To get back to the OP, the city of Jericho has been continuously inhabited since ~9000 BC. Wiki gives a brief outline .
Now, you’re relying on carbon dating for the earlier dates, since there was no writing, but there is a succession of artifacts that fit together according to the timelines and match artifacts from other sites at the same time points.
About as close as you can come to a documented history without written records.
Indistinguishable:
This is the first I’ve heard of the term, but I guess so. Except about Adam and Eve actually having navels (which, interestingly, is the source of the term) - navels are nothing more than scars, so I don’t see that it would serve any purpose for G-d to have created Adam and Eve with an artificial scar.
No, it’s a matter of faith in the revealation at Sinai to Moses and the ancient Israelites. Obviously, empirical observation reveals an old universe; it’s only my belief in my ancestors’ testimony to the truth of the Torah that tells me otherwise.
As I said above, the only reason I think otherwise is my belief in that divine revealation. The universe’s scientific age is not unanswerable or meaningless, an in-depth study of cosmology can yield much important fruit. But the universe’s actual age is irrelevant, except to we people of faith.
Strangely, the date the OT shows as the start of the World is roughly the start of civilization, depending on your definitions.
Doesn’t that depend on exactly how you do the math, since there isn’t an actual date given-- right? Do we know what range of dates you end up with if you made all the various reasonable assumptions either to the youngish side or the oldish side?
If you consider that creation myths were first written down about the time that civilizations got started, then it’s not really too surprising that they tend to point to an origin not that far in the past. To those early scribes and storytellers, 1,000 years ago must have seem like an eternity.
Odd. I would have said the opposite.
But the universe’s actual age is irrelevant, except to people without faith.
The reasoning being that if you’re going to make up a number, that number is by definition irrelevant.
Exapno Mapcase:
The scientific age of the universe is relevant to cosmology, physics, etc, whether the universe was created (either with or without a religious-style creator) that long ago, or was only apparently created that long ago.
The actual age of the universe - in other words, whether the universe’s age is genuine or just appears to be - is irrelevant to science, since science works the same regardless. But for people of faith, it matters for our religious observance.
Not all “made up” numbers are irrelevant. (Especially if you are not the one making the number up, but are believing, for whatever reason, in a number made up by some other party.
The British Museum has a bow that’s been dated at about 6,000 years old. Just throwing that out there for what it’s worth.
Actually, this is not true.
Right, of course any date is open to differing calculations and theories. But still, it is an interesting coincidence.
Please share. I’m assuming you are using the standard criteria of civilisation: agriculture, monumental architecture and record keeping. If so then AFAIK civilisation began around the same time as the OT attributes the creation of man.
He did say “depending on your definitions.” This is a rather large hole.
Going back to Fagan’s textbook, there are a number of cites about large village structures that can be construed to be the origins of civilized society from a very early period. A 30 acre village at Abu Hureyra in what is now Syria existed from around 7700 BC. almost a millennium after the time the site was first occupied.
Jericho, often cited as the first city settlement, was first established at least 8500 BC, probably after Abu Hureyra. It grew to 9.8 acres. It was walled not long after, always a good indication of formal city social and political organization.
Agriculture of emmer wheat, barley, lentils and peas date from 8000 BC, with some sophisticated farming techniques, along with animal domestication. This allowed exports of specialized objects, again an indicator of civilization.
These are the ancestors of writing systems, in place three millennia before the OT dates for the creation.
Fagan goes on to present similar data for the Zagros foothills and Mesopotamia from 8000 - 6000 BC and from Anatolia as early as 8500 BC.
Large settlements, social systems, widespread trade, marking and counting systems, defensive walls, mining, creation of specialized goods indicating a division of labor, development of agricultural products by conscious cultivation and domesticated animals. I’m not sure what else you require for the beginnings of civilization. I’d say that anyone disputing this needs to provide an alternate definition that would be distinct enough to eliminate these early city-like settlements.
And all of them are thousands of years before Genesis.
I see no doubt at all that civilization long preceded anything that has Biblical provenance.
Science is about truth. If all scientific practice points to one thing when another is true, science failed. It’s absolutely important to scientific people.
It would make a difference to you if the universe was twice as old as you believe it to be?
But it’s possible that those cities of humans were created fully-formed in 4004 BCE.
YMMV.
With a total population of two people in all those cities?
Actually, with zero poulation, since those two were in the Garden of Eden. So, as they were expelled. and their descendants spread outwards populating the world, presumably they found these ancient cities already there.
There’s also the problem of the Tasmanian Aborigines. They were cut off from the rest of the world by rising sea levels about 10,000 years ago, or about 4,000 years before Adam and Eve. How can they be descended from Adam and Eve?
Back to the OP, I can’t believe noone has mention Chinese history. Here’s an article claiming that writing may have begun in China 8,600 years ago.
But the cite was almost certainly dated using Carbon Dating. So that brings us back to the conundrum of convincing a YEC. Besides, we have evidence similar (proto-) writings in Europe from even earlier-- ie, the so-called Vinča script from the Balkans.
Frankly, I consider carbon dating to be more believable than some object that has “Made in 8,000 BC” on it, but that’s just me. (I’m using “BC” as a joke-- substitute whatever real calendrical system nomenclature you like.)
Because God knew the great flood was going to happen (being omniscient really ruins the suspense, you know) he just put fake traces of human settlement there with wacky carbon dates so human habitation would appear to be continuous, not from 4004 BC but from … whenever the flood was supposed to happen.
During that Great Flood, some groups of humanity survived far from the Fertile Crescent by clutching driftwood, drinking rainwater and surviving by eating birds as they fell dead from the sky. Curiously, these survivors were all native Australian or native American, and also curiously were descended from Cain and not from Seth (as we know Cain headed east), thus justifying their nearly complete subjugation and destruction in the latter half of the past millenium.
Haven’t you ever heard of Occam’s Razor? The simplest explaination is usually the right one! Sheesh!
Show me where the Bible says that Adam & Eve were the ONLY people that God created.
In fact there are explicit references to other people existing at the time. Cain was afraid of being killed by other people outside Eden. And he managed to find a wife somewhere.
(not that I believe it, you understand. Just saying, is all)
Interesting, cm. I’ve found that accepting the scientific perspective has had no effect on either my faith (Conservative Judaism, towards traditional) nor my religious observance. So let me ask: how would your religious observance be different if (let’s say) creation was earlier than the prior calculations, by say, 1000 years? … perhaps on the basis that one day to God is like a thousand years (quote from Psalms, I think?)
I then play the Talmudic game, of course: what about 1,001 years? What about 10,000 years? What about a million yearsor so? (Agreed, you might need to interpret some biblical verses as poetic rather than literal, but you do that already, I presume, with statements about the “four corners of the earth” and “mountains skipping like rams” and Joshua stopping the sun from moving around the earth?)
In short, I don’t see why the dating of historic/biblical events would have any impact on religious observance. On faith, perhaps, but not on observance, surely?
L’shana tova, khavari.
Dex:
How can you separate faith from observance? One of the commandments is to believe. It’s no less a commandment than Sabbath observance or eating Kosher.
But aside from that, there are any number of Kabbalistic or numeric allusions that are based on the Biblical age of the world. No doubt this has influenced Jewish customs in subtle ways over the millenia.