Rock of Ages or Age of Rocks?

[RE]

Over in the Noah Flood thread I mentioned that digressing to how Old the Earth is and how long Creation actually took was off topic, so I am starting a new one for this discussion.

Now, Watson maintains that the Bible and "Old" Earth theories are congruent, in other words the account in Genesis can be true even if the world is Billions of years old.

Regardless how old the Earth is though, how about how long Homo Sapiens has been roaming about?

Here's the Genealogical Table, starting from Adam & Eve



Here's the part that gets you from Adam to Noah



Now, the ages of all of these fellows are in the Bible, so one Bishop Usher way back when calculated the Creation to have occurred around 6000 years ago as I recall.

Forget creation of the Earth though, you can calculate how long ago Adam & Eve lived, unless of course a "Year" is not a "Year" when talking about the ages of all the guys who lived between Adam and Noah, many of whom had stupendously long life spans as it is, which Watson also claims is literal truth.

So OK, Adam & Eve lived 6000 years ago.  If that is the case, then HTF did Abos get to Australia 20,000 years ago and Native Americans across the Bering Straight 15,000 years ago?  These folks were all migrating around the world before Adam & Eve were ever born!

The genetic evidence for the migratory pattern of Homo Sapiens since the Toba Supervolcanic Bottleneck is very clear.  Here is how the pattern went with the timelines involved.

So it is obvious here that Homo Sapiens has been around much longer than the timeline in the Bible says we have.

Unless of course a "Year" is not a "Literal Year"

RE

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[Petty Tyrant]

I think it takes many thousands of years for humans to develop/evolve the right shade of skin colour and features for a climate, equatorial or arctic.

south Indians are darker than north indians, south asians like native dark vietnamese are darker than north asians like chinese, northern aborigines are way darker than southern aborigines, although Im not sure any pure southern aborigines exist, the european peoples are lighter skinned generally the further north you go.

Northern europeans have emigrated to hotter climates with far more intense sun than northern europe for about 300 years and show no sign of physical adaptation in that time. chinese have been in southern parts of asia like indonesia, singapore, phillipines, vietnam, malaysia for even longer than that like the middle ages and show no signs of darkening up like the native asians of those places.

Its obviously a process that takes tens of thousands of years to adapt the best skin shade for a cold or hot climate, and the difference we see between european, african and asians could not have happened in the last few thousand years.

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[Ka]

Now, the ages of all of these fellows are in the Bible, so one Bishop Usher way back when calculated the Creation to have occurred around 6000 years ago as I recall.

Forget creation of the Earth though, you can calculate how long ago Adam & Eve lived, unless of course a "Year" is not a "Year" when talking about the ages of all the guys who lived between Adam and Noah, many of whom had stupendously long life spans as it is, which Watson also claims is literal truth.

etc.

I believe Ashvin answered this a while back -- something to do with "A begat B" can mean that A is an ancestor of B, not necessarily B's father. But what puzzles me is what you and Stuck1 et al think you are going to accomplish with this argumentation. Obviously Ashvin is drawing on the work of seasoned Old Earth Creationists who have heard these and many other arguments many times, and have answers for them.

All you can do is line up your OT experts who say that Ashvin's experts are full of crap, but obviously he can say that it is your experts that are full of crap. Because, of course, the experts are saying that of each other. Your fallback, then is to invoke CFS, and though in this case I probably agree with you with respect to reading Genesis (that it should be read as informative myth), that has no effect on those who disagree with you -- sometimes CFS is just contemporary prejudice.

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[RE]

I believe Ashvin answered this a while back -- something to do with "A begat B" can mean that A is an ancestor of B, not necessarily B's father. But what puzzles me is what you and Stuck1 et al think you are going to accomplish with this argumentation. Obviously Ashvin is drawing on the work of seasoned Old Earth Creationists who have heard these and many other arguments many times, and have answers for them.

That is a ridiculously broad interpretation of the word "Begat".  You might just as well say "Adam begat RE", conveniently leaving out everybody between Adam and RE here.

The Bible presents this as a direct Geneology, and when they make geneological charts like the ones I put up, if they skip generations they throw in the // marks.  That's why I had to include a second tree to show the lineage from Adam to Noah.

We know from the Bible Adam Begot Cain, Abel and Seth DIRECTLY, they were the next generation.  At what point in the lineage from Seth to Noah does the Bible CHANGE its meaning of "Begot" from direct to having an indeterminate number of generations between each of the listed Begotees?

All you can do is line up your OT experts who say that Ashvin's experts are full of crap, but obviously he can say that it is your experts that are full of crap. Because, of course, the experts are saying that of each other. Your fallback, then is to invoke CFS, and though in this case I probably agree with you with respect to reading Genesis (that it should be read as informative myth), that has no effect on those who disagree with you -- sometimes CFS is just contemporary prejudice.

I am not lining up any experts here, that is Stucky's Job.  LOL.  Contemporary Prejudice notwithstanding,  good CFS is culturally independent and does not reflect CP.

I of course am fully aware that Watson will drop back in here and post some quote from a recognized expert in Hebrew versions of the Bible who will claim Begot is being used here differently from the generation of Adam to Cain/Abel/Seth than it was for the generations from say Enoch to Methuselah, but why doesn't the Bible track any of it?  Nothing important happenned in the intervening generations?  What?

Anyhow, as with all arguments with an ideologue, you'll never get one to admit his thesis is incorrect, I got no illusions we will ever disabuse Watson of his cockamamie notions here.  However, by clarifying the discrpancies, you can make a dent in the mindset of those who are a bit more Open Minded and actually grasp CFS.  That is why articulating the positions is important to do.

RE

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[RE]

Let us also return to that very FIRST Generation after Cain-Abel-Seth.

WTF did they MARRY?  Did Adam and Eve Begat 3 Females also, and they married them Incestuously?  Did God spontaneously create Females for them to marry? If God was spontaneously creating new Females, why did he not spontaneously create any new Males?

RE

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[Petty Tyrant]

For petes sake RE, youre asking THAT question, did you not learn in sunday school or kindergarten not to ask THAT uncomfortable question?

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[RE]

For petes sake RE, youre asking THAT question, did you not learn in sunday school or kindergarten not to ask THAT uncomfortable question?

I am rehashing arguments I made to a Presbyterian Minister in the Church we joined in Brasil when I was in Second Grade.  I never quite bought the idea in Kindergarten, but it took a couple of years to work up the arguments.  I wasn't so fast at it in those days. LOL.

RE

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[monsta666]

Let us also return to that very FIRST Generation after Cain-Abel-Seth.

WTF did they MARRY?  Did Adam and Eve Begat 3 Females also, and they married them Incestuously?  Did God spontaneously create Females for them to marry? If God was spontaneously creating new Females, why did he not spontaneously create any new Males?

RE

Genesis 5:4 states:

After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.

It doesn't suggest how many sons and daughters Adam had but with further reading I found this:

And the days of Adam, after he had begotten Seth, were eight hundred years,.... The Septuagint version is seven hundred; for having added one hundred years more the should be, to the years of his life before the birth of Seth, here they are taken away to make the number of his years complete:

and he begat sons and daughters; not only after the birth of Seth, but before, though we have no account of any, unless of Cain's wife; but what their number was is not certain, either before or after; some say he had thirty children, besides Cain, Abel, and Seth; and others a hundred (c). Josephus says the number of children, according to the old tradition, was thirty three sons and twenty three daughters. (d)(These families had at least five children, for one son is named as well as other sons and daughters. Therefore there must be at least three sons and two daughters in each family. For a family to have at least three sons and two daughters, according to the laws of chance, a family must on the average have nine children for this to be a near certainty. Hence the families listed in this chapter must have been large by today's standards. Given their long life, this is not at all unusual. However even today, the Old Order Mennonites of Waterloo County in Ontario and Lancaster County in Pennsylvannia, have many families this large. Ed.)

So quite the family Adam had although one can only assume there must of been some incestuous relationships early on in this tree.

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[RE]

So quite the family Adam had although one can only assume there must of been some incestuous relationships early on in this tree.

Ah OK, so Adam and Eve had a lot more kids over 800 years here.  I never heard that before, but it does provide some explanation on the Incestuous level.

When did they have the Girls here was it 10 years after the 3 Boys were born or 100?  How old was Seth when he married his Sister?  Was he 90 and she was 13?

How come the life history of ANY of these girls is never covered here?  Notice also that both Adam and the Reboot Generation of Noah catalogue 3 males each.  We don't know where Noah's 3 sons got their wives either, though presumably they ALSO married their Sisters since Noah also lived a long time?

Menopause must ALSO have come MUCH later for women back in those days, if Eve was still having babies after 200 years.  Except Homo Sapiens Females are born with a fixed number of Eggs that play out at MOST over around 60 years for a very few females that get pregnant this late in life.

The oldest verified mother to conceive naturally (listed currently in the Guinness Records) is Dawn Brooke (UK); she gave birth to a son at the age of 59 years in 1997. [6]

 Homo Sapiens Biology obviously must have been much different back then.  Without Viagra, regardless of whether you are still ambulatory, I doubt any male over 100 can get an erection.

When/why did Homo Sapiens lifespan and reproductive ability drop back from the 800 years quoted in the Biblical Geneologies to the typical lifespan of the early Ag Societies we know of, 35-50 years or so?

I am sure Watson can explain all of it.  I am also certain none of the explanations will make CFS.

RE

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[monsta666]

How come the life history of ANY of these girls is never covered here?  Notice also that both Adam and the Reboot Generation of Noah catalogue 3 males each.  We don't know where Noah's 3 sons got their wives either, though presumably they ALSO married their Sisters since Noah also lived a long time?

It would seem names are only mentioned if the person in question is an actual descendant to the next generation of the family tree you included. So Adam actually had many sons and daughters as did Seth and others but none of these people are mentioned unless their offspring are on that family tree you presented. As for no women being mentioned it would seem that they are only concerned in chronicling the male lines. It should be noted that in Christianity since Eve committed the first sin of eating the apple women are seen as the inferior sex that is subjugate to man since not only is Eve part of Adam but it was ordained by god that since she ate the apple first she must bear the pain of childbirth AND act as a subordinate to man. These facts may explain why there is considerably less documentation of the women in these trees. Granted this is just speculation on my part...

Menopause must ALSO have come MUCH later for women back in those days, if Eve was still having babies after 200 years.  Except Homo Sapiens Females are born with a fixed number of Eggs that play out at MOST over around 60 years for a very few females that get pregnant this late in life.

We can only assume that the menopause occurred much later for women since Adam had Seth at 130 years of age while Seth had Enos at 105 and then had further sons after Enos. Meanwhile Enos had Cainan at the age of 90. The extract below provides a possible explanation for not only their longevity but also the fact they could sire children at unusual ages. Sure it only pertains to males but for any of this to make sense one can only assume it applied equally to women otherwise the whole logic of the explanation would fail if men lived longed live spans and extended fertility periods but women did not:

The Scripture account, is confirmed by the testimony of many Heathen writers, who affirm that the ancients lived a thousand years (solar years), as many of them did, pretty near, though not quite, they using a round number to express their longevity by; for the proof of this Josephus (e) appeals to the testimonies of Manetho the Egyptian, and Berosus the Chaldean, and Mochus and Hestiaeus; besides Jerom the Egyptian, and the Phoenician writers; also Hesiod, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Acusilaus, Ephorus and Nicolaus. And though the length of time they lived may in some measure be accounted for by natural things as means, such as their healthful constitution, simple diet, the goodness of the fruits of the earth, the temperate air and climate they lived in, their sobriety, temperance, labour and exercise; yet no doubt it was so ordered in Providence for the multiplication of mankind, for the cultivation of arts and sciences, and for the spread of true religion in the world, and the easier handing down to posterity such things as were useful, both for the good of the souls and bodies of men. Maimonides (f) is of opinion, that only those individual persons mentioned in Scripture lived so long, not men in common; and which was owing to their diet and temperance, and exact manner of living, or to a miracle; but there is no reason to believe that they were the only temperate persons, or that any miracle should be wrought particularly on their account for prolonging their lives, and not others. But though they lived so long, it is said of them all, as here of the first man:

Source from here: http://gill.biblecommenter.com/genesis/5.htm

When/why did Homo Sapiens lifespan and reproductive ability drop back from the 800 years quoted in the Biblical Geneologies to the typical lifespan of the early Ag Societies we know of, 35-50 years or so?

The last part of the passage I offered above offered one possible explanation to why this is the case as the common man had the typical lifespan we see today and only the names mentioned in the scripture had exceptional lifespans. The alternative explanation is man suffered a series of reductions to their overall lifespans:

1st Reduction - On Adam's Sin - After Adam sinned, man lived to be about 900 years old. Adam lived to be 930 years and Methusaleh (the oldest person recorded in the Bible) lived to be 969 years old.

2nd Reduction - Before The Flood And Up To Joseph - Before Noah's flood God began the process of shortening man's lifespan to 120 years.  (Genesis 6:3)

3rd Reduction - After Moses it was further reduced to 70-80 Years. (Psalm 90:10)

Not sure you could say any of these explanations follow common sense but they are explanations with a little inductive reasoning added to fill in some gaps.

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[RE]

It would seem names are only mentioned if the person in question is an actual descendant to the next generation of the family tree you included. So Adam actually had many sons and daughters as did Seth and others but none of these people are mentioned unless their offspring are on that family tree you presented. As for no women being mentioned it would seem that they are only concerned in chronicling the male lines.

Yea, they focused on the Males, no doubt, but they ALSO included such females as Eve, Leah and Rachel in some of the Geneology.  How come these babes get Special Mention, whenevery other wife of every other Male int he geneology is studiously ignored here?

Not to mention, if there were numerous OTHER family trees here from 800 year old guys producing progeny, how come none of their history ever got chronicled here?  WTF happenned to the dozens of kids Methuselah and Enoch fathered?  They simply were not important enough to chronicle here?  What?

Monsta, I gotta ask. Are you arguing this as Devil's Advocate or are you a Christian trying to justify it?

RE

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[monsta666]

Monsta, I gotta ask. Are you arguing this as Devil's Advocate or are you a Christian trying to justify it?

I am playing devil's advocate if I had to pick one choice. But my main intention is to present the facts, at least how I see them from reading the texts. I would agree much of it does not make sense and there is not a lot of common sense on display. However I do think if we know the facts then we can construct a better argument on why it is bogus just looked at what happened in the Noah thread when Stucky1 applied facts given in the bible to undermine Watson's explanations...

Be interesting to see what Ashvin says about your latest questions. I would need to do more digging of the bible to offer some kind of explanations to your latest questions and seeing as I am not a Christian it seems like a bit of a work just to play devil's advocate.

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[RE]

Monsta, I gotta ask. Are you arguing this as Devil's Advocate or are you a Christian trying to justify it?

I am playing devil's advocate if I had to pick one choice. But my main intention is to present the facts, at least how I see them from reading the texts. I would agree much of it does not make sense and there is not a lot of common sense on display. However I do think if we know the facts then we can construct a better argument on why it is bogus just looked at what happened in the Noah thread when Stucky1 applied facts given in the bible to undermine Watson's explanations...

Be interesting to see what Ashvin says about your latest questions. I would need to do more digging of the bible to offer some kind of explanations to your latest questions and seeing as I am not a Christian it seems like a bit of a work just to play devil's advocate.

Ah, OK.  Well, long as we are doing the Devil's Advocate Game, clearly the Old Testament here is only concerned with the Patrilinear geneology which led up to the Israelites.  A few other branches of the tribes Noah's sons spawned off are chronicled paranthetically, but the main deal is to trace where the Jews came from.

One can also speculate that Noah's sons got to take their wives with them on the Ark from before the Flood, these Females though just weren't worth mentioning.  They may even have had more than one wife each to take on the trip, which would provide a bit more genetic diversity in there.

We still do have the problem of course of where Seth and Cain got their wives, and how the inbreeding problems are solved.  One can speculate there that either God prevented Genetic Defectives from being born, or that they procreated a lot and the Genetic Defectives died off of natural causes.

Anyhow, IMHO you can make a lot more CFS out of the Genesis story if instead of looking at Adam and Eve as Individuals, they were two tribes in Africa that met up and started breeding more Homo Sapiens. One of the tribes may have been Cro-Magnon types, others Neanderthal types. Eve's tribe was the one that discovered Agriculture, which was the Biting of the Apple from Satan.  They keep breeding with some Hunter-Gatherers and some Pastoralists, then the Earthquakes start and Noah's tribe gets nervous.  Noah has a Vision and tells everybody in his tribe to build boats, not real big ones individually but all together they can carry a lot of different animals aboard.  Then Toba blows sending up huge ashfall which seeds a non stop-rain event for 40 days and 40 nights, which may actually have lasted a good deal longer since time perception is kinda vague here overall.  There are huge Tsunamis which flood the landscape periodically, and only this group of Boat People makes it through the Zero Point.

When the geological events finally start to calm down after say 5000 years, these Boat People begin the Diaspora across the whole Globe, infesting it like cockroaches.  The fact they had Boat knowledge from the flooding years explains how the Abos made it over to Oz 40K years ago or so.  Refinements in Navigation by other groups eventually led to NZ, the Marquesas, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Tahiti and Hawaii being settled by the Polynesians, in the last of the Great Migrations to Virgin Territory.

That is my interpretation of the story anyhow, which granted is not very Literal but makes much more CFS.

RE

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[Stucky1]

Usher was a moron. The PURPOSE of biblical genealogies was NEVER to prove the age of the earth or anything like that.  For example, in Genesis we have Adam, Eve, Cain, and Able. Four people on planet Earth.  Yet, when Cain is cursed by God for killing Able, Cain says;

“My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and WHOEVER FINDS ME WILL KILL ME.”  But the LORD said to him, “Not so; ANYONE WHO KILLS CAIN will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and LIVED IN THE LAND OF NOD, east of Eden. “
----- Genesis 4:13-16

So, there was a land called Nod, populated with people, he married one of them, and the inhabitants helped Cain build a city. 

PURPOSE OF GENEOLOGY in the OT

First, there are MANY genealogies in the OT, many times they contradict each other, several contain outright historical errors. But, I digress.  These genealogies were necessary in order to keep the Law of Moses … because one of the key components that God gave to Moses at Mt. Sinai was the Levitical priesthood.  Here is the key verse from  Num: 3:9-10;

“And thou shalt give the Levites unto Aaron and to his sons: they are wholly given unto him out of the children of Israel. And thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall wait on their priest’s office: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death”

The ONLY way the Israelites could keep the Law of God was to make sure that the priests were descendants of Aaron, of the tribe of Levi …. and, the ONLY way to be make sure of that was to keep genealogical records ….. to ensure that the priests were selected from the proper tribe and family.


PURPOSE OF GENEOLOGY in the NT

There are exactly two geneologies. The records in Matthew and Luke.  Comparing the two, even on a cursory level reveals HUGE inconsistencies.  Scholars have been trying to reconcile the differences for ages. But, let’s not go there.

The purpose of those two genealogies is to unfold the story of mankind’s redemption through Jesus Christ.  Very similar in to OT genealogies tracing a FAMILY/TRIBE lineage, but this time showing the [supposed] FULLFILMENT OF PROPHECY via the family line of Christ.  End of story.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF GENEOLOGY TODAY

None.  That’s why Usher is an idiot.  Quite simply, the apostle Paul writes in Titus 3:9 to “avoid foolish questions, and genealogies”. He says so again in 1 Tim. 1:4. Under the Good News (Gospel), genealogies have no spiritual importance.

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[Stucky1]

“When/why did Homo Sapiens lifespan and reproductive ability drop back from the 800 years quoted in the Biblical Geneologies to the typical lifespan of the early Ag Societies we know of, 35-50 years or so?” ------ RE

Looking forward to Ashvin’s explanation also.  Lol  But, lemme give it a brief shot.

God initially created us to live FOREVER.  We were never created for death, but for life eternal.  So a few hundred years is no problem …. For God.

The conditions on Earth, after the Fall, that allowed for long life spans has to do with the pre-Flood atmosphere. 

“Young Earth Creationists believe about the earth having a Crystalline Canopy before the flood. Which was a semi solid dome that surrounded the earth. The weight of this canopy doubled the barometric pressure from what we currently observe. And because it was mainly consisted of  Metallic hydrogen, there was more free oxygen (double the amount found in atmosphere today) in our atmosphere. This would explain why the air bubbles, found in amber, are rich in oxygen compared to today’s atmosphere.”

You can read all about it here;   http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/longlife.html

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