Gary wrote:
>Also, the names given to the rivers by the author will be the names which his
readers would have understood. If Glenn is right about the events being much
earlier, there is no requirement that the people of that earlier time must have
used the same names. For example, history books today may talk of the invasion
of
England (or Britain) by the Romans in 55 BC (or whenever it was; history has
never been one of my strong points :-) ), but the inhabitants then almost
certainly didn't refer to the region as England (or Britain).
Glenn noted:
> Today the Yellow River drains into the Bo Hai bay north of the Shan Dong
Peninsula, but 300 years ago, it was about 500 miles to the south emptying
into the East China Sea. Was it not the Yellow river at that time? My
point is that rivers do change course and change often. And if the river
changed long ago then it was still the T & E and I would contend that even
if there was no oral communication, God could still reveal that to Moses.
My comment:
Maybe this discussion whether the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers were named
as such 6 My yrs ago is a moot point. After all, the 'author' chose names
that the readers would have understood. Or maybe, God revealed that (the
eastward flowing rivers into the dry Mediterranean basin 6 Myr ago were named
the Tigris and Euphrates) to Moses.
Would it not be easier to assume that the Biblical Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers were the rivers we know of?
To me, the Genesis genealogies and the naming of the rivers point to
Mesopotamian prehistory, that is, the Ubaid period.
Perhaps a more central issue to my criticism is this:
Glenn said:
>I absolutely agree that I do not match the common view of the flood as
being in Mesopotamia and the implications that that view entails. But then
you seem to think that I should accept that view, when it is contradicted
by all the geologic evidence in Iraq!!!! No one yet has been able to point
to a sedimentary layer and say, "There, that is the flood sediment!"
Floods leave records of themselves, yet strangely (and conveniently), the
mesopotamian flood didn't. Suggestions have been made that it all eroded
away, but there is no great erosional event in the Tigris Euphrates valley
over the past 5,000 years. Such a suggestion, is nothing more than ad hoc.
(I know you haven't made that suggestion but others on this list have)
My comment:
How big of a flood was needed to destroy that small near coastal budding
civilization? A flood of the same magnitude as the one striking Mexico
today could have ravaged the 'cities' (or should we call them 'towns')
of the Uruk period. This type of catastrophe might be remembered in
the mythology of the region. So maybe it is no surprize that a flood
story is found in both Sumerian (or Babylonian) myth and the Pentateuch.
Mallowan suggested that the 'Flood' took place right before the
start of the Dynastic period of Sumerian civilization - and may have
been one of the causes. He thought that Noah and Zuisudra were the
same mythic person. So there is at least one archaeologist who has
associated sedimentary deposits in Mesopotamia with Noah's flood.
But sediments alone do not tell the whole story. Consilience requires
that the Sumerian flood story must also 'fit into the picture' that
the concordist presents. It does not do so if 'Noah's flood' was
the Mediterranean infilling.
The next issue is whether the evidence that Glenn presented in 'Dating
Adam' could better be appreciated as corresponding to the 'declaration
of intention' (Gen 1:26). This raises two questions: Can Homo erectus
be regarded as 'the intention of man'? Is there a two-teired resemblance
between Gen. 1 and the evolutionary record?
Glenn said:
>First off, it simply isn't true that the hand-axe remained constant. This
claim is often made but in fact a comparison of the first and last
Acheulean hand axes clearly shows much improvement. I will post the two at:
>http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/lateax.jpg
and
>http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/oldestax.jpg
>Clearly they are not the same.
>Secondly, during this time of supposed cultural stasis, Homo erectus was
inventing boats and crossing the ocean! (didn't know that Homo erectus
invented boats did you). They did as I documented a couple of posts ago.
But here is more:
>"In summary, our work has yielded unambigouos and relatively
precise dates for the arrival of H. erectus on Flores by
840,000 years BP. Stone artefacts do not seem to occur in
deposits slightly older." M. J. Morwood et al,
"Archaeological and Palaeontological Research in Central
Flores, East Indonesia: results of Fieldwork 1997-1998,"
Antiquity, 73(1999):273-286, p. 284
>Flores was never connected to Asia and so H. erectus could not have walked
there!
>During this time of supposed cultural stasis, the Homo erecti invented the
wooden javelin!
>During this time of supposed cultural stasis, the Homo erecti invented
woodworking, tanning hides, working with bone, the use of fire, bedding,
mineral collecting and the boomerang! References available upon request.
H. erectus was anything but an idiot. How many inventions do you have
after your name? I have none!
My comment:
I guess I would be a genius if I invented any of these techniques in
my lifetime. Fortunately, these advances of H. erectus took place over
many, many generations. Are you saying that the pace of innovation
for H. erectus was the same as H. sapiens? I think that is the issue
that Mithen (and other archaeologists) is addressing.
Next, in regards to whether day 4 holds a two tiered resemblance to
the late Archean and Proterozoic, there has been some confusion in
terminology. But the issue is whether the following is acceptable:
After the formation of the earliest continents and the appearance
of photosynthetic life, is it possible that the Earth went from
total to partial 'cloud cover' (with 'cloud cover' understood as
either clouds or atmospheric photochemical haze)? If so, then
this would match the visuals of day 4. Also, the phrases that
describe 'what the sun, moon and stars do' would resemble the meaning
of the corresponding epoch to humanity.
A sampling of what Glenn said:
>If you place Day 4 in the early precambrian >3.5 billion years ago, then I
probably don't have a problem with that view other than it was before the
advent of life on earth. If you try to place it late in the precambrian or
in the early phanerozoic (400 myr-2 billion years ago) then I have major
problems with the view. IN the late precambrian the earth was so cold that
the earth nearly froze over. There was another widespread glaciation in
the Ordovician which was quite severe.
>... I don't comprehend this. DAy 4 is now in the
precambrian prior to the land plants and prior to seeds, but somehow it is
believed to convey the idea that clouds were lifted from the earth without
so much as a mention of clouds. Are you not forced to produce an out of
order reading of Genesis as I do?
My comment:
I see the loss of total cloud cover occurred during the Late Archean
(the first glaciers correspond to the start of the Proterozoic about
2.7 Gyr, I think) and the loss of photochemical haze due to the increase
of oxygen (during the Proterozoic 2.7 to .6 Gyr). These processes
depend on the exposure of calcium rich contintental rock and photo-
synthesis, respectively.
Thus, day 4 pedagogically ties into the period when the Earth's atmosphere
changed from reductive/greenhouse gas rich to oxidative/greenhouse gas less
rich, a period that follows the earliest continents and the start of
photosynthetic life.
Glenn also stated:
>Does this mean that the clouds were lost in day 4? and if Day 4 was prior
to the Cambrian where is the evidence of LAND plants with seeds of which
the 'vision' speaks (Genesis 1:11)? There were no land plants with seeds in
the Precambrian. In what way does this fit the observational data?
My comment:
The 'land plants' mentioned in day 3, as you point out, 'do not fit' the
early Archean - which marks the beginning of photosynthetic bacterial
life. However, they do resemble the 'importance of photosynthetic
bacterial life'. That early life was essentially (as vegetative life)
and most likely ancestrally related to the grasses and fruit trees we
are familiar with. Thus, the 'creation of land plants' should be regarded as
the second tier of a two tiered resemblance (of 1. visualization and 2.
meaning).
In conclusion:
To wrap this together, my claim is that the declaration of intention of
man (Gen 1:26) also matches the information presented in Glenn's 'Dating Adam'
article.
Gen 1:26 is part of the Creation Story, which bears a two-tiered
resemblance to the evolutionary record.
In addition, a rendition of a two-tiered resemblance (between Gen 1 and
the evolutionary record) does not violate the concept that a concordist
'match' must somehow include the social and literary context of
ancient Mesopotamia. This is because the resemblance may be regarded
as a series of visions.
Ray
