One Theory Solving Several Problems

In my young days as a Creationist, and even in my beginning as a Creationist internet writer, I was fine with saying things on the line of:

"Carbon 14 level is perhaps still rising, and the beyond Biblical dates are because the level has to now risen from the level at the real dates, onto which a higher original carbon level is projected, leading to a greater difference between original and inspected levels, leading to longer ages of radioactive decay. This is because the level is a kind of equilibrium between production of new and decay of the sample in the atmosphere."

Two things I have had to modify since studying the matter in mathematical depth, making tentative tables (more than one, not claiming one above the others as the entirely correct one, at least not yet), one is admitting the level is perhaps still rising, if it were we would not be seeing consistent half lives. If a lower level than the stable equilibrium is taken as being so (and the theory I reject says we are still rising to equilibrium, i e are still lower than it) the previous rise being taken as stable and checked against data which are checkable will result in too short a half life and also in a varied half life, not consistent between the centuries.

The level must therefore already have reached equilibrium.

The other thing, not stated but understood in above usual Creationist statement, is that the carbon rise has been due to a production of new carbon 14 not offset by decay only because not yet reaching the equilibrium, i e a production of new carbon due to same level of cosmic radiation, working at same speed.

Take the centuries between Abraham in Genesis 14 and Joseph in Egypt at end of Genesis, then the ones between Joseph and Joshua's taking Jericho.

Now, suppose that Joseph was Imhotep, contemporary with Djoser. This means somewhat shorter extra time than a thousand years (real time for Joseph, c. 1700 BC, dated time for Djoser c. 2600 BC). On the other hand, if Kenyon dated fall of Jericho to 1550 BC and it occurred in 1470 BC, there were only 80 extra years. With this in mind, the rise in carbon must have depended on a formation of new carbon about 6 times faster than now. Suppose the 1700 BC for Joseph corresponds to sth archaeologically far later than Djoser, then there is an even steeper rise in the time between Abraham (if contemporary to Chalcolithic of En-Geddi) and Joseph. Or suppose the dating of Jericho is about the wrong one, it is Garstang's city III which Joshua destroyed, then the rise must be far steeper after Jericho and up to when carbon dates become directly reliable.

So, I have to posit more cosmic radiation for certain parts of this time, especially between Flood and Abraham, and most especially steeper between Flood and Babel than between Babel and Abraham.

• It will solve the issue at hand, with more cosmic radiation, carbon 14 formed faster.
• It will provide a solution for how ice age froze so quickly, cosmic radiation freezes the wheather (Little Ice Age seems to have had more cosmic radiation, since calibrations show samples from say 1600 AD show more C14 than normally expected).
• It will have shortened telomeres in the end portions of chromosomes, shortening the life span, and more so, the longer someone was himself exposed to the radiation before having offspring - this could be the primary mechanism by which God shortened life spans after Flood.
• But now I found it it solves yet another problem, namely one dating method. Here:

"EPR/ESR also has been used by archaeologists for the dating of teeth. Radiation damage over long periods of time creates free radicals in tooth enamel, which can then be examined by EPR and, after proper calibration, dated. Alternatively, material extracted from the teeth of people during dental procedures can be used to quantify their cumulative exposure to ionizing radiation. People exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl disaster have been examined by this method."

The archaeologists are presuming, wrongly, that exposure to ionizing radiation has been roughly same level - i e mainly the normal background radiation, of which cosmic radiation is just a part.

Well, suppose at times the cosmic radiation was comparable to or greater than other factors of background radiation, this means that the teeth will look older than they really are.

I think this might also take care of higher ages in thermoluminiscence dating:

"Natural crystalline materials contain imperfections: impurity ions, stress dislocations, and other phenomena that disturb the regularity of the electric field that holds the atoms in the crystalline lattice together. These imperfections lead to local humps and dips in the crystalline material's electric potential. Where there is a dip (a so-called "electron trap"), a free electron may be attracted and trapped.

The flux of ionizing radiation—both from cosmic radiation and from natural radioactivity—excites electrons from atoms in the crystal lattice into the conduction band where they can move freely. Most excited electrons will soon recombine with lattice ions, but some will be trapped, storing part of the energy of the radiation in the form of trapped electric charge (Figure 1).

Depending on the depth of the traps (the energy required to free an electron from them) the storage time of trapped electrons will vary as some traps are sufficiently deep to store charge for hundreds of thousands of years."

I think a theory which solves that many problems merits serious consideration.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Torcy
St. Olaf, King and Martyr
29.VII.2017

PS, I came to think of this à propos the "dark ages" of recovery between Fall of Troy and new beginnings of Archaic Art in Greece, etc along East Mediterranean : there were about 3 centuries, about the time of recovery between Flood and Babel, between Babel and Abraham on my theories./HGL