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Author Topic:   Research for a book - Survey of various dating methods
damoncasale
Member (Idle past 4825 days)
Posts: 41
From: Seffner, FL, USA
Joined: 12-09-2010


Message 45 of 82 (595954)
12-11-2010 2:30 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Percy
12-11-2010 1:46 PM


Why can't you? From the little I've seen from you, which is just what's in this thread and your book reviews over at Amazon, you seem highly credulous. With a credulous approach the possibility that a comet was responsible for the Younger Dryas extinction becomes the basis for drawing time correlations with a supernova and concluding that was the cause. Speculation piles upon speculation. This is why I don't believe you can take a balanced approach.
IMHO, I think you're only seeing "credulousness" in me because you're so used to dealing with other forum posters who *are* credulous and easily swayed into believing far-out theories. As far as there being insufficient evidence to come to a firm conclusion on the cause of the end of the last Ice Age and the beginning of the Younger Dryas, I agree with you. And it seems to me that no matter what I've said up to this point, you don't really believe that I can be objective enough to take that position.
But this conversation is getting us nowhere. And in any case, yes I *am* doing original research. It's just not connected with the research I'm currently doing into prehistory, but more along the lines of the cultural context of Genesis 1-3. No one else that I know of has attempted to set this text in its cultural context while taking into account its textual structure as well as symbolism that already exists elsewhere in the bible. Every single analysis I've seen of this text that assumes that it's non-literal always, without fail, injects a modern interpretation into it.
As far as what my purpose in writing this book is, it's not necessarily to do a scholarly work, but neither is it to write from a pseudoscientific perspective, like authors like Graham Hancock and others of his ilk have done. It's to write a book which takes a conservative approach to certain issues of science, history and prehistory, while tying them into issues of faith and morality, for the purpose of building a bridge between those who approach the origin of civilization from a faith-based perspective and those who approach it from a scientific perspective. But until I write the book, it sounds like I'm not going to have any degree of confidence -- at least from several of the posters that I've interacted with on this forum -- that I'll be able to take that conservative approach.
So we'll see.
I'm still waiting to see if there are any other recommendations of various different dating methods that I can cover in the book. So far I've gotten:
* Radiocarbon
* Radiometric
* Potassium/argon
* Milankovitch cycles
* Astronomical dating is unreliable
But that's about it. Anything else?
Damon

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Percy, posted 12-11-2010 1:46 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 46 by lyx2no, posted 12-11-2010 3:41 PM damoncasale has replied
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damoncasale
Member (Idle past 4825 days)
Posts: 41
From: Seffner, FL, USA
Joined: 12-09-2010


Message 47 of 82 (595973)
12-11-2010 6:04 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by lyx2no
12-11-2010 3:41 PM


Re: Dating What?
May I ask what prehistoric events you're talking about the dating of? It seems to me that the only prehistoric events that we know of are those brought to us through scientific investigations and would have little, if any, connection to Genesis or the Bible. Are you suggesting that the writers of Genesis knew about the ice age?
Because I believe Genesis 1-3 to be non-literal and that Adam and Eve were not the first humans in existence, I want to put Genesis 1-3 into its proper cultural context. Basically, I want to compare the biblical creation account with the cultures and religious beliefs of Egypt and Sumer.
In order to do this properly, though, I want to explore where the peoples of Egypt and Sumer came from and what their religious symbolism has its roots in. I've already mentioned part of what I plan to use as evidence for that -- that the peoples of ancient Egypt and Sumer used astronomical symbolism in their creation mythology to represent actual places on earth, and were therefore explaining in symbolic terms where they had come from -- but I still need to explore things like climate change since the end of the Ice Age, changes in the environment (like the change from savannah to desert in Egypt around roughly 3500 BC; this has ramifications for understanding their theology regarding the afterlife), prehistoric megalithic sites used by the precursors of these two countries (such as Nabta Playa), and so on.
As far as the writers of Genesis knowing about the ice age, no, they concerned themselves with mainly Sumer and its moral relativism (mainly espoused through the worship of the goddess Inanna, equivalent to the Babylonian Ishtar). But nevertheless, odd and unexplained cultural artifacts pop up in various places in the bible that we would need to look to the cultural context to understand. References to the constellations in Job 38:31-32, for instance.
Damon

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by lyx2no, posted 12-11-2010 3:41 PM lyx2no has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 50 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-11-2010 8:26 PM damoncasale has replied
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damoncasale
Member (Idle past 4825 days)
Posts: 41
From: Seffner, FL, USA
Joined: 12-09-2010


Message 57 of 82 (596010)
12-12-2010 8:11 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by Dr Adequate
12-11-2010 8:26 PM


Re: Sidebar: Babylonian "Moral Relativism"
To those that recommended the various dating methods I could cover in my book, thank you!!
Worship of a goddess does not a moral relativist make.
True, but that wasn't the problem.
Unfortunately, I don't have the reference handy for this, but I remember reading that Inanna was described in one of the ancient literary cycles as doing whatever she wished, whether it be good or evil. I assumed that by association, her worshippers would do the same. Also, there was apparently a magical ritual that her worshippers used to symbolically assume different, normally undesirable traits. Anything from gender swapping to a disease was up for grabs, as I recall.
I recently packed away some of my books as I'm looking for a new place to live, and I accidentally packed that one without remembering that I needed it for the book. Oops. As soon as I can dig that back out, I'll post the reference.
Now, we can find in this, implicitly and explicitly, a view which is very far from moral relativism.
True, but note that this is long after the biblical Garden of Eden existed. And remember that even for the Israelites, there were times when they were righteous and times that they were wicked. I'm assuming the same would easily hold true for Babylon. And also, it appears that the Mosaic Law was based in part on the law code of Hammurabi, and that would only happen as a result of recognizing the inherent goodness of that cultural source.
Yes, I actually want to give a balanced view of Egypt and Sumer/Babylon in my book, as you can see above.
Damon
Edited by damoncasale, : No reason given.
Edited by damoncasale, : No reason given.
Edited by damoncasale, : Because it's early and my brain took a little while to percolate.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-11-2010 8:26 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 59 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-12-2010 4:43 PM damoncasale has replied

  
damoncasale
Member (Idle past 4825 days)
Posts: 41
From: Seffner, FL, USA
Joined: 12-09-2010


Message 60 of 82 (596089)
12-12-2010 11:17 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by Dr Adequate
12-12-2010 4:43 PM


Re: Sidebar: Babylonian "Moral Relativism"
I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things. --- Isaiah 45:7
This is a direct reference to Isaiah 10:5. "Oh, Assyrian, the rod of my (god's) anger, and the staff in their hand is my indignation (against Judah)."
Regarding the online Inana texts, it looks like what I'm remembering is from the Hymn to Inana (C):
To run, to escape, to quiet and to pacify are yours, Inana. To rove around, to rush, to rise up, to fall down and to a companion are yours, Inana. To open up roads and paths, a place of peace for the journey, a companion for the weak, are yours, Inana. To keep paths and ways in good order, to shatter earth and to make it firm are yours, Inana. To destroy, to build up, to tear out and to settle are yours, Inana. To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inana. Desirability and arousal, bringing goods into existence and establishing properties and equipment are yours, Inana. Profit, gain, great wealth and greater wealth are yours, Inana. Profit and having success in wealth, financial loss and reduced wealth are yours, Inana. { Observation } { (1 ms. has instead Everything }, choice, offering, inspection and embellishment are yours, Inana. Assigning virility, dignity, guardian angels, protective deities and cult centres are yours, Inana. (6 lines fragmentary)
To diminish, to make great, to make low, to make broad, to and to give a lavish supply are yours, Inana. To bestow the divine and royal rites, to carry out the appropriate instructions, slander, untruthful words, abuse, to speak inimically and to overstate are yours, Inana.
Etc. Also, I remembered a bit more of the original reference. Apparently Inana had ceremonial worshippers called "pili-pili" whose role it was to do ecstatic dances and gyrations, symbolically assuming physical deformities, becoming transgendered, etc. The search mechanism on the site is hard to use. I did find very basic references using "pilipili" as a search term, but it would be helpful if I could see the surrounding context.
To sum up, though, just as later parts of the bible use a polemical approach to describe ethically distasteful practices of the surrounding nations, I propose that Genesis 1-3 is simply doing the same thing, using a different literary style than what is used later on in the bible, but one common to the ancient Near East at that time.
But surely if Genesis contains such allegorical meanings as you suppose, they relate to the time when Genesis was written, not to the time when it was set.
The early parts of Genesis were apparently originally written as a series of clay tablets, around the time that it was set. There are literary artifacts, called toledoth, marking the divisions between these original sections. They're normally translated as "these are the generations of (X)" in the text itself, and each of these marks the end of its respective section. Parallels to this can be found in the genealogical and literary tablets found at Ebla and Mari.
Home - Associates for Biblical Research
Apologies for the blatantly apologetic article (pun not intended). I'm not able to locate an online reference to the book this article quotes, or a sample tablet translation from Ebla. I do have two books on the excavation of Ebla on my bookshelf, but neither one of them give a decent-sized sampling of tablet translations, unfortunately.
Damon
Edited by damoncasale, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-12-2010 4:43 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by Theodoric, posted 12-13-2010 11:39 AM damoncasale has not replied
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 Message 63 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-13-2010 12:29 PM damoncasale has replied

  
damoncasale
Member (Idle past 4825 days)
Posts: 41
From: Seffner, FL, USA
Joined: 12-09-2010


Message 64 of 82 (596144)
12-13-2010 12:58 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Dr Adequate
12-13-2010 12:29 PM


Re: Sidebar: Babylonian "Moral Relativism"
But what was morally distasteful to the Jews in Babylonian practices is not best described by the phrase "moral relativism". Unless you have evidence to the contrary, it seems that the Babylonians, like other primitive peoples, believed in the objective correctness and superiority of their own religion, customs, moral standards, and taboos.
Of course the Babylonians believed their views were superior. And what I'll do in my book is attempt to give an objective view of the cultures and beliefs of Egypt and Sumer/Babylon, in order to give a background to the biblical creation story. As far as the correct usage of the term "moral relativism" goes, it's used today in basically the same way. Those who believe in a higher standard of ethics and morality use this term to describe others who don't aspire to that same standard. Naturally, those others wouldn't see it that way.
From Arachnopihilia's message:
This is a direct reference to Isaiah 10:5. "Oh, Assyrian, the rod of my (god's) anger, and the staff in their hand is my indignation (against Judah)."
"direct" reference might be the wrong word. since isaiah 45 is directed at "cyrus", we're likely dealing with a completely different group for the context.
There is an overarching, double structure to the whole book of Isaiah:
Ruin and Rebirth - chapters 1-5 and 34-35
Rebellion and Compliance - chapters 6-8 and 36-40
Punishment and Deliverance - chapters 9-12 and 41-46:13b
Humiliation and Exaltation - chapters 13-23 and 46:13c-47:15
Suffering and Salvation - chapters 24-27 and 48-54
Disloyalty and Loyalty - chapters 28-31 and 55-59
Disinheritance and Inheritance - chapters 32-33 and 60-66
I excerpted this structure from a book called "The Literary Message of Isaiah" by Avraham Gileadi, page 15. In the book, he refers to it as the "Bifid structure."
The book of Isaiah was written in such a way that the contrasting sections would not only reinforce one another, but in many cases, explain one another and add more details. The reference in Isaiah 45:7 to "creating good" and "making peace" was through the work of Cyrus, in sending the Jews back to their own land. It was contrasted with the work of the Assyrian king Sennacherib who destroyed Judah except for Jerusalem itself. Whether or not the name of Cyrus was in the book originally, what Isaiah basically did was to use this structure to foretell a time in his future when the Jews would be restored to their own land.
Dr. Adequate's original point in bringing up Isaiah 45:7 was to show that there was a parallel between the bible and Sumerian literature, because both deities seemed to claim responsibility for both good and evil. I'm not so sure that that was the intended meaning, here. Inana seems to revel in herself and her followers doing both good and evil, whereas the biblical account explains that "evil," or rather destruction, is a result of wickedness.
As far as starting a new thread to discuss these secondary subjects, you guys can if you want (but link this thread to whatever thread(s) you start, of course). I already got the answers I needed regarding dating methods I should cover in my book, so the purpose of this thread is already fulfilled, for me at least.
Damon

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-13-2010 12:29 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 65 by arachnophilia, posted 12-13-2010 6:54 PM damoncasale has replied
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damoncasale
Member (Idle past 4825 days)
Posts: 41
From: Seffner, FL, USA
Joined: 12-09-2010


Message 67 of 82 (596228)
12-13-2010 9:31 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by arachnophilia
12-13-2010 6:54 PM


Re: Sidebar: Babylonian "Moral Relativism"
considering that those don't break in the same place as textual analysis observes marked stylistic shifts (and thus, different authors), i'm highly skeptical of that point. the second group contains a group of chapters that actually spans proto- and deutero-isaiah.
It's the thesis of Avraham Gileadi that this overall structure demonstrates the unity of the book, as opposed to the book being written at different times by different authors. Until I started attending Torah study at a local synagogue a couple of years ago, I really hadn't looked closely at the issue of the authorship of Isaiah. (They decided not to stop at the end of Deuteronomy one year, and kept going. Now they're studying Isaiah.) They did an excellent job of presenting the view of multiple authorship, so I decided to compare it with the best possible scholarship on the unity of the book. I found reviews of this book (The Literary Message of Isaiah) online and ordered it about a month ago. It turned out to be an incredibly good choice.
As far as there being stylistic differences, there likely are. The book of Isaiah appears to be the work of Isaiah himself, as well as members of his family -- his two sons in particular. (I didn't get that idea from Gileadi, tho. That's from my own research.)
Looking at the chapter break you're referring to, though, you're right in that it looks like the break is supposed to be 36-39 for Rebellion and Compliance and 40-46:13b for Punishment and Deliverance. Isaiah 6-8 illustrate the rebellion of King Ahaz to God's will, whereas Isaiah 36-39 illustrate King Hezekiah's compliance to God's will. Chapter 40 isn't really connected with the subject of compliance to God's will, but more the subject of deliverance from the punishment of captivity.
you will find at least one portrayal of an unjust god in the bible, one who brings evil or destruction upon his faithful for no good reason. this is precisely the argument for the book of job
I see Job differently. The premise of the book of Job appears to be that Job was obeying God out of fear of what would happen if he didn't (Job 3:25), rather than because he simply desired to do good. When Job attempted to judge God for unrighteousness, Elihu argued on God's behalf, and then God picked up the argument towards the end of the book.
You're right, though, that books like Isaiah and Jeremiah have a different view of God creating good or evil. The premise of the Mosaic covenant was that if one kept the Law, one would have long life, prosperity, a guaranteed inheritance in the land of Israel, etc. (That's what Job was expecting, and complained when he got exactly the opposite.) On the other hand, the Assyrians were attacking the Israelites and Jews indiscriminately. God *did* view them as his rod of correction (Isaiah 10:5), but they no doubt killed the righteous along with the wicked.
Therefore, Isaiah 26:14-19 compares the fate of the wicked with that of the righteous. Since the wicked are receiving the just rewards of their actions, but the righteous are being denied the rewards of the Mosaic covenant because the Assyrians killed them, the wicked will die but the righteous will be resurrected to mortal life.
Isaiah 26:20-21 is interesting in that it uses the analogy of the Passover in Egypt, when the Israelites went into their homes until God's wrath on the firstborn of Egypt passed them by. Their "chambers" are likened to the graves the righteous Israelites were buried in, from which they will arise once God's indignation upon the wicked is past.
Naturally this didn't occur historically, but Isaiah's view was of "the day of the Lord" and not simply the near term. The day of the Lord is one symbol among many that derives from the biblical creation account. (Isaiah basically took quite a bit of symbolism from creation as well as drawing parallels with Abraham, the Exodus, etc., and updated it for a then-modern audience.) It's a symbolic reference to the Sabbath day, the day when man dwells in the presence of God. Therefore, his prophecies were concerned with how the day of the Lord would come about. He used near term historical events as types of later events or symbolism connected with this ultimate goal of history.
Thus, he (or rather his sons) had this motivation when they wrote Isaiah 40-66, even though it appears, from a historical perspective, to have originated at the end of the Babylonian exile.
As an aside, note that this is where the concept of an afterlife first entered into Jewish theology -- although most modern Jews would disagree. (Most either think it was always there, or think it started with Daniel.) Other than an obscurely written promise to King David regarding an everlasting dynasty that later writers apparently believed included eternal life (compare 2 Kings 7:10-17 with Ezekiel 37, especially verses 24-25), it started with Isaiah and eventually developed into a resurrection to eternal life, not just mortal life (Daniel 12:1-2).
Damon
PS. This is definitely wandering very far from the original subject. I don't quite know how to define what topic(s) you guys might want to continue discussing, if any, for the purpose of starting a new thread. The only reason I'm responding is to attempt to answer the issues you all have been raising.
Edited by damoncasale, : Added postscript
Edited by damoncasale, : Named book in question
Edited by damoncasale, : Clarified sentence

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by arachnophilia, posted 12-13-2010 6:54 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 68 by arachnophilia, posted 12-14-2010 12:22 AM damoncasale has replied

  
damoncasale
Member (Idle past 4825 days)
Posts: 41
From: Seffner, FL, USA
Joined: 12-09-2010


Message 69 of 82 (596272)
12-14-2010 7:08 AM
Reply to: Message 68 by arachnophilia
12-14-2010 12:22 AM


Re: Sidebar: Babylonian "Moral Relativism"
indeed. however, it does not address the concerns raised by the documentary hypothesis of isaiah, and thus isn't a particularly good rebuttal. it doesn't adequately explain the observations of the text in a way that even comes close to the documentary hypothesis, let alone in a superior way. thus, i see it as of little use.
Well, without outlining specifically which observations you're referring to in the book of Isaiah itself, there's little I can do to answer that. In any case, I doubt we're going to come to a firm conclusion on that here. We seem to be widely divergent in terms of religious perspective, to say the least.
prophets would have had disciples; followers to write things down. much like jesus had. the "three isaiahs" would have been followers. the thought is that the third likely represents someone who wanted to continue the work of isaiah, as it represents such a marked shift. these followers might be sons, but i see no reason to think that.
Compare Isaiah 7:14-16, Isaiah 8:1-4, and Isaiah 49:1. The former are records of two sons of Isaiah who were known by name before birth. The third is a personal statement of the author that he was known by name from the womb. It's my personal opinion that this was Immanuel writing this part of the book of Isaiah. Also compare Isaiah 51:17-20. Isaiah 51:19, normally rendered "these two *things* have come to you," actually has the word "things" in italics, meaning that the word was inserted by the translators in an attempt to make sense of the text. IMHO, a better rendering would be "these two *sons* are come to you...by whom shall I comfort you?" because the subject of the surrounding two verses, verses 18 and 20, is "sons".
Yes, I'm aware that Isaiah 49 and 51 refer to a time after the end of the Babylonian captivity. However, it seems apparent to me that Isaiah was using his own two sons as prototypes to refer to two special individuals in the future who would do these things. Zechariah 4 picks up on the same theme of two anointed ones, and he likely got the inspiration for doing so from the book of Isaiah.
As far as Isaiah having disciples, yes, I believe he had disciples too. There were schools of the prophets around since the time of Elisha, probably since even the time of Samuel. It looks like Isaiah headed one of them, so certainly he would have had a long, ongoing tradition afterwards.
Anyway...the "marked shift" you're referring to seems to be Isaiah 40 onward. (Tritio-Isaiah, as I understand, is thought to encompass either 56 onward or 54 onward, depending on who one asks. But I don't see the significant difference you might be referring to, compared to the rest of Isaiah. So I can only assume you meant 40 onward.) But that marked shift seems to be adequately explained, to me, by positing that Isaiah and his sons were writing about things yet in the future -- hence the absence of any purely historical interludes -- and they were writing specifically about the aforementioned subjects -- the deliverance of the Jews from the punishment of captivity, etc. So just based on this one comment, I don't see any overwhelming evidence for the documentary hypothesis of Isaiah as opposed to having his sons write about things yet in the future for them.
yeah, i'm just not seeing it. were is ahaz's rebellion, exactly? he's only present in chapter 7, and the whole point there is to reassure him that it'll be okay -- israel and aram, his current enemies, are about to disappear into assyria.
What do you mean, you're not seeing it? Isaiah warns King Ahaz about the plot by the northern kingdom of Israel to overthrow the throne of Judah and put a puppet king on it, in order to form an alliance between Judah, Israel and Syria (Aram) in an attempt to withstand the advances of Assyria. Isaiah says not to be afraid of this plot, but instead to rely on God. God will honor his promise to David that a descendant of his would remain on the throne of Judah. But instead of relying on God, King Ahaz deliberately seeks out Assyria and makes an alliance with them to take care of his problem with Israel. But unfortunately, Assyria turns on Judah and destroys nearly the whole country except for Jerusalem itself.
King Ahaz refused to trust in God to take care of his problem. In contrast, King Hezekiah prayed to God to save him and all of Jerusalem from Assyria.
Regarding Job 3:25:
err, no. that's what the satan charges.
Umm...but this is a direct statement by Job himself?
The rest regarding Job and Jeremiah, I'd rather not continue. It seems like we see things way too differently here, so we likely won't get anywhere. (And yes, I'm aware that Job was not an Israelite, but I don't think the book of Job was written at such a late date.)
Damon

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by arachnophilia, posted 12-14-2010 12:22 AM arachnophilia has not replied

  
damoncasale
Member (Idle past 4825 days)
Posts: 41
From: Seffner, FL, USA
Joined: 12-09-2010


Message 71 of 82 (596284)
12-14-2010 9:00 AM
Reply to: Message 70 by Percy
12-14-2010 8:45 AM


Re: What about dating methods?
Yes, I'm satisfied. It was very helpful.
I guess the thread is done, although if the topic's going to be closed I'd rather have Arachnophilia and Dr. Adequate get in the last word, assuming they want to.
Damon

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by Percy, posted 12-14-2010 8:45 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by Percy, posted 12-14-2010 9:07 AM damoncasale has replied

  
damoncasale
Member (Idle past 4825 days)
Posts: 41
From: Seffner, FL, USA
Joined: 12-09-2010


Message 73 of 82 (596304)
12-14-2010 9:49 AM
Reply to: Message 72 by Percy
12-14-2010 9:07 AM


Re: What about dating methods?
I'm not so sure the topic is the authorship of Isaiah, rather than just miscellaneous bits of information concerning Isaiah. It started with the assertion that Isaiah 45:7 provided a view of God as being the author of evil as well as good, and sort of branched out from there. Authorship did come into play, but that was only one of several things we discussed.
So whatever. It just seems to me that Arachnophilia and Dr. Adequate approach Isaiah (and the bible as a whole) from the position of biblical minimalism -- or at the very least, Reform Judaism. (I'm not sure what the Hebrew word in Arachnophilia's sig is, but I'd make an educated guess that he's Jewish.) I'm more of a questioner, weighing things and trying to come up with the most reasonable conclusion that doesn't destroy the intent of the text. I think it's unlikely that we'll see eye to eye on much. *shrugs*
What I mean by that is, I don't know that continuing this discussion is going to be very productive. If either one of them feels that it will be, though, that's fine.
Damon
PS. The interlibrary loan copy of Chronometric Dating in Archaeology that I requested just arrived today! I'll flip through it tonight and see how useful it is...
Edited by damoncasale, : Elaboration
Edited by damoncasale, : Book arrived

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 Message 74 by arachnophilia, posted 12-14-2010 4:19 PM damoncasale has replied

  
damoncasale
Member (Idle past 4825 days)
Posts: 41
From: Seffner, FL, USA
Joined: 12-09-2010


Message 75 of 82 (596379)
12-14-2010 4:34 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by arachnophilia
12-14-2010 4:19 PM


Re: personal commentary
In any case...personal sharing is nice (and I'm inclined to do so myself), but I think we've diverged very far away from the original intent of the topic. I really don't see any easy way to shoehorn our conversation into a particular topic on this forum, but if you want to continue this conversation via email (since the local moderator seems to be nudging this topic to find a better niche), I'd be happy to. I do have some thoughts regarding Genesis 1 vs Genesis 2, and the ethical approach of the prophets. I'm out of my depth regarding the date of Job's composition, although I do wonder why it was necessary to mention constellations in it (Job 38:31-33).
I turned on my email address visibility for now. (Normally I prefer to leave it hidden in order to not attract spam, but it's there if anyone wants to grab it for right now.)
Damon

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by arachnophilia, posted 12-14-2010 4:19 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by arachnophilia, posted 12-14-2010 4:46 PM damoncasale has replied

  
damoncasale
Member (Idle past 4825 days)
Posts: 41
From: Seffner, FL, USA
Joined: 12-09-2010


Message 77 of 82 (596391)
12-14-2010 5:29 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by arachnophilia
12-14-2010 4:46 PM


Re: personal commentary
I'll take a look later, but I actually already posted some thoughts on Genesis 1 vs Genesis 2 over here: EvC Forum: The Problems with Genesis: A Christian Evolutionist's View Message List .
Damon

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by arachnophilia, posted 12-14-2010 4:46 PM arachnophilia has not replied

  
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