kurt vonnegut said:

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88Warrior said:

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As a believer I doubt God worried too much over one dinosaur eating another as it was man that was created in his image a not T-Rex etc.... He also gave man dominion over the animals and plants…Again..from this believer's perspective…As far as how old earth and the rest of the universe I have no idea…mystery to me…

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How did we go from billions of events of animal suffering over hundreds of billions of years to 'one dinosaur eating another'? If we accept that animals feel pain, can suffer, and can grieve (some of them), then to what purpose do you attribute animal suffering over 'old' Earth time periods?

What does it mean that we have dominion over animals? Does it mean that their pain and suffering has no value as they have zero inherent value?

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Relax… I never said man can or should abuse animals…In Genesis God put man over all animals, fish and fowl. Dominion in this case would mean responsibility, stewardship or caretaking over God's creation.

88Warrior said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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88Warrior said:

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As a believer I doubt God worried too much over one dinosaur eating another as it was man that was created in his image a not T-Rex etc.... He also gave man dominion over the animals and plants…Again..from this believer's perspective…As far as how old earth and the rest of the universe I have no idea…mystery to me…

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How did we go from billions of events of animal suffering over hundreds of billions of years to 'one dinosaur eating another'? If we accept that animals feel pain, can suffer, and can grieve (some of them), then to what purpose do you attribute animal suffering over 'old' Earth time periods?

What does it mean that we have dominion over animals? Does it mean that their pain and suffering has no value as they have zero inherent value?

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Relax… I never said man can or should abuse animals…In Genesis God put man over all animals, fish and fowl. Dominion in this case would mean responsibility, stewardship or caretaking over God's creation.

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Thats all fine, but it doesn't answer any of the questions.

Unfortunately, the literary style of Genesis was not written as poetry. That interpretation of Genesis' style has emerged only in the last few decades in an attempt to force fit Genesis into modern science.

There is no way to describe the genealogies, for example, as "poetry". And there is no way to reconcile the genealogies with modern dating conclusions.

Finally, what is the standard by which one decides which Scriptures are merely poetry and which are histories or factual accounts? If Genesis was merely poetry, was Daniel also? What about the "history" books of the OT, such as Exodus, Judges, and Joshua? Were the Gospels merely poetry in describing Christ's life, death, and resurrection?

Jabin said:

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Unfortunately, the literary style of Genesis was not written as poetry. That interpretation of Genesis' style has emerged only in the last few decades in an attempt to force fit Genesis into modern science.

There is no way to describe the genealogies, for example, as "poetry". And there is no way to reconcile the genealogies with modern dating conclusions.

Finally, what is the standard by which one decides which Scriptures are merely poetry and which are histories or factual accounts? If Genesis was merely poetry, was Daniel also? What about the "history" books of the OT, such as Exodus, Judges, and Joshua? Were the Gospels merely poetry in describing Christ's life, death, and resurrection?

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Genesis isn't poetry; it is broadly history/narrative. However, it is more specifically theological history and as such utilizes poetic/figurative language in sections such as the creation account. I found this to be a helpful explanation:

"Narratives ancient or modern are rarely bare chronicles of events as they happened. Take a reality TV show, for example. When an episode is filmed, multiple cameras are used to capture many events and conversations. The director then selects, arranges, and edits the raw footage to produce a coherent story consistent with the show's agenda. Neither the director nor the viewers would expect to be able to reconstruct the raw footage from the finished product. The situation is similar in any historical account, which is a selective telling of events to serve a particular purpose. The case is no different with ancient narratives such as Genesis.

"Ancient authors were more interested in the meaning of events rather than the details of the events. In that sense these narratives are not like most modern historical narratives. If we were to try to reduce their recorded event to a series of propositional truth claims, we would miss the entire point of their narrative.

"When ancient narratives are interpretations of the past, they are generally not written simply to describe the past. Rather, they serve the present. Their work may be based on real events and real people, but their narratives do not explore "what really happened" in the style modern readers tend to expect. Rather, ancient narratives address the world of the narrator's time, shedding light on that world and providing a perspective for the hearers to embrace. It is this perspective on the world, not the details used to reconstruct the events of the past, that the narrator wishes to convey to his audience."
(from BioLogos)

I find the appeal to "ancient authors" to be extremely unpersuasive. Using the writings from other cultures has very little relevance to the writings of Hebrew authors or to the interpretation of their writings. The ancient Hebrews became dramatically different than their surrounding cultures, probably beginning with the Abrahamic Covenant, and then moreso as time went on. Other ancient writers neither claimed to be inspired by God nor were inspired by God in truth. The Hebrew writers were. No other culture were "people of the book" with the widespread literacy of the ancient Hebrews. The Hebrews were called to be a people apart by God, and as such few valid conclusions can be drawn about them by looking to other cultures.

The issue isn't the creation account, per se, but really the genealogies and the rest of the historical portions of the Pentateuch and the OT. In other words, whether the creation took 7 literal days or something longer, even much longer, doesn't affect much at all. But whether death entered the world before Adam, and whether Adam was a literal human being who was the ancestor of us all, matters tremendously. Whether God interacted directly with Abraham and whether the Exodus account is true also matter tremendously.

There is no indication, or at least very little, that any theologian (Jewish or Christian) took the historical passages of the Pentateuch as literal history until the late 19th century. In other words, there is little to no internal or external evidence that the OT histories were intended to be anything other than histories.

Jabin said:

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I find the appeal to "ancient authors" to be extremely unpersuasive. Using the writings from other cultures has very little relevance to the writings of Hebrew authors or to the interpretation of their writings. The ancient Hebrews became dramatically different than their surrounding cultures, probably beginning with the Abrahamic Covenant, and then moreso as time went on. Other ancient writers neither claimed to be inspired by God nor were inspired by God in truth. The Hebrew writers were. No other culture were "people of the book" with the widespread literacy of the ancient Hebrews. The Hebrews were called to be a people apart by God, and as such few valid conclusions can be drawn about them by looking to other cultures.

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We have different hermeneutical approaches on this. I think that God would have communicated to ancient people in the normal ways that they communicated, using the genres and language patterns with which they were familiar. I don't think this diminishes the doctrine in any way.

Jabin said:

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The issue isn't the creation account, per se, but really the genealogies and the rest of the historical portions of the Pentateuch and the OT. In other words, whether the creation took 7 literal days or something longer, even much longer, doesn't affect much at all. But whether death entered the world before Adam, and whether Adam was a literal human being who was the ancestor of us all, matters tremendously. Whether God interacted directly with Abraham and whether the Exodus account is true also matter tremendously.

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Few biblical scholars (including conservative ones) consider it valid to use the genealogies in Genesis to try to trace an exhaustive family tree back to Adam in such a way as to establish the age of the earth. That is, once again, imposing expectations and standards on the text that were foreign to ancient cultures. BioLogos also has a very good look at this.

There are always theological implications when we adjust our hermeneutic. However, I think all of the theological implications you mentioned are reconciled without much difficulty if we are open-minded about it.

Jabin said:

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There is no indication, or at least very little, that any theologian (Jewish or Christian) took the historical passages of the Pentateuch as literal history until the late 19th century. In other words, there is little to no internal or external evidence that the OT histories were intended to be anything other than histories.

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The two sentences of this paragraph seem to contradict each other. No historian considered the historical passages as literal history until the 19th century, but there is no evidence that they were intended to be taken as anything other than literal history? I'm confused.

"Unfortunately, the literary style of Genesis was not written as poetry. That interpretation of Genesis' style has emerged only in the last few decades in an attempt to force fit Genesis into modern science."

So Genesis is just wrong, then. Checks out.

Last I heard it was around 26 billion years old. New images from space telescope suggested this.

Lol, you're right. That was incomprehensible. I blame early onset dementia. What I think I meant to write was:

There is no indication, or at least very little, that any theologian (Jewish or Christian) took the historical passages of the Pentateuch as anything other than literal history until the late 19th century. In other words, there is little to no internal or external evidence that the OT histories were intended to be anything other than histories.

1. I've always maintained that it doesn't matter how old the earth is. I don't really care, so I don't have a guess.

2. The genealogy route from the OT can be taken any number of ways. But I don't believe it was ever intended to establish the age of the earth. Instead, it set up a linear path from the first man and woman all the way to Jesus. That also doesn't mean, necessarily, that the time provided isn't literal. We don't really know.

3. I hate the argument that if the earth is young then God is somehow being deceitful. God didn't tell us how to date things, nor did he ever instruct anyone to spend their time trying to figure it out. That is man's desire to explain the origins of life and the universe. Just because you think the data points to an old earth doesn't make it so. Any deceit, if there is any, isn't coming from God.

I'm confident is saying that God is the creator. How old the earth is has no bearing on my life or salvation (not that anyone was arguing it does).

Good post, and I agree with perhaps all that you wrote. To footnote or quibble about one of your points, however, you said:

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But I don't believe it was ever intended to establish the age of the earth.

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That's correct, but the genealogies fairly explicitly establish the rough date of Adam's creation. One can't posit 100,000 year old modern humans without doing severe damage to the genealogies.

Back in my skeptical phase, I turned that argument around. That is, if the genealogies are untrustworthy (and the Exodus account, etc.), then why should I trust any of the Bible?

Walter Bradley, famed professor of engineering at A&M and Baylor, disagrees with me, contending that gaps exist in the genealogies. However, when I asked him to identify them (in a friendly conversation), he was unable to. Most old earth creationists can identify only one gap, I think, but it isn't really a gap but rather a specific individual intentionally omitted.

But the thrust of your point I agree with 100%. The age of the earth is waaaaay down the list of issues that are central to Christianity, so long as we don't undercut the trustworthiness of all Scripture in our attempt to reconcile it with the latest ideas in science.

Some suggest some of these highly advanced civilizations could possibly be several billion years ahead of us. This would account for their hardware and "magical" characteristics/abilities.

You hit a key distinction that I neglected to make. I tend to believe we have a pretty good idea the time since Adam. I suppose the key to the argument is whether Adam was made on the literal 6th day of a 6-day creation or at the end of a much longer creation.

We do know they "created" him in their image. Apparently a gene modification was performed several thousand years ago which hastened our advancement.

FWAppraiser said:

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You hit a key distinction that I neglected to make. I tend to believe we have a pretty good idea the time since Adam. I suppose the key to the argument is whether Adam was made on the literal 6th day of a 6-day creation or at the end of a much longer creation.

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I think that's right, although if Adam was created at the end of a much longer creation, you're left with the problem of death in creation before Adam's sin. I've read some articles on how that can be reconciled with the Bible, but quite honestly can't remember their arguments now.

barbacoa taco said:

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You have to ignore MOUNTAINS of scientific data and evidence to accept a young earth. It's a bad theory, if we can even call it that.

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When God created man did He create infants or mature men / women?

Is it beyond the realm of possibility that when he created the earth He created a mature planet?

Whatever it is, it's a long time:

"The Buddhist texts speak of three kinds of aeonan interim aeon, an incalculable aeon, and a great aeon. An interim aeon (antarakappa) is the period of time required for the life-span of human beings to rise from ten years to the maximum of many thousands of years, and then fall back to ten years. Twenty such interim aeons equal one incalculable aeon (asankheyyakappa), and four incalculable aeons constitute one great aeon (mahkappa). The length of a great aeon is said by the Buddha to be longer than the time it would take for a man to wear away a mountain of solid granite one yojana (about 7 miles) high and wide by stroking it once every hundred years with a silk cloth."

wcb said:

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barbacoa taco said:

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You have to ignore MOUNTAINS of scientific data and evidence to accept a young earth. It's a bad theory, if we can even call it that.

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When God created man did He create infants or mature men / women?

Is it beyond the realm of possibility that when he created the earth He created a mature planet?

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Why give it a definitive age complete with decaying radioactive material and a clear evolutionary march of plants and animals across hundreds of millions of years?

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Why give it a definitive age complete with decaying radioactive material and a clear evolutionary march of plants and animals across hundreds of millions of years?

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Well, all those dating methods based on radioactive materials result in wildly different dates depending on the material being used for the dating - orders of magnitude different. Seems like a reliable dating methodology. /s And some of those dating methodologies actually result in quite young dates, but those are ignored and discounted, of coursse, because they are obviously wrong.

And then the second part of your statement, regarding an evolutionary march "across hundreds of millions of years" depends on those same dubious radioactive dating methodologies, eh?

wcb said:

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barbacoa taco said:

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You have to ignore MOUNTAINS of scientific data and evidence to accept a young earth. It's a bad theory, if we can even call it that.

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When God created man did He create infants or mature men / women?

Is it beyond the realm of possibility that when he created the earth He created a mature planet?

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Is it beyond the realm of possibility? Not for a God who is all-powerful. However, it is not demanded by the text, and why ignore overwhelming scientific evidence for something that the text doesn't demand? It just creates a false dichotomy between God and science.

The apparent age theory would be less problematic in my mind if it were merely a matter of newly created trees already having rings, cliffsides already having layers, and humans being full-grown. I can see all of that being just part of building a fully functional world out of nothing.

But why would the God of Truth create a world that already has fossilized humans hidden within its crust? The oldest human fossil, "Lucy." dates to 3.2 million years ago (Hominids date back to 7 million years). If God created the world 6-10k years ago, that means God created a world with Lucy already fossilized in the Ethiopian soil. Why? What would be the point of this? It just seems like pure deception to me.

wcb said:

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barbacoa taco said:

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You have to ignore MOUNTAINS of scientific data and evidence to accept a young earth. It's a bad theory, if we can even call it that.

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When God created man did He create infants or mature men / women?

Is it beyond the realm of possibility that when he created the earth He created a mature planet?

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Yes it's possible, but I wholeheartedly reject this belief.

First, it's pretty much ruled out by Occam's Razor. Second, if God exists, I dont think he would basically troll us into believing completely incorrect things about nature and the universe.

Is God "trolling" us, or are we being led by our arrogance, pride, and false assumptions into wildly inaccurate conclusions?

Also, if God did create Adam as a mature male, or created soil (which is the end result of a lengthy process), how is that "trolling"? At what point does a mature creation become trolling?

Jabin said:

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Why give it a definitive age complete with decaying radioactive material and a clear evolutionary march of plants and animals across hundreds of millions of years?

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Well, all those dating methods based on radioactive materials result in wildly different dates depending on the material being used for the dating - orders of magnitude different. Seems like a reliable dating methodology. /s And some of those dating methodologies actually result in quite young dates, but those are ignored and discounted, of coursse, because they are obviously wrong.

And then the second part of your statement, regarding an evolutionary march "across hundreds of millions of years" depends on those same dubious radioactive dating methodologies, eh?

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Carbon dating isn't the only radioactive dating out there. And it's far from dubious; we're talking very consistent and slow rates of decay, particularly in uranium-lead dating. Fossils are typically dated by where they are found and the index fossils in specific layers which are not found anywhere else. Even before radioactive dating, geologists from the 19th century realized the earth was astoundingly old.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uraniumlead_dating

https://sci.waikato.ac.nz/evolution/RadiometricDating.shtml#:~:text=Uranium%2DLead%20(U%2DPb,outside%20the%20range%20of%20radiocarbon.

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Carbon dating isn't the only radioactive dating out there.

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I wasn't talking about carbon dating. Obviously, that dating technique has little or nothing to do with the date of the earth. But the demonstrable problems with carbon dating may indicate larger problems with radiometric dating in general. (It's interesting the carbon dating is the only one of the radioisotope dating techniques that falls within the range of human history and thus can be objectively proven true or false, and the majority of Middle Eastern archaeologists believe that it is false and untrustworthy.)

There are multiple isotopes that can be used to date a rock. If the same rock is dated by various isotopes, wildly discordant dates will result, indicating that something is fundamentally wrong with the method.

Additionally, it has been shown that the radiometric dating techniques show, at best, the original date of the substances that formed the rock, not the date of formation of the rock. For example, sedimentary rocks are obviously composed of compacted sediments. The dating techniques do not and cannot provide the date of that compaction, but only the original dates of the particles themselves. So the particles may have originated millions or even billions of years prior to being laid down around the fossils they encase.

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Fossils are typically dated by where they are found and the index fossils in specific layers which are not found anywhere else.

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What if young fossils are buried in layers of materials with old radioisotope dates? How would one distinguish between the two dates? That can be a problem in archaeology, with much younger dates, for example.

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Even before radioactive dating, geologists from the 19th century realized the earth was astoundingly old.

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And there's the nub of the problem. The conclusion preceded the data and scientists have been force fitting the data to fit their conclusions.

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the majority of Middle Eastern archaeologists believe that it is false and untrustworthy.

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I'd love your source for this

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Geologists and biologists in the 18th and 19th centuries were trying to fit what they found into the biblical framework of a 6,000 year old earth. That they couldn't caused tremendous personal distress for many of them and extensive attacks on their work and threats to their person.

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Some perhaps, but not the "leading" figures in geology and biology during that time frame.

Sapper Redux said:

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the majority of Middle Eastern archaeologists believe that it is false and untrustworthy.

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I'd love your source for this

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Sorry for the poor formatting below. I cannot figure out how to correct it on this platform.

No one in the field denies the existence of the problem. Even the C14 scholars acknowledge it. Some of them argue that the historical dates are wrong, but so far haven't convinced anyone since many of the historical dates are confirmed by multiple reference points.

Examples of sources:

• Bietak (perhaps the greatest archaeologist of all time) and Felix Höflmayer (a prominent C14 scholar) wrote a joint article in which they stated:

"Despite all attempts to discuss these differences away or at least to minimize them, one has to realise that there are periods with a considerable difference between radiocarbon- and historical chronology which cannot be denied nor be reconciled at the moment." The Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. III: Proceedings of the SCIEM 2000 - 2nd EuroConference, Vienna 28th of May - 1st of June 2003. Edited by Manfred Bietak and Ernst Czerny, 1323. Denkschriften der Gesamtakademie / Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 9. Wien: Verl. der Österr. Akad. der Wiss, 2007.

• Amnon Ben-Tor, a prominent Jewish archaeologist, has stated:

"A different approach to resolve the problem of absolute chronology is based on the exact sciences, utilizing in particular three techniques: radiometry (14C), dendro-chronology and measurements conducted on ash found in arctic ice cores. […] it is noteworthy that various scholars are critical of the accuracy of the chronological results obtained by these techniques." Ben-Tor, Amnon. "Hazor and Chronology." gypten Und Levante / Egypt and the Levant 1, no. 14 (2004): 4567.

• In another article, Bietak and Höflmayer provide a chart showing the differences between historical and radiocarbon dates for ancient Egypt, Cyprus, and the Aegean. Bietak and Höflmayer, "Introduction: High and Low Chronology," in The Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. III, Proceedings of the SCIEM 2000 - 2nd EuroConference, Vienna 28th of May - 1st of June 2003. Edited by Manfred Bietak and Ernst Czerny, 1323. Denkschriften der Gesamtakademie / Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 9. Wien: Verl. der Österr. Akad. der Wiss, 2007. (p. 19)
• What appears to be irrefutable evidence of the inaccuracy of C14 dating is found at the fallen gates of Ninevah. We know with certainty the exact year that Ninevah fell and its gates collapsed - 612 BC. That year is not disputed by anyone. However, C14 dating of skeletons of warriors found in the debris of the gate is 200+ years earlier. Zerbst, Uwe, and Peter van der Veen. "Does Radiocarbon Provide the Answer?" In Solomon and Shishak: Current Perspective from Archaeology, Epigraphy, History and Chronology: Proceedings of the Third BICANE Colloquium Held at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge 26-27 March, 2011. Edited by Peter James, Pieter G. van der Veen and Robert M. Porter, 199224. BAR International Series 2732. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2015. Accessed August 21, 2020.

• Zahi Hawass, head of archaeology for Egypt, refuses to accept C14 dates. Egyptian archeologists comment on carbon dating - Egypt Independent
• It is known that there are serious problems in relating C-14 dates in ancient Israel to the established ceramic, epigraphic, and historical chronologies (Levy, T.E and Higham, T.F.G, eds. "Introduction: Radiocarbon dating and the Iron Age of the Southern Levant: Problems and potentials for the Oxford conference," in The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science. 2005, London: Equinox; Mazar, A. and Bronk Ramsey, C., "C14 Dates and the Iron Age chronology of Israel: a response," Radiocarbon, 50(2), 2008: 159-180).

I can provide many more references if those are insufficient.

Something to ponder as you debate the age of the earth and universe:

Earth is the only planet circling our sun on which life as we know it could (and does) exist.

Like no other planet, ours is covered with green vegetation, enormous blue-green oceans containing thousands of islands, thousands of streams and rivers, huge land masses called continents, mountains, ice caps, and deserts that produce a spectacular variety of color and texture. Some form of life is found in virtually every ecological niche on the earth's surface. Even in extremely cold Antarctica, hardy microscopic beings thrive in ponds, tiny wingless insects live in patches of moss and lichen, and plants grow and flower yearly. From the apex of the atmosphere to the bottom of the oceans, from the coldest part of the poles to the warmest part of the equator, life thrives here. To this day, no evidence of life has been found on any other planet.

The earth is immense in size, about 8,000 miles in diameter, with a mass calculated at roughly 5.971024 kilograms. The earth is on average 93 million miles from the sun. If our planet traveled much faster in its 584-million-mile-long journey around the sun, its orbit would become much larger and it would move farther away from the sun, resulting in average temperatures that are too cold for life to exist. If it traveled much slower in its orbit, the earth would move closer to the sun, resulting in average temperatures that are too high for life to exist. Earth's rotation and axial tilt also keep surface temperatures from becoming too extreme.

Our planet's "normal" processes are assuredly unique among our solar system and, according to what we know, in the entire universe.

As far as the sun and the moon:

Of all the energy the sun gives off, only 0.45 billionth of its daily output strikes the earth. The sun provides the earth with energy estimated at over 239 trillion horsepower, about 35,000 horsepower for each current resident. Even though there likely exist several hundred billion galaxies in the universe, each with 100 billion stars, there is only one atom for every 88 gallons of space, which means the vast majority of the universe is empty space!

If the moon was much larger or nearer to the earth, the huge tides that would result would overflow onto the lowlands and erode the mountains. If the continents were leveled, it is estimated that water would cover the entire surface to the depth of over a mile! If the earth was not tilted 23 on its axis, but rather was on a 90 angle in reference to the sun, we would not have four seasons.

Without seasons, life would soon not be able to exist on earththe poles would lie in eternal twilight, and water vapor from the oceans would be carried by the wind towards both the north and south, freezing when it moved close enough to the poles. In time, huge continents of snow and ice would pile up in the polar regions, leaving most of the earth a dry desert. The oceans would eventually disappear, and rainfall would cease. The accumulated weight of ice at the poles would cause the equator to bulge, and, as a result, the earth's rotation would drastically change.

Just a "little" change (in the perspective of the universe) would render the earth unsuitable to support any life. Is this the result of accidental randomness, or purposeful intent?

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So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause there's bugger all down here on earth

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Jabin said:

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Why give it a definitive age complete with decaying radioactive material and a clear evolutionary march of plants and animals across hundreds of millions of years?

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Well, all those dating methods based on radioactive materials result in wildly different dates depending on the material being used for the dating - orders of magnitude different. Seems like a reliable dating methodology. /s And some of those dating methodologies actually result in quite young dates, but those are ignored and discounted, of coursse, because they are obviously wrong.

And then the second part of your statement, regarding an evolutionary march "across hundreds of millions of years" depends on those same dubious radioactive dating methodologies, eh?

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Well...except they are not really dubious. If the science behind them wasn't generally accurate, then our formulas for radioactive decay would not be accurate and we'd have likely created a horrible tragedy via our early testing of nuclear weapons.

God gave us reason and created a world that we can generally rely on physics, chemistry, etc to understand things. Could our theories or formulas be wrong? Sure, but based on the use of them, the discrepancy would be so great as to show a difference between billions and thousands of years.

This isn't to say that God didn't create the world that has the perception of being millions of years old and that perception can be based on the reason he gave us. God isn't bound by time and even scripture doesn't establish definitive time in the creation texts. In other words the world can actually be aged in billions of years but was still created in 6 days. It doesn't take away from God being the creator.

Rocag said:

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I think you're cherry picking quotes there in order to imply something that just isn't true.

For instance, let's look up your "prominent C14 scholar" Felix Hoflmayer. Here he is on Google Scholar. Isn't it interesting how much of his research depends on radiocarbon dating? If you browse through some of those articles you can see he clearly believes it is a valid measuring tool.

That article with Hoflmayer and Bietak doesn't agree with what you're saying either. Here's a quote regarding the accuracy of C14 they believe they can get with proper controls:

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The precision of the methods and reliability of results decreases from 1 to 4. We expect that these procedures will allow us to date a series of 14C samples to a precision of 15 years at the 68% confidence level after calibration.

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The science itself is solid. The real issue is determining whether samples have been contaminated in some way which could throw off the measurement. Definitely an issue, but not one that invalidates C14 dating altogether.

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I'm astounded that you claim I'm cherry-picking. You obviously didn't read carefully the articles I cited and are ignoring most of them. Every archaeologist who works on ancient Middle East stuff acknowledges the reality of the problem. It is common knowledge with dozens if not hundreds of scholarly articles having been written on the problem.

Further, I acknowledged in my post that Hoflmayer is a C14 scholar. I acknowledge that because he recognizes the discrepancy between the C14 dates and historical dates, and has even co-written articles with Bietak who does not accept C14 dates. The scholarly community is not nearly as hostile to each other as you are to folks who disagree with your materialistic, old age view of the universe and creation.

As I said, I can provide numerous additional references. For example, here's another quote from Hoflmayer:

"The radiocarbon evidence for Tell el-Dab'a is in gross conflict with the dates proposed by the "SCIEM school". On average, radiocarbon dates are about 120 years higher than the dates for the site's stratigraphy based on the assumed datum-lines with the Egyptian historical chronology."

"Carbone-14 Compare: Middle Bronze Age I (IIA) Chronology, Tell El-Dab'a and Radiocarbon Data." In There and Back Again - the Crossroads II: Proceedings of an International Conference Held in Prague, September 15-18, 2014. Edited by Jana Mynov, Pavel Onderka and Peter Pavk. Vydn prvn, 26595. Prague: Charles University Faculty of Arts, 2015.

That's not cherry picking. That's the point of Hoflmayer's work - he's trying to reconcile the C14 and historical dates, but so far has not been able to do so.

Here's another quote from C14 scholars acknowledging the problems in C14 dating, but with regard to much more recent dates:

"Large deviations are not uncommon in radiometric measurements (SCOTT et al. 1998; SCOTT 2003). For example, the Radiocarbon Laboratory of the British Museum issued a detailed statement in 1990 that its radiocarbon dates measured in the period 19801984 were on average too young by 200300 years (BOW-MAN et al., 1990)."

Bruins, Hendrik J., Amihai Mazar, and Johannes van der Plicht. "The End of the 2nd Millenium BCE and the Transition from Iron I to Iron IIA: Radiocarbon Dates of Tel Rehov, Israel." In The Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. III: Proceedings of the SCIEM 2000 - 2nd EuroConference, Vienna 28th of May - 1st of June 2003. Edited by Manfred Bietak and Ernst Czerny, 79100. Denkschriften der Gesamtakademie / Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 9. Wien: Verl. der Österr. Akad. der Wiss, 2007.

The issue is so bad that the dendrochronology folks, who prepare the data used to correct C14 dates, are undertaking a massive new dendrochronology database on the hopes that it can fix the problem. Carbon dating, the archaeological workhorse, is getting a major reboot (nature.com) I trust that you will accept Nature as a credible source?

The issue is not contaminated samples - you're simply grasping at straws by claiming that, showing that you have little knowledge of the disciplines. It may be true in a few isolated instances, but few of the scholars in the community are claiming that's a significant reason.

International scholarly conferences have been held on this issue. Here's an entire book resulting from one such conference dedicated solely to the issue (note that the first editor, Sturt Manning, is perhaps the leading C14 scholar relating to archaeology and works at Cornell. He also recognizes the issue and has written multiple papers on it.):

TreeRings, Kings, and Old World Archaeology and Environment: Papers Presented in Honor of Peter Ian Kuniholm. Edited by Sturt W. Manning and Mary J. Bruce, 27792. Oakville: Oxbow Books, 2009.