lundi 31 décembre 2018

Quick Take on Sandstone in Egypt


Potholer54 in a video on Egyptian chronology disputes building of Saqqarah Pyramid at 2100 or 2000 BC on the ground that so early after Flood (2348 BC in Ussher*) sandstone would still have been wet sand, and this including the sandstone quarries in Egypt, since there was nothing on top of them and so no pressure to quickly turn them into sandstone.

  • 1) While the sandstone quarry is near surface, this need not have always been so, plenty of sand in Sahara which might once have been weighing down on those sandstone quarries to press them into sandstone:
  • 2) and what if the pressure was in fact lateral rather than perpendicular?


I don't think all of Egypt is a sandstone quarry, those could be pretty small as a portion of Egypt./HGL

* Quick calculation here:

4004
1656
2348

samedi 29 décembre 2018

Josephus + II Cainaan = St. Jerome + 77 years


Quoting the Josephus quote from earlier:

Resp. to Carter / Cosner : In the Lifetime of Josephus
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/09/resp-to-carter-cosner-in-lifetime-of.html


for Terah begat Abram in his seventieth year. Nahor begat Haran when he was one hundred and twenty years old; Nahor was born to Serug in his hundred and thirty-second year; Ragau had Serug at one hundred and thirty; at the same age also Phaleg had Ragau; Heber begat Phaleg in his hundred and thirty-fourth year; he himself being begotten by Sala when he was a hundred and thirty years old, whom Arphaxad had for his son at the hundred and thirty-fifth year of his age. Arphaxad was the son of Shem, and born twelve years after the deluge.


ADD Cainan ...

Anno Diluvii
12 Arphaxad born
135+12=147
147 Cainan born
128+147=175
175 Sala born
130+175=305
305 Heber born
134+305=437
437 Phaleg born
130+437=567
567 Ragau born
130+567=697
697 Serug born
132+697=829
829 Nahor born
120+829=949
949 Terah born
70+949=1019
1019 Abraham born


2957  1019
2015  - 942
=942  = 77


Now, which ones can we change?

If I go to the LXX ages for post-Flood patriarchs here:

CMI : Some remarks preliminary to a biblical chronology
by Pete Williams
https://creation.com/some-remarks-preliminary-to-a-biblical-chronology


Then I can validate or otherwise the ages, sticking to LXX readings.

year of parenthood
Arphaxad
135 = 135
Cainan
128 c. 130
Sala
130 = 130
Heber
134 = 134
Phaleg
130 = 130
Ragau
130 c. 132
Serug
132 c. 130
Nahor
120 > 79
Terah
70 = 70


Nahor can be drastically reduced from 120 to 79. And Arphaxad's birth from 12 to 2 after Deluge.

Anno Diluvii
2 Arphaxad born
135+2=137
137 Cainan born
128+137=165
165 Sala born
130+165=295
295 Heber born
134+295=429
429 Phaleg born
130+429=559
559 Ragau born
130+559=689
689 Serug born
132+689=821
821 Nahor born
79+821=900
900 Terah born
70+900=970
970 Abraham born


970
942
=28

We are at a 28 years discrepancy, and I don't know exactly how to close it ... /HGL

samedi 22 décembre 2018

An Inadequate Work Published on Kolbe Center for Study of Creation : Date of Flood


Here is a salient paragraph:

The Sumerian civilization is considered to have been the oldest civilization on earth. Both Sumeria and Egypt had histories prior to 2241 BC. Both civilizations began in the previous millennium. Other civilizations had prehistories prior to 2241 BC whether or not they had histories. For example, Chinese history began many centuries after 2241 BC, and the early Indian religious writings seem to have been written many centuries after 2241 BC as well. However, from the prehistories one might be left with the impression that in all civilizations something of a very chaotic nature occurred on earth about the year 2241 BC and afterwards the civilizations had undergone some sort of change.


Inadequate for Flood.

If Flood was 2241 BC (there is a serious proposal from LXX text, it was 2242 Anno Mundi, but that's another story), you cannot just project Sumerian, Egyptian, Chinese, Indic histories prior to 2241 BC to the pre-Flood world.

In case readers don't believe this is what Schmirler is proposing, this comes after a discussion of First Intermediate Period as the time in Egyptian archaeology and history where the Flood fits in.

Why cannot you project Old Kingdom to pre-Flood? Why cannot you project Neolithic China to pre-Flood? Why cannot you project dynasties of Ur prior to the Third to pre-Flood? Or Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, as I did myself some time ago, when very early on I hoped to identify Mohenjo-Daro with Henoch in the land of Nod and its famous Pashupati seal* figure with Cain or Tubal-Cain or some apparition of Apollyon in the pre-Flood world?

Post-Flood humanity has one origin, if the Flood was universal. This precludes a pre-Flood diversification recurring as a post-Flood diversification.

It does not directly (but the short time from Creation to Flood indirectly does) preclude two subsequent pre-Flood diversifications.

It does not directly even preclude two subsequent post-Flood ones.

But the most reasonable is, the pre-Flood diversification where Cro-Magnon type man coexisted with Neanderthal and Heidelbergians and Denisovan has been replaced with a post-Flood one in racial types "black, white, yellow" and linguistic diversity.

Now, it could be done to analyse DNA from Egyptians of Old Kingdom, Sumerians prior to III Dynasty of Ur, Chinese Neolithic population and find they fairly well match the later history of what Schmirler considers (correctly) as post-Flood.

But more important, you do have texts in diversified languages from what Schmirler considers as pre-Flood.

These** would on Schmirler's view be pre-Flood:

c. 2690 BC  Egyptian
Egyptian hieroglyphs in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen (2nd Dynasty), Umm el-Qa'ab[7]  "proto-hieroglyphic" inscriptions from about 3300 BC (Naqada III; see Abydos, Egypt, Narmer Palette)
 
26th century BC  Sumerian
Instructions of Shuruppak, the Kesh temple hymn and other cuneiform texts from Shuruppak and Abu Salabikh (Fara period)[8][9]  "proto-literate" period from about 3500 BC (see Kish tablet); administrative records at Uruk and Ur from c. 2900 BC.
 
c. 2400 BC  Akkadian
A few dozen pre-Sargonic texts from Mari and other sites in northern Babylonia[10]  Some proper names attested in Sumerian texts at Tell Harmal from about 2800 BC.[11] Fragments of the Legend of Etana at Tell Harmal c. 2600 BC.[12]
 
c. 2400 BC  Eblaite
Ebla tablets[13]
 
c. 2250 BC  Elamite
Awan dynasty peace treaty with Naram-Sin[14][15]


You cannot even have a pre-Flood linguistic diversity replaced by a post-Babel one and these belonging to the pre-Flood one, since they continue well after 2241 BC in the conventional timeline:

  • The Egyptian language was spoken in ancient Egypt and was a branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Its attestation stretches over an extraordinarily long time, from the Old Egyptian stage (mid-3rd millennium BC, Old Kingdom of Egypt). Its earliest known complete written sentence has been dated to about 2690 BC, which makes it one of the oldest recorded languages known, along with Sumerian.[3]

    Its classical form is known as Middle Egyptian, the vernacular of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt which remained the literary language of Egypt until the Roman period.

  • Sumerian (Sumerian: 𒅴𒂠 EME.G̃IR15 "native tongue") is the language of ancient Sumer and a language isolate that was spoken in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). During the 3rd millennium BC, an intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Semitic-speaking Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism.[4] The influence of Sumerian and the East Semitic language Akkadian on each other is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a substantial scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence.[4] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a Sprachbund.[4]

    Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language around 2000 BC (the exact dating being subject to debate),[5] but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamian states such as Assyria and Babylonia until the 1st century AD.

    (note well, if Sumerian could be learned as late as 1st C BC, Odin before getting to Sweden, starting the idolatrous sect that continued to Viking Age, could have read Sumerian material - and there are similarities in the mythologies)

  • Akkadian (/əˈkeɪdiən/ akkadû, 𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑 ak-ka-du-u2; logogram: 𒌵𒆠 URIKI)[2][3] is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa and Babylonia) from the 30th century BC until its gradual replacement by Akkadian-influenced Eastern Aramaic among Mesopotamians by the eighth century BC.

  • Eblaite /ˈɛblə.aɪt/ (also known as Eblan ISO 639-3), or Paleo Syrian, is an extinct Semitic language which was used during the third millennium BCE by the populations of Northern Syria.[3] It was named after the ancient city of Ebla, in modern western Syria.[3] Variants of the language were also spoken in Mari and Nagar.[3][4] According to Cyrus H. Gordon,[5] although scribes might have spoken it sometimes, Eblaite was probably not spoken much, being rather a written lingua franca with East and West Semitic features.

    (This one could uniquely have been pre-Flood, if it was the original Hebrew, but the other ones couldn't - and I don't think it was, not in the Eblaite tablets, anyway, though original Hebrew could have coincided with either Eblaite or Ugaritic linguistically)

  • Elamite is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was used in present-day southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC.


This means, whatever you consider as possible for Flood in 2241 BC Biblical timeline, you cannot, you must not align this with 2241 in conventional timeline.

I actually do consider another year better in the real and Biblical timeline, 2957 BC, and even that I will not align with 2957 BC in modern conventional archaeology; rather, with 40 000 BP (as far as carbon dates go) since that aligns with disappearance of Neanderthals and Denisovans as separate lineages (both have left trace DNA in modern lineages, I don't doubt, via Noah's daughters in law).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Thirty Martyrs in Rome,
"via Lavicana, between two Laurels"
22.XII.2018

* See this quote:

A seal discovered at the site bears the image of a seated, cross-legged and possibly ithyphallic figure surrounded by animals. The figure has been interpreted by some scholars as a yogi, and by others as a three-headed "proto-Shiva" as "Lord of Animals".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-daro#Pashupati_seal


** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_first_written_accounts

jeudi 13 décembre 2018

Reviewing a paragraph from If You Believed Moses


Creation vs. Evolution : Reviewing a paragraph from If You Believed Moses · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : [In answer to Q on "origin of language families"]

Here is the paragraph:

The traditional, patristic, magisterial doctrine of creation holds that God created all of the different kinds of corporeal creatures during a very brief creation period at the beginning of time by an act of his Divine Will. According to this understanding, God created a perfectly harmonious world for our first parents, Adam and Eve, a few thousand years ago. He created Adam first, and then created Eve from Adam’s side. There was no human sickness, death, disease, harmful mutations or man-harming natural disasters before the Fall. Prior to the Original Sin, all of nature was under the dominion of Adam and Eve and was subservient to them. Even after the Original Sin, early man was physically and mentally superior to modern man, and the early patriarchs actually lived to the long ages ascribed to them. There was a global flood in Noah’s day which killed all of the people and land animals except for those on Noah’s ark, and all of the basic language-families complete with their unique grammars and modes of thought were instantaneously created by God during the Tower of the Babel incident.


Now, basically this is correct.

I have two quibbles. One about Apologetics and one about actual statement.

Even after the Original Sin, early man was physically and mentally superior to modern man, and the early patriarchs actually lived to the long ages ascribed to them.


Here we have the quibble on Apologetics field.

No one in Noah's post-Flood family needed to die before Noah did. This means, if I am right that the first 350 years after the Flood = Upper Palaeolithic from carbon dated 40 000 BP to start of Mesolithic in carbon dated 15 000 BP or even beyond, then everyone dying in this period died a premature death.

This means that the Cro Magnon skeleta we do find from then are people unusually weak or sick or killed accidentally or killed by murder.

This means the dating question is vital. If there were really 25 000 years for these people to have lived, they would arguably have been representative of their populations. As they are just post-Flood, they are not, anyone representative lived for longer.

I don't know if the Shungir man is Noah (which would to my mind be an early date in archaeology for death of Noah, but it would be feasible if instead of 51 years between 350 and 401 after Flood, distance to birth of Peleg is rather 179 years and Babel spanning only latter half. Namely if Peleg was born 529 after Flood). Or, if he rather was one of Noah's grandchildren dying prematurely (location seems to suggest something like Magog to me).

Anyway, unless it's Noah and you need to identify 350 after Flood with .... checking:

Sungir (Russia) is a key Mid-Upper Palaeolithic site in Eurasia, containing several spectacular burials that disclose early evidence for complex burial rites in the form of a range of grave goods deposited along with the dead. Dating has been particularly challenging, with multiple radiocarbon dates ranging from 19,160±270 to 28,800±240 BP for burials that are believed to be closely similar in age.


New Hydroxyproline Radiocarbon Dates from Sungir, Russia, Confirm Early Mid Upper Palaeolithic Burials in Eurasia
Published: January 8, 2014, Shweta Nalawade-Chavan , James McCullagh, Robert Hedges
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0076896


Unless it's Noah and you need to identify 350 after Flood with 19,000 - 28,800 BP in carbon dates, it is at least one, perhaps two generations after Noah, and someone who died before him. No wonder he looks young!

This means, apologists should take this into account - as also the difference between 350 and 25,000 years in Biblical vs carbon dates.

Now, the other quibble is actually about content; about what the traditional view is supposed to be obliging us to believe. Here it is:

... and all of the basic language-families complete with their unique grammars and modes of thought were instantaneously created by God during the Tower of the Babel incident.


I will at once add, what it is being contrasted with is also not correct.

In my memory from yesterday (this library doesn't allow me to open the pdf with "If You Believed Moses"), you see some believing that language slowly evolved from animal grunts adding perfections over the ages ... and that this is what linguistics studies.

BOTH of these views are impossible to a linguist.

For the latter view, the one which says that "linguistic evolution" as studied by historic linguistics means this, that is like telling a man studying dog breeds and their evolution from the wolf that he is studying the Miller Urey experiment's relevance for abiogenesis. Historical linguistics is a very rich field, but every language ever studied by it had a complete grammar, with complete modes of thought. There are things we don't know the correct Etruscan expression for, but that is not because Etruscans couldn't express it, it's because so little Etruscan is left to study (unless you count Hungarian as Etruscan, which some do). The other field, the one dealing with man coming up with language in an evolution believer's perspective, after descending from brutes not having such, well, an evolutionist will believe it, but if he's a linguist, he will also know this is NOT a well established study in linguistics. You cannot compare the stages between pre-Classic vulgar Latin of Plautus and French to supposed stages between non-human and human language. Jean Aitchison will certainly tell you there is a difference in the two studies, she wrote on both. I read the one of her books that I find dealing with a believeable study.*

As to the view just expressed, there are more problems than one.

  • To St Augustine and to Targum Jonathas (probably really Targum Jerushalmi), Hebrew was not invented by God at Babel, but given by God to Adam. Hebrews kept the pre-Babelic language as a reward for refusing to participate in the building of Babel. Sometimes not being cooperative is a huge help**. Whether "Hebrew" in this context is Hebrew as the language of Mosaic law or more like Aramaic, language of Peschitta and of Syriac liturgy, is another matter. They are closely related. One of them arguably arose at Babel, but the other didn't.

  • No language family has a unique grammar, and grammars do evolve. Let me spell it out, this does not mean men learn to deal with new linguistic modes of thought. We add concepts as society progresses, like "cars" after Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz or like "Platonic forms" after Plato - those are among the subjects we speak about. But we do not add modes of thought. English has 16 tenses, you have simple present and past, and you have up to past future perfect continuous in added complications (I go, I would have been going), and for each, you can in any given sentence find an equivalent in Latin which did not have exact same tenses, or in Greek which didn't either. In some cases the one or other language has an ambiguity and a choice needs to be made in translating, but mainly your categories of thought are the same, even if verb tenses or other morphological categories partly expressing them are not. But this said, language families involve diverse grammars, like English, Swedish, German all being Germanic and all having differences in grammar. And grammars do evolve over time, these three have added and subtracted somewhat different parts of original Germanic (if there was such a thing) language.


Let us now look up a word by St. Thomas, I'll only take objection 2, answer to objection 2 and also a highlight from that answer:

S. Th. Suppl. III ptis Question 41. The sacrament of Matrimony as directed to an office of nature
Article 1. Whether matrimony is of natural law?
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5041.htm#article1


Objection 2. Further, that which is of natural law is found in all men with regard to their every state. But matrimony was not in every state of man, for as Tully says (De Inv. Rhet.), "at the beginning men were savages and then no man knew his own children, nor was he bound by any marriage tie," wherein matrimony consists. Therefore it is not natural.

...

Reply to Objection 2. The assertion of Tully may be true of some particular nation, provided we understand it as referring to the proximate beginning of that nation when it became a nation distinct from others; for that to which natural reason inclines is not realized in all things, and this statement is not universally true, since Holy Writ states that there has been matrimony from the beginning of the human race.

Highlight: referring to the proximate beginning of that nation when it became a nation distinct from others.


This means, nations have been forming after Babel, after the forming of 72 nations. Both by severing ties and by convergence.

There is no such thing as a complete Indo-European grammar. The fact that there is Indo-European Comparative Grammar means, languages counted as Indo-European have different grammars, that can be compared because they are different. There are at least two different approaches to that comparison : either they started out as one language which diversified into dialects becoming more and more incomprehensible to each other (Latin and Greek, Latin and Gaulish, Germanic and Latin, Germanic and Gaulish, all these pairs involve neighbouring "branches of" Indo-European and all of them are in historic times incomprehensible other than by learning a second language or any other situation of bilingualism or polyglottery).

The other approach is, they were different languages when they started and they approached each others like unrelated but neighbouring languages do. Most languages on the Balkan are Indo-European, but Albanian, Greek, Slavic and Romance are four different "branches", and Turkish is not even Indo-European, nevertheless there are commonalities of Balkan languages, Romanian Romance and Bulgarian Slavic sharing things beyond what Spanish Romance and Ukrainean Slavic share, because Bulgarian and Romanian have been spoken in an area close by to each other with many overlaps and many bilinguals fluent in both, whereas Ukrainean and Spanish have not been so spoken. The very founder of Balkan linguistics, Trubetskoy, took this approach to Indo-European too.

If I take it, there are two reasons.

  • 1) we know speakers of Greek descend from Iavan, we know speakers of Persian, insofar as Medes, descend from Madai (it is possible the descendants of Madai originally spoke Elamite, which is not Persian, not Indo-European, as far as any palaeo-linguists have been able to decipher), we know speakers of Lydian descend from Lud the Semite, we know (with some probability) that Crete and Cyprus descend from Caphthorim and that pre-Greek languages there also were what we now call Indo-European : therefore it would seem all these people got radically different languages at Babel, but they coalesced since, perhaps even with a try at making an esperanto (which failed, but influenced all languages involved in the project). This is even reinforced if Aryan or Indo-Iranic came from Caphthorim on Crete and one linguist tried to identify, though he took back as too little supported, an identification of palaeo-Cretan, the language of Linear A, with Aryan.
  • 2) Merrit Ruhlen considers all 6000 languages on earth belong to 32 large language families (one of them being Indo-European), and with 32 language families for an original 72 languages, there are three options : instant affinity (which to some extent must hold true of Semitic languages, if Hebrew was pre-Babel, whichever Hebrew it was, unless there were borrowings from Hebrew in order to make some lingua franca between very diverse Near East languages), death of some families totally (this would be the case with Elamite anyway, as well as with Sumerian, as it is generally thought, though Sumerian could have been Nimrod's try at a lingua franca after Babel and could have influenced Fenno-Ugric, Altaic, partly Indo-European - which looks like a bridge between Fenno-Ugric and Semitic - and perhaps also Bantu or Dravidic : with lots of change inbetween), or third, some of the 72 coalesce in larger groups.


Either way, grammars do change, they do evolve.

After Latin future "amabit" and present perfect "amavit" were both pronounced *"amaβi(t)", Latin got itself, or Romance got itself, a new future by saying *"amare (h)aβe(t)" and added a past future *"amare (h)aβe(β)a(t)" (letters in parentheses as per Classical etyma, probably not pronounced). AND this was used to replace one usage of Latin imperfect subjunctive, though that form also still exists in parallel. In parallel, cases of nouns were reduced in number, to two, now one, when it comes to direct ending-morphology, this being replaced by prepositions and by word order. Romanian is an exception, since spoken on Balkan ... it has four cases. Again, this does not mean languages have "evolved" from primitive to advanced. Whatever you can say in French clearly, you can say in Latin clearly. Only puns and other ambiguity are untranslatable between most pairs of two languages.

There was a kind of fad among linguists or perhaps rather non-linguists who had smelled a little on linguistics, to consider older synthetic languages as "backward" and newer analytic ones as "advanced", but apart from associations with pairs like Catholic vs Protestant or Christian vs Atheist or Royalism vs Republic or Aristocrat vs Industrialist, this fad had little to back it up. Whatever a language is used for, it will excel in expressing. If a word lacks, it can be borrowed and adapted to the existing grammar. Classical Greek had no word for gun (however much Tolkien might have liked there to be one for the blunderbuss of Farmer Giles), and so, any text involving guns you translate to Classical Greek (and you do that when learning it) you borrow the Modern Greek word for gun, which is in its turn borrowed from Turkish : τουφεκι. Or you can use parts of the language itself, like when you like my Latin professor call a beer opener "decapsulator" (he obviously translated crown cork as "capsula"). But the modes of thought were already there and already expressable. And are still in some languages (like Greek, Romanian, German, Icelandic, Russian, Lithuanian) expressed in a more synthetic way than English or Persian do. The supposed progress was not such, and you must be really bad at acquiring fluency in Latin before you consider the progression from Latin to French as a progress parallel to human language evovling from animal noises (whether grunts or "bird song" type).

This fad, more than real linguistic theories (the ones dealing with historic linguistics and with socio-linguistics, not "metalinguistics" about origin of language) is probably what the contrasting idea was referring to. I have seen non-linguists pretend "languages evolve, we know that, because linguistics study it" ... which is like saying dog breeds evolve. No bearing at all on evolution in the larger scale sense.

But no language family has a unique grammar, since all have diverse grammars and since also grammatic traits are shared often enough across grammars, and whatever has a complete grammar is a language, not a language family. Nor do language families extant today match the 72 nations just after Babel, see the explanation from St. Thomas Aquinas.

That said, 72 grammars were invented and given as complete grammars to the families of 72 different men. Each group has spoken Hebrew previously (also a complete grammar given by God, Adam only invented certain words in it, when naming animals), each had linguistic competence in Hebrew, each had its linguistics involving memories involving Hebrew linguistics. And one evening, neighbours in Babel were taking farewell with a "laila tov" and next morning they tried to communicate one saying "good morning" and the other "buenos dias". In the meantime, God or his angels had given each linguistic competence in a new language (this angels can do, also devils, which is why omniglots are suspect of being possessed, I'm not an omniglot, btw, I just know Latin and Germanic in more than one dialect each - and know a lot about languages I cannot speak or understand). God alone permantly removed competence in Hebrew. God alone permanently reshifted all memories involving language from Hebrew to whatever new language they had been given.***

Probably, the Hebrew spoken just after Babel differed in detail from that spoken by Moses, like shifts in pronunciation. Equally probably, if a text had been written in Hebrew just after Babel, and left as such, not updated for linguistic changes, Moses would have had problems, but not insurmountable ones, in understanding it, as we would with a text 1046 back in the past of any language we have fluency in, and this said mainly of the ones which changed least, like since 972, English not being one of those. Except of course, if the original Hebrew was Aramaic, as it was later the probable native and one certain everyday language of Our Lord.

As for Indo-European, the earliest language belonging to that group has its earliest text - a decree by Anitta - from times so carbon dated that they arguably at least could be after Exodus and certainly are not much older than Exodus. This leaves plenty of time after Babel for the language, whatever group of speakers it originally belonged to (Gomerites of Kappadocia being one good guess) to have influenced and been influenced by neighbouring languages, in a way even more drastic than English has changed in the meanwhile.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Lucy of Sicily
13.XII.2018

PS, one rule of good writing being "make sure what you said means what you meant it to mean and can mean nothing else" and being tired, and compared to some swags, I wrote one sentence violating this. "in a way even more drastic than English has changed in the meanwhile." I was not comparing English between 2556 BC and 1510 BC but between the equal while of 972 AD to 2018 AD. Unclarity, if only such to those willing to misunderstand, removed, I hope./HGL

PPS, I left one Shungir after already recorrecting it is Sunghir. My bad, same excuse as previous./HGL

PPPS - previous paragraph unlocked:

Theistic evolutionism holds that God created matter and natural laws in the beginning, and then used billions of years of natural processes, including death, destruction, mutations, and disease, to produce the various kinds of living things, including the human body. Generally speaking, theistic evolutionists deny the historicity of Genesis 1-11 and believe that Noah’s Flood was a local food, that the Tower of Babel incident never actually happened, and that human languages evolved from primitive to more complex over long periods of time.


"human languages evolved from primitive to more complex over long periods of time," - only if Theistic Evolutionists are not Linguists, even Evolutionist ones. Language change concerns languages, the thing outlined here is a theory of language capacity, prior to differentiations./HGL

* Language Change: Progress or Decay?
(Cambridge Approaches to Linguistics) 3rd Edition, Kindle Edition, by Jean Aitchison (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Language-Change-Cambridge-Approaches-Linguistics-ebook/dp/B000VDKBV4


** Another such occasion may be upcoming:

How to Refuse the RFID Chip Like a BOSS...
Dana Ashlie | 21.VIII.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8w7VG_powU


*** Removing a linguistic competence permanently without damaging the faculty, as when it was replaced by another linguistic competence, or reshaping irretrievably, not by suggestion, but by definite rewriting, memories of a human soul, that is beyond angelic nature, and can have been done by God alone.

lundi 10 décembre 2018

Fr. Vigoroux on Fathers - is Day-Epoch Still an Option?


David Palm, a fairly devout Novus Ordo Catholic or Vatican II Catholic, or perhaps rather Fr. Robinson, whoever of them is writing "The Realist Guide", has done us the favour to quote Fr. Fulcran Vigoroux, a Sulpician.

We have mentioned that Saint Augustine and the Venerable Bede said that the seventh day did not have an evening; but neither of them held nor suspected the idea of what is today called the day-epoch. All the efforts that have been made to interpret some texts of the Bishop of Hippo in this sense have been fruitless. How could he have maintained that the six days of Genesis designated a long space of time when he taught that they only signified an instant? Several passages of the Fathers that we have cited[viii] attest that they saw clearly that the Bible uses the word ‘day’ in an indefinite sense. But, because of the level of science at their time, they could not have imagined making an application of this sense to the first chapter of Genesis. We cannot doubt, however, that many of them, in conformity with their principles, would have adopted the system of the day-epoch, if they lived today.

From : The Fathers' Understanding of Genesis 1
29 novembre 2018 | Religion article
https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/the-fathers-understanding-of-genesis-1


So, back in his day, one may presume, day-epoch was an option, somewhat attractive to someone considering the Bible inerrant, but the sense of the word "day" in Genesis 1 pliable in other directions than just to infinitely shorter. In his day? He lived in 1837-1915. This was before carbon dating.

Why is the significant? Because his main clue for deep time would have been "pre-Flood cataclysms" (Cuvier style) and stellar distances as well as star formation. Grant him six days as being millions or perhaps even billions of years long, and presumably, he would carry on Biblical chronology from Creation of Adam as previously.

Note very well, that for post-Creation Biblical history, there is no such thing as a deep divergence between two groups of Fathers.

Sure, for up to Creation of Adam and Eve, you have the one moment school and the literal six days school (which is actually the more common one). But from Creation of Adam and Eve on, you have all Church Fathers united in one school : it happened as the Bible says it did. In normal years. You have somewhat different schools on how much time between Creation and Christ, you have St Hippolytus and a school represented by George Syncellus and the Byzantines saying that the lapse was 5500 years, you have one Antiochene claiming a somewhat longer space of time (5600 years) and so on. But you don't find one single father attacking the completeness of the geneaology in Luke 3 ... by the way, this is a thing which can be proven or disproven, by going to Catena Aurea.

Thomas Aquinas THE CATENA AUREA
GOSPEL OF SAINT LUKE CHAPTER III
https://dhspriory.org/thomas/english/CALuke.htm#3


And we scroll down to the red in verses 23 to 38. Then the comments below that. In the following, I am quoting, but giving each author separately, instead of long paragraphs with several:

ORIGEN;
Having related our Lord’s baptism, he next enters upon the generation of the Lord, not bringing it down from the higher to the lower, but beginning with Christ, he carries it up to God Himself. Hence he says, And Jesus Himself began. For when He was baptized, and had Himself undergone the mystery of the second birth, then He is said to have begun, that you also mightiest destroy this first birth and be born in the second.

GREG. NAZ.
We must therefore consider who He was who was baptized, and by whom and when: seeing He was pure, baptized by John, and at a time when His miracles had begun, that we might thence derive the lesson of purifying ourselves beforehand, and of embracing humility, and of not beginning to preach until the maturity of our spiritual and natural life. The first of these was said for their sakes who are receiving baptism; for although the gift of baptism brings remission, yet we must fear lest we return again to our vomit. The second is pointed at those who exalt themselves against the stewards of the mysteries, whom they may excel in rank. The third was uttered for those who trust in their youth, and imagine that any age is fit for promotion and teaching. Jesus is cleansed, and cost you despise purification? By John, and cost you say ought against your teacher. At thirty years old, but cost you in teaching precede your elders? But the example of Daniel and the like are ready in your mouth, for every guilty person is ready with an answer. But that is not the law of the Church which seldom happens, as neither does a single swallow make the spring.

CHRYS.
Or, He waited accomplishing the whole law until that age which takes in every sin, that none might say that He abrogated the law because He was not able to fulfill it.

GREEK EX.
For this reason also He came at thirty years to be baptized, to show that spiritual regeneration makes men perfect as far as regards their spiritual life.

BEDE;
The thrice ten years also which our Savior had passed when He was baptized might intimate also the mystery of our baptism, because of the faith in the Trinity, and the obedience to the Decalogue.

GREG. NAZ.
Still must a child be baptized if necessity demands it. For it is better to be insensibly sanctified, than to pass from this life unsealed. But you will say, Christ is baptized at thirty years old, and He was Clod, but you bid us to hasten our baptism. In that you said God, the objection was done away: He needed no cleansing, nor was any danger hanging over Him while He put off His baptism. But with you it extends to no slight calamity, if you pass from this life born in corruption, but not if you have put on the robe of incorruption. And truly it is a blessed thing to keep unsullied the clean robe of baptism, but it is better at times to be slightly stained, than to be altogether devoid of grace.

CYRIL;
Although in truth Christ had no father according to the flesh, yet some fancied he had a father. Hence it follows, As was supposed the son of Joseph.

AMBROSE;
Rightly as was supposed, since in reality He was not, but was supposed to be so, because Mary who was espoused to Joseph was His mother. But we might doubt why the descent of Joseph is described rather than that of Mary, (seeing that Mary brought forth Christ of the Holy Spirit, while Joseph seemed to be out of the line of our Lord’s descent,) were we not informed of the custom of the Holy Scripture, which always seeks the origin of the husband, and especially in this case, since in Joseph’s descent we also find that of Mary. For Joseph being a just man took a wife really from his own tribe and country, and so at the time of the taxing Joseph went up from the family and country of David to be taxed with Mary his wife. She who gives in the returns from the same family and country, shows herself to be of that family and country. Hence He goes on in the descent of Joseph, and adds, Who was the son of Eli. But let us consider the fact, that St. Matthew makes Jacob, who was the father of Joseph, to be son of Nathan, but Luke says that Joseph (to whom Mary was espoused) was the son of Eli. How then could there be two fathers, (namely, Eli and Jacob,) to one man.

GREG. NAZ.
But some say that there is one succession from David to Joseph, which each Evangelist relates under different names. But this is absurd, since at the beginning of this genealogy, two brothers come in Nathan and Salomon, from whom the lines are carried in different ways.

EUSEBIUS.
Let us then more carefully explain the meaning of the words themselves. For if when Matthew affirmed Joseph to be the son of Jacob, Luke had in like manner affirmed that Joseph was the son of Eli, there would be some dispute. But seeing the case is that Matthew gives his opinion, Luke repeats the common opinion of many, not his own, saying, as was supposed, I do not think that there is any room for doubt. For since there were among the Jews different opinions of the genealogy of Christ, and yet all traced Him up to David because to him the promises were made, while many affirmed that Christ would come through Solomon and the other kings, some shunned this opinion because of the many crimes related of their kings, and because Jeremiah said of Jechonias that “a man should not rise of his seed to sit on the throne of David.” This last view Luke takes, though conscious that Matthew gives the real truth of the genealogy. This is the first reason. The next is a deeper one. For Matthew when he began to write of the things before the conception of Mary and the birth of Jesus in the flesh, very fitly as in a history commences with the ancestry in the flesh, and descending from thence deduces His generation from those who went before. For when the Word of God became flesh, He descended. But Luke hastens forward to the regeneration which takes place in baptism, and then gives another succession of families, and rising up from the lowest to the highest, keeps out of sight those sinners of whom Matthew makes mention, (because that he who is born again in God is separated from his guilty parents, being made the son of God,) and relates those who have led a virtuous life in the sight of God. For thus it was said to Abraham, You shall set out to your fathers, not fathers in the flesh, but in God, on account of their likeness in virtue. To him therefore who is born in God he ascribes parents who are according to God on account of this resemblance in character.

AUG.
Or in another way; Matthew descends from David through Salomon to Joseph: but Luke beginning from Eli, who was in the line of our Savior, ascends through the line of; Nathan the son of David, and joins the tribes of Eli and Joseph, showing that they are both of the same family, and thereby that the Savior was not only the Son of Joseph, but also of Eli. For by the same reason by which the Savior is called the son of Joseph, he is also the son of Eli, and of all the rest who are of the same tribe. Hence that which the Apostle says, Of whom are the fathers, and from whom. Christ came according to the flesh.

AUG.
Or there occur three reasons, by one of which the Evangelist was led. For either one Evangelist has mentioned the father by whom Joseph was, begotten, but the other his maternal grandfather, or some one of his ancestors. Or one of the fathers mentioned was the natural father of Joseph, the other his father who had adopted him. Or after the manner of the Jews, when a man has died without children, the next of kin taking his wife ascribes to his dead kinsman the son whom he has himself begotten.

AMBROSE;
For it is related that Matthas, who was descended from Salomon, begat Jacob as his son, and died leaving his wife living, whom Melchi took unto him as wife, and from her Eli was born. Again, Eli, when his brother Jacob died without children, was joined to his brother’s wife, and begot a son Joseph, who according to law is called the son of Jacob, since Eli raised up seed to his deceased brother, according to the: order of the ancient law.

BEDE;
Or else, Jacob, taking the wife of his brother Eli who had died without children according to the command of the law, begot Joseph, by natural parentage his own son, but by the ordinance of the law the son of Eli.

AUG.
It is most probable that Luke took the origin by adoption, as not being willing to say that Joseph, was begotten by him whose son he related him to be. For more easily is a man said to be his son by whom he was adopted, than to be begotten by him from whose flesh he was not born. But Matthew saying, “Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob,” and continuing in the word “begat,” until at last he says, but “Jacob begat Joseph,” has sufficiently expressed that he has carried through the succession of the fathers, to that father by whom Joseph was not adopted, but begotten. Although even supposing that Luke should say that Joseph was begotten by Eli, neither ought that word to perplex us. For it is not absurd to say that a man has begotten not in the flesh but in love the Son whom he has adopted. But rightly has Luke taken the origin by adoption, for by adoption are we made the sons of God, by believing on the Son of God, but by His birth in the flesh, the Son of God has rather for our sakes become the Son of man.

CHRYS
But because this part of the Gospel consists of a series of names, men think there is nothing valuable to be derived therefrom. Lest then we should feel this, let us try to examine every step. For from the mere name we may extract an abundant treasure, for names are indicative of many things. For they savor of the Divine mercy and the offerings of thanks by women, who when they obtained sons gave a name significant of the gift.

GLOSS.
By interpretation then Eli means, “My God,” or “climbing”; Who was the son of Matthat, i.e. “forgiving sins.” Who was as the son of Levi, i.e. “being added.”

AMBROSE;
Luke rightly thought, seeing that he could not embrace more of the sons of Jacob, lest he should seem to be wandering from the line of descent in a superfluous course, that the ancient names of the Patriarchs though occurring in others far later, Joseph Judah, Simeon, and Levi, should not be omitted. For we recognize in these four kinds of virtue; in Judah, the mystery of our Lord’s Passion prophesied by figure; in Joseph, an example of chastity going before; in Simeon the punishment of injured modesty; in Levi, the priestly office. Hence it follows, Who was the son of Melchi, i.e. “my King.” Who was the son of Janna, i.e. “a right hand”. Who was the son of Joseph, i.e. “growing up,” but this was a different Joseph. Who was the son of Mattathias, i.e. “the gift of God,” or “sometimes.” Who was the son of Amos, i.e. “loading, or he loaded.” Who was the son of Naum i.e. “help me.” Who was the son of Matthat i.e. “desire.” Who was the son of Mattathias, as above. Who was the son of Simei, i.e. “obedient.” Who was the son of Joseph, i.e. “increase.” Who was the son of Judah, i.e. “confessing.” Joanna, “the Lord, his grace,” or “the gracious Lord.” Resa, “merciful.” Zorobabel, “chief or master of Babylon.” Salathiel, “God my petition.” Neri, “my lanthern.” Melchi, “my kingdom.” Addi, “strong or violent.” Cosam, “divining.” Her, “watching, or watch, or of skins.” Who was the son of Jesus i.e. “Savior.” Eliezer, i. e. “God my helper.” Joarim, i.e. “God exalting, or, is exalting.” Matthat, as above. Levi, as above. Simeon, i.e. “He has heard the sadness, or the sign.” Juda, as above. Joseph, as above. Jonah, a dove, or wailing. Eliachim, i.e. “the resurrection of God.” Melchi, i.e. “his king.” Menan, i.e. “my bowels.” Mattathias, i.e. “gift.” Nathan, i.e. “He gave, or, of giving.”

AMBROSE;
But by Nathan we perceive expressed the dignify of Prophecy, that as Christ Jesus alone fulfilled all things, in each of His ancestors different kinds of virtue might precede Him. It follows, Who was the son of David.

ORIGEN;
The Lord descending into the world took upon Him the person of all sinners, and was willing to be born of the stock of Solomon, (as Matthew relates,) whose sins have been written down, and of the rest, many of whom did evil in the sight of God. But when He ascended, and is described as being born a second time in baptism, (as Luke relates,) He is not born through Salomon, but Nathan, who reproves the father for the death of Uriah, and the birth of Solomon.

AUG.
But it must be confessed that a prophet of this same name reproves David, that he might be thought to be the same man, whereas he was different.

GREG. NAZ.
From David upwards according to each Evangelist there is an unbroken line of descent; as it follows, Who was the son of Jesse.

GLOSS.
David is interpreted, “with a mighty arm, strong in fight.” Obith, i.e. “slavery.” Booz, i.e. “strong.” Salmon, i.e. “capable of feeling, or peacemaking.” Naasson, i.e. “augury, or belonging to serpents.” Aminadal, “the people being willing.” Aram, i.e. “upright, or lofty.” Esro1n, i.e. “an arrow.” Phares, i.e. “division.” Judah, i.e. “confessing.” Who was the son of Jacob, i.e. “supplanted.” Isaac, i.e. “laughing or joy.” Abraham, i.e. “the father of many nations, or the people.”

CHRYS.
Matthew, who wrote as for the Jews, had no further object than to show that Christ proceeded from Abraham and David, for this was most grateful to the Jews. Luke however, as speaking to all men in common, carried his account beyond as far even as Adam. Hence it follows, Who was the son of Thara.

GLOSS.
Which is interpreted, “finding out,” or “wickedness.” Nachor, i.e. “the light rested.” Sarug, i.e. “correction,” or “holding the reins,” or “perfection.” Ragan, i.e. “sick,” or “feeding.” Phares, i.e. “dividing,” or “divided.” Heber, i.e. “passing over.” Sala, i.e. “taking away.” Canuan, i.e. “lamentation,” or “their possession.”

BEDE;
The name and generation of Cainan, according to the Hebrew reading, is found neither in Genesis, nor in the Chronicles, but Arphaxad is states to have begot Sala his son, without any one intervening. Know then that Luke borrowed this generation from the Septuagint, where it is written, that Arphaxad at a hundred and thirty-five years old begot Cainan, but he at a hundred and thirty years begot Sala. It follows, Who was the son of Arphaxad.

GLOSS.
i.e. “healing the laying waste.” Sem, i.e. “a name,” or being “named.” Who was the son of Noah, i.e. “rest.”

AMBROSE;
The mention of just Noah ought not to be omitted among our Lord’s generations, that as our Lord was born the builder of His Church, He might seem to have sent Noah beforehand, the author of His race, who had before founded the Church under the type of an ark. Who was the son of Lambech.

GLOSS.
i.e. “humility, or striking, or struck, or humble.” Who was the son of Mathusalem, i.e. “the sending forth of death,” or “he died,” also “he asked.”

AMBROSE;
His years are numbered beyond the deluge that since Christ is the only one whose life experiences no age, in His ancestors also He might seem to have felt not the deluge. Who was the son of Enoch. And here is a manifest declaration of our Lord’s piety and divinity, since our Lord neither experienced death, and returned to heaven, the founder of whose race was taken up into heaven. Whence it is plain that Christ could not die, but was willing that His death should profit us. And Enoch indeed was taken, that his heart might not change by wickedness, but the Lord, whom the wickedness of the world could not change, returned to that place whence He had come by the greatness of His own nature.

BEDE;
But rightly rising up from the baptized Son of God to God the Father, he places Enoch in the seventy seventh step, who, having put off death, was translated unto Paradise, that he might signify that those, who by the grace of adoption of sons are born again of water and the Holy Spirit, are in the mean time (after the dissolution of the body) to be received into eternal rest, for the number seventy, because of the seventh of the sabbath, signifies the rest of those who, the grace of God assisting them, have fulfilled the decalogue of the law.

GLOSS;
Enoch is interpreted “dedication.” Jared, i.e. descending or “holding together.” Malaleleel, i.e. “the praised of God,” or “praising God.” Cainan, as above. Enos, i.e. “man,” or “despairing,” or “violent.” Seth, i.e. “placing,” “settling,” “he has placed.” Seth, the last son of Adam, is not omitted, that as there were two generations of people, it might be signified under a figure that Christ was to be reckoned rather in the last than the first.

It follows, Who was the son of Adam.

GLOSS.
Which is “man,” or “of the earth,” or “needy.” Who was the son of God.

AMBROSE;
What could better agree than that the holy generation should commence from the Son of God, and be carried up even to the Son of God; and that he who was created should precede in a figure, in order that he who was born might follow in substance, so that he who was made after the image of God might go before, for whose sake the image of God was to descend. For Luke thought that the origin of Christ should be referred to God, because God is the true progenitor of Christ, or the Father according to the true birth, or the Author of the mystical gift according to baptism and regeneration, and therefore he did not from the first begin to describe His generation, but not till after he had unfolded His baptism, that both by nature and by grace he might declare Him to be the Son of God. But what more evident sign of His divine generation than that when about to speak of it St. Luke introduces first the Father, saying, You are my beloved Son?

AUG.
He sufficiently declared by this that he called not Joseph the son of Eli because he was begotten by him, but rather because he was adopted by him, for he has called also Adam himself son, since though made by God, yet by grace (which he forfeited by sin) he was placed as a son in paradise.

THEOPHYL.
For this reason he closes the generations in God, that we may learn that those fathers who intervene, Christ will raise up to God, and make them sons of God, and that it might be believed also that the birth of Christ was without seed; as if he said, If you believes” not that the second Adam was made without seed, you must come to the first Adam, and you will find that he was made by God without seed.

AUG.
Matthew indeed wished to set forth God descending to our mortality; accordingly at the beginning of the Gospel he recounted the generations from Abraham to the birth of Christ in a descending scale. But Luke, not at the beginning, but after the baptism of Christ, relates the generation not descending but ascending, as if marking out rather the high priest in the expiation of sins, of whom John bore testimony, saying, Behold, who takes away the sins of the world. But by ascending he comes to God, to whom we are reconciled, being cleansed and expiated.

AMBROSE;
Nor do the Evangelists seem so to differ who have followed the old order, nor can you wonder if from Abraham down to Christ there are more successions according to Luke, fewer according to Matthew, since you must admit the line to have been traced through different persons. But it might be that some men have passed a very long life, but the men of the next generation have died at an early age, since we see how many old men live to see their grandchildren, while others depart as soon as they have sons born to them.

AUG.
But most fitly with regard to our baptized Lord does Luke reckon the generations through seventy-seven persons. For both the ascent to God is expressed, to whom we are reconciled by the abolition of sins, and by baptism is brought to man the remission of all his sins, which are signified by that number. For eleven times seven are seventy-seven. But by the tenth number is meant perfect happiness. Hence it is plain that the going beyond the tenth marks the sin of one through pride coveting to have more. But this is said to be seven times to signify that the transgression was caused by the moving of man. For by the third number the immortal part of man is represented, but by the fourth the body. But motion is not expressed in numbers, as when we say, one, two, three; but when we say, once, twice, thrice. And so by seven times eleven, is signified a transgression wrought by man’s action.


So, Fathers are NOT willing to consider genealogy of Luke 3 as fragmentary. From Adam on, Biblical chronology holds.

Presumably, it did so for Fr. Vigoroux too.

Now, of the methods that are used to make time look older than 5500 BC, catastrophism or even uniformitarianism as to geology are far from precise. The most precise method we have now, at least relatively, is Carbon 14. And it is either a test for Biblical chronology, or Biblical chronology is a test for it.

5500 BC as archaeology dates with carbon 14, no wait, the wiki article actually goes about all of 6th millennium BC:

Near East
c. 6000 BC: The Chalcolithic comes to the Fertile Crescent. (Roux 1980) First use of copper in Near East.[2]
c. 6000 BC: Brick building was taking place at modern-day Çatalhöyük, Turkey.[3][page needed]
Agriculture appears in the Nile valley.
c. 6000 BC–5900 BC: Earliest evidence of wine, Georgia.[4]
c. 5800 BC: The Hassuna culture in Mesopotamia (t. 5500 BC), with the earliest version of stamp seals. (Roux 1980)
c. 5500 BC: Beginning of Tell Zeidan in Syria (Ubaid).
c. 6th millennium BC: Beginning of Teppe Hasanlu in Iran.
c. 6th millennium BC: Beginning of Zayandeh River Culture in Iran, including Sialk.
c. 5500 BC–4800 BC: Samarra culture at Mesopotamia (present day Iraq) begins (c. 5700 BC – 4900 BC C-14, 6640 BC – 5816 BC calBC).
c. 5400 BC: Irrigation and the beginning of the Sumerian civilization in Southern Iraq.
c. 5100 BC: Temples founded in southern Mesopotamia.
c. 5000 BC: Metsamor Armenia neolithic stone circles.

Europe
Main article: Neolithic Europe
c. 6000 BC: Fully Neolithic agriculture has spread through Anatolia to the Balkans. (1967 McEvedy)
c. 6000 BC: Cycladic culture begin to use a coarse local type of clay to make a variety of objects.
c. 6000 BC: Female figurines holding serpents are fashioned on Crete and may have been associated with water, regenerative power and protection of the home.
c. 5900 BC: Vinča culture emerges on the shores of lower Danube.
c. 5900 BC: Beginning of human inhabitation in Malta.[5]
c. 5500 BC: Beginning of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the region of modern-day Romania, Moldova, and southwestern Ukraine.
c. 5500 BC: Earliest evidence of cheese-making (Kujawy, Poland).[6]
c. 5500 BC Danubian culture
c. late 6th and early 5th millennium BC: Beginning of Samara culture at the Samara bend region of the middle Volga, Russia.

South Asia
c. 6000 BC: Junglefowl kept in India.
c. 5500 BC: Pottery at Mehrgarh in current-day Balochistan, Pakistan.

China
c. 5800 BC: Beginning of the Dadiwan culture in China.
c. 5500 BC: Beginning of the Xinle culture in China.
c. 5400 BC: Beginning of the Zhaobaogou culture in China.
c. 5300 BC: Beginning of the Beixin culture in China.
c. 5000 BC: Beginning of the Hemudu culture in China, cultivation of rice.[7]
c. 5000 BC: Beginning of the Daxi culture in China.
c. 5000 BC: Beginning of the Majiabang culture in China.
c. 5000 BC: Beginning of the Yangshao culture in China.

New World
The oldest forms of Sydney rock engravings are estimated to date to 6000 BC (Sydney, Australia).[8]
c. 5600 BC: The Red Paint People become established in the region from present-day Labrador to the state of New York.
c. 5000 BC: Agriculture may have begun in the Americas.[3][page needed]


In other words, if the carbon dates are absolutely correct, Adam would be only a small trickling contribution in the world population overall at the time. And we can just forget about him having lived in a world where four rivers came from a common source, two of them being Euphrates and Tigris.

On the other hand, if the carbon dates are only relatively correct, there is a way of fitting this into Biblical chronology. All of this is after Babel, but before Genesis 13 and Genesis 14. Here are values from my table:

2327 BC
62.622 pmc, 6177 BC

Serug *
2294 BC

2288 BC
64.991 pmc, 5838 BC

...

2209 BC
69.694 pmc, 5209 BC

Eber +
2186 BC

2170 BC
72.031 pmc, 4870 BC


For the 1307 years between 6177 and 4870 BC, you have only 157 years between 2327 and 2170 BC. We are talking of birth of Serug and death of Eber.

In case you are very new to my blog, you may wonder what three decimal pmc values are about. They are the reconstructed level of carbon 14 back in that year on the atmosphere. They determine how much "instant age" a sample from then would have had. Example:

2327 BC, the carbon level was 62.622 pmc, that is the proportion of carbon 14 in relation to carbon 12 was 62.622 percent of the present value. This means 3850 extra years. If you add 3850 to the real date 2327 BC, you get 3850 + 2327 = "6177 BC" as the carbon date. Some of them - in fact all four of these - are my intercalations. Some are however built on a realistic correspondence of carbon dated such and such with Biblically dated so and so. The intercalated values are based on these. As carbon level rose, extra years decreased down to none, when carbon level reached present level (after Exodus).

Creation vs. Evolution : Refining table Flood to Abraham - and a doubt
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/05/refining-table-flood-to-abraham-and.html


So, no, we cannot have a pre-Adam day-epoch style "day six" in 6000 BC, we need to have the "6000 BC" in post-Adam, that is, with inflated carbon dates. Therefore, it makes sense to question the less precise methods also, on which Fr. Vigoroux relied too much.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Melchiad, Pope and Martyr
10.XII.2018

PS. After reviewing the post where I go the overall site in the first place, David Palm was saying it was Father Paul Robertson, I missed it./HGL

samedi 8 décembre 2018

Carbon Dating and Belfast Series


Went to "My" Topic, Ignored My Work · Carbon Dating and Belfast Series

I can basically only endorse what Gavin Cox says about treering dating here*:

That being said, the Belfast data is a well-known example of a lengthy, (claimed) continuous tree ring chronology, from AD 5 – 2006, but this particular example (methodological assumptions aside) is obviously not a problem for the biblical time-scale. I also mention supposed agreement for bristlecone pine (BCP) tree rings in my article, but that depends on matching rings from living and dead trees (“prone wood”) that has been 14C dated to multiple thousands of years.


His discussion of BCP series is here*:

Significantly for biblical creationists, a timeline for the growth of bristle-cone pines (BCPs) (Pinus longaeva), growing in the White Mountains of eastern California, has been calculated at 8,700 years. One tree dubbed ‘Methuselah’ has been tree-ring counted to 4,600 years, which, assuming the chronology of the Masoretic text for the Old Testament, places it well before the Flood, which is clearly incorrect. CMI has pointed out that BCPs can grow multiple rings per year, due to their dry environment. Extended chronology relies upon correlation of prone dead wood, with similar ring structures, which are then dated using 14C. Where overlaps with ‘identical’ ring structures are found, the chronology is considered to be extended. This is a highly subjective endeavour, which also implies prone wood lay around on the ground without rotting for thousands of years, which is demonstrably false. The entire method of 14C dendrochronology correlation is therefore an exercise in circular reasoning.


I'd disagree on Methusalem, since I think the Flood occurred 5000 or 5300 years ago (2957 or 3266 BC, to be somewhat more precise), depending on which version of the LXX chronology (Roman Martyrology of St. Jerome, as I have seen it attribued, or Byzantine of George Syncellus) is the correct one, Masoretic not being so, but being changed in order to accomodate an equation Shem = Melchisedec in polemics against Epistle to the Hebrews.

Now, it is also to be noted that similar ring structures may sound a good bet, if you narrow it down to identical. However, identical is not exactly what you get. OK, if you stay in one place, theoretically you can get that too. There is an early exercise in carbon 14 and ring tree dating with a very close match for a certain Pueblo in, I think Arizona. But this is concerning trees from a very restricted area and only concerns last pre-Columbian centuries - the dates could perhaps even be checked against indigenous narratives taken up by Spanish missionaries, if any. Or confirm narratives taken up centuries later by American folklorists.

But the further back in time you go, the wider you have to search to find wood, just to get a match for each year (if you have even one gap in dendro, you cannot determine if it is 1 year or 3000 years except by using other methods, the only reliable one that for back being narrative). This means, you need to accept imprecise matches. Similar, but not identic ones.

And even more, if you are dealing with small pieces of wood, maybe an identic one for ten or twenty rings is no real proof, since it might not be unique in time and space - you might need more material to get that. Hence, further back dendrochronology goes, the more it is taking a chance.

So, no, dendro is so far as I know not an independent way of calibrating 14C dates to 6,700 BC.

That said, CMI is being incomplete on the issue. 14C is used very regularly for very basic datings in the close to present. A statue from Benin, is it from Benin's Golden Age (including Golden Age of slavery, but that is another matter) from 1400 AD? Or is it from 1900 AD, that is a later imitation of the style, or even outright forgery? You ask someone to take a sample from a not too conspicuous part of the statue and you 14C-test that sample.

This means, there is a section of 14C-dating which is very parallel to the Belfast series. Now, Gavin Cox has explained very well why Belfast series is reliable (it is connected to trees known in the present and from so recent times that wood can be sampled from a fairly small region in fairly big chunks with fairly many rings), while other series are not (they are disconnected from Belfast series, their connection to time involves 14C-dates, they are from so far back that samples are smaller and from a wider area than would be really useful).

For 14C-dating, I'd appreciate a similar approach. Show why 14C-dating is reliable when dating sth from Gettysburg (if needed) but unreliable (as it definitely is in absolute dates) when it comes to dating Göbekli Tepe.

Hint : 14C-dates are different from tree ring dates. In a tree ring dating, each date depends on the one before that more recent in time and closer to when ring dates coincided with AD dated Gregorian calendar dated tree growth. So, one disconnect is enough to send a pan of 500 years (which possibly could be correctly dated internally in relative dates) floating on whenever its end is however long before the next series that is connected, whegther one connected to present or one not directly so connected.

This should imply : 14C-dating depending on another assumption, it has another set of problems. Let's identify them as candidly as Gavin Cox did with dendro! And first, let's identify Gavin Cox' candidness on this matter.

Bill N. of Australia
There are over 100 C14 labs doing a total of 10s of thousands at least of tests annually. If C14 is so unreliable, why haven't researchers who send their specimens for testing noticed it? What does CMI do to disillusion them?

Gavin Cox
But, contrary to your comment, researchers have actually noticed anomalous results for their samples for decades, and CMI has simply reported on their results. There was a major study of 14C reported by the RATE team (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth) back in 2005. They listed 90 peer-reviewed papers, going back to 1984, that reported anomalous results for 14C in samples supposedly 100,000 to multi-million-years (in the evolutionary time-scale). Of course, this is an impossible situation, unless these ancient materials are young—which we believe they are.


Gavin Cox has at best misunderstood the actual argument. The vast majority of the thousands of tests annually are NOT concerned with very old dates for which such anomalies (which only are so on Uniformitarian view, not for 14C per se), but simply with things like this coroner deciding whether such and such a skeleton belongs to the battle of the Marne or the rampages of a later serial killer, whether it should go to war memorial or to coroner for investigation and for families that are kin to victims of the stabber. And the more like near totality do not show this kind of so called anomalies.

What is 90 peer reviewed papers compared to more than 34 000 tests with no such anomaly (we are 34 years after 1984, and there are thousands of tests per year)?

Now, seing that Gavin Cox is not quite helpful, what is?

The assumption which is most likely to be wrong in a dating conflicting with Biblical chronology is not uniform speed of decay, whatever Setterfield and his fan Habermehl may think of that, it is how much the initial carbon was at.

If Göbekli Tepe organic samples had c. 100 pmC when they stopped breathing, Göbekli Tepe is 11 600 to 10 600 years back in time. If on the other hand Göbekli Tepe is Babel, between death of Noah and birth of Peleg, between 350 and 401 after the Flood, perhaps not all of these years, then for one thing the earliest and lowest layers as well as the highest and most recent ones started out with less than 50 pmC when they stopped breathing, and for another, the at most 51 years (I'd go for 40, though) are only spreading out to 1000 years because during this time, 14C is on the rise.

And this is my option. The things that are a definite anomaly to uniformitarians, 14C from layers supposed to be over 100,000 years old, and which is noted as an anomaly for Uniformitarians by Baumgartner, well, we as knowing better should be giving an account making it no more anomalous, I do, the "every level in the Phanerozoic portion [life-bearing] of the geological record" is simply usually either buried during Flood or during early post-Flood mudslides, and that means we can start calculating what the 14C level was at the Flood, 350 years before Göbekli Tepe started and 401 years before Peleg was born (and if you think Peleg was born just 101 years after the Flood, as per Masoretic with Vulgate text, you run into a problem, a too steep rise in 14C levels).

Perhaps my work has been ignored simply for the fact that as a Catholic, I don't feel bound to promote Jewish tradition over Catholic or Orthodox tradition, and therefore also not bound to take Vulgate over Roman Martyrology or Historia Scholastica. Let alone King James. (Which on top of being Masoretic in OT is also mistranslating the Greek of the NT, as in "repetitions" for Matthew 6:7**). My work is ignored, because it challenges the Protestantism of these usually Protestant researchers, indirectly, but if you scratch the surface, after all rather firmly.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
8.XII.2018

PS, in case you argue I am just a blogger, how about checking out this piece of news:

One Man's Discovery Sinks Major Climate Study
Bill Whittle | 15.XI.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpLVRPJnL4M


* The two articles are:

14C dating—who is fooling who?
Published: 8 December 2018 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/carbon-dating-fooling-who


How old? When archaeology conflicts with the Bible
by Gavin Cox, Published: 1 November 2018 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/how-old-archaeology-conflicts-bible


** Matthew 6:7 in King James. And in Douay Rheims. Link to discussion of meaning of battologein.

mercredi 5 décembre 2018

Natufians : Recovering Agriculture towards end of Noah's life or after he died, leading up to Babel (link)


That is not how these guys date it, but 14 400 years ago = 12 400 BC carbon dated, I presume, and that would be ... around the birth of Eber:

2735 BC
27.388 pmc 13 435 BC

Eber *
2690 - 91 BC
32.588 pmc 11 941 BC


So, here is the link the title promised:

Found: 14,400-Year-Old Flatbread Remains That Predate Agriculture
by Paula Mejia July 16, 2018
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/worlds-oldest-bread


Correcting title for Paula Meija, it was not before agriculture overall, but before the fullscale recovery of it in post-Flood times.

Between 2735 BC and 2690 BC, as per my table quoted above, which is in full between Flood and Abraham here:

Creation vs. Evolution : Refining table Flood to Abraham - and a doubt
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/05/refining-table-flood-to-abraham-and.html

vendredi 30 novembre 2018

Comparing Habermehl's Take and Mine


Here is Anne Habermehl, from JOURNAL OF CREATION 31(2) 2017, Sodom—part 2, read it carefully, it is a fine intelectual feat, beyond most these days:

We first need to find a crossover date for Joseph and Imhotep. For that, we will calculate when construction of the Saqqara pyramid by Djoser probably began, because this project is known to have been overseen by Imhotep.55 If we allow for a few years of this pharaoh’s reign before Joseph was promoted, plus 14 years for the seven years each of plenty and famine, this would take us perhaps 20 years into the pharaoh’s reign before the beginning of construction of this pyramid. (We are making an assumption on this, because it was at the end of the famine period that the people were literally owned by the pharaoh, and were therefore available to be conscripted to work for him. However, construction could have begun earlier.) Djoser began his reign in about 2670 bc (secular time) as noted above, making the start of the Saqqara pyramid around 2650 bc. This is the date that we can use for placing Imhotep and Joseph together on the secular timeline. Joseph was made vizier by the pharaoh in 1715,56 182 years after Sodom’s destruction in 1897 (which was one year before Isaac’s birth).57 If we count 20 years to the beginning of the Saqqara pyramid, this makes a round figure of about 200 years back to Sodom’s destruction/Abraham. This would appear to land Abraham at 2850 bc (secular time). But this is in the middle of the murky period of the first and second dynasties, and like all the rest of the Egyptian timeline, there is every reason to believe that these dynasties are stretched out and contain extra time.58 This means that 200 years on the biblical timeline could represent quite a bit more time at this distant period in Egypt’s history. So how far back would Abraham go? A plausible time would be somewhere around 3000 bc, the beginning of the first dynasty. There is in fact a hint in ancient secular history to support this date.


Here are the notes 55 to 58:

  • 55. Oakes and Gahlin, ref. 48, p. 46.

    • (48. For example Oakes, L. and Gahlin, L., Ancient Egypt, Hermes House, Anness Publishing Inc., New York, p. 46, 2002. Currently most scholars accept approximately this date for Djoser, although Egyptian dates are always subject to tweaking by somebody or other.)


  • 56. Jones, ref. 1, p. 278. The Jones chronology puts the children of Israel in Egypt for 215 years, which I support. However, whether or not it was 215 years does not affect where Abraham and Joseph go on the secular timeline—it only changes the number of years between the secular and biblical timelines at that point.

  • 57. Jones, ref. 1, p. 278.

    • (1. This figure is based on 215 years as the length of time that the children of Israel lived in Egypt. The apostle Paul supports a stay of 215 years in Egypt when he says in Galatians 3:17 that God’s covenant with Abraham (in Canaan) was 430 years before the giving of the law. For more information on this, see Jones, F.N., The Chronology of the Old Testament, 16th edn, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, pp. 53–55, 2007. Jones (who follows the Masoretic), shows that internal calculations of Scripture indicate 215 years in Egypt. The LXX translations of Exodus 12:40 clearly indicate 215 years in Egypt, saying that 430 years was the time of residence in the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan.)


  • 58. Secular scholars simply do not know for sure whether all the pharaohs of these dynasties reigned in series or concurrently, and for how long, or even whether some of these were pharaohs under different names. For example, see Wilkinson, T.A.H., Early Dynastic Egypt, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 55─91, 1999.


O K .... what is Habermehl consistently leaving out?

Carbon 14 dating.

Do I believe carbon 14 dating yields correct dates? No. Not this far back, while carbon 14 ratio had not reached present level yet. Later on, yes.

Do I believe a correspondence between carbon 14 dates and real dates (Biblical timeline) can be made? Yes.

What is the exact place in above quoted passus, where such a distinction would be useful?

Joseph was made vizier by the pharaoh in 1715,56 182 years after Sodom’s destruction in 1897 (which was one year before Isaac’s birth).57 If we count 20 years to the beginning of the Saqqara pyramid, this makes a round figure of about 200 years back to Sodom’s destruction/Abraham. This would appear to land Abraham at 2850 bc (secular time)


This assumes that carbon dates have nothing to do with secular time, only inserting too many pharaos.

Now, she corrects this, slightly, but indirectly:

This means that 200 years on the biblical timeline could represent quite a bit more time at this distant period in Egypt’s history.


200 years on real timeline can represent down to 200 years on carbon timeline only after carbon 14 has reached present level. As long as carbon 14 is rising, two carbon dates taken from items left in the ground at a real distance of 200 years will seem more distant than that, since the earlier of them had lower carbon 14 content, yielding more "instant age" years.

On the other hand, if the "secular timeline" is made by one carbon date + one historic distance in time (other item 200 years after or before the carbon dated item), then the method outlined by Habermehl will work. Unless spurious history, like extra pharaos or extra years, is inserted.

Now, it is interesting that Habermehl and I agree on Joseph being Imhotep. It so happens, the point of secular timeline we are dealing with has a carbon date, namely the coffin of pharao Djoser. Unfortunately, this carbon date is somewhat obfuscated as a pure carbon date by its being presented in the form of a calibrated one. I think I read some paper saying the raw carbon date for Djoser's coffin is samples at least one of which goes back to 2800 BC. Either way, 2800 BC or 2600 BC, Joseph is prior to the carbon date 2400 BC - which is that of earliest Ebla tablets. This amply explains (Ebla tablets being very contemporary diplomacy, nothing to do with remote historiography unless relevant for the then active diplomats) why Ebla archive has no mention of Sodom or Gomorrah. Some assume "2400 BC is before Sodom was destroyed according to the Bible" - yes, indeed. But only 2400 BC on the real Biblical timeline. 2400 BC in carbon dates, which are inflated, is after Joseph. This also means, since Ebla tablets are prior to earliest tablet of Enuma Elish, all parts of Genesis, except chapter one which was revealed to Moses on Sinai and his editing, like replacing earlier theonyms with Adonai when appropriate, were already redacted, either in writing or orally (arguably chapters from 12 on would have been originally written redactions, while first 11 chapters can have been redacted for oral transmission) were already in place in Egypt, available to Moses, before we can trace Enuma Elish.

But back to business.

Sodom was destroyed 182 years before Joseph was made vizier, Isaac was born 181 years before that later date, since year after destruction of Sodom. This I accept from Habermehl's sources, notably Jones, F.N., The Chronology of the Old Testament, 16th edn, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, pp. 53–55. Now, Isaac was born 1915 BC if Abraham was born 2015 BC (or 2012 BC, two versions of the chronology involved in Roman Martyrology).

1912 1915 BC
0181 0181
1731 1734 BC


How many years did Djoser have overall? 19 or 28 according to wikipedia, meaning, sources would be differring.

If Joseph was made vizier in the beginning of Djoser's reign of 19 years, Djoser died five years after the fourteen years under Imhotep's or JOseph's supervision, if Joseph was made vizir in the fifth year, Djoser died after the 14 years.

1731 1731 1734 1734 BC
0019 0014 0019 0014
1712 1717 1715 1720 BC


If Joseph was made vizier in the beginning of Djoser's reign of 28 years, we have another option:

1731 1734 BC
0028 0028
1703 1706 BC


So, Biblical and real date for Djoser's death would be at latest 1703 BC and at earliest 1720 BC.

The problem with the following is, the carbon date is probably already calibrated:

"Dr Ramsey's team was able to determine the exact period when this king reigned Egypt - from about 2691 to roughly 2625 BC, said the scientist."

Citing : BBC : Radiocarbon dating verifies ancient Egypt's history
By Katia Moskvitch Science reporter, BBC News, 17 June 2010
https://www.bbc.com/news/10345875


But I'll take either extreme 2691 BC or 2625 BC as if it were uncalibrated carbon date. I don't think the span refers to the span of his rein, which was definitely shorter than 67 years.

2691 2691 2625 2625 BC
1703 1720 1703 1720 BC
0988 0971 0922 0905


So, the extra years are 905 to 988. This gives us the pmC levels, since "extra years" = instant age sth would have had if tested when dying or being felled back then:

988 971 922 905
88.735 88.918 89.446 89.63


Now, for Abraham in Genesis 13 or 14, I'm presuming he was 80 years old, I take 3400 (Proto-Elamitic) to 3100 (early dynastic) BC as the carbon dates.

2015 2012 BC
0080 0080
1935 1932 BC
 
3400 3400 3100 3100 BC
1935 1932 1935 1932 BC
1465 1468 1265 1268


1468 1465 1268 1265
83.729 83.76 85.78 85.811


So, this leaves between the carbon dated (or near so) events of Abraham in Egypt and fighting for Sodom and Djoser's death a rise in carbon level between 85.811 to 88.735 pmC and 83.729 to 89.63 pmC.

What would be the carbon date of Sodom? Well, calibrate a rise from one carbon level to the other over the Biblical and real years, and take the value for 20 years after Genesis 13/14. That pmC level will give you the number of extra years and that added to the Biblical years will give you the uncalibrated carbon date with Cambridge halflife, closer to the calibrated one than to the one called "uncalibrated" which is given in BP and uses Libby half life.

This carbon 14 calculator uses the Cambridge halflife.

Carbon 14 Dating Calculator
https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/c14/carbdate.html


Obviously, it is meant to be used by uniformitarians (who are right on most samples - there have been exceptional ones from exceptional circumstances like marine, iceberg or near nuke explosion - when they come from recent years, like last 2000 or 2500 years if not more), as a way to date in the present something having in the present a certain carbon 14 level, and also, for a given age, if you look for things having a certain age, predict the carbon 14 level of most relevant samples. A corpse found in the battlefields of the Marne ought to be 100 years old and therefore have a carbon 14 level of 98.798 pmC, unless it's more recently there from a serial killer, in which case it has more pmC.

Nevertheless, given the concept of a carbon buildup, the exact same mathematics serve to tie "extra years" to successive levels of carbon 14 during the Biblical timeline (for which I use that of Roman Martyrology).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Andrew
30.XI.2018

Someone Said "Popular"


The myth of ape-to-human evolution - Being popular doesn’t make an idea scientifically plausible

I'd call that the understatement of the year. Along with Cinderella it's about the most popular story. For one thing, as C. S. Lewis argued in - was the title "farewell to a great myth"? - it is the same story as Cinderella and the Ugly Duckling on a plane. For another, it gets to the plane of scientific success stories : the guys in Laetoli* are taking the place alongside Wilbur and Orville Wright, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Alva Edison, Christopher Columbus, Dr. Livingstone (well, he is kind of being dethroned by them, since he was also kind of a Protestant missionary), Marco Polo, James Cook, etc. And, on a third plane, it has a place with the myth of Sherlock Holmes and Scooby Doo unmasking supernatural frauds like the Hound of Baskerville's of Ghosts in a Hotel someone's inheriting, since to a certain not quite unpopular mentality, Christianity is one of the spook frauds.

In fact, Protestantism started the third popular genre here alluded to over denying Catholic and post-Acts miracles.

Here is how Calvin exposes Mark 16:17 or rather a significant part of it, where he differs from Catholic (he admits, as we Catholics, that Apostles were raising dead to life and things like that in Acts):

verse

And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues. ...

from comment

... Though Christ does not expressly state whether he intends this gift to be temporary, or to remain perpetually in his Church, yet it is more probable that miracles were promised only for a time, in order to give luster to the gospel, while it was new and in a state of obscurity. It is possible, no doubt, that the world may have been deprived of this honor through the guilt of its own ingratitude; but I think that the true design for which miracles were appointed was, that nothing which was necessary for proving the doctrine of the gospel should be wanting at its commencement. And certainly we see that the use of them ceased not long afterwards, or, at least, that instances of them were so rare as to entitle us to conclude that they would not be equally common in all ages.

Yet those who came after them, that they might not allow it to be supposed that they were entirely destitute of miracles, were led by foolish avarice or ambition to forge for themselves miracles which had no reality. Thus was the door opened for the impostures of Satan, not only that delusions might be substituted for truth, but that, under the pretense of miracles, the simple might be led aside from the true faith. And certainly it was proper that men of eager curiosity, who, not satisfied with lawful proof, were every day asking new miracles, should be carried away by such impostures. This is the reason why Christ, in another passage, foretold that the reign of Antichrist would be full of lying signs, (Matthew 24:24;) and Paul makes a similar declaration, (2 Thessalonians 2:9.) ...


OK, so to his mind the rule of Antichrist started, not 3 years and 6 months (or possibly 7 years) before Doomsday, a date not yet reached arguably** but among "those who came after them" that is after the Apostles.

This has of course started a long series of literature debunking Catholic miracles, of which Sherlock Holmes and Scooby Doo are a kind of de-denominationalised popular version. Leaving Catholicism alone and concentrating on spooks. However, part of this mentality of debunking Catholic miracles lives on in the cheers Huxley got in the debate with Wilberforce, so, man coming from apes (in itself a false miracle licit and good to debunk, and one easy to do so with, in good logic)*** is hailed as debunking the "false miracle" of God creating man in His image and likeness.

Yes, man coming from apes is triply popular. Ugly Duckling, scientist misunderstood proven genius, false miracle debunked.

You know Jeff Smith? If I say BoNe? Yes, someone looking like Pogo in the end helping to beat Kingdok and the Lord of the Locusts ... that is Jeff Smith (among whose favourite comics you find Pogo and the Uncle Scrooge by Carl Barks). Now, this actual genius has so to speak taken on another topic or two. Presenting Tuki:

hiatus

TUKI: Save the Humans is on temporary hiatus while I rework the strip ...

about

2,000,000 years ago, a great ice age gripped the earth, trapping all moisture in the polar icecaps, causing drought and upheaval in the rest of the world. Vast tropical jungles gave way to dusty grasslands, and all living creatures struggled to survive, including the many species of hominids. To avoid extinction, something had to be done.

This is the story of the first human to leave Africa.

Written and Drawn by Jeff Smith
Color by Tom Gaadt


So, yes, the story is wildly popular. Now, what kind of anger are we facing when challenging that?



About the same kind of anger X was showing me as a Catholic over supporting a Catholic OP (actually by an Orthodox member of the group) ... while Protestantism is not identic to the final delusion (which may yet involve man coming from apes), it has helped to build up for it. Just after Catholicism beat Albigensians, Christians were not facing this kind of thing in our own countries.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Andrew Apostle
30.XI.2018

Correction on C. S. Lewis' essay title. "The Funeral of a Great Myth" an essay in CHRISTIAN REFLECTIONS. H/T to William O'Flaherty.

*Leakey, right? ** Ireland is not flooded yet. See St. Patrick's deal with God. (Note as to "among those who came after them" Calvin is imprecise about how long after, but the corpse of St Martin repeating what the corpse of Elisha did would probably be considered as "fraud" by Calvin, since involved in relics). *** In certain connections, good logic is not as common as Scooby Doo and Sherlock Holmes stories would want you to think. In those stories, you show the mechanism of the fraud, the false supposition not proven or even disproven, and you have defeated the fraudsters ...

jeudi 29 novembre 2018

Hernando de Soto Polar Answered Bill Nye and Richard Dawkins


(As well as the usual spacecraft argument against Geocentrism.) It remains to be seen whether he is a decent economist or not (I tend to suspect he is not quite that), but he has shown one good grasp of scientific principle which is very relevant for the argument "science works":

It is not uncommon for us to know how to use things without understanding why they work. Sailors used magnetic compasses long before there was a satisfactory theory of magnetism. Animal breeders had a working knowledge of genetics long before Gregor Mendel explained genetic principles.


From preview of Kindle edition of his book:

The Mystery Of Capital
http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Hernando-Soto-ebook/dp/B004FV4XTE/ref=la_B001HMNIIG_1_1/188-5970856-2060456?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398502234&sr=1-1


The point answered is of course Bill Nye and Richard Dawkins claiming "since science works, we trust its understanding" (but generally they formulate the point with less distinction between engineering and theoretic understanding).

If a culture of the past could be wrong about why sth works and still right about how it works, the culture of the present can so too./HGL

mardi 20 novembre 2018

Originalism vs Textualism


Here is Marc Ambler giving Originalism and Textualism:

Originalism is “a legal philosophy that the words in documents and especially the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted as they were understood at the time they were written”1 by those that framed and ratified the Constitution and its various amendments. Textualism is closely aligned to Originalism and holds that when applying the law, the words of the Constitution itself are to be the final authority.


Scriptural originalism
by Marc Ambler | Published: 20 November 2018
https://creation.com/originalism


Why versus? Mark Ambler considers the two closely aligned. Well, in Exegesis, the (self proclaimed) Textualists are Protestants. The Originalists are Catholics.

For instance, if Protestant textualism were taken to its conclusion, some people would very quickly lose an eye or a hand. Catholicism can however say that with Originalism, this is not so, tradition knows the original meaning of Christ's words in Matthew 5:29 and similar verses, as being a hyperbole and a metaphor for other types of very severe separations than an anatomical one.

Challoner comments on the verse:

By which we are taught to fly the immediate occasions of sin, though they be as dear to us, or as necessary as a hand or an eye.


Haydock comment on verse:

Ver. 29. Whatever is an immediate occasion of sin, however near or dear it may be, must be abandoned (M.), though it prove as dear to us, or as necessary as a hand, or an eye, and without delay or demur. A.


Most Protestants would of course agree, and I think only disagreement is from a non-Protestant, more Gnostic or Manichaean type sect, Skoptsy. But on a strictly textualist approach, why would a Protestant condemn the Skoptsy?

Here a Protestant can claim to be not strictly textualist, but originalist too. Now, there is a problem for Protestantism here.

According to the context Ambler was using as illustration, an originalist in US Constitution is applying the known original meaning of declaration of rights and of amendments. How so, "known"? Well, late 18th and all of 19th as well as 20th Century are very close to fully literate U. S. Citizens. We can know that

  • "all men are created equal" to a Founding Father did not mean there could be no slavery;
  • however, slavery is forbidden by an amendment after War of Secession,
  • and that amendment does also not mean there can be no other types of servitude which one could broadly call "slavery" like "wage slavery" (which in Chicago has been a worse one than the slavery fought against in the war).
  • but this does not change the fact that a sentence can find a new application to secure the happiness of the great number : a federal or state by state minimal wage would not be required by the Constitution, but also not go against it.


We can know this because we can know US History.

However, an Originalist in Biblical Exegesis needs to know Church History - from within, like a US Citizen knows US History.

That, Protestantism does not provide, since a Protestant Church starts at Reformation or even later at some "second" or "third" or perhaps even "fourth great awakening" and since each awakening and especially Reformation was claiming we don't have traditional access to original meaning, we are now stuck with text only.

Of course, both philosophies contrast with another approach:

Judges who are non-originalists believe that interpretation of the Constitution should evolve in line with changing cultural, moral and social mores. ...


That approach is per se neither Catholic nor Protestant. Among Protestants, those holding it go by the name "Liberal Theologian". Among Catholics, those holding it go by the name "Modernist". I have never been Modernist; I may have coincided by mistake with them or by initial ignorance for some time, but I have always detested this approach. So, while Originalism and Textualism, Catholicism and Protestantism, differ, they are closer to each other than to this outlandish approch one could call non-originalist, Modernist or Liberal Theologian. I went from Protestant to Catholic over finding out Catholicism gave a better basis for originalism.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Edmund, King and Martyr
20.XI.2018

PS, spelling of Marc Ambler's first name was corrected after signature./HGL

PPS, for OT, Catholicism is "originalism +" when it comes to affirmations, and "originalism -" when it comes to rules. So many things are clearer to Christians than they were before the Incarnation./HGL