Posted on 09/23/2019 11:39:45 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
“That didn’t clear it up. The Old Testament doesn’t mention India until the Book of Esther, which is somewhat younger than these Keezhadi finds.”
And...? ^^^^^^^ “Old testament”? ^^^^^^^^ “not before Esther?” Forgive me if I read this wrong my friend. Somehow I understood it as India didn’t exist until the book of Esther said it did. :)
avoiding_sulla
“With advanced techniques of chemical analysis, and archaeological analysis and microscopic investigation we were able to understand how people were making copper and to find out if it was organized by one central body of people.
...something big was going on quite early, at least as early as the 11th century BCE,” ....
The researchers say that the copper production seems to have been occurring just when the Bible says that the kingdom of Edom was in existence.
Cool, thanks, glad we're okay. And welcome back, avoiding_sulla.
Sorry for the rant, it was not aimed at you friend. Some of the misdirection to support “in the box” theories are starting to get on my nerves. If they are going to prove the scripture as absolute fact, then do it honestly and quit pulling stuff out of thin air. It displays ignorance by association.
I wholeheartedly agree. My current favorite pertains to radiocarbon dating, which I think may be what you were getting at -- when there's some routine RC date of, for example, 35K BP, the "RC dating is fatally flawed" canard come out; when there's a RC date under 6023 years (6004 BC to 2019), suddenly RC dating "always confirms the Bible". :^)
Yes, absolutely. That is what I am getting at. But it gets even worse, I have been seeing complete rewriting and redefinition of chapters and verses blown completely out of context and reassembled to make them fit a “desirable scenario and timeline” to try and prove. If they are going to prove it then prove it honestly. To selectively manipulate like that is dishonest as hell and makes me not even want to be part of it anymore.
Here is the difference... Science has not made it a priority point and agenda to prove Biblical works wrong at all cost. Yet, the other way around is a full on crusade that excuses and allows dishonesty as long as it can help prove ALL non-biblical science as wrong. They know they are lying to themselves about much of this history, yet they just can’t bring themselves to repent and admit the deceptive dishonesty.
There is a simple compromise that could benefit all historians from both camps and maybe we could actually solve some historical mysteries, maybe the compromise might actually help Christians more than they think in proving their side of the argument...
HONESTY!
Thomas Aquinas wrote about how there are different kinds of knowledge, and that it was appropriate to use what was then the new learning (a revival of Aristotlian system of logic, deductive reasoning, and syllogisms) to understand the physical world.
OTOH, I'll quibble a bit -- there are some people with dots and letters after their names who are indeed on some kind of atheist crusade; that doesn't mean all scientists, all historians, all secular scholars, are part of that crusade. Certain groups arose for example in Britain who were trying to undermine the Old Testament in particular in order to undermine the divine right of kings; I don't support the divine right of kings, but I'm also not under the banner of long-dead blanket bashers, either.
An example is, Ramses II "the Great" (he was great at self-promotion, and lived a long time, I'll give him that much) was very definitely much later than Moses and the Exodus, yet supposed literalists saddle on the wrong ID of Ramses as the pharaoh of the Exodus, without having the comprehension to understand that it can't possibly be, and that the equation was dreamed up by people with insufficient information and promoted ever since by people with agendas.
I have been following your perspective, and I am all in for what you have shared here. But for myself there are variables no one considers or will even be objective enough to consider and discuss in possibilities.
Example is simple arithmetic to start with. Either the arithmetic in the 1500s was very very different and flawed compared to modern arithmetic, or Ussher was really really bad at it. It does not compute as accurate even on it’s face or in the scripture it’s self. But to even question it is heresy and blasphemy.
Now here is a variable not considered in either camp... What if a true scientific physical change has happened along the way, maybe even several times when being applied to the length of a “day” for the earth and creator?
What if one day for God in Genesis was actually a billion years. And later the length of a year was confused because of mis-translation with months or days in the lives of the characters in the Bible who lived so long? Here is where science could support the possibility of an all mighty creator and the Bible it’s self. And at the same time give credit to the scientific discoveries.
But can we drop the firewall long enough to support these possibilities on an individual case by case that might support our own arguments? No, it would be heresy and blasphemy to even consider this. So we digress back into the superstitious all or none dark ages in faith rather than be objective and consider possibilities based on newer science.
We have locked ourselves into the ignorant dark ages rather than even consider any or all new discoveries at all. Christians are stepping on their own feet with this one.
I say that as both a historian and clergy...
Yeah, the calendar has changed. How much, how little, complicated to figure out. The Sumerian king list show the dynasties as sequential, and it is known from other sources (the ancient equivalent of joint communiques, for example) that the listed dynasties were not sequential per se. That doesn't mean there's a 4004 BC starting line though.
The reign lengths on the Sumerian king lists (lists, because there are several copies in different places) also are way out of wack, with lifetimes of millions or 100s of 1000s of years, sliding down to tens of 1000s, and so forth. Since (as Samuel Noah Kramer wrote) the Sumerian city states didn't develop and use a single number system, my best, uneducated guess is, the king lists were compiled from multiple sources from each of the listed cities, and the compiler used whatever local number system to interpret the other cities' information. Perhaps eventually a lexicon will emerge from the body of cuneiform texts and vindicate this view, hope so, and hope I live to see it. :^)
If that's not it, then one alternative -- that the celestial body or other phenomenon used to count time has changed from time to time.
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