How do Old-Earthers Take Historic Christianity?

On the topic of Biblical chronology, it is at first glance very apparent that "they were all young earth" ... the most famous example against six literal days, St. Augustine of Hippo in books IV to VI of De Genesi ad Literam libri XII, is actually a good example for Young Earth Creationism, if not modern Creation Science, since the alternative he gave was a one-moment creation, making the time before Adam died at age 930 six days shorter than the other fathers, mostly, who believed in six literal days, like St. Basil.

Yet, there are Old-Earthers who do say they are Christians. How do they take historic Christians? Here are a few categories, and some answers to them.

• It doesn't matter what historic Christians thought, we today are the Church of God, we may have our own mistakes, but if they are not called out, we are not accountable, and neither were they, "Christ didn't promise infallibility to the Church."
• It does matter what historic Christians thought, but not on scientific matters, since they were Geocentrics, sometimes even flat earth, and believed the four humours. Infallibility or similar exists, but not about science.
• Their thoughts on science were taken from the science of their time. That being so, they would support us believing the science of our times. Their Young Earth Creationism is actually support for our Old Earth Creationism or Theistic Evolutionism.

"It doesn't matter what historic Christians thought" — well, actually, He did promise infallibility to the Church. Matthew 28:16—20. So, this is a take one can expect from extremely ahistoric versions of Protestantism. "In the fourth century someone clearly attested to believing the real presence in the Eucharist" — "Doesn't matter, they were reading the Bible wrong, just like my neighbour across the road." Obviously, this is not the kind of person I'm adressing in this essay, and as obviously, he can do this in favour of any reading of Genesis. If he's heard the urban legend that Church Fathers were Old Earthers, he'll defend Young Earth this way. Luckily, for him, the Church Fathers actually agreed with him. If he's a believer in Hislop, he'll defend a reading of Genesis 10 and 11 according to which Nimrod:

• originated pagan worship and religious practises
• and these much more clearly than the Roman or Greek ones precursors of Roman Catholicism.

The Christians of the fourth century didn't believe that? Doesn't matter. They were wrong, just as the Roman Catholic neighbour already mentioned across the road. It never bothers them to say Christians in the past were wrong. The same attitude also exists in favour of Old Earth. They never feel obliged to seek out what Christians in a past century were right, fulfilling Matthew 28:16—20. They may admit there must have been some, but they could well be invisible (contrary to Matthew 5:15).

Most Christians would agree this would be a fairly counter-productive way of saving any position, once it's known it's unhistoric, and would reject this approach. I would say a Young Earther who is not Hislop-style anti-Catholic and who has wrongly been told the Church Fathers were "none of them" Young Earth Creationists is lucky in being right despite the wrong approach. As a pre-teen, I was nearly prepared to go this route, but never thought all people except "my own sect" (no such thing, I was a Church-hopper) were wrong. I later have learned that this was not the actual position of the Church Fathers, they were in fact all of them Young Earth Creationist.

It does matter what historic Christians thought, but not on scientific matters — this take is much more wide-spread, both among anti-Catholics (to whom the Geocentric takes of past Christians prove the Catholic Church wrong) and among Catholics (who think a passage in Vatican I explicitly excludes scientific matters from falling under either Biblical or Ecclesiastic inerrancy or infallibility).

To the former club, I think one may count both Ellen Gould White and lots of Pentecostals.

To the latter, I think it is good to take up what the actual wording was:

Vatican I
Session 3, 24.IV.1870, chapter 2 on Revelation
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum20.htm

Now since the decree on the interpretation of holy scripture, profitably made by the council of Trent, with the intention of constraining rash speculation, has been wrongly interpreted by some, we renew that
decree and declare its meaning to be as follows: that
in matters of faith and morals,
belonging as they do to the establishing of christian doctrine,
that meaning of holy scripture must be held to be the true one,
which holy mother church held and holds,
since it is her right to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of holy scripture.

It says "in matters of faith and morals" ... it does NOT say "in matters of faith and morals, but not in matters of science" or any other such exception. The idea of non-overlapping magisteria cannot be extracted from this wording, it's applied to them via an eisegesis (alas now pretty common among presumed Catholics, and some may be in good faith and their souls may be enjoying the virtue of faith, so that they are actually Catholic rather than heretic).

But some would not go as far as to say that anything the men of the Church has to say on science is outside its scope, but they will only go for things like Geocentrism and Young Earth Creationism.

Their thoughts on science were taken from the science of their time. — This is probably the most common take.

St. Augustine was a Young Earth Creationist, not so much because he was totally fallible in scientific matters, as because this was supported by the "science of his time" ... he was a Geocentric for the exact same reason, they would say. In the case of Geocentrism, I'll grant them a point. The antique proponents of Heliocentrism were not just dead, but belonged to philosophical schools that were dead, by the time of St. Augustine. So, in a sense, and I'll come back to the qualifications, one could say that the Geocentrism of St. Augustine (book I of De Genesis ad Literam libri XII) actually was completely supported by "the science of his time" ...

To further support this, one could say all schools of philosophy supported Globe Earth and he was a Globist, not a Flattist, a Round-Earther, not a Flat-Earther. So, on that one too, he went along with "the science of his time" ...

Part of the idea is, if Geocentrism also comes within the apparent spontaneously most direct approach to Scripture in certain places, so does Flat Earth. I don't think it does. Circles are not automatically only rims of flat and round-disc objects, they are also dimensions of ball-shaped objects. Four corners in Apocalypse 7:1 refers to corners of continents. Unknown to Europeans in the time of St. Augustine, I'll enumerate them for you.

• Alaska
• Sakhalin
• Tasmania
• Cape Horn.

Continental discs may be somewhat rounded over the globe, but they do have rims. And these rims do have corners.

So, by accepting Round Earth, St. Augustine was in fact NOT giving a precedent of putting the best science of his day over Biblical litteralism. But even more. There were Church Fathers who were Flat Earth, I think this was the case with St. Hippolytus of Rome, and it was the case with the ecclesiastic writer (not canonised Church Father) Lactantius. They give precendent for putting (apparent) Biblical litteralism above science. There also was St. Basil who said "it doesn't matter, since Moses didn't tell" ... he was conscious the Biblical texts were compatible with both views. No matter how literalistically you took them.

But again, what exactly was natural science?

It was most definitely NOT some kind of magisterium. Oh, outside very applied fields, medicine and engineering. There certainly were ideas of an order we would term "scientific" on which there was consensus. Round Earth? Platonics, Aristotelics, perhaps even Stoics and Epicureans all agree. Geocentrism? Aristotelics, Epicureans, perhaps Stoics, certainly most Platonics agreed, and Neo-Pythagoreans for some while didn't, but they were already gone by the time of St. Augustine. So, yes, on both issues there was consensus. There was if you like a kind of "scientific core curriculum" in philosophy.

But how would you access this core curriculum?

You could access it through the Aristotelians. Then you would also access forms inherent in material things. You could access it through Platonics. Then you would also access forms (or ideas) as pre-existing material things. That is, you could access it through the divers sects of Philosophy. There was no institution of study that upheld just the core curriculum, and you would learn the difference between your own sect and another one only by debating people from it. You would not learn from the Platonic that Round Earth was and Pre-Existing Ideas weren't shared by Aristotelians. You would not learns from the Aristotelians that Round Earth was and Inherent Forms weren't shared by Platonics. You could learn it as a side issue, but you would learn it in the format:

"the Aristotelians are right about less important matters, like Round Earth, but wrong about more important ones, like the Idea of Good pre-existing all Good Things and all Good Actions"
"the Platonics are right about less important matters, like Geocentrism, but wrong about more important ones, like the Form of Horse not existing other than in actual Horses, any more than actual Horses existing without the Form of Horse"

Was there really no-where you could learn the core curriculum without engaging yourself to the Platonic or Aristotelic school? In fact there were a few such places. But none of them could qualify as Scientific institutions still extant in St. Augustine's day.

• Church Fathers were as eclectic and hanging loose on Philosophy as they were stringent on adhering to Scripture
• the lectures on Homer or on Virgil would include references to those things
• Pyrrhonism, in order to subvert certainty, would normally feature conflicts between schools, and as such also probably feature non-conflicts — but arguably they weren't there in St. Augustine's time.

This latter point needs some defense, by now, since on wikipedia (Pyrrhonism) I find this info:

Although Julian the Apostate[27] mentions that Pyrrhonism had died out at the time of his writings, other writers mention the existence of later Pyrrhonists. Pseudo-Clement, writing around the same time (c. 300-320 CE) mentions Pyrrhonists in his Homilies[28] and Agathias even reports a Pyrrhonist named Uranius as late as the middle of the 6th century CE.[29]

Julian the Apostate: Epistles lxxxix 301C; Pseudo-Clement, Homilies, 13.7, Agathias II 29-32, cited in Jonathan Barnes, Mantissa 2015 p. 652.

Uranius can have been a late adherent to an already dead movement. I don't think Uranius was able to revive it. Julian the Apostate supports my case. So, what about Pseudo-Clement, writing about this time?

The term Pseudo-Clement on wikipedia redirects to Clementine Literature.

Though lost, the original survives in two recensions known as the Clementine Homilies and the Clementine Recognitions. The overlap between the two has been used to produce a provisional reconstruction of the Circuits of Peter.[4] Respectively, the original titles for these two texts were the Klementia and the Recognitions of the Roman Clement.[3] Both were composed in the fourth-century. In turn, there was plausibly a second-century document (referred to as the Kerygmata Petrou or "Preaching of Peter") that was used a source for the original Clementine literature text. The Kerygma are thought to consist of a letter from Peter to James, lectures and debates of Peter, and James's testimony about the letters recipients.[5]

In other words, my only warrant for Pseudo-Clement being first of all Pseudo and second writing in the fourth century is modern scholarship denying the writings really come from a source close to St. Peter, therefore in the first century (when Pyrrhonism certainly existed).

Was "modern scholarship" of the type Higher Criticism also one of the areas in which the Church had no own say compared to "Science"? I don't think so, the Acts from the Pontifical Biblical Commission under St. Pius X say the exact opposite. So, if the method is faulty when applied to Biblical books, is it somehow guaranteed to be good when applied to all other books? I obviously find this ludicrous.

In other words, St. Augustine (who never mentioned Pyrrhonism as a philosophy in either book VIII or book XIX of City of God*) with very fair certainty did not have access to the Pyrrhonic school either for "scientific core curriculum" ...

His views were relying on amateur Platonism, on Cicero, on literature and commentary, on Church Fathers, and in general on anything BUT neutral scientific experts. There simply was no such thing as an institution upholding any kind of scientific core curriculum he could appeal to or bow down to. Both on Round Earth and on Geocentrism, he was using his own personal judgement, even if you like private interpretation, of what the Bible allowed or demanded, and what the observations and correct conclusions allowed and demanded. There simply was no such thing as "the science of his day" to bow down to.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
XXIInd L.D. after Pentecost
20.X.2024

* On the main page of The City of God I do an F-search for "philosopher" and find references in books 8 and 19, on each of these, The City of God (Book VIII) and The City of God (Book XIX) I do an F-search on "Pyrrho" which would also cover "Pyrrhonism" ... but even if I found Pyrrhonism under the alternative term Scepticism or Sceptics, book XIX uses Varro, who lived centuries earlier. St. Augustine wanting to be complete did not just take the philosophical schools of his own day, but covered positions which hadn't been adhered to for quite some time. C. S. Lewis made a point of how it was usually a fairly hazardous thing to affirm a universal negative about a corpus, but in fact, I can now use the F-Search.

Chapter 11 Verse 3 Revisited

And each one said to his neighbour: Come, let us make brick, and bake them with fire. And they had brick instead of stones, and slime instead of mortar
[Genesis 11:3]

I just learned* they had found plaster at Göbekli Tepe.

To Milo Rossi*, this indicates that there were rooves, which have not been found. Apart from the "slime instead of mortar" possibly being plaster, it is possible that the bitumen was actually used on rooftops.

For the non-baked bricks, the text doesn't state they succeeded in making baked bricks. In Jericho they have found some baked brick in broken pieces that are used to make pavements, from this same time, those could be the failed attempt at baking bricks, and they may have settled for mud bricks instead.
/Hans Georg Lundahl

PS, the 200 pillars would be, over 40 years of Babel, 5 pillars a year, or more. Not like those believing the carbon dates at face value, as they believe any pillar would have been a "multigenerational project"*./HGL

* 10:53 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJU973IbG7I

UPDATE

The** next developmental stage is 7:54 the pre potery Neolithic be roughly 7:57 dated between 10,700 7:59 and 8:00 8,500 years 8:02 ago population centers increase in size 8:06 the shape of the architecture is now 8:08 more rectangular burnt lime plaster is 8:11 widely used

Burnt lime plaster is part of my view of what the phrase on "whites burnt with burning" (bricks baked in fire) really means.

nil·bə·nāh		let us make
lə·ḇê·nîm		"bricks"
From laban; a brick (from the whiteness of the clay) — (altar of) brick, tile.
wə·niś·rə·p̄āh		"and bake them"
saraph: to burn
liś·rê·p̄āh;		"thoroughly"
same word as in Isaiah 9:5, where it is translated "burning"

** Ancient Architects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVPJQJcXmMM

As the video features a slow, gradual development from Epipalaeolithic to Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, this in the Levant starts in 18 000 BC (carbon dated) and finishes in 6500 BC (also carbon dated). 11500 years.

In my recalibration, this is between 2738 and 2712 BC for the beginning of Epipalaeolithic in the Levant, and 2386 BC for the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. 352 years. A time span comparable to Industrialism for a comparable change in conditions./HGL

Am I Boycotted for Not Sharing This View?

I'll give you an extract from a transscript:

11:48 so now that we know the Angelic connections to giborim let's go over the possible options Nimrod was either born 11:56 a gibber giant or he became a gbim giant we need to study that and how was that 12:03 action of becoming or being a giant brought about either way Nimrod or his 12:09 father started the Pagan cult at the Tower of Babylon and I want to know what 12:15 that means let's look at a possibility that I found very intriguing did nimrod find pre flood 12:23 Pagan writings learn them and try them out and that a fallen Spirit or Fallen 12:29 Spirits came from following these Watcher level Fallen Angel writings that 12:35 would have been found on temples pre flood temples that are still found on pre- flood temples throughout the world

Nimrod's Rebellion: Finding Forbidden Angelic Knowledge-Becoming Gibborim
Life - Travel - Word | 10 Oct. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iogU1f3dKUM

Note a few things here that I don't share:

1) Nimrod or his 12:09 father started the Pagan cult
2) at the Tower of Babylon
3) pre flood temples that are still found on pre- flood temples throughout the world

How would I correct this to fit my views?

1) Nimrod started a technocratic and antitheistic cult
2) at the the city, dreaming of a "tower" (rocket) in Babel, Göbekli Tepe
3) no pre-Flood temple has been found, unless you mean caves where cannibalism was practised, but the significance could have been non-religious.

Specifically, Göbekli Tepe is not a pre-Flood temple, also not Noah's immediately post-Flood altar, but the actual site of Nimrod's Babel. Later on, Sargon of Akkad destroyed a later Babel, and renamed Akkad into Babel. The video will feature Göbekli Tepe in the context of Jubilees speaking of Cainan son of Arphaxad as contacting the Watchers, and Zach had speculated about this involving writings at "pre-Flood temples" ...

The original post-Flood anti-Christ Nimrod ben Kush (which does add up to 666 in straight Hebrew gematria), like the final Antichrist, upcoming as world wide ruler, probably already on the scene, neither is a religious person, neither is first and foremost into esoteric experiences, at least in public, both appear rationalists (but are irrationally denying what God already had or now has revealed), both speak of the true God as a real being, but one we, for some reason do not need to obey.

God is evil! He killed a whole humanity! We need to get rid of him!

Sound familiar? Yet this is what Josephus basically said of Nimrod, with some additions. Look at Josephus' account, so much earlier than Zach (owner of the channel Life - Travel - Word, which I just quoted), and so different from it:

2. Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it was through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!

Antiquities, Book I, CHAPTER 4. Concerning The Tower Of Babylon, And The Confusion Of Tongues. (§2)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2848/2848-h/2848-h.htm#link2HCH0004

So, Nimrod wasn't New Age, he was more like a Stalinist and Progressive. He pretty certainly did have communications with demons, but if you ask me, he was not inviting people to approach them as gods, with rituals of adoration, he was demanding a kind of adoration for his project, that is, he was demanding excessive allegiance to it, excessive sacrifices for it, excessive ill-will towards those shirking that.

And a hint the final Antichrist will be like that is found in Daniel and Thessalonians:

And he shall make no account of the God of his fathers: and he shall follow the lust of women, and he shall not regard any gods: for he shall rise up against all things But he shall worship the god Maozim in his place: and a god whom his fathers knew not, he shall worship with gold, and silver, and precious stones, and things of great price
[Daniel 11:37-38]

Who opposeth, and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God.
[2 Thessalonians 2:4]

Basically, every new thing that I learn about Göbekli Tepe, or every second, confirms what kind of evils Nimrod would be doing in a purely secular way. Even when archaeologists think of religion.

One reason I bring this up is, obviously I came across the video, but even before that, on Spanish quora, I got asked what is the modern name of Babylonia, and I was sure they were fishing for the answer "Iraq" but I answered that when Assyria and Babylonia are taken together (and Genesis 10 mentions Nineveh, which I didn't mention, since the question was not clothed in obvious religious context), that encompasses parts of Turkey, Syria and Iraq, and while they were originally separate, they were joined. When Hebrew Shinar was translated Babylonia at some of the hits in the LXX, this was when Assyria had already been conquered and therefore joined to Babylonia. My hunch is, someone wanted to nudge me to some kind of realisation I had been on the wrong track. That someone was factually wrong. The video did not come naturally in my viewing history.

Now, to some, "the tower" obviously was a ziggurat, and as obviously Nimrod's rebellion was paganism and as obviously, the closest we get to that these days is Buddhism or Hinduism. And the huge Trojan Horse for that one, is, not just strictly Anthroposophic or Theosophic New Age, like Madame Blavatsky, like Findhorn, but basically anything that's new agey. Including even such a thing as fifteen minutes of meditation, with no pagan god names and no illicit themes. Or using herbs and musical frequences for healing.

Well, what about the Shintoism of Hirohito? Worshipping Kamis means worshipping things with superpowers, able to achieve certain things, and I mean as objective real world results. Hirohito thought the Kamis had given him Western technology so he could go on a Conquering Spree. Or, if you insist that Ancient Babylonian religion had new agey things in astrology and making predictions from entrails, well, that's still pretty different from hypnosis and meditation, when used to experience peace. But in a huge way, it was concerned with providing incitations to projects that were neither introvert nor otherworldly, but simply "success in life" and providing some luck charms for them. Now, Nimrod was a mighty hunter, so it's arguably, he could have been seen as a walking and talking luck charm in his own right. Hence, sacrifices to provide luck, well, no need, except obviously the ultra-huge sacrifice of individual liberties in favour of Nimrod's tyranny.

Evangelical congregations came to being mostly in the Enlightenment era, and probably not always in full opposition to, rather perhaps sometimes collaboration with Freemasonry. Much which to a Scholastic, or to a Catholic, sounds like normal pre-Enlightenment Christian views, would by them be considered as new agey stuff and therefore as part of the "Babylonian" system, and therefore as part of Nimrod's deception. I don't think it is. With hypnosis videos and guided meditations, I'm taking a risk, I'm not inviting people to do the same. With the Rosary, as a practise, or with heavenly bodies ruled and moved around in the orbits and similar we observe, as a doctrine, I'm on firm ground. It's not New Age (I also happen to know New Age has a higher tendency to believe "infinite solar systems" and for each its Heliocentrism, than Geocentrism. It's idiotic to class me as New Age for that, but that's what some people to me seem to be doing. Hence, I'm asking the question.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Maternity of Our Lady
11.X.2024

Festum Maternitatis beatae Mariae Virginis.

Does Robert Carter Understand What Archaeology Can Do?

CMI: The extreme rarity of long-lived people in the post-Flood era
by Robert Carter | 11.X.2024
https://creation.com/rarity-of-long-lived-people-post-flood

The post-Flood patriarchs had extended lifespans, yet scant evidence exists for extremely old people in the archaeological record. There is a simple mathematical reason for this discrepancy: their extreme rarity in the exponentially growing post-Flood population.

While that solution may be part of the thing, there is another issue. If you want to read more on that, read his article, it's not bad per se, it's just overlooking sth.*

How exactly would an archaeologist identify a skeleton in archaeology as "extremely old"?

And Heber lived thirty-four years, and begot Phaleg 17 And Heber lived after he begot Phaleg, four hundred and thirty years: and begot sons and daughters
[Genesis 11:16-17]

16 Καὶ ἔζησεν ῞Εβερ ἑκατὸν τριάκοντα τέσσαρα ἔτη καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Φαλέγ. 17 καὶ ἔζησεν ῞Εβερ μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Φαλὲγ ἔτη διακόσια ἑβδομήκοντα καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας καὶ ἀπέθανε.

16 And Heber lived an hundred and thirty-four years, and begot Phaleg. 17 And Heber lived after he had begotten Phaleg two hundred and seventy years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.

LXX Genesis 11 / Ellopos

34 + 430 = 464
134 + 270 = 404

Whether Heber was 464 or 404 when he died, he was clearly older than 90. So, you know how a skeleton looks if you estimate it to 90, you imagine how it would look if it were even older, you look for that, right?

Wrong.

If at age 90 Heber had had the physique of someone aged 90 today, he would not have lived to over 400. Longevity must imply slower tear and wear, or it won't work.

In Anglo-Saxon England, some 40~60 or whatever persons died and were buried who have been found, and medical studies concluded that they must all have died before 45. This was then pushed as evidence that 45 was, not medium, but closeish to normal maximum, of the normal lifespan. Well, it turns out, someone then proceeded to look at the teeth, and concluded that people were often enough dying at 60 sth. The first investigation had simply not taken into account that they were overestimating the tear and wear they expected someone to have.

For one thing, the people they found may not have been farmers. But for another, sitting on tractors pretty much of the year may take a heavier toll than a more communal and slow way of working the earth. A farmer today may be sowing and harvesting wheat for 100 times more than the size of his family. Ten people's families back then would have involved the families and labour of nine farmers' families. Or, possibly, twenty heads of family can have involved nineteen farmers. If you produce for 100 times your needs, even with modern machinery, you work more than if you produce for the needs of perhaps as little as 1.11 times your needs, even without modern machinery.

So, the people in Anglo-Saxon England, if farmers, were less worn out than modern scholars expected them to be. Or they weren't farmers in the first place. But, they had the same organisms and same aging mechanisms as we have today, and Heber hadn't, he clearly aged slower.

So, one reason we don't find very long lived people is, we don't identify them. For the Upper Palaeolithic, which I put between Flood and beginning of Babel (with Noah's farmstead and vineyard just pioneering and doing very little impact on the overall economy, though CMI has mentioned they found starch dated to 20 000 years ago), anyone alive then would have had a life expectancy into the Neolithic, and so, anyone who died back then died prematurely. A man dying at 200 might well look like if he had died at 30 or 40 or sth.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Francis Borgia
10.X.2024

Sancti Francisci Borgiae, Sacerdotis e Societate Jesu et Confessoris, cujus dies natalis pridie Kalendas Octobris recensetur.

* Not totally. He does discuss it further down in the section "Discussion" below figure 5. As he mentions specifically the post-Flood patriarchs as such, one can on the subject of delayed puberty mention that if Hagar was not a giantess, it is conspicuous that she could carry a son at least around 14 on her back, when exiled. I think he's wrong to include Neanderthals in a consideration of post-Flood patriarchs, as he already knows and some readers of this blog already know. They were pre-Flood.

Peopling of Americas, Biblical Chronology, My Tables

First Americans DNA: What is the Genetic History of Native Americans?
Celtic History Decoded | 3 Oct. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOcGQBEpvg0

2787 BC

8.996 pmC and dated 22 687 BC

Mal'ta boy

24 000 YA = 22 000 BC

2762 BC

10.036 pmC and dated 21 762 BC

Crossing Beringia

23 000 YA = 21 000 BC

2738 BC

11.073 / 11.069 pmC and dated 20 938 BC

2712 BC

17.576 pmC and dated 17 062 BC

Behring's landbridge down

17 000 YA = 15 000 BC

2686 BC

24.062 pmC and dated 14 486 BC

A period of rapid expansion:

16 000 YA = 14 000 BC

Monte Verde

14 500 YA = 12 500 BC

2659 BC

30.528 pmC and dated 12 459 BC

13 000 YA = 11 000 BC

2633 BC

36.973 pmC and dated 10 883 BC

See my Mes plus récentes tables de carbone 14, and this means the peopling of the Americas happened in a span of 154 years./HGL

Would Tuas Libenter Condemn Geocentrism and Young Earth Creationism Because of the Theologians who were Fine with Heliocentrism and Deep Time?

Great Bishop of Geneva! Can a Catholic Say the Bible is Infallible? · Creation vs. Evolution: Would Tuas Libenter Condemn Geocentrism and Young Earth Creationism Because of the Theologians who were Fine with Heliocentrism and Deep Time? · somewhere else: "God is Being Itself, Creationism Portrays Him as a Cause Among Others"

Consensus of theologians is mentioned here:

Qua falsa opinione ipsius Ecclesiae auctoritas in discrimen vocatur, quandoquidem ipsa Ecclesia non solum per tot continentia saecula permisit, ut ex eorumdem Doctorum methodo, et ex principiis communi omnium catholicarum scholarum consensu sancitis theologica excoleretur scientia, verum etiam saepissime summis laudibus theologicam eorum doctrinam extulit, illamque veluti fortissimum fidei propugnaculum et formidanda contra suos inimicos arma vehementer commendavit.*

Or here:

Atque etiam Nobis persuademus, ipsos noluisse declarare, perfectam illam erga revelatas veritates adhaesionem, quam agnoverunt necessariam omnino esse ad verum scientiarum progressum assequendum et ad errores confutandos, obtineri posse, si dumtaxat Dogmatibus ab Ecclesia expresse definitis fides et obsequium adhibeatur. Namque etiamsi ageretur de illa subiectione, quae fidei divinae actu est praestanda, limitanda tamen non esset ad ea, quae expressis, oecumenicorum Conciliorum aut Romanorum Pontificum, huiusque Apostolicae Sedis decretis definita sunt, sed ad ea quoque extendenda quae ordinario totius Ecclesiae per orbem dispersae magisterio tanquam divinitus revelata traduntur, ideoque universali et constanti consensu a catholicis Theologis ad fidem pertinere retinentur.**

Perhaps also other places in:

PIUS PP. IX
EPISTOLA TUAS LIBENTER
https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-ix/la/documents/epistola-tuas-libenter-21-decembris-1863.html

So, there appears to have been a consensus among theologians, not just since Vatican II, but since Matthias Joseph Scheeben (who died in 1888) that we are able to admit Deep Time or for that matter probably Heliocentric astronomy.

Handbuch der katholischen Dogmatik. 7 parts. Freiburg: 1873–87.

Now, I said "there appears" ... one of those admitting Deep Time, namely Fr. Mangenot, a Jesuit writing in 1920, also implicitly admitted that while Scheeben wrote, this was not a solid consensus. He gave theological opinions from 1890's as divided into three opposing schools on Genesis 1.

• literal six days contiguous with the first act of creation (Young Earth Creationism);
• literal six days, but after a long history ending in a catastrophy (Gap Theory);
• non-literality of "days" so they mean long periods, but there were literally six of them. (Day-Age Theory)

So, while the ones favouring Young Earth Creationism were probably not considering the other ones (Gap Theory and Day-Age Theory) as heretics, they arguably were arguing for the compulsory nature of the traditional reading, which really and truly already had those "so many consecutive centuries" behind it.

I would also argue that the fact of not adhering to Young Earth Creationism is not by itself, even if taken collectively by all bishops up to 1950 or to Vatican II, an endorsement against it, it would need a specific endorsement for a specific other view (Day-Age, Gap, Framework Theory, one of them), that endorsement to present itself as compulsory, and for that to be shared across dioceses around the world. And for long enough. 1873 (when Scheeben started publishing) to 1950 is perhaps not long enough, it's just 77 years. But more importantly, we do not have a consensus for a specific other theory being compulsory.

First, I think "older and quirkier"*** than framework theory persisted, whether "Fundie Deep Time" (Day Age or Gap) or even straight endorsements of Literal Six Days (at least as a possibility). Second, they would have been divided for some time on endorsing Gap Theory or Day Age before going for (later on, especially US Conference of Bishops and French Episcopate) Framework Theory. This division means they were not endorsing some specifical alternative as trumping Literalism. Third, access to older theologians (from before even Day Age and Gap Theory were things) has gone up, it has even skyrocketed since Vatican II, during my lifetime, and especially after 2000 with the internet.

So, no, even for Deep Time "theologians" don't have a sufficient or sufficiently long standing consensus to ditch Literalism.

When it comes to Heliocentrism, as late as Benedict XV, in his encyclical on Dante, he isn't stating "even though Dante's cosmology was wrong" but "even if Dante's cosmology were wrong" mentioning the Heliocentric position only indirectly and hypothetically, and without giving explicit categorical consent.°

Similarily, some guys seem to believe that Pius VII and Gregory XVI required Heliocentrism to be believed and taught as truth. But in fact, the Inquisitor Filippo Anfossi (probably son or nephew or sth of the composer Pasquale Anfossi, both are born in Taggio and their lifespans are overlapping by about what you'd expect from a father and son couple) who had wanted to forbid the categorically Heliocentric book by Giuseppe Settele, was not in any way shape or form required to give up Geocentrism. Simply to accept that the magisterium was not actively condemning it. You will find individual theologians who are treating Heliocentrism as a what-if.

In 1859, after Fr. George Leo Haydock died, the commentary on the Bible that was reprinted in a new edition that year contained this "dialogue" between Calmet (prior to the decision by Pius VII) and Haydock (possibly already posterior to it, but cited in this reprint°° which is from even after Gregory XVI:

Calmet

The pretended impossibility of it, or the inconvenience arising to the fatigued soldiers from the long continuance of the day, will make but small impression upon those who consider, that God was the chief agent; and that he who made all out of nothing, might easily stop the whole machinery of the world for a time, and afterwards put it in motion again, without causing any derangement in the different parts. (Calmet)

Haydock

It is not material whether the sun turn round the earth, or the contrary. (Haydock)

Calmet

The Hebrews generally supposed that the earth was immovable; and on this idea Josue addresses the sun. Philosophers have devised various intricate systems: but the Scripture is expressed in words suitable to the conceptions of the people. The exterior effect would be the same, whether the sun or the earth stood still. Pagan authors have not mentioned this miracle, because none of the works of that age have come down to us. We find, however, that they acknowledged a power in magic capable of effecting such a change.

Cessavere vices rerum dilataque longæ,
Hæsit nocte dies: legi non paruit æther,
Torpuit & præceps audito carmine mundus. (Lucan, Phars. vi.)

See Homer, Odyssey xii. 382., and xxiii. 242.

This miracle would not render Josue superior to Moses, as some have argued. For all miracles are equally impossible to man, and equally easy to God: the greatness of a miracle is not a proof of greater sanctity. (Calmet)

Calmet forgot how the miracle of Josue, as a historic memory, seems to have influenced the action of Agamemnon before Troy, as he prayed to Helios for a similar occurrence with a similar purpose. That's also an indirect confirmation. And since Agamemnon failed to obtain his wish of routing Trojans, well, that would have discredited the memory and made them go "oh, no, that far off Phoenician or sth didn't get such a favour from Helios if even our own Agamemnon didn't" ....

But though Calmet and Haydock are both obviously aware of Heliocentrism, neither subscribes to it as the obvious truth. In England, the Haydock Bible would be part of the ordinary magisterium up to the footnoted Knox Bible. In the US, the Haydock Bible was even longer the voice of the Magisterium.

In other words, we do not have even one century of magisterium (papal or local, extraordinary or ordinary) united in expressing Heliocentrism as the truth involved in Josue 10.

Remember what Tuas Libenter said about "per tot continentia saecula"? Geocentrism and Young Earth Creationism have more of that than Heliocentrism and Deep Time compromise.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Feast of Guardian Angels
2.X.2024

Festum sanctorum Angelorum Custodum.

PS, next day (thank you, St. Thérèse!) I note the Roman Martyrology which was in common use by all Latin Rite Catholic priests for December 25 states:

IN the year, from the creation of the world, when in the beginning God created heaven and earth, five, thousand, one hundred and ninety-nine; from the flood, two thousand, nine hundred and fiftyseven; from the birth of Abraham, two thousand and fifteen; from Moses and the coming of the Israelites out of Egypt, one thousand, five hundred and ten; from the anointing of king David, one thousand and thirty-two; in the sixty-fifth week, according to the prophecy of Daniel ; in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad; in the year seven hundred and fifty-two from the founding of the city of Rome; in the forty-second year of the empire of Octavian Augustus, when the whole earth was at peace, in the sixth age of the world, Jesus Christ, eternal God, and Son of the eternal Father, desirous to sanctify the world by His most merciful coming, having been conceived of the Holy Ghost, and nine months having elapsed since his conception, is born in Bethlehem of Juda, having become man of the Virgin Mary. THE NATIVITY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, ACCORDING TO THE FLESH.

Roman Martyrology 25 December
https://roman-martyrology.brandt.id.au/martyrs/12-25.html

There are other readings than this one, four more./HGL

PPS, in case you missed the relevance, the liturgy is also part of the magisterium. If a prayer in Mass asks God to lead us into a good life, we are not free to assume that living a life pleasing to God comes from our own initiative rather than God's and if the martyrology reading for Christmas day (in use while St. Thérèse lived on earth!) says Jesus was born 5199 after Creation, we can't assume He was born 13.8 billion from Creation./HGL

* Own Translation of quote 1:

By which false opinion the authority of the Church herself is jeopardised, since the Church herself not only by so many consecutive centuries allowed, that from the same Doctors' method, and from the common sanctioned principles of all Catholic schools' consensus the theological science be perfected, but also often has extolled with the highest praises their theological doctrine, and has commended it vehemently aas a very strong rampart and a fearful arm against her enemies.

** Own Translation of quote 2:

And We are also persuaded, they themselves have not wanted to declare, that that perfect adhesion to revealed truths, which they admit to be totally necessary to obtain a real progress of sciences and to refute errors, can be obtained, by showing faith and sympathy only for the Dogmas expressly defined by the Church. Since, even if it were about that subjection, which we owe to divine faith in act, it should still not be limited to that, which is defined in expressed decrees of Ecumenical Councils or Roman Pontiffs, or of this Apostolic See, but it is to be extended to that which is delivered as divinely revealed by the ordinary magisterium of the entire Church spread out throw the globe, and is therefore by universal and constant consensus of Catholic Theologians retained as pertaining to the faith.

*** Quirkier to Atheist and New Agers, obviously, as well as to Liberal Protestants (but I'm repeating myself).

° Relevant quote from IN PRAECLARA SUMMORUM

Latin:

Quod si de caelestibus rebus scientiae pervestigatio progrediens aperuit deinceps eam mundi compositionem sphaerasque illas, quae veterum doctrina ponerentur, nullas esse, naturamque et numerum et cursum stellarum et siderum alia esse prorsus atque illi iudicavissent, manet tamen hanc rerum universitatem quoquo eius partes regantur ordine eodem administrari nutu quo est condita Dei omnipotentis qui omnia quaecumque sunt, moveat et cuius gioria plus minus usquequaque eluceat: hanc autem terram quam nos homines incolimus licet ad universi caeli complexum iam non quasi centrum, ut opinio fuit, obtinere dicenda sit, ipsam tamen et sedem beatae nostrorum progenitorum vitae fuisse, et testem deinde tum eius, quam illi fecerunt ex eo statu prolapsionis miserrimiae tum restitutae Iesu Christi sanguine hominum salutis sempiternae.

Official English translation:

If the progress of science showed later that that conception of the world rested on no sure foundation, that the spheres imagined by our ancestors did not exist, that nature, the number and course of the planets and stars, are not indeed as they were then thought to be, still the fundamental principle remained that the universe, whatever be the order that sustains it in its parts, is the work of the creating and preserving sign of Omnipotent God, who moves and governs all, and whose glory risplende in una parte piu e meno altrove; and though this earth on which we live may not be the centre of the universe as at one time was thought, it was the scene of the original happiness of our first ancestors, witness of their unhappy fall, as too of the Redemption of mankind through the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ.

I underlined the less than categorical admissions of Heliocentrism, and "may not be" corresponds to "may not be ought-to-be-said-[to-be]" as "dicinda sit", but the choise of "sit" (subjunctive) instead of "est" (indicative) is very well translated in "may not be" rather than "is not" ...

°° Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition.
JOSUE - Chapter 10
https://johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock/id545.html