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Carbon 14 -- The Solution to Dating David and Solomon?
Biblical Archaeology Review ^ | May/Jun 2009 BAR 35:03 | Lily Singer-Avitz

Posted on 08/01/2009 6:58:42 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

According to the so-called high chronology, the transition occurred around 1000 or 980 B.C.E. It is generally recognized that David conquered Jerusalem in about 1000 B.C.E. According to the low chronology, the transition to Iron Age IIa occurred around 920-900 B.C.E. Other opinions place the transition somewhere between the two -- in about 950 B.C. The date is important because the date you choose will determine whether David and Solomon reigned in the archaeologically poor and archaeologically poorly documented Iron I or in the comparatively rich and richly documented Iron IIa. However, the differences in data between the various schools are not dramatically far apart. They range between 30 and 80 years... This question is sharpened in light of the fact that the uncertainty in the usual radiocarbon readings (plus or minus 25 years or so) may be as large as the difference in dates in the debate. The radiocarbon dating has several serious difficulties: (1) Sample selection... (2) Outliers... (3) Calibration... (4) Standard deviation... (5) Statistics... (6) Other considerations.

(Excerpt) Read more at bib-arch.org ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; david; davidrohl; godsgravesglyphs; hatzor; hazor; letshavejerusalem; rohl; science; solomon; telhatzor
first is a dead link, but easily found with The Wayback Machine:
Did Joshua Destroy Canaanite Hatzor?
by Clarence H. Wagner, Jr.
However, when Ben-Tor began his excavations in 1990 he came upon a palace near Yadin's which he dated, by means of its ceramics, to a few hundred years later - that is, to the last half of the second millennium or Late Bronze (LB) period... "We had taken it for granted that there were two palaces," he says. "I now think Yadin erred and that the palace whose corner he excavated may perhaps be part of the same Late Bronze palace we've been excavating, not an earlier palace from the Middle Bronze period. It will take another two weeks of digging next season to prove it, one way or the other."
The Burning Of Hazor
by Abraham Rabinovich and Neil Asher Silberman
The Egyptians could be responsible. Pharaoh Seti I, in an inscription describing his military campaign against Canaan ca. 1300 B.C., claimed to have destroyed Hazor. Another possibility is that Ramses II could have conquered the city, either on his way northward to Syria before the Battle of Kadesh in 1275 B.C. or on his return to Egypt afterward. Yet Ben-Tor believes that the intentional smashing of statues at Hazor, particularly those of the Egyptian kings, makes these possibilities unlikely. He also dismisses the likelihood of destruction at the hands of a rival Canaanite city-state because of the apparent absence of nearby cities powerful enough to attack Hazor. As for the Sea Peoples, Ben-Tor notes that not a single sherd of their distinctive decorated pottery has been found in the city, which is much further inland than the sites they are known to have conquered. That leaves the Israelites. The discovery of an archive at Hazor might pinpoint the date of the city's destruction, or provide information about the historical situation in Canaan in the years immediately preceding the Israelite settlement.

1 posted on 08/01/2009 6:58:43 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: 75thOVI; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; BBell; ...
one of *those* topics.
 
Catastrophism
 
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2 posted on 08/01/2009 6:59:14 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·

 
Gods
Graves
Glyphs
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
 

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3 posted on 08/01/2009 6:59:29 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: SunkenCiv

Title sounds like its from a Dear Abby column.


4 posted on 08/01/2009 7:00:22 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: SunkenCiv

ah clues on dating David & Solomon.. great. I am pretty new to Match.com .. do you think they are listed?

LOL.. thanks as usual for the great articles & pings! Have a splendid weekend


5 posted on 08/01/2009 7:01:25 AM PDT by DollyCali (Don't tell GOD how big your storm is -- Tell the storm how B-I-G your God is!you)
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To: SunkenCiv
For Dating King David why don't they just look in Bathsheba's Diary? ... everyone knows women write everything down.

As for King Soloman, they should check what the Queen of Sheeba wrote about him. IMO his wives are out of the question as he had 700 of them. Not to mention 300 concubines (Sheesh, can you imagine his alimony payments!?!)


6 posted on 08/01/2009 7:15:51 AM PDT by Condor51 (The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits)
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To: Condor51

“Sheesh, can you imagine his alimony payments!?..”

I have to admit with 700 wives and 300 concubines, alimony was not the first thing to enter my mind. Dating 3 women at 1 time ran me into the ground, and that was when I was in my early twenties. When did he sleep?-—JM


7 posted on 08/01/2009 7:24:54 AM PDT by Jubal Madison (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: zot

David and Solomon. When were they at HolLoman?


8 posted on 08/01/2009 7:43:49 AM PDT by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
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To: 9YearLurker

carbon 14 is the biggest science scam next to global warming. its all based on the assumption that the carbon level was 14 2 thousand years ago and we know that is not true. its not even 14 now its like 16 or 17 yet these so called scientist still try to pawn this crap on us


9 posted on 08/01/2009 8:48:13 AM PDT by remaxagnt (`)
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To: SunkenCiv

The solution is that David and Solomon did not live in either Iron Age I or Iron Age II. They lived in the Late Bronze Age, which was richer than both. As Immanuel Velikovshy, John Bimson and David Rohl point out, the Late Bronze Age was probably placed too early, due to faulty chronologies and bad carbon-14 readings. Just move the Late Bronze Age a few centuries closer to us, and bingo! Problem solved.


10 posted on 08/01/2009 9:54:19 AM PDT by Berosus (I wish I had as much faith in God as liberals have in government.)
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To: GreyFriar

Thanks for the ping. The article is a thoughtful discussion of the uncertainties in Carbon-14 testing.


11 posted on 08/01/2009 5:23:02 PM PDT by zot
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To: Berosus

In addition, as dating systems go, the division into “ages” isn’t one. :’)


12 posted on 08/02/2009 4:22:34 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: remaxagnt

What you wrote is not true.

Carbon-14 is an isotope of regular Carbon, which is Carbon-12.

Carbon-14 is a little radioactive (and scarce) and primarily the product of various rays as they run through the atmosphere and collide with nitrogen. Nitrogen is 78 per cent of the atmosphere, and the collisions (not all, some) produce Carbon-14 from Nitrogen-14.

Carbon-14 has a steady decay rate, and turns back into Nitrogen-14. After about 45,000 years C14 vanishes from organic samples formerly containing C14, leaving only C12 (and a trace of the other stable isotope, C13 which makes up about 1 per cent of the Earth’s known carbon supply).

By measuring the ratio of C12 to C14 — in an organic sample, nothing else — the time between the accumulation of the C14 by the formerly living thing (wood from a tree, sometimes ash from combusted materials, etc) and the present (actually 1950, when the technique was pioneered) can be closely estimated, with a pretty good idea of the margin of error.

One of the assumptions underlying radiocarbon dating is that the rate of C14 formation and accumulation remains basically steady. That’s been undermined by tree ring dendrochronology (using a series of tree rings, each RC dated, to build up a continuous series of dates starting with current rings and going back through overlapping samples into trees that died centuries or millennia ago), as well as by other proxy data (coral reefs accumulate C14 and build up in layers that can be discerned). Dendrochronology is itself less than 100 per cent trustworthy because of differing growth rates (i.e., not all trees add rings during a drought, and not all trees in the same general area experience the same droughts) and (in my view) meddling by those who think the calibrated dates should use existing biases as baselines.


13 posted on 08/02/2009 4:52:40 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: 9YearLurker; DollyCali; Condor51; Jubal Madison; GreyFriar

:’)


14 posted on 08/02/2009 4:55:05 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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a collection of old links from an old file. There are a bunch of FR topics about this, however. :')
Carbon clock could show the wrong time
A study led by physicist Warren Beck of the University of Arizona discovered an enormous peak in the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere between 45 thousand and 11 thousand years ago. Living organisms and some geological features absorb stable carbon-12 and radioactive carbon-14, which are present in the air in a well-known ratio. Scientists use carbon dating to determine when objects ceased to absorb carbon by measuring how much of the carbon-14 - which has a half-life of 5730 years - has decayed. Beck and colleagues tested slices of a half-metre long stalagmite that grew between 45 000 and 11 000 years ago in a cave in the Bahamas. Galactic cosmic rays create most of the carbon-14 in our atmosphere, while solar cosmic rays generate a smaller fraction. The Earth is partially shielded from galactic cosmic rays by its own magnetic field and the solar magnetic field, which fluctuates as the solar cycle proceeds. These effects are predictable and are thought to have changed little in the last million years - which means they cannot explain the glut of carbon-14. The team speculates that a supernova shock wave could have produced a flurry of cosmic rays.
The Testimony of Radiocarbon Dating
and The Pitfalls of Radiocarbon Dating
by Immanuel Velikovsky

Stalagmite discovery throws doubt on carbon dating
by Charles Arthur Technology Editor

Carbon Dating Revision May Rewrite History

Dating study 'means human history rethink'

Carbon dating 'might be wrong by 10,000 years'
by Roger Highfield, Science Editor

Radiometric Dating: An Exercise in Faith
by Mark E. Howerter

15 posted on 08/02/2009 7:17:05 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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