Transcript How Science And Archaeology Illustrate The Bible (Presentation).

How Science and Archaeology
Illustrate the Bible
Not for those who disparage evidence
Did the Universe Have a Beginning?
• Genesis: YES!
• Cosmologists of the early 20th Century: NO.
Einstein’s Cosmological Constant, Λ (1917).
A.J.W. Sommerfeld erased it ten years later.
● Modern measurements reintroduced it, but
with value only about 72% as large. Conclusion:
The universe had a beginning – A Big Bang!
Preparing the Air for Humans
Earth's History
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Pressure, atmospheres
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Earth's History
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Genesis-1 "Day"
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What is the Probability that a Chance
Universe Can Sustain Life Somewhere?
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Galaxy type: 10%
Star mass: 0.1%
Planet surface gravity: 0.1%
Mass & distance of moon: 1%
Oxygen quantity in atmosphere: 1%
• times 119 other factors: <1:10144
(Hugh Ross, “The Creator and the Cosmos,” 3rd edn.;
2001)
• With 74 more essentials: <1:10217 (H. Ross, 2003)
Chances of Life’s Ingredients
• From a “primordial mud:”
• Every amino acid bond is peptide, levorotary, and
result is biologically active: 1:1045+45+74 = 10164.
• Need ≥250 different proteins, so 1:1041,000.
• [Only 10141 reactions in a 13.8 billion year old universe.]
• Now: How do you find a cell membrane to put
them all in; and then how do you get them inside,
when they want to leak out?
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(Stephen C. Meyer, “Signature in the Cell;” New York: HarperOne, 2009; “Creation,” 2nd edn.; Dawn, 2010)
More Evidence
• “Mitochondrial Eve” only 6,000 years ago?
• Genesis 1-11, Hebrew accounts have not
changed; Babylonian accounts did change.
• Salt lakes are drying up. Lake Titicaca is salt
water at 12,500 feet altitude. How so unless
by a tidal wave during Noah’s Flood?
• Archaeology: Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses,
Joshua, etc.
Noah’s Ark had Plenty of Space
• Ark (3 floors) ~110,000 square feet
• 6 Million species? 1.3 Million discovered to date.
• But 5 Million would be insects. Another million
are Arachnids, Mollusks and Crustaceans.
45,000 fish did not need the Ark.
• Only ≤5,600 species of Land Mammals.
Average is the size of a cat.
• 18 square feet apiece, on average, even before
accounting for stacking cages.
Abraham’s Victory in Genesis 14
• Eastern kings conquer the West, and Abraham
slays them 14 years later.
• Ur-Nammu king of Sumer claims victory in the
West in his 4th year and is slain in his 18th; he
is “unjustly slain” and “abandoned on the
battlefield like a crushed vessel.”
• Abraham had been in Sumer’s service, and he
staged a surprise attack at night.
Old Testament was Not Written at a Late Date;
It is True to the Times Described
See K.A. Kitchen, “On the Reliability of the Old Testament;” Eerdmans, 2003
Price of Slaves in Antiquity
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Archaeol.
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Kitchen
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S.S. Vol. 2
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Shekels
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Joseph’s Time is Famous
• Joseph was vizier to Ammenemes III; his policies saved
Egypt, Canaan and others. [A type of the world’s savior.]
• Basalt quarries at Hammamat closed for Ammenemes’
4th to 18th years (Joseph’s accession + 7 + 7 = 15 years).
• Nomarchs’ tombs elaborate early, impoverished later.
• Lake Moeris partly drained to open 90 km2 of farmland.
• Ammenemes brought Egypt’s Middle Kingdom to the
apex of its glory, but without war.
• Monuments of Ammenemes III found from Byblos in the
North to the Sudan in the South. (Also by the Fayum:
Enekh Amenemhet means Life from Ammenemes.)
No Evidence of the Exodus?
• Iannes and Iambres [Khayana and Mayebre Sheshi]
were the Hyksos kings of Egypt, from whom Moses
fled, and then returned for the Exodus, ca. B.C. 1615.
• Queen Hatshepsut (ca. B.C. 1470): “I have restored
that which was ruins, I have raised up that which was
unfinished, since the Asiatics [Hyksos] were in the
midst of Avaris of the Northland, and the barbarians
were in the midst of them, overthrowing that which
was made…” [James Henry Breasted, “Ancient
Records of Egypt” II, 303.]
Joshua at Jericho, about B.C. 1575
• Joshua made a 7-day siege of Jericho and then
burned the city.
• At Jericho the grain bins were found full and burnt;
evidence of no long siege. (16th Century B.C.)
• The wall fell out and filled in the trench; so the
Israelites “went up into the city” (Joshua 6:20).
• Only in the NW corner does the full wall still stand,
showing us where Rahab’s house had been.
• Jericho was not rebuilt for another seven centuries
(fulfilling the Joshua 6:26 curse).
Purpose for Knowledge
• Knowledge is not to show our superior wisdom or
intelligence; knowledge is for us to help others.
• We may be able to help people see evidence, in
the face of the “spin doctors” of minimalism and
social agendas.
• Science supports the Biblical records, whether
some scientists do or do not. “Thy word is truth.”
• “Who is wise and understanding among you? let
him show by his good life his works in meekness
of wisdom” (James 3:13).