Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Larry Baden" <llbaden AT sbcglobal.net>]

If I might join the conversation, it seems to me that the 6000-year argument
is based on bad scholarship, but not because of carbon dating or any other
dating.

I cannot find a place in Scripture that explicitly dates the world at 6000
years. The date is simply not given. Apparently it was either unknown or
considered unimportant. The 6000-year date, if I understand it (I'm certain
I will be corrected if I have misunderstood) is based on Ussher's
calculations using the genealogies of the OT.

Every argument, of course, has its assumptions, and this one is no
different. The assumption in these is that the OT genealogy lists are
one-generation-to-the-next lists, father to son, with no skips and no
multi-generational steps. If these lists are not as straightforward as that,
the dating system collapses, I think.

After all that, I have to say that I don't understand the fuss about the age
of the earth. Seems to me like it's pretty badly missing the point of the
Bible.

Larry Baden
St. Louis, MO

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather the wood,
divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast
and endless sea"

~ Antoine de Saint Exupery

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Peter Kirk
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 1:51 PM
To: Steve Miller
Cc: 'B-Hebrew'
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Genesis 1:2 - And the earth was without form,
and void


On 17/04/2006 18:30, Steve Miller wrote:
>
>> ...
>
> [Steve Miller] None of these are _facts_ that mankind is > 6K years old.
All
> the radioactive dating methods assume a constant rate of radiation into
the
> earth's atmosphere, which is a false and unreasonable assumption.
> I know enough to tell that such things are not scientific or logical. ...

It may be an assumption if extrapolated over thousands of years, but it
is a reasonable assumption which has not been shown to be false.
Radiocarbon dating has been applied to and calibrated from objects of
known historical age, as well as through tree ring data. I doubt if many
historical dates before about 500 BC are known well enough to be useful
for calibration, but if something can be shown to have been true
consistently for the last 2500 years, it is a reasonable if unproven
assumption that it has been true for at least 6000 years.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/

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