I don't put much weight in the historical accuracy of the ancient history of the bible from Adam & Eve through Noah. I believe elements of this ancient history are true but my focus is more on the message, because it was so long ago it will be difficult to uncover what happened also the writing style is very symbolic. That being said the more and more I hear and study, the more that lines up on historical accuracy.

Was listening to Fr. Mitch Pacwa (Cajun Catholic on EWTN) and he said it is fact that ballpark 10-15% of our DNA is from Neanderthal man, slightly different species from Homo Sapien. The Neanderthal's died off ballpark 35K BC.

Speculation (something to ponder- not church teaching) is the sons of Adam and Eve mated with Neanderthals. Adam and Eve were the first Homo Sapiens but the earth was already populated with Neanderthals.

AstroAg17 said:

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I think we're <3% Neanderthal. I'm not sure where that guy gets his facts.

Trying to fuse young earth creationism and the actual timeline results in theories dumber than either of them.

Humans have been around about 200,000 years.

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You crack me up.

Ok- I said ballpark 10-15% you say less than 3% ok fine. Still fact we have neanderthal DNA. We know the Neanderthals died off.

It was interesting speculation comment.

you are right 2-3% DNA for us today. Seen comments that it is was higher for humans thousands of years ago. I don't care what the percentage is/ was. My point is still valid- we mated with Neanderthals.

" DNA from a man who lived 40,000 years ago in Romania reveals that up to 11 percent of his genome came from Neanderthals."

This thread makes me:

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I'm just not sure why you would form your opinion. Why do you think an Adam and Eve existed, why do you think they existed 40k years ago, and why do you think their children mated with Neanderthals?

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1) Tried to be clear, this was speculation discussion. We have Neanderthal DNA, this is a fact. Is what prompted the discussion, to look at the story from angle of first Homo Sapiens (Adam & Eve).

2) I don't put much weight or time into worrying about it (Adam & Eve, Noah), because it was so long ago 10K to +35K, also the writing style (talking snake and forbidden fruit).

But "Overall" the bible is historically accurate. We see real history,people, time and places. It is not written by one wack job, but hundreds of people over centuries. The NT it is accuate for the style and time, the book of Acts with Luke are filled with significant time and date historial stamps, coupled with the early letters of paul, 20 years after Jesus death, reduces the myth, made up argument.

Also the Jews in writing the OT get credit all the way up to the land of Canaan- roughly 1200BC. All of their history, the major time date markers are there. There really was a King David. So maybe Adam & Eve and Noah have some real historical accuracy in them?

There were never just two humans. The story of the flood and the tower of Babel are nonsense. The Exodus is largely innaccurate the conquest is largely innaccurate, you really don't have much accurate broad history through the early portiins of Bible. Trying to force a halfway literal interpretation is senseless.

Aggrad08 said:

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There were never just two humans. The story of the flood and the tower of Babel are nonsense. The Exodus is largely innaccurate the conquest is largely innaccurate, you really don't have much accurate broad history through the early portiins of Bible. Trying to force a halfway literal interpretation is senseless.

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Aggrad,

Working backwards in time do you agree with my timeline? Was there a Maccabean Revolt? Was there a King David? Was a Jewish temple built? Does the Merneptah Stele point to the Jews being in the land of Canaan. At the same time the bible has them in the land of Canaan?

Answer Yes!

+35K BC -Adam and Eve sons with Neanderthals women before they died out- speculation

8K BC- Noah -flood Ice age- truth all/most of the nations of the ancient world speak of epic flood. Speculation melting of ice age 8K BC caused these regional floods across the globe.

Tower of Babel- Ancient History

• 2000 BC- Abraham- No historical Evidence
• 1250 BC- In Egypt- Moses- No Historical evidence
• 1200 BC- Jews in land of Cana - Yes Historical Evidence - Merneptah Stele- Jews in land of Canaan
• 1000 BC - King David. Solomon- Temple- Yes Historical Evidence
• 722 BC- Northern Kingdom (lost tribes) Falls to Assyria- Yes Historical Evidence
• 587 BC- Southern Kingdom falls temple destroyed by Babylonians- Yes Historical Evidence Exists
• 500BC- Jews Return to Israel with helpf of ruler Cyrius (Persia)- Yes Historical Evidence
• 167BC- Maccabean Revolt against Greeks- Book of Maccabees- Yes Historical Evidence

Aggrad08 said:

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There were never just two humans. The story of the flood and the tower of Babel are nonsense. The Exodus is largely innaccurate the conquest is largely innaccurate, you really don't have much accurate broad history through the early portiins of Bible. Trying to force a halfway literal interpretation is senseless.

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I agree with you in that ancient history of the bible- Adam, Noah and Tower of Babel are different styles and stories. Don't put much weight in them.

Disagree with you on Exodus. My bet is we will find the jews were in fact slaves in egypt, they did escape and make it to land of Canaan (Stele already has them there). They battled other nations, they integrated with other nations. It was not a swift victory but roughly 250 year campaign, struggle, slow process. In some instances the Jews took lands of others without a battle (story of hornets driving people out is one example).

If the Jews were going to make up history, why make up that story of being slave? Also Egypt was the power in the region, and Eypt did have other nations as slaves.

Do not think it was 700K Jewish males who left Egypt in exodus, believe the number is much smaller. Especially if you start with Joseph taking the Jews into Egypt- do not think you can get to that number of 700K males in that time.

Dr. Watson said:

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Regional flooding does not account for the Noah story. And flood myths in other cultures don't connect to the Noah story.

And again, the fact that King David existed does not make the Bible's account of him accurate. The existence of an actual Troy doesn't make the Illiad an historically accurate account.

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1) I agree by itself the regional floods do not make the Noah story, but it is a clue, a significant piece of evidence that all societies speak of epic flood. Another piece of evidence is the town underwater of the black sea from ballpark 7500 years ago, close to the same region as Noah.

2) King David existance is a quality time date stamp. Agreed, does not mean everything else is true. But the Jews get credit for truth. Unlike the book of Mormon, where most of the story cannot be verified. By contrast the book of Acts of the apostles in NT has many time date quality stamps, Luke gets names, locations and titles correct of the many officials that are listed.

And yet so much wrong.

Dr. Watson said:

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And yet so much wrong.

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Challenge- tell me what is wrong in the book Acts of the Apostles.

Be Careful- many an atheist tried to prove the Acts of the apostles wrong, and became Christian.

There is no evidence of an Egyptian origin, you've nothing to go on. Their language and culture is Canaanite just like their other neighbors in the area. Even if you ignore the numbers you still have issues.

You are giving the Bible a super wide leeway that you would never give to the Koran or book of Mormon.

Aggrad08 said:

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There is no evidence of an Egyptian origin, you've nothing to go on. Their language and culture is Canaanite just like their other neighbors in the area. Even if you ignore the numbers you still have issues.

You are giving the Bible a super wide leeway that you would never give to the Koran or book of Mormon.

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1) I don't follow Egyptian origin? The jews did not originally live in Egypt. they lived there and left, they would of picked up some customs. When we read the bible, the Jews were constantly trying to isolate themselves, but they were constantly integrating (marrying) with other cultures. It was a mixed bag. They were polytheist trying to be monotheist.

Also the Jews were not dominant, they were not like the Egyptians and others that ruled, they were slaves, the lower class. they were constantly struggling and being conquered. Analogy think of Rice football in the old SWC in the 90s, they did not leave much of a mark. Although I do think they (Rice) and 6 other schools were champions for the last year, A&M was on probation.

2) I bring up book of Mormon because it was written by one man, with little historical accuracy. The bible is much diffferent.

Aggrad your tower of babel

speculation is they could of been talking about the many ziggurats that were built. this is the one of Ur in Iraq. This could of been what the author was talking about, seeing a ziggurant structure. To be clear, we are dealing with author who is trying to explain why we are here. why do we exist instead of nothing.

This Ziggurant was built roughly 2100BC

The bible is divinely inspired but it has a human author, so the style of the author is accounted for. The author does not instantly become Einstein and understand everything, rather they write about what they know and see.

We see in the OT they give an all knowing and powerful God, human characteristics (wrath, anger, jealoousy) because that is how they can relate to him. Another example is Lott, Abraham and Moses at times are seen as being the adult (mature) and educating an all knowing God. need to look at the style and the overall message.

Over time we see the theology of the Jewish people grow and mature. We see a polytheist people fighting for survival grow in understanding over time, becoming Monotheist. And we finally see fullness of truth in NT- in Jesus.

booboo91 said:

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Dr. Watson said:

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And yet so much wrong.

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Challenge- tell me what is wrong in the book Acts of the Apostles.

Be Careful- many an atheist tried to prove the Acts of the apostles wrong, and became Christian.

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Ah, yes, the magic of Acts. I'm not denying many of the details are correct. The author certainly knew more about that period than he did about Rome and Judea when Jesus was born. But the depiction of Paul and his theology differs in places from Paul's own letters, along with implausible narratives about crowds, etc. I don't care to get into a debate about the details, but like every other book in the Bible, the accuracy of some historic details does not prove the narrative.

It's beyond ridiculous to say you could be slaves for 400 years in a place and not pick up the local language, technology or customs. Look at blacks in the US. And your isolationism Falls flat since they adopted tons of Canaanite culture, including religion.

And the tower of Babel is a simple myth attempting to explain the many languages men speak

booboo91 said:

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I don't put much weight in the historical accuracy of the ancient history of the bible from Adam & Eve through Noah. I believe elements of this ancient history are true but my focus is more on the message, because it was so long ago it will be difficult to uncover what happened also the writing style is very symbolic. That being said the more and more I hear and study, the more that lines up on historical accuracy.

Was listening to Fr. Mitch Pacwa (Cajun Catholic on EWTN) and he said it is fact that ballpark 10-15% of our DNA is from Neanderthal man, slightly different species from Homo Sapien. The Neanderthal's died off ballpark 35K BC.

Speculation (something to ponder- not church teaching) is the sons of Adam and Eve mated with Neanderthals. Adam and Eve were the first Homo Sapiens but the earth was already populated with Neanderthals.

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I thought the popular YEC explanation was that Adam and Eve had children not explicitly named in the Bible who then procreated. No?

Aggrad08 said:

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It's beyond ridiculous to say you could be slaves for 400 years in a place and not pick up the local language, technology or customs. Look at blacks in the US. And your isolationism Falls flat since they adopted tons of Canaanite culture, including religion.

And the tower of Babel is a simple myth attempting to explain the many languages men speak

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I agree the Jews would pick up some customs and culture and said so in previous post. The question is how much do you pick up? the Jews have their own culture before they arrive in Egypt. They live in Egypt pick up some of that culture, they travel and integrate with other cultures. Also have Egypt as the dominant force in the region, rubbing off on the folks in Canaan.

How do you quantify the change you would see? Especially for a race that does not dominate but rather struggles. Especially if it is a small force the size of the other tribes in the area.

Agreed the Tower of Babel is short story to explain why folks have different languages. But it also speaks to the pride of men. Common theme of bible- Me, Me, Me, it is all about Me. I am the god! Still applies to us today.

kurt vonnegut said:

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I thought the popular YEC explanation was that Adam and Eve had children not explicitly named in the Bible who then procreated. No?

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Yep I have heard those type of comments. I am not up to date with YEC teaching.

Dr. Watson said:

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Ah, yes, the magic of Acts. I'm not denying many of the details are correct. The author certainly knew more about that period than he did about Rome and Judea when Jesus was born. But the depiction of Paul and his theology differs in places from Paul's own letters, along with implausible narratives about crowds, etc. I don't care to get into a debate about the details, but like every other book in the Bible, the accuracy of some historic details does not prove the narrative.

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Agreed with much of what you said. But the author gets credit for what he gets right. If Luke is getting all the names and specific titles of the positions correct- it leans toward he will get the other details correct.

When the Hittities were found to be a real group, it verifies the OT. Naysayers used to say there was no evidence of them, it was made up. New data points were found, and it verifys what the Jews said. It was a quality filter for the Jews and the veracity of the OT.

On crowd sizes you have to allow room for estimation. Seriously How do you count them? Before an aggie game, I see a sea of people in front of Kyle Field. how many people are there? certainly more than 1000 but is it 3,000-5,000?

The thing you need to understand, the Jews and Christians truly believe there is a God. They take it seriously, from oral tradition to writing things down accurately. They are not trying to make stuff up. They believe it.

The dead sea scrolls are a huge time date quality stamp. We see different copies of the OT roughly 1000 years apart from ballpark 150BC- 70AD to 900 AD. and they are the same!, few discrepencies. Note: the oldest copy of the OT before Deadsea scrolls was roughly 900AD.

Interesting tidbit- The jews so respected the text they would dispose of the old worn scrolls. Thus there are not as many Jewish text around as Christian text.

booboo91 said:

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Dr. Watson said:

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Regional flooding does not account for the Noah story. And flood myths in other cultures don't connect to the Noah story.

And again, the fact that King David existed does not make the Bible's account of him accurate. The existence of an actual Troy doesn't make the Illiad an historically accurate account.

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1) I agree by itself the regional floods do not make the Noah story, but it is a clue, a significant piece of evidence that all societies speak of epic flood. Another piece of evidence is the town underwater of the black sea from ballpark 7500 years ago, close to the same region as Noah.

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it's a significant piece of evidence that all societies lived in places that flooded. (rivers)

Except this didn't happen. Which would be utterly remarkable. The Jews only had a few Egyptian trade words found in other Canaanite tribes. They were no more Egyptian than peoples who were never there. And that's ignoring that there are clear timestamps for cities and places that existed when the books were written but not during the time period if the story.

The exodus wasnt abandoned only for lack of evidence but for evidence against.

schmendeler said:

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it's a significant piece of evidence that all societies lived in places that flooded. (rivers)

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Agreed places flood, very common, not really a big deal, common occurance we see floods all the time in our lifetime from oceans and rivers. Your statement is plausible.

But yet we see all/most ancient societies from across the globe speak of an EPIC flood. We see towns under water today in the black sea from guess what? An epic flood.

Again, I don't put much weight in the Noah story, maybe it happened maybe it did not. Idon't worry about this ancient history of the bible. It was so long ago we won't know. But I am confident in saying there were Epic floods, huge massive floods that destroyed entire regions. And that is what the author would of seen and wrote about.

Aggrad08 said:

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Except this didn't happen. Which would be utterly remarkable. The Jews only had a few Egyptian trade words found in other Canaanite tribes. They were no more Egyptian than peoples who were never there. And that's ignoring that there are clear timestamps for cities and places that existed when the books were written but not during the time period if the story.

The exodus wasnt abandoned only for lack of evidence but for evidence against.

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Would like to read more up on it. If you have any links. As I understand it, the smoking gun is the Jews did not have enough egyptian stuff and speak enough egyptian?

My difficulties for " the experts" who say it did not happen. They are digging a few holes and looking for a change. If they do not see change they assumed nothing happened.

• what type of footprint/change would we see if 1000 Jewish slaves left egypt and entered into Canaan and integrated with other tribes? I am not thinking much.
• The Jews have gotten their history correct from Romans/Greeks 90AD- 160BC up until the land in Canaan (ballpark 1200BC). For nearly 1200 years they get it right, and then they make up a myth about them being slaves to the dominant power in the region. Not buying it.
• Only half joking- I am waiting for some discovery that shows Joseph was in Egypt. Like another Merneptah Stele or piece of Pottery with King David name on it. Some hard physical evidence that cannot be disputed, instead of speculation, educated guesses on the limited data points that are available.

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The exodus wasnt abandoned only for lack of evidence but for evidence against.

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The exodus has not been abandoned. They looked for 2 Million Jews (huge footprint) did not find it and then some experts said it never happened.

They did not explore smaller numbers of Jews (smaller footprints) which are much harder to find. Less change.

The exodus is still alive and well. Another find , data point and the experts will simply move the goal posts. You won't hear the experts say, my bad I was wrong. They just shift with the new data that is found and make new claims.

So those who squawk intermittently No trace of the Hebrews has ever been found (so of course, no exodus!) are wasting their breath. The mud hovels of brickfield slaves and humble cultivators have long since gone back to their mud origins never to be seen again. Even stone structures such as temples hardly survive. In striking contrast to sites in the cliff-enclosed valley of Upper Egypt to the south. ...........Archaeology that limits its blinkered evidence solely to what comes out off modest holes dug in the ground can have no final say in the matter. KA Kitchen- your favorite

They went looking for what the Bible says happened which was a mass migration. They found nothing and direct evidence against. It has been abandoned. No one is looking for your Ad hoc migration of an ever smaller number of people. And there is far more smoking guns and evidence against, I don't feel like rehashing it since you didn't read it learn anything from the last time I did so.

And kitchen is far from my favorite. I have no idea why you would think that

Aggrad08 said:

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They went looking for what the Bible says happened which was a mass migration. They found nothing and direct evidence against. It has been abandoned. No one is looking for your Ad hoc migration of an ever smaller number of people. And there is far more smoking guns and evidence against, I don't feel like rehashing it since you didn't read it learn anything from the last time I did so.

And kitchen is far from my favorite. I have no idea why you would think that

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Really No one is looking? Come on. This is like saying all the evidence is in, when it clearly is not.

It was a joke about Kitchen. Even though he has all these credentials you have told me, he is not good. Your experts are better.

Really, it's largely considered a fruitless pursuit. They are looking but not for the exodus And he is credentialed but has managed to convince almost no one in the field. He's working backwards from a presumed conclusion and it's obvious in his work.