I don’t grasp what you are saying here. I have a timeline that matches up much better with the history of the ANE than the Usshurian one, all the while keeping the genealogies without error or gaps in time, and I have the flood around 6,500 years ago.
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You both crack me up.
It is not unusual for participants to be at cross-purposes when there no real guidelines established. Over time, the guidelines - - stated or implied - - will make things more clear.
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I guess my reflex question would be, how is it that you are the only I’ve heard using that time frame?
Naturally, we are left with the choice of concluding you are unusually insightful, or unusually tolerant of error.
But let’s not try to answer that question.
What is the key difference between the construction of your timeline vs. Ussher-type calculations? Then we can assess the credibility of those differences.
By the way, Ussher is spelled with an “er”, not a “ur”.
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I’ll try to answer the question because it glorifies God. For 40 years I looked at the same passages, just like a lot of other folks. And for 40 years I had a lot of questions which perplexed me greatly. It was like early Genesis was a big jumble of puzzle pieces and I had no clue what the front of the box looked like to start putting it together.
Then one day early in 2016 I opened my bible up to Genesis chapter 1 and 2, just on a whim. As I read the two chapters it came to my mind “this seems like it is talking about two different though related stories” and the impression came to me very clearly “That’s because they are two different but related stories” and it was like God just showed me a flash of the box the puzzle came in.
At first I thought I must have been wrong. So I went to search out scriptures which disproved this “wild idea”. I document some of this in the book. The more I looked the more I realized that those scriptures didn’t say what I thought they did, and if anything supported what for me was a new line of thinking. At some point I started writing a book about it. I tell you that the more I dove into it the more I was illuminated. What I wrote about the flood of Noah was nothing like what I thought about it when I started the book. And I was not even going to go so far as chapter 11, now I think the commentary on Babel will be among the strongest in the book for many people.
Do you remember that passage in the Bible where it says that Jesus opened their minds that they might understand the scriptures? I think that is what happened to me, at least regarding the first eleven chapters of Genesis.
That doesn’t mean it has to be right, or that I did not use my powers of reason to fill out the details. I have made many upgrades, clarifications, and some downright changes since I first got the prototype done. And I did use my reason. But if I had not been shown the box top none of my powers of reason would have mattered. Nor could my reason alone have seen without the illumination. It hadn’t in my first 54 years.
You may ask why God would pick me instead of someone more qualified. I don’t know. Maybe He did. I suspect that He showed others the same flash he showed me and for one reason or another they did not pursue it, at least not with a high view of the text like I am showing. I give God the glory. I am plenty smart but I am not the smartest guy in this room. I could not have seen all this on my own.
Perhaps now you can understand why I have no problem believing in additional interventions from God in the natural universe, even if they cannot be verified by the scientific method.
**
The key difference is that my view of the text does indeed have the material as a timeline. So whereas Ussher had it as a genealogy which only incidentally could be used to track time (or maybe not if there are random gaps) I have it as a way of tracking time which could also be used as a genealogy, with any gaps in generations on an understandable basis.
Thus while he had time measured from the birth of one patriarch to the birth of the succeeding patriarch I read that as the proper way to calculate it only in those cases where the text makes it clear that the succeeding patriarch is a direct son. Usually this is the first and last name on the list. For those in between, the rule is to use the entire lifespan of the patriarch. The line leading to the next patriarch may have begun the year “Doodad begat Hobab” but Hobab himself was not born until the year of Doodad’s death. It wasn’t until then that Hobab became the next one used to track time.
This would completely explain the reason for the other OT apparent gaps in generations as well.
Some of this depends on when you date the Exodus, but I used the earlier date from Dr. G. Bryant Wood. This along with the older of the two possible dates for his birth would put the birth of Abraham at 2166 B.C.
That is about 200 years or so older than many would put it. So take that into account when I give these other figures which are calculated simply by tallying up the lifespans in the genealogies as I described them, except for the first and last names of each list. So…
Adam was created: about 13,345 years ago or 11,328 B.C.
The Great Flood: about 6,515 years ago or around 4,498 B.C.
Birth of Abraham: about 4,183 years ago or 2166 B.C.
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I certainly have to say that your summary is fascinating.
But now we can see that the reason you want to put Adam at about 13kya is not the same reason that @Guy_Coe wants to put Adam at about 13kya.
Now … is this a coincidence, or did God plan for you to agree on the dates but not the reasons?
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Are you assuming we disagree on the reasons? Is it also possible we might have plenty of differences to iron out, still, while finding common excitement that reading the first two chapters as sequential, rather than the second chapter as recapitulatory, would be enough to spur us both forward with what, otherwise, lines up with orthodox interpretations of God’s revelation AND the scientific evidence?
Perhaps the text, when carefully understood from the Hebrew perspective out of which it sprung, is, in fact leading us to the same conclusions --only to find validation from science as a byproduct of this change of interpretation. It’s really rather gratifying. Cheers!
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Let me know when you have those details worked out.
@anon46279830 uses genealogies to arrive at his date.
In a prior post, you wrote this:
“Here’s one reason why I place Adam and Eve earlier in time than the Neolithic revolution; the Persian Gulf location was most likely underwater by then. I place them at 15-13kya, when during the late paleolithic, the location and situation of the Persian Gulf area was perfectly situated to be the “lab” in which humabs first learned, specifically, IRRIGATION agriculture and animal domestication, and began passing these skills off to others.”
Perhaps the reason for the global plunge in teperatures is to be found here:
This would certainly suggest a sudden, giant struggle to survive for those outside the garden region. Attrition worldwide would slant the genealogical pool dramatically towards Adam’s surviving lineage through interbreeding and outcompetition.
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I don’t have a problem with a comet, or a massive volcano or anything else causing a sudden, but temporary drop in temperature. But it would have been around 12500 years ago.
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So here is another timeline put forward by @Alice_Linsley, who is a theological anthropologist (not a YEC)…
How does this compare with the other timelines?
It looks like this assumes creation 6000 years ago… and puts Noah and other patriarchs into a conventional timeline based on that.
I don’t @Alice_Linsley has moved creation into an LXX time frame or anything like that.