] against the background of the biblical chronology, which even to this day remains the only written record of claimed history of this period.

[End of quote]

10 . 02 . 2011

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amaic australian marian academy of the immaculate conception Dr Courville Dr John Osgood The Exodus Problem Ex Nihilo Technical Journal Better Model for the Stone Ages

An Ice Age after the Flood ? As proposed by some creation scientists !

Amaic

Reference: ICR Impact #361 “Are Polar Ice Sheets Only 4500 Years Old?”, June 2003 (http://www.icr.org/newsletters/impact/impactjuly03.html)

“And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply bring forth abundantly in the earth,and multiply therein. (Genesis 9:7) So while the LORD is instructing Noah and his offspring to be fruitful, the scientists at the Institute for Creation Research are saying that He make their life very difficult after the flood by putting them through an Ice Age! While the LORD in Genesis 8:21-22 says: “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake: … While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, … shall not cease” “And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:” Genesis 9:20 Apparently while still living amongst the “mountains of Ararat” since the migration of his offspring to “a plain in the land of Shinar” does not come until Genesis 11:2. Note that three glaciers (black areas) are shown in the Black/Caspian Sea region on the map below of Eurasia during the ice age maximum (LGM), which is not really a detail map. Therefore, the task of growing a vineyard amongst the mountains of Ararat in the middle of an ice age would be comparable to growing one now in the valleys amongst the glaciers in Alaska! (P.S. Vineyards are not grown in Alaska)(1) The following figure shows the climatic condition of Eurasia during the ice age maximum, with the brown area being cold and desert or simi-desert, including the mountainous areas between the Black and Caspian Seas, with glaciers in the higher altitudes (black areas). The green and yellow show areas favorable for human habitation in wet and dry periods, respectively. (Red shows the extended land area due to low sea levels) ( from http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/iceciv.html) And the same theme is found from the additional sources at the end of this discussion, indicating that possibly there are no forests to be found anywhere in the Middle East region during a glacial maximum. Only desert and semi-desert and possible in some select areas, near bodies of water, scrub/grassland and a few isolated trees (5% to 20% tree cover in areas south of the Black Sea). In addition to these areas being drier according to the paleoclimatologists, they also report that on the average many areas are up to 15 degrees C colder during the glacial period. From examining the Biblical record and the paleoclimate records it appears unlikely that there was an Ice Age after the flood, this appears to be very inconsistent with the words of the LORD just after the flood in Genesis 8:22! Of course one could say that Noah was very creative at farming and irrigation or he found a nice isolated warm “oasis” to plant his vineyard, that major agriculture in the Middle East will have to wait until the ice age is over. But, in order for all the survivors of the flood to multiply greatly they are going to need an abundant supply of food as they spread over the territory and the question is, could they find it living under the ice age environment? There is no indication in the Scriptures that the LORD aided them in any way with any miraculous supplies of food, or a “garden”. What did they all do for the 1000 years of the ice age as proposed, or how ever long one proposes that it lasted? Guessing from Figure 1 of the reference, we have very roughly 6200 years at an average rate of 0.225 meters/year = the top 1400 meters and 800 years at an average of about 2.0 meters/year = the lower 1600 meters, for about 7,000 years ago for the flood. (2) Or guess one could adopt the very popular “out-of-Africa” theory, they all went directly to the most habitable area of Africa, there they multiplied for say 1000 years and then migrated back to the Middle East after the ice age was over? There is nothing in Scripture to support this theory! Or, are they depending upon Genesis 10:25, “for in his days was the earth divided” to move the earth crust around so it all works out OK? So that after the flood the land mass that Noah and offspring were on was located so as to have a climate similar to that of Africa at the scientists LGM. However, this would seem to ignore that the paleoclimatologists are basing their climate maps on evidences that they obtain from the land masses as they are now geographically located, since melting glaciers deposited huge amounts of rocks and dirt far from their origins. Geologists use aerial photography and satellite imagery to map the movements of ancient glaciers. Glaciers leave behind telltale features such as cirques, which are depressions at the heads of U-shaped valleys, and vast plains littered with glacial debris. Also radar is used to look below surface soil for evidence of glacial activity that more recent events might have covered. ( from http://www.wooster.edu/geology/geo300/sbcb.html) ( from http://www.shef.ac.uk/geography/staff/clark_chris.html) The well preserved nature of the ice age glacial scars are an indication that the terrain has not undergone extremely major changes since the glacial age. These polar centric patterns indicating that any major land mass movement would have to have occurred before glaciation. If Eurasia had been located in the equatorial region during the ice age these glacial marking would not exist in northern Eurasia. And then, if one goes strictly by Scriptural context, the “dividing” must be the forming of nations, countries, for that is the theme of all of chapter 10. To conclude that the “dividing” is due to plate tectonic movement is to ignore the context of the Scriptures. ( from http://lgb.unige.ch/lgmvegetation/) ( from http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html) CONCLUSION: There is no Scriptual basis to support the proposed theories of an Ice Age after the Flood and the physical evidences we have presented also refute these theories ! ——————————————————————————– Notes: (1)Grapes in the “Ararat” area of today: in “The Secret Garden”, By Peter Martin, The Sunday Times, 11 October 1998 he reported that at Tabriz, Iran “At the roadside, we bought grapes approaching the size of ping-pong balls.” “Botanists believe that the Caspian Sea region was the original home of the European grape.” (Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2000. © 1993-1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.) However, even today the area is not exactly California vineyard country, the climate is described as harsh and continental with winters to below -20 degree C and summers to 40 degree C, mountains receiving about 40 inches of rain per year and lower areas only about 12 inches of rain per year. (2)Was curious about the quote from the reference: “The creation model is based on a constant accumulation throughout the glacial period of around six meters of water equivalent per year,”. (27 times the average recent history Greenland rate!) Six meters is 19.686 feet, or about 236 inches and “25-30 cm (10-12 in) of snow melts to 2.5 cm (1 in) of water” (from Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2000), so we have from 2360 to 2832 inches of snowfall. A quick search of the internet revealed that “Mount Baker, Washington — World record snowfall, 1999. 1,140 inches (2,896 cm) of snow fell between November 1998 and the end of June 1999, a world record for most snowfall in a single winter season.” Therefore, the model is based on more than double the known modern day world record! And that has to be the average for approaching 1000 years! As the following map shows, today Greenland is considered as being under desert conditions, what will change so drastically to move Greenland from a desert to one of the wettest spots in the world? Or, are they proposing that the rainfall over all the world will be increased by 27 times for around 1000 years? Naturally there is room for much skepticism concerning this proposal!

Taken from: http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/index.html

24 . 01 . 2011

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amaic australian marian academy of the immaculate conception Ice Age Flood Noah vineyards be fruitful multiply fill the earth

Very Biblical. Earliest Humans Now in Israel

Amaic

By Daniel Estrin

The Associated Press
updated 12/27/2010 1:06:52 PM ET 2010-12-27T18:06:52
JERUSALEM — Israeli archaeologists said Monday that they may have found the earliest evidence yet for the existence of modern humans, and if the find is confirmed, it could upset theories of the origin of humans.

A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in central Israel said teeth found in the cave are about 400,000 years old and resemble those of other remains of modern humans, known scientifically as Homo sapiens, found in Israel. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half as old.

“It’s very exciting to come to this conclusion,” said archaeologist Avi Gopher, whose team examined the teeth with X-rays and CT scans and dated them according to the layers of earth where they were found.
He stressed that further research is needed to solidify the claim. If it does, he said, “this changes the whole picture of evolution.”

The accepted scientific theory is that Homo sapiens originated in Africa and migrated out of the continent starting sometime around 80,000 years ago. Gopher said if the remains are definitively linked to Homo sapiens, it could mean that modern humans in fact originated in what is now Israel.

Sir Paul Mellars, a prehistory expert at Cambridge University, said the study is reputable. He said that the find is “important” because remains from that critical time period are scarce, but that it is premature to say the remains are human.

“Based on the evidence they’ve cited, it’s a very tenuous and frankly rather remote possibility,” Mellars said. He said the remains are more likely related to modern humans’ ancient relatives, the Neanderthals.
Baz Ratner / Reuters
Avi Gopher and Ran Barkai, researchers from Tel Aviv University’s Institute of Archaeology, stand at Qesem Cave, an excavation site east of Tel Aviv, on Monday.
According to today’s accepted scientific theories, modern humans and Neanderthals stemmed from a common ancestor who lived in Africa about 700,000 years ago. One group of descendants migrated to Europe hundreds of thousands of years ago and developed into Neanderthals, later becoming extinct. Another group stayed in Africa and evolved into Homo sapiens — modern humans.

Teeth are often unreliable indicators of origin, and analyses of skull remains would more definitively identify the species found in the Israeli cave, Mellars said.

Gopher, the Israeli archaeologist, said he is confident his team will find skulls and bones as they continue their dig.

The prehistoric Qesem cave was discovered in 2000, and excavations began in 2004. Researchers Gopher, Ran Barkai and Israel Hershkowitz published their study in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Taken from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40820248/ns/technology_and_science-science/

29 . 12 . 2010

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amaic australian marian academy of the immaculate conception Earliest humans professor Avi Gopher Tel Aviv homo sapiens

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What is the Australian Marian Academy of the Immaculate Conception (AMAIC)? The Australian Marian Academy [AMA], as it was initially known, was formed in the early 1980s largely by a group of academics and teachers devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, particularly under her title of Our Lady of the Rosary (at Fatima). In May of 1988 this was the description of the Australian Marian Academy written into our Constitution (p. 19): As a recognized “aggregate of persons” [CJC Can. 115] the Academy “is a private association of Christ’s faithful striving with common effort to foster a more perfect life … and to promote Christian teaching” [Can. 298]. Its Constitution has been reviewed by the competent authority [Can. 299 §3]. It chooses to exercise its juridical personhood through an Executive of 7 members. [ Can. 115, §2].

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Introduction

The Sumerian King List

The documents

The antediluvian section

The origin of the antediluvian section

Chronological considerations

Sumerian and Semitic number systems

Proto-Sumerian Period (3300–2900 BC)

Early Dynastic I–II Periods (2900–2600 BC)

Early Dynastic II–III Periods (2600–2334 BC)

Dynasty of Akkad (2334–2154 BC)

Sumerian Period (2112–2004 BC)

Old Babylonian Period (2004–1595 BC)

Summary of number systems

King List and patriarchs chronology

Discussion and summary

Acknowledgments

References and notes

How Jordan Rice died to save his brother

Jordan Rice’s final act of bravery

Peta Doherty and Nicky Phillips

The boy who gave everything to strangers

by John D. Morris, Ph.D. *

· Biblical Maximalist Viewpoints from a Messianic Gentile

· The “El” of Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible « Biblical Maximalist …

· Northwest Semitic Languages

· Ugaritic

· Victor Hamilton

· CAI – The Toledoths of Genesis ~ Robert Sungenis

· CAI – The Toledoths of Genesis ~ Robert Sungenis

· Sothic cycle – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

· Damien F. Mackey | The Great Noachic Flood of Genesis 6-9

· Fall of the Sothic theory: Egyptian chronology revisited

Australia’s biggest carnivorous dinosaur forced to take a walk

Other AMAIC sites

Slideshow

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