"what biblical, young earth creationists have always maintained"

Neanderthal : Neanderthal Pre-or Post-Flood? · If Neanderthals were Carnivores, were they Post-Flood? · "what biblical, young earth creationists have always maintained" · Is there an Urban Legend that Grendel and His Mother were Dinosaurs Among Creationists? · · http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2017/12/neanderthals-related-to-michael-oards.html · Hugh Ross and Genetics, Featuring a Gruesome Habit (Don't Read This When You Eat!)

Perhaps Kent Hovind too ... now, here* is the quote:

More and more every year, researchers are inadvertently proving what biblical, young earth creationists have always maintained: that Neandertals are an extinct group of people that lived shortly after Noah’s flood and the Tower of Babel incident and eventually died out.

I definitely agree that they were a group of people. Fred Butler on CMI* cites:

Archaeological evidence now suggests they were capable of symbolic thought, had a basic knowledge of chemistry, medicine and cooking, and perhaps some capacity for speech.**

When they are supposed to have been a distinct such is another matter.

That some dating methods not by carbon spell out the underground circles to have been 175,000 BP has no bearing, K-Ar dating is useless; or if it was dating by length of stalagmites and stalactites. But when carbon dates for Neanderthals are consistently c. 40,000 BP or older, and when CMI has more than once pointed out that carbon dates like "50,000 to 20,000" or "45,000 to 35,000" BP are likely to be Flood date, I think that Neanderthals being a pre-Flood race is at least a distinct option.

As to Cro-Magnon population of Europe, it is genetically identical to the modern European one, so it must be post-Flood (it is especially close to what a century ago anthropologists would have called Nordic and Westic race types of Europe). But post-Babel?

That would depend on how long it was between Flood and dispersion of nations after Babel.

In Masoretic and King James one would be stuck with Babel c. 101 after Flood, at birth of Peleg according to those genealogies.

Vulgate agrees with Masoretic here, and is the basis for Douay Rheims, which is probably why Father Haydock choose Ussher's chronology to accompany the DR text in the commented Bible of 1859. However, Roman Martyrology disagrees with Vulgate, using LXX filtered by Sextus Africanus, possibly, and by St Jerome.

Now, here is DR:

Genesis 11:[10] These are the generations of Sem: Sem was a hundred years old when he begot Arphaxad, two years after the flood.

[11] And Sem lived after he begot Arphaxad, five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. [12] And Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and begot Sale. [13] And Arphaxad lived after he begot Sale, three hundred and three years; and begot sons and daughters. [14] Sale also lived thirty years, and begot Heber. [15] And Sale lived after he begot Heber, four hundred and three years; and begot sons and daughters.

[16] And Heber lived thirty-four years, and begot Phaleg.

Flood
Arphaxad + 2
Sale + 35
Heber + 30
Phaleg + 34

Phaleg or Peleg born 2, 37, 67, 101 years after Flood. Most would even say he got his name after the final dispersion, and so the Tower of Babel project would have been going on a bit before his birth in 101 after Flood, when God would have ended it.

To squeeze in all of Upper Palaeolithic into the 101 years between Flood and Babel would be impossible. To put it before Flood is impossible due to Cro-Magnon genetics. So, Upper Palaeolithic or at least some of it comes "after Babel". And of course, some would add Mid or Lower Palaeolithic, with Neanderthals for good measure.

Well, let's look at that theory a bit.

Genesis 11: [17] And Heber lived after he begot Phaleg, four hundred and thirty years: and begot sons and daughters. [18] Phaleg also lived thirty years, and begot Reu. [19] And Phaleg lived after he begot Reu, two hundred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters. [20] And Reu lived thirty-two years, and begot Sarug.

[21] And Reu lived after he begot Sarug, two hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. [22] And Sarug lived thirty years, and begot Nachor. [23] And Sarug lived after he begot Nachor, two hundred years: and begot sons and daughters. [24] And Nachor lived nine and twenty years, and begot Thare. [25] And Nachor lived after he begot Thare, a hundred and nineteen years: and begot sons and daughters.

[26] And Thare lived seventy years, and begot Abram, and Nachor, and Aran. [27] And these are the generations of Thare: Thare begot Abram, Nachor, and Aran. And Aran begot Lot. [28] And Aran died before Thare his father, in the land of his nativity in Ur of the Chaldees. [29] And Abram and Nachor married wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai: and the name of Nachor's wife, Melcha, the daughter of Aran, father of Melcha, and father of Jescha. [30] And Sarai was barren, and had no children.

[31] And Thare took Abram, his son, and Lot the son of Aran, his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, the wife of Abram his son, and brought them out of Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Chanaan: and they came as far as Haran, and dwelt there. [32] And the days of Thare were two hundred and five years, and he died in Haran.

Ur of the Chaldees could be either Urfa / Edessa in Easternmost Turkey (as some Jews and Muslims think, and perhaps Christians of the region find credible too) or Woolley's Ur. Or possibly Uruk. No, not quite if that is Biblical Erech.

Phaleg (as stand in for Babel)
Reu + 30
Sarug + 32
Nachor + 30
Thare + 29
Death of Thare + 205

So, after Babel project we add 30, 62, 92, 121, 326 years to when Abraham was dwelling in Haran after leaving Ur. If you take this as Urfa or Edessa, you could take Göbekli Tepe (GT in the following), carbon dated 9600 - 8600 BC.

This would mean squeezing carbon dates of 50,000 BP or at least 40,000 BP (after Neanderthals) reaching up to at earlist 9600 BC into 326 years.

Wait, sorry. Ur is the land of Aran's nativity (v. 28), who was brother of Abram. So:

Phaleg (as stand in for Babel)
Reu + 30
Sarug + 32
Nachor + 30
Thare + 29
Abram, Nachor, Aran + 70

... 121, 191.

1656 AM, Flood
0101 to Babel
0191 to Birth of Abram
1948 AM

4004 BC
1948 AM =
2052 BC

2052 BC
+191
2243 BC

9600 BC
2052 BC
7548 extra years, an initial carbon level in any sample of 40.129 pmc

38000 BC
02243 BC
35757 extra years, an initial carbon level of 1.323 pmc

Supposing in 2243 BC carbon level was that, and carbon 14 ceased forming, just continued decaying, we would in 191 years get to a level of ... well, what?

97.716 pmc is the level in a sample from 191 years ago. So, 97.716 % of 1.323 pmc would have been left in 2052 BC - purely theoretically, so far. That would be 1.29278268 pmc.

In 191 years, normally carbon in atmosphere stays c. 100 pmc, meaning the down to 97.716 pmc is compensated by new carbon to a level of 2.284 pmc.

If carbon 14 was forming at our rate, 1.29278268 pmc + 2.284 pmc = 3.57678268 pmc.

But the actual new carbon would be getting instead 40.129 pmc - 1.29278268 pmc (yes, this is why I did what would have seemed a queer assumption a few lines ago, this is how you calculate how much carbon 14 was formed): 38.83621731999999 pmc

38.83621731999999 pmc / 2.284 pmc = 17.00359777583187 times as fast. In medium.

One of my tables got that much fast a formation for C14 for first period after Deluge. I had to conclude that is feasible. It means the Cosmic radition, today a minor part of total background radiation most places, would then have been about as great as now the total background radiation in Princeton. It is feasible.***

If I had taken instead 48000 BC as equivalent for 2243 BC, the carbon rise would not have been much faster, since 97.716 % of ... 0.395 pmc (checking for 45757 instead of 35757 extra years) is not very much lower than 97.716 % of already mentioned 1.323 pmc.

But it is more feasible to put such a fast carbon rise closer to the Flood, and also to space out things so that you don't even get such a fast carbon raise, as I have done in more recent tables.

It is also questionable if birth of Abraham, Nachor and Aran in Ur should at all be dated to GT.

Could Abraham have been born in pre-pottery Neolithic A (early GT) and at about 80 have been contemporary to En-Geddi's chalcolithic?

For one thing, supposing birth of Aran occurs in early GT, which is dated 9600, GT would still have had to be around when they left for Haran, as Ur is considered the land of his nativity, not another Ur.

So, perhaps wiser to say Abraham was born in Woolley's Ur. Or in Urfa, close by ruined GT. But this means more recent datings for 2052 BC and fewer extra years and therefore an even steeper carbon rise.

If, instead, GT is the city with the Tower of Babel and we use LXX chronology, we get 529 years between Flood and Babel, which would be quite enough to accomodate Upper Palaeolithic and starts of Neolithic.

Then there are more years after Babel for Abraham to be born in, and placing his 80 or so year old appearance in Genesis 14 along with Chalcolithic Amorrheans in Asasonthamar / later known as En-Geddi is fairly feasible.

That is one reason why I prefer LXX chronology and placing Neanderthals pre-Flood, not just pre-Babel.

Why did God not wipe Neanderthals totally off the face of the earth (Genesis 6:7) if God wanted to leave no traces even of pre-Flood humanity?

Well if God were judging humanity for certain things happening in New York and Paris and Tell Aviv (yes, I was caught in Paris during the Pride Parade this year, because I didn't see it coming, usually I leave Paris for a few miles out for the days it lasts), perhaps some First Nations, whether Canada or Greenland, whether US or Australia, would perhaps get an easier judgement.

And if Neanderthals were contemporary with Nodians, their shelters do not allow us to conclude they were Nodians engaged in city life. You see where I am heading?

Also, Genesis 6:7 does not specify tracelessness of all pre-Flood men.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Sts Joel and Ezra
13.VII.2017

Credit and notes:

Credit to this carbon calculator:

https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/c14/carbdate.html
short link = http://ppt.li/3m8

Credit to Osgood for Chalcolithic of En-Geddi involved in Genesis 14:

The Times of Abraham
By Dr A.J.M. Osgood
http://creation.com/the-times-of-abraham

Notes:

* Neandertal-Human Hybrids:
Old earth apologetics gone real bad
by Fred Butler Published: 19 July 2016 (GMT+10)
http://creation.com/neandertal-human-hybrids-hugh-ross

** Note one on previous gives Colin Barras, Neanderthals built mystery underground circles 175,000 years ago, 25 May 2016, newscientist.com.

*** Cosmic radiation today : world average 0.39 milliSieverts per year, and the 70 tons of C14 would in 191 years involve a decay and effective replacement of 1.5988 tons. In order to get instead 1.5988 * 17 = 27 tons in 191 years, we also need a radiation to have been 17*0.39 = 6.63 milliSieverts per year. And that is about the total background radiation at Princeton. But I am not sure it would be so to have Abraham leave GT even at 30 before carbon date 8600 BC (abandoning and presumably covering of GT) and at 80 be in chalcolithic of En-Geddi. You check, I have shown you how! (As an aside, the article claims the level has been 70 tons for 100,000 years in atmosphere, that is both not true and not checkable if it had been true./HGL)