Can People Know What Good Is, Without Being Christian?

Once in a while, I'm not building from CMI as Creationists, but opposing their Protestantism. Today is one of those days.

It is impossible, especially for those who do not know the Lord, to have any kind of mental framework in which they can recognize what ‘good’ really is. As fallen people, we are born cut off from knowing the only right and good Being in the universe [God], and therefore, we are also cut off from knowing what is really good. Sinners think sinning is good, and God is bad! Clearly, their thinking is upside down!

Thinking ‘upside-down’!
By Gary Bates | Published 23 Nov, 2011 | Updated 09 Jan, 2014
https://creation.com/en/articles/thinking-upside-down

And, unfortunately, Gary Bates says "spot on".

No, it is somewhat beside the point. If we were born thinking upside down about morals, Pagans wouldn't be without excuse. They are.

For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools
[Romans 1:22]

Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them
[Romans 1:32]

St. Paul doesn't say the Pagans had no idea these things were wrong. It's just that they had got socially used to thinking they were excusable.

A sinner is born with knowledge of God's justice, instinctively. Any theoretical deviation from it comes from three issues:

• excusing oneself when one sins (and as people sin on different issues, this involves excusing different things), ad hoc each time;
• generalising an excuse (whether for oneself or for someone one admires or loves), hoping others will agree;
• being taught by others to excuse a bad thing.

As different cultures are dominated by different bad men, different cultures will go wrong in different directions. And will teach this wrongdoing to the young, who weren't born to this evil thinking and didn't arrive there by themselves, most of them.

The diversity of moral systems are not in and of itself one moral systems, but surround it as more or less bad approximations, with the correct one (on most issues) in the middle. Often with one of the bad extremes being less popular. Saying "no one should drink alcohol" is less popular than "getting drunk is no sin" ... saying "no one should have sex" is less popular than saying you don't need marriage or a heterosexual setup of it, as well as other factors of fertile intention, to have sex. But the truth is still in the middle and attacked from both sides: you can drink alcohol, but not get drunk. You can have sex, but within marriage, open to procreation, and you should not obsess about that aspect of your partnership. And it's still pretty close to what people before their teens could have figured out if they weren't corrupted one way or the other in education or in comradeships.*

We are however born without the capacity to consistently follow the right morality. We only get that by Baptism. We only keep that by staying faithful to Baptism or returning to Fidelity with Confession.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Vigil of Epiphany
5.I.2026

PS, see also:

For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these having not the law are a law to themselves:
[Romans 2:14]

St. Paul doesn't say the Gentiles are always doing things of the law, he's saying when they act against it, they act against their own nature and reason./HGL

* Some are seduced to some things before puberty. With gluttony, that's pretty common. With some other sins it's rarer.

CMI Seems to Have a Will to Hammer Away Geocentrism

New blog on the kid: Heliocentrism aggravates the wound of ignorance? · Creation vs. Evolution: Sigh. There Are People Who Consider Me a Conspiracy Theorist Already · CMI Seems to Have a Will to Hammer Away Geocentrism

No, the Earth Is NOT Flat!
Creation Ministries International | 2016 18 Oct.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y28OaM5c0Fg

I'll cite two dialogues, somewhat beyond the 10 % provided by fair use legislation.

3:13 — 5:02

Gary Bates

And then there’s another area, where … called geocentrism which are these ideas that in fact the universe revolves around the earth.

Now you with Surveyor of course you helped land a craft on the moon.

Now the moon orbits the earth. So when that Surveyor spacecraft left the earth, where did you have to aim, in advance.

Dr Henry Richter

Well we know the laws of planetary motion and the laws of physics that determine it. And we can compute with great precision where the moon was 100 years ago or where it’s going to be in 100 years from now.

And so when we launch toward the moon or a planet we know about the arrival time and we have to compute where the planet will be in its motion around the sun at that point.

The moon rotates around the earth. It took several days for Surveyor to get there. We knew the speed and the arrival time.

So we could compute just where the moon was, set the guidance system to aim for that point in space so it meets the moon at the proper place at the proper time.

Gary Bates

In other words it intersects its path.

And of course the moon orbits the earth, so that wouldn’t be a violation of what a geocentrist believes.

But now, what about when we send satellites out into those far reaches of space.

We’re intercepting planets like Saturn or Jupiter or even Pluto as they’ve done recently.

It takes years for those craft to travel there.

So if I said to you something like, in fact, the clockwork motion of the planets, I think, is an attribute of God’s design. Would you agree with something like that?

Dr Henry Richter

Oh, absolutely.

I'd disagree. The motion may be very clockwork like, but it is not a clockwork motion. If it were, God would be a designer who then left the designed object to run its own course. Paley is a kind of Deism.

Planetary motions are not just a tribute to God's design, but also of angelic beings guiding them with great precision.

9:21 — 10:04

Gary Bates

So Rob, when I interviewed Dr Henry Richter we talked about design in the universe. He talked about the laws of planetary motion. And, of course, those planets obey gravity.

Gravity is something you and I can test here on earth and in fact, Isaac Newton is credited with the discovery of gravity, one of the greatest scientists, arguably, who ever lived.

He professed to be a Christian.

Dr. Rob Carter

—And a creationist.—

Gary Bates

The laws of planetary motion devised by Johannes Kepler.

Dr. Rob Carter

—Another Christian, great testimony.—

Gary Bates

Another Christian, etcetera.

I understand that there’s a genuine motive in all of this. People believe that they’re wanting to have a high view of Scripture.

Dr. Rob Carter

Absolutely.

... the dialogue with Rob Carter got involved with gravity, without spelling out the implication, and they started spelling out "Sun and Jupiter are bigger than earth" without spelling out the implication of that, and then before they could get back to it, they were bogged down by Flat Earthers denying "Sun and Jupiter are bigger than earth" and forgetting that they had promised and were not keeping the promise of also arguing against Geocentrics who are not Flat Earthers.

There are two possibilities:

• 1) Gravity is the only motor of motions, along with inertia tending to prolong a movement already initiated, well the implications of this are Heliocentrism holds. But what is it an implication of? Pretty often of Atheism or Deism and especially denying Angelic movers (including denying as not being aware they are even a theory and being so used to not knowing it, you dismiss the theory offhand when you hear it).
• 2) Gravity and inertia are not the only motors of planetary motion, God told angels where to steer them. In this case, "Jupiter must orbit the Sun, Earth must orbit, if not Jupiter, as too far, at least the Sun" is not implied, since the movements can be determined by other factors than only inertial and gravitational orbitting.

Rob Carter also (actually first) basically pretended there are passages in the Scripture which would if taken strictly literally (without considering context) spell out the earth as flat. No, not one single such. I challenged Hannam to provide, and he didn't.

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl: With James Hannam on Whether Bible and Fathers Agree or Not on Shape of Earth
https://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2015/04/with-james-hannam-on-whether-bible-and.html

There is a passage of Scripture which was not cited as purported proof of Geocentrism to be refuted by context. Romans 1, verses 18 — 20.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice: Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.

What exact part of natural theology is St. Paul talking of? I can agree with Jonathan Sarfati that the flagellum of the bacterium and the failure of the Miller Urey repeat would add to natural theology. But this can't be what St. Paul was talking of. Because, they are recent discoveries. Imagine someone had in the NT used Babel to appeal to the historic memories of the Jews. He would have been added to by the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, but he would not have been referring to that discovery, he would have been referring to traditions as those in Josephus and especially the inerrant and inspired part of them put by Moses into the book of Genesis, in a place now referred to as chapter 11, verses 1 to 9.

But St. Paul was here not stating anything about Plato or Aristotle having access to Jewish tradition. He was stating their idolatry was inexcusable, because natural theology. Here is an analysis of Aristotle:

Based on what Aristotle proves in Metaph. Λ6-8 and Phys. Θ5, I reconstruct Aristotle’s cosmological proof as follows. Having accepted the astronomical findings of his time, Aristotle believes that there are fifty-five heavenly bodies in the universe.10 Aristotle also establishes an important principle, namely, that what is moved must be moved by something (ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ κινούμενον ἀνάγκη ὑπό τινος κινεῖσθαι, Metaph. Λ8, 1073a26).11 On this basis, Aristotle states that among these heavenly bodies, A is moved by B, B is moved by C, and C is moved by D. However, this would lead to an infinite regress, which Aristotle does not recognize. Because of the limited number of heavenly bodies, the chain of moving and being moved among them cannot enter infinite regression. In addition, Aristotle’s universe does not allow for infinity because, in his view, the universe is finite, bounded, and cannot expand infinitely, in contrast to the Big Bang theory of recent scientific cosmologists, according to which the universe has no boundaries and is still expanding. In the case of an Aristotelian finite universe and a finite number of heavenly bodies, one can either recognize the last two heavenly bodies interacting or establish a heterogeneous first mover to end this infinite regression. Aristotle does not recognize the interaction between the heavenly bodies12 but believes that there must be a first mover that moves the heavenly bodies without being moved by anything else.13 Given the prohibition of infinite regression, Aristotle thus deduces God as the First Mover from the moved heavenly bodies.

On Proofs for the Existence of God: Aristotle, Avicenna, and Thomas Aquinas
by Xin Liu, Department of Philosophy, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Religions 2024, 15(2), 235*
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/15/2/235

I would disagree on the possibility of expansion into infinity as disproving the supposition of Aristotle that infinite regress is impossible, since an infinite regress would depend on a regress of already existing and therefore actual infinity, while the expansion, as supposed by Big Bang, is an expansion into potential infinity. The universe is at each point still finite.

But I would totally agree that this was the proof of God that Aristotle had in mind. And God turning the universe around earth each day would be a very perfect illustration of God's eternal power. One that's not just observable now, not just observable in St. Paul's time, not just observable in the time of Aristotle, but which had been observable since back in the time of Adam, and even two to five days** before he was created. In other words, this is a perfect match to what St. Paul is talking about.

So is Plato's tracking of the human mind back to God, it's not just the visible things that are made, but also the invisible things that are made, that show the invisible things of God. This is the proof of God repeated by C. S. Lewis in Miracles. Both Aristotle and Plato offer proof that's not often repeated by CMI, because they are scientists, not philosophers, not trained to deal with that kind of stuff. But St. Paul was speaking of the philosophical proofs from everyday experience, not of specifical science facts discoverable only by microscopes. The latter are valuable, they add to that, but they are not what St. Paul is mainly talking of.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Vigil of Assumption
14.VIII.2024

Vigilia Assumptionis beatae Mariae Virginis.

PS. "the flagellum of the bacterium and the failure of the Miller Urey repeat" While, as said, not the prime example of what St. Paul was talking about, CMI do have very good resources on them, and when Geocentrism is culturally out, these are a valuable standin. Enantiomeric amplification of L amino acids: part 1—irrelevant and discredited examples, The Miller–Urey experiment revisited, The Amazing Cell Evidence for creation and against evolution!

Let me quote the middle one of these links:

Studying Table 2 in this paper ... they failed to detect the proteinaceous amino acids phenylalanine, proline, histidine, tyrosine, lysine, asparagine, arginine, or glutamine.

Abiogenesis from "Primordial Soup" is, pun intended, dead in the water./HGL

* https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020235
** Before God turned the mass of planets (including Sun and Moon) and of stars around earth each day, since day IV, He had been turning the division of light and darkness around earth since day I (see St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Literam Libri XII, Book I, which has a longer discussion of what the days were before there was a Sun).

Carbon 14 and Egyptian Chronology, a Reply to Gary Bates

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Gary Bates' Egyptian Matches Bungle the Carbon Rise · Creation vs. Evolution: Egyptian Chronology Calibrated · Augustine and Origen each give us "two birds with one stone" · Carbon 14 and Egyptian Chronology, a Reply to Gary Bates

Egyptian chronology and the Bible—framing the issues
by Gary Bates
https://creation.com/egypt-chronology

I am basically going to concentrate on two things:

what he says on carbon 14 (¹⁴C for short)

what he says of the New Kingdom

To assist with dating artifacts from Egypt, carbon-14 dating is now extensively used but widely disputed due to the massive revisions in time it can lead to. We have written much about the alleged absolute reliability of ¹⁴C dating.

I do in fact not hold to the absolute reliability of ¹⁴C dating. However, I have much more confidence as to its relative reiability than CMI generally have. There are factors in the problem they persist in ignoring. Robert Carter offered me this "explanation" (it was obviously clear to him that I was not promoting taking "40 000 BP" as really 40 000 years ago) of why they do not even attempt such a thing:

This period covers some of the most important periods of biblical history, yet carbon dating fails to properly date any of it. If we have rapidly rising ¹⁴C levels, we cannot even assume the atmosphere would be fully mixed during the transition period. Throw in an Ice Age, shifting atmospheric circulation patterns, vast amounts of old carbon being dumped into the biosphere via vulcanism and via the erosion of calcium-containing rocks, a collapsing magnetic field, and who knows what bombarding us from outer space, and I fully suspect that the oldest measurements will be far from precise.

The problem is, the more ¹⁴C levels punctually sink because of release of old carbon, and note the release of old carbon from 1750 to 1950 has contributed to such a decline in ¹⁴C levels that 1750 having dated to 1950 (raw, uncalibrated date), 1950 dated to 1750 (dito). As said, the more the level punctually sinks, the more drastic increases have to be taken in as to cosmogenic ¹⁴C which implies radioactivity.

If the levels rose from just above 1 pmC in the Flood 2957 BC to 82.73 pmC in 1935 BC when Genesis 14 happened (Abraham around 80 years, or between 76 and 85), the medium factor of how much more ¹⁴C was produced each year can be calculated as this:

2957 - 1935 = 1022 years (it will be radically less in the Masoretic timeline), implies a decay from 100 to 88.37 percent of original level, and therefore also a normal replacement of 100 - 88.37 = 11.63 pmC.

1.628 * 88.37 / 100 = 1.439 remaining pmC*
82.73 actual pmC
82.73 - 1.439 = 81.291 pmC replacement.

81.291 / 11.63 = 6.99 times faster.

Let's follow this up as to what this implies midway or rather 401 after the Flood, when Peleg was born.

401 years, decay 100 to 95.265, normal replacement 4.735 pmC

1.628 * 95.265 / 100 = 1.551 pmC
6.99 * 4.735 pmC = 33.097 pmC
33.097 + 1.551 = 34.648 pmC

2556 BC + 8750 extra years = dates as 11306 BC (in my view, 2556 BC actually dates as 8000 BC, and the level is 51 pmC and some).

Now, to account for the supposition of Carter, let's suppose old carbon to a quantity comparable to the one dumped between 1750 and 1950 is dumped by some volcanic activity.

In order to do this, I need to speak of pmC levels above 100 meaning dates "into the future", because that's what things start out with in 1750. I'm going back to my usual carbon 14 dating calculator, so we are now using numbers from two different apps. In 1750, the level was 102.449 pmC. We'll suppose this sinks to 1950 to 100 pmC, meanwhile the level in 1950 is actually 97.61 pmC.

What exact addition of old carbon to the overall CO₂ has this effect?

X = 100 pCO₂ => 100 pmC
X = 200 pCO₂ => 50 pmC
X = 150 pCO₂ => 75 pmC
X = 112.5 pCO₂ => 87.5 pmC
X = 106.25 pCO₂ => 93.75 pmC
X = 103.125 pCO₂ => 96.875 pmC

So, adding 3.125 pCO₂ (or percent atmospheric carbon, I improvised the term) is a thing. While it took 200 years, we'll suppose it happened in one go, 401 after the Flood. Actual post-Babel dates would then date prior to the date 11 306 BC.

X = 100 pCO₂ => 34.648 pmC
X = 103.125 pCO₂ => 33.565 pmC

So, next year, 2555 BC, you add instead the extra years 9000, giving 11 555 BC. I don't find it very convincing that a sudden addition of old carbon could have happened more than 200 times faster than it did in the industrial era, but have at it.

In 2555, the pmC has instead halved. That would imply that reaching 34.648 pmC actually only took 3.495 times faster production, since the time from flood to 2556 BC would have had only half of our atmospheric carbon. But, 2555 BC, we have present levels of atmospheric carbon, half of which was back then old carbon, it is terribly badly mixed, but the medium level would be down to 17.324 pmC.

2555 would range from 37 000 BC to 11 306 BC, but tend to date around 17 055 BC.

However, 2555 BC, carbon-14 level is on medium 17.324 pmC.

1022 - 402 = 620 years. Decay 100 to 92.774, normal replacement 7.226 pmC.

17.324 * 92.774 / 100 = 16.072 remaining pmC
82.73 - 16.072 = 66.658 actual replacement pmC
66.658 / 7.226 = 9.225 times faster replacement.

The extra years and therefore ¹⁴C levels would differ in Masoretic chronology, but not too much. I'll be inaccurate enough to insert the values from here to those other years. For Ussher years, I'll access Haydock.

Year of the World 2092, Year before Christ 1912 = Genesis 14
Year of the World about 1800, and Year before Christ 2204 = (end of) Babel

2204 - 1912 = 292 years. 620 / 292 = 2.123 faster overall process.
2.123 * 9.225 = 19.587 times faster ¹⁴C replacement/production

And that's just if you want to put Magdalenian in post-Babel instead of pre-Babel, it gets worse if you want to put Neanderthals and Denisovans in the post-Babel instead of the pre-Flood.

But between Genesis 14 and ... let's say fall of Troy, 1180 BC ... the rise is either way slower.

1935 - 1180 = 755 years, decay from 100 to 91.272, normal replacement = 8.728 pmC.
Or, if you prefer, 1912 to 1180, not much difference.

82.73 * 91.272 / 100 = 75.509 remaining pmC
100 - 75.509 = 24.491 actual replacement pmC
24.491 / 8.728 = 2.806 times faster

Note, from Genesis 14 to Fall of Troy, a period that spans the Exodus, this slower rise will likely be less irregular, since better mixed, since the ¹⁴C production more closely resembles the present one. This is the context in which one should take my comment under a video by Gary Bates:

1446 + 430 = 1876 (at the promise, 430 years prior to Exodus).
1550 - 1406 = 144 extra years at the taking of Jericho.

[etc]

Jacob going to Egypt would be in 215 after the promise, i e in 1661.

What would the C14 level be then?

215 years is 97.433 % and 2.567 pmC replacement.

82.164 * 97.433 / 100 = 80.055 pmC
80.055 + (2.567 * 3.736) = 89.646 pmC

89.646 pmC => 900 extra years.

1661 + 900 = 2561 BC. That carbon date is well before the Hyksos. It's actually not too far from Djoser.

Obviously, at Gary Bates' Exodus dating, we get to 100 pmC even before Fall of Troy, namely in the Exodus. The result is that the rise from Genesis 14 on would be even steeper. Not too steep to be fairly even, but still steep enough. Even clearer disproof of a Hyksos pharao, when Joseph arrived. But suppose instead we actually allowed a Hyksos pharao for Joseph.

Year of the World 2298, Year before Christ 1706. = Genesis 43 (Ussher chronology)
The Second Intermediate Period c. 1700–1550 BC

So, 100 pmC, not just for Exodus, but even Joseph's receiving the brethren.

1912 - 1706 = 206 years. Decay 100 to 97.539. Normal replacement 2.461 pmC.

82.73 * 97.539 / 100 = 80.694 remaining pmC
100 - 80.694 = 19.306 actual replacement pmC.
19.306 / 2.461 = 7.845 times faster replacement.

So, the scenario given by Gary Bates involves on the one hand, the ¹⁴C production continued to be much faster than today, nearly 8 times faster, up to Joseph in Egypt, and then came to rest flatly on the modern production level, so that Kenyon's inflated dating for Jericho must be due to mismanagement on her part, rather than ¹⁴C level that was still somewhat lower than what would equate carbon date to real date. How exactly does Gary Bates defend this?

Famous Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, who at the time of the 2010 report was secretary-general of the Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities, said:

“This technique shouldn’t be used at all in making changes to the chronology of the [sic] ancient Egypt, not even as a helpful addition … carbon dating is useless. This science will never develop. In archaeology, we consider carbon dating results imaginary.”32

Well, but what is his rationale? If we look at conventional carbon dates, calibrated according to a presumed ¹⁴C level close enough to 100 pmC, this more or less adds up to the totals, but it will make a trainwreck of the details in Egyptian "documented" chronology and succession of pharaos. Zahi Hawass may be very famous, but he is not a Young Earth Creationist and is therefore not prepared for a wholesale adaption of Egyptian chronology to the Biblical one, starting with Abraham meeting Narmer or one of his predecessors in Lower Egypt, before the unification. Or even maybe one of the guys in Upper Egypt whom Narmer defeated later on. However, I am, and Gary Bates should be, prepared for such reevaluation. Therefore, Zahi's premiss being flawed, his conclusion is flawed too.

Again, it shows how much disparity there is in trying to reconcile timelines for ancient Egypt as no one source seems to be consistent with any other and many preconceived ideologies and agendas rule. The further back in ancient Egypt one tries to use ¹⁴C dates the more disparate the figures are also likely to become. Also, because there are fewer artifacts from the more ancient dynasties the more likely it is that researchers will rely upon ¹⁴C alone as a single line of evidence. Hence, why an Old Kingdom revision can occur in the blink of an eye by c. 400 years. This is less likely with New Kingdom dates where we have a wealth of more recent evidence to confirm or reject a ¹⁴C date.

While the New Kingdom is better documented, it is not all that well documented that a revision of 100 years along the start is impossible. I would say, the New Kingdom starts at the carbon date 1550 BC, same as for Kenyon's date for Jericho. This means, the real date 1470 BC, 40 years after the Exodus, when Joshua conquers Jericho. Or in other words: the Hyksos were Canaaneans, when Joshua weakens these, or God does so through Joshua, he helps to liberate Egyptians from them as well.

In this context, I recall another video, with Gary Bates, where he gave specific arguments for a specific New Kingdom pharao. I made responses, and posted them on my blog, and now I cannot find the blog post. Not on either of the blogs where I would expect to find it, neither this one, nor the one called Assorted Retorts. Maybe he put that video down to replace it with the one from 27 March this year. If he did, let's hope he didn't arrange to have my post deleted for supposed "copy-right" issues, refuting is not plagiarising, in US law, but perhaps he could find a dishonest and accomodating internet admin. Or, for that matter, let's hope he didn't do so without deleting the previous video either. Whoever did it can be considered as committing inimical acts against me, and exercising a kind of illegal censorship. And especially an immoral one.

The take-away I hoped to provide through the citation of my previous criticism is, anyway, that the kind of astronomic event associated with that particular pharao that Gary used to clinch the date, also occurred some 20 or 50 years later, whichever it was, it would have been compatible with my dates for the Exodus and revision of the New Kingdom.

Meanwhile, an Exodus in 1510 BC (carbon dated to perhaps 1609 BC, if God used the Santorini eruption as partial cause for the plagues of Egypt) would from Gary Bates' perspective have the disadvantage of putting more time between the Exodus and the Temple than 480 years. On this issue I refer back to my conclusion that "480 years" is intended to mean "at least 480 years":

Creation vs. Evolution: 480 Years From Exodus to Temple?
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2023/01/480-years-from-exodus-to-temple.html

It is possible that the material on what pharao Gary Bates had in mind is still there in another video, not taken down, and that even my comments would be accessible to me. It is possible that it is only on the new video. I'm sorry, but due to internet sabotage, I will have to return to that later.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Mary Cleophas
9.IV.2024

In Judaea sanctae Mariae Cleophae, quam beatus Joannes Evangelista sororem sanctissimae Dei Genitricis Mariae nuncupat, et cum hac simul juxta crucem Jesu stetisse narrat.

* The calculation results often have more than three decimals in the following, but are rounded to three decimals.

Egyptian Chronology Calibrated

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Gary Bates' Egyptian Matches Bungle the Carbon Rise · Creation vs. Evolution: Egyptian Chronology Calibrated · Augustine and Origen each give us "two birds with one stone" · Carbon 14 and Egyptian Chronology, a Reply to Gary Bates

CMI gives the following for secular chronology of Egypt:

Pre 3200 BC

Predynastic/Prehistory

3200–2686 BC

Early dynastic Period 1st–2nd

2686–2181 BC

Old Kingdom 3rd–6th

2181–2055 BC

1st Intermediate Period 7th–10th

2055–1650 BC

Middle Kingdom 11th–12th

1650–1550 BC

2nd Intermediate Period/Hyksos 13th(?)–17th

1550–1069 BC

New Kingdom 18th–20th

... {omitting the rest, since my calibration is irrelevant from here on)

Egypt and the short Sojourn
Part 2: Historical support
by Robert Carter, Gary Bates
https://creation.com/short-sojourn-part-2

See also Part 1: A biblical analysis
https://creation.com/short-sojourn-part-1

This should be conferred with my calibration:

1935 B. Chr. (Genesis 14)

0.8273 pmC/100, so dated as 3485 B. Chr.

Pre 3200 BC

Predynastic/Prehistory

1845 B. Chr.

0.845892 pmC/100, so dated as 3245 B. Chr.

1823 B. Chr.

0.850509 pmC/100, so dated as 3173 B. Chr.

3200–2686 BC

Early dynastic Period 1st–2nd

1700 B. Chr.

0.87575 pmC/100, so dated as 2800 B. Chr.

2686 - 1650 / 1700 - 1510 BC

2686–2181 BC / 1700 - 1633

Old Kingdom 3rd–6th

1633 B. Chr.

0.933283 pmC/100, so dated as 2203 B. Chr.

2181–2055 BC / 1633 - 1610

1st Intermediate Period 7th–10th

1610 B. Chr.

0.952011 pmC/100, so dated as 2020 B. Chr.

2055–1650 BC / 1610 - 1510 BC

Middle Kingdom 11th–12th

1521 B. Chr.

0.98184 pmC/100, so dated as 1671 B. Chr.

1510 BC

Exodus event, as per Roman martyrology

1498 B. Chr.

0.98555 pmC/100, so dated as 1618 B. Chr.

1650–1550 BC / 1510 - 1470 BC

2nd Intermediate Period/Hyksos 13th(?)–17th

1476 B. Chr.

0.98924 pmC/100, so dated as 1566 B. Chr.

1470 BC

real date for Jericho's fall, dated to 1550 by Kenyon

1550–1069 BC / 1470 - 1069 BC

New Kingdom 18th–20th

Creation vs. Evolution : New Tables
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2020/08/new-tables.html

In a moment of fatigue and irritation, I had such a preference for French abbreviation "av. J.-Chr" that I chose a personal one for "Before Christ" rather than the one that's often pronounced BC.

In the calculations, I had used ordinary decimal fractions instead of per cents, and so the "0.98184 pmC/100" = 98.184 pmC/HGL

3b) they think the Egyptian defense was too good for a people to invade them + compression

Is Joseph = Imhotep Still Defensible? · So, Starting to Answer ... 1 & 5, 2, 3a ... · 3b) they think the Egyptian defense was too good for a people to invade them + compression

This one actually brings in the already mentioned 3a) argument as well, and is one of the articles linked to.

Did the Exodus lead to the Hyksos Invasion?
Was Egypt completely destroyed by the events of the Exodus?
by Gary Bates, 28.X.2020
https://creation.com/exodus-hyksos-invasion

It states two things on the issue of 3b, namely:

First:

After the Hebrews left it seems that Pharaoh made a hasty decision to chase them. If so, there is no way that there was time to assemble all the garrisons encamped elsewhere from all over Egypt. Anyone should be able to reasonably understand the implausibility of being able to gather ‘the whole army’ from ‘the whole country’ to pursue them. What country keeps its entire army in one location? Rather it was the chariots and horsemen at his disposal who were able to do this. Chariots were very expensive to make. Egypt had limited resources of wood and some of the chariots preserved in museums today show they were made of elm wood from the eastern and northern Mediterranean. Given that the Egyptian chariots formed part of Pharaoh’s elite forces (perhaps due to their expense), it might be plausible that the entirety of his chariots were located near Pharaoh’s palace at the time. Exodus 14:7 does seem to indicate it was all of his chariots which were 600 in total.

Gary Bates' Conclusion:
Egypt was not sufficiently weakened for a wholesale Hyksos invasion over all of the country.

Second:

The Hyksos did not take over the whole country of Egypt. If the whole of Egypt was decimated and defenceless due to the Exodus, why did they limit themselves to just the northern part of the country ruling from what was called Avaris (which was later built upon and called Pi-Rameses)? Native Egyptian rule continued over large parts of the country, although it was mainly confined to central Egypt with their capital at Thebes (modern day Luxor). So, ‘Egypt’ was never destroyed or completely subjugated by the Hyksos.

Well, what if these two match and cancel out?

Hyksos did not invade all of the country because the land was not sufficiently weakened, but they did invade the North because:

• a) an élite force was knocked out
• b) the Pharao was dead
• c) and the Pharao's oldest son was also dead.

We are not just speaking of the impact of an eliminated élite force. We are speaking of other fortresses in the North being swept along with the Hyksos because they had neither the recent pharao nor any successor for him.

Meanwhile, other parts of Egypt were not subdued and as Gary Bates himself states:

During the Hyksos occupation of mainly northern Egypt (lower Nile) Ahmose, the first Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty (New Kingdom) ran them out of the country and subsequent pharaohs even ruled and resided there.

It can be mentioned that, the Abydos King List, which really does go clearly into New Kingdom:

• 1) has cartouches 62 to 65 where I would place pharaos before the Exodus (ending with 65 = Amenemhat IV = Moses)
• 2) has cartouches 66 to 74 as 18th Dynasty (starting with Ahmosi I, the one who expelled the Hyksos.

The Saqqara Tablet omitted "rulers from the Second Intermediate Period, the Hyksos, and those rulers... who had been close to the heretic Akhenaten". Quoted from: Gerald Verbrugghe, John Moore Wickersham. Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated. University of Michigan Press, 2001. Page 104.

The Turin King List ends before the 18th Dynasty - or continues beside it. No Ahmose I in sight.

The Medinet Habu king list and the Ramesseum king list are internal to the New Kingdom only.

And this means, a point raised in response to David Down and accepted by him need not be valid, see previous with linked to pdf:

JDA

Secondly, if you move the 12th dynasty forward 350 years, you have to move the rest of them forward by the same increment as well. This would place the New Kingdom (the 18th and 19th Dynasties) existing from roughly 1200 BC to 950 BC.

DD

Yes, it does mean that other dates have to be reduced and that includes the 18th dynasty, but that is a bonus because it brings Thutmosis III down to the time of Solomon and Rehoboam and identifies him as the Shishak of 1 Kings 14:25.

It is assumed by Gary Bates too:

Per the previous point, to accommodate the VIC, one has to compress the entire New Kingdom period and the 3rd IP down by some 500 years. We believe this is simply not possible. See my article on Egyptian Chronology, where I highlight how we have more information about the New Kingdom period of Egypt than any other period, for two reasons. (1) It was the wealthiest period of Egyptian history. The whole country was unified under a single rule during this time with Thebes as the capital. (2) It was the most recent period of native Egyptian rule so we have more artifacts to go on. There are no missing pharaohs so we have a complete lineage and their details are exquisitely preserved in places like the Valley of the Kings, where the underground tombs have preserved the hieroglyphs from the harsh climate.

The statement is not substantiated by the referred to King Lists and also not by what wikipedians have had to say on the tombs of the Valley of Kings with 23 tombs or tomb like structures having unknown burials if any at all, and not all of the rest being pharaos, in King's Valley.

So, no, the "compression impossible" argument does not hold.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Day after Sts Simon and Jude
29.X.2022

PS As time compression argument was 4 on my list, I think my answer is here : yes, Joseph = Imhotep is still defensible. I do not need to revise my new tables./HGL

Science texbook, no, history, yes - CMI makes a key statement

“The Bible is not a science book!”
by Gary Bates and Lita Sanders
First appeared in CMI-US Update, November 2021.
https://creation.com/bible-not-science-book

One quibble:

But the Bible is unique in that it contains accurate predictive prophecy.

While John Henry Newman agreed that the Bible does this ("it is a historic fact Antichrist will rule, as it is a historic fact Nero has ruled" - quoted from memory, Idea of a Catholic University), he might not and I do not agree the Bible is totally unique herein.

St. Paul says "prophecy will vanish" but he doesn't say when. We Catholics do NOT presume it vanished after the last Apostle died, only that prophets after that cannot add to revealed dogmas.

We would say that for instance the prophecies of St. Bridget probably also record what was in her time as yet future. Antichrist would be born of an apostate bishop (Russian Orthodox bishops in the Soviet Union have been towting evolution, and comparing early chapters of Genesis to the Iliad - while misunderstanding the historicity thereof) and of a false virgin of Jewish ancestry (Russia is sometimes referred to as Sviataya Rus', holy mother Russia, apostasised in 1917, due to in many cases people of Jewish origin - like quarter Jewish Lenin or fully Jewish (ethnically, not in halakhic behaviour) Trotsky). He would also defeat armies before the age of twelve with his brothers. Would that refer to a boy doing Judo and defeating other teams together with the team mates of his team?/HGL

What About Gary Bates?

What About Gary Bates? · I forgot one objection he could have ... still on Göbekli Tepe

He wrote a movie review about The 7 Churches of Revelation, Times of Fire, which I have not seen. I can't comment on the review as a review.

But it has a longish intro with two passages relevant to my work ...

We often receive many inquiries about alleged archaeological sites such as Göbekli Tepe, whose assigned ‘secular’ date would actually precede the biblical date of Creation (this, of course, cannot be true!).

I agree wholeheartedly that the carbon date taken at face value cannot be correct. 9600 BC, carbon date for beginning of GT, is not a date. Neither is 8600 BC, carbon date for the end of GT.

However, I have a solution about these carbon dates. If CMI gets so many inquiries, why are they not even mentioning my solution?

A bit less than one halflife ago, the atmosphere had a bit less than 50 "percent modern Carbon" - a term that means how the concentration of C14 in C12 in samples is lower and in previous states of the atmosphere could vary. With a bit less than 50 pmC, and a bit less than a half life, you can get around 25 pmC, which is what one would expect after two halflives (a timespan that has not occurred, ever).

But the problem with this is, my calibration for C14 places GT between 350 and 401 after the Flood, between death of Noah and birth of Peleg according to the Biblical chronology of the Roman martyrology (based on a text like LXX without second Cainan). That is, I identify GT with Babel.

Now, there is a little further problem here, Gary Bates uses the term "alleged archaeological sites" - as if there were any doubt that GT were a genuine archaeological site.

It is certainly more recently discovered than Ur as excavated by Woolley.

European archaeologists did not identify Tell el-Muqayyar as the site of Ur until Henry Rawlinson successfully deciphered some bricks from that location, brought to England by William Loftus in 1849 ... The site was first excavated in 1853 and 1854, on behalf of the British Museum and with instructions from the Foreign Office, by John George Taylor [namesake, btw] ... Excavations from 1922 to 1934 were funded by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania and led by the archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur#Archaeology

In October 1994,[93] German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, who had previously been working at Nevalı Çori, was looking for evidence of similar sites in the area and decided to re-examine the location described by the Chicago researchers in 1963.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe#Research_history

And after that, it was more than 15 years before I heard of it. Perhaps Gary Bates heard of it so late in his life, he had lost curiosity and decided to write it off as an unfounded rumour - I didn't. Or perhaps Gary Bates still prefers his the idea (see his book ... wait, it was Michael and Beverly Oard's ... Life in the Great Ice Age) that Babel happened before Upper Palaeolithic. Before carbon dated 40 000 BP. When Neanderthals were still around.

By contrast, Douglas Petrovich puts Babel into the very late Neolithic, in carbon dated 5000 BC.

Let's put end of Babel in 2556, 401 years after the Flood, uniformly, for comparison.

"38 000 BC" - 2556 BC = 35444 extra years. 1.374 pmC in the atmosphere.
"5000 BC" - 2556 BC = 2444 extra years. 74.405 pmC in the atmosphere.
"8600 BC" - 2556 BC = 6044 extra years. 48.136 pmC in the atmosphere.

Let's take an average of the first two. (1.374 pmC + 74.405 pmC) / 2 = 37.8895 pmC. Using Göbekli Tepe, which at the end, if Babel, would have had 48.136 pmC in the atmosphere is a fair compromise between two extremes. The levels by putting the beginning of Upper Palaeolithic earlier (at the Flood) and base at Eridu later (between Babel and Abraham) would be close to the ones given, and this discrepancy resolves as carbon 14 levels rising quicker between Flood and Babel than between Babel and Abraham.

And if we have a look at the beheadings in Göbekli Tepe, it gives a very fair view of why God stopped Babel.

Now, suppose Gary Bates had said "never heard of GT" - I suppose he could have used that as an explanation why he refuses to look at my option. Suppose again he had good arguments against GT being Babel - "not in Mesopotamia" (true of Tell Qaramel, unless Aleppo river was previously an arm of Euphrates, but not of GT), "not the right direction away from landing place" (true of anything near Classic Babylon, including Ur and Eridu, but not of GT, where "they removed from the east" is spot on), not the right geographic surrounding (true if it had said "found a land in the plains of Shinar" but it says "found a plain in the land of Shinar" so we would prefer where Mesopotamia is overall hilly but has a plain in it), "spoke a post-Babel language" (but we have no linguistic traces from GT or from Jericho which started at same time, neither grammophone records nor even writing) ... he would obviously have been free to dispute my finding as unfounded. I used to have a weak answer for one objection "this was before bricks and mortar" when recently I found that floors in Jericho used the material "terrazzo" ... and that Jericho was contemporary with GT.

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Jericho and Babel Contemporary?
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2021/09/jericho-and-babel-contemporary.html

He prefers to act like a gate-keeper, whether because he seeks an uncritic adept before doing business, or because he is afraid I'm an UFO-logist, while I have more than once said, I don't believe in "Ancient Alien Astronauts" like Graham Hancock believes, but in "Ancient Aspiring Astronauts" like Nimrod would have been one.

The other passage is:

Similarly, there are many conventional dates assigned to well-known artefacts in ancient Egypt that would predate the biblical Flood.

Well, take the Burial Ship of Djoser ... carbon dates go all the way back to 2800 BC, if Imhotep was Joseph, Djoser would have been Joseph's pharao, and we would be looking at the time of Joseph in Egypt. 2800 BC - 1728 BC = 1072 extra years or 87.838 pmC in the atmosphere.

While it is true that uniformitarians do assign whether or not use a carbon date, in the case of Djoser they preferred 2600 BC over it, the carbon date in and of itself is not assigned, it is calculated. On the assumption, which we agree is wrong, that the carbon level was close to 100 pmC. In other words, the one methodological error is (for objects from that far back) to assume the now remaining pmC in a sample equals or is close to the percentage of C14 remaining from when it is from, which is what a uniform c. 100 pmC in the atmosphere would let you expect. Use my correction, and the dates will fall into place.

Between the archaeological date of GT and that of Djoser's we have "3500 BC" as carbon date of reed mats from En-Gedi's evacuation after Chalcolithic settlement. I credit Osgood with pointing out there was such a thing, and that it matches facts from Genesis 14 - when Abraham was c. 80 (between 75 and 86) years old.

"3500 BC" - 1935 BC = 1565 extra years, a level of 82.753 pmC in the atmosphere (the reed mats would have been made of reed having breathed the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere of very closely preceding years, if not perhaps uniquely from last year.

2957 BC		2607 BC		2556 BC		1935 BC		1700 BC*
1.2788 pmC		42.8224 pmC		48.1415 pmC		82.73 pmC		87.575 pmC

This gives a fairly good - even - rise for the C14 level, and therefore explains the erroneous carbon dates while also offering a correction to them.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Venceslas of Bohemia
28.IX.2021

* Creation vs. Evolution : New Tables
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2020/08/new-tables.html

Corporality of Resurrection Body

Does CMI deal with end times? / Well, both yes and no!
by Gary Bates, Lita Cosner | Published: 3 September 2019 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/end-times

When people think of heaven and our resurrected state, many imagine an ethereal or ghost-like spiritual realm where we’ll all sit on clouds and play harps. However, that fails to appreciate God’s purpose in creating the earth to be a perfect home for humanity, and that fails to appreciate God’s plan to restore the original lost paradise. ... That’s why the Resurrection of Christ is so important—He was raised with a glorified physical body—the same sort of body that we will receive (1 Corinthians 15).

Some people think that when Paul refers to a ‘spiritual body’ in 1 Corinthians 15:44, this means that we will have a non-physical body. However, this misunderstands what Paul means. When Paul talks about ‘earthly’ and ‘spiritual’ bodies, he isn’t referring to what the bodies are composed of, but of what motivates and drives the desires of the different bodies.

Another misconception some people have is that in the Resurrection we will not experience time. But as creatures, we have a beginning in time, and we will remain ‘time-bound’ even in the resurrection. Think about it—we will experience events one after another, so even though it’s not certain how we will measure time in the context of an eternal existence, we will experience time. Only God is outside of time. When we look forward to worshipping and singing to God, for example, music involves timekeeping. If we are walking from one gate to another in the New Jerusalem, it will take time to travel there.

Gary, Lita, I highly endorse all of this.

Howoever, if I may recommend you a few corrolaries.

• Our Lord's Resurrection body is numerically identic, while qualitatively different, from what His body was before dying on Calvary. This means, He still has the wounds from Calvary to show the Father, and He also still has the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mother. Is it probable He left His mother in the grave? Church Tradition (Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Miaphysite both Copt and Armenian, Nestorian) says no, She was raised to Heaven after Her earthly life was finished. In the Kingdom of Judah, the mother of the King is Queen. Just in case you are thinking of Jeremiah 44 several verses or Jeremiah 7:18, if you were giving your mother a present and some crook were claiming it for himself or herself, would you not be angry at that person and anyone agreeing? Well, Ishtar is a demon, therefore worse than a crook, and also a slut. So, if God intended His Mother to be the real Queen of Heaven, Jeremiah 44 is perfectly explicable in the light of this.
  
  
• Christ's Body is still there, seated on a throne in Heaven (habitually, perhaps not 24/24), and so it can be bilocated to presence where external appearances of bread or wine is seen as visible signs of it. I've talked to Evangelicals who say "no, it can't, Christ was resumed in the Godhead and there is no longer any physical body present anywhere" - glad you disagree on this objection to Catholic views of the Eucharist (to which the still present wound marks are also relevant, Apocalypse 5:6 are to be conferred with "sacrifice of the Mass").
  
  
• Since Christ's Body is and our risen bodies will be in definite places, Heaven has to be a place.
  
  This goes against the idea of 13.8 billion lightyears from one limit of visible space to another, and agrees with Empyraean Heaven being just beyond, just above the sphere of the fix stars. Which is easier to show plausible with Geocentrism.

Many of the Protestants who would disagree on these points are by now also disagreeing with corporality of Resurrection Bodies, and therefore you disagree with them.

Oh by the way, when I am basically suggesting a Catholic conversion, I do not mean "Pope Francis" at least from his so far record of non-Catholicity.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Neuilly Plaisance
Pope St. Pius X
3.IX.2019

Answering Koukl & Keaton Halley and Gary Bates

Two paragraphs from CMI:

Avoiding the obvious

According to Koukl, “There is nothing in the language of those passages that requires something like a global or universal Flood,” and he has offered arguments in defense of a local Flood on his radio program.2 For example, Koukl noted that in Genesis 8:9 Noah’s dove returned because “the waters were still on the face of the whole earth” (emphasis added), but earlier in verse 5 the text says that the waters had already receded enough so that “the tops of the mountains were seen”. So, Koukl reasoned, if “the whole earth” was still under water after some dry land had already been exposed, then “the whole earth” cannot refer to the globe.

However, this argument is flawed. If the planet was surrounded by water with some peaks poking up here and there, one would still be accurate in saying that the globe as a whole was covered. It wouldn’t mean every square inch of land, but rather that the land, broadly speaking, was submerged.3 The words are perfectly consistent with a global Flood, which the wider context demands.

Faltering on the Flood
by Keaton Halley and Gary Bates
Published: 18 May 2017 (GMT+10)
http://creation.com/local-flood

I disagree on the solution. As to "with some peaks poking up here and there", one could pretend tribes of mankind had survived at Andes and Himalayah's independently of Noah's Ark.

And I think this is wrong, even if an Inca Flood myth speaks of a sibling couples using Andes as Ark.

I think this is not what “the tops of the mountains were seen” really means.

In clear weather, you can see mountain tops down in the water some depth (say at least 1 to 2 yeards, depending on clearness of waters).

If you object that a raven (sent out before the dove) must have been surviving on one peak poking up somewhere, it could have survived on a mat of vegetation which included some carcasses as well. I take it that in verse 5, as yet no piece of land was both visible above waves sometimes and not at other times submerged by water. Or raven can have survived in a tree, hacking down on carcasses floating around it, while a dove needs to pick its food on the ground.

And whether raven survived or not is also moot on whether ravens were a pure bird, with seven individuals or couples, or an impure one, with only one couple. Only in the latter case need the raven have survived. But I think that is the case.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Venantius the Martyr
18.V.2017