Sam McKee Featured St. Augustine, Philo and Josephus

From St. Augustine he only gave the mis-used and overquoted and therefore quotemined quote on the topic.

[De Genesi ad litteram libri XII, book I]

19. 39. Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.” (1 Tm 1, 7)

On the Prudence and Openness in Interpreting Sacred Scripture, when Biblical Passages deal with our Knowledge of Nature
https://inters.org/augustine-interpretating-sacred-scripture

What he doesn't mention is, St. Augustine was stating this in response to people who believed not just that Earth was flat, but that Heaven was a flat disc.

Something which keen and systematic observations by the naked eye may refute, even before Magellan.

So, he pretended "early Church Fathers" and Philo and Josephus didn't believe Genesis to imply a Young Earth.

But he didn't specify which ones, of the Church Fathers, so I go to Philo now:

III. (13) And he says that the world was made in six days, not because the Creator stood in need of a length of time (for it is natural that God should do everything at once, not merely by uttering a command, but by even thinking of it); but because the things created required arrangement; and number is akin to arrangement; and, of all numbers, six is, by the laws of nature, the most productive: for of all the numbers, from the unit upwards, it is the first perfect one, being made equal to its parts, and being made complete by them; the number three being half of it, and the number two a third of it, and the unit a sixth of it, and, so to say, it is formed so as to be both male and female, and is made up of the power of both natures; for in existing things the odd number is the male, and the even number is the female; accordingly, of odd numbers the first is the number three, and of even numbers the first is two, and the two numbers multiplied together make six. (14) It was fitting therefore, that the world, being the most perfect of created things, should be made according to the perfect number, namely, six: and, as it was to have in it the causes of both, which arise from combination, that it should be formed according to a mixed number, the first combination of odd and even numbers, since it was to embrace the character both of the male who sows the seed, and of the female who receives it. (15) And he allotted each of the six days to one of the portions of the whole, taking out the first day, which he does not even call the first day, that it may not be numbered with the others, but entitling it one, he names it rightly, perceiving in it, and ascribing to it the nature and appellation of the limit.

The Works of Philo: ON THE CREATION
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book1.html

Sounds like Philo believed in six literal days.

Now God loved this man for his righteousness. Yet he not only condemned those other men for their wickedness, but determined to destroy the whole race of mankind; and to make another race that should be pure from wickedness: and cutting short their lives, and making their years not so many as they formerly lived, but one hundred and twenty only, (15) he turned the dry land into sea. And thus were all these men destroyed. But Noah alone was saved. For God suggested to him the following contrivance and way of escape. That he should make an Ark of four stories high; three hundred cubits1 long; fifty cubits broad, and thirty cubits high. [An. 2929] Accordingly he entered into that Ark, and his wife, and sons, and their wives; and put into it not only other provisions, to support their wants there, but also sent in with the rest all sorts of living creatures, the male and his female, for the preservation of their kinds, and others of them by sevens. Now this Ark had firm walls, and a roof; and was braced with cross beams: so that it could not be any way drowned, or over-born by the violence of the water. And thus was Noah, with his family, preserved. Now he was the tenth from Adam: as being the son of Lamech: whose father was Mathusala: he was the son of Enoch, the son of Jared: and Jared was the son of Malaleel: who, with many of his sisters, were the children of Cain[an], the son of Enos. Now Enos was the son of Seth, the son of Adam.

Chapter III, 2

I will now treat of the Hebrews. The son of Phaleg, whose father was Heber, was Ragau: whose son was Serug: to whom was born Nahor: his son was Terah: who was the father of Abraham: who accordingly was the tenth from Noah: (27) and was born in the two hundred and ninety second year after the deluge. For Terah begat Abram in his seventieth year. Nahor begat Haran, when he was one hundred and twenty years old: Nahor was born to Serug at his hundred and thirty second year: Ragau had Serug at one hundred and thirty: at the same time also Phaleg had Ragau: Heber begat Phaleg in his hundred and thirty fourth year: he himself being begotten by Sala when he was an hundred and thirty years old: whom Arphaxad had for his son at the hundred and thirty fifth year of his age. Arphaxad was the son of Shem; and born twelve years after the deluge. ...

Chapter VI, 5

Flavius Josephus of the Antiquities of the Jews — Book I
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-1.html

Sounds like Josephus believed Abraham was twenty generations from the first man ever to exist.

Note that the adding up of particular generations between Noah and Abraham gives more than the total of 292 years he claims to be the addition of them.

I have elsewhere said this probably is because he learned the Genesis 11 by heart from a LXX leaning or adjacent Hebrew copy, but then was told and accepted to use the total of 292 years.

Either way, twenty generations don't add up to 40 000 or 100 000 or 300 000 or 700 000 thousand years.

So, basically, Sam McKee was spreading misinformation on Premier Unbelievable.*

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Decapitation of St. John the Baptist
29.VIII.2026

Decollatio sancti Joannis Baptistae, quem Herodes circa festum Paschae decollari praecepit. Ipsius tamen memoria solemniter hac die colitur, qua venerandum ejus caput secundo inventum fuit; quod, postea Romam translatum, in Ecclesia sancti Silvestri, ad Campum Martium, summa populi devotione asservatur.
Lutetiae Parisiorum depositio sancti Mederici Presbyteri.

* Not sure what is the case about other subjects. The video is longish, but I looked that part up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHtHZltpr7g

Clay Tablet. Catalog number AO-6018

Graham Hancock had sth to Say on Göbekli Tepe · Revisiting a Tablet in Ur · Clay Tablet. Catalog number AO-6018

Facts I could gather from the internet.*

• written around 2900 BC (I think someone preferred to call it BCE, we know what year that's supposed to be anyway)
• describing Göbekli Tepe, with visual accuracy.

I haven't been able to double-check. But the point is, this video*, of which I don't know how much is AI and how much is human input, perhaps AI is restricted to voice and images and all the text is human, considered this a very remarkable feat of oral tradition.

More remarkable than the ones I, as a Young Earth Creationist, believe took place between Adam and Moses (or Adam and Abraham), Jared and Moses (or Jared and Abraham), Noah and Moses (or Noah and Abraham), Heber and Moses (or Heber and Abraham) and possibly even between Abraham and Moses (where I would consider Abraham wrote down and Moses collected writings of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and his sons Ephraim and Manasse).

Let me explain what I mean by oral memory. across 7,000 years. The scribe who wrote that tablet in 2900 BCE wasn't copying earlier texts. He was documenting what his teachers told him, ...

Consider the math. Göbekli Tepe was buried around 8,000 B.CE. The scribe died around 2,900 B.CE. That's 5,100 years, approximately 204 generations if we assume 25 years per generation. Add the 2,600 years from Göbekli Tepe's burial back to its construction, and you get 280 generations total.

There is a math error, Göbekli Tepe is supposed to have been standing 1600 and not 2600 years.

Maybe the text is AI generated after all. Or maybe the writer got carried away.

But 2900 BC after 9600 (or 9500) BC, that's still 6600 to 6700 years.

Now, consult my tables.**

2608 BC

Noah died

43.443 pmC, 9500 BC

...

1739 BC

86.754 pmC, dated as 2914 BC

1736 BC

Isaac died

And calculate:

2608 BC - 1739 BC = 869 years.

There is another thing.

The videast gets 280 generations, but key isn't the total number of generations, but the total number of minimally overlapping ones. Now, uniformitarians presume uniform life spans, so with 25 years per generation and 100 years old for the oldest and an overlap of 25 years being preferrable over no years, that would give us. Well, what?

A	25	50	75	100
B				100	125	150	175
C							175	200	225	250
D										250	275	300	325
E													325	350	375	400

Five minimally overlapping generations would normally give us 400 years.

6600 / 400 = 16.5 * 5 = 82.5 minimally overlapping generations
6700 / 400 = 16.75 * 5 = 83.75 minimally overlapping generations

For 869 years, I'd need a little over ten, with normal lifespans, but far less than that with lifespans in 2608 being, well, 2557 a Peleg was born, and he lived to ...

18 And Phaleg lived and hundred and thirty years, and begot Ragau. 19 And Phaleg lived after he had begotten Ragau, two hundred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.
18 Καὶ ἔζησε Φαλὲγ τριάκοντα καὶ ἑκατὸν ἔτη καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Ραγαῦ. 19 καὶ ἔζησε Φαλὲγ μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Ραγαῦ ἐννέα καὶ διακόσια ἔτη καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱούς καὶ θυγατέρας καὶ ἀπέθανε.

130 + 209 = 339 years. And that's for the end of Göbekli Tepe.

So, the 869 years would need far fewer minimal overlaps than even ten.

The long span of 82 to 84 minimal overlaps is reduced to just less than ten. Maybe five or six.

Babel to Abraham?

Heber saw it happen, so, Heber to Abraham:

2691 BC

Eber born

2295 BC

Serug born

2187 BC

Eber died

2016 BC

Abraham born

1965 BC

Serug died

I think 3 minimally overlapping generations is feasible for maintaining an exact memory. I also think some event in the past radically shortening lifespans is possible, so that longer lifespans can have been possible in the past. So, while I believe in the Bible because of God, because Jesus is risen, I would possibly still believe this, even if I were unhappy enough to apostasise. But from that I beg God to preserve me.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Decapitation of St. John the Baptist
29.VIII.2026

Decollatio sancti Joannis Baptistae, quem Herodes circa festum Paschae decollari praecepit. Ipsius tamen memoria solemniter hac die colitur, qua venerandum ejus caput secundo inventum fuit; quod, postea Romam translatum, in Ecclesia sancti Silvestri, ad Campum Martium, summa populi devotione asservatur.

PS, the video describes another clay tablet too. Flood Tablet / Deluge Tablet CBS10673, Penn Museum. The date assigned is 1650 BC, which in my tables*** matches 1527 BC, 16 years before the Exodus. As Moses had no contact with Mesopotamia, presumably, or not after leaving the Egyptian court at age 40, we can assume the accounts are not just roughly contemporary in preserved shape, but overall independent of each other./HGL

* The Last Sumerian Who Remembered Göbekli Tepe — What He Wrote Before Dying (2900 BCE)
Silent Century | 19 May 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGVJR3BN_Mc

** Both the cited ones are on: Newer Tables, Flood to Joseph in Egypt So are the minimally overlapping generations, Eber, Serug, Abraham.

*** This time Newer Tables, Joseph in Egypt to Fall of Troy.

Some of the Articles Contain Some Technical Stuff

What's "pmC"?

It stands for "percent [of] modern Carbon [14]" and you need to take "modern" as "modern level, but corrected for pre-industrial levels" ...

The main isotope of carbon is carbon 12. They are both isotopes of carbon insofar as they both have six protons. But they are different isotopes insofar as the number of neutrons is different. 6 + 6 = 12, 6 + 8 = 14. Now, the carbon 14 isotope is very rare. However it's even rarer in very old samples of carbon, like fossil fuels. This means that since the Industrial Revolution, carbon 14 levels have sunk.

Sunk because diluted, that is. But there is also a sinking because of decay. Here is how it works. In 5730 years, it sinks from 100 to 50 pmC. Actually that has never ever happened, because 5730 years ago, carbon 14 was not yet 100 pmC. So, it's more like in 5730 years, it sinks to 50 % of original levels. In twice 5730 years, it sinks to 25 %, that is in 11,460 years. And that also has never happened, because the world didn't exist 11,460 years ago. In three times 5730, it sinks to 1/8 or 12.5 %. That's 17,190 years.

So, while years add multiples of 5730 years, carbon levels sink to powers of 0.5. But what about fractions of 5730 years? Well, to roots of 0.5 %.

5730 / 2 = 2865
0.5 ^1/2 = 0.707* or 71 %.
5730 / 4 = 1432.5
0.5 ^1/4 = 0.8409** or 84.09 %

And if the original level was 100 pmC, that means that in 2865 years, a sample sinks from 100 to 84.09 pmC. From 839 BC to now, you'll get approximately 70.711 pmC in a sample, and from 593 AD approximately 84.09 pmC in a sample. Because in 839 BC and 593 AD, the atmospheric level, what samples usually start out with, was approximately 100 pmC.

I say approximately, because there have been fluctuations. These are accounted for in normal calibration graphs. Like that very classic one of Minze Stuiver and Bekker, which I have often cited.

Why don't my pmC values match the carbon date?

Example, from my tables***

2691 BC

Eber born

2686 BC

24.08 pmC, dated as 14,456 BC

From Eber (or Heber) born, you may gather, that the sequence 2691 BC, 2686 BC is the real timeline.

Now, 2686 + 2026 = 4712 years. If the sample was from then, some would expect over 50 pmC. Like 56.552 pmC.

0.5 ^(4712/5730) = 0.5655°

But if the sample were from 14,456 BC, it would be well below 24.08 pmC.

14,456 + 2026 = 16,482
0.5 ^{(16,482/5730)} = 0.13618°° or 13.618 pmC

So, what is "24.08 pmC" doing there?

It's saying what the atmospheric level was back in 2686 BC. Not what the sample is now, but what the atmosphere and therefore the sample was then.

Now take a look a the number of extra years in the carbon level:

14,456 - 2686 = 11,770

So, back then we need a carbon level of ...

0.5 ^{(11,770 / 5730)} = 0.2408°°° or 24.08 pmC

Which, as it happens, is what I gave.

How can you know the carbon level back then? You weren't there to verify it.

Sure. Neither was the scientist there to verify the carbon level tens of thousands of years earlier as having been 100 pmC. That the original carbon level of 100 pmC doesn't figure in some versions of the formula, doesn't mean the theory doesn't require it.

These scientists and I agree on the carbon 14 level in the sample in 2686 BC being roughly speaking 24.08 pmC. What we differ is on whether the sample was ancient back then as they think, or recent back then and reflecting the atmosphere back then.

Either way, the current level in the sample will be 13.618 pmC. Don't believe me? Let's check.

24.08 pmC°°° * 0.5655° = 13.618 pmC°°

But back to the question how I know. And how they know. Or are supposed to know.

They presume the carbon level has been roughly speaking 100 pmC over the last 100,000 years. They consider this confirmed by among other things tree ring calibration, which that far back I consider as circular.

For my part, I use Biblical events and compare with archaeological or related finds. The Flood involves an opening of the fountains of the Deep, which would also involve volcanism. Therefore a supervolcano eruption should be from the Flood. One is carbon dated and that is Campi Flegrei, 39 000 BP. The Babel event, in the chronology I use between 350 after the Flood (Noah's death) and 401 after the Flood (Peleg's birth), 40 of the 51 years, involves a certain set of people (not necessarily the entire human population, I think it was the global élite of as yet a one world extended family), a certain set of people removing there from the East and finding a plain inside the general region of Shinear (Mesopotamia). It doesn't say any tower as piece of architecture actually got built and it doesn't say they ceased to try to build whatever it was (I think they finally succeeded with Wernher von Braun), but it does say they ceased to build the actual city.~ Göbekli Tepe is West of the Mountains of Armenia, over 300 km West of Mount Judi which is in the Westernmost Turkish province Armenia, just East of the Tigris. It is in the North edge of a plain, which stretches down to the Syrian border and around Haran. That plain is inside the stretch from Eurphrates to Tigris. And when Göbekli Tepe was deliberately buried in sand, this was a complete cessation of building activity at the site up to when Klaus Schmidt discovered it. Lowest level of GT gives the date 9500 BC (I've also seen 9600), while highest gives the date 8000 BC (I've also seen 8600). And the Genesis 14 war, of which Rob Skiba II used to say he was waiting for archaeological discoveries, actually involves one. In Asason Tamar, the Amorrhites or Amorrheans are attacked, and we know from 2 Chronicles (20:2? Yes!) that Asason Tamar is En Geddi. But being attacked presupposes living there, and the latest or only population of En Geddi that is possible for Genesis 14 is (thank you Osgood), the Chalcolithic. And there was an evacuation of En Geddi ending that, and the temple treasures were buried in a cave and carried there on reed mats. Now reed is a very short lived plant and would have been reflecting the atmosphere just before it was harvested. The reed mats are carbon dated to 3500 BC.

This gives me the equations 2958 BC = 39 000 BP, 2608 BC = 9500 BC, 2557 BC = 8000 BC and 1936 BC = 3500 BC. On my Newer Tables~~ these are the first four main anchor points. And each anchor points gives the carbon level at the time.

37,050 - 2958 = 34,092~~~ so 1.618 pmC #
9500 - 2608 = 6892, so 43.443 pmC #
8000 - 2557 = 5443, so 51.766 pmC #
and
3500 - 1936 = 1564, so 82.763 pmC #

If I know the carbon levels at two different anchor points, and there is no anchor point between them, my one way of knowing the carbon levels between is, modelling a fairly even rise. I divide the stretch between the anchor points into even smaller time spans, I then calculate how much the carbon level rose after each of these, and after the final one I check that the final time stretch results in a carbon level matching the overall time stretch, the anchor point.

There is a clumsy way of doing this, like if I divided the stretch into two, I could divide the difference into two and insert the medium there. This is what I do as a makeshift when checking on carbon dates between those in the tables.

There is also a smart way of doing this, which I did to produce the tables, namely take the speed of production during the overall stretch and multiply it with the production rates as they normally would be

2557 - 1936 = 621 years.
0.5 ^(621/5730) = 92.763 % ##
1 - 0.92763 = 0.07237 or 7.237 pmC ##
51.766 pmC * 92.763 % = 48.02 pmC ##
82.763 pmC - 48.02 pmC = 34.742 pmC ##
34.742 pmC / 7.237 pmC = 4.8 times faster

621 divides neatly into three substretches of 207 years:

2557 - 207 = 2350 BC
2350 - 207 = 2143 BC
2143 - 207 = 1936 BC

And then we take the normal decay and production for that substretch. Normal decay and production mean how they match now in the "100 pmC era" (which isn't quite one).

0.5 ^(207/5730) = 97.527 % ###
1 - 0.97527 = 2.473 pmC ###
2.473 pmC * 4.8 = 11.872 pmC ###
48.02 pmC + 11.872 pmC = 59.892 pmC ###

This would give us

2350 BC

59.892 pmC

For some reason, I found*** instead:

2350 BC (!)

62.358 pmC, dated as 6254 BC

And how do I get from the pmC at this intermediary point to the carbon date? It's a formula I don't quite understand, I borrowed it from a video on exponential equations, by MathQueen / MathemaTrick, but I have found it to be correct on a few checks. The reason that I put (!) after two years is, I actually found triple sixes among the decimals for the pmC value, and that's why I find probable that Nimrod (an original 666) died around these years, a bit after Shelah died in 2361 and a bit before Sarug was born in 2295 BC.

The reason the values are different is, here I am calculating an a larger stretch, 207 years directly from 2557 BC, on the table I calculated on a smaller stretch of 23 years which itself had been reached over several times this kind of operation, 23 times 9 being 207.

Now, how do I calculate the carbon year from here, as said? What is my formula?

5730 * log(x) / log(0.5) + real year = carbon year
where x is the pmC value in decimal form rather than percentage form
where decimals for carbon year are rounded to nearest integer

This applies to the two different versions for 2350 as follows:

5730 * log(0.62358) / log(0.5) + 2350 = 6254 BC
5730 * log(0.59892) / log(0.5) + 2350 = 6588 BC

If I had instead simply taken the first third of the difference, it would have been:

2557 BC ~ 2350 BC ~ 1936 BC
51.766 pmC ~ x ~ 82.763 pmC
(82.763 pmC - 51.766 pmC) / 3 = 10.332 pmC
51.766 pmC + 10.332 pmC = 62.098 pmC

5730 * log(0.62098) / log(0.5) + 2350 = 6289 BC

In other words, whichever method I take, the carbon date for 2350 BC is in the mid to late 7th Millennium BC.

So you mean Heber was born in the Palaeolithic after the Ice Age Maximum and Shelah died in the Neolithic?

Yes.***

2691 BC

Eber born

2686 BC

24.08 pmC, dated as 14,456 BC

2361 BC

Shelah died

2350 BC (!)

62.358 pmC, dated as 6254 BC

And the real distance in time was just 330 years, not 8000 +.

What would prove you wrong?

If a civilisation had watched all this happen and taken it down, and the records could be guaranteed as genuine, that would equate to proving another timeline, possibly the one of the uniformitarian timeline, correct.

However, if we found such records or even inhabitants of a country with such records, very unlikely already, it would still be a huge task to prove that this civilisation was genuine for all of these years into the past. And example of won't do it is say "we know that Australians were there 30 000 years ago, because they recorded a geological shift that happened at that time" where the only reason we "know" the geological shift was back in 30,000 BP is carbon dates.

But pending that, we have a mental and religious civilisation, if not an unbroken material one, in the people of the one God. From Abel and Seth to Noah, from Noah to Abraham. And they took down records, at least transmitting them orally. I'll cite Fr. George Leo Haydock for an even earlier event, the Fall:

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

A modern scientist would not express himself as Father Haydock did in 1811 to 1814, while Catholicism was still illegal in England. Pinker said something about both older books and children having a freshness of style, of expression, because they are not encumbered by routine use of scientific terminology. Both C. S. Lewis as well as J. R. R. Tolkien, and I, have striven to emulate this quality.

But this does not mean Father Haydock was less stringent. I have tried to improvise a terminology for what he says as "minimally overlapping generations" ... Haydock used the Vulgate or Masoretic chronology, and has Methusalem as the last generation born before Adam died, in my LXX based one, it's more like Jared is that or his father.

On the other hand, Haydock thinks this was written down first by Moses, but I think even Abraham already started writing it down. This means that overall, despite the longer chronology, I have fewer minimally overlapping generations than Haydock has. The reason why I think Abraham wrote things down is, from chapter 12, Genesis becomes narratives that are more prolix and less easy to transmit correctly orally.

This sets a very high bar for such a potential civilisation. Discovering it would be like discovering the Book of Mormon: a "discovery" is a breaking point in information transmission where fraud and mistakes are clearly possible. If the civilisation were alien, I would say it was demonic, and even if the purported aliens seemed human enough, I'd suspect they were men having been trapped in demonic illusions by abduction. At the very least, these would be reasonable suspicions.

And as the word of God doesn't lie, I would on top of that need a good reason how this is a possible interpretation of the Genesis we have.

A final point: Why do you give the calibration as a series of pmC levels, rather than as a graph?

The graphs by Stuiver and Bekker are very adapted for carbon 14 levels at the origin of samples fluctuating around 100 pmC. If 750 and 450 both carbon date to 550 BC, it's less interesting to note that in the atmosphere 102.449 pmC over wiggles sank to 98.798 pmC. It's more interesting to know a raw number of 2500 carbon years is applicable both for calibrated 750 BC and for calibrated 450 BC. I don't pretend to follow such minor wiggles over very detailed calibration from tree rings, I give a much rougher calibration, and for that one the most interesting thing is how the carbon 14 level rose in the atmosphere.

My original "mission statement" was mostly "prove that carbon 14 could have risen from very low (1—3 pmC) to normal stable levels without the radioactivity needed having to destroy everything except spiders" and if I could on top of that provide a tool for assigning archaeology to the Biblical chronology, that was just a bonus. I think by now my original mission statement is very amply met.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
St. Narn of Bergamo
27.VIII.2026

Bergomi sancti Narni, qui, a beato Barnaba baptizatus, primus ab ipso ejusdem civitatis Episcopus ordinatus est.

Other resources than linked in footnotes:

High-Precision Decadal Calibration of the Radiocarbon Time Scale, AD 1950–6000 BC
Minze Stuiver (a1) and Bernd Becker (a2)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/radiocarbon/article/highprecision-decadal-calibration-of-the-radiocarbon-time-scale-ad-19506000-bc/F1AB60097B0184501418D3EAEAD2EA90

Sylvester Joseph Hunter on Genesis, Henry Morris on 15 Cubits
Sunday 5 May 2024
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2024/05/sylvester-joseph-hunter-on-genesis.html

(The term I use in above is "minimal overlaps" and not "minimally overlapping generations")

The Times of Abraham
By A.J.M. Osgood Published 30 Mar, 2006
First appeared in Journal of Creation 2(1) Pages 77 - 87, April 1986
https://creation.com/en/articles/the-times-of-abraham

Footnotes:

* 0.7071067811865475
** 0.8408964152537145285
*** Newer Tables, Flood to Joseph in Egypt

° 0.5655244996321537
°° 0.1361774954058079
°°° 0.2407985781241745

~ This distinction matches Masoretic and Vulgate. LXX says they ceased to build the tower and the city.
~~ See Newer Tables, Preliminaries for all such equations or anchor points. They are numbered I to VIII, and VIII being Fall of Troy, carbon date = historic date, carbon level in the time = has finally reached 100 pmC. I have taken over the numbers from previous tables, "New Tables" from 2020, and two new anchor points, one set arbitrarily and one for the Exodus, have been inserted but slashed for surrounding two anchor points. I/II and VI/VII.
~~~ I had taken 39,000 BP as 37,000 BC, but its actually 50 more since BP is measured backwards from 1950.

# 0.5 ^{(34,092/5730)} = 0.0161789498737946
0.5 ^(6892/5730) = 0.4344336256776197
0.5 ^(5443/5730) = 0.5176637713737836
0.5 ^(1564/5730) = 0.8276258493022752

## 0.9276310630766214
0.0723689369233786
0.480200994555716
0.3474248547465592
4.8007455894287776

### 0.9752705146651369
0.0247294853348631
0.1187199676501877
0.5989209622059037

Imagine the Babel Dispersal Happened 101 after the Flood

Or in other words, it happened when Peleg was born, and Peleg was born 101 after the Flood.

First of all, would there have been enough people for Babel?

Let's set annual population growth from Ark to Babel at 10 % ... unknown for any country today, Nigeria has 5 %.

8 * 1,1^101 = 121 269

Yes, there would.

But, what about carbon dates. Let's first assume that Göbekli Tepe was Babel, as I hold.

142800 sqm mean a square with a side of c. 378 m or a circle of 426 m diameter. Göbekli Tepe, including unexcavated part being twenty football fields point to that overall size.

Flood in Year of the World 1536, Year before Christ 2468. Equals carbon dated 39 000 BP.

Babel in Year of the World about 1800, and Year before Christ 2204. ... wait, something is going on.*

2468 - 2204 = 264 years, not 101.

No, the Haydock comment isn't actually giving 101 after the Flood as the year of Babel.

Let's first deal with 101.

Exodus in 1446 BC**, 430 years earlier in 1876 God made the promise, 75 years earlier in 1951 BC Abraham was born, 292 years earlier, in 2243 BC was the Flood.

Actual 2243 BC, equals carbon dated 37 050 BC.

Actual 2142 BC, equals carbon dated 8000 BC.

37 050 - 2243 = 34807
8000 - 2142 = 5858

Carbon levels are from this:***

In 2243 BC
0.5^(34807/5730) = 0.0148384059965681 = 1.484 pmC
In 2142 BC
0.5^(5858/5730) = 0.4923176717125301 = 49.232 pmC

What would the decay and normal replacement be?

0.5^(101/5730) = 0.9878565564755879 or down to 98.786 % of original level (98.786 pmC if that level was 100 pmC, which in this case it wasn't).
1 - 0.9878565564755879 = 0.0121434435244121 or 1,214 pmC)

And how much faster need carbon 14 have been pumped up in relation to carbon 12 during this period?

0.0148384059965681 * 0.9878565564755879 = 0.01465821665135647743271882988599
0.4923176717125301 - 0.0146582166513565 = 0.4776594550611736
0.4776594550611736 / 0.0121434435244121 = 39.334761519739394 times faster

Let's assume for argument's sake Babel started 20 years earlier. 81 after the Flood.

0.5^(81/5730) = 0.9902494324271731
1 - 0.9902494324271731 = 0.0097505675728269
0.0097505675728269 * 39.334761519739394 = 0.3835362501592502873280038728986
0.0148384059965681 * 0.9902494324271731 + 0.3835362501592502873280038728986 = 0.39822997327547581019093565753671
5730 * log(0.39822997327547581019093565753671)/log(0.5) + 2162 BC = carbon dated 9773 BC.

Pretty close match with the 9500 BC for actual Göbekli Tepe

Would there have been sufficient people to start it?

8 * 1,1^81 = 18 026

Yes, there would.

However, let's get to Mladec, Czech Republic.

Direct AMS dating of the human fossils from Mladeč yielded uncalibrated dates of around 31,190 BP for Mladeč 1, 31,320 BP for Mladeč 2, 30,680 BP for Mladeč 8 and 26,330 BP for Mladeč 25c.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mladeč_Caves

Which means we need a lot of dead people and some of them are thirty. Now, that can only happen 30 years after the Flood. Let's say 35.

0.5^(35/5730) = 0.9957750669461667
1 - 0.9957750669461667 = 0.0042249330538333
0.0042249330538333 * 39.334761519739394 + 0.0148384059965681 * 0.9957750669461667 = 0.180962448834
5730 * log(0.180962448834) / log(0.5) + 2208 + 1951 = 18 290 BP

We would need the earliest buildup to be slower, so Mladeč 25c can get 26,330 BP. So Mladeč 2 can be 31,320 BP.

2208 BC dated as 29 370 BC

29370 - 2208 = 27 162 extra years
0.5^(27162/5730) = 0.037413062216055 = 3.741 pmC

And this means an even faster increase between 2208 and 2162.

2208 BC
0.037413062216055
2162 BC
0.398229973275476

2162 - 2208 = 46 years
0.5^(46/5730) = 0.9944509209936945
1 - 0.9944509209936945 = 0.0055490790063055

0.037413062216055*0.9944509209936945 = 0.037205454177950
0.39822997327548 - 0.03720545417795 = 0.36102451909753
0.36102451909753 / 0.0055490790063 = 65.06025931281354

For 46 years, the cosmic radiation or other contributors to carbon 14 would have been producing carbon 14 in relation to carbon 12 at a 65 times faster rate than now.

Now, this is not in and of itself impossible, provided the radiation does not involve mortal radiation doses. And if the relation between incoming cosmic rays and speed of carbon 14 production were linear, that would certainly not be a problem. On medium height, today, the part of the background radiation that's cosmic is 0.34 milliSievert. 22.1 milliSievert. That's just above the limit for nuclear workers. During the ice age, medium height would have been lower and lots of the habitations would have been in places now underwater. Places now considered medium height would have been considered pretty high ground.

However, we don't know how the relation is. The fact is, the milliSievert per year and the production of carbon 14 are both resultants of a complex interaction of factors, so, linear, square, cubic, well if it's cubic it's too high even for my model, but I don't worry about that. Either way, the most times faster my model produces carbon 14 in relation to carbon 12 is, c. 20 times.

I—I/II 2958-2738 = 220 years 10 * 22 years 3.611 times as fast		I/II—II 2738—2608 = 130 years, 10 * 13 years 20.86 times as fast
II—III 2608-2557 = 51 years 3 * 17 years 13.967 times as fast

And anything younger than end of Babel, less fast.

20.86 * 0.34 = 7.0924 milliSievert per year, just above Princeton overall background radiation.
20.86 * 20.86 * 0.34 = 148 milliSievert per year, cancer basically guaranteed.

So, for 65 times faster I'm not even trying to square. The thing is, this was the very challenge I started with.

However, I'm assuming that carbon 14 mainly comes from cosmic radiation. I'm assuming that other background radiation wasn't contaminating the carbon 12 by the bomb effect locally near Göbekli Tepe.

If you want to play around with local bomb effect, making Göbekli Tepe have 39.823 pmC while other parts of the world relying more just on the atmosphere were dating to 20 000 BP, fine, hope you have better modelling skills and more expertise than I do, that might help. I simply couldn't make such a model any good.

I have also assumed that no loads of carbon 12 without carbon 14 were doubling the amount of carbon in the atmosphere since then. There may have come out lots of old carbon, but I have not counted on it being that much less just after the Flood. For instance, if 100 years now involve a production of 1.202 pmC units, if back then the overall carbon was just half the amount, that would have been 2.404 pmC units. Again, you may think the assumption is wrong, good luck if you have the skills to make a better model with more complexity to it, which I don't have. Part of the issue is, this means a higher production rate has to go on longer than on my model, because while carbon volume overall increases, that carbon 12 increase needs to be matched by carbon 14 increase. If in 100 years after the initial 100 you for some reason have a doubling of carbon 14, there are 1.202 pmC points that are eaten up for just normal production. Or the 38.354 pmC points for the 46 years need to be matched by another 38.354 pmC points if it doubles. Sounds like you'd need a computer.

I have not proposed that the enquiries that scientists do are done better by myself than by them. I have just proposed that some enquiries they don't do are done better (i e at all) by me than by no one at all.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
XIIIth Lord's Day after Pentecost
23.VIII.2026

* I've discovered the problem. Year of the World 1536 is from Haydock comment chapter 6 and refers to verse 3 interpreted as 120 years up to the Flood. It's in chapter 7 that the Haydock comment gives: "Year of the World 1656, Year before Christ 2348." And that refers to the beginning of the Flood.

** Caleb Howells states 1446 is the "adjusted Biblical date" for the Exodus and that the strictly Biblical date would be 1513 BC (involving Temple in the 1030's). See :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLDZSeqgPSc

*** Tip for reading aloud, if needed: just say "calculations" or elaborate a rounding off and insert it with pencils.

France was Volcanic Back When?

Volcano World: Chaine des Puys
https://volcano.oregonstate.edu/chaine-des-puys

Eruptions began about 150,000 years ago.

Not carbon dated, from the Flood. 2958 BC.

The most recent eruption was about 4,040 B.C. Puy de Dome is the one of the youngest volcanic feature in the province. The most recent eruption at Puy de Dome was about 5,760 B.C.

Probably or at least possibly carbon dated.

2295 BC

Serug born

2281 BC

65.83 pmC, dated as 5737 BC

2028 BC

78.316 pmC, dated as 4048 BC

2016 BC

Abraham born

Table cited:
III—IV on Newer Tables, Flood to Joseph in Egypt

Revisiting Sunday Letters in Creation Year

Suppose Jesus was crucified 7 April / 14 Nisan AD 30, born late in 6 BC. I read this in 1000 raisons à croire before giving it away.

Suppose Jesus was born according to Roman Martyrology.

This would put AD 30 as 5235 Anno Mundi.

Could Adam have been created a Friday 7 April or a Friday 14 Nisan before Anno Mundi 1?

365.24219 * 5235 = 1912042.86465 or 1912043 days.
1912043 / 7 = 273149

Yes, 7 April would have been a Friday.

Would it have been a 14 Nisan?

1912042.86465 / 29.5305888531 = 64747.8746245617648313

No, 7 April before AM 1 would not have been a multiple of whole Lunar months prior to 7 April AD 30.

1 - 0.8746245617648313 = 0.1253754382351687
0.1253754382351687 * 29.5305888531 = 3.7 days

To get back to 14 of Nisan, it would have been on creation day 2 or 3. 4 or 3 days before Adam was created.

Is there a problem with this?

Yes, 5199 AM being the birthyear involves a span of 2242 years prior to the Flood, and the actual first text of Genesis 5 would arguably warrant 2262 years instead.

5199 + 20 + 36 = 5255
365.24219 * 5255 = 1919347.70845 or 1919348 days

1919348 / 7 = 274192.5714285714285714
7 * 0.5714285714285714 = 3.9999999999999998 or 4 days.

So, to get back to a Friday, Adam would have needed to be created on 4 April.

1919347.70845 / 29.5305888531 = 64995.2399526403198068

And also 7 April would not have been a 14 Nisan ...

1 - 0.2399526403198068 = 0.7600473596801932
0.7600473596801932 * 29.5305888531 = 22

7 April, 38 March, minus 22 = 16 March would have been a full moon, if that many days before Adam had existed, and same is true of ...

0.2399526403198068 * 29.5305888531 = 7.08...

14 April. A week after Adam's creation, if we replace March 25 with 7 April. No, ten days after his creation.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
XIIth L.D. after Pentecost
16.VIII.2026

PS, other problem, Jesus probably was crucified a Friday 15 Nisan and "day of preparation" in John doesn't mean 14 Nisan, just Friday./HGL

PPS, unless, see the update on this one:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Judaism Apostasised, Catholicism Didn't
Sunday, May 24, 2026 | Posted by Hans Georg Lundahl at 8:48 AM
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2026/05/judaism-apostasised-catholicism-didnt.html

The date, now ... two options.

Jesus was crucified the 15 of Nisan and the illegal process was taking place when passover had already started, adding to the guilt.
Jesus had begun Nisan one day earlier and counted 15 while the Temple counted 14 (it was an empirical luni-solar calendar, and Jesus was away in Galilee and couldn't know when the Temple announced the new moon), or Jesus had been allowed to celebrate passover one day earlier by the Temple (which up to above crime still had authority, Hannas or Caiaphas was still the last Pope of the Old Testament, so to speak).

One could add it seems Didache said Jesus was captive more than one night, so in that case the case in the temple was perhaps held the night before the one before Pilate). Liturgy compresses the captivity to the night from Maundy Thursday to the taking down from the Cross on Good Friday in a way the Gospels, if so allow but don't require. That's a third option.

Unqualified and Qualified Agreements with Rob Carter, as well as Unqualified Disagreements

The main unqualified agreement is: Scripture is reliable, no good historic source actually contradicts it in a way that would trump it. And the Mesolithic was just a few centuries.

Why There Can't Be More Than 4,500 Years of Ancient History
Creation Ministries International | 13 Aug. 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-tWTEfS_E

An unqualified disagreement is already to the title. On two items. First, as holding a LXX chronology or LXX adjacent chronology (chapters 5 and 11 as analysed by Julius Africanus who had access to Vetus Latina*), I'd say we have 5000 years of post-Flood history, not just 4500. But second, it is impossible that all of the pre-Flood history that was available in memory right after the Flood is only what we have in the Bible. It's like supposing I were to survive a disaster, I had to start civilisation all over, and all I knew of the time I and others had spent before it was ... less than a fifthgrader knows of Western Civilisation or 20th C history.

Not only that, but I maximise another term in the Genesis chapters than he does.

Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown
[Genesis 6:4]

How do you take that last phrase? I take it as individual men still enjoying the renown (insofar as damned souls enjoy anything) after the Flood. And I'd say Bharat is a conflation of the two Henoch, while Krishna is probably the flute player Jubal, and the Kauravas are probably children of Tubal-Cain. In this way, they actually still are men of renown.

Also, Krishna's death or beginning of Kali Yuga is ...

midnight 17/18 February 3102 BCE (Julian), or 22/23 January (Gregorian).

Now ...

3102 - 2958 = 144

... so, the Mahabharata war probably happened nearly one and a half centuries before the Flood. The actually unsupportable violence began after it, in attempts to make it "never happen again" I'd say.

Some accounts of giants and even of dragons getting killed can have been memories from pre-Flood times, and then conflated with post-Flood history. Though probably there were still some kind of palaeo-creatures in the times of Sigurd and Beowulf. We know of Saints, and not just St. George, but also St. Martha with the Tarasque. And very probably Nimrod did some dragon killing after the Flood:

And he was a stout hunter before the Lord. Hence came a proverb: Even as Nemrod the stout hunter before the Lord
[Genesis 10:9]

Here is Challoner:

"A stout hunter": Not of beasts but of men: whom by violence and tyranny he brought under his dominion. And such he was, not only in the opinion of men, but before the Lord, that is, in his sight who cannot be deceived.

I think he became that too, a bit later, and put it to use in Babel.

But back to the list of unqualified disagreements. Rob Carter refers to his articles examining the LXX, and I refer to my answers to them:

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

Now, for the qualified agreements. Not surprising to someone knowing both of us, and yes, he knows of me, this will involve some on carbon 14.

Let's start on a point where we agree. In day 3, there was not one atom of carbon 14. The first of these came in day 4, when sunlight was created and touched our atmosphere. Because it comes with some cosmic radiation.

How fast did carbon 14 form back then, in terms of pmC? These being "percent modern carbon" [14, in relation to carbon 12 and the modern value corrected for pre-industrial values, as if the fossil carbon emissions from 1750 hadn't happened].

Let's first suppose a similar production to now:

2262 years, remaining carbon 14 level after this time: 0.5^(2262/5730) = 0.76061(76.061 pmC)
Normal (modern tempo) builup in this time 1-0.76061 = 0.23939 (23.939 pmC)

This would mean, a fossil from the Flood, if you carbon dated it, would have extra years corresponding to a carbon 14 level of 23.939 pmC.

5730 * log(0.23939) / log(0.5) + 2958 BC = 14 777 BC

I don't think so. This is not what Mark Armitage shows, and especially he may have dated in some cases younger-than-Flood dinos, where the pmC as already higher than at the Flood. And 20 000 BP is really on the younger end of his spectrum.

Next question. Carter wants the carbon to be diluted in "old carbon" (presumably from creation, no carbon 14 at all) through volcanic activity.

Let's suppose the carbon 12 emitted were so much that half the post-Flood carbon came from it. Not a genial idea, because if there was more carbon in the pre-Flood atmosphere, this puts briefly in the post-Flood period a carbon level in the atmosphere that's higher than ever before or after. And makes for some problem in making it sink, even if fossils being locked off from carbon cycle helps to do so. But let's suppose so.

23.939 pmC / 2 = 11.9695 pmC

50 years after the Flood we would get a date like:

5730 * log(0.119695) / log(0.5) + 2908 BC = 20 456 BC

That would fit with some of Armitage, far from all. Many are older.

So, here is what I propose instead. In the pre-Flood world, the Oxygen was more atmospheric and less in the water cycle. This means, the Nitrogen was more diluted. Minimum, 1 O = 1 N. We now have 1 O = 2 N. To translate from volume difference to surface difference, we take the cube root and then square it.

(cbroot(1/2))^2 = 0.62996
0.62996 * 0.23939= 0.150804 (15.08 pmC)

Also, there was more carbon 12 before the Flood, at least 3 times as much:

0.150804 / 3 = 0.050268 (5.027 pmC)

But the magnetic field was perhaps stronger and the cosmic rays weaker, meaning even this has to be divided, say, by 3:

0.050268 / 3 = 0.016756 (1.676 pmC)

And, at the Flood, this remained as low. It didn't get much lower by dilution in old carbon from volcanos. This is pretty close to my value from Campi Flegrei, dated to 39 000 BP, being in the Flood and this puts the atmospheric level back then at 1.629 pmC.

Some other arguments from Carter:

• changes in the magnetic field
• fluctuations in the carbon 14 level (notably as explaining the Hallstadt plateau)
• fluctuations per locality

Here are my responses:

• The changes in the magnetic field, which are possible, are not an extra to be taken account of on top of my carbon tables, they are one of the reasons for the different speeds of carbon 14 production, and so are included in them.
• The fluctuations in the carbon 14 level (notably as explaining the Hallstadt plateau) are a different story, and way less in percentage. In 750 BC, around the Founding of Rome** the carbon 14 level was high enough to detract two centuries, it dates as 550 BC, but in 450 BC, it had sunk to low enough to add one century, 450 BC also dates as 550 BC. So, in 750 BC, the level was 102.449 pmC and in 450 BC it was 98.798 pmC. That's just a fluctuation of 3.651 pmC units.
• The fluctuations per locality are probably too minute to need to be taking into account.

Finally, two more disagreements. Including with things he has previously said, even if he didn't repeat it.

1) I think there was spread before the Flood and this refers to scattering of common plan making rather than geographic spread occurring only then:

And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confounded: and from thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all countries
[Genesis 11:9]

In verse 2, the "they" involved in the masculine plural form bə·nā·sə·‘ām doesn't match the feminine singular ḵāl hā·’ā·reṣ, so doesn't need to imply that "they" were all of mankind.

2) When it comes to preserving pre-Flood human fossils, I take a different view on (and don't maximalise) the verse:

He said: I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth, from man even to beasts, from the creeping thing even to the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them
[Genesis 6:7]

Let's be clear that ’em·ḥeh is also used in Exodus 17:14 and we still have some memory of Amalek by reading about the person and the people in the Bible. But it can also be argued that God only meant those that were currently walking at the time, 120 years before the Flood, and subsequent times up to the Flood, while the Neanderthals I consider as pre-Flood were actually buried before God said this word.

This means I can place sapiens only Palaeolithic in the 350 years after the Flood prior to Babel, which began the Neolithic, and I can place Neanderthals (as mentioned) and sapiens contemporary to them in pre-Flood areas of less than full urbanity for God knows how long. And the Five Emperors were people who went to China before Babel in a Palaeolithic setting.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Queen St. Radegundis
13.VIII.2026

Pictavis, in Gallia, sanctae Radegundis Reginae, cujus vita miraculis et virtutibus claruit.

* In other words, the chronology of the Roman Martyrology from Christmas Day. St. Jerome unfortunately corrected the 2262 pre-Flood years to 2242 after a more standard reading in the LXX. Then he added a chronology after Julius Africanus' work or what he kept, after Abraham's birth, this one was cited in the Historia Scholastica which is basically a Biblical History, and then that part got quoted in the Usuardus (a Venetian print from late 1400's) which in the time of St. Pius V became the Roman Martyrology for all of the Latin Church (after some revision).

** Which is included in the Martyrology. Even after St. Pius V making it universal. The 1179 date for the fall of Troy is no longer so, presumably since then, and only was in Usuardus.