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Again how do they know that this world wide flood happened 200,000 years ago? The only way they can come to that conclusion is by geological guesses and thermoluminescence dating.
I won’t argue that the entire world was under water because both the Greek and Hebrew words that are translated to “world” can mean either an entire population or region.
I will let scientists and academia to deal with it. I do not want to invest years of my life to studying this specialized topic. Without that, I am not able to comment on any similar texts.If anyone is interested in understanding why I don’t trust the dating methods here’s why.
If you’re really interested read the first 3 paragraphs from this link and that will show you just how unreliable is actually is. This is from Wikipedia not some YEC website or some unknown source.
Radiocarbon dating - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Here’s the most important part.
NOTE: because of the format they used on Wikipedia every time they mentioned C14 it ended up pasting backwards. So where it says 14C it should say C14.
“Research has been ongoing since the 1960s to determine what the proportion of 14C in the atmosphere has been over the past 50,000 years. The resulting data, in the form of a calibration curve, is now used to convert a given measurement of radiocarbon in a sample into an estimate of the sample's calendar age. Other corrections must be made to account for the proportion of 14C in different types of organisms (fractionation), and the varying levels of 14C throughout the biosphere(reservoir effects). Additional complications come from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, and from the above-ground nuclear tests performed in the 1950s and 1960s.
Because the time it takes to convert biological materials to fossil fuels is substantially longer than the time it takes for its 14C to decay below detectable levels, fossil fuels contain almost no 14
C. As a result, beginning in the late 19th century, there was a noticeable drop in the proportion of 14C in the atmosphere as the carbon dioxide generated from burning fossil fuels began to accumulate. Conversely, nuclear testingincreased the amount of 14C in the atmosphere, which reached a maximum in about 1965 of almost double the amount present in the atmosphere prior to nuclear testing.”
The important thing to notice here is how much the level of C14 fluctuates just in the last 70 years. It was noticeably decreased as a result of burning fossil fuels then doubled as a result of nuclear testing. Then there’s different amounts in different biomes and different types of organic materials. The readings are all over the place and they have no idea what took place during the last 6,000 years that would also affect the C14 amounts. Furthermore they can only guess at what the amounts were 6,000 years ago. If the planet was created 6,000 years ago one would expect the levels of C14 to be on the extreme low side making everything they test near that period of time to appear to be much older than it actually is. Scientists don’t believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago so their calibration is based on the assumption of C14 levels being much higher than what they actually would’ve been which would naturally make everything appear to be much older than it actually is because of the low C14 count. This is why I keep saying that the dating methods are based on IF X, Y, & Z are true then the earth is X amount of years old. They’re not basing their calibration on the earth being 6,000 years old because they think that idea is ridiculous so they’re not expecting a very low amount of C14 in the atmosphere during that time. If the amount of C14 has drastically changed both decreasing then doubling in just the last 70 years like Wikipedia says then how can they have any idea what it was doing for the last 6,000 years? They’re guessing, that’s all they can do and most of these guesses are coming from geologists guessing at how old sediment layers are where these fossils are found. Thermoluminescence dating has the exact same problems because they have to guess at the amount of heat or radiation an object has been exposed to in order to measure the crystalline decay. Neither of these methods are reliable because of the huge absence of data that has to be filled in with nothing more than their best guess.
SDA are quite rare in the US. Anyway I provided a credible link showing the unreliability of carbon dating and my only point is that YEC is still plausible. If scientists are right then Genesis 1 is wrong, Exodus 20:11 is wrong, the genealogies are wrong, and 1 Corinthians 15:45 is wrong. The six day creation is wrong, the age of the earth is wrong, and the first man is wrong. That’s what science is telling us.
"Not literal" does not equal to "wrong". Its scientifically wrong, but thats not the point of Genesis, anyway.
Quote them and underline them saying its a historical fact, thanks.
If it wasn’t intended to be precise then it wouldn’t have been written precisely. The author didn’t have to include the genealogy records. He didn’t have to include the amount of time it took for each day of creation. The purpose for including those details was to give a detailed record of what took place, otherwise those details could’ve been left out and the entire first chapter could’ve been summed up in verse 1.
The days are not "precise", its just a repetitive pattern of the creation drama/story.
I don't have an interpretation - I just read the book of Genesis as given to us. You on the otherhand do not believe it to be factual but rather mythical. What is your basis that God gave us a mythical account of Creation instead of the actual account of Creation?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you - but the Bible does give us a detailed Chronology - which allows us to date Creation from Adam to modern time. Which calculates to 6000 years. What's your concern with that? Adam was created when the world was created.One of the huge mistakes we see YEC arguments making several times in the thread is a direct false claim in a wording like:
"The Bible says that the earth is 6,000 years old."
Which is entirely false.
There is no such verse specifying an age of the Earth in the Bible, nor any verse even slightly like that (even to generally suggest something like 'thousands of years old' or such) anywhere in the Bible.
To do the man-made project (not done in scripture) of devising an age for the Earth using the Bible, it's necessary to add in extra ideas which are not in scripture.
Just one example of that bringing in of extra ideas not in scripture:
To get an age of 6,000 something years for Earth, it's necessary to assume (or claim) that The Garden of Eden didn't last a really long time... -- even though there is no basis anywhere in scripture for such an alien idea as a short time duration for the Garden of Eden.
Instead, if we do try to look at any indication (there is no clear indication), the only one hint we do have suggests possibly a very long duration of time:
In the center of the Garden was the Tree of Life.
This Tree:
Eden Restored
22 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations...." -- Bible Gateway passage: Revelation 22 - New International Version
As in the beginning, so also in the end: the Tree of Life, eternity, eternal life...
That's what we do have to make any guess about how much time might have passed in the Garden: Adam was there, not even mortal yet -- not yet subject to age and die!.....
So, if we make any guess at all for how long Eden lasted then....we should not guess it was a short time.
It could have been 10,000 years.
Or more.
So, YEC uses assumptions that are not-in-the-Bible....
Worse, it's often preached .... so it can become very easily for some a 'tradition of men', where it's given way more importance than any such man made doctrine should ever be given:
Bible Gateway passage: Mark 7:1-9 - New International Version
That Which Defiles - The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial...www.biblegateway.com
So, I hope YEC passionate people will realize the danger there! If you get caught up preaching this YEC ideology, you end up making a 'tradition of man', and it's not what we are instructed to be doing.
Its the genre of the time and place. There was no factual history genre in those times. Why is it so hard to grasp (for some American Christians) that the Bible was not written in our era and so it does not fit into our modern reading mindset. You cannot read it as todays newspapers.
What do you consider to be precise? You do realize that they didn’t have minutes or seconds back then right?
This doesn’t tell me anything other than pagans had genealogies. I don’t see how this is relevant to the discussion.
