Answering Robert Carter's Four Reasons

Answering Robert Carter's Four Reasons · Carter's Notification on His Post

I am not sure who the Markus B is who asked him the question*, since the one Markus I know who I have contact with has another initial to last name. But the position he is asking about is basically mine. Some modifications in it, I would not subscribe to, like "complete" extinction (as opposed to survival in half castes) or including Java and Peking man, which would be the normal implication of "Homo erectus" when I know too ittle about these, but do know they are not carbon dated but potassium argon dated, which gives no good chronological indication.

So, I may presume Markus B might not have direct contact with me, then he could have had so with one of my readers. My essays on the matter have existed in a "handprinted" (low number edition on xerox machines) booklet since 28.II.2017 to judge from the front page of that booklet, accessible on jpeg images here: Neanderthal and Neolithic – Front Page Essays are partly from earlier and were first accessible on my blogs.

My position is that Neanderthals and Denisovans are pre-Flood. Note very well, I do not think they "completely" died out in it, since one or more half caste between them and Cro Magnon race (which some have called Homo Sapiens, perhaps wisely so because it made it to the Ark) certainly did survive, since we do find Denisovan and Neanderthal genes.

Now, I'll answer Robert Carter, not in the order he gave his answers, but since he's a geneticist and part of my argument is genetic, I'll answer his genetics argument first, dividing it in parts according to his steps in reasoning:

Genetically, there would be no way to get Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA into non-Africans only. If DNA existed on the Ark, that DNA would be well-mixed in the post-Flood but pre-Babel population.

Not certain, since the DNA could have been on the ark in one of the three daughters in law of Noah.

Note very well, for the Neanderthal genome, two pieces are obstinately missing from today's populations, as it was sequenced on I think El Sidrón man. The mitochondriae and the Y chromosome. If all Neanderthal genes came via a daugher in law of Noah, there would be no Neanderthal specific Y chromosome, Noah being the "Y chromosome Adam". If that daughter in law was Neanderthal on her father's side, but not her mother's or on her maternal grandfather's side, but not the maternal grandmother, she would also have Cro Magnon rather than Neanderthal mitochondriae.

As to presumption of all mixing before Babel ...

After all, the grandchildren of Noah would be expected to intermarry irrespective of who their father was. They all spoke the same language and purposefully lived together. There is no way to keep the lineages from intertwining.

Here we come to a chronology question : how long after Flood was Babel? In Julius Africanus, whose early half of Genesis 11 genealogy seems to be the basis of that aspect of Roman Martyrology having** 942 years between Flood and Abraham, Peleg is born 401 after Flood. With then Tower of Babel starting to be built after Noah died, this places Babel as a longer project between 350 and 401 after the Flood. We would have grandchildren of grandchildren of grandchildren, and therefore time to get certain DNA out of certain lineages prior to Babel by genetic drift. Lineages having intertwined would also have time to disentangle.

As to purposefully lived together, I think there was geographic spread, though no political disunion or even less a linguistic one, between Flood and Babel. The salient question is whether "they removed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar, and dwelt in it" refers to every man alive on earth or to a certain élite. If Shinar is simply Hebrew for Mesopotamia and if geographic spread before Babel is allowed, and if the tower can have been a rocket (which would have malfunctioned if God hadn't differed the takeoff to Cape Canaveral) or lost or placed outside the city, Göbekli Tepe can easily be their city. Though, if the regional Black Sea Flood (if such) was post-Babel, then Danube and Don could be cut off sources of Euphrates and Tigris, and Shinar could extend even further to the North-West.

Also, the sons of Ham lived all over the Middle East (Lud, Nimrod, Canaan, etc.).

Hamite Lud is actually North Africa, the one in Anatolia is Semite Lud. Not sure if you count North Africa as Middle East.

African Black populations from South of Sahara do not descend indistinctly from "Ham", but specifically from Ham's son Kush. And arguably they are not the only ones doing so. They are a subset of the Kushites, not all of the Hamites. Again, genetic drift could have avoided Neanderthal specific genome in them. It is also to be remembered, many genes are the same for Neanderthal and post-Flood man, so the Neanderthal half caste on the Ark can have left some genes which ones were Neanderthal specific to all of post-Flood mankind. Since some Neanderthal specific genes are not healthy (propensity for diabetes), this could account in part for shortened lifespans.

Thus, even if one wanted to make the case that the sons of Noah were genetically different from one another,

Not at all, except insofar as their wives' flesh is also their flesh. Their wives were genetically different, though they all had Cro-Magnon mitochondriae. One was more Neanderthal, one more Denisovan than others. Not sure if these two positions could involve same or had to involve two different persons. For Noah, the main thing would not have been to avoid race mixing, but to avoid people with definite illoyalty to God and violence and domination towards fellow men. If Ham married Noema the sister of Tubal-Cain (as traditions outside the Bible say) this may be because she was remorseful for the attitude of Lamech. If Lamech's grandsons fought a war remembered by her descendants in India (yes, I think there were Kushites in India too, lineage of Regmah recalled as Rama), much later as the Kurukshetra war, and misattached to post-Flood India, then the remorse over the war expressed at the end of Mahabharata may be her remorse, even if other details were garbled (like making Krishna, presumably Jubal, a god and co-avatar of Vishna with an "earlier" - really post-Flood - Rama). And if that is the case, her remorse may have meant that Noah allowed Ham to marry her, supposing that paternal consent even was necessary. However, with Noah we should consider he was not just their carnal father, but also head of the faithful, as Popes are now, and had a right to forbid intermarriage with non-faithful (whatever that meant in pre-Flood times).

one could not make the case that their descendants would have maintained those differences. Everything should blend together between the Flood and Babel.

Again, genetic drift.

Because of this, Neanderthal DNA, if pre-Flood, would be found world-wide today.

Perhaps it is, and it is only Neanderthal specific (as per post-Flood comparisons) which isn't. But this also does not allow for genetic drift and for different lineages having different proportions of ancestral genome. I mean, I have two chromosomes of each, except one X and one Y, and the generation in which I have eight ancestors (great-grandfathers) I still get my chromosomes from only two of them. The Y chromosome from father's father's father, and outside chromosomes, the mitochondriae from mother's mother's mother. I am NOT a perfect genetic blend of my eight great-grandparents. At least not a perfectly even one. Neither are you, nor is anyone.

This is the same argument I made against someone who believes Nephilim DNA is still evident in certain members of the modern human population. This is, of course, specious, because humans are nearly homogeneous and any DNA they carry is called "human" by default.

I think that the part about nephelim is equally specious as the part about Neanderthals. I also think that while all DNA is "human", some is "Neanderthal specific" within human races. Just as some is Denisovan specific.

So far his argument 3, the genetic one. Now, for his other arguments.

1) Their archaeological setting would make no sense. They are buried in Flood-deposited sediments with grave goods (beads, etc.). You cannot have a burial during the Flood. Also, not all of the Neanderthal archaeological record is 'buried'. Everywhere we find Neanderthal evidence, we find tar balls made from birch bark. They were boiling down birch tar to make a sort of superglue to mount their spear points to their spear shafts (everybody else in the world was tying their points to their spear shafts). We have also discovered a deer-antler flute (on a pentatonic scale) that has been attributed to Neanderthal. Etc., etc. This material made it through the Flood?

If they were buried in caves, yes. I mean, buried previously to Flood, not during it. You would not only have to prove Flood made many caves (which I agree), but also no caves prior to Flood (where I disagree) to exclude this.

2 If one wants to say that all the rocks (and the caves within those rocks) are pre-Flood, one relegates the Flood to a non-event. It would have done essentially no geological work and we would thus be left with nothing with which to explain the fossil record. This is the position of some of the biblical catastrophists in the early 1800s. Their position was untenable, as evidenced by the fact that the discovery of the Ice Age wiped out all their supposed 'Flood' evidence. And it still allowed for millions of years prior to the Flood, so why appeal to biblical history at all?

Definitely not my position. In Belgium you find caves with Neanderthals, meaning the caves were already there before the Flood, but you also find Iguanadons that were buried in rocks called Maastrichtian (unless my memory of their "dating" fails me). In Spain you find Neanderthals in El Sidrón, they could have taken refuge in an already existing cave that was buried in the Flood, but you also find rocks from Lo Hueco with mass burials of dinos precisely from the Flood.

There are nuances between Flood destroying exactly every bit of coherent bone and Flood leaving nothing behind.

The only solution is to put Neanderthals after the Flood. They were the first people (yes, Homo sapiens) to make it up into Eurasia. They struggled to cling to a marginal environment. They never achieved a large population size. They became incredibly inbred and were on their way to extinction, except that another, larger group of people moved into the area. These new people were not hunter-gatherers. They had more food. Thus, they had more children. The Neanderthals were overwhelmed, but not completely because about 60% of their DNA lives on in us.

I had read a lower percentage, 20%, typically around 4% in an average European, but not same 4%. I'd like sources for 60%. Or did you include non-specific?

However, as for a solution, I think pre-Flood is a better solution for giving them genetic diversity than pre-Babel.

And putting them post-Babel wreaks havoc with carbon dates. Last carbon dated Neadnderthals (not Mousterian tools, but teeth or bones) as last Denisovans, have a carbon date of 40 000 BP. Göbekli Tepe is much more recent, meaning they need to be pre-Babel.

Plus inconsistency : you suppose they could diversify in a very short time post-Flood, to include diverse mutations, but you also suppose one branch of Kushites couldn't by simple genetic drift.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Audoux
Candlemass
2.II.2019

Update to answer points by John P in comment section under the CMI article*

Nothing preflood would have survived, any cities etc being buried under thousands of metres of sediment, another reason Neanderthals aren't antidiluvian.

With Henoch in Nod east of Eden, I think the best way if any to find it is to dig under Mt Everest. Not sure you'll find it even then. But evil was less concentrated in people living a palaeolithic life, like it is less concentrated in those living a palaeolithic life now than in some city dwellers. Neanderthals were to those in Henoch in Nod as Lapps are to New Yorkers. Another reason why Noah would take one with part Neanderthal heritage on the ark, foreseeing some palaeolithic life at first after the Flood.

The ancestors of Australian indigenous people were the first to get here from Babel.

Before Babel, actually, but up to Babel they were at least part of a community sending representatives to Göbekli Tepe. (Yes, there have been Australian aboriginal symbols and Polynesian bird men detected at Göbekli Tepe, another reason it is Babel, H/T to Graham Hancock on this one). Mungo man has a carbon date around 20 000 BP, while Göbekli Tepe has a carbon date of 11 600 BP at lowest and 10 600 BP at highest levels. By contrast, latest Neanderthals, like latest Denisovans have a carbon date of 40 000 BP, on my view = 2957 BC, year of the Flood./HGL

* In response to a feed-back question answered today:

Are Neandertals pre-Flood people?
Published: 2 February 2019 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/neanderthals-pre-flood

** Let's make the calculation before I write on:

2957 BC
2015 BC
=942 years

This chronology has been in the Roman Martyrology, presumably inserted after Historia Scholastica, since the printed edition of Bellini, 1498. For Christmas day, it says how many years after Creation and other events and also in which week of Daniel Christ was born. Babel is not among the enumerated events, hence I have hesitated when to place it in the chronology. For a longer Genesis 11 with a second Cainan, Peleg would be born 529 after Flood.