Garry K. Brantley, "Dating in Archaeology: Challenges to Biblical Credibility",  Reason & Revelation, November 1993,  13[11]:81-85.  

Clyde McCone,  "The Phenomena of Pentecost," JASA 23 (September 1971): 87-88.

"Reliable historical evidence both from the Scriptures and from the cultural context of the event, confirms that the Galileans on the day of Pentecost bore witness to the resurrected Christ in languages with which they and their hearers were familiar. The validity of accepting the cultural and linguistic evidence with respect to the miracle of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit rests upon the complementary harmony which exists between the natural and the supernatural, and hence between science and Divine Revelation."

---

Site of Qasr al-Qarqur, Jordan

Recent PSCF authors have sought to date the biblical flood, place the garden of Eden, date the human race and other  questions using archaeological evidence in conjunction with textual and geological evidence.

John Argubright's Web Site offer a wealth of evidence supporting the biblical text.

Wilcox, David L., Establishing Adam: Recent Evidences for a Late-Date Adam (AMH@100,000 BP) , PSCF 56.1  (2004):49-54.

The appearance of modern humans continues to be a major controversy in paleoanthropology. The issues include genetic, anatomical, and cultural matters. For the Christian, there are also important theological issues, leading to various estimations of the timing of Eden ranging from two million years ago to six thousand years ago.. Several interesting papers related to this issue were published last year. This communication notes several of these and suggests a biological mechanism possibly involved in the process by which God created humanity.

Godfrey, Thomas James, Do Ice Cores Disprove Aardsma's Flood Theory?  PSCF 56.1 (2004):76-77.  Seeley questioned

Seely, Paul H., Concordism's Illusion That It Is Upholding the Historicity of Genesis,  PSCF 56.1
 (2004:75.76.
    Seely, Paul H., The GISP2 Ice Core: Ultimate Proof that Noah's Flood Was Not Global  PSCF 55.4 (2003): 252-260 .

Recently an ice core nearly two miles long has been extracted from the Greenland ice sheet. The first 110,000 annual layers of snow in that ice core (GISP2) have been visually counted and corroborated by two to three different and independent methods as well as by correlation with volcanic eruptions and other datable events. Since the ice sheet would have floated away in the event of a global flood, the ice core is strong evidence that there was no global flood any time in the last 110,000 years.

Hill, Carol A. Making Sense of the Numbers of Genesis  , PSCF 55.4:239-251 (12/2003).

Among the greatest stumbling blocks to faith in the Bible are the incredibly long ages of the patriarchs and the chronologies of Genesis 5 and 11 that seem to place the age of the Earth at about 6,000 years ago. The key to understanding the numbers in Genesis is that, in the Mesopotamian world view, numbers could have both real (numerical) and sacred (numerological or symbolic) meaning. The Mesopotamians used a sexagesimal (base 60) system of numbers, and the patriarchal ages in Genesis revolve around the sacred numbers 60 and 7. In addition to Mesopotamian sacred numbers, the preferred numbers 3, 7, 12, and 40 are used in both the Old and New Testaments. To take numbers figuratively does not mean that the Bible is not to be taken literally. It just means that the biblical writer was trying to impart a spiritual or historical truth to the text�one that surpassed the meaning of purely rational numbers.

  Zimmer, J. Raymond, A Possible Natural Complement to the Story of theFall  PSCF  54.3:158-169 (9/2002).

The story of the Fall may be regarded as an association between a local event and its global consequences. This association will be denoted by brackets as {local : global}. {Genesis 2:4.4:26 : Romans 5:12.14} is one association belonging to the story of the Fall. The purpose of this article is to propose a natural {local : global} association that complements {Genesis 2:4.4:26 : Romans 5:12.14}. The binding of these two complementary associations yields a deeper appreciation of our current human condition.

 Hill, Carol A., The Noachian Flood: Universal or Local?   PSCF 54.3:170-183 (9/2002).

The biblical and scientific evidence pertaining to the subject of a universal versus local Noachian Flood are discussed in this paper. From a biblical perspective, a universal flood model (and its corollary models: flood geology and the canopy theory) is based primarily on: (1) the universal language of Gen. 6.8, (2) Gen 2:5.6, and (3) the presumed landing of Noah.s ark on the summit of Mount Ararat (Gen. 8:4). It is argued that the .universal. language of Gen. 6.8 was meant to cover the whole known world of that time (third millennium BC), not the entire planet Earth, and that this interpretation also applies to Gen. 2:5.6.the verses on which the canopy theory is based. It is also argued that the .fifteen cubits upward. flood depth mentioned in Gen. 7:20 favors a local rather than a universal flood. From a scientific perspective, a universal flood, flood geology, and canopy theory are entirely without support. The geology of the Mount Ararat region precludes the premise of flood geologists that all of the sedimentary rock on Earth formed during the time of Noah.s Flood. The most likely landing place of the ark is considered to have been in the vicinity of Jabel Judi (the .mountains of Ararat. near Cizre, Turkey) within the northern boundary of the Mesopotamian hydrologic basin, rather than on 17,000-foot-high Mount Ararat in northeastern Turkey. Since it would have been logistically impossible for all animal species on Earth to be gathered by Noah and contained in the ark, it is concluded that the animals of the ark were those that lived within the Mesopotamian region. The archaeological record outside of Mesopotamia also does not support a universal flood model. All of the evidence, both biblical and scientific, leads to the conclusion that the Noachian deluge was a local, rather than universal, flood.

Morton, Glenn R., Language at the Dawn of Humanity   PSCF 54.3:193-194 (9/2002).

Over the years, anthropology continuously has pushed back the date for the appearance of language and this will continue. The existence of language is of immense importance to apologetics, as God taught Adam to speak.

Prehistoric cave paintings. Lassac Cave

Hill, Carol A., The Garden of Eden: A Modern Landscape  PSCF 52.1:31-46 (3/2000).

In this paper, I try to apply the findings of modern geology to Gen. 2:10-14. I deduce from the evidence that the four rivers of Eden--the Pishon, the Gihon, the Hiddekel, and the Euphrates--were real rivers which existed on a modern landscape before Noah's flood. The now-dry Wadi al Batin was probably the Pishon River, the Gihon was probably the Karun River, and the Hiddekel (Tigris) and Euphrates Rivers flowed in approximately the same courses as they occupy today. The confluence of these four rivers was located at the head of the Persian Gulf, but a Gulf that may have been inland from where it is today. The spring which "rises up" in Eden could have been supplied by the Dammam Formation, the principal aquifer of the region. Oil-drilling in southern Iraq confirms that six miles of sedimentary rock exist below the biblical site for the Garden of Eden. This same sedimentary rock is the source of bitumen at Hit, a site which may have supplied Noah with pitch for constructing the ark. The question is asked: How could pre-flood Eden have been located over six miles of sedimentary rock supposedly formed during Noah's flood?

Theological Anthropology

“Nature, Technology and the Imago Dei: Mediating the Nonhuman through the Practice of Science,” Bret  Stephenson. PSCF 57:1, 6, M 2005. (not yet on line).  

Seeks "to open up an interdisciplinary dialog  among theological anthropology, the doctrine of creation and...sociological accounts of the technological practice of  science."

Reforming Theological Anthropology: After the Philosophical Turn to Relationality , F. LeRon Shults, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003.

Becoming Human; On Theological Anthropology in and age of Engineering Life Canadian Council of Churches, 2004.  

A Christian Perspective on the Impact of Modern Science on Philosophy of Mind Moreland, J. P.,  PSCF 55.1:2-13 (3/2003) 

Portraits of Human Nature: Reconciling Neuroscience and Christian Anthropology Warren S. Brown and Malcolm A. Jeeves, Science and Christian Belief 11 No. 2 (October 1999): 139-150. 

A report from a seminar at the combined meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation and Christians in Science, Churchill College, Cambridge University, August, 1998

See also:  Related papers in psychology and the neurosciences

Paleontology

Are ethnic groups genetically definable?

As far as scientists know, no particular genes make a person Irish or Chinese
or Zulu or Navajo. These are cultural labels, not genetic ones. People in
 those populations are more likely to have some alleles in common, but no
allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any
 other. (There may be rare variations, however, that are found only in some
populations.) This cannot be very surprising, in light of the vast extent of intermarriage
among human populations, now and throughout history and prehistory. There is no
such thing as a genetically "pure" human population.-- Morrison Institute
_{________________________________________________________________________________}

 Wilcox, David L., Establishing Adam: Recent Evidences for a Late-Date Adam (AMH@100,000 BP) , PSCF 56.1  (2004):49-54.

The appearance of modern humans continues to be a major controversy in paleoanthropology. The issues include genetic, anatomical, and cultural matters. For the Christian, there are also important theological issues, leading to various estimations of the timing of Eden ranging from two million years ago to six thousand years ago.. Several interesting papers related to this issue were published last year. This communication notes several of these and suggests a biological mechanism possibly involved in the process by which God created humanity.

Davis A. Young, The Antiquity and the Unity of the Human Race Revisited,  Christian Scholar's Review XXIV:4, 380-396 (May, 1995)]  by the Christian Scholar's Review. Reprinted in electronic form by permission.

If the data in Genesis 4 are correlated with the cultural setting of the Neolithic Revolution in the ancient Near East about 8000 to 7500 B.C., then the biblical representation of Adam as Cain's immediate father suggests that Adam and Eve lived only about 10,000 years ago. The fossil record of anatomically modern humans, however, extends at least 100,000 years before the present. There are at least three solutions to this dilemma. All three alternative solutions pose difficult exegetical or theological challenges that result either in a refinement of the doctrine of original sin or a significant departure from traditional historical readings of Genesis 2-4. Davis A. Young, professor of geology at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, examines and evaluates these solutions from both a scientific and biblical-theological perspective.

Review  by Jeffrey K. McKee of The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors. Ann Gibbons. xxvi + 306 pp. Doubleday, 2006.

Ever since a 1924 revelation first pointed to Africa as the cradle of humankind, a slow but steady stream of fossil discoveries has brought a general view of human evolution into focus. The pace has accelerated in the past 15 years, rapidly yielding an intriguing yet bewildering array of fossils  of early ancestors of Homo sapiens. These new finds push back the base of our unique line, and that of our not-so-distant cousins, to possibly 6 or more million years ago.  This time period is tantalizingly close to what  most genetic models predict for the divergence of lineages that ultimately evolved into humans and chimpanzees. Finding a representative of the species that took the first step-on two legs-toward becoming human is indeed one of the key pursuits of paleoanthropology.

Paul Chen, Explosion of Life: A scientist reveals details of the Cambrian explosion
14 December 2002

Dr. Paul Chien, chairman of the biology department at the University of San Francisco, recently accepted a unique invitation to travel to China to study fossils of the Cambrian era. What Chien found at the Chengjiang site, and what he has since learned about the Cambrian fauna, has changed the focus of his career. Today, Chien concentrates on further exploring and promoting the mysteries of the Cambrian explosion of life. Subsequently, Chien possesses the largest collection of Chinese Cambrian fossils in North America.-- An Interview with Dr. Chen

The earliest peoples in Virginia Video 30 min.
Excellent discussion of current views

Archaeology: Earliest Human Sacrifice Found in Africa Video  2 min. 

The discovery of 5,500-year-old bones by a French archaeologist is the oldest example of human sacrifice on the African continent.

Linguistics an allied science

The worldwide status of Bible translation (2008)-- wycliffe

6,909	...the number of languages spoken in the world today
2,393	...the number of languages without any of the Bible, but with a possible need of a Bible translation to begin
200,000,000	...the number of people who speak the 2,393 languages where translation projects have not yet begun
1,998	...the number of translation programs currently in progress for languages without adequate Scripture
nearly 80%	...amount of the world’s remaining Bible translation needs that are located in the three areas of greatest need
1,168	...the number of language communities which have access to the New Testament in their heart language
438	...the number of language communities which have access to the entire Bible in the language they understand best
6,500,000,000	...the population of the world

Translation Theory and Practice

The ideal translation will be accurate as to meaning and natural as to the receptor language forms used. An intended audience who is unfamiliar with the source text will readily understand it. The success of a translation is measured by how closely it measures up to these ideals.

The ideal translation should be…

• Accurate: reproducing as exactly as possible the meaning of the source text.
• Natural: using natural forms of the receptor language in a way that is appropriate to the kind of text being translated.
• Communicative: expressing all aspects of the meaning in a way that is readily understandable to the intended audience.

Translation is a process based on the theory that it is possible to abstract the meaning of a text from its forms and reproduce that meaning with the very different forms of a second language.

Translation, then, consists of studying the lexicon, grammatical structure, communication situation, and cultural context of the source language text, analyzing it in order to determine its meaning, and then reconstructing this same meaning using the lexicon and grammatical structure which are appropriate in the receptor language and its cultural context. Larson: SIL

Fragments at Amman Museum--Wiki

 

Resources:       Anthropology  Archaeology  Paleontology

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