RE: Archaeological problems with the Origins Solution

Glenn wrote:

>Dick wrote:
>
> >>>>It's the tail wagging the dog. From all I can tell, the type of animal
>sacrifice that was a covering for sin - the shed blood of an unblemished
>animal - can not be found prior to about 7,000 BC which I believe to be the
>time of Adam. So the time of Adam and the time of the beginning of animal
>blood sacrifice do appear to coincide, which is what we should expect if
>Adam was the first to use this method given him by God.<<<<<
>
>UHHHH, how does one tell that the people didn't think some of the pre-7000
>BC animals weren't unblemished? You don't have writing, all you have is
>bone to look at today. This seems a bit of a stretch.

As we both know, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of
absence. Had a Neanderthal wanted to do a blood sacrifice to an unseen
deity, nothing I know says one couldn't have done that. But science
normally doesn't work that way.

>Secondly, you have now changed the date for the advent of significant animal
>sacrifice. In the book it is 4500 BC. Why the change?

I think I'm just getting tired, Glenn. Or maybe, rounding numbers doesn't
matter all that much. The Cambrian Period jumped from 575 million to 530
million years in my lifetime. I saw them change the data cards at the
Smithsonian Institute. How did that happen? Where was I when 45 million
years of history disappeared? I know, your're going to say it was simply
re-calibrated. Okay, but if 45 million years can disappear without a
whimper, it seems to me that a few hundred years plus or minus doesn't mean
a whole lot when we are dealing with a period of history that stretches
from about 7,000 years ago to about 4,000 years ago from Adam to Abraham.

Forced to pick a firmer date for Adam, we could align Adam with the
archaeological date of 4800 BC, which is the date given to the lowest level
of civilization found at Eridu. But that would put all our eggs in the
basket of archaeologists who had no means of radiometric
dating. Scary. So I round off to 7,000 years, knowing it's only an
approximation, but also trying to convey that it is simply an estimate
after all. Does that make sense?

>Dick wrote:
> >>>>>On the other hand, if you are trying to tie Adam and animal sacrifice
>together in order to push him back into a time frame consistent with your
>method of apology, you have your work cut out for you, and I don't think
>Ainu suckling bears will do it.<<<<<
>
>Dick, I told you to forget my views. this has nothing to do with my views.
>I don't believe you have an archaeological fact to stand on. I don't even
>want to incorporate into my views this concept of unblemished animal
>sacrifice. And you have changed the nature of that. In one of your emails it
>was domesticated animal, not unblemished. You keep changing the game with
>each email.

The symbolism of Christ being the "unblemished lamb" is very
powerful. Without sin; not wild or outside the camp; innocent. The sheer
symbolism couldn't exist in the stone age.

> >>>But the sacrifice issue is only one point, and a minor one at that, in my
>estimation. You didn't begin to address all the references in Genesis that
>demand that Adam and Noah must belong to Neolithic times - livestock,
>farming, tents, stringed musical instruments, articles of bronze and iron.
>And some kind of semi-sophisticated tools would have been necessary to build
>an ark. Tools not found in the stone age.<<<
>
>I don't care about that, I am focusing on the lack of archaeological support
>for your claims about sacrifice. That is the issue, the only issue. I am
>not trying to steal your idea of sacrifice to band-aid onto my ideas. I am
>merely saying that your views on animal sacrifice as laid out in your book
>don't match observation.

Well again, I think it is a small point, but the type of sacrifice detailed
in the Bible required shedding the blood of unblemished, domesticated
animals. This could only be possible when there were domesticated animals
available for sacrifice. Anthropologists have found no evidence of
domesticated animals prior to the Neolithic period.

And there is some evidence outside the Bible that animal, blood sacrifice
was practiced in Mesopotamia with no evidence it was practiced before that
anywhere else. I don't hinge the entire argument on that. It is simply
one tidbit of information consistent with a method of apology that has
stood the test of time - about ten years now :>).

Dick Fischer - Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org
Received on Thu Feb 19 09:46:25 2004