Posted on 06/14/2002 7:32:58 AM PDT by aculeus
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Part of International Research Group Refuting Popular Theory
In 1996, marine geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman published a scientifically popular hypothesis, titled Noah's Flood Hypothesis. The researchers presented evidence of a bursting flood about 7,500 years ago in what is now the Black Sea. This, some say, supports the biblical story of Noah and the flood.
But, such a forceful flood could not have taken place, says Jun Abrajano, professor of earth and environmental sciences at Rensselaer. He is part of an international team of scientists who refute the so-called Noah's Flood Hypothesis.
Abrajano cites evidence of a much more gradual rising of the Black Sea that began to occur 10,000 years ago and continued for 2,000 years.
According to the Noah's Flood Hypothesis, the Black Sea was a freshwater lake separated from the Mediterranean Sea by a narrow strip of land now broken by the Bosporus Strait. Ryan and Pittman argue that the Mediterranean broke through the land and inundated the Black Sea with more than 200 times the force of Niagara Falls. The salty powerful flood swiftly killed the freshwater mollusks in the Black Sea. This, they say, accounts for fossil remains that can be dated back 7,500 years.
Abrajano's team has challenged the theory by studying sediments from the Marmara Sea, which sits next to the Black Sea and opens into the Mediterranean.
The team found a rich mud, called sapropel in the Marmara. The mud provides evidence that there has been sustained interaction between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea for at least 10,000 years.
"For the Noah's Ark Hypothesis to be correct, one has to speculate that there was no flowing of water between the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea before the speculated great deluge," says Abrajano. "We have found this to be incorrect."
GSA (Geological Society of America) Today magazine recently published a paper in its May 2002 edition based on Abrajano's research. His research also will be published this year in Marine Geology, an international science journal.
For a map of the area go to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/maps/tu-map.jpg
Because GOD cursed the ground, not humans. But I warn you my interpretations are just that, mine. I take them from my own literal readings. I believe that most of the fundamentalists are not reading it literally enough.
I believe the bible is written so that it be understood on several levels at once and one of those levels is the literal. I sometimes use the idea of a prism. You might see red and I might see green from the same prism and we are both right but the original light is white.
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It is common knowledge among honest evolutionists today that Darwin's concept of gradualism via natural selection is no longer accepted in the realm of academia to explain the fossil record. Allow me to briefly exemplify by letting the following evolutionists speak for themselves:
[Stanley, Steven M., 'Macroevolution: Pattern and Process' (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1979), 332p.]
The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that the gradualistic model can be valid. (p.39)
[Raup, David M., "Evolution and the Fossil Record," 'Science,' vol. 213 (July 17, 1981)]
So, the geological time scale and the basic facts of biological change over time are totally independent of evolution theory. (p.289)
[Ridley, Mark, "Who Doubts Evolution?" 'New Scientist,' vol.90 (June 25, 1981), pp.830-832. Ridley was in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University.]
In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualistic or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation....(p.831)
This being the case, the Bible alone provides the only satisfactory (and scientifically acceptable) historical explanation for the myriad of lifeforms catastrophically encased in water-deposited, sedimentary rock found at all altitudes and on all continents--a global Flood! In Genesis 6:17, the LORD warns of this hydraulic cataclysm which would overtake all terrestrial life on the planet (except for those on the Ark), eventually burying, preserving, and ultimately fossilizing a great many of them in the sediments according to their respective ecological elevations.
"And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die." (Gen.6:17; read also Gen.7:17-24 and 2 Peter 3:3-6)
Thus, though the word "fossil" is not used in the Bible, the Scriptures do record their cause, a prediction of creation-science which can be verified by observation and study.
Sincerely,
David V. Bassett, M.S
. CEM Staff Writer
At the heart of the topic is scientists attempting to prove or disprove the Noah story. Why you would think that such a topic should be devoid of text that generated the story is amazing.
______________________
Q: What is the Biblical age of the earth?
A: The biblical age of the Earth (using Scripture itself as a guide) is 6,000 years !
Beginning with the archeological landmark event of the fall of Jerusalem (which has now been corrected to 588 B.C., instead of 586-587 B.C.) and counting backwards the prophesied number of years between this event and the division of Solomon's kingdom (390 yrs. + 40 yrs., according to Ezek.4:4-7), brings us to 1018 B.C.
From the end of Solomon's 40-year reign to the start of the Temple in the 4th year of his reign takes us back another 37 years to 1055 B.C.
From the start of Solomon's Temple "in the 480th year" (1 Kings 6:1) back to the Exodus from Egypt (hence 479 years previous) brings us to near 1534 B.C.
From the Exodus out of Egypt to Abraham's entering Canaan from Haran was exactly 430 years to the day (Gen. 12:10/ Exod. 12:40/ Gal. 3:17), thus around 1964 B.C.
Since Abraham entered Canaan at age 75 (Gen. 12:4), he was born approximately 2039 B.C.
From Abraham's birth to Noah's grandson (Shem's son), Arpachshad's birth, 2 years after the Flood started, was 290 years (Gen. 11:11-26), this places the onset of the Flood at around 2331 B.C. [definitely 4,300-4,400 years ago].
The genealogy of Genesis 5:3-32 precludes any gaps due to its tight chronological structure and gives us 1,656 years between Creation and the Flood, thus bringing Creation Week back to near 3987 B.C. or approximately 4000 B.C.
Therefore, the biblical age of the Earth (using Scripture itself as a guide) is 6,000 years !! Mankind did not evolve 4 million years ago on an Earth which is 4.5 billion years old in a universe which was "big-banged" into existence 18-20 billion years in the distant past. Jesus Christ, the Creator Incarnate, said He made mankind male and female in the beginning (Mark 10:6), and that when the heavens and the earth were commanded into being (Gen.1:1), they "stood up together" (Isa. 48:13) not billions of years apart !!
Will do a little more later; this does interest me, as it turns up all over MOST religions. I've seen it mentioned many times in documentaries about religions.
The site is a PDF site, requires Acrobat Reader. At the bottom right of the first page it does talk about the number 40 possibly referring to an undetermined length of time. Hope it helps.
I might not form my request correctly, but this "evidence" refutes the "old earth" notion as well as does the U.G. oil reserves article posted a few weeks past...
Peace,
Az
This is not the same flood. The writers assume that the Biblical account was based on an ancient flood, a black sea flood. The new evidence suggests that the black sea was never flooded. It has nothing to do with the Bible's account.
by Dr. Russell Humphreys
Here are a dozen natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old. The numbers I list below in bold print (often millions of years) are maximum possible ages set by each process, not the actual ages. The numbers in italics are the ages required by evolutionary theory for each item. The point is that the maximum possible ages are always much less than the required evolutionary ages, while the biblical age (6,000 to 10,000 years) always fits comfortably within the maximum possible ages. Thus the following items are evidence against the evolutionary time scale and for the biblical time scale.
Much more young-world evidence exists, but I have chosen these items for brevity and simplicity. Some of the items on this list can be reconciled with an old universe only by making a series of improbable and unproven assumptions; others can fit in only with a young universe. The list starts with distant astronomic phenomena and works its way down to earth, ending with everyday facts.
1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast
The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1
Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this "the winding-up dilemma," which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same "winding-up" dilemma also applies to other galaxies.
For the last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the dilemma has been a complex theory called "density waves." 1 The theory has conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and lately has been called into serious question by the Hubble Space Telescope's discovery of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the "Whirlpool" galaxy, M51.2
2. Comets disintegrate too quickly
According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about 5 billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of 10,000 years.3 Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical "Oort cloud" well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed.4 So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations.
Lately, there has been much talk of the "Kuiper Belt," a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Even if some bodies of ice exist in that location, they would not really solve the evolutionists' problem, since according to evolutionary theory the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it.
3. Not enough mud on ocean floor
Each year, water and winds erode about 25 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.5 This material accumulates as loose sediment (i.e., mud) on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the mud in the whole ocean, including the continental shelves, is less than 400 meters.6 The main way known to remove the mud from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year.6 As far as anyone knows, the other 24 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present amount of sediment in less than 12 million years. Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged 3 billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with mud dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of mud within a short time about 5000 years ago.
4. Not enough sodium in the sea
Every year, rivers7 and other sources9 dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year.8,9 As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today's input and output rates.9 This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, 3 billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations which are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years.9 Calculations10 for many other sea water elements give much younger ages for the ocean. 5. The earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast
The total energy stored in the earth's magnetic field has steadily decreased by a factor of 2.7 over the past 1000 years.11 Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years, are very complex and inadequate. A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.12 This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data.13 The main result is that the field's total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 10,000 years old.14
6. Many strata are too tightly bent
In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time scale says these formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of years before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking, with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet and unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding occurred less than thousands of years after deposition.15
7. Injected sandstone shortens geologic "ages"
Strong geologic evidence16 exists that the Cambrian Sawatch sandstone - formed an alleged 500 million years ago - of the Ute Pass fault west of Colorado Springs was still unsolidified when it was extruded up to the surface during the uplift of the Rocky Mountains, allegedly 70 million years ago. It is very unlikely that the sandstone would not solidify during the supposed 430 million years it was underground. Instead, it is likely that the two geologic events were less than hundreds of years apart, thus greatly shortening the geologic time scale.
8. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic "ages" to a few years
Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay.17 "Squashed" Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart as required by the conventional time scale18 "Orphan" Polonium-218 radiohalos, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply either instant creation or drastic changes in radioactivity decay rates.19,20
9. Helium in the wrong places
All naturally-occurring families of radioactive elements generate helium as they decay. If such decay took place for billions of years, as alleged by evolutionists, much helium should have found its way into the earth's atmosphere. The rate of loss of helium from the atmosphere into space is calculable and small. Taking that loss into account, the atmosphere today has only 0.05% of the amount of helium it would have accumulated in 5 billion years.21 This means the atmosphere is much younger than the alleged evolutionary age. A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that helium produced by radioactive decay in deep, hot rocks has not had time to escape. Though the rocks are supposed to be over one billion years old, their large helium retention suggests an age of only thousands of years.22
10. Not enough stone age skeletons
Evolutionary anthropologists say that the stone age lasted for at least 100,000 years, during which time the world population of Neanderthal and Cro-magnon men was roughly constant, between 1 and 10 million. All that time they were burying their dead with artifacts.23 By this scenario, they would have buried at least 4 billion bodies.24 If the evolutionary time scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last for much longer than 100,000 years, so many of the supposed 4 billion stone age skeletons should still be around (and certainly the buried artifacts). Yet only a few thousand have been found. This implies that the stone age was much shorter than evolutionists think, a few hundred years in many areas.
11. Agriculture is too recent
The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and gatherers for 100,000 years during the stone age before discovering agriculture less than 10,000 years ago.23 Yet the archaeological evidence shows that stone age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very improbable that none of the 4 billion people mentioned in item 10 should discover that plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were without agriculture less than a few hundred years after the flood, if at all.24
12. History is too short
According to evolutionists, stone age man existed for 100,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4000 to 5000 years ago. Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases.25 Why would he wait a thousand centuries before using the same skills to record history? The biblical time scale is much more likely.24
References
1. Scheffler, H. and H. Elsasser, Physics of the Galaxy and Interstellar Matter , Springer-Verlag (1987) Berlin, pp. 352-353, 401-413.
2. D. Zaritsky et al, Nature, July 22, 1993. Sky & Telescope, December 1993, p. 10.
3. Steidl, P. F., "Planets, comets, and asteroids," Design and Origins in Astronomy , pp. 73-106, G. Mulfinger, ed., Creation Research Society Books (1983) 5093 Williamsport Dr., Norcross, GA 30092.
4. Whipple, F. L., "Background of modern comet theory," Nature 263 (2 Sept .1976) 15.
5. Gordeyev, V. V. et al , "The average chemical composition of suspensions in the world's rivers and the supply of sediments to the ocean by streams," Dockl. Akad. Nauk. SSSR 238 (1980) 150.
6. Hay, W.. W., et al, 'Mass/age distribution and composition of sediments on the ocean floor and the global rate of subduction,' Journal of Geophysical Research, 93, No B12 (10 December 1988) 14,933-14,940.
7. Maybeck, M., "Concentrations des eaux fluviales en elements majeurs et apports en solution aux oceans," Rev. de Geol. Dyn. Geogr. Phys. 21 (1979) 215.
8. Sayles, F. L. and P. C. Mangelsdorf, "Cation-exchange characteristics of Amazon River suspended sediment and its reaction with seawater," Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 41 (1979) 767.
9. Austin, S. A. and D. R. Humphreys, "The sea's missing salt: a dilemma for evolutionists," Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991) in press. Address, ref.12.
10. Austin, S. A., "Evolution: the oceans say no!," ICR Impact No. 8 (Oct. 1973) Institute for Creation Research, address in ref. 21.
11. Merrill, R. T. and M. W. McElhinney, The Earth's Magnetic Field , Academic Press (1983) London, pp. 101-106.
12. Humphreys, D. R., "Reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the Genesis flood," Proc. 1st Internat. Conf. on Creationism (Aug. 1986, Pittsburgh) Creation Science Fellowship (1987) 362 Ashland Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15228, Vol. II, pp. 113-126.
13. Coe, R. S.., M. Pr=E9vot, and P. Camps, "New evidence for extraordinarily rapid change of the geomagnetic field during a reversal," Nature 374 (20 April 1995) pp. 687-92.
14. Humphreys, D. R., "Physical mechanism for reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the flood,"Proc. 2nd Intern. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991) (ref. 12).
15. Austin, S. A. and J. D. Morris, "Tight folds and clastic dikes as evidence for rapid deposition and deformation of two very thick stratigraphic sequences," Proc. 1st Internat. Conf. on Creationism Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1986) pp.3-15. Address in ref. 12.
16. Ibid, pp. 11-12.
17. Gentry, R. V., "Radioactive halos," Annual Review of Nuclear Science 23(1973) 347-362.
18. Gentry, R. V. et al, "Radiohalos in coalified wood: new evidence relating to time of uranium introduction and coalification," Science 194 (15 Oct.1976) 315-318.
19. Gentry, R. V., "Radiohalos in a Radiochronological and cosmological perspective," Science 184 (5 Apr. 1974) 62-66.
20. Gentry, R. V., Creation's Tiny Mystery, Earth Science Associates (1986)P.O. Box 12067, Knoxville, TN 37912-0067, pp. 23-37, 51-59, 61-62.
21. Vardiman, L., The Age of the Earth's Atmosphere: a study of the helium flux through the atmosphere, Institute for Creation Research (1990) P.O.Box2667, El Cajon, CA 92021.
22. Gentry, R. V. et al, "Differential Helium Retention in Zircons: implications for nuclear waste management," Geophys. Res. Lett. 9 (Oct. 1982) 1129-1130. See also ref. 20, pp. 169-170.
23. Deevey, E. S., "The Human Population," Scientific American 203 (Sept. 1960) 194-204.
24. Marshak, A., "Exploring the mind of Ice Age man," Nat. Geog. 147 (Jan.1975) 64-89.
25. Dritt, J. O., "Man's earliest beginnings: discrepancies in the evolutionary timetable," Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Creat., Vol. I., Creation Science Fellowship (1990) pp. 73-78. Address, ref. 12. Creation Science Fellowship of New Mexico, Inc. P.O. Box 10550, Albuquerque, NM 87184 DRH September, 1999
705 'arba`iym {ar-baw-eem'} multiple of 702; TWOT - 2106b; n,adj pl AV - forty 132, fortieth 4; 136 1) forty
You might make a case that 40 infers many but it is the literal translation.
What I find interesting is that 40 weeks is the human gestation period.
1 Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2.
Secondly, forty may be the translation, so what? Yes, they WRITE forty,
no one disputes that. It's what they MEANT by forty that is in dispute.
Might I suggest that you check out The Genesis Flood by John Whitcomb and Henry Morris. While it's not intended to answer all questions or objections, it might answer a lot of your questions. For example the Bible does not say two of every species, it says 2 of each kind, an important difference.
That a maker is required for anything that is made is a lesson Sir Isaac Newton was able to teach forcefully to an atheist-scientist friend of his. Sir Isaac had an accomplished artisan fashion for him a small scale model of our solar system which was to be put in a room in Newton’s home when completed. The assignment was finished and installed on a large table. The workman had done a very commendable job, simulating not only the various sizes of the planets and their relative proximities, but also so constructing the model that everything rotated and orbited when a crank was turned. It was an interesting, even fascinating work, as you can image, particularly to anyone schooled in the sciences.
Newton’s atheist-scientist friend came by for a visit. Seeing the model, he was naturally intrigued, and proceeded to examine it with undisguised admiration for the high quality of the workmanship. ‘My! What an exquisite thing this is!’ he exclaimed. ‘Who made it?’ Paying little attention to him, Sir Isaac answered, ‘Nobody.’
Stopping his inspection, the visitor turned and said: ‘Evidently you did not understand my question. I asked who made this. Newton, enjoying himself immensely no doubt, replied in a still more serious tone. ‘Nobody. What you see just happened to assume the form it now has.’ ‘You must think I am a fool!’ the visitor retorted heatedly, ‘Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius, and I would like to know who he is.’
Newton then spoke to his friend in a polite yet firm way: ‘This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?’
Sir Isaac Newton Solar System Story (from the book: ‘The Truth: God or evolution?’ by Marshall and Sandra Hall, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI)
No, not exactly. The Hebrew word used there that shows up in the King James & others as 'world' is eretz (land). This is one of those cases where it takes a little smarts to figure things out. In the obvious case that the whole world was not flooded, it would be better to translate that passage as just the general land area where Noah lived was flooded. Others have mentioned the olive branch and such, but don't forget the Egyptians and Chinese were around then, circa 2300 BC, and didn't get wiped out, though the Chinese do record a flood about this time in the western province of Xinjiang (Tarim basin, which was an inland sea for nearly 2000 years, also the location of red & blond haired mummies that no one seems to know who they were and where they came from).
Even if ti is two of each kind that would still be some enormous boat! Maybe too enormous.
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