Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Sorry for the lack of posting
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Beijing Anomaly - What is it Evidence for?
Runaway subduction may well be responsible for the water in the Beijing anomaly. But even larger volumes of mineral-laden fluids (hydrothermal fluids) could have reached the upper mantle and the crust. Wherever they would have filtered through unbound sediments (and Noah’s Flood surely produced tremendous amounts of them) the dissolved minerals would precipitate, cementing the unbound sediments into hard rock. About 90% of all sedimentary rocks are considered to be ‘terrigenous’ i.e. made of fragments of previous rocks eroded away from the continents and bound together by chemical cements.
Anyway, very interesting. But I also wonder if this could be evidence for the hydroplate theory. Might this large chamber of water be part of the "fountains of the great deep" that broke open? Anyway, lots of interesting things to think about.
Global Geological Outcrops and Other Implications of the Flood
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Journal of Creation Back-Issues Now Free Online!!!
This is exciting news, as there have been many instances where I've wanted to look up past information referenced in current sources and have been unable to do so because I cannot get access to them. So this is fantastic! Thanks CMI!
Also, I think that ICR is working on putting together an online journal that can include multimedia content, which I believe would be the first technical journal to do so. Wouldn't it be cool, rather than just reading about flume experiments with sedimentation, to actually watch one? That's what ICR is planning on doing. Exciting stuff! I must say, I am thankful to be a Creationist today with all of these wonderful resources starting to bloom.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
The Sumerian King List
King | Length of Reign | Location of Reign |
---|---|---|
Alulim | 28,800 | Eridu |
Alalgar | 36,000 | Eridu |
Enmenluanna | 43,200 | Bad-Tibira |
Enmengalanna | 28,800 | Bad-Tibira |
Damuzi | 36,000 | Bad-Tibira |
Ensipazianna | 28,800 | Larag |
Enmenduranna | 21,000 | Zimbir |
Uburtutu | 18,600 | Shurupag |
Total Years | 241,200 |
Interestingly, there are the same number of kings in this list as there are generations in the Genesis 5 list (the Sumerian list doesn't include the "first man" nor the flood hero, so we aren't including Adam or Noah in the count). Now, I don't know if the king list represents the same people as the Genesis list, but I do think it at least represents a real historical account of pre-flood history that has been misinterpreted. My main point of argument comes from this paper by Raul Lopez. I am not sure about his equating the king list and the Genesis lineages, but I think makes a lot of sense.
So why are the numbers so high? The way to understand this is to understand the way that Sumerians used numbers.
First, rather than using a positional numbering system, they used a tallying number system. That means that, for example, if we want to write one humdred and two, we would use three digits in a particular order: 102. If we used a tallying system, we would have type of tally mark for the hundreds place, a different type of tally mark for the tens place, and a different type of tally mark for the ones place. Let's pretend that we used "x" for hundreds, "y" for tens, and "z" for ones - then we would write the number as "xzz".
Second, their system was a sexagesimal system. This means it was a base 60. So, rather than having a tens and hundreds place, they had a sixties place and a three thousand six-hundreds place. But they also used an intermediate base of ten. Therefore, they had a mark for the ones place (600), a mark for the tens place (10*600), a mark for the sixties place (601), a mark for the six-hundreds place (10*601), a mark for the three-thousand six-hundreds place (602), and a mark for the thirty-six thousandths place (10*602).
So what does this have to do with how long the ages are? Well, it is Lopez's contention that the original lists were written in base ten, and the Sumerians who first translated the list misunderstood the bases. Let's look at the digits in the list, and compare it to numbers in the Genesis 5 list rounded to the tens place (the Sumerian list is obviously rounded).
King | Reign | 10*602 | 602 | 10*60 | Genesis Patriarch | 103 | 102 | 101 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Alulim | 28,800 | 0 | 8 | 0 | Seth | 0 | 9 | 1 |
Alalgar | 36,000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Enosh | 0 | 9 | 0 |
Enmenluanna | 43,200 | 1 | 2 | 0 | Kenan | 0 | 9 | 1 |
Enmengalanna | 28,800 | 0 | 8 | 0 | Mehalel | 0 | 8 | 9 |
Damuzi | 36,000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Jared | 0 | 9 | 6 |
Ensipazianna | 28,800 | 0 | 8 | 0 | Enoch | 0 | 3 | 6 |
Enmenduranna | 21,000 | 0 | 5 | 5 | Methusaleh | 0 | 9 | 6 |
Uburtutu | 18,600 | 0 | 5 | 1 | Lamech | 0 | 7 | 7 |
Symbol Total | 6 | 6 | 6 | Symbol Total | 6 | 6 | 6 | |
Numeric Total | 241,200 | 6 | 7 | 0 | Numeric Total | 6 | 7 | 0 |
The "total" for the Genesis column is the total of the lifespans, not the total of the length of time that the list spans. The "symbol total" is the total of the symbols as they are presented. The "numeric total" for the Sumerian list is the total that the Sumerian list has, and the "numeric total" for the Genesis list is a rounded total of the exact (not rounded) ages of the kings.
Here are some notable things about the lists:
- The same (adjusted) number of patriarchs
- The same general magnitude of the symbols used
- The exact same symbols could be used for the total ages
Lopez thinks that the ages in the Sumerian king list were adjusted after-the-fact to make the total line up in the sexagesimal system. In fact, with the number of textual differences among the king lists and Genesis copies, it is difficult to know if the numbers could be closer in other texts. Whether or not they are the same people, it does seem interesting that the numbers do have a rough correspondence with each other if interpreted according to a decimal tally system instead of a sexagesimal counting system.
Anyway, this may all be special pleading, but I think it is an interesting paper that probably needs some follow-up work to see if there is more or less there than Lopez indicates. A starting point for research would probably be to evaluate textual variants of both Genesis and the King list to see if other variants have closer or less close correspondences.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Why Were Ancient Bugs So Big and Why Did the Patriarchs Live So Long?
The Creationist hypothesis has been that before the flood, the earth was very different. And so was the atmosphere. There have been many speculations about exactly how it was different, and what atmospheric/geologic structures made it this way. One of them is that pre-flood, the earth had a high concentration of oxygen and a much higher air pressure. Many creationists think that the reason hyperbaric oxygen therapy can be effective is because it simulates pre-flood conditions (Baby Jessica was treated in this manner, and this can be used as a treatment for diabetic ulcers). I have heard that it was specifically the oxygen therapy that saved her foot from being amputated, but cannot find a reliable source for it. One creationist, for instance, invented a small hyperbaric biosphere chamber. You can see a summary of research results here and here, though I don't know of anyplace where these have been published. Basically, things grew bigger and lived longer.
This idea is now receiving confirmation from this recent study (lay overview here). The basics is that:
The x-ray scans revealed that as beetles become larger, tracheae take up proportionally more room in their bodies because they need to be longer and wider to deliver enough oxygen. This, in turn, inhibits growth by crowding other organs.
The tracheae in the larger beetles took up 20 percent more room than in smaller beetles.
The area where the body and legs meet is particularly limiting, because that opening can only get so big, Harrison noted.
In the smallest beetle, tracheae take up 2 percent of the region, compared with 18 percent in the largest.
Using that information, Harrison estimated that the maximum beetle size under current oxygen levels would be about six inches (15 centimeters).
That coincides roughly with the largest known living beetle, the Titanic longhorn.
So, could the change in oxygen levels, pressure, and other factors account for both the size of insects and increased life span of humans? This is definitely an area open to further Creation research.
Hat Tip to GlobeLens for alerting me to the research.