Child Adam?

Theological Consequences · Jimmy Akin on Patristic and Scientific Expertise. · Child Adam? · Archaic Actual Humans or Apes in Human Shapes? · What If Adam Became a Man - When he Became a Man? · Tolkien's Elves Are Not the Key to Cain's Wife or Adam's Growth

BioLogos has the good sense to show off their knowledge of the traditional doctrine that they reject:

In a common traditional view, Adam and Eve were created de novo—they were created by God as fully formed humans (Homo sapiens), roughly 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. God made them quickly and completely as fully formed humans with no biological ancestors. In this traditional de novo view, Adam and Eve are “sole progenitors”: they were the first two humans, and they alone gave rise to all other humans. The Genesis account is taken to be a record of real events similar to the way a journalist would record them today.

If we change the job description from "journalist" to "involved actors" and the recording mode from detailed reportage to scaled down easy to recall narratives, yes, that is how I, as a proponent of the traditional view see this. Here is the article I cited by the way.

Were Adam and Eve historical figures?
https://biologos.org/common-questions/were-adam-and-eve-historical-figures/

Now, they proceed to state that and why they don't share it. Genesis 4 refers to Cain's wife who along with the people in his city "do not seem to be descended from Adam and Eve", Genesis 2 and 3 suggests archetypes, but above all they are Evolutionist.

If you accept Adam and Eve as archetypes only, you are not Catholic, Session V of the Council of Trent makes it abundantly clear that Adam was an individual, the first human sinner and by that fact and the fact of approaching the sin from a sinless state, the origin of original sin. Now, what about their other options?

Now, they give two views on how to reconcile Evolutionism with a more than just archetypal existence of Adam and Eve. And since both of these make them part of an already existing Homo sapiens population, both will involve Adam, if not Eve, having been a child of some biological ancestry not sharing his relation with God. Now, there are problems with each, I'll state these first, but there is also this common problem, which I will come back to.

Some Christian leaders (such as Billy Graham) are open to models that see evolution as compatible with Adam and Eve as real historical people. In one version, suggested by theologian Henri Blocher and others, God entered into a special relationship with a pair of ancient historical representatives of humanity about 200,000 years ago in Africa. Genesis retells this historical event using cultural terms that the Hebrews in the ancient Near East could understand.

Genesis 3 is history. More precisely, it is not history as revealed by a revelation, it is more like the Exodus event a history known historically and in which God reveals Himself in the actual events (obviously, Genesis 3 includes a revelation by God to Adam, to Eve and to the serpent, but this does not make the events something only Moses was told of. Haydock in the famous Haydock Bible had facing pages Douay Rheims in the Challoner revision, facing pages comment he provided by compilation and own learning. Attached to his comment on Genesis 3:24 is this, which actually is his own comment - signed H. - to the whole chapter:

Concerning the transactions of these early times, parents would no doubt be careful to instruct their children, by word of mouth, before any of the Scriptures were written; and Moses might derive much information from the same source, as a very few persons formed the chain of tradition, when they lived so many hundred years. Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram. Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the father of Moses, were contemporaries: so that seven persons might keep up the memory of things which had happened 2500 years before. But to entitle these accounts to absolute authority, the inspiration of God intervenes; and thus we are convinced, that no word of sacred writers can be questioned. H.

With the primeval longevity, the 2500 years from Adam to Moses in Masoretic chronology or the 3000 years from Adam to Abraham in LXX chronology are not a huge problem. They become comparable to the 400 years between the Trojan War and Homer's composing the Iliad. But with 200 000 years lapsing, not only is the probability far less of a correct transmission, the transmission would also be shown incorrect by Genesis 5 and 11 showing, not so much a genealogy with some gaps, comparable to Matthean genealogy, as more gap than genealogy. In other words, we would be asked to believe a transmission not just incredibly long for a purely oral one that's still correct, but also one even shown incorrect through the faulty transmission of genealogies.

In another version Adam and Eve are recent historical persons, living perhaps 6000 years ago in the ancient Near East rather than Africa. By this time Homo sapiens had already dispersed throughout the earth. God then revealed himself specially to a pair of farmers we know as Adam and Eve. God could have chosen them as spiritual representatives for all humanity. Genealogical science suggests that a pair living at that time and place could be part of the genealogies of all humans living today.

First, there is not just a question of Adam being an actual man, but also of his being the first such.

But second, suppose you waver that problem for a moment, how is Adam supposed to have been ancestor of all First Nations in the Americas and all Aborigines of Australia, not now, but back when Vikings arrived to Vinland and van Diemen to Tasmania? You see, Americas are in the uniformitarian line supposed to have been peopled c. 20 000 BC, and Australia's Mungo man or Mungo woman would carbon date about the same, but a thermoluminiscence date has given Oz the added prestige of a 40 000 year old human settlement.

The second solution therefore flirts with the idea of pre-adamism, which is also condemned by the Catholic Church, the specific reason why Isaac La Peyrère got in trouble with Church Authorities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Adamite

And it seems some "Catholic" old earthers, notably Jimmy Akin, buy into this idea too. Even if he is not explicit when his Adam and Eve are supposed to have lived, he clearly says they were not all the men there were, even if they were the first two modern men with modern human souls.

Here we must consider for a moment the history of Old Earth ideology among Catholics. The Day-Age paradigm was held by Sulpîcian Father Fulcran Vigouroux, and this may be the exact same scenario as held by Pius XII. It goes like this: add lots of time in the creation days by making each an age, but only up to creation of Adam. From then the Biblical timeline, at least in the LXX version, holds, though one could imagine it to hold some gaps in the genealogies (notably Genesis 11) apart from the II Cainan omitted in Masoretic. But for the moment, he didn't need that. He was also the man who on behalf of the Papal Biblical Commission in 1909 authorised Day-Age as an option. And note, just as an option.

Now, since certain dates - carbon for El Sidrón Neanderthals, others for Homo sapiens 200 000 pretended years ago - have been made, this is no longer an option. One must either defend a Biblical timeline by saying no to these dates, which would involve saying no to the Old Earth overall, or, buying into Old Earth, accept these dates, which will involve the named and also other problems. I already said : since both of these scenarios make them part of an already existing Homo sapiens population, both will involve Adam, if not Eve, having been a child of some biological ancestry not sharing his relation with God.

The one version is therefore pre-Adamism - others were truly human, if not modern human before Adam and Eve. But this is condemned. In Humani Generis, Pius XII speaks of:

For these reasons the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.

So, he doesn't speak of men before Adam, he speaks of "pre-existent and living matter"? In other words, the parents of Adam would have been non-human. Indeed, there seems to be a piece from 1941, adressed to the academy of sciences, in which he says as much - they would not have been truly his parents, since not truly human.

And this poses the question of how Adam fared as a child. A human being with a rational soul - and let's underline, what's special is not a special relation with God not shared by other beings with equally rational souls, what's special is having a rational souls in the first place, some relation to God follows from that - can be a parent, can teach his children language, does have language. A non-human can't, and isn't.

If Adam was human, and the testes and ovaries he came from belonged to non-humans, it is impossible that they had real human language, and therefore impossible that they taught Adam such. Indeed, they could not have anything remotely like it. Human language has a double articulation into three levels : sentence, morphemes, phonemes. This can produce an infinity of sentences, and is only motivated if a rational being has an infinity of rational observations to make. The pragmatic observations of beasts come into the range of sth like 500 complete messages - about as many as the traffic signs, which are also purely pragmatic.

And man is created to receive a first language (possibly two first languages at the same time) at a certain stage in his development. For an adult it is too late. So, Adam would have been a feral child. No language.

Or one could say Adam got a language from God, while aware of not sharing it with his genitors. How good is it to feel quasi infinitely superior to one's parents? No. Adam getting his language as a miracle sparing him from being feral isn't an option either. Only Adam being created with an adult and getting language miraculously from start is theologically viable.

But could Cain at least have married an anatomical human not his sister, if by his doing so she was also endowed with human rationality? I have already answered that years ago:

Creation vs. Evolution : Scenario impossible
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2014/01/scenario-impossible.html

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Monday after Quinquagesima
28.II.2022

Jimmy Akin on Patristic and Scientific Expertise.

Theological Consequences · Jimmy Akin on Patristic and Scientific Expertise. · Child Adam? · Archaic Actual Humans or Apes in Human Shapes? · What If Adam Became a Man - When he Became a Man? · Tolkien's Elves Are Not the Key to Cain's Wife or Adam's Growth

Creation vs. Evolution: Jimmy Akin on Patristic and Scientific Expertise. · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Extract of Lazar - Akin : Where is the Authority?

Understanding the “Unanimous Consent” of the Church Fathers
Jimmy Akin | August 13, 2018
https://jimmyakin.com/2018/08/understanding-the-unanimous-consent-of-the-church-fathers.html

Around 50 minutes in into his discussion with Gideon Lazar, the latter says all Church Fathers were Young Earth Creationists and believed Genesis 5 and 11 literally. Jimmy Akin admits this is true. He counters the Church Fathers believed "other things" and goes to Ptolemaic astronomy and this implying Earth at the centre and crystalline spheres. Gideon Lazar considers Geocentrism would if so be authoritative, but gives a somewhat hesitating rejection of the crystalline spheres. Like an at least preliminary one. Now St. Basil did not hold Ptolemy and his likes in great esteem:

4. One day, doubtless, their terrible condemnation will be the greater for all this worldly wisdom, since, seeing so clearly into vain sciences, they have wilfully shut their eyes to the knowledge of the truth. These men who measure the distances of the stars and describe them, both those of the North, always shining brilliantly in our view, and those of the southern pole visible to the inhabitants of the South, but unknown to us; who divide the Northern zone and the circle of the Zodiac into an infinity of parts, who observe with exactitude the course of the stars, their fixed places, their declensions, their return and the time that each takes to make its revolution; these men, I say, have discovered all except one thing: the fact that God is the Creator of the universe, and the just Judge who rewards all the actions of life according to their merit. They have not known how to raise themselves to the idea of the consummation of all things, the consequence of the doctrine of judgment, and to see that the world must change if souls pass from this life to a new life. In reality, as the nature of the present life presents an affinity to this world, so in the future life our souls will enjoy a lot conformable to their new condition. But they are so far from applying these truths, that they do but laugh when we announce to them the end of all things and the regeneration of the age. Since the beginning naturally precedes that which is derived from it, the writer, of necessity, when speaking to us of things which had their origin in time, puts at the head of his narrative these words--"In the beginning God created."

Elpenor, St. Basil's Hexaemeron, Homily I, chapter 4
https://www.elpenor.org/basil/hexaemeron.asp?pg=6

And here, more directly to Jimmy Akin's point:

Elpenor, St. Basil's Hexaemeron, Homily III, chapter 7
https://www.elpenor.org/basil/hexaemeron.asp?pg=28

Citing only the first words:

Therefore we read: "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." I have said what the word firmament in Scripture means. It is not in reality a firm and solid substance which has weight and resistance; this name would otherwise have better suited the earth. But, as the substance of superincumbent bodies is light, without consistency, and cannot be grasped by any one of our senses, it is in comparison with these pure and imperceptible substances that the firmament has received its name. ...

Tycho Brahe proved, there were no crystalline spheres that were solid bodies, since the comet would have crashed into such, when going through the levels of several planetary, possible spheres. So, at least one Church Father does not believe the Firmament is a solid crystalline sphere. And that is all that has been disproven.

Geocentrism hasn't.

Jimmy Akin's point against believing the Church Fathers does not stand. But is it even compatible with what he said himself?

He considers the doctrinal content behind the Tridentine discipline means that we need to take heed of the Church Fathers, partly when bishops and reflecting the ordinary magisterium, and partly whether bishops or not when they bear witness to the sensus fidelium.

This is a point where I took difference with Robert Sungenis, who had said the Church Fathers were Geocentric in face of massive Pagan Heliocentrism:

Mr. Olar’s appeal to Augustine and Aquinas might have some bite, that is, until we realize that both these saints were dyed-in-the-wool geocentrists, and who chose this cosmological stance in the face of the Greeks of the former’s day who were touting heliocentrism and the Indians of the latter’s day who were touting the same.

I made the bad choice to link to Sungenis' work not in a full url, but in a short url which no longer works - I was overusing short urls at the time, and now they are down. So, here is where I quoted it and I refute it in part:

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : St Augustine was a Geocentric ... in face of what, Mr. Sungenis?
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2011/03/st-augustine-was-geocentric-in-face-of.html

I really see no reason to say that the Greeks of St Augustine's day were touting heliocentrism. Aristotle was as Geocentric as Augustine. The Pythagorean and Epicurean authors who were not were long since dead and by St Augustine's time had few followers.

I'm not sure there even was an Epicurean Heliocentric - Lucrece was Geocentric. And very bad at astronomy. So, one could say St. Augustine was Geocentric by default, not because "that was the science of the time" (though, in a somewhat different sense than that considered by Jimmy Akin, it was). But because it was common sense commonly admitted by the time and nothing in St. Augustine's faith made him challenge it. However, it is bound up with things that are of the faith, like miracle of Joshua, God being truthful when working miracles, heaven being a place, and the universe being created well below 10 000 years ago, not thirteen billion plus years ago.

Because, there were indeed pagans who thought Egypt had 40 000 years' history or Mesopotamia (with various metropoles) 150 000 years' history. Now, this was invariably repudiated. Why? Because these pseudo-histories involved various divinities we know to be false gods? No, Church Fathers had no problem, generally speaking with Euhemerism, I think the dropping of Euhemerism as to pagan divinities started with St. Francis Xaver concluding from the Japanese god "Bodda's" 9000 years of incarnations that "Bodda" had to be a total invention of imagination, when most people these days consider that the "last of the reincarnations" namely Siddharta Gautama was perfectly historic. The one reason the Church Fathers could have had to ditch Egyptian and Babylonian chronology was ... the Bible.

Now, let's see:

6) Does the decree mean that Catholics can’t interpret the Bible and must simply repeat what the Church or the Fathers say it means?

No. The decree doesn’t say anything so restrictive. Catholics are free to read and interpret the Scriptures.

The law merely established that they weren’t to contradict Church teaching or the unanimous consent of the Fathers when these sources had a definitive teaching on the meaning of a passage.

That's exactly why I verified that the "skyscraper" interpretation of the Tower of Babel was not universal in Fathers and Scholastics before I offered an alternative one - or before I persisted in doing so.

Now, the next paragraph seems to be somewhat ill chosen here:

7) Are there many such passages?

No. Pope Pius XII pointed out in his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu:

There are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church, nor are those more numerous about which the teaching of the Holy Fathers is unanimous (n. 47).

Catholic biblical interpreters thus have a broad liberty of interpretation. As Leo XIII stated:

By this very wise law the Church by no means retards or blocks the investigations of biblical science, but rather keeps it free of error, and aids it very much in true progress. For, to every private teacher a large field is open in which along safe paths, by his industry in interpretation, he may labor efficaciously and profitably for the Church (Providentissimus Deus 14).

Suppose this is correct, I think taking the timelines of Genesis 5 and 11 literally would be among the top candidates. If a given passage to have such a patristic unvarying interpretation had to be commented on by all Church Fathers, arguably no passage at all would qualify, and the Church law of Trent would have been empty of concrete object - like a law on land property on Atlantis would be void of object since Atlantis sank.

Note, I am not saying the Church Fathers all agree on what the timeline is, but they are however deriving it from the text - as is Josephus who is even, for Genesis 11, in contradiction with himself as to what the timeline is, but nevertheless takes it as literally true, whether he means the sum total given (292 years from Flood to birth of Abraham) or the details given (which if correctly added together give a very different sum total).

But if one passage (outside the New Testament) has even better claim to have all Church Fathers agree, it's God creating Adam directly and directly specially. Not via evolution and by adding a special chosing. It's a matter for another post why this is a problem, but it is clear that Jimmy Akin has run into it. And very much from not taking the Biblical timeline even remotely literally as history.

Now, the spontaneous interpretation of the rule from Trent, in practise, is treating Church Fathers, when they don't disagree between them, as infallible, whether "consensus of Church Fathers" was or was not erected to an infallibility occasion. All the upshot of Jimmy Akin's post is to minimise this. There is another type of consensus which he is by contrast not the least interested in minimising : that of experts. The infallibility of the Church is a promise by Christ and the consensus of fathers is at least possibly a way of verifying if this was on a certain matter met during the first thousand years. The infallibility of human reason after the fall is not a promise at all, and as there are human reasoners not in "communion" with expertise, unlike Catholic Christians who needed to be in communion with bishops and with the saints canonised, the consensus of experts is not a way to verify that the best criteria of human reasoning have been met. Nevertheless "you'd need like 6 PhD's to be a qualified expert" ... "the standard answer, throughout human history, has been experts" (he's not an expert on history!) "historically it has been viewed safer to go with majority opinion" (in certain areas, roughly corresponding to where something we would consider "expertise" was already recognised as such).*

Obviously, he refers to the "Magisterium" as source of CCC 283, which I disagree on. Trent said we can't go against what the Church "tenet atque tenuit" - meaning a magisterial position has to be traceable to earlier magisterium. CCC 283 clearly isn't.

Again : "if that's the only question you are interested in, you are never going to settle it, unless you acquire 6 PhD's" ... Jimmy Akin clearly stated a layman has a right to read and interpret the Scriptures, the law by Trent session IV has sometimes been viewed as a doctrinal condemnation of "Scripture with individual interpretation" and Jimmy tells us it isn't so, but for some reason, he can't abide with the human reason side of questions getting the solution "experience and logic and individual interpretation" - that's a no no. I think we see some lopsidedness of criteria. Ordinary magisterium of 1500 years and more by bishops counts less than "ordinary magisterium" of 150 years and less by secular scientists.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Quinquagesima Lord's Day
27.II.2022

* Latin has no word for expert. It has words for various types of experts, like "medicus, faber, architectus" and in the Middle Ages, you get the idea that an "artifex" is an expert on his "ars" - but obviously an astrophysicist is not an "artifex" on stars, there is one only who actually made stars, and that's God. "Omni artifici de sua arte loquendo credendum est" rhymes better with Biblical than with Scientific inerrancy on stars.

Answering Marc Bloemers

Marc Bloemers often asks me things in Quora. I often answer, and I often put the answers on my blog Assorted Retorts. As the questions are usually related to Genesis, I think I'll take two questions over on this blog for a change. But first a word to Marc.

Mr. Bloemers, I don't know why exactly you ask me so often. I usually don't mind, and I didn't mind today. Now, if the idea is making me change by mind over your suggestions, you are wasting my and your time as far as that is concerned, but I take a revenge to use the time to get my position onto my blog - or blogs, but usually it's Assorted Retorts. If you seek a relief from those who give answers like "Abraham and his grandfather are fictional characters, the Tower of Babel is a fictional story," I'm glad to offer it.

If the Bible represents a specific time in history, where does the idea of millions of years come from? Are there geological transformations which point to a global catastrophe?
https://www.quora.com/If-the-Bible-represents-a-specific-time-in-history-where-does-the-idea-of-millions-of-years-come-from-Are-there-geological-transformations-which-point-to-a-global-catastrophe?

Would Abraham’s grandfather have come directly from the Tower of Babel?
https://www.quora.com/Would-Abraham-s-grandfather-have-come-directly-from-the-Tower-of-Babel?

The second question is actually the easier one to answer quickly, so I will do so. Babel ended when Peleg was born, 401 after the Flood. Nahor was born (the grandfather, not the brother) in 793 after the Flood, so no.

But apart from the quick answer, there is more.

Arguably, you may have come to this from an idea that Nahor and Thera were idolaters (see Joshua's speech) and idolatry started in Babel. I disagree. The Bible doesn't actually tell us when and where idolatry started, but the idea it started in Babel is popular. Nevertheless, I disagree. Babylon, right before the catastrophic judgement against Belshazzar, had Nebuchadnezzar adore the true God. Idolatry was not its only or most horrible sin.

Historia scholastica gives this account:

Interim vero obtinuerunt Aegyptios et Assyrios ita: In diebus Sarug Belus Ne[m]rothides rex Babylonis, quia fuit alter Belus rex Graeciae, intravit Assyriam, sed parum obtinuit in ea. Quo mortuo filius ejus Ninus totam obtinuit Assyriam, et civitatem, in qua caput regni erat, itinere trium dierum ampliavit, et a suo nomine Ninivem dixit. Inde est quod quaedam historiae dicunt regnum Assyriorum coepisse ab antiquo Belo: quod verum est quantum ad initium. Alii dicunt coepisse a Nino, quod verum est etiam, quantum ad regni ampliationem. Ninus vicit Cham, qui adhuc vivebat, et regnabat in Thracia, et dicebatur Zoroastres inventor magicae artis, qui et septem liberales artes, in quatuordecim columnis scripsit, septem aeneis, et septem lateritiis, contra utrumque judicium. Ninus vero libros ejus combussit. Ab eisdem orta sunt idola sic .

Mortuo Belo, Ninus in solatium doloris, imaginem patris sibi fecit, cui tantam exhibebat reverentiam, ut quibuslibet reis qui ad eam confugissent parceret. Proinde homines de regno ejus divinos honores imagini ejus coeperunt impendere; hujus exemplo plurimi claris suis mortuis imagines dedicarunt, et sicut ab idolo Beli caetera traxerunt originem, sic ab ejus nomine generale nomen idolorum traxerunt. Sicut enim dictus est Belus ab Assyriis, sic et aliae nationes secundum idiomata linguae suae dixerunt, aliae Bel, aliae Beel, aliae Baal, aliae Baalim. Imo, et nomina specificaverunt, aliae Beelphegor, aliae Beelzebub dicentes. Sed tandem seriem genealogiae Sem prosequamur.

Here I'll give an idiosyncratic translation:

But meanwhile, they obtained the Egyptians and the Assyrians like this: in the days of Serug, the Nemrodide Bel king of Babylon (because there was another Bel, king of Greece) went into Assyria, but obtained little in it. When he had died his son Nin ...

I must admit, this is usually rendered Ninus or Ninos, and his father is often called Belus or Belos. But it so happens, "Bel" is Akkadian for lord and "Nin" is Sumerian for lord. It can also be Sumerian for "lady" where Akkadian would instead have "Belit". Could Nin have been his daughter instead?

... his son Nin obtained all of Assyria, and the city, in which the head of the kingdom was, he amplified to make it a three day walk all around, and from his own name called it Ninive. Hence it is that some histories say the kingdom of Assyrians began with Bel, which is true of the beginning, others say it began with Nin, which is also true as to the enlargening of the kingdom. Nin won over Cham, who was sill alive, and ruled in Thrace, and was called Zoroaster, inventor of the magic art, who also wrote the seven liberal arts onto fourteen columns, seven of bronze, seven of brickwork, against either of the judgements. But Nin burned his books. From these the idols began like this.

When Bel died, Nin, in solace of grief, made himself an image of the father, which he showed so much reverence, that he spared all criminals who took refuge with it. Thereon the men of his kingdom began to impend divine honours on the image; after his example many dedicated images to their renowned dead, and as of the idol of Bel the other ones took their origin, so from his name they took the general name of idols. As he is named Bel by Assyrians, so also other nations after their languages, some Bel, some Beel, some Baal, some Baalim ...

Baalim is actually plural of Baal.

... Even, with more specific names, some saying Beelphegor, some Beelzebub. But at last we will continue with the genealogy of Shem.

So, idolatry began after Babel. It was also different from superstitions of the magic type. That latter point being perhaps less sure. The Tower of Babel, as far as I am concerned, was secular. Graham Hancock felt that Göbekli Tepe looked like a rocket launch, and imagined it had served for ancient alien astronauts, and I agree on what it looks like, but disagreeing with the idea of ancient alien astronauts consider Nimrod was an ancient aspiring astronaut - and one who was stopped so astronauts could get gone about 4500 years later, in the time of my childhood - because it would have been a non-functional rocket, but a disastrous one.

The first question, on the other hand, I have already answered elsewhere:

Archaeology vs Vertabrate Palaeontology in Geology
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2016/06/archaeology-vs-vertabrate-palaeontology.html

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Walburgis of Heydenheim
25.II.2022

In monasterio Heidenhemii, dioecesis Eystettensis, in Germania, sanctae Walburgae Virginis, quae fuit filia sancti Richardi, Anglorum Regis, et soror sancti Willebaldi, Eystettensis Episcopi.

Correcting the Test

HGL'S F.B. WRITINGS: Somewhat Sectarian Style, Semel · Somewhat Sectarian Style, bis · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl: No Answer from Dr. Liebi, So Far? · Stefan Claesemann tries to take it in private with me · Creation vs. Evolution : Let's Carbon Test Stefan Claesemann's Chronology · Correcting the Test

On Claesemann's view, Sesostris III is Joseph's pharao and therefore dies close to Jacobs migration into Egypt, and this not 507 years after the Flood, as I said, but 582. 292 + 75 + c. 215 = c. 582. The pharao died a few years after that, but the wood in his coffin (which is what would have been dated) would be on average a bit before that.

582 : 10 = 58. I'll make it 10 moments of carbon rise and eleven actual years in time.

1838 = c. 1609 + 215 = 1824.

I'll go with 1824 BC, and Flood in 1824 + 582 = 2406 BC,

In 2406 BC, the C14 level was (implied by Claesemann's view and my carbon date for the Flood) 1.4 pmC, and in 1824 BC it was 100 pmC. The distance overall implies a decay down to 93.202 % of original content. 100 - 93.202 = 6.798 pmC normal replacement.

1.4 * 93.202 / 100 = 1.304828 pmC;
100 - 1.304828 = 98.695172 pmC actual replacement;
98.695172 / 6.798 = 14.51826596058 times faster than normal.

In 58 years, the decay is down to 99.301 % and normal replacement is 100 - 99.301 = 0.699 pmC, which will in average be multiplied by 14.51826596058. Last tenth will have a replacement by twice as fast, and this means the first one will have it 2 * 14.51826596058 - 2 = 27.03653192116 times as fast.

27.03653192116 - 2 = 25.03653192116
25.03653192116 / 10 = 2.50365319212

27.03653192116 i
27.03653192116 - 2.50365319212 = 24.53287872904 ij
... (sparing you some details)
9.51095957632 - 2.50365319212 = 7.0073063842 ix
7.0073063842 - 2.50365319212 = 4.50365319208 x
WRONG

Let's do it over again:

27.03653192116 - 2 = 25.03653192116
25.03653192116 / 9 = 2.78183688013

27.03653192116 i
27.03653192116 - 2.78183688013 = 24.25469504103 ij
24.25469504103 - 2.78183688013 = 21.4728581609 iij
21.4728581609 - 2.78183688013 = 18.69102128077 iu
18.69102128077 - 2.78183688013 = 15.90918440064 u
15.90918440064 - 2.78183688013 = 13.12734752051 uj
13.12734752051 - 2.78183688013 = 10.34551064038 uij
10.34551064038 - 2.78183688013 = 7.56367376025 uiij
7.56367376025 - 2.78183688013 = 4.78183688012 ix
4.78183688012 - 2.78183688013 = 2 x
RIGHT

Now, this will translate as the number of times you get the normal replacement (0.699 pmC) in the time of 58 years. As, by hypothesis, actual replacement. But the normal or actual replacement is only used after original or previous pmC has decayed, perfectly normally, to 99.301 % of previous value.

1.4 by 2406

1.4 * 99.301 / 100 = 1.390214
1.390214 + 18.89853581289 = 20.28874981289 by 2348

20.28874981289 * 99.301 / 100 = 20.1469314517
20.1469314517 + 16.95403183368 = 37.10096328538 by 2290

37.10096328538 * 99.301 / 100 = 36.84162755202
36.84162755202 + 15.00952785447 = 51.85115540649 by 2232

51.85115540649 * 99.301 / 100 = 51.4887158302
51.4887158302 + 13.06502387526 = 64.55373970546 by 2174

64.55373970546 * 99.301 / 100 = 64.10250906492
64.10250906492 + 11.12051989605 = 75.22302896097 by 2116

75.22302896097 * 99.301 / 100 = 74.69721998853
74.69721998853 + 9.17601591684 = 83.87323590537 by 2058

83.87323590537 * 99.301 / 100 = 83.28696198639
83.28696198639 + 7.23151193763 = 90.51847392402 by 2000

90.51847392402 * 99.301 / 100 = 89.88574979129
89.88574979129 + 5.28700795841 = 95.1727577497 by 1942

95.1727577497 * 99.301 / 100 = 94.50750017303
94.50750017303 + 3.3425039792 = 97.85000415223 by 1884

97.85000415223 * 99.301 / 100 = 97.16603262321
97.16603262321 + 1.398 = 98.56403262321 by 1826

What does this imply for dates? After the year, I'm adding the extra years of the time implication or instant age from the atmospheric carbon level. The sum constitutes the carbon date.

1.4 by 2406 + 35300 = "37706"

20.28874981289 by 2348 + 13200 = "15548"

37.10096328538 by 2290 + 8200 = "10490"

51.85115540649 by 2232 + 5450 = "7682"

64.55373970546 by 2174 + 3600 = "5774"

75.22302896097 by 2116 + 2350 = "4466"

83.87323590537 by 2058 + 1450 = "3508"

90.51847392402 by 2000 + 820 = "2820"

95.1727577497 by 1942 + 410 = "2352"

97.85000415223 by 1884 + 180 = "2064"

98.56403262321 by 1826 + 120 = "1946"

So, something went wrong, Sesostris III's date to 1838 BC can't be a date to 1946 BC. But 1826 can be dated as 1838 in Claesemann's scenario, and this is 12 years off, that is a level of 99.855 pmC.

99.855 - 98.56403262321 = 1.29096737679

Let's divide this into five to make a rough correction, 1/5 to points 2 and 3, 2/5 to 4 and 5 up to all of it to points 10 and 11.

1.4 by 2406 + 35300 = "37706"

20.54694328825 by 2348 + 13100 = "15448"

37.35915676074 by 2290 + 8150 = "10440"

52.36754235721 by 2232 + 5350 = "7582"

65.07012665618 by 2174 + 3550 = "5724"

75.99760938704 by 2116 + 2250 = "4366"

84.64781633144 by 2058 + 1400 = "3458"

91.55124782545 by 2000 + 730 = "2730"

96.20553165113 by 1942 + 320 = "2262"

99.14097152902 by 1884 + 70 = "1954"

99.855 by 1826 + 10 = "1836"

And what year would Abraham have met his pharao? 292 + 75 = 367, 2406 - 367 = 2039.

Now, 2039 is between 2058 and 2000, therefore the carbon date for Abraham's pharao would have been between "3458" and "2730" ... and we would not have the carbon year or conventional Egyptological year "2039" for the actual year 2039.

There is another thing to take into account. We have just 58 actual years between the carbon years "40 000 BP" and "15448" - in human pre-historic archaeology, that's a lot of people who would have died, and I think quite a bit more than the first 58 years of the Flood could provide in born, grown and then dead.

Do you feel like taking a look at my tables, instead, by now?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Silvin of Toulouse
17.II.2022

In pago Tarvanensi, in Gallia, sancti Silvini, Episcopi Tolosani.

Could Guy Berthault Conduct a New Experiment, Please?

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Gutsick Gibbon on Cross Disciplinarity Outlawed in Academia, Heat Problem, Gate-Keeping · Gutsick Gibbon's Five Points Answered, I, Heat Problem and Extra on Absence of Solutions As Criterium · Gutsick Gibbon on Overturning Paradigms and Castile Formation · Geologic Column : Absent from Land Vertebrate Palaeontology · Continuing with Kevin · Creation vs. Evolution : Could Guy Berthault Conduct a New Experiment, Please? · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : Correspondence with Gutsick Gibbon (Erika) and with Kevin R. Henke

For solid bodies only when they are swept away by muddy water, Guy Berthault on Sedimentology.fr has already done what is needed.

Video25
7th Dec. 2006 | xytorix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHPZ0pnPmHs

(Video for site http://geology.ref.ac/berthault/)

I have been told by Kevin R. Henke that this is useless for Castile and Green River Formations, and his reason given is, these involve chemical precipitates.

However, the end result involves substances that can all of them be found now.

Here are two solutions proposed, which can be tested by someone trained to do that, which I am not.

But first two principles, as I (an utter amateur) see them:

• in general, Berthault's explanation is adequate for explaining sediment wharves;
• before deposits become sandstone, there is some kind of chemical expanasion of the silicates, and expulsion of the water.

Here are then the proposed solutions, I will call them "Berthault" and "Berthault cum Heerema" - the latter after a Dutch engineer who has given his view.

I "Berthault"

Grains of gypsum and calcite or that can become such, as well as pollen, must be hydrostatically sorted by salt water.

End result must involve wharves, pollen in some of them, fine laminated layers of salt, gypsum, calcite. The process by which grains of silicate join to sandstone should here be parallel to how sorted gypsum and calcite make layers, and it should expel salt water to even more laminae in between, and these should then form layers of solid rock salt.

II "Berthault cum Heerema"

Here the sorting would involve electrostatic (?) sorting, since gypsum and calcite or what becomes such would, quite as much as the salt, be dissolved in the water. Kevin R. Henke has presented one of the formations, I didn't quite get which one, as forming a long stretch of 113 km. That would be a Berthault flume, but for electrostatic sorting, it would be adequate with a volcanic eruption further up or further down that stream, since salt water would be a good conductor and lead electricity from the eruption to the 113 km we are here discussing. Obviously, instead of a volcano, Berthault is perfectly authorised to use a more normal source of electric one way current or discharges.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Scholastica
10.II.2022

Apud montem Cassinum sanctae Scholasticae Virginis, sororis sancti Benedicti Abbatis, qui ejus animam, instar columbae, migrantem e corpore in caelum ascendere vidit.

Woodmorappe Exaggerates the Extent

Catholic Church for over a Century? Really? See here:

As is the case with many Protestant Churches, the Catholic Church has been attempting, for over a century, to bend Scripture in various creative ways to make it fit evolution. It has never worked. Late is the hour. With the widespread apostasy from the churches, it is high time that the Church return to an unequivocal and literal acceptance of the Book of Genesis, and teach this without apology

How the Catholic Church sold out to evolution
A review of Creation, Evolution, and Catholicism: a discussion for those who believe (Thomas L. McFadden)
Book Review by John Woodmorappe in Creation 343
https://dl0.creation.com/articles/p137/c13759/j34-3_27-30.pdf

Even though the Church hesitantly accepted evolution by the turn of the 20th century,

But she didn't ... one was in 1900 allowed to believe grasses all descend from one type of grass - in other words, baraminology. One was not bothered, but also not directly encouraged to believe in non-human evolution in Chesterton's time, beyond baraminology.

The first open discussion of Adam having non-human ancestry came in 1941 ... the decade that a certain report (not CIADE, recently, but another one, 2019 or early 2020, or spoken of back then in context of the Barbarin process) had the first testimonies of priests committing sexual abuses from. And the conclusion was not "you can believe that" but "if so, those would have been physical progenitors, but not real parents" (Adam being the first real human being). In other words, the beginning of this non-rejection or not-quite-rejection was basically accusing God of being a child abuser as to Adam when a child.

Even in Humani generis 1950, there was no "you can believe this" for Adam getting his biology from non-human progenitors, only "this can be discussed" - however, it was reported as giving an actual permission. But that's 72, not over 100 years ago.

What you definitely could believe 100 years ago in the West World among Catholics was Old Age. Up to 1920 the options considered as orthodox were :

• Biblical chronology holds from Genesis 1:1
• Biblical chronology holds from Genesis 1:3 as per Gap Theory
• Biblical chronology probably holds from creation of Adam, but the creation days before that (including day 6) were longer periods, Day-Age Theory.

In 1920 someone saw that the last publication he knew of having defended any were from the 1890's and he concluded they were out of fashion. He was a Jesuit from Catholic Institute of Paris, his name was Émile Mancenot and he invented the Framework Theory while admitting none before him had accepted it, in Catholic circles .... but even he did not suggest evolution between different kinds, especially from any ape to any mankind. However, at the same time Teilhard de Chardin wrote men had evolved - like modern man from Homo erectus. Also a Jesuit ... as time went by, he was going to sing the praise of a God guiding Evolution.

But Teilhard de Chardin was very far from representative of Catholics back then. And very far from the Church as such promoting him, he was pushed back - he got a ban on writing (and obeyed it) and someone got him off a heresy process by suggesting he was mentally ill - something carrying less consequences back then, unless you were hospitalised, and the liberties of a Jesuit are anyway not quite the same as for a layman. In 1947 the Archdiocese of Paris wrote to Rome, the Papal Biblical Commission gave an answer that was interpreted in a very liberal sense, and Humani generis was partly a pushback against that, and Pius XII claimed the answer of the commission had been misrepresented.

38. Just as in the biological and anthropological sciences, so also in the historical sciences there are those who boldly transgress the limits and safeguards established by the Church. In a particular way must be deplored a certain too free interpretation of the historical books of the Old Testament. Those who favor this system, in order to defend their cause, wrongly refer to the Letter which was sent not long ago to the Archbishop of Paris by the Pontifical Commission on Biblical Studies.[13] This letter, in fact, clearly points out that the first eleven chapters of Genesis, although properly speaking not conforming to the historical method used by the best Greek and Latin writers or by competent authors of our time, do nevertheless pertain to history in a true sense, which however must be further studied and determined by exegetes; the same chapters, (the Letter points out), in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured, both state the principal truths which are fundamental for our salvation, and also give a popular description of the origin of the human race and the chosen people. If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents.

Too many concessions there already, a confusion of the metaphorical with the simple ... and I'll return to the horror of paragraph 36 ... but the historicity of Genesis 1 to 11 is in broad principle upheld. About as much as for instance Hugh Ross would do, not the least like Robertson or Spong. And note, even 36 says that opponents of evolution should be allowed in the debate.

This means, even 72 years ago, the Catholic Church as such on a world wide level had not "accepted evolution" as the claim went. Compare this with Lyell who in the 1830's was part of Broad Church Anglicanism - and already then impugning the historicity of Moses. As CMI has documented.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Andrew Corsini
4.II.2022

Sancti Andreae Corsini, ex Ordine Carmelitarum, Episcopi Faesulani et Confessoris, cujus dies natalis agitur octavo Idus Januarii.

Let's Carbon Test Stefan Claesemann's Chronology

HGL'S F.B. WRITINGS: Somewhat Sectarian Style, Semel · Somewhat Sectarian Style, bis · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl: No Answer from Dr. Liebi, So Far? · Stefan Claesemann tries to take it in private with me · Creation vs. Evolution : Let's Carbon Test Stefan Claesemann's Chronology · Correcting the Test

He has complained more than once that I have asked for proof before understanding it.

But how you prove an equation between Biblical and Egyptian pharaonic (or other extra-Biblical) chronology is part and parcel of your theory.

For instance, Rohl and Claesemann have, as far as I know, both used equivalents of Genesis 41:45 "The saviour of the world": Zaphnah paaneah and traced Joseph to this or that vizier, perhaps without asking whether the equivalence is sufficient, perhaps without asking whether later pharaos could have reused the title, a bit like Cicero might not be the last person whom Romans called "pater patriae". But I state this off the cuff, from memory, it could apply to only one of them, or I could have misunderstood both.

My identification for Joseph and therefore for his pharao is from the Hunger Stele reminding of an old legend that Imhotep, in the time of Djoser, collected grain under fat years and stored it, and distributed it under lean years, saving Egypt from starvation. It implies carbon date for Joseph in Egypt is carbon date for Djoser. Real 1700 BC is dated like 2800 BC (raw date, from memory).

Now, my best criticism of Claesemann is not how he gives an alternative identification for Joseph. My best criticism is how he choses the Egyptian dates. One thing immediately jumped to my attention, I asked him about it, and I got a refusal to discuss such details, as long as I hadn't let the totality sink in with all of its overwhelming intellectual beauties ... when precisely one of them left me underwhelmed.

Here it is. For all of the Israel stay in Egypt, Joseph to Exodus, he picks the Egyptian uniformitarian carbon dates as correct equivalents of roughly same Biblical dates in the BC chronology.

He believes God used the eruption of Thera for the Ten Plagues. I find it plausible. He also finds the Exodus occurred in 1609 BC, the carbon date for the Santorini eruption. In and of itself 1609 is not impossible. Ussher (useful for the Vulgate chronology, which is identic to Masoretic and King James) has the Exodus in 1492 I think, Roman Martyrology in 1510, as I use, George Syncellus in 1683. 1609 is in the range.

If he had said "we counted very carefully back from Babylonian captivity to Temple, and from then got 1609 BC as the date of Exodus" I would have found the general method very respectable, and worthy of a try. He didn't say that. Now keep in mind, 1609 is the uniformitarian carbon date for Santorini island with its eruption of the volcano Thera.

If 1609 ended the soujourn in a foreign land with its Egyptian part (the whole of it starting at Abraham's vocation 215 years before the migration to pharaonic Egypt), then 1609 + 215 = 1824, and lo and behold, in 1838 BC uniformitarian carbon dates, Sesostris III has his burial. Is it a coincidence that Sesostris III is Joseph's pharao?

As said, Abraham began his soujourn in a foreign land 215 years before Jacob migrated with seventy offspring or whatever the exact number was. 1824 + 215 = 2039 - and Abraham's pharao becomes Mentuhotep III.

Am I beginning to see a pattern? I think so. One nearly clear concern seems to have been not to contradict accepted Egyptology or Archaeology about their dates even as far back as Abraham.

But we have more coming. He is dismissive about the chronology of Seder Olam Rabbah to which he traces the LXX chronology (Syncellus and Roman Martyrology), so he holds that Abraham was born 292 after the Flood.

This means, Sesostris III is dead by 292 + c. 215, that is c. 507 after the Flood.* And since the carbon date of his coffin corresponds to the real date, this means he will have 100 pmC by 507 after the Flood. Let's take my carbon level for the Flood, 1.4 pmC. What needs to happen in 507 years to get to 100 pmC?

After 507 years, you have 94.051 % left, and the normal production is 100 - 94.051 = 5.949 pmC.

1.4 * 94.051 / 100 = 1.317 pmC
100 - 1.317 = 98.683 pmC
98.683 pmC / 5.949 pmC = 16.588 times as fast.

So, from Flood to Joseph, you have carbon 14 produced 16.6 times as fast, but from Joseph to us, you have carbon 14 produced at normal speed. Does it make much sense? No.

But suppose 16.588 times as fast was just in the middle of these, by Joseph's time it had slowed down to 1:1 with normal speed? By equal deceleration of production, this would mean at the Flood, carbon 14 started out as 33.176 times as fast as now.

Now, the carbon 14 production is in a not very well defined way proportional to the radioactivity that reaches the higher atmosphere from the cosmos and it goes like this : the input is the number, the speed and energy level of cosmic particles, and at inverse proportionality to the ensuing, the strength of the magnetic field. The output is radioactivity reaching the ground, quantity of carbon 14, quantity of beryllium, I think beryllium 4.

507 = 13 times 39

39 years => 99.529 %, add 100 - 99.529 = 0.471 pmC - namely in normal production speed. In subperiods 1 to 13 we will multiply by 99.529 %, that is * 99.529 / 100, and we will add 0.471 pmC multiplied with "faster than" factors ranging from 33.176 times as fast as now to simply 1 time as fast as now.

This will give us 14 points, single years, before (Flood), after (Jacon gets to Egypt) and between (twelve limit years with 39 years between, numbered from i to xiu. In each, the carbon 14 level will be given, then its time implication in extra years and added to that the real year to give the apparent carbon year.

I did these operations explicitly at the start of my carreer as carbon 14 calibrator, but as Stefan Claesemann has obviously not followed me from back then, he gets a rehearsal of the method.

Oh, by the way, Abraham meets a pharao when he's 75, 430 years before Exodus. 1609 + 430 = 2039 BC. This is between the years uiij and ix, between 2058 and 2019 BC.

i 2331 BC

1.4 pmC 35300 + 2331 = 37631 BC

1) 2331 BC to 2292 BC

starting in 1.4 pmC

1.4 * 99.529 / 100 = 1.393406

1.393406 + 15.625896 = 17.019302

ij 2292 BC

17.019302 14650 + 2292 = 16942 BC

2) 2292 BC to 2253 BC

17.019302 * 99.529 / 100 = 16.93914108758

16.93914108758 + 14.323581 = 31.26272208758

iij 2253 BC

31.26272208758 9600 + 2253 = 11853 BC

3) 2253 BC to 2214 BC

31.26272208758 * 99.529 / 100 = 31.11547466655

31.11547466655 + 13.021737 = 44.13721166655

iu 2214 BC

44.13721166655 6750 + 2214 = 8964 BC

4) 2214 BC to 2175 BC

44.13721166655 * 99.529 / 100 = 43.9293253996

43.9293253996 + 11.719422 = 55.6487473996

u 2175 BC

55.6487473996 4850 + 2175 = 7025 BC

5) 2175 BC to 2136 BC

55.6487473996 * 99.529 / 100 = 55.38664179935

55.38664179935 + 10.417107 = 65.80374879935

uj 2136 BC

65.80374879935 3450 + 2136 = 5586 BC

6) 2136 BC to 2097 BC

65.80374879935 * 99.529 / 100 = 65.49381314251

65.49381314251 + 9.115263 = 74.60907614251

uij 2097 BC

74.60907614251 2400 + 2097 = 4497 BC

7) 2097 BC to 2058 BC

74.60907614251 * 99.529 / 100 = 74.25766739388

74.25766739388 + 7.812948 = 82.07061539388

uiij 2058 BC

82.07061539388 1650 + 2058 = 3708 BC

8) 2058 BC to 2019 BC

82.07061539388 * 99.529 / 100 = 81.68406279537

81.68406279537 + 6.58929 = 88.27335279537

ix 2019 BC

88.27335279537 1050 + 2019 = 3069 BC

9) 2019 BC to 1980 BC

88.27335279537 * 99.529 / 100 = 87.8575853037

87.8575853037 + 5.365632 = 93.2232173037

x 1980 BC

93.2232173037 580 + 1980 = 2560 BC

10) 1980 BC to 1941 BC

93.2232173037 * 99.529 / 100 = 92.7841359502

92.7841359502 + 4.141974 = 96.9261099502

xj 1941 BC

96.9261099502 260 + 1941 = 2201 BC

11) 1941 BC to 1902 BC

96.9261099502 * 99.529 / 100 = 96.46958797233

96.46958797233 + 2.918316 = 99.38790397233

xij 1902 BC

99.38790397233 50 + 1902 = 1952 BC

12) 1902 BC to 1863 BC

99.38790397233 * 99.529 / 100 = 98.91978694462

98.91978694462 + 1.694658 = 100.61444494462

xiij 1863 BC

100.61444494462 1863 - 50 = 1813 BC

13) 1863 BC to 1824 BC

100.61444494462 * 99.529 / 100 = 100.14055090893

100.14055090893 + 0.471 = 100.61155090893

xiu 1824 BC

100.61155090893 1824 - 50 = 1774 BC

So, Abraham meeting pharao would have a carbon year like between 3708 BC and 3069 BC. Sound like Mentuhotep III to you? Me neither!

Facts are stubborn. Stefan Claesemann has attacked the Roman martyrology, and hit a rock - one against which the gates of hell shall not prevail.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Candlemass
2.II.2022

* The correct addition is 292 + 75 + c. 215 = c. 582 years after the Flood. I was tired for a moment. As can be seen, the average "faster than" ratio is still daunting. 16.588 * 507 / 582 = 14.45037113402 times as fast production of C14 as now. And not just up to Babel.