Evolution:

[Doug1029]

The statement regarding the Red Sea is a good example of apparent Bible contradictions that are not contradictions at all, when one understands what is written. Good Bible commentaries will tell you that the Red Sea and the Sea of Reeds are just different names for the same body of water. The Hebrews called it the Sea of Reeds or bulrushes; to the Greeks it was known as the Red Sea, possibly because of the red mountains on the western shore or the red coral found in it.

There are six marshy lakes across the Isthmus of Suez. They are Lake Bardawil, Lake Menzala, Lake Balah (also known as "the Papyrus Swamp"), Lake Timsah, Great Bitter Lake and Lesser Bitter Lake. Before the Canal of the Pharaoh (built about 1830 BC), Lake Bardawil and Lake Menzala, both of which connect to the Mediterranean, received enough Nile water that they could grow papyrus; Lake Balah and Lake Timsah were probably dry salt pans, and the Bitter Lakes were either dry or salty evaporation basins that occasionally received "slopover" water from the Gulf of Suez. The two Bitter Lakes were connected by a channel, giving them the same water level.

After construction of the Canal of the Pharoah and it northern branches, Lakes Bardawil and Menzala received even more Nile water, the dry playas/pans of Lakes Balah and Timsah were flooded and the Bitter Lakes water level was raised to about 5 feet above sea level. All received enough fresh water to grow papyrus. Tail water from the canal was released into the Gulf of Suez, making it less salty and apparently enabling papyrus to grow in the Red Sea. There are accounts of papyrus growing in the Gulf of Aqaba in ancient times; these are either myths, or there was enough fresh water flowing through the canal to seriously dilute the Red Sea.

All of these bodies of water are candidates for "the Sea of Reeds."

The crossing point is described as being "three days without water" from a "bitter" spring, apparently on the east side of the "Sea of Reeds." There are two candidate springs: Bir el Mir, a salt spring that is never known to be fresh and has no trees around it due to the salty soil. The other one is Ayn Musa, about 4 miles southeast of Suez. It has an ephemeral spring that comes and goes with the climate. Ayn Musa is sometimes "bitter" and sometimes "fresh," though both are relative terms. It has a bunch of ratty-looking palm trees around it and has changed little since Josephus described it in the first century. It is the best candidate for the spring where Moses purified the water by sticking a branch in it. Ayn Musa is about 26 miles from the Bitter Lake Narrows (El Kubrit Channel) and Bir el Mir is about 23 miles from the narrows. Herded sheep can travel six to eight miles a day. Ayn Musa fits the biblical description best; that means - the Bitter Lakes narrows were the site of the Red Sea Crossing.

The topography of the Bitter Lakes, Gulf of Suez and Tia Beni-Israel is such that during a southeast wind, a surge wave could pour over the Shallufa Sill into the Bitter Lakes. Before the Suez Canal, the Bitter Lakes Channel was only six feet deep at its deepest. It could easily be blown dry or almost dry by a southeast wind. If that wind died at just the right time, wind-driven water piled up on the northwest shore of Great Bitter would surge back, meeting the surge wave from the Gulf of Suez in the Bitter Narrows Channel: a wall of water on the left and a wall of water on their right. This happens nowhere else. Also, in mid-channel there was a small island, now the flooded shoal called The Ballards. In the desert air it was bone dry. People could literally walk on dry land in the midst of the sea.

At the time of the Exodus (1446 BC, 1295 BC or 1187BC, depending on which version you want to believe) very little water was coming through the Canal of the Pharoah. The Bitter Lakes' were at about six feet belwo sea level. Getting across them just before a surge wave struck would not require a miracle - just a little luck. When the Bible was written in about the 6th century BC, sea levels were much higher - the Red Sea extended up Tia Beni-Israel into the Bitter Lakes. El Kubrit Channel had about 18 feet of water in it and was about 1500 yards across - it would have required a miracle to get across it then.

Josephus proposed a crossing site on the Gulf of Suez about four miles south of Suez at the foot of Gebel Attaqa. For Moses et al. to get here, they would have to be lost: they would already have passed by Suez where they easily could have turned to make the trip to Ayn Musa. The water level off Gebel Attaqa, at its shallowest, is about 330 feet deep. No wind that blew ever moved that much water aside and if any ever could, it would be of such force that it would blow away even the mud - no living person or animal could stand in it, let alone walk into it.

But there is a way a person could have walked across the Red Sea at this place and kept his feet dry. At the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 years ago, sea levels were about 330 feet lower than they are today. It would have been possible to cross the Red Sea as described in the Bible.

20,000 years ago was a time of mammoths, cave bears and saber-toothed cats. Congratualtions: you have just invoked Evolution to support your version of the Red Sea Crossing.

--DJS

[fullywired]

What's creationism doing in a Science & Technology thread ?????? let's keep it real

[SherlockH]

Lt Ripley says

the bible has also been confirmed to have alot of myth and inaccuracies in it as well.

Confirmed by whom? People who consider anything they do not understand as a contradiction or myth? There are plausible explanations for these objections.

there is no proof jesus existed as well. no fact. but that aside for another argument –

Actually, a mere 100 years from now, people will probably have a harder time proving you existed. Jesus’ life is a well-established fact in history. He is mentioned not only in the Bible, but many non-biblical sources, as well, (Josephus, Tacitus et al) sources that most historians trust as accurate in other matters of ancient history.

Noah's flood. there may have been a flood but it wasn't worldwide. honestly , think logically. 2 of every species?

The Bible does not say “two of every species.” It says two of every “kind,” a division that is much more basic that species – horse kind, dog kind, elephant kind, turtle kind, etc. Insects would not have to be taken since they could survive on floating mats of vegetation nor would water dwelling creatures have to be included. Estimates are that it would only take about 8,000 male and female pairs from the various “kinds,” for a total of about 16,000 animals with an average size of a sheep. Even large animals like elephants, hippos, dinosaurs (yes, I believe they were present) could be represented by young specimens; the Bible never says they had to be adults.

The cubic capacity of the Ark has been calculated and shows that there would be enough room for all these animal kinds, plus food and other provisions and quarters for Noah and his family.

After emerging from the ark, the various kinds of animals dispersed and through natural selection – a perfectly acceptable concept in the creationists worldview – developed the various species of creatures we see today.

worldwide ? mmmmmm nope. so much for the bibles history. but it is easy to see how man at the time thought it was the whole world because his world was still flat.

You are making an assumption based on a uniformitarian worldview. This assumption is untestable. All the available evidence fits a creationist worldview as well as or better than a Darwinist perspective. And the flat-world hypothesis was actually never widely believed. Job 26:7 speaks of the earth being suspended in space. Greek philosophers considered the Earth to be round. The earliest of the “flat-Earth” promoters was Lactantius, who lived about 245 to 325 A.D. The early Church Fathers considered his views as heresy until the Renaissance period, when humanists revived his philosophies.

Kathleen Kenyon's excavations at Jericho between 1952 and 1958 proved that the city actually did not exist during the Exodus period when it was supposedly conquered by Joshua. By the time of the conquest, Jericho had been a ruin for a hundred years or more. As stated in the November-December 1978 issue of Biblical Archeology Review:

Her Jericho excavations have raised problems for Biblical historians: she found no city there during the Late Bronze Age, the period when Joshua is thought to have lived. Had the Late Bronze Age city eroded away, as some scholars think, or was Joshua's conquest of Jericho, for some reason or other and in some detail or other, inaccurately related in the Bible? Dame Kathleen rejected the view that the Late Bronze Age city had eroded away .2

Here we have an example of interpreting evidence based on assumptions about the truth of the Bible (or in Kenyon’s and others’ opinion) the lack of truth in the Bible. Kenyon’s dating of the Jericho site has been further analyzed and it is believed her dates were wrong by at least 150 years, placing the site exactly in the period of the Jewish conquest of the land. (http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i2/jericho.asp)

A similar problem occurred with regard to Joshua's supposed conquest of the city of Ai. Actually the Hebrew word Ai means "Ruin," and that is exactly what it was at the time of the Hebrew invasion. Excavations of the site have shown that it was totally destroyed in 2400 B.C. (evidently by Egyptians), and it remained a ruin until about 1220 B.C. At that latter date, according to Joseph Callaway of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a new settlement was made on three acres of the 27-acre hilltop. There were no defenders of the site to resist this peaceful occupation.

From what I can find, this is, again, a matter of assumptions. Many archeologists assume that a site called et-Tell is the city of Ai referred to in the biblical account. This assumption is based on another assumption about the location of the ancient town of Bethel. Both assumptions are the result of much discussion and debate among Bible scholars and archeologists. Even the name is in debate. For example:

“An argument for taking et-Tell as the site of Ai has been that the Arabic name et-Tell would be equal to Hebrew ha-`Ai, which would mean 'ruin'. This identification is now being strongly doubted, however. According to Z. Zevit there is no ethymological relation at all between 'ha-`Ai' and the Hebrew word for ruin.15 The latter word is '`iy', whereas Ai was pronounced as 'ghay'. Support for this thesis is found in the Septuagint which spells Ai as Aggai. The above argument is seriously weakened further by the fact that at least ten places in Palestine bear the name et-Tell.16 (http://www.bga.nl/en/articles/ai.html)

Still another Patriarchal anachronism that has come to light is the questionable association of the Philistine people (of the Iron Age) with Abraham, Isaac, and Moses (of the Bronze Age). The Bible indicates that the land of Canaan was inhabited by Philistines from the days of the Patriarchs in Gen. 21:34, 26:15, and Ex. 15:14. But historical accounts taken from the archives of neighboring kings indicate that these people were not on the scene until the 12th century B.C. Having been defeated by the Egyptians in a great sea battle about 1191 B.C., the "sea peoples," as they were called, were thrown back upon Canaan-which they readily occupied by means of their new iron weapons. It was their initial presence, in fact, that precipitated the formation of the Hebrew monarchy under the first warrior-king, Saul.

According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary:

“As they did not enter Palestine till the time of the Exodus, the use of the name Philistines in Genesis 26:1 must be proleptic. Indeed the country was properly Gerar, as in ch. 20.

They are called Allophyli, "foreigners," in the Septuagint, and in the Books of Samuel they are spoken of as uncircumcised. It would therefore appear that they were not of the Semitic race, though after their establishment in Canaan they adopted the Semitic language of the country. We learn from the Old Testament that they came from Caphtor, usually supposed to be Crete. From Philistia the name of the land of the Philistines came to be extended to the whole of "Palestine." Many scholars identify the Philistines with the Pelethites of 2 Samuel 8:18”

Edited May 1, 2007 by SherlockH

[fullywired]

I repeat this is science and technology not a religious theme

[SeaMare]

SherlockH: May 1 2007, 06:55 PM

The Bible does not say “two of every species.” It says two of every “kind,” a division that is much more basic that species – horse kind, dog kind, elephant kind, turtle kind, etc. Insects would not have to be taken since they could survive on floating mats of vegetation nor would water dwelling creatures have to be included. Estimates are that it would only take about 8,000 male and female pairs from the various “kinds,” for a total of about 16,000 animals with an average size of a sheep. Even large animals like elephants, hippos, dinosaurs (yes, I believe they were present) could be represented by young specimens; the Bible never says they had to be adults.

The cubic capacity of the Ark has been calculated and shows that there would be enough room for all these animal kinds, plus food and other provisions and quarters for Noah and his family.

After emerging from the ark, the various kinds of animals dispersed and through natural selection – a perfectly acceptable concept in the creationists worldview – developed the various species of creatures we see today.

Sorry SherlockH,

But from an ecological point of view, this is simply not possible. Firstly, a species needs a minimum breeding population to survive, below a certain critical number a breeding population will collapse. One pair wouldn't have been enough, even in a "relatively empty" ecological niche (don't forget environmental factors such as harsh winters, pathogens causing illness, etc) . Secondly, what would the carnivore animals have lived off, in this post-flood world? Either they would have starved to death, or, what is more likely, would have predated on the other freed animals; so most of them would have been eaten, and then the rest of them would have starved to death. And no amount of evolution could account for the number of species we have alive today giving it just 6000 years or so, starting from these 8000 "kinds". Nor does it make sense when you look at the fossil record. You can slice it any which way, it's just not possible.

[SherlockH]

There are six marshy lakes across the Isthmus of Suez. They are Lake Bardawil, Lake Menzala, Lake Balah (also known as "the Papyrus Swamp"), Lake Timsah, Great Bitter Lake and Lesser Bitter Lake. Before the Canal of the Pharaoh (built about 1830 BC), Lake Bardawil and Lake Menzala, both of which connect to the Mediterranean, received enough Nile water that they could grow papyrus; Lake Balah and Lake Timsah were probably dry salt pans, and the Bitter Lakes were either dry or salty evaporation basins that occasionally received "slopover" water from the Gulf of Suez. The two Bitter Lakes were connected by a channel, giving them the same water level.

I think you are making assumptions. For example, you seem to discount Lake Timsah as a possibility, when there are Bible scholars believe this was a likely candidate for the crossing. You claim it was “probably” a dry salt pan. Sources I have found indicate that it was actually the northern end of the Red Sea at that time and not just the result of canal-based flooding.

You story about the Bitter Lakes may seem plausible. However, you are discounting the possibility that the parting of the Red Sea was what it claims to be, an act of divine intervention by God. You are seeking a naturalistic explanation, ruling out the possibility that miracles can happen. If the Hebrews had considered it to be just a natural occurrence, why would they attach such great importance to it?

Myth and legend? I don’t think so. The Jews were quite meticulous in keeping accurate records of their history, even those parts that cast them in a bad light. Oral histories were not kept by just one or two individuals; the whole community was a part of a system of checks and balances to ensure an accurate retelling of their history from generation to generation. When they started writing it down, they kept just as stringent a watch over those records. If a single character was written incorrectly, the entire scroll was discarded and the copiest began again.

At the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 years ago, sea levels were about 330 feet lower than they are today. It would have been possible to cross the Red Sea as described in the Bible. 20,000 years ago was a time of mammoths, cave bears and saber-toothed cats…

In this statement, your naturalistic, evolution-based mindset is clearly shown, assuming the last Ice Age was 20,000 years ago. This age is based on uniformitarian assumptions not provable by experimentation.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a discussion about evolution, not Bible archeology.

[Shaftsbury]

worldwide ? mmmmmm nope. so much for the bibles history. but it is easy to see how man at the time thought it was the whole world because his world was still flat.

You are making an assumption based on a uniformitarian worldview. This assumption is untestable. All the available evidence fits a creationist worldview as well as or better than a Darwinist perspective.

I for one am really looking forward to seeing this evidence for a global flood, can you give me a link?

[SherlockH]

You are making an assumption based on a uniformitarian worldview. This assumption is untestable. All the available evidence fits a creationist worldview as well as or better than a Darwinist perspective.

I for one am really looking forward to seeing this evidence for a global flood, can you give me a link?

Here are a couple, both from the Answers In Genesis web site.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/Geology.asp

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/flood.asp

Both of these have links to numerous articles on this and related topics. Some of the links take you to other sites with information about ththese topics.

[SherlockH]

[/size]Sorry SherlockH,

But from an ecological point of view, this is simply not possible. Firstly, a species needs a minimum breeding population to survive, below a certain critical number a breeding population will collapse. One pair wouldn't have been enough, even in a "relatively empty" ecological niche (don't forget environmental factors such as harsh winters, pathogens causing illness, etc)

First bear in mind that the animals were on the ark for over a year. No doubt some of those creatures engaged in the act of procreation during that time, so the number of animals coming off the ark could have been greater than the number that got on.

Biblical “kinds” carried all the genetic information found in various species today. For example, the dog kind had genetic information for big dogs, small dogs, curly hair, short hair, long hair, etc. Because the available genetic information was so large for each kind of creature, it gave, in effect, a large gene pool and one that was still relatively uncorrupted by the curse of the Fall. So, the breeding population need not have been as large as for the species that arose from each kind.

Secondly, what would the carnivore animals have lived off, in this post-flood world? Either they would have starved to death, or, what is more likely, would have predated on the other freed animals; so most of them would have been eaten, and then the rest of them would have starved to death.

The Bible says that before the Flood, all animals ate plants: “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.” Genesis 1: 30.

It remained so for some time after the Flood. The waters were receding for about three months after the ark settled in the mountains of Ararat, enough time for new vegetation to sprout before the animals left the Ark. Then God lifted his prohibition about eating meat for Noah and for all living creatures as they spread across the earth: “Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.” (Genesis 9: 1-3)

And no amount of evolution could account for the number of species we have alive today giving it just 6000 years or so, starting from these 8000 "kinds". Nor does it make sense when you look at the fossil record. You can slice it any which way, it's just not possible.

Perhaps no amount of “evolution” could result in the number of species we have today, but speciation is not the same as evolution. It is the shuffling, reordering and deletion of already existing genetic information. And remember, 8,000 kinds -- although it is possible there were more than this; the Ark could have accomodated more -- were only those creatures that lived and moved on the earth and had the breath of life in their nostrils, so it didn’t include insects or fish and other water-dwelling creatures.

As to the fossil record, creation makes huge sense when you look at the fossil record, because rather than showing a gradual change from one sort of creature into another, virtually all kinds of animals appear in the fossil record seemingly at once – the Cambrian explosion fully formed and almost indistinguishable from creatures living today, save for the minor variations that are due to natural selection acting on existing genetic information. See http://www.answersingenesis.org/TJ/v11/i2/speciation.asp for a discussion of speciation and http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i1/wallaby.asp for a very technical discussion of jumping genes or transposable elements and its possible relation to rapid post-Flood speciation.

*** *** ***

And now I must bid farewell to this whole discussion. Whenever I get involved in one of these on-line debates, I spend more time than I should on it. They’re enjoyable, but too time-consuming. We’ll just have to agree to disagree. Bye to all and keep studying.

[Cradle of Fish]

Could you link us to any credible sites without a hidden agenda SherlockH?

[fullywired]

It remained so for some time after the Flood. The waters were receding for about three months after the ark settled in the mountains of Ararat

Right! ,now let's see the flood covered the entire world ,to the top of the highest mountains (Everest 8.848 ft) Question .Where did the waters recede to ?Where did it all go ?

How did the ark survive the process? Such a wholesale restructuring of the earth's topography, compressed into just a few months, would have produced tsunamis large enough to circle the earth. The aftershocks alone would have been devastating for years afterwards.

Edited May 2, 2007 by fullywired

[Cradle of Fish]

Just to add to fullwired's post, dont try to say that the polar icecaps is where all the water went because there just isn't enough ice in the world to drown mt. Everest.

[Eieam Wun]

SherlockH, very informed post, there is however a thought. When you commented saying that there are only two ways that life came about either via being created or from nothing(via evolution), I would have to disagree. Until as you have demonstrated in your post "proven otherwise", the evidence doesn't show life to have even been created, so the possiblity that life always existed and merely adapts, has to also be considered. Even if it wasn't always present on this planet, we are a long ways from even saying life was at one point nonexistent and thus there for had to have been created or come about. Hence my "belief" is that life always was as is my belief of the universe. Because saying God did it or it just came to be is no different then saying it always was!

Eyajwhynsos

[Torchwood]

oops knew i shouldnt have skimmed over everything!

Edited for talking rubbish!

Edited May 2, 2007 by Torchwood

[Doug1029]

There are six marshy lakes across the Isthmus of Suez. They are Lake Bardawil, Lake Menzala, Lake Balah (also known as "the Papyrus Swamp"), Lake Timsah, Great Bitter Lake and Lesser Bitter Lake. Before the Canal of the Pharaoh (built about 1830 BC), Lake Bardawil and Lake Menzala, both of which connect to the Mediterranean, received enough Nile water that they could grow papyrus; Lake Balah and Lake Timsah were probably dry salt pans, and the Bitter Lakes were either dry or salty evaporation basins that occasionally received "slopover" water from the Gulf of Suez. The two Bitter Lakes were connected by a channel, giving them the same water level.

I think you are making assumptions. For example, you seem to discount Lake Timsah as a possibility, when there are Bible scholars believe this was a likely candidate for the crossing. You claim it was “probably” a dry salt pan. Sources I have found indicate that it was actually the northern end of the Red Sea at that time and not just the result of canal-based flooding.

You story about the Bitter Lakes may seem plausible. However, you are discounting the possibility that the parting of the Red Sea was what it claims to be, an act of divine intervention by God. You are seeking a naturalistic explanation, ruling out the possibility that miracles can happen. If the Hebrews had considered it to be just a natural occurrence, why would they attach such great importance to it?

Myth and legend? I don’t think so. The Jews were quite meticulous in keeping accurate records of their history, even those parts that cast them in a bad light. Oral histories were not kept by just one or two individuals; the whole community was a part of a system of checks and balances to ensure an accurate retelling of their history from generation to generation. When they started writing it down, they kept just as stringent a watch over those records. If a single character was written incorrectly, the entire scroll was discarded and the copiest began again.

At the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 years ago, sea levels were about 330 feet lower than they are today. It would have been possible to cross the Red Sea as described in the Bible. 20,000 years ago was a time of mammoths, cave bears and saber-toothed cats…

In this statement, your naturalistic, evolution-based mindset is clearly shown, assuming the last Ice Age was 20,000 years ago. This age is based on uniformitarian assumptions not provable by experimentation.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a discussion about evolution, not Bible archeology.

When the Suez Sweetwater Canal was built, "Lake" Timsah was a dry salt pan seventeen feet below mean sea level. That is its normal, natural condition. In order for it to exist as a lake, it has to have a source of water from somehwere else, such as the Nile River or the Red Sea. If "Lake" Timsah had water in it in Moses' day, it was because the Canal of the Pharaoh provided it.

Papyrus grows in fresh water; it can tolerate brackish conditions up to about 2% salt. The 3% salt content of the Red Sea kills it. If the Red Sea was "the Sea of Reeds," then it was receiving fresh water in huge amounts. The only source of fresh water in that area is the Nile River by way of the Canal of the Pharaoh through Wadi Tumilat. If the Red Sea had been diluted, then the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah held fresh water and could have supported reeds. Lake Menzala still receives fresh water from the Nile and still has papyrus. The Suez Canal blocked the flow of fresh water to Lake Bardawil - it no longer grows papyrus. Lake Balah, originally called "the Papyrus Swamp," is a shallow reedy depression; when the ancient canals supplied it with water, it was a full-blown lake; it has grown reeds as far back as any records go. To reiterate: any of these lakes could have been "the Sea of Reeds."

If the "Sea of Reeds" was the Red Sea, then the lake system was filled with fresh water. That means there was no reason for the Israelites to face three days in the desert without water: they could simply have followed the canal to the Red Sea, using canal water as they went. If the Red Sea was the Sea of Reeds, then the Israelites did not spend three days in the wilderness without water as called for in Numbers 33:8.

Before it was removed in the construction of the Suez Canal, there was a low ridge (the Shallufa Ridge or Sill) in the bottom of Tia Beni-Israel, near the southern end of Lesser Bitter Lake. It's top was about three feet above sea level and it acted as a natural dam, keeping the Red Sea and the Bitter Lakes separate. Storm surges of up to 10.7 feet at Suez and 3.2 feet on the northwest side of Great Bitter Lake have been recorded by the Suez Canal Authority. The Suez surge easily overtopped the sill, spilling salt water into the Bitter Lakes basin. In modern (pre-Suez Canal) times, storm surges and evaporation combined to keep the surface of the Bitter Lakes at about six feet below sea level.

Between Great Bitter Lake and Lake Timsah there is a slight height-of-land, about five-to-six feet above sea level. It also acted as a natural barrier, keeping the two lakes separate. When tailwater from the Canal of the Pharaoh was released into Lake Timsah, it raised the water-level until it over-topped the height-of-land, flowing into the Bitter Lakes Basin and flooding them, too. The water then flowed through the Tia-Beni-Israel to Suez in imitation of a natural river. A boat could easily ride the flow over the sill to the Red Sea, turn and row back up. In fact, Queen Hatshepsut did exactly that when she visited Punt, about 1460 BC.

Sea levels jump up and down like yo-yos. About 2000 BC, mean sea levels were about 4.5 feet below modern (1950), rising to 2.7 feet above modern about 1700 BC, then falling back to about 5.7 feet below modern in 1400 BC. They then rose again to about 2.5 feet above modern in 1000 BC, then continued to rise slowly to about 4.0 feet by 800 BC. By 400 BC they were down, then rose to 5.6 feet above modern during the Roman Period (There are marine shells on the docks at Caesarea, 5.6 feet above current water levels.). They then dropped back to their modern levels and have never gone that high again.

At two times were sea levels high enough to flood the Bitter Lakes Basin with salt water, making it part of the Red Sea (aka the Heroopolitic Red Sea): about 1100 BC to 600 BC and again about 150 to 400 AD. There is a wave terrace along the old shoreline west of Ismailia at an elevation of about 6 feet above sea level; it could have been made either by fresh water from the canal, or salt water from the Heroopolitic Red Sea, maybe both. References to Lake Timsah's "surging flow" stem from the Roman Period when it was a tidal bay. IF you place the Exodus at the traditional time of King David, you can have Moses crossing the Heroopolitic Red Sea; otherwise, it didn't happen: sea levels weren't high enough to flood the basin.

I think your Bible scholars should talk to a hydrologist. They have a major hurdle to overcome.

There is another reason that I choose El Kubrit as the site of Pi-hahiroth: besides being the mouth of the channel between the Bitter Lakes (Pi-hahiroth means Mouth-of-the-Canal/Channel.) there is a low hill 4.5 miles southeast of El Kubrit. It's name is Gebel Seipha: Baal Zephon. That wind blew directly from Gebel Seipha to El Kubrit. If you were desperately trying to cross the straights and a wind came from the hill of the God of the Winds and pushed the water aside, who would you think sent it? Do I need another reason? If you stand at the modern El Kubrit Station and turn around so you are facing west, you will be looking at Migdol, the natural rock formation about six miles away that looks like a watch tower and juts from the side of Gebel Geneifa.

So: my reasons are:

1. the Bitter Lakes could easily have been the Sea of Reeds; the Red Sea is a poor choice and the Heroopolitic Red Sea is even worse.

2. the site is three very dry days' travel from the best candidate for Marah: Ayn Musa.

3. It fits the physical description of Pihahiroth.

4. It is opposite Baal Zephon.

5. It is between a watch tower and the sea.

6. Escape is blocked by rocks, talus from the lower slopes of Gebel Geneifa.

7. Surge waves make it possible for someone in the channel to be assaulted by waves from both the left and the right simultaneously. This is possible nowhere else that I know of.

8. There was an island in the channel that made it possible to walk on dry land in the midst of the sea.

9. There are springs that make it a feasible travel route (The route was used to supply Egyptian mines in the Sinai at exactly the time the Exodus is supposed to have happened.).

This is the site of the mythical Red Sea Crossing. Only the geographical details fit. The rest is probably myth (I'll be glad to explain that.).

You are correct that I am seeking a natural explanation of events. If phenomena occur by natural causes (The storm surges at Suez STILL happen.), then they do not consitute proof of a miracle, or by extension, proof of the supernatural. The argument that it can't be natural, because that wouldn't be a miracle; therefore, it must be a miracle, is circular. It fails as a logical test. I am playing the Devil's Advocate: you may have reached a correct conclusion, but you didn't do it using this line of reasoning.

As for those "uniformitarian assumptions:" Nuclear chemistry in the form of a variety of radio-active isotopes, of which carbon-13 (C13 methods are good to about 40,000 years BP) is only one, demonstrate the extreme age of the earth. Or are you saying that nuclear chemistry is an assumption? Uniformitarianism is an old, mostly-obsolete concept; you need to update your sources.

Genetics, geomagnetism, geology, chemistry, ecology, biogeography, dendrochronology - the list of sciences that lend support to evolution is a long one. Genetics supports evolution by providing the theoretical mechanism by which it operates. You can see evolution happening under your nose, if you care to look: those super-bugs that threaten our health system are the recent products of evolution: they have evolved within the last 100 years or so. AIDS is an example of runaway evolution: the virus undergoes enough replications to produce a whole new species every time it kills somebody; AIDS has probably evolved since 1940. My front lawn has rosette dandelions in it, the product of repeatedly mowing off the tall flowers. New species of grass have been produced in the lab. Most stillbirths occur because the baby wasn't viable outside the womb: that's evolution at work.

I'm not saying that the experience of God isn't valid. It's just that creationists are going to have to look a lot farther and dig a lot deeper. I would be over-joyed if they could produce conclusive evidence of the truth of the Bible, but I don't think it exists: certainly nowhere between Genesis and Revelation. Trying to support the case with fairy tales, bad reasoning and pseudoscience won't get the job done.

--DJS

P.S.: For a long time I have been looking for articles giving scientific support for Creationism. These need to be peer-reviewed articles published in research journals. There are lots of scientists out there who would have no qualms about upsetting the evolutionary applecart if they had good data to support their conclusions. Such a study would sell a lot of journals: there'd be journals eager to publish such a study. But so far, I haven't found any.

Failing that, does anybody know where I can find good articles on Creationism? These need to explain the theological underpinnings of creationism.

I am also looking for articles by people who have studied evolution, know very thoroughly what it is about and still don't believe it. These should be current and should accurately reflect the content of sources they cite. There are a lot of Creationist writings out there that relie on material discarded by the scientific community decades ago as inaccurate. There are also a lot of Creationist articles that misrepresent their sources. I want to see good scholarship.

How about it? Where do I look?

--DJS

[Doug1029]

Creationism has a few things it needs to explain before its vaildity can be established. These include:

1. The Bible. As a source of quality information, it fails badly: Dan Morgan (http://www.the-archon.com/guide/errors.htm) has compiled a huge list of biblical "inconsistencies." I downloaded and printed it: 52 pages. Most of these are trivial, more typos than real errors, but they do throw doubt on the Bible's credibility. The Bible contains many errors of fact not on Morgan's list, of which I have posted a few on this site, and Mako has posted more. These are particularly damaging to its use as a reliable source. I am not asking for infallibility, just a modicum of reliability.

2. Tree ring callendars. In Europe, tree ring callendars now extend back almost to the Ice Age, over 11,000 years. Europe has had a contiuous tree cover for that entire time: Noah's Flood didn't include Europe.

Tree ring callendars have been used to check the accuracy of C13-dating and adjust them for fluctuations in the rate of atmospheric C13-generation. The callendars are now accurate to +/- 300 years at an age of 10,000 years and are reasonably reliable back to 40,000 years. I have a printout of dates and accuracies determined from actual tests sitting on my desk as I write this.

If Creationists are going to claim that carbon-dating is inaccurate, they need to show experimental evidence demonstrating their reasoning and conclusions. Unsubstantiated accusations aren't valid. SHOW ME YOUR DATA.

3. Varves. Varves are alternating layers of fine and coarse, or dark and light sediment, deposited on the bottom of lakes that freeze part of the year. Wave action during the summer allows only coarse material to settle; with the surface frozen in winter, the fines settle out, causing alternating layers. Lake Van is a fresh-water lake in northeast Turkey at the foot of Mount Ararat. Its varves record a history going back tens of thousands of years. If there was a major flood, it would have disturbed the layers; all we would have to do to determine the year of Noah's Flood is count the varves back to the disturbance. There is no such disturbance in Lake Van's sediments. If Lake Van, which is at the foot of Mount Ararat was never flooded, then Mount Ararat was not flooded. BUT, there is some big wooden thing up there under the glacier. Napoleon reported seeing it and other travelers have reported it over the years. Perhaps global warming will melt enough of the glacier that whatever-it-is will be relocated and examined by archeologists. In the meantime, it is safe to say it is not a great big boat.

Varves also occur in other lakes: Bonners Ferry, Idaho sits on top of over 200 feet of them, representing a continuous record of nearly 10,000 years. Not bad for a planet that's only supposed to be a little over 6000 years old. There are hundreds of sediment cores from all over the world that tell a similar story: there was no transworld flood and the individual lakes are millenia older than what is claimed by creationists.

4. Carbon dating isn't the only type of radiometric dating. It is also done with Strontium/Thorium ratios. These show results consistent with carbon-dating, but extend much farther back in time; albeit, with less accuracy.

5. Evolutionists have a logical problem: the Doctrine of Uniformity is not amenable to deductive proof; they cannot PROVE that huge amounts of time have passed. But that shoe pinches just as bad on the other foot: creationists can't prove that it hasn't. So let's quit harping on this one: neither side has the proof!

6. Archeology. When the ruin of Eridu was excavated in the 1930s, archeologists found a layer of flood debris some 20 feet thick. The initial reaction was to assume that they had confirmed Noah's Flood. Excavations since then in other parts of the ruin have not found the flood layer: "Noah's Flood" didn't even include the largest part of Eridu.

7. Flood stories. Flood stories come from all over the world. That's because floods occur all over the world. In parts of Peru's Atacama it hasn't rained in 400 years: but when it does rain there, it comes in buckets. It rains everywhere; it floods everywhere. Dragon stories come from all over the world, too. But that doesn't prove that dragons ever existed. On the other hand, if there was a universal flood, there should be flood deposits nearly everywhere. There aren't.

Each of the sciences has a Fundamental Theorem, subject to testing, on which it rests. Thus, the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, the Central Limit Theorem, the Atomic Theory, the Germ Theory, etc. These are all "just theories." BUT, we build bridges and sky-scrapers based on Pythagorus' Theorem. We fly to the moon and have sent robots to the other planets based on Newton's Laws of Motion. And these are "just theories." Evolution is "just a theory." By contrast, Creationists have yet to articulate a Fundamental Theorem of Creation. As of now, Creationism isn't even a hypothesis.

Evolution is testable: you can make predictions based on it, then check to see if observations confirm your predictions. Articles by the dozen are published each month on this very subject. It's called evolutionary biology/botany/ecology, etc.

Creationists want their ideas to be a science - "Creation Science." That is something they will have to earn by actually doing - and publishing - the research. As of right now, evolution is the science and creationism is just a wild idea.

--DJS

[laveticus666]

Here's my response from you're other post that is a duplicate of this:

Speciation has been observed in microbes and other creatures with extremely fast rates of production. Genetics emphatically supports common descent. The entire fossil record supports evolution. I have no idea what you're talking about the bible being proven in court to be true, that's a ridiculous statement, completely unsupported by the amount of historically and scientifically inaccurate passages of the bible. Lastly, evolution has nothing to do with religion.

Oh boy, trotting out thermodynamics again. Are you just cutting and pasting from creationist websites? The earth is not a closed system! We have this huge furnace called the sun constantly adding energy to the system. If energy couldn't overcome entropy nothing could happen in any sense. No work, no growth. The 2nd law refers to a system with no outside influence. The earth is not a closed system. Also note that order can result from the 2nd Law: " There are millions of compounds that have less energy in them than the elements of which they are composed. That sentence is a quiet bombshell. It means that the second law energetically FAVORS — yes, predicts firmly — the spontaneous formation of complex, geometrically ordered molecules from utterly simple atoms of elements. Popular statements such as "the second law says that all systems fundamentally tend toward disorder and randomness" are wrong when they refer to chemistry, and chemistry precisely deals with the structure and behavior of all types of matter.

To summarize this important conclusion that is known by very few who are not chemists: Energetically, the second law of thermodynamics favors the formation of the majority of all known complex and ordered chemical compounds directly from their simpler elements. Thus, contrary to popular opinion, the second law does not dictate the decrease of ordered structure by its predictions. It only demands a "spreading out" of energy when such ordered compounds are formed spontaneously.

Also, to repeat a caution: The foregoing only describes energetic relationships involving the second law. It does not mean that most complex substances can be readily synthesized just by mixing elements and treating them in some way. The second law has nothing to do with pathways or procedures of synthesis.

Most complex molecules may require the expertise of one or of many chemists to put them together in a laboratory. However, so far as the second law of thermodynamics is concerned, not only water but cholesterol, DNA, the anti-depressant in St. John’s Wort and millions of other complex substances contain less energy than their constituent elements. Therefore, thermodynamically, their formation from those elements would be a spontaneous process, energetically favored by the second law. "

Frank L. Lambert Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Occidental College

Learn what a theory means before trying to use it in a context you don't understand.

First read "Order out of Chaos" so you understand what you're talking about.

On Mendel, you just rewrote his laws entirely, here's what they really are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance

And they completely support speciation.

You do know that there is no such thing as a transitional form per se? All creatures are what they are at any given time. We simply use species as label to help classifiy flora and fauna. Every creature is a transitional form. To actually address what you're dancing around though, you must realize that fossils have been found that represent say: sea to land, dinosaurs to birds, whales from land creatures back to water, early hominid species. This argument has so thoroughly been debunked I can't believe it's still brought up. Here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

Read it.

Strata can be accurately dated using radiometric techniques. Palentologists, geologists and archeologists start with that. If a fossil has always only been found in a certain strata and that fossil is found in a strata on site then it can be used to give a rough date. Follow up analysis is always done if the item is date crucial though. Also, note, they are very well aware how strata are moved and eroded. Its something that they deal with on a daily basis. The flood never happened. There is no geologic evidence for it. Strata are not as ununiform as you would like to believe.

1. Java man is Homo Erectus and more complete specimens have been found since then. Nice trying to use a more than century old analysis, while ignoring modern analysis, to make your point.

2. No, you are wrong. The first near complete skeleton gave rise to the stooped posture. That was the sickly one. Discoveries since then, of which there are many, show them to be a different homo species that was quite robust and strong. Get you facts straight. No scientist is saying what you're purporting they are.

3. Piltdown was a hoax. It was found out. So? There was an attempted hoax not that long ago in China. that was found out too. You can't get away with it.

4. So peking man is missing. So what? There's far more fossils than that.

5. Again, this was the 1920's. And it was discovered to be false even then. Are you afraid to bring up any evidence after the 60's or what?

6. Lucy is an Australopithecus, an early human predecessor, not an extinct orangutan. Where do you get this stuff?

Nice smokescreen though, trying to bring up science that is mostly turn of the century stuff prior to the more sophisticated techniques we rely on today. Here's a list of the homonid fossils we'vr found and where they were found:

http://www.msu.edu/~heslipst/contents/ANP440/

So, before you post about science again, maybe you should read some. There has never been an actual scientific argument against evolution that has stood up to scrutiny and most arguments, like your own, aren't even scientfic to begin with.

Nice saved me some time. Well said.

[Lt_Ripley]

The Jews were quite meticulous in keeping accurate records of their history, even those parts that cast them in a bad light. Oral histories were not kept by just one or two individuals; the whole community was a part of a system of checks and balances to ensure an accurate retelling of their history from generation to generation. When they started writing it down, they kept just as stringent a watch over those records. If a single character was written incorrectly, the entire scroll was discarded and the copiest began again.

really ? I think you are referring to Monks who copied scripture.( yet still made errors and inserted their own views)

as far as oral tradition goes - line up 100 people. tell the first one a secret and have them pass it on. by the time it gets to the 100th person you'd be lucky to recognize it. now add hundreds of years , language changes , bad interpretations ,changes for personal and political reasons. (we've seen history changed with this administration. nothing new under the sun. people have always changed history to fit their needs.)

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (a.k.a. The Pentateuch, the 5 Books of Moses, the Books of the Law, the Law, the Torah). These state in numerous places that they were written by Moses. But mainline and liberal theologians have long accepted the "Documentary Hypothesis" which asserts that the Pentateuch was written by a group of four authors, from various locations in Palestine, over a period of centuries. Each wrote with the goal of promoting his/her own religious views. A fifth individual cut and pasted the original documents in to the present Pentateuch.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_bibl.htm

The Hebrew Scriptures contain many errors about the surrounding cultures, as events, personalities and cultures were forgotten before being recorded.

The first books in the Scriptures was written in its final form circa 900 BCE during the reign of Josiah. This was many centuries after the life of Moses.

What the Bible Actually Says: At the time that the Bible was written, the authors of the Hebrew Scriptures seem to have known little or nothing about Palestine as it existed during the second millennium, at the time of the Exodus from Egypt and the genocides in Canaan. The Bible refers to the presence of the Philistines in Palestine; but that society did not arrive in the area until long after the second millennium.

The Scriptures speak of events at Beersheva and other towns which did not exist until much later than those events.

There was no mention of the strong Egyptian presence in Palestine at that time. In fact, if the ancient Hebrews left Egypt, wandered in the desert for 40 years, and invaded Canaan as described in the books of Exodus and Joshua, they would not have left Egyptian-controlled territory. 2

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ine_none1.htm

See Ellis R. Brotzman, Old Testament Textual Criticism: A Practical Introduction (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book, 1994), 108, for examples of errors. The state of the problem of errors in the MT is summarized in the preface to the first printing of the New English Bible: "The Hebrew text as thus handed down [by the Massoretes] is full of errors of every kind due to defective archetypes and successive copyists’ errors, confusion of letters, omissions and insertions, displacements of words and even whole sentences or paragraphs; and copyists’ unhappy attempts to rectify mistakes have only increased the confusion" (Harold Scanlin, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Modern Translations of the Old Testament [Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 1993], 31).

Throughout the history of the various biblical texts, both the Old and the New Testaments, various errors have crept in—a fact that scholars have been aware of for centuries. The Jewish Talmud, which dates to the fifth century a.d., lists eighteen occasions when the scribes intentionally altered the Old Testament because they thought certain ideas showed disrespect for God, or because certain ideas disagreed with the scribes’ theological notion of who or what God is. These textual changes, called tiqqune sopherim (errors of the scribes) may be found in the following verses: Genesis 18:22; Numbers 11:15; 12:12; 1 Samuel 3:13; 2 Samuel 16:12; 20:1; 1 Kings 12:16; Jeremiah 2:11; Ezekiel 8:17; Hosea 4:7; Habakkuk 1:12; Zechariah 2:12; Malachi 1:13; Psalm 106:20; Job 7:20; 32:3; 2 Chronicles 10:16; and Lamentations 3:20.19

http://byubroadcasting.org/deadsea/book/chapter2/sec2.html

not to mention the numerous problems with the Book of Daniel.

http://www.tektonics.org/guest/danielblast.html

[Lt_Ripley]

QUOTE(Fearisgood @ Apr 17 2007, 03:09 PM)

People follow science like a religion. It is like "if a scientist says so then it must be so", without questioning it. Fact is that many scientists will say anything to support their philosophy and history will show this. There are two main philosophies concerning the origins of life, creationism and naturalism. Naturalism is very appealing as it does not require accountability to a higher being. However it does provide nice theories and stories.

the Bible does provides nice stories as well. lots of fantasy.

science questions it's finding all the time. when something is found to be wrong science adjusts accordingly. religion on the other hand doesn't.

you can prove there is a higher being? or are you just saying it's so ?

[Doug1029]

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (a.k.a. The Pentateuch, the 5 Books of Moses, the Books of the Law, the Law, the Torah). These state in numerous places that they were written by Moses

I have read those five books cover-to-cover, including all the genealogy, laws and instructions for building an arc. I do not recall that they say anywhere that they were written by Moses. Deuteronomy 34:5-12 tells of Moses' death and people mourning for him - a difficult thing for Moses to write about. The most-recent ending date scholars have proposed for the Exodus is about 1140 BC. The oldest known example of Hebrew writing is the Geiser Stone, dating from about 930 BC. If "Moses" wrote the Pentateuch, he didn't do it in Hebrew.

Northwest Semitic (about 1500 to 1300 BC) had 27 consonants. As it evolved into Hebrew, 5 of those were dropped. Not one single book or scrap of the Old Testament containing any of the dropped letters has ever been found. The texts, themselves, argue that they were written long after Moses might have lived.

Moses' authorship of the Pentateuch is one of those biblical add-ons, like the story of Adam's first wife, Lilith. As far as I know, the Bible does not say this; the use of this myth and many others argues that Judeo-Christianity is not really Bible-based.

Personally, I believe Moses is a legend; he is a composite of three (maybe four) prototypes drawn from Egyptian history. These are Djehuti, a priest/minister/courtier under Queen Hatshepsut, Osar-Seph, an Egyptian priest who led a slave revolt late in the reign of Horemheb and Ramses I, and Amenmesses, a renegade Pharaoh and grandson of Ramses II who tried to seize the thrown, lost the battle and disappeared. Way back during the reign of Amenemhet I there was a courtier named Sinuhe who got caught up in a palace revolt, fled to Canaan and returned years later to write his memoirs; he is a possible prototype, but as this was long before any of the other events recalled in the Bible, it is difficult to believe that he was "Moses."

--DJS

[Doug1029]

The Bible refers to the presence of the Philistines in Palestine; but that society did not arrive in the area until long after the second millennium.

In ancient Egyptian (Coptic?) "Pelest" means "People of the Sea." There are references to sea-bourne raiders as far back as Ramses II and Merneptah, but the name "Pelest" is not used for them. It wasn't until after they overthrew the Hittites in the 1190s that sea raiders became a serious problem for Egypt. The term "Pelest" is first used for them during the reign of Ramses III. Ramses III defeated the Pelest in a sea battle in which the Egyptian navy (never known for naval prowess) cornered the Pelest fleet in the now-defunct Pelusium Channel of the Nile where both ship-board and land-based archers could rain arrows on them. The defeated Pelest were settled in Gaza to serve Egyptian interests. This battle occurred in about 1178 BC. The Pelestianians have been there ever since; thus, the Palestinian claim to Gaza is based on the Egyptian right of conquest. This was late in the 11th century BC.

--DJS

Edited May 9, 2007 by Doug1029

[Doug1029]

Back to Evolution/Creationism:

As I understand it, Creationists argue that life is so complex that it could not have developed through natural (as opposed to supernatural means). They use illustrations like exploding steel mills creating watches to show the point. Translation: the creation of life requires God; randomn chance could not have done it.

So I have a question: where did God come from? Presumably, there was no pre-existing intelligence or "god" to create God. So, God must be the product of random chance. So random events can create God, but life is too complicated for chance?

--DJS

[Doug1029]

Error: the link is down. --DJS

Edited May 9, 2007 by Doug1029

[RamboIII]

Actually post starter, you are the one who is wrong. Evolution is a proven fact in many situations such as why deep cave-dwellers have no eyes.

[RamboIII]

I have read those five books cover-to-cover, including all the genealogy, laws and instructions for building an arc. I do not recall that they say anywhere that they were written by Moses. Deuteronomy 34:5-12 tells of Moses' death and people mourning for him - a difficult thing for Moses to write about.

--DJS

Seeing as the Bible is pure fiction, I do not find it hard for him to do such a thing.