This is the second part of my reply to your excellent objections.
You wrote:
>Cain and Abel were farmer and rancher. Farming techniques, as opposed to
>hunting and gathering, can be dated no earlier than about 10,000 years
> ago. Certainly not millions of years ago. Cain builds a city named
>"Enoch."
>
>After the flood, "kingship was restored in Kish." Meskiagasher
> rebuilds the city of "E-anna(k), next door to Uruk, the biblical Erech.
>3 All in Southern Mesopotamia.
>
>Jabal (Gen. 4:20) was "the father of those who dwell in tents." Jubal
>instructed those who played musical instruments (Gen. 4:21). But
>Tubal-cain was the father of those who worked in "brass and iron." Even
>iron-working before 2900 BC is a stretch, but millions of years ago?
> Not a chance.
Our difference on these issues really comes down to whether the Flood was
anthropologically universal or not. If you place the flood in 2900 B.C.
it can not possibly be anthropologically universal as you so correctly
incorporate into your model. But this lack of anthropological
universalism requires some of us to be "Adamites" and others not to be
descended from Adam. This, IMO, plays havoc with the the doctrine of the
Fall, original sin and the unity of the human race. As one of European
extraction, I can claim not to be tainted by Adam's sin. My wife being of
Semitic extraction obviously was affected by Adam's sin. I must go tell
her what a sinner she is. It was HER ancestor that sinned. :-) ... (She
didn't like that).
I also don't like the implication raised by Genesis 6:1-4 concerning the
intermarriage of the "Sons of God" (descendants of Adam, the Son of God-
Luke 3:38). This implies some very big difference between those
represented by Noah (an Adamite) and me (a non-Adamite). To me, these are
very big problems caused by your view of the flood.
Your view does not solve the problems you think they do. The first tent,
the first music, the first iron and bronze are reported to be invented by
two brothers and their half-brother. Jubal, Jabal and Tubal-cain were of
the same generation. But the archeological record tells a quite different
tale.
The earliest tent is from 60,000 years ago.
"What may well be the first discovered ruins of Middle Palaeolithic
dwellings have been found at open-air sites. At Molodova I these consist
of an oval ring of mammoth bones, some 10 metres by 7 metres in exterior
dimensions, containing extremely dense stone artifact and food-bone
remains and fifteen hearths. The mammoth bones have been interpreted as
weights to hold down a superstructure of streched skins over a light
wooden framework. More disturbed remains of what may have been a similar
structure were found nearby, at Molodova V." (Freeman, 1980, p. 84-85)
There is also some indication that similar dwellings were used at Terra
Amata near Nice, France 300,000 years ago. So was Jabal of this age?
How long did Jabal live? The first evidence of cattle as livestock was
from 6000 B.C. Did Jabal live for 294,000 years so that he could invent
both things?
The first flute is from 30,000 Bower writes:
"Music assumed an important role; the first known instrument, a bone flute
found in France, dates to around 30,000 years ago."(Bower, 1986, p. 378)
There is an still undocumented report of a very recent find of a flute
from 40,000 years ago made by a Neandertaal. This was reported to be
found by a Slovenian archaeologist. Was Jubal of this age?
As to metal.
The oldest iron object is from Egypt and are some oxidized iron beads
dating from 4000 B.C. Microsoft Encarta Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1994.
"Iron"
The oldest use of Bronze is from Anatolia, not Egypt from 6500 B.C.
("Bronze Age", Encyclopedia Britannica II, 1982, p. 297.)
Did Tubal-Cain live 2,500 years?
I see only two possibilities to explain this. 1. The Biblical account is
wrong because Jabal, Jubal and Tubal-Cain's parents could not have lived
for 300,000 years and been nearly 200,000 years old at the birth of Jabal,
or 2. Genesis 4 is referring to an even more ancient time and place. I
just don't understand why some facts in the Scripture are believed to be
important and others aren't. The Bible does clearly say that 3 brothers
invented these things.
If the Bible is wrong in having 3 brothers invent these things, why do you
feel that it is correct in describing a Flood at all?
I assume that the Flood was anthropologically universal. Thus the Flood
MUST have occurred early in mankind's history before they spread out.
This requires three things. God taught Adam and his descendents the
technology they used. It requires that that technology be lost at the
time of the flood. It requires that what we see in the archeological
record is the REDEVELOPMENT of a formerly lost technology.
I refer the interested reader to a post of mine on April 11 entitled
Ramm's Flood, for the reasons I believe that all that technology could not
be transmitted by a few people. In short it boils down to the fact that
technology requires specialization. Specialization requires ample food
reserves. Ample food reserves requires lots of other people to support the
specialist. None of us individually have enough knowledge to enable us to
re-create even a neolithic society if we were one of a handful of
survivors of an anthropologically universal catastrophe. Do you know how
to make iron? Do you know how to make stone tools? Do you know how to
hunt? Do you know how to make a bow and arrow? Do you know how to farm
without a tractor, iron implements, or insecticides? Farming takes months
to provide food. You can't go without eating that long and will have no
time for farming. You will have to go hunting.
References
Bower,Bruce 1986. "When the Human Spirt Soared," Science News, 130, Dec.
13, 1986, p. 378
Freeman,Leslie 1980. "The Development of Human Culture," in Andrew
Sherratt, editor, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Archaeology, (New York:
Cambridge University Press)
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm