Vindicated!

When I clicked on this video, I was telling myself a second: "I'm fried. I'm proven wrong. My argument is in ashes."

I thought Abraham's tomb had been found in a setting that carbon dates to 2000 BC, from misunderstanding the title:

This 4,000-Year-Old Gate Has a Biblical Secret
Artefactum | 9 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJMUlWQIQlE

I have maintained that Genesis 14, actually happening in (according to the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day, it's chronology) around 1935 BC*, must fit an archaeological setting of carbon dated 3500 BC. Because of verse 7, which we know with an alternative name as En-Geddi, there is a carbon date of 3500 BC pretty firmly attached to the Amorrhites evacuating En-Geddi, presumably because of the Genesis 14 events. And this evacuation was permanent up to the Iron Age.

Now, here is the verse the video deals with:

Which when Abram had heard, to wit, that his brother Lot was taken, he numbered of the servants born in his house, three hundred and eighteen well appointed: and pursued them to Dan
[Genesis 14:14]

Presumably the name was back then still Laish, but Cohanim later updated the text after the city was renamed Tel Dan. Now, if a specific item clearly tied to Abraham in person had been found carbon dated to 2000 BC, I'd have been wrong. But it isn't. The gate can have been attached to the memory of Abraham after replacing an earlier one, which he actually saw. How far back does Laish or Dan reach into Archaeology? This is my real test.

Founded

c. 4500 BC

Abandoned

c. 733 BC

Periods

Neolithic period, Bronze Age, Iron Age

Cultures

Neolithic, Canaanite, Israelite

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_(ancient_city)

OK. Laish is founded in carbon dated 4500 BC, a thousand carbon years before carbon dated 3500 BC, when Genesis 14 happened. That's all I need.

Here we check how old Laish actually was when Abraham came:

2097 BC

74.949 pmC, dated as 4481 BC

2088 BC

Reu died

2086 BC

Terah born

2074 BC

76.074 pmC, dated as 4335 BC

2051 BC

77.1968 pmC, dated as 4191 BC

2028 BC

78.316 pmC, dated as 4048 BC

2016 BC

Abraham born

...

1936 BC

82.763 pmC, dated as 3500 BC

Source:

Newer Tables, Flood to Joseph in Egypt

So, founded around 2100 BC, in 1935 BC it isn't 1000 years old, but about 165 + years old. It had seen the transition from Neolithic to maybe Chalcolithic, already. In Genesis, the last thing we hear of "iron" is in chapter 4, a pre-Flood chapter, so, while Abraham arguably knew from pre-Flood tradition, he also knew no one knew where to get it right then in his time.

Probably, in Moses' day, the text said "Laish" and later, perhaps just in or after Joshua's, it was renamed "Dan" or "Tel Dan".

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Easter Friday
10.IV.2026

* Abraham is born 2015 BC, or more correctly 2016 (Jesus is born in 2015 after Abraham's birth and 752 after Rome's founding, but Rome is founded in 753 BC), and this occurs after he was 75 in chapter 12 and before he was 86 in chapter 16. 2015 - 80 = 1935 BC.