Posted by Bibleman [Bibleman] on October 26, 1999 at 01:05:32 {c/rgKhj4NcMSSTtTA17sslyACFuF8c}:
In Reply to: ******************FOR AL: CHRONOLOGY CONT'D posted by Missing Link on October 25, 1999 at 21:45:07:
Hi Al,
WOW! This is great! How truly interesting and such a great summary on dating! Thank-you! I hadn't explored this.
I already commented on thermoluminescence.
One thing of note is that while the antedeluvial dating is not much concern to me, especially for the Neo-Babylonian period, astrochronology now provides us with absolute dating from the astronomical records.
Of note, this is a BRAND NEW FIELD! That is, before, only astronomers had real analytical access to these astronomical texts. They are the only ones who had the charts and the science. But with the advent of computers, the mathematical science of astronomy, which is pure math, has been made available to the lay researcher and thus charting and comparisons of ancient astronomical observations on a more comprehensive scale has been done. It has also afforded us to "check up behind" the work of astronomers who looked at many of these ancient documents before the technology got perfected. In addition, while astronomers were likely too busy for numerous and multiple comparisons which they basically had to do by hand, computers and do split-second (well, almost) calculations and also project the subjective visual graphics of what was being seen by the observer. So there is an incredible edge now in the reexamination of these ancient texts.
As a result, therefore, for the Biblical period that is most challenged, which is the Neo-Babylonian period, astrochronology provides us with absolute dating now. Far superior to anything else that science could hope to come up with. In fact, it would be the model for which the other dating methods would be compared.
It's not that big of a deal though, after all, the variations are really only about 54-84 years which is not that great. But it certainly is a new field that belongs in this list, since it is far superior to all the other forms of dating. It is probably the only true form of So subjectively, as long as one will concern themselves with dating, it's almost comical that this new field is looked over. But it is understandable because modern computerized astroprograms and electronic eclipse canons are something quite new. Besides that, with the internet, more ancient texts are being exposed than were even available 20 or 30 years ago. The result of that research, however, has finally corrected and locked in the absolute dating for the Neo-Babylonian Period, which is the period which can link us to relative Biblical dating, providing us with confirmation of the prophetic Biblical dating. So this is a wonderful comparison to the other forms of dating and is far more final and absolute toward are most fundamental questions, which is when something happened, particularly during the Biblical era for Christians. And finally, your radiocarbon dating problems have just begun. After just a quick review of what that's all about, it seems that the post-nuclear age has had an effect on radiocarbon dating, meaning the nuclear atmosphere may affect radiocarbon degeneration. The huge problem you have with that is the presumption that the radioactive bombardment of particles was always the same in the ancient past, when we know from the Bible that that presumption is totally false. I think of a least one scenario that would drastrically offset dating if, in fact, a high concentration of bombarded particles fell all of a sudden to the earth and that was absorbed at an abnormal rate by plants and animals. Thus near-flood absortion by plants and animals might show extremely high false positives as they would reflect whatever concentrations or variations the water canopy produced versus how things work for radiocarbon dating based upon the post-deluvial atmosphere. Conclusion, radaiocarbon dating is not reliable for pre-deluvial dating? Just a thought. But since part of the theory of radiocarbon dating as to do with bombardment of atmospheric particles currently in the current atmosphere, one would have to make an adjustment for the pre-flood atmospheric state. And we don't know those details. Whatever those variations are, it would seem to have had the effect to drastically increasing the radiocarbon dating beyond it's actual dating, thus causing a false-positive in comparison to the theorical values applied to the current, "pre-nuclear" atmosphere. Sooooooo, needless to say, I'm not worried about radiocarbon dating prior to the flood now. And it explains why post-deluvial dating based upon the current atmosphere might be quite accurate for all intents and purposes. Thanks so much! I enjoyed this. It's a load off. (Actually not. I was never really worried. :>)
That is, Biblically, prior to the flood, there was a water canopy surrounding the earth and thus we'd automatically presume that radioactive bombardment of certain particles in the upper atmosphere would be radically different. In fact, those particles may not have even been there if the upper atmosphere was of such a totally different composition.
Cheers,
Bibleman