Ancient human remains found in Israel

I tend to look with favor on the 10,000 year mark myself, but I cannot prove it. I do know that a lot of evidence points to the first active human settlements of any report being about 10,000 years old by reliable testing data. But the truth is, we may never know for sure until we ask God in glory. I will fight for a young earth view, but I won't fight for dates that God did not give us in specific revelation, or for dates set by an interpretation of specific revelation that may not be right depending on if we have the entire story (and I am reasonable sure that we do not -- too much was not said, and so the argument becomes an argument from silence -- not worthy of a battle!

Archbishop Usher was the first one to try to set a date for creation by reading the genealogies in Scripture. He is the one who gave us the commonly cited 6000 year date. He did his work in the 17th century.

 

The only thing I would take issue with is the statement that 10,000 year dating comes " by reliable testing data." Without any way to prove something it is not reliable and remains speculative. As for Archbishop Usher all I can say we use the same bible. In the initial reading of scripture and studying the genealogies no one could get a period of time more then about 6 or 7 thousand years. The only reason that there is any question beyond that is because certain people with old earth and evolution ideals seeks to push their agenda with unsubstantiated data. There is simply no method of dating things before the flood accurately that we know of today since we do not know what it was like before the flood and during the flood. Unfortunately many a well meaning Christians have fallen to teachings of these people with the agendas of old earth or evolution teaching.
I once had a pastor who held to the old earth theory. I told him in a discussion that it is fine if you want to hold that view, but don't make it sound that it is in any way supported by the bible because it is not. In other words don't teach that view as if based on anything from the bible. In fact if his view is stated in a teaching forum it should be stated that it actually goes against what information we have in the bible even though that information is incomplete.

 

I asked the question above, but I'll ask it again...

Do you know anything about Carbon 14 testing?

 

Sorry I did not catch that. Since I have never officially studied the science (I use that term loosely calling it science) and I have never done the dating myself I have to rely on those who have and teach about it. So in that regard yes i understand it without doing it. I posted a link to a very good article on the subject. Here it is again and yes I understand the claims of the article and the lack of science behind the process results. So in regards to the original post about 400,000 years old remains, that claim is absolutely false using any claimed scienific method and especially carbon dating since even those who hold to the accuracy of carbon dating they refute the idea that it can go beyond 80,000 years.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-c14-disprove-the-bible

 

The bottom line is we are all just speculating as to the age of the earth as the Bible does not tell us how old the earth is.

 

Carbon 14 dating is the equivilent of measuring the current in a lightning strike by judging how a 9 volt battery acts.

 

yes I agree, but the speculation is not without any evidence or parameters. Those who use the bible have a range of 6 to 10 thousand years with 6 to 7 as the most likely. Those who reject the bible have an infinite number to work with as they have nothing but absolute speculation.

 

Yes, some people use the Bible for such speculation but that does not mean they are correct in so doing. Just read around on this board and you see people reading the same Bible and coming to different views on a variety of subjects.

Just because someone disagrees with those who think that only the young earth position is correct does not mean that he rejects the Bible.

There is no certain position on the age of the earth that is necessary for salvation. One does need to believe that God created the earth but beyond that we are just injecting our own personal dogmatism to draw a line in the land concerning a particular number of years.

 

Many people, myself included, read the Bible and can make a case for a very old earth perspective. There is not a dating to the creation given by the Bible. It is not heterodoxy to suggest other perspectives.

 

What we "should" teach about the Bible is what it says:

God created the earth in 6 days, with there being an evening and morning at the end of each day.

God made all the things in the cosmos according to His will, and in the hierarchy that He divinely chose, and everything that He made was "good."

God made the plants, insects, animals, and water-dwelling creatures, and all reproduced according to their kind. This too was "good."

God made man in His image, male and female, and gave them dominion over the earth. This was "very good."

God gave man and woman a paradise garden in which to live, and it provided for their every need including a personal relationship with God.

After fleshing out the details of the above accounts, we really know little else, except that which we have observed from the "general revelation" (creation) and "interpreted" according to one framework or another.

Where one sees evidence in the general revelation for long (LONG) periods of time, another sees the same evidence, but in a far shorter length of time.

Where one sees evidence of millions upon millions of years of geological activity, another sees the same evidence as pointing to a global flood.

Where one sees evidence that God indeed buried the whole of humanity and animals in a global flood, another sees the same evidence as pointing to epochs of human and animal activity, preserved in rock layers.

We all see the same evidence. We all have reason and logic to apply to that same evidence. Yet we arrive at vastly different conclusions BECAUSE God did not give us a date.

I'd humbly suggest that we major on what God DID give us and let the rest be interesting speculation, that we can and should study, but hold loosely as we truly do not know.

 

I saw this topic on another forum this morning.

An old earth is intriguing, but one must not throw away Scripture to embrace something that may not be true. One must look to Scripture.

A poster on another forum gave Scripture, which I would like to use here.

Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

The poster pointed out that our earth was created in six days as the verse above tells us. Now, we can either say the verse is correct and our earth was created in six days, or we can say that verse is a lie. I believe the former.

Now, as the poster pointed out, the verse says all things in the earth were also created within that six day period. All things...

He then pointed out the fact that those teeth were in the earth, so they could therefore not be older than the first day of that six day creation process.

What a wise poster to use Scripture to refute a claim of teeth being 'older than dirt.'

 

Science is based on observation. Can we set up an experiment and observe it with repeated reliable results? In the case of both evolution and creation we cannot. Therefore, science cannot absolutely prove either. Thankfully, the bible says, "by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God..."

I would echo the question of how can you reliably prove carbon 14 dating on an object supposedly millions of years old. That is an excellent question.

 

Carbon dating is reliable up to 60,000 years old (approx) More than that you have a problem. Howeverwhat do you do with items dating 40,000 years old certainly questions the 6,000 - 10,000 year old hypothesis of the earth's existance. Though it is a given beyond 60,000 years old this method of dating is questionable. But the question remains a reliable measurement up to 60,000 years ago out dating an object older than given credit for the existance of the planet.

 

The only problem with the scenario that you lay out is that somehow, the teeth (and other things like fossils) need to have been "planted" into the ground by God with the appearance (and testing) of great age, therefore making God out to be somewhat the deceiver, though we KNOW He is not.

That then suggests, that like Galileo and the entire flap over the earth being the center of the solar system (which has been conclusively proven wrong), it is a mis-interpretation of the truthful Scriptures and the truthful general revelation (nature does not "lie" we merely misinterpret it) to arrive at a false conclusion, either about God deceiving people who would dig up truthful artifacts or about God's Word.

In either case, we continue the search until we discover a truth that reconciles both the specific and the general revelation.

Of note, and this may be a great time to interject this thought into the conversation, "science" came about essentially because God's people KNEW that an orderly God might be observed and from that observation, conclusions drawn about the nature of our cosmos, and about God. It is only somewhat recently that "science" has been perverted to be all about atheistic naturalism alone.

Truth is truth, and all truth is God's truth, whether discovered by science or through the reading of Scripture, but the specific revelation of Scripture should be our guide, rightly interpreted.

 

Carbon 14 cannot date an object "millions of years old." It simply fails as a reliable test beyond about 10,000 years ago, though through "extrapolation" (in other words, pure mathematics) it has been extended to about 40K years and by some, beyond that.

The pure data, however, is tested without further extrapolation to around 10K years.

There are other tests that purportedly reach well beyond 10K years, strontium 90, etc., all derived from the breakdown or half-life of certain elements that can be measured and factored. The issue with dating schemes that reach into the millions of years is how does one calibrate the dating equipment? We simply have no means of doing so, and in fact, the calibration process is somewhat derived from a very circular argument -- a "known" date is assessed via a layer of rock, which is itself dated by certain measures, and the circle goes round and round -- the rock is dated by the machine, which is dated by the rock.

Note that, if any persons are reading this with a true background in science, I have MAJORLY simplified the argument to its most essential two points. I am well aware that there are a LOT of other factors.

 

Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

It doesn't get much plainer than that. If that verse is not true, then God's Word is not to be trusted, for creation itself is based on a lie. I believe the verse is true.

Everything in heaven that was created, everything in earth that was created, and everything in the sea that was created was created in the six days of creation recorded in God's Word.

In Ezekiel 28, we read that Lucifer was created by God, and that he was in the garden of Eden. Even Lucifer himself, who was at one time in the heaven but was cast down to earth, was created within the six day timeframe of creation.

Those teeth cannot out-date the first day of creation. It is not that God is deceiving gap theorists by planting seemingly older things in the earth. It is that man has allowed himself into believing a teaching contrary to the Word of God that fossils and bones are hundreds of thousands or millions of years old.

 

>The only problem with the scenario that you lay out is that somehow, the teeth (and other things like fossils) need to have been "planted" into the ground by God with the appearance (and testing) of great age, therefore making God out to be somewhat the deceiver, though we KNOW He is not.

If God was a liar would he tell us?

 

Perhaps God is sending a strong delusion so they might believe a lie.

 

There is another choice: to read the verse, indeed the whole passage, as a poetic, mythological portrayal that is prescientific and which was never intended to be history in our modern sense. It's not about being correct; it's about being true as metahistory. To hold that stance is not to call the Scripture a lie, not at all; it is to probe it for its deeper intent rather than to dwell on the surface descriptions.