Hello Dick,
You wrote: you can't just rearrange history on the basis of your
interpretation of the Bible. That's a YEC technique I would think you would
reject given your YEC experience.
I don't think that comparison is either fair or accurate. The "history" that
YEC's "rearrange" is billions of years of history documented by tons of
indisputable scientific facts. My understanding of Bible history which is
partly based upon my understanding of Bible chronology does not reject any
date which historians now provide us for any event recorded in either the Old
or New Testaments. I accept as historically accurate their dates of 853 for
the battle of Qarqar, 721 for the fall of Samaria, 701 for Sennacherib's
siege of Jerusalem, 605 for the battle of Carchemish, 568 for the 37th year
of Nebuchadnezzar (and by extrapolation 587 for the fall of Jerusalem), 539
for the fall of Babylon and many others. I so because such dates have been
confirmed by ancient historical records containing astronomical observations
which were made at the time of the events being recorded. Modern astronomers
have been able to use that information to tell us when exactly those
observations were made, and by so doing assign an "astronomically fixed" date
to many events referred to in scripture.
However, the date of Noah's flood has never been fixed in such a way. The
fact is, most historians don't think it ever happened at all. Those who do
date it by means that are far more open to question than the age of our earth
and universe being several billions of years old versus only several
thousands of years, as the YEC's say.
A natural reading of the chronological information contained in Genesis tells
us that Noah's flood occurred in about 2350 BC. Tree ring growth studies also
point to that same time as being one in which such a flood very well may have
occurred. I see the tree ring growth studies as being much more "hard
science" than any of the methods used by those who now date Noah's flood to
circa 2900 BC. For those who do so base their dating on several assumptions
which are not anywhere near as well founded as the assumptions upon which
tree ring dating is based, or anywhere near as well founded as the
assumptions upon which astronomical dating is based, and certainly not
anywhere near as well founded as the assumptions upon which scientists have
concluded that our earth and universe are billions of years old and not just
thousands of years old.
These things being so, I don't think your comparing my not accepting a 2900
BC date for Noah's flood to the kind of historical and scientific realities
which YEC's do not accept was a fair comparison.
Mike
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