I missed that one. That would require a doubling of global population (and food production) every 25 years instead of every 50. It’s competely insane.
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Translational choices?
The masoretic text says 600,000, the septuigint says 603,550!!!
For the latter part of your post there, references?
We cant discuss this if you havent cited any references to critique!
Point of interest here…the capital city for the Hyksos in lower Egypt (Avaris), was overthrown in the late 1600BC early 1500bc time period.
Likely between 1570-1540bc or thereabouts when Ahmose 1 came to power in Egypt.
Given we have artefacts of asiatic rulers from this location, its likely that when the egyptians overthrew the hyksos, that is the precursor for the exodus in the 1400’s/1300s/1200s whichever date one settles on (there are sources for all 3 options there)
We know that the city Avaris was abandoned around that time.
Ahmose 1 was quite the successful pharoah
Finally, Edward Kaspar writes in 2009 article “Evidence of the Exodus: Scars from the plague of boils?”
Alfred Edersheim, an Oxford scholar of the mid 19th century, wrote the
following: “Now this Tuthmosis ll began his reign very brilliantly. But after a
while there is a perfect blank in the monumental records about him. But we
read of a general revolt after his death among the nations whom his father
had conquered.
…
The first archaeologist to unwrap and examine the mummy of Tuthmosis
ll was Gaston Maspero. This took place in 1886. “He resembles Tuthmosis
l; but his features are not so marked, and are characterized by greater
gentleness. He had scarcely reached the age of thirty when he fell victim to
a disease of which the process of embalming could not remove the traces.
The skin is scabrous in patches and covered with scars, while the upper
part of the (scalp) is bald; the body is thin and somewhat shrunken, and
appears to have lacked vigor and muscular power.” Maspero, G. (1896),
The Struggle of the Nations, London: 242-3.
…
the identical scars recently revealed on
the mummies of four individuals known to have lived contemporaneously
could be the result of the plague of boils[thutmose1,2,3 and hatshepsut]. If so, the four mummies provide
physical evidence, surviving through the millennia, of an act performed by
the God of Israel.
It is very clear from this statement that you have no background in sedimentology or geology, given that peat and lignite, the precursors to coal, can be found in a number of places globally. Were they more extensive in the Carboniferous? Yes. It is beyond what is doable given vaguely modern-like processes over time? No. Are oil and natural gas deposits actively forming? Also yes. The entire continetal shelves are covered in precursors to shallow marine deposits, just like the ones in {insert almost any coastal area that hasn’t been moving down over time and isn’t exclusively igneous here}.
The shear volume of identifiable strata absolutely demands much, much longer than the description of a Global Flood fabricated by modern advocates of Flood “geology”. There is nothing in the text that implies a global flood over a massive regional one, as has been pointed out over and over and over again.
“Quite small”? They are in every Cenozoic marine deposit that I have worked on. Every single one of the quadrillions of infaunal fossil clams on the planet is a place where bioturbation is evident, as all of them bioturbate.
See above. All infaunal bivalves bioturbate by definiton, therefore, all specimens of them deposited in place or nearly so (which is most of them, since transport would size-sort and/or destroy them) require actual bioturbation.
That is an actual lie, as it confidently attributes agreement with a false statement to me.
That is the raw data itself that I referenced directly–deposits with lots of what looks like beach sand characteristically have shells of taxa that like shoreface areas, and in a given location, have higher 18O levels than those with more silt and shell constituents and taxa that like mid-shelf areas.
Something else was there though–generation after generation of clams, appearing exactly as if they had lived there for decades and died where they now sit, absorbing stable isotopes that take centuries to equalize through the oceans into their shells, and leaving a record of how much water was locked up in glaciers at every time they were alive.
Not when they match up near-perfectly with radiometric dating, global planktonic foraminifera, relative dating of local deposits, sedimentological and ecological analysis of deposit depth range, etc. Also, how do clams that live for 100 years settle, live, die, get endolithics growing in them, and have more shells repeat that process over and over again if this is all occuring quickly. FYI, the way that that age is measured is stable isotopes, given that they are a very good proxy for water temperature.
What I stated is neither more nor less than what a flood model that invokes deposition of much of the stratigraphic column, rapid plate tectonics, and accelerated nuclear decay predicts happened. The other option is deceptive and pointless miracles (or substituting atoms falling apart for getting fried by radiation).
Given that I study sedimentary deposits, I ought to have some idea of what they are like and what was happening when they were deposited. Also, that’s a slander against geologists and paleoecologists.
Given that “real history” in the way that it’s being used here wasn’t really a category yet, and that a lot of church fathers had other interpretations than the one put forward here (instantaneous, unknown day length pre-sun, etc.), no.
Not with plates moving at 30 m/s or so, as rapid plate tectonics demands.
I will not lie and say that I don’t know what I do.
The existence of any large groups that only tolerate one or the other is enough to refute the argument.
Not with rapid plate movement and megatsunamis.
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No, the Masoretic Text says the older-script equivalent of שׁשׁ־מאות אלף ( šš m’â 'lp̄). Which means one of “600 thousand”, “600 groups”, “600 squads”, “600 chieftains”, or I think a few other options as well. I’ve described this before, if the individual numbers for tribes are translated as “# groups # men”, instead of “# thousands # men”, then one ends up with a total that adds up perfectly still, it’s just merged–“598 groups, 5,550 men”.
For references:
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Hi Adam,
yep, it seems that here on this website, there is a lot of bluff and bluster, that really only holds water, if you reason through a lens shaped by the deep time worldview and all that entails, such as death and suffering over billions of years, which incidentally doesn’t reflect very well on the character of God. That fact alone, SHOULD be enough for some here to pause and reflect on how the Creator creates.
Also, I’m over being labelled a YEC, which comes with a whole suite of less than glowing baggage. Thus to simplify posts here, an appropriate acronym for the Theistic Evolution Compromising Christians is (TECC’s). So from now on as people here continue to label me a YEC, it is only fair and appropriate that I reciprocate with identifying them as TECC’s.
The Holy Bible is Trustworthy and True.
Thus the TE worldview has to cast doubt on that simple fact first.
The Holy Bible inspired by the LORD God, informs us that He spoke the command and it was so for each of the six days of creation.
The Bible tells us, “And God said,” over and over during creation week; and the Holy Bible also informs us what the item to be created is when God said, that is, His divine COMMAND, and then completes with, “and it was so.” making it very clear that the creation ex nihilo was immediate!
But the TECC’s worldview corrupts the crystal clear text and claims that it wasn’t immediate at all, but rather the TECC’s boldly claim as if its obvious to anyone with a brain, the periods that elapsed for biological diversity to ‘evolve’ are obviously vast expanses of time, in the order of many millions and even many billions of years!
Interestingly, the TECC’s profess the same vast periods of time elapsed as the periods the agnostic and atheist secular researchers of evolution focused fields believe, within their ‘deep time’ worldview.
The Holy Bible makes it abundantly clear that the creation days in Genesis 1 are, as we know days to be now, with the phrase, "And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." for each day.
But the TECC’s worldview again corrupts the crystal clear text and makes claims that it took billions of years passing by, that is, a day is not a day. It’s quite fickle really, and belies the clearly understood Holy text.
Dear Roy, where" Book/s? Chapter/? Verse?
God Bless,
jon
Dear Tim,
I’m over it, the constant pedanticism that is becoming more and more petty. Yes, I know, you will object that correction is required because you look at molluscs all day long and you know this and you know that.
I’m sure that you are very good at your job as a benthic researcher.
The problem here is as it always is.
The secular deep time evolution steeped worldview forms the basis of your worldview, that then has the Theistic bit thrown on top and the Holy Bible treated in a manner that accommodates the TECC worldview.
I get it that you truly believe that you are being objective in your research, and would venture to assume that you are, within the axioms and paradigms of the overarching worldview.
The problem arises with the very clear cut contradictions with what the Holy Bible spells out ever so clearly, I believe because the LORD God Who knows the end before the beginning, knew that people would come in the period of time we are in now, and would try to convince as many people as they can, and justify to themselves that the TECC’s way is the truth, that is, it is real, and the people who believe what the Holy Bible actually states are wrong.
So the LORD God put text in the Holy Bible that makes it as clear as it ever could be. Things such as what I described in my previous post, you know, “And God Said” … followed by, “And it was so!” and “There was evening and there was morning, the sixth day”, etc… and,
Genesis 7:19-20 “19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. 20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.”
God Bless,
jon
This is a common refrain that I hear time and time again from science deniers who don’t want to play by the rules. Asking them to cite their sources, do the maths, make sure that the evidence they cite is as described, is dismissed as “petty and nitpicking” or “pedantic” or “overthinking.” In many cases, their standards of what constitutes “overthinking” or “pedanticism” or “pettiness” are so low that if you applied those standards in any STEM-based workplace, you wouldn’t last a day without driving your employer out of business and quite possibly killing people in the process. If, that is, you hadn’t been fired for gross professional misconduct and sued out of your insurance first.
It’s as simple as this, Jon. Science has rules. “Historical science” has rules too. Yes, the rules are stringent, and yes, they demand close attention to detail, but there are many, many situations in which even tiny, hard-to-spot mistakes could have catastrophic effects. So when you respond to demands that you stick to the rules by calling them “constant pedanticism that is becoming more and more petty,” and dismissing them as nothing more than “worldviews,” I’m sorry, but that is effectively demanding the right to make things up and invent your own alternative reality.
Everyone on this forum who has a background in the relevant sciences has standards that need to be met, Jon. Nobody is going to lower their standards of rigour, factual accuracy and quality control just to conform to some doctrine or other that the Bible leaves wide open to interpretation. Not for you, nor for anyone else for that matter. If you want to make a case that the Earth is six thousand years old or that humans and animals are unrelated, your case needs to meet the same standards that every other scientific theory is expected to meet. Anything less would be giving a free pass to astrology, homeopathy, water divining, reading tea leaves, feng shui, and tobacco companies claiming that smoking is good for you.
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The worldview at the basis of evolution and deep time is that reality makes sense.
You bore false witness that biotubation in sedimentary layers was exceptional. When that claim is exposed as wrong, you dismiss that correction as pedanticism? If you do not wish to be schooled, quit spouting off falsehoods to begin with. What you call pedanticism is actually rigor.
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Why? The only way to get that judgment is to impose an outside definition of “good” onto the scriptures and onto God. A view that says that suffering and death are natural for animals but not for humans (or angels) is perfectly consistent with scripture.
Nope – your acronym is subjectively skewed, while YEC is merely an abbreviation of an objective description. A valid acronym would be SC, for Scientific Creationist; TE would work but it isn’t actually accurate. But either of those leaves me out; for me you’d have to say STBC, for Strictly Text-Based Creationist.
Your syllogism contains an unstated and unjustified assumption: that the TE worldview even cares about the Bible. It posits an inherent animosity that just isn’t there.
Most of what is related in Genesis 1 is not creatio ex nihilo but rather is materials-based, especially the formation of living things; God commands the land to “bring forth”.
Maybe, but so does YEC – it ignores what the text actually is, which is ancient literature, and reads it as modern objective reporting.
The tragedy here is that the SC reading doesn’t throw away the theology while the YEC reading does – it tosses the great majority of Moses’ message into Gehenna.
Right there is a perfect example of YEC tossing out the theology. In the historical (i.e. cultural) context, that phrase is a huge theological statement, sufficient for a five-minute homily. In the YEC view . . . there’s no theology at all.
Actually it doesn’t, but you have to grasp what the scripture actually is before you can see that. As ‘royal chronicle’ as well as as ‘temple inauguration’ literature, a day can be a day within the account without being a literal day in terms of the real flow of time. It’s not easy for the modern western mind to wrap itself around, but that’s how those kinds of literature worked.
Already stated. I’m not going to repeat myself to someone who is seemingly determined to ignore the text.
Possibly. But it is just as likely that he starts with the scriptures and correctly sees that there is no conflict with deep time (which first came from the scriptures) or evolution.
But YEC is not what the Bible actually states – it is a scientific materialistic distortion.
Genesis is theology. Logically, any view that throws away the theology is false. YEC throws out almost all the theology, hence YEC is false.
Heck, YEC doesn’t even know the significance of the command “Light, be!”
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. . . suggests that the accuser/dismisser doesn’t actually grasp what a worldview is.
And that applies to dealing with the text of the scriptures as well. I didn’t spend years getting “the text, and nothing but the text” pounded into my head just to toss it away on the word of some (uneducated) fanatic.
Or that any other textual analysis is expected to meet.
Which is another way of saying, “God is faithful”.
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If you believe everything a YEC believes but won’t wear the name, that’s not conviction — that’s a costume change.
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“I’m sure you believe what you say you believe, but I don’t believe it” is really just a roundabout way of saying “I disagree.” It serves a couple of rhetorical purposes:
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Polite veneer – It makes him sound like he’s acknowledging sincerity, so he doesn’t come off as bluntly dismissive (“you’re wrong”).
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Subtle dig – At the same time, it undercuts the other person by implying: “You might be sincere, but you’re still deceived.” It’s like saying, “Bless your heart” in Southern idiom — outwardly courteous, inwardly patronizing.
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Shifts the frame – By granting sincerity but denying truth, he positions himself as holding the “clear” truth while casting the other as simply mistaken. It keeps the focus on authority of interpretation rather than mutual reasoning.
It’s strange because it adds extra words to soften disagreement, but the net effect is still to dismiss the other’s position wholesale. In other words, it’s not really dialogue — it’s a rhetorical move to appear civil while still saying, “I’m right, you’re wrong.”
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Too bad all that begetting didn’t leave much of a mark in the human population genome. Think of all the inbreeding.
Dear James,
And of course with that cohort don’t forget to include the TECC’s who vehemently claim our Omnipotent, Brilliant, Perfectly Just, Righteous, Loving and Holy God used the mind numbingly slow, inane and infinitely cruel and sadistic process of evolution to create over billions of years of death and suffering before Adam sinned!
That said:
1.) The Holy God of the Holy Bible would NEVER do such a sadistically cruel thing as use evolution to create the diversity of life.
2.) The Holy Bible tells us plainly that God spoke and it was so.
3.) Evolution theory is a basket case that should be put in the trash.
4.) Humans and all animals and plants, i.e., all life, have the hallmarks of incomprehensible integrated design at a level ever so far ahead of man’s technology, design abilities and creative talents, that actually believing the iterative process of evolution created such integration, beauty, symmetry, and functionality is beyond inane, — impossible fits much better, as an apt description of evolution!
God Bless,
jon
Hi Argon,
thanks for your post.
Actually, early on when peoples genomes were still close to the perfect genomes of Adam and Eve, there would have been no detrimental effect on the offspring.
As time went by, and due to the entry of evil from the fall and the curse, there would have come a point in time when birth defects from the steadily accumulating genetic error damage to the genome would have arisen from marrying and reproducing with close relatives.
I believe that it was at that point in history that God commanded that marrying and reproducing with close relatives was henceforth forbidden.
As a consequence, I do suspect, that as more time goes by, there will be an appreciable increase in diseases and disorders that are from genetic causes, rather than just an increase in accurate diagnosis from improved detection technology, that we see at present.
Watch this space over the next fifty years…
God Bless,
jon
The Bible says nothing about genomes, and your statement has no basis in human genetics. There are plenty of genetic diseases revealed in ancient DNA from Egypt and elsewhere. As well, there is far more genetic diversity than is possible with a single human pair 6,000 ya with further bottleneck at 4,500 ya, and archaic Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA makes matters far worse. Your statement is not from the Bible and is contradicted by the data. I will leave aside the excusing of incest.
You seemed to have missed the point, or are deflecting from Jame’s post - if you are going to make scientific claims, you cannot just wave your hands wildly. There are principles of internal consistency and measurement that must be followed. Phony scientific claims cannot be fixed by proof texts.
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Yes. Below is a citation to a paper including a mathematical analysis of the figures in Numbers. The paper shows that translating 'lp as ‘thousand’ leads to unbelievable information about the size of the families. The text itself may be fully correct, what appears to twist the meaning is the reading/translation of a single word, 'lp.
Humphreys, C.J. 1998. The number of people in the Exodus from Egypt: decoding mathematically the very large numbers in Numbers I and XXVI. Vetus Testamentum XLVIII, 2
By the way, two hundred years ago, before the modern healthcare, the average number of children in Finnish families was 5-6 (IIRC). What determined the increase rates of family lines was not the number of children born in a family, it was how many of the children survived until they reproduced - mortality of children was high.
When healthcare improved, family sizes did not drop suddenly but the survival increased. My grandmother had ten children and all of them survived to old age (>75 years) because of modern healthcare. All ten got 2-5 children and the children lived because of modern healthcare, except two of my cousins dying before getting their own children. I stopped counting the number of all the offspring my grandmother got when the number rised above 110. That figure does not tell anything about the situation before the modern healthcare that keeps the children alive.
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No, because the list of topics is very specifically a list of ideas that do not stick to the rules. People who promote astrology, homeopathy, feng shui or smoking do not stick to the rules. People who study biological evolution generally do.
It’s all very well saying that you find the idea of animal death before the Fall to be distasteful or theologically inconvenient, Jon, but you do need to be honest about what evidence exists, how it can and cannot legitimately be interpreted, and what you can and cannot legitimately claim about any underlying assumptions. If you want to show that “Evolution theory is a basket case that should be put in the trash,” you must do so in accordance with the rules. Because anything else is just shouting.
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But apparently the “omnipotent, brilliant, perfectly just, righteous, loving and holy god” is quite happy for the “mind-numbingly slow, inane and infinitely cruel and sadistic process of evolution” to occur after creation, and did the "sadistically cruel thing as use evolution" to increase the diversity of life again after he sadistically and cruelly drowned 99.99999% of living things because he was annoyed by something they weren’t responsible for and had no control over.
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Dear Ron,
no disagreement here, so what’s the problem?
The Holy Bible says absolutely nothing whatsoever about billions of years of death and suffering of evolution, so I must ask, why do you have a problem with Adam and Eve Who were made directly by the LORD God Himself in the ‘image of God’, having perfect genomes?
God Bless,
jon
Dear Roy,
you assert this as though evolution is a concrete fact.
And I don’t doubt that you believe that, but what you appear to not comprehend is that evolution is a myth, a very widespread myth that is promoted at every opportunity, but a myth nonetheless!
Yes, my belief that evolution is a myth, is certainly not the belief that is taught today in the majority of educational institutions, but so be it, that does not make it any less a myth, an optimistic fable of impossible improbability, yet the masses are taught it, they regurgitate it, they consider the evidence from the deep time/evolution worldview, and I expect marvel that there are competent scientists in the world who see the numerous fatal flaws that evolutionary belief is riddled with.`
God bless,
jon