Posted on 02/09/2011 7:22:36 AM PST by decimon
Just so. Dry places, the right kind of caves, and so forth. Which doesn’t mean that the finds we have aren’t valuable evidence, but that that evidence has statistical limitations that need to be kept in mind.
Actually the creation date of 4004 BC was NOT traditional all through the middle ages. Some estimates had been made close to that date, but it was not until Bishop Ussher did a vast amount of calculating that he came up with his October 23, 4004 BC date around 1670 which was well in the Renaissance. And it was not publicized officially until around 1700. He calculated his figure using the ages quoted in the Bible, such as the statement that Adam fathered a child at 130 years old, and lived around 900 years. A number of other extreme ages which are no longer deemed credible were used. His month, day figure was a guess based on the fruiting times of certain plants. Did he use English maturation data or Middle East data? At any rate, here is a link that goes into great detail on the calculation and related arguments.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/ussher.html
This could take a bite out of the Out of Africa theory.
Well, actually, the millinarian thinking goes back at least to the year 1000, when many expected the world to end. And I don’t have the exact dates, but the theory of several millenial ages, of 2000 years each, for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, also goes back to the middle ages.
Archbishop Usher made that 4-year adjustment to the numbers, but that was relatively minor.
Yes, there is a better than even chance that creation is going on as you read this. Genesis does not say that God stopped creating, only that he rested on the 7th day.
The out of Africa theory is a piece of over hydrated concrete. It was postulated to support a lot of extinct monkeys in Northeast Africa.
There is no Biblical authority for the date of Jesus' birth. I submit that his birth is relatively unimportant, as all me are born. What is important isn't even that he died on the cross either (stay with me!), as all men die.
What he did is come back of his own accord, THAT is unique. THAT is THE defining moment of Christianity. Even his Disciples doubted until they knew he had risen.
And it is also an event that the Bible precisely dates!
There's where our calendar should start, with the day of resurrection, not with something so common as a birth, but with a singular rebirth.
Extra bonus points:
That means this isn't the 2011th Year of Redemption.
And that means we haven't yet reached the True Millennium yet, either...
That was an incisive comment.
Well, actually, the question of when Jesus was born is based on various passages in the synoptic gospels, such as Luke 2:
1And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.
2(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
And so forth. Piece that together with similar passages in the other gospels, including those about the conception of John the Baptist (the gospels tell us that Mary visited Elizabeth while the two of them were pregnant).
The results can, and have been argued. The usual estimate is that the Anno Domini system was off by four years, but some argue it was off by up to seven years.
But we can pin it down to a time when Augustus was Emperor, Herod was King of Judaea, and so forth. Then there are early extra-biblical sources as well, such as Joseph of Arimathea. Altogether, the date can be pinned down to within a few years, at least.
Yes. that more-or-less pins down the year, but we know to a certainty it wasn’t Dec 25.
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