Having completed scholarly works on such diverse subjects as the calendar and Christian creeds, the Anglican Archbishop James Ussher combined his interest and in 1650 published a work in which he determined the exact date of Creation: 23 October, 4004 BC.
Other scholars, most notably the Cambridge academic John Lightfoot, had completed similar calculations, but Ussher’s work captured the popular imagination. The date was incorporated into an authorized version of the Bible printed in 1701 and, until the 1970s, could be found in the Bibles placed in hotel rooms by the Gideon’s Society.
Over the centuries the Ussher’s date of the creation became, for many Christians, an obvious deduction from Scripture itself. Even today many biblical Christians who believe in young earth creationism hold to a date very similar to the one calculated by the Irish bishop. But does the Bible provide clues that can help us determine the age of the earth? Can the genealogies found in Genesis and used by Ussher and others help us establish such a date?
The answer can be found in a dusty old theological journal from the late 1800s. Dr. William Henry Green, a Professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, published in Bibliotheca Sacra what should have become the definitive answer on the subject:
In 1863, I had occasion to examine the method and structure of the biblical genealogies, and incidentally ventured to remark that herein lay the solution of the whole matter. I said: "There is an element of uncertainty in a computation of time which rests upon genealogies, as the sacred chronology so largely does. Who is to certify us that the antediluvian and ante-Abrahamic genealogies have not been condensed in the same manner as the post-Abrahamic?... Our current chronology is based upon the prima facie impression of these genealogies.... the popular chronology is based upon a wrong interpretation, and that a select and partial register of ante-Abrahamic names has been mistaken for a complete one....
It can scarcely be necessary to adduce proof to one who has even a superficial acquaintance with the genealogies of the Bible, that they are frequently abbreviated by the omission of unimportant names. In fact, abridgment is the general rule, induced by the indisposition of the sacred writers to encumber their pages with more names than were necessary for their immediate purpose. This is so constantly the case, and the reason for it so obvious, that the occurrence of it need create no surprise anywhere, and we are at liberty to suppose it whenever anything in the circumstances of the case favors that belief.
Green provides a representative list of Biblical genealogies in which omissions are made (Matthew 1; Numbers 3:19, 27, 28; 1 Chronicles 26; Ezra 7:1-5; and Ezra 8:1-2). Indeed, his entire article on "Primeval Chronology" should be read in its entirety by anyone interested in the subject. But the gist of Green’s argument, which can be used to show why YEC'ers should not use genealogies to date the earth, can be gleaned in the following five points:
1. Comparison to other Biblical genealogies -- Abridgement and omission is found in numerous genealogical lists throughout the Bible. Unless there is outside evidence presented to show that Genesis 5 and 11 are intended to be continuous, there is no reason to assume that it is different that other genealogies.
2. Making unwarranted assumptions -- The author of Genesis provides the age of each patriarch at the birth of his son. Why would this information be included if the purpose was not to produce a chronology? While we may think this is a fair presumption to make, Green points out that the author never uses these numbers for that purpose. Not only does the writer not suggest their summation, but no other inspired writer of the Bible does so either. “There is no computation anywhere in Scripture of the time that elapsed from the creation or from the deluge, as there is from the descent into Egypt to the Exodus (Exod. 12:40), or from the Exodus to the building of the temple (1 Kings 6:1). And if the numbers in these genealogies are for the sake of constructing a chronology, why are numbers introduced which have no possible relation to such a purpose?”
3. It doesn’t match parallel texts -- If we assume that the author of Genesis was also the author of Exodus, then we can reasonably conclude that genealogies that are similarly constructed would be intended to have a similar design. Exod. 6:16-26, for example, records the genealogy extending from Levi to Moses and Aaron and includes the length of each man's life in the principal line of descent, viz., Levi (v. 16), Kohath (v. 18), Amram (v. 20). Green notes that the correspondence between this list and the ones in Genesis is “certainly remarkable”: “the numbers given in this genealogy exhibit the longevity of the patriarchs named, but cannot be so concatenated as to sum up the entire period; thus suggesting the inference that the numbers in the other genealogies, with which we are now concerned, were given with a like design, and not with the view of enabling the reader to construct the chronology.”
4. Different texts used different numbers -- The texts of the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures) and of the Samaritan Pentateuch vary systematically from the Hebrew in both the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11. For example, according to the chronologies based on these texts, the interval between the Flood and the birth of Abraham was 292 (Hebrew), 942 (Samaritan), or 1172 years (Septuagint). Ussher favored the Hebrew version yet doesn’t seem to grasp that the changes in the latter version were made in order to be more symmetrical; the redactors appear not to consider that that the ages are intended to produce a chronology.
5. The structure appears to define the purpose -- The structure of the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11, argues Green, seem to indicate intentional arrangement: Each genealogy includes ten names, Noah being the tenth from Adam, and Terah the tenth from Noah. And each ends with a father having three sons, as is likewise the case with the Cainite genealogy (4:17-22). This structure is similar to Matthew 1, which breaks out into three periods of fourteen generations. “It is much more likely,” says Green, “that this definite number of names fitting into a regular scheme has been selected as sufficiently representing the periods to which they belong, than that all these striking numerical coincidences should have happened to occur in these successive instances.”
These points cast considerable doubt on the supposition that the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 were ever intended to be a direct chronology, much less one from which the age of the earth could be deduced. Based on this evidence alone, there is no reason to assume that our planet has only been around for 6,000 years.
But Bishop Ussher did derive his conclusion simply by adding up the “begats”. To determine the date he also referred to Chaldean history and the Astronomical Canon. If young-earth creationists wish to build a convincing case, they too must rely on outside evidence. The Bible itself doesn’t appear to lend them much support.
1
Ah, Joe, this adds a couple truths to a few invidious assumptions and comes up with a suggestion that lies. I don't think you're dishonest in saying this, but this is not sound thinking at all.
Concessions first: Ussher was wrong on key elements, as were any of the other chronologists and euhemerists I know of. I have a bias in favor of their work because it flows with my understanding of the historicity of epic. I studied under someone who wrote a book (obscure and partly erroneous) based on euhemerism and correlating numerous outside sources. There are gaps which prevent proof-positive from Biblical genealogy. There are obvious and intentional abbreviations and conventions which indicate Biblical genealogies are not understood to be comprehensive historiography, but to ground certain historical/social/political claims.
HOWEVER, here are a few criticisms of your summary above:
(2) has no bearing on whether the ages *are* in fact, accurate. No argument from intention can change what the features of the text are (though they might change how we prefer to read them). If I write a list of "beautiful phone numbers" and include yours, you may correctly say that dialing you up is not the preferred *response* to the text. However, it either is or isn't your number; intention doesn't change textual features.
(3) stipulate Moses author of both Genesis and Exodus: Why should we conclude that Moses intended each of his five books (written over some 40 or more years, and that's assuming he didn't insert or adapt previously written material) to be the same, or that each rendering of a genealogy would be done in the same manner? The decision would depend on the contextual clues in each case, and not in any inordinate amount on the authorship or critical perceptions of form. [I say this as a highly genre-conscious literary critic who has to correct for that tendency myself, and often.]
In the last sentence of (4), I can only conclude you got your language muddled, for as an argument this is an absolute non-starter; first, let's take the longest available span, then double it for omissions--is this not still young-earth creationism? You can give us a few years more or less, but you can't get anywhere on this basis except a few years more or less. It's still going to be orders of magnitude away from anything other than YEC.
Second, you need to clarify something. You said "the latter version," which grammatically refers to "Septuagint"; I think you meant the "later" Masoretic text (which you call "Hebrew"). Whether the Masoretic or the Septuagint represents a later variant of the text is, of course, a critical question; these differences are one of the cases-in-point for arguing that question. In your paragraph, you would have appeared to be arguing from the motives of the Septuagint authors against accepting the Masoretic reading, which would be gobbledygook--when I realized you meant "later" (the oldest attestation of the Masoretic is centuries after the oldest known Septuagint, though some claim the Masoretic is still older), I could make sense of the argument, but again--it only establishes that we may have a few hundred years' wiggle room--not all that useful for anyone trying to escape the Biblical impression that the earth is thousands, not jillions, of years old.
(5) is simply form criticism, and even if Green is a more "conservative" form critic, he isn't reading against the form-critical agenda, here. The problem with this kind of criticism, as I touched on above, is that it overrides features of the text by disregarding them where they fail the filter of the form critic's perception of "intention" on the part of the "author." Scare quotes because in form criticism, the actual author's identity is held neutral, as the conventional framework reconstructed by the critic is considered to be the real genesis of the authorial decisions (deviations from that being judged a priori to be flaws or reactions), and therefore "intention" is limited to perceived motives/agendas/imperatives to choosing such-and-such genre conventions to write in.
See the problem? Once I've specified the genre, I can disregard local features where they disagree with my global analysis. For this reason, "form criticism" or "generic criticism" has been almost entirely abandoned in literary theory (and I'm talking for 40 years or more, here), albeit a few of us are trying to revive its useful bits. In modernist Biblical Studies, however, it's continued unabated in its rambling about one author's assumptions, which dictate which features of the text need not be accounted for except by calling them "scribal errors" (and of course such errors *do* happen, true 'nuff) and "redactions" (these are less common than is widely thought).
Obviously, you're right if you limit your claim to "young-earth creationists require better evidence than Ussher or other genealogists can produce from Scripture." You are also right if you proceed to claim that "comprehensive Biblical genealogy/universal history cannot be produced without incorporating extra-Biblical sources." Further, if you point out that "it is exceedingly unlikely the genealogies were intended to enable us to produce modern historiographic accounts of early Earth history," I'm going to have to agree, as well. In all likelihood, that's as far as you intended to argue.
However, by citing Green and giving voice to his liberal/modernist argumentation, you have both given credence to those of us who insist that Christianity *cannot* proceed along modernist lines in justifying itself without eroding its own basis of authority, and undermining your own confessed faith in the authority and reliability of Scripture--whether you wish to, or whether you don't (and I believe you don't).
Take care,
PGE
2
Argh! speaking of scribal errors, typos abound!
Last sentence above is incoherent if I don't fix one: "...and undermin[ed]" as second half of compound verb phrase "have both given credence...and undermined"--all better now.
Thanks,
PGE
3
Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know. ~ James Barr Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University in England
posted on 04.10.2006 7:01 AM4
Lets not forget the most important thing!
It does not matter!
It does not matter if creation days were 24 hours or era's and it does not matter what "date" the earth was created.
It is simply not important! It may be a little fun and it is certainly interesting to look at the arguments on both sides of the equation but overall, its just not important.
5
Bevets,
I am not sure why you continue to post James Barr’s comment as if it proves anything.
Here is the letter from which that quote is drawn.
Note how Barr qualifies his comments. And how he tries to sell books.
I don't believe James Barr is correct, I don't even believe the authority and power attributed to his quote by YECs is what he intended, and I have seen his claim disputed elsewhere (with lists of names to counter his claim--but I am not qualified to say who is a world class Hebrew scholar and what qualifies as a world-class university for Hebrew scholarship. But names like Walter Kaiser come to mind.)
I find it odd that YECs always bring up this one opinion, without its attendant qualifying comments, and take comfort from his alleged support from academia--but would not give a nickel's worth of weight to a similar statement:
"Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of cosmology at any world-class university who does not believe that the universe is old."
This is especially odd given that Barr is a foe of biblical inerrancy! He has a vested interest in insisting that the bible teaches six-day creation, just so it is easy to attack inerrancy. It would be bad for him and his book sales if the bible could be shown to be compatible with science.
As for the views of the experts, the writings of the early church fathers show almost none (with the possible exception of Ambrose) held to a 24-hour view. Mostly for two reasons:
1) Some believed the sun, coming on day four, brought "time" along with it--that is there was no such thing as time before there was a way to reckon it, so at least the for the first three days it is meaningless to speak of duration.
2) To reconcile that Adam did not die within 24 hours after he sinned, but God said he would surely die, they decided that this was a case of a day being 1000 years to God (2 Pet. 3:8 ). Thus some viewed creation as spanning 6000 years.
Augustine, on the other hand, viewed creation as instantaneous-- mathematically speaking the most extreme possible departure from the 144 hour view.
As for the topic at hand, it is evident that the bible does not intend genealogies to be accurate chronologies. X begat (or "was the father of") Y does not always imply a one-generation relationship between the two. This both solves and creates problems. And while it is virtually meaningless in terms of the old/young earth debate, it does mean that accountings of the time since Adam roamed the earth are bound to contain errors.
On example we see is in Christ's genealogy in Matthew, where we read:
Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah. (Matt. 1:8)
which one can compare to
11 Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son, 12 Amaziah his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son, (1 Chron 3:11-12)
In this geneology (Azariah is the same person as Uzziah) we see that there are three generations missing from Matthew’s account, which makes Uzziah appear to be Joram’s son rather than his great-grandson. That is all fine and dandy considering Matthew’s purpose was to explain Christ’s Davidic (legal) bloodline. Nevertheless it calls into question the precision of Matthew’s concluding:
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the (10) deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the (11) deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations. (Matt. 1:17)
I don't know a resolution to this issue, although I don't dwell on it very much. (If I were intent on disproving biblical inerrancy, I would bring this up much faster that stating that the bible teaches pi = 3)
For a more striking example, we read:
Shebuel the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, was officer over the treasures. (1 Chron. 26:24)
Shebuel is of the time of David, and yet Gershom is a true next-generation son of Moses (cf. Ex. 2:22) . Thus there are 400+ years between Gershom and his "son" Shebuel.
It is also well known that if genealogies are also chronologies then there are a whole host of additional problems, such as Noah not dying until Abraham was in his fifties. No, it is clear that the bible uses genealogies as historic flows rather than generationally precise family trees. We all are sons of Father Abraham.
7
David, I don't think you're grasping the point on the genealogies. Up front, pretty much everyone who's read the Bible will stipulate that the genealogies have such differences. Moreover, every writer and most readers of the ones in Matthew and Luke would have known that. The question, then, is why they could write that; i.e., how was the act of writing a genealogy different from our conception of it? As you said, the Matthew genealogy is constrained to add up to a certain number of generations; but that's quite obviously not because Matthew or any Jewish reader of the day couldn't have checked the data. It's a textual feature, and as you say a puzzling one, but features are not errors. They require interpretation.
Oh, and pi is 3. It is also 3.1, and 3.14, and 3.14529, etc.
Since when are degrees of precision errors? (not that I recall Scripture teaching pi=3 anywhere, or mentioning pi at all, for that matter)
Cheers,
PGE
8
David,
I think part Matthew's point was to show that it was time for something significant to happen in Israel's history:
Abraham - 14 - David - 14 - Exile - 14 - Jesus
Also, it's a convenient way to categorize Israel's history.
Besides the real answer to life and meaning in the universe is 14, not 42.
posted on 04.10.2006 9:29 AM9
pgepps,
Actually I think you misunderstand me. I believe in biblical inerrancy. I don't think the fact that chronologies are not genealogies is an error at all. My point was simply that I don't how to explain Matthew's numbering of the generations at 14.
As for pi, it is not three. One can use the value of 3 rather than 3.14159… to make approximate calculations—but that does not change the value of pi. Again, I think you misunderstood, I am not claiming that the bible teaches an erroneous value of pi.
In fact, to see where some claim the bible does teach pi=3 (in 1 Kings 7:23) and my refutation of their claim, look here.
My point in mentioning the pi issue is that whenever people try to argue against inerrancy, and especially against the bible being scientifically accurate, the pi=3 conundrum is usually mentioned—and it is trivial to refute. The question of chronologies and genealogies is much more complicated. If I were to play devil's advocate, that is where I would start.
10
Mumon, It is unclear what you are suggesting by this thread, but it seems only to create more questions than anwers. When someone uses words like "infer" or"conclude", they are conducting what some call a SWAG. (Scientific Wild Ass Guess). Scientific conjecture is not scientific evidence.
Mr. Heddle
Science and the bible are compatible, but Darwinism and the bible are not. Try Drdino.com just to get yourself started.
Thanks Chris
11
What's really interesting in Matthew's 14 -14 - 14 list (besides the fact that he arbitrairily left out some generations to get 14) is that one of his lists actually contains only 13. Oops. But, don't worry, it's not a mistake, it's a feature.
I'm curious, Joe. Just how far off do you think Bishop Ussher was?
1. 400 years (10%)
2. 4,000 years (100%)
3. 40,000 years (1,000%)
4. 4 million years (100,000%)
5. 4 billion years (100,000,000%)
12
Pgepps,
(2) has no bearing on whether the ages *are* in fact, accurate.
True, but I don’t see how this is relevant. The argument in the post is intended for YEC’ers who, like me, certainly believe that the ages are in fact accurate.
Why should we conclude that Moses intended each of his five books (written over some 40 or more years, and that's assuming he didn't insert or adapt previously written material) to be the same, or that each rendering of a genealogy would be done in the same manner?
Consistency. Whether the books were written in one sitting by a single author or compiled over several decades by various redactors, they were intended to produce a coherent work. While an author may use the same exact form and intend different meanings each time--meanings that cannot be deduced from the context—we would simply consider that the work of a poor communicator.
….first, let's take the longest available span, then double it for omissions--is this not still young-earth creationism?
No, I don’t think it is. I believe that the lineage of humans began with Adam and ended with our present generations. I also believe that the bible is inerrant. And yet I am not a YECer. I personally don’t see a reason to assume that the gaps in the genealogies could not be filled in with hundred of names (i.e., hundreds of generations) between each one.
Second, you need to clarify something. You said "the latter version," which grammatically refers to "Septuagint"; I think you meant the "later" Masoretic text (which you call "Hebrew").
Ah, you’re right. When I re-edited that sentence I forgot to change that section. I should have simply written “other versions” rather than “latter version.” Good catch.
5) is simply form criticism, and even if Green is a more "conservative" form critic, he isn't reading against the form-critical agenda, here.
I’ve probably oversimplified Green’s answer. That section of his article is well worth reading for it points out some odd conclusions that would be derived assuming this is a direct chronology (i.e., Noah and Abraham being contemporaries).
… you have both given credence to those of us who insist that Christianity *cannot* proceed along modernist lines in justifying itself without eroding its own basis of authority,..
I believe that Christianity can proceed, at times, along parallel lines with modernist assumptions. I don’t think the Bible’s authority is based on it being compatible with modernism. But on some areas there is bound to be overlap. Modernism, for example, puts a great emphasis on rationality and the Bible is, in my opinion, a very rational work. While the tools of modernism are ultimately inadequate (and can certainly not be used to establish the authority of Scripture) I don’t think they are completely useless for helping us understand the Bible.
13
Somebody clarify this for me: how is the argument over the possibility of omissions in the Genesis geneologies relevant to the argument over YEC? I mean, don't the OECers agree that the human race is only several thousand years old, even if the universe is much older?
Oh, and you know where would be a much better place to have this discussion? Over on the E.O. Forum, of course, where all the cool kids hang out.
posted on 04.10.2006 11:00 AM14
Chris:
Try Drdino.com
You're kidding, aren't you? I mean, that's the site run by Kent Hovind, who claims a Ph.D. from a diploma mill, and who is the likely source of Michael Imperioli's recent "Flintstones" remark on the Sopranos.
Of which only the last I would chalk up as being a positive.
How many times do folks have to tell folks like you, "It's a metaphor!" ???
posted on 04.10.2006 11:29 AM15
I'll think I'll stay off DrDino. Hovind claims old-earth Christians like me are heretics.
posted on 04.10.2006 12:37 PM16
"You're kidding, aren't you?"
Mumon, I wish I had a link to that article I read last year written by a scientifically-inclined visitor to "Dr." Hovind's attraction, Dinosaur Adventure Land. The author had a little fun at the expense of the clueless "guides".
Hovind, as readers may be aware, is in a little tax trouble. His little park may be razed soon. He is claiming persecution, of course. I'm afraid it will be gone before I can take my daughters. My older daughter corrected her daycare instructor once when she called a koala a "bear", saying "The koala is a marsupial!" She was three years old at the time. She's ten now, and I suspect I'd have to really rein her in at Dinosaur Adventure Land.
posted on 04.10.2006 2:42 PM17
This is an interesting thread...I asked a former professor, Dr. Benjamin Shaw, who had written his dissertaion on this very question. Perhaps his comments are helpful...he writes:
"The longer answer is Chapter 5 in my dissertation, "The Green-Warfield Hypothesis."
The short answer is:
1. Yes, there are many genealogies in the Bible.
2. Yes, some of these genealogies are abbreviated (i.e., some generations are skipped). The best examples are a) the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, where a comparison with 1-2 Kings reveals four skipped kings; and b) the genealogy of Ezra (Ezra 7: 1-5, compared with 1 Chron 6:3-14). The Ezra passage is six names shorter than the 1 Chron passage.
3. But, we know that some genealogies are abbreviated because we also have the longer versions for comparison.
4. None of the other places in Scripture that replicate the Genesis genealogies (1 Chron 21, Luke 3) indicates an abbreviated genealogy in Genesis (except the 2nd Cainan, which is a red herring).
5. It is then dangerous to assume that the Genesis genealogies are abbreviated (which is essentially what W. H. Green does), because we have no basis for doing so.
6. The genealogies of Genesis are unique among Biblical genealogies. First, they alone include specific ages. Second, though the primary purpose of these ages may not be to calculate chronology, the calculation of chronology on the basis of them is certainly a legitimate use of them. Third, the Genesis genealogies alone use the Hifil of yalad for "begot." All others use the Qal. The Hifil seems to be used intentionally to indicate immediate son, rather than remote descendant.
7. Hence, we ought to conclude that the genealogies are at least in part intended to give us chronological information.
8. Hence, we have a young earth, beginning about 4,000-5,000 BC.
9. Additionally, even by Green's reckoning (he was willing to grant gaps of a few generations in the Genesis genealogies) we still have a young earth. The only escape from that is B. B. Warfield's absurd assertion that, "There is no reason inherent in the nature of the Scriptural genealogies why a genealogy of ten recorded links . . . may not represent an actual descent of a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand links." ("On the Antiquity and the Unity of the Human Race" in Biblical and Theological Studies, P&R, 1968, p. 241).
Sincerely,
Benjamin Shaw, Ph.D.
Academic Dean
Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
www.gpts.edu
P.O. Box 690, Taylors, SC 29687
(864) 322-2717
18
I consider the whole discussion about the patriachs genealogies to be at best farcical...we are talking about claims that people used to live for 900+ years for pete's sake. that pretty much ends the REASONABLE part of the debate right there.
posted on 04.10.2006 6:27 PM19
Holy smokes!
Modernism, for example, puts a great emphasis on rationality and the Bible is, in my opinion, a very rational work.
The Bible is a work of fiction. It's a cobbled together bunch of pagan and non-pagan texts with a huge amount of material (apocrypha) tossed out the window, translated from ancient Greek (badly) with amazingly broad discrepancies between various translations before we get to the King James version, and you folks are quibbling over genealogy? Are you serious?
If you want to date the Earth, or the universe, you don't comb through Biblical passages - you carbon date. You turn to science. You turn to cosmological physics. Newsflash: We have tools that answer these questions rather well. The Bible is a collection of parables and make-believe stories for people who are not possessed of sufficient IQ to grasp reality.
In fact, there is no other area of human endeavor, not medicine, not mathematics, not linguistics - there is no essential field of human knowledge that allows a person to hold unsupported supernatural claims that have absolutely zero empirical evidence except religion that simultaneously demand and expect serious consideration.
Baldly put, if a supposition is forwarded without reasonable evidence, it may be summarily dismissed out of hand. A person who forwards an argument about the age of our planet based on his parsing of Biblical passages is someone who should be considered akin to a retarded dolt. This should be intuitively obvious in the same manner as it is immediately apparent that you don't stick a flaming branch into your eye.
posted on 04.10.2006 8:29 PM20
Hilarious.
Folks, there is actual scientific research out there that makes all you have written TOTALLY IRRELEVENT! Like arguing the number of angels on the head of a pin. You cannot prove the age of the earth using a book of philosophy.
I probably won't be back to this thread for any more inane conversation. I'll be with the adults if you need me.
posted on 04.10.2006 8:44 PM21
Oh come on, Raven. Tell us how you really feel! :)
posted on 04.10.2006 9:01 PM22
The Raven wrote:
"If you want to date the Earth, or the universe, you don't comb through Biblical passages - you carbon date."
I wouldn't have pegged you for a young earther, but you must be, since carbon-14 half life is ~6000 years, and so carbon dating can only date things that are less than ~30,000 years old.
posted on 04.10.2006 9:46 PM23
David, thanks for the explanation. I certainly did misread you, for which my apologies. Glad to know you're a fellow inerrantist, even if you do arrive at old-earth conclusions. I'm a (modified) young-earther, but I'm open to certain variant readings that might support an older earth.
Greg, yeah. That's where this seems odd to me. Only if one is going (as I suspect Green of doing) far beyond what Joe is likely to wish, does this argument have any interesting or useful consequences--and the consequence at that point is the dismissal of pretty much all inconvenient factual content from the Creation account.
Joe--like I said, I think Green's logic goes far beyond what you're going to wish to argue. Nonetheless, if you have an Adam-through-Noah-and-Abraham-and-David-to-Christ history of humanity, I have no bigger beef that needs addressing. I have to sternly dissent from your using form criticism to justify your position, though; its logic is invidious to Christian confession, and always has been.
But, again, there is *some* use in generic criticism, of which form criticism is one variant popularized in Biblical Studies, and that's a tricky one to navigate.
I do think you're going to have to stretch *awfully* hard to make sense of hundreds of thousands of years of omissions, or of what history takes place without any theological significance in that time.
On the other hand, I have no problem with the idea that Shem (IIRC, Noah is unlikely, unless we really take all the shortest dates possible) was still alive when Abraham was born. Why should that be odd? Their role in Biblical history was accomplished in their own "generation," and in their subsequent generations was carried on by others.
When we *do* look at ANE texts, we find that renaming as a ritual for victory, priesthood, and kingship is not at all uncommon; the "immortal" founders of the earth's civilizations out of the water chaos would very likely have been known by many names in, and possibly moved about among, the many tribes/nations their "generations" founded. Biblical history is concerned with only one branch of a branch of a . . . you get it . . . of those lines.
So, Green appears to me to be doing the same-old, same-old modernist thing: "Those ancient hicks couldn't have meant THAT, 'cuz we enlightened moderns know THAT couldn't POSSIBLY be true" on no better basis than "Things don't work that way NOW." But the world of the ANE was very much *NOT* the modern world, and that's not merely a function of our advanced technology--it's also a function of our amazing historical ignorance.
Ah, for the library at Alexandria!
More on this to come on my blog and in the Forums, where it will doubtlessly creep into one or three of the existing threads, or a new one.
Cheers,
PGE
24
No, I define OEC to gnerally accept the age of the earth at 4.5 billion years and most of biology with homo sapiens exisitng for hundreds of thousanss of years. Other than that, OEC's would belive that God specially created kinds of aminals and that humans were specially created.
posted on 04.10.2006 11:24 PM26
pgepps et. al.
I will admit up front that I have absolutely no patience with the young earth crowd. There is way too much evidence for an old earth and an old universe.
What I want to know is why you are so insistent on the six 24-hour days of creation. There was no 24-hour day as humans understand it until the fourth day of creation. There has to be some other understanding for the word day. Certainly day has no meaning for God. To insist that He created everything in six 24-hour days is not helpful or meaningful in any way. Could He do it? Of course. But we're talking about creating everything out of nothing and you insist that God put all his creative power into six little 24 hours time periods. Why would you do that? The Bible does not say six 24-hour time periods. The word Day can mean many things. For God a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. I simply do not understand the fear of allowing that day does not mean 24 hours in the creation account.
I am also troubled by the great inconsistency in your literal view of the word. I'll bet you don't believe that the communion bread you're eating is really the body and blood of Christ. But Jesus said it was: "This is my body broken for you." Since you're a fundamentalist Christian, not a Catholic, I'm sure you don't take Jesus' words literally. It's a glaring inconsistency. God said it, you believe it and that's that; except where Jesus said, "This is my body."
As you can tell, your view on a young earth is very frustrating for some of your Christian brothers.
posted on 04.11.2006 8:08 AM27
The rejection as unhistorical of all passages which narrate miracles is sensible if we start by knowing that the miraculous in general never occurs. Now I do not here want to discuss whether the miraculous is possible. I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question. Scholars, as scholars, speak on it with no more authority than anyone else. The canon 'If miraculous, then unhistorical' is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it. If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the biblical critics in the world counts here for nothing. On this they speak simply as men; men obviously influenced by, and perhaps insufficiently critical of, the spirit of the age they grew up in. ~ C.S. Lewis
Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know. ~ James Barr Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University in England
David Heddle
I am not sure why you continue to post James Barr’s comment as if it proves anything.
Some times it is a good idea to heed the majority.
Mumon
How many times do folks have to tell folks like you, "It's a metaphor!" ???
Why would you care?
ex-preacher
I'm curious, Joe. Just how far off do you think Bishop Ussher was?
1. 400 years (10%)
2. 4,000 years (100%)
3. 40,000 years (1,000%)
4. 4 million years (100,000%)
5. 4 billion years (100,000,000%)
Im curious too.
posted on 04.11.2006 8:32 AM28
It seems to me the answer is #5, 4 billion years. Why the great curiousity? It seems like a simple arithmatic problem.
posted on 04.11.2006 9:38 AM29
I'm with Raven. That we even still have conversations like this with a straight face is ludicrous.
And yes, Heddle, you're right about the limitations of radiocarbon dating. Which is why older ages are calculated from other forms of radiometric dating, a vast sea of data that points to an age on the order of 4.5 billion years.
posted on 04.11.2006 11:55 AM30
The best summary of Bishop Ussher's work (putting it in the context of compiling a chronology/timeline of all human history) I have come across was the essay "Fall in the House of Ussher" by Stephen Jay Gould, collected in his book Eight Little Piggies.
I never actually met Professor Gould, but he was always one of my favorite science writers, a master of what the French call "vulgurization", the ability to present complex science and history in a manner that was easy for anyone to understand.
posted on 04.11.2006 12:24 PM31
Jeff Schmidt,
Yes I know of those radiometric techniques, and I am confident that they give the correct answer of ~4.5BY.
bevets,
When you want an estimation of Ussher's error, do you mean with respect to the age of the earth or with respect to the historic Adam? I would say (5) for the former and (3) for the latter.
posted on 04.11.2006 1:10 PM32
Modernism, for example, puts a great emphasis on rationality and the Bible is, in my opinion, a very rational work.
Scripture, in the places where rationality can be found, uses a pre-science, Jewish brand of rationality. This is unique from the current scientific, modernistic sense. The difference can be profound, and quite important to Biblical criticism.
Sorry if I'm in Captain Obvious territory, here; but I thought it warranted mentioning.
posted on 04.11.2006 4:07 PM33
we are talking about claims that people used to live for 900+ years for pete's sake. that pretty much ends the REASONABLE part of the debate right there.
I guess then, you find the claims and science around the aging gene unreasonable as well. They claim that we may be able to live 1000 years. Maybe one of your precious mutations caused us to age much more quickly.
Ah, ye of little faith.
posted on 04.11.2006 7:14 PM34
That we even still have conversations like this with a straight face is ludicrous.
The reason we have them are important, if you care.
1. Many people still believe in a creator and creation, not evolution. Why? If your answer is "because most people are religious rubes", then you are not really part of the solution, you are a judgemental idiot who needs to feel superior.
2. Evolutionists make absolute claims to truth which anyone with even a shred of understanding sees are predicated upon incomplete and often contradictory data - their overconfidence is obvious hubris. They act like religious fanatics, including incredulity and accusations of heresy when you doubt them.
posted on 04.11.2006 7:28 PM35
Ken, The trouble with Gould is that he always presented his own 'complex ideas' as if they were the only possible ones for any sensible people to accept. He was a very arrogant New Yorker, even to many sympathizers. Not a good character trait for a scientist's postmortem reputation, OR his working method....
As to the 'day' problem, surely it must be a figure of speech, given the 'evening and morning' motif at each stage. NECs are bizarrely literal.
If we believe in inflation in a real Big Bang [and why not?], the Bible would not only have had to deal in day and year time slots, but also in tiny fractions of fractions of milliseconds too, to portray time realistically..
So 'day' can be easily taken as a broad, nonliteral time motif, just as pi=3 is in math..
Even wise Augustine could deduce from Genesis 1 that creation was WITH time and not IN time, based on the precise text, since it doesn't teach otherwise..
The whole point is that God can do what NO-ONE else can do in ANY known time frame. That's what I and the Bible [John 1:3] teach about 'evolutionary biological time' too.
And also that there as *an ordered progression* in God's Creation, not a mishmash, or 'All-at-once Bang'.
This is an impressive feature of Genesis that the sceptics never seem to get around to praising. There's simply no other comparably impressive ancient text.
The biggest problem for atheists is simply that it *names* God..
36
Tried to trackback, but it don't seem to be working...so here is a bit of a response
http://alangrey.blogspot.com/2006/04/age-of-things.html
Cheers Joe...
posted on 04.11.2006 10:57 PM37
1. Many people still believe in a creator and creation, not evolution. Why? If your answer is "because most people are religious rubes", then you are not really part of the solution, you are a judgemental idiot who needs to feel superior.
You might have noticed we're not talking about evolution, we're talking about physics, geology, and cosmology.
2. Evolutionists make absolute claims to truth which anyone with even a shred of understanding sees are predicated upon incomplete and often contradictory data - their overconfidence is obvious hubris. They act like religious fanatics, including incredulity and accusations of heresy when you doubt them.
Again, we're not talking about evolution. Evolution, and science in general, make no absolute claims. The incredulity tends to come in when someone makes claims of absolute truth from the myths of 2000+ year old prescientific peoples that run counter to actual, discoverable facts.
posted on 04.12.2006 7:51 AM38
Joe,
Interesting stuff. Will have to get a copy of the book.
Even if gaps extend the 4k B.C. date to the left (which only gives Creationists a little more room to work with, I think), the Biblical record still begins its timeline with the creation of Adam, uniquely fashioned by and in the image of God and fallen into sin, and the God-Man and redeemer Christ defining the other end.
This is still, in a theological and practical sense, far and away from the I.D./evolutionary notion of humanoid successor species from which God somehow plucks an Adam along the way.
posted on 04.12.2006 9:59 AM39
Jeff Schmidt,
The incredulity tends to come in when someone makes claims of absolute truth from the myths of 2000+ year old prescientific peoples that run counter to actual, discoverable facts.
Except there is no discrepancy between the bible and science--not that there is much room for one--the bible says little about science.
There was a whopper of a problem at one time: the bible teaches that our universe had a beginning while notables such as Einstein, Hoyle, and Eddington said it didn't.
I don't suppose anyone needs to be reminded who won that argument.
40
You know, this is all a moot point, like fighting over "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" while everything goes to hell around you. (Like when H5N1 Bird Flu Hits and/or Iran launches nukes and/or housing market collapses and takes the economy down with it, etc.)
I realize that Young Earth Creationism has become THE litmus test of "whether you're REALLY a Christian or not", but when people are going to be dying, hurting, and ruined all about you, Christians had better have something more to offer than just screaming how much "WE HATE EVOLUTION!!!!"
posted on 04.12.2006 11:41 AM41
bevets:
Why would you care?
Because we all share the same planet together, and it'd be a shame to have people misinformed.
As your link states:
"The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false."
I think it's better to respect people than ridicule them, even if there are issues with their belief system.
seeker:
1. Many people still believe in a creator and creation, not evolution. Why? If your answer is "because most people are religious rubes", then you are not really part of the solution, you are a judgemental idiot who needs to feel superior.
People who claim to be "creationists" (or "intelligent" "design" )are either misinformed about evolution or they are not and they are dissembling. Perhaps, as the guy who directed "Flock of Dodos" says, scientists need to do a better job explaning science than the hucksters.
But there's a plethora of resources on the 'net by now debunking creationism.
The responsiblity is not entirely with the scientists, namecalling notwithstanding.
2. Evolutionists make absolute claims to truth ...
Seeker makes a sweeping generalization that's so sweeping and so general I can't find any "truth value" in it.
Judgemental?
posted on 04.12.2006 1:09 PM42
I think it's better to respect people than ridicule them, even if there are issues with their belief system.
I used to feel that way myself, Mumon, but now I'm not so sure we should be so tolerant. The real problem facing civilization and the key issue standing between progress and regression is our inability to name religion for what it is: Make believe.
We continue to draft laws that reflect a notion of "sin," we still treat women as chattel by denying them access to contraception, we pour billions down the sink in a war on drugs that persecutes victimless crimes, we wage war and prevent medical research and in general cause a tremendous amount of human suffering and misery because we permit our citizens to behave as if there were an all-seeing eye, an invisible superbeing watching over us who has left us written guidance.
As this thread indicates rather clearly, some people believe this so strongly that they posit the existence of an Adam and Eve. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. These people drive cars, they make decisions that affect others, and they have willfully chosen to adopt fantasy beliefs that appease a non-existent deity. Worse, they are encouraged to hold beliefs that are not grounded by common sense or demonstrable evidence, and exhorted to inculcate others into dogmatic schema.
It appears akin to a computer virus, a self-replicating meme that infects the host for no reason other than its own propagation - and some of us are immune to it, others serve as fertile soil for its growth. What continues to amaze me is how a functioning adult human being can be so easily convinced that ancient fairy tales have an iron grip over his disposition. Elron Hubbard proved that it isn't that hard to generate memes of this sort - they work by simple, formal rules that obey an observable logic.
43
Raven: Is it possible that perhaps you are not as immune to self-replicating memes as you fancy yourself? Perhaps Elron Hubbard could show you are possessed of memes that work by simple, formal rules that obey an observable logic.
In other words, you don't have a choice! You are in the grip of forces that would not allow you to think in any other way than the one in which you do.
posted on 04.12.2006 8:35 PM44
Raven: Is it possible that perhaps you are not as immune to self-replicating memes as you fancy yourself?
Yes. It is entirely possible. I think about this very question every waking moment.
posted on 04.12.2006 9:28 PM45
Raven, if you take tolerance away from your religion, there will be nothing left. It is your religion's only virtue. Tolerance on steroids.
It's ironic that people like you will tolerate almost anything, except religious folks.
posted on 04.12.2006 9:28 PM46
Raven: It then becomes fair to ask whether your self-replicating memes are of any greater value than mine. After all, if true objectivity and rationality were as easily obtained as merely throwing off the fetters of religion, the rationalists/materialists would have long since rid the world of religious ideas.
posted on 04.12.2006 9:41 PM47
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1606
Has a great post on this issue. If you believe that the original scriptures are the Word of God, then the Ussher chronologies are in your view at least very close to accurate and there is very little room for added years. If, on the other hand, you do not believe that the Bible is inspired then what is the point and why do you care what the Bible asserts?
posted on 04.13.2006 12:51 AM48
radar, you are so wrong. I believe that the Scriptures are the inspired word of God, but the notion that Biblical chronologies can be used to date the age of the earth makes no sense to me. Or am I wrong in assuming you're speaking to me when you ask who cares "what the Bible asserts?"
I'm not making any claims here about the Ussher chronologies or their accuracy. I'm only saying that they can't be used to date the age of the earth.
posted on 04.13.2006 7:54 AM49
The Raven:
Now I'll probably tee off both you and Cheesehad. I have spent a lot of time myself trying to wake these people from their denial; despite my efforts, the most corrupt, incompetent, bigotted, murderous conservative politicans have been elected in the United States.
To paraphrase Cheesehead: why haven't they all died out (ideologically speaking here, not based on evolution)?
The power of being able to believe something is indeed a powerful one; it likely stems from - yes , natural selection. It is obvious- especially in flight or fight situations or hunting in extremely adverse conditions- why a brain with a belief system conveyed a survival advantage. (It's not the only one that offers a survival advantage- dispassionate "no self" engaged participation offers at least the same, if not a better survival advantage; the latter being the purview of scientists - and Buddhists of course. Call Buddhism a religion or not, - I think it is- but it is not proper to lump in all religious practices together. Forget about Buddhists- what about Unitarian Universalists? But I digress... )
A strongly held religious belief causes folks like Cheesehead to believe they are in possession of some magical more-valuable-than-golden quantity called "objective truth," when in fact they are more likely to get involved in one of Ravi Zacharias' "objective car accidents" simply because they don't see plainly what is right in front of their noses.
That's what a belief can do.
It can, when reality gets to strongly in the way, cause depression, including but not limited to suicide by terrorism or Crusade or jihad.
Wanna really help mess up their belief system? Introduce cognitive dissonance into their lives. Engage them with compassion - without compromising your principles. I've been thinking much about the latter part: you've got a person who is paranoid and thinks others are out to persecute him. Other than prescribing really strong meds, how do you dissuade him of his delusion? Reinforcing his belief system won't help.
We can see the effects of not following this policy in Iraq. We can see the energy and passion many here; if we could ever channel their energy into something more constructive, you'd have that more energy and people working for that which is constructive.
posted on 04.13.2006 8:03 AM50
Mumon,
With keen insight you have zeroed in on the heart of the matter: the "power to believe." But you ascribe "delusional" to the wrong party. You in fact lack the power to believe (at least at the moment, it would appear) which is a gift from God. You think, I suspect, that you have made a rational choice that Christianity is foolishness, but actually you have no power to decide otherwise, until such time that you are regenerated. So it is you who is delusional. It is not your intellect that decided against Christianity, but your depravity (like that of all unregenerate men) that is morally incapable of accepting it.
51
Mumon,
With keen insight you have introduced a complex argument at precisely the moment the thread gasped its last.
This post is pseudepigraphal. Any resemblance to an actual post by mumon is strictly instrumental. Heh.
posted on 04.14.2006 12:24 PM52
I agree with this:
There was a whopper of a problem at one time: the bible teaches that our universe had a beginning while notables such as Einstein, Hoyle, and Eddington said it didn't. I don't suppose anyone needs to be reminded who won that argument.--David Heddle
The weird thing is, there are creationists who argue against the Big Bang. I've never understood this. As David points out, the Big Bang is at least consistent with Genesis. There are at least two other interesting points to draw from regarding the ultimate acceptance of the Big Bang:
- It did not gain prominence by having proponents lobby textbook publishers and school boards
- There was no conspiracy to keep the Big Bang 'down'. It was simply a matter of accumulating enough data and meeting previously established testable predictions to tentatively accept the idea even though it had religious implications.
That's how the argument was won, with data and observation, and or at least that's how it reached its present state of acceptance. This is the criteria which scientific theories must meet. You can strong arm alternative ideas into kiddies science textbooks with force of law or religious decree, but that won't make them science.
posted on 04.14.2006 7:41 PM53
It seems to me that a fair reading of Ussher's piece shows that it was not intended either as a commentary on the faith, nor as the definitive set of data on the age of the Earth. Among other things, Ussher was quite an accomplished geologist, for his day. His work was in the nature of a scientific paper to determine the age of the Earth. He used the "begats" for one simple reason: He had no set of much better data to work from. But as a scientist, Ussher expected other information to be found, and I think a fair reading indicates that he believed that his work would be updated as such data were found.
In short, Ussher's calculations are, at best, 17th century science. It's folly to claim accuracy for such dated science when its author never made such claims, and when later science offers much better information.
posted on 04.15.2006 10:23 PM54
It seems every time this issue comes up, bevets comes along and gives this quote from James Barr that I have trouble believing Barr himself intended seriously. How could he not know of the Genesis commentary that virtually all OT scholars consider the best all-around commentary of our day, by Gordon Wenham? Wenham retired recently, but he was at one of the major British universities. He believes the author of Genesis clearly did not intend it to be a scientific account in the modern sense. He considers it to have enough poetic features that the creation myth was not intended to tell what happened on actual chronological days. He believes there are internal signs in the account itself to undermine the six-day view, e.g. the creation order being different in the second account (which means at least one of them isn't chronological), the creation of the sources of light after light exists, the supposed measurement of time without a way to measure it. These aren't absolutely insurmountable objections to the six-day view, but they're strong indicators in Wenham's view that the author did not intend this to be taken the way modernist six-day views that misunderstand the literary nature of the creation account generally take it.
Wenham is clearly not alone in this. Virtually all Genesis scholars today agree with him on this. I've looked at most contemporary Genesis commentaries, and they generally take Wenham's position. But Wenham is the only counterexample needed for Barr's sweeping claim to be shown false, and he's such a major figure that I have trouble believing Barr didn't know about Wenham.
posted on 04.17.2006 7:07 AM55
For more refutation of the Barr quote, see John Walton's excellent NIV Application Commentary; Alister McGrath's work on "scientific theology" and his recent book "Dawkins' God"; Henri Blocher's "In the Beginning"; Derek Kidner's Genesis commentary; and John Collins' newly-released Genesis commentary.
Collins' commentary is particularly interesting in light of PGE's arguments about form criticism and the geneologies. Collins discusses form criticism but applies a form of reader response theory to show that the days are analogical and not literal.
Also, see Gerald Schroeder's The Science of God He's not a Bible scholar, but an Orthodox Jew, who explains that the calendar begins from the date of Adam, not the date of creation, such that we don't need to add billions of years to Ussher's chronology. The recently released NIV Archeology Study Bible also has some good discussion of the days and the geneologies, as well as lots of other interesting stuff.
I'd also recommend many of the resources on the American Scientific Affiliation website (http://www.asa3.org). The ASA is mostly theistic evolution and OEC folks, and there are many articles from their journal, Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith, about the questions of the days and geneologies. One possible view that hasn't been floated here yet that some ASA members suggest is that Adam was indeed a neolithic person in whom God implanted His spirit or "nature." In other words, there were pre-Adamic hominids that had some sorts of language and culture, but Adam was the first of those made "in the image of God" with the moral and relational capacity to enter into relationship with God. Not exactly a traditional view, but interesting.
posted on 04.17.2006 9:14 AM56
I'm sorry, when I mentioned Collins' recent book, I meant to say that he takes a discourse analysis approach, not a reader response theory approach.
posted on 04.17.2006 9:49 AM57
AArgh
typos abound!
If you can't find anything in the argument to contest, attack the spelling or grammar.
One time, I mess up, and swoop, he's on me.
Your discussion is still irrelevent and irrelevant, i.e. pointless, time-wasting, extraneous, immaterial, and impertinent. And, I should insist, hilarious.
posted on 04.19.2006 8:35 PM