Bible Backgrounds/Church History 2012 - NOTE: Lesson 10 material will be...

Today we'll be starting kind of the next section. We kind of did a sweeping move through A sweeping move through Old Testament and between the Testaments and New Testament history. That's what we've been doing. We're going to shift into the culture section. We're going to go past what happened after the New Testament era because, one, we didn't meet on New Year's Day and we need to cut something, and two, we'll be doing church history and that's a lot about what happened after the New Testament era. drop out that one and move today to pre-flood culture. And that starts a section on cultures. And we'll go from there to Assyrian and all the way through Jewish culture and other biblical cultures. So anyway, we'll be looking at different cultures here for some weeks to come.

And I think you'll find it interesting, at least I find it is. You have on your handout here this historical timeline that we've been using, and to put things in context, we're going to be looking at this earlier part from creation and right after the time of creation, and so examining that. Now, when it comes to culture before the flood, what do we have to work with? Doggone little. Yeah, in other words, it's not like we've got all sorts of documents and material culture to work with.

Why? Yeah, as Peter wrote, you know, the world then was perished and so gone. Yeah, Stan? There are some who would differ on that. My belief is that it's post-flood, and one reason why I would say so is because, just what I said from 2 Peter, the world that then was perished, to have the pyramids remaining, and there are people who have a different viewpoint, to have the pyramids remaining is a fairly substantial part of the world that then was. and remaining into now. There are indeed people who think otherwise. Yes? I'd have to wonder about those huge stones where the Incas were, how they were fended together so expertly. You wonder if they were plasticized at one point and solidified as a consequence of the flood.

Yeah, we won't have a chance to get into that. But anyway, this is the time frame that we're looking at here. This is from my great-grandmother's 1872 King James. There they put the dates in, and this is dates based on what's called Bishop Usher's chronology, and if in fact you add up the dates that are in the Bible, so-and-so lived this long and he begat this person, and you add them up, you end up with a date of around 4004 BC. So, at any rate, they have that. This is a little farther along, 2469 B.C. in Genesis chapters, you know, five through seven, so that particular era. That's what you get with the dates, and we won't be getting into, you know, that in any great degree other than if we have time, we'll try to address it a little bit at the end. So, but this you have on the bottom of page one, and one of the things that comes out of it is, of course, the longevity and average lifespan of those who lived prior to the flood and who were born prior to the flood but lived afterwards.

It was around 900 years. One of the things that you'll note is lots of overlap of time, centuries of overlap of time. is real different from our present lifespans. And how is that going to impact culture? How is that going to impact culture if you have generations overlapping in time? A lot of sharing of information. You know, one thing is we'll have people who are brilliant in our own lifetime and they'll be people who will give advanced degrees and Nobel Prizes and things of that sort, but basically their life is over and done fairly quickly compared to this, right? So that longevity and the passing along of, you know, things learned and whatnot changes how culture operates, okay?

You don't have flashes of brilliance and then the person drops out of the picture. So that's one thing that's going to change things. Here's Adam at the top here and then going through the time of Noah with the flood. And what you see is, did Adam and Noah live at the same time? begins to look that way.

Yeah, not almost, but not quite. However, they came very close to actually living at the same time, which is kind of interesting. Yes, Carol. What's the difference between the white section and the black section? Oh, this, this is what you'll see is this is the time before they had children. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's what it's intended to show.

Now, this also on your first page there, Adam was created on the sixth day of creation along with his wife Eve. After that came the fall of Adam, Genesis 3, and all mankind with him. That's the insight from Romans 5.12 there.

Now, here you have lifetimes in vertical bars, and it kind of shows something different, rather than just showing the overlap, actually see how long the different ones lived, and what you see is a general pattern of around 900 years, with an exception that we'll make note of.

After the flood, you start seeing the ages dropping off, so that by the time of Jacob, you have about 150 years, right? So you see a decline. And what's interesting is if you go through, this is actually not all the ages that are listed in the Bible. If you go through that list, those you end up with this, this mathematical decay curve phenomenon.

Then here also, what you have here is This underscores the overlap. So you had Adam assuming, and this assumes no gaps, which I think are possible. Some would disagree. Adam living at the same time as Lamech here, the father of Noah. Okay. Now, We begin to look at aspects of culture.

Here's Genesis 4.2. Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So what does that tell you initially in terms of, this is the first generation after Adam and Eve, and what were they doing? You had agriculture of a couple of different kinds. One was keeping flocks right off. and the other is doing farming, right? Doing farming. So you have that.

Genesis 4.3, so it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Now here's something else that was a part of the culture, is doing offerings. Did Adam and Eve do offerings in the garden? No. And why would they not? Yes, they were innocent and sinless in that regard. There was no need to do a sacrifice.

What does the sacrifice imply? One, it implies a substitution. The sacrifice points to what? Ultimately to Christ, to God's sacrifice. But the sacrifice was done because of sin. Because of sin and a recognition of the need for God's sacrifice. So Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground. Why is that not going to work? It's a bloodless sacrifice and that's not going to do it. As the account tells us, Cain killed Abel out of, this is interesting, out of religious jealousy. So that's a real curious thing.

Now, so in Genesis 4 we have Cain is told a couple of things and he says, when you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. What do you think that means? Here you have a decreasing productivity. So not only was the ground cursed under Adam with his sin, but it was further cursed specifically for Cain. It's like, Cain, you're going to work, but this isn't going to work so good for you. You're going to have to work really hard.

Well, there's blood offerings and then there's also grain offerings. Yes, yes. But later on in the Jewish law. I understand that if you read the scriptures surrounding the sacrifices and stuff, I know what you're saying about blood sacrifice. Yes. But it seems to also indicate that Cain's attitude was not correct. Okay. A real problem with it. And what would be some of the indications that his attitude was not correct? In other words, it wasn't just the stuff that he brought.

God came down to him and said that sin was waiting at the door, blah blah blah, I don't remember the exact quote, but he was saying that unless he changed his attitude and he changed his method of living, sin would overcome him. Isn't it interesting that, here's Cain, what would you bring a sacrifice for? The sacrifice is an appeal to God, is it not? Right? And so, what did he do is, as soon as he became jealous of his brother, he did something that was not at all an appealing thing to God, and that was to kill his brother. Right? Yes.

And during the Millennial Kingdom it will be memorial sacrifices rather than anticipatory, right? So then the ground yielding less, but then you'll be a vagrant and wanderer on the earth. So that's the next part. So Cain actually had two things that came out as consequence. One, you're going to try to farm the ground and it's not going to be as productive for you. And then secondly, be a vagrant and wander.

So about five verses later, interesting, Cain had relations with his wife. And by the way, where'd the wife come from? Yeah, one of the things that the Bible spells out, you know, we know the names of Cain, Abel, and Seth. But the Bible also says that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters. So basically, early on, what you had was marrying of sisters, cousins, things of that sort.

And that was the pattern. Why would that be okay then and not now? First, there was no generational pollution from preceding. Okay, what do you mean generational pollution? Either from natural causes or from inter-descendant sex. Alright, so in other words, you mean mutations had not begun to become ingrained and then therefore become a problem, right? So, and then later on, however, in starting with the Mosaic Law, then that was ended, right? And in fact, most of our states have some kind of place where they, you know, place a limit. Some allowing first cousins, some not. So you have that.

Now, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch and he built a city and called the name of the city Enoch after the name of his son. So here's Cain builds a city. Is that in conflict with him being a wanderer on the earth, a vagrant and a wanderer? Is that in conflict?

Pardon? Okay. Did he stay there? Yeah, in other words, one question is you build a city and now I got the city built and you know, it doesn't say, but it is possible that he built it and then moved on, you know, so at any rate. But one of the things that you do have there early on, and this is in chapter four, is that the established, in other words, if you think about it, we've got agriculture, both in terms of crops and flocks, and we also have in this the beginning of city building. Okay, so those are part of the culture. Yes?

Is that the Enoch Hoost translated? Different one. And what we will do there, What you see here, you know, we don't have all the names in there. The Enoch we're talking about is farther down the line here. That's one we'll talk about his name soon. But he only lived, the Enoch that was translated only 365 years, like the number of days in our year, right? Okay. Let's get back to it here.

Now, chapter 4, 19, Lamech took to himself two wives. So now you have another thing. This is multiple wives is the first pattern that you see for that. And also you see that pattern continuing into later on the book of Genesis. And you also see it being allowed and in some cases even required under the law.

Yes. there's no death time for Cain. Yes. And it seems like they're leading the generations, they're specifically quoting the generations of Cain, but they don't give Dane's and he's also cursed and marked by God, which is similar again back to Revelations, where the people are offered the mark. So, you know, again, the connection between Revelations and Genesis. You've got some parallels there, don't you? Yep.

Later on there, Ada gave birth to Jabal, he who was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. Dwelling in tents and have livestock tells you what? There's nomadic livestock. So previously we had livestock under Abel, but this is specifically nomadic livestock. And you have groups of people who do that even today.

Yeah. You know, I used to joke, Nancy and I lived in Carson City, Nevada, and right there next to the backside of the Sierras, there's a fair amount of water. But you get out in the middle of Nevada and the average rainfall is about two or three inches a year. And I used to joke that the cows that graze out there have to keep moving at about five miles an hour or they're starved to death. Right?

Because everything is really sparse out there. So you have nomadic livestock there, and then the other thing, his brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. So what do you have? You have music, right? Jubilation. Yeah, music.

And by the way, with the two different kinds of instruments, what kind of instruments do you have? stringed instruments, and you have wind instruments, so real interesting. So you have one guy who was inventive in going the direction of two different kinds of musical instruments.

Now, 422, as for Zilla, she also gave birth to Tubalcain, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron. So now you have the beginnings of metallurgy, Next verse there, Lamech said to his wives, Ada and Zillah, listen to my voice, you wives of Lamech, give heed to my speech. Now, something interesting, what you have in here is some Hebrew poetry patterns. A small chiasm, listen to my voice, in the center is you wives of Lamech, give heed to my speech. which is like listen to my voice, right? So that's a small chiasm.

And then, for I have killed a man for wounding me and a boy for striking me. So there's a kind of an echo repetition pattern there. So at any rate, but what also do you have there in that? I have killed a man for wounding me and a boy for striking me. What's his philosophy? Yeah, in other words, it isn't like in the law, you had an eye for an eye, right?

In this, he says, if you do anything, I take it to death. My revenge is always to death. And I don't care how innocent you are, or if you, yeah, accidental, I don't care. He says, if you do anything to me, in any way, I will kill you. That's his philosophy. What's that? Lawlessness. Yes, lawlessness. A law unto himself. Yes, Dan?

Going back to the previous paragraph there, we're talking about the influence of bronze and iron. We're going to talk about that in a minute because this is definitely out of the conventional sequence. In great part, while musical instruments have been around a while, they were not real common. As a matter of fact, the Babylonians would get their instruments from the Greeks. They were not real common universally. So that's another kind of out of phase kind of thing.

Escalating revenge is a cultural tradition that has been continued in parts of the world even into the present. The Middle East particularly is a place where honor killings are still carried out. And the idea of, see in the Judeo-Christian background, we would say that to be virtuous is to forgive. But in much of the Middle East, to be virtuous is to carry out your obligation to kill and to get rich. So a whole different ethical concept there. Escalating revenge as a cultural tradition has been continued.

It was apparently reinvented because you don't see it necessarily expressed with Noah and his sons, but reinvented essentially after the flood. Now here's an interesting thing you see come up. Genesis 4.26, the men began to call upon the name of the Lord.

What does that mean? I get the funny sensation that the Lord was actually relatively close because there almost didn't seem to be any preconditions if you were in a listening mood or anything like that. Yeah, here you have the Lord talking to Cain, right? Fairly directly. And I think that's also a pattern of revelation. And now the Lord has spoken. There are several different kinds of revelation that the Lord still has in place. However, the Lord has spoken substantially through His Word. And the pattern of just going around talking to people is not the classic and typical pattern.

Stan? I think it's interesting that they call upon the name of the Lord here, but later on, right before the flood, God talks about that there wasn't any righteous man on the face of the earth. Yes. And I mean, that's a fairly long period of time, but you've got the overlap of generations here. Yes. And it's also interesting that Adam never saw the translation of Enoch.

Yes, yeah, well you can imagine okay here then men began to call upon the name of the Lord I mean Adam and Eve must have just been mine, you know mind-blown to see a Wow, what's happening? You know, this guy's invented this and this guy's doing this and people are living this way and that way. And and whoa, you know, this is this has got to be. Oh, no. You know, what have we done?

The recognition as these different things came up must have been really startling and mind boggling for them. Genesis 5 free when Adam and lived a hundred and thirty years he became the father of a son his own likeness according to his image and named him Seth so Seth Cain and Abel were the ones given names other sons and daughters which are mentioned there I believe it's the beginning of chapter 5 other sons and daughters were apparently there we don't know how many other than there's plural of each but no names right So here's Seth, image and likeness, where have you seen those words before? Genesis chapter 1, right? So interesting, God made mankind in God's image and here's Adam having a son in his image and likeness. Okay. Now is Enoch. Enoch, and we're going into Chapter 5 here. He lived 65 years and became the father of Methuselah.

Now, one of the interesting patterns here is in some of the biblical names, it is more difficult with some of the biblical names to know what the meaning is than with others, especially as it gets longer. Right? A lot of times names, the meanings of the names are contracted. One of the proposed meanings for the name Methuselah is when he dies it comes. What comes? The flood, right? And that's one of the things if you look at that chart that you'll see the flood comes right after his death.

Enoch walked with God 300 years after he became the father of Methuselah. He had other sons and daughters. That's another one of those statements, other sons and daughters. So the only one we have a name here is Methuselah. So all the days of Enoch were 365 years.

Enoch walked with God, and he was not before God took him. Interesting thought. At Enoch, you'd almost think, well, what happens when Billy Graham dies? Makes you think. Well, here is Enoch and it says the Lord took him. Why? Is God mad at him? What's the deal? His will. Yeah, Stan?

Is that a great picture of rapture? You know, it's interesting. We have some instances out of the Old Testament even. that are rapture-like occurrences, that is, where someone is taken up before having died. Can you think of another example? Elijah would be another one, yes. So Enoch and Elijah would be a couple of Old Testament pictures, if you will, of a rapture-like event.

How is it different from the rapture? The rapture takes all the saints, both those who have died and those who are alive at that time. So it's different. So a rapture is a group event, whereas this was individuals. But you're right, there is a comparison. It's also pre-Christ. Ah, yes. Pre-Christ. Good point.

Enoch walked with God. It was only said of Enoch and Noah that they walked with God before the flood. Enoch walked with God, and God took him. Noah walked with God, and God preserved him. Isn't that interesting? Interesting patterns. In each case, the Lord did something special with the ones who walked with God. Here is Enoch, and while you see the usual pre-flood lifetimes being around 900 years, Enoch is the short one there because the Lord took him. So he didn't live the usual approximately 900-year lifespan.

Now, Noah, and his name, a little easier to figure out because it's short, Rest. And we see it also explicitly in here. Genesis 5, 29, 30, Now he called his name Noah, saying, This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed. So, they're looking for Noah to give him rest. Is Noah, is rest going to come in Noah's time?

Not so much. Not so much, right? As a matter of fact, what's Noah going to do? He's going to work for 120 years on an ark, right? So, not going to be rest. So, now we get to the fun part. Genesis 6, we encounter the sons of God and the daughters of men and Nephilim. And what is that about? Okay. Three primary interpretations of the sons of God have been presented.

One is despotic chieftains, and you have a one-page handout. It's got some blue and yellow pastel. I think it's towards the back or at the back. And what I have here as number one is actually listed, I think, last in the chart. Despotic chieftains calling themselves sons of God and marrying commoners. I don't myself hold to that because it's like, why do despotic chieftains get called sons of God? It's rather bizarre. The line of Seth as sons of God marrying into the line of Cain the daughters of men. Was the line of Seth all godly?

No, not so much. So that's the second view. And the third one that we present in there, and that's, I believe, my personal belief, is the intended meaning. The sons of God are fallen angels who have left their domain, that is to remain angels and have stayed as angels, and have intercourse with the daughters of men resulting in these Nephilim. And that's the view you see presented with the yellow dot column. While it's not a major point of doctrine or an open and shut case, the evidence seems to point to the third option, fallen angels. Although I've certainly encountered people who believe otherwise. Whatever view is taken, the sons of God seem to have a substantial moral, spiritual, and even political impact upon the pre-flood culture. The impact is big.

And the other thing is, what's the characterization in chapter 6, in Genesis chapter 6, what's the characterization of people's living and thinking? There's a phrase in there where it says, and the thoughts of men were only evil continually. Can you imagine that? Only evil continually. I mean, it's like, there's not a good thought anywhere among these people. What can I take? Who can I kill? You know, just total evil all the time. Wow. Pardon?

This is Genesis chapter 6 prior to the flood. It's describing the spiritual and moral conditions prior to the flood. Yeah, Stan? Isn't there something in Jude that talks about the evil of angels that are locked up in a different Tarsus? Yes, and I don't have time to go into the detail, but one of the questions is why are some of the angels locked up in this place? It's called Tartarus in 2 Peter. And a synonym for that, the abyss or the abyssos in Revelation.

And there are beings, matter of fact, the picture is this, as I study it. The second Peter and Jude passages are really close. Even the wording is real close. It's not identical, but real close. And both of them point to these beings that are in this prison.

They are let out of the prison. Once they're imprisoned, they're let out for one five-month period during the tribulation. They're let out from the abyss and they embody the scorpion-like creatures to torment only the unbelievers during that time. And then they go back into the abyss to be judged at the end of time.

Okay. So you have this supplement here and you can certainly take time to look at that. I initially got this from a chart by a fellow, an acquaintance of mine, Wayne House, who put it together. And then since then I've edited it and added names. Even this last week before I printed this out, I added another name to one of the columns. Yeah? Did Wayne have a brother, Adrian, or a relative, Adrian? I don't know. I've met him. He called me up on the phone one time, but I don't know.

This is about his family. Regardless of the view, the Lord set a time of 120 years before the flood. That's from chapter 6, verse 3. The wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6.5. Six, nine, only of Noah in his day does it say that he walked with God as Enoch and was righteous. None other. And finally, the earth was corrupt in the sight of God and the earth was filled with violence. Lots of violence.

So the construction of the ark by Noah and family may be either a unique expression of technology prior to the flood, or it may be in keeping with a technology that existed in some degree, and likely in smaller magnitude prior to the flood. The idea of ark building, because one of the things we haven't read about in the verses that we've seen so far is, did they have boats? So either the technology was there and people did in fact have boats, but the Bible just doesn't mention it, or Noah was coming up with something fairly unique when he was building the ark.

You have as a supplement, and this I put on a legal size, so it would be a little bit larger and you could hopefully read it a little more easily. And so it's the page that kind of folds out, but so that it fits in a standard size sheet. And this gives you the genealogies of the names from actually the entire book of Genesis. And what we've done is to put a red line. I think it's a little bit lighter on your copy, but a red line there that talks about the pre-flood generations. Yes. Oh, there's a bunch of them we could get into, but go ahead. The appearance from what is revealed in scripture, and we could easily say, well, it's not complete or exhaustive. The appearance is that the water came up from the ground rather than as a falling out of the sky event until the time of the flood.

So building the Ark may have been a really stupid thing as far as the people on Earth. Yeah, the people on Earth, it's like, man, you must be out of your mind, you know? I mean, they must have thought he was just plain loony. What's this crazy guy doing?

And not only that, he's got his sons working with him, you know? This is a crazy family. And it's huge. Yeah, this big, giant thing. And I was like, Noah, you just must be cracked, you know? So now what's interesting is you look at this genealogy and there's a lot there. I wish that our CIA and Defense Department would study this. And here's why.

A great deal of today's conflicts involving our military and otherwise have to do with things that are shown in that chart. Things that are shown in that chart show up. And it has to do with who we're fighting, and who we're not fighting, and who's fighting amongst themselves. All those are involved.

OK. So this world-changing event, which was the time of the flood in Noah's time, took place just after the death of Methuselah. Like I say, one of the suggested, it's not the only one, one of the suggested meanings is when he dies, it comes. A possible explanation of the sources of the material found in the book of Genesis from before and after the flood is called the tablet theory. We went over that in a little bit more detail. Wiseman did the initial version and his son did a revised version. His son was an Assyriologist. They're both Christians and both home with the Lord. But anyway, that's the suggestion.

There will probably never be proof of this and so it will probably always remain tablet theory. What would it take to prove that this is how Moses, some centuries later, would record this information? What would it take to prove? You would have to find original You know, tablets and the original, and the odds of that happening are close to nil.

So, at any rate, it'll probably remain a theory. I think it's a reasonable explanation, but that's as far as you can go with it. Now, for some controversial material, as if we haven't looked at any yet. This presents a couple of pieces of evidence, I put that in quotes, of human culture from prior to the flood, but in both cases the extraction of the find from native rock by qualified scientists is lacking. Okay, so here's Thomas, Oklahoma. I think, Jack, you were saying you're from Oklahoma. How close is Thomas to where you're from? Okay, all right, straight west, so a little bit to the west there.

There was a coal-fired electric plant where this guy who was a supervisor noticed, you know, we've got a small iron pot that looks like it's encased in coal that came delivered to the plant, okay? So here's a picture of it. The coal has been dated at 312 million years old. All right? So that's a head scratcher.

What he did is he broke it out, which he frankly shouldn't have done. He should have called somebody qualified to come in and look at it. He broke it out. He had other people observing and watching with him. And he wrote this letter and had it notarized.

Well, what does a notary do? Does a notary certify that everything is true? No. A notary simply does what? They have significant evidence that says you are who you are and they're certifying that that's all. So getting a notary to sign it did nothing in terms of a scientific establishment. So he has this letter here and this colon hand, he still blew it in terms of having a significant scientific find. Here's the text on this letter and the notary commission and all that. So he needed to have somebody qualified doing this and getting a letter and having other people witness it who hadn't qualifications, didn't do any good.

So it may be a valid find. But we'll never know. Welcome to London, Texas. Nancy and I lived in Fort Worth for a little over half a year before we moved here. And that was about a half a year too long. Anyway, over here to the east there is London, Texas, not too far from Tyler.

And a fellow by the name of Max Hahn was fishing with his family. there, and he found in the rock what looks like a hammer and a handle. And he took some of the metal and he submitted it to Battelle Laboratory and came up with a percentage of iron and chlorine and sulfur. The date of the adjacent rock material was given as 140 million years old, he had some cross-section pictures taken and all that.

What's the same problem as the previous one? Yeah? That carbon-14 testing has to be consistent if you're going to have, if you're going to be able to come up with dates and years. Yeah, I mean, so, you know, yeah, what's the... And do I have testing of adjacent material itself, not just here's a date of the material that I claim it came out of.

So we have the same problem as the other one. What the guy should have done is to say, I'm not touching it, let's get some qualified people in here and have them examine it in place and extract it and do tests on, you know, and carry out a thorough scientific investigation. What you have is, you know, some interesting things, but nothing that is substantial. So it may be valid, but you cannot depend on it, count on it, rely on it, because it was basically taken out in an amateurish fashion. So anyway, yeah, I mean, it looks real interesting, but So, and then we have after the flood, of course, we've had this map showing general distributions of population in previous times after the flood. Here's the area of Mount Ararat.

And of course, we'll get into post-flood culture as we get into our next time. Summary of points on pre-flood culture. Historical records from the pre-flood period are limited to Genesis 1 through 7, with some details in the Bible after that point. Some things are said of Adam and Eve and Noah and others at other places in the Bible, but in general, what we have comes from those first seven chapters. Archaeological finds are rare, and then also in this case, not scientifically extracted. since the pre-flood cultures were destroyed, as 2 Peter says, the world that then was perished. The development of technology including metallurgy, musical instruments, both nomadic and fixed location agriculture takes place during this time. Other technology developments are not mentioned in Genesis.

Is it possible other things took place? Could very well be. The book of Genesis discloses what is true. It is not exhaustive. So there are questions we could ask. There are possibilities that we simply have no knowledge of. We have no way to answer the questions other than to speculate or say this may be the case. We have no way to provide other information that isn't revealed. The interactions with God appear to have been direct, which is consistent with the point you made there, rather than revealed as in our time. The currently revealed details on those spiritual interactions are indeed limited.

The comparative longevity of people allowed for lengthy periods of learning and skill development within a single person's lifetime. Hey, I think I'll take up this. Eh, I think I'll take up that. I think I'll take up that and you could spend a century or two before you decide to change your mind and pick up something else. So childbearing years were much longer than ours as well.

Now, metallurgy is indicative of technological development. Generally speaking, and this is a point that I think you were bringing up earlier, the Bronze Age is thought to have begun around 3300 BC and the Iron Age about 1200 BC. And by the way, those particular years, they're not like, you know, ka-chunk fixed, you know, that one time, which you find is sort of a transition period around that time, okay? Prior to that would have been the Stone Age, that's the conventional dating system. General evidence of the development of metal or other technologies in the pre-flood culture would have been lost to us in the flood unless taken on the ark, with some exceptions of these occasional finds that are not scientifically well established. Now, We will not in any way have enough time to adequately discuss how do we resolve this. What I will do is take one approach to it, which I think will be helpful. And my clock is on the fritz here.

Okay, now we know. All right. Here's human evolution, the secular model. That's what we're told, okay? This is a chart from Stanford University. It goes from the present back to six million years. One of the things you'll note is there are a bunch of question marks in here. So, and it doesn't mean everything's in question, but it means to specific things, those are in question. And then it finally in here has Homo sapiens, human beings here. It has been determined by DNA studies that there were interactions between the Neanderthals, interbreeding between the Neanderthals and humans.

So, very interesting. Carol? Yes. I know. I was at Oregon Caves Park in southwest Oregon and I saw a fellow and I thought, That guy looks like somebody's father down on the chart, you know. So I didn't want to have him offended. I had my sister go up and take his picture. So anyway.

So there are various reconstructions and a lot of these things are getting changed based on new discoveries. For example, the discovery recently with the ability to do DNA testing. found out that Neanderthals and humans actually interbred to some degree. So that's an interesting discovery. So there's different configurations of these charts, and they keep changing because of new discoveries, not only of new skulls that are looked upon as being different species, but also things like DNA studies and things of that sort. Here's one, as I downloaded it, the name of the chart was Evolution Chart No Longer Open to Dispute. Oh boy, good luck with that. Because even among the evolutionists, they've got different ideas and additional charts.

Now, here is world population growth with the secular model. There was two and a half million years before the present here, and that's the Old Stone Age. 1000 BC is when the New Stone Age began, according to secular dating. What's different about the New Stone Age is that that was when agriculture was looked upon as beginning, according to the secular timing. Here would be the biblical model, where we'd have from two, you'd develop to a large population, and then with Noah's flood back down to eight, and then developing up into today's population. That would be the biblical picture. So one population growth down to eight, and then starting another one, which would be our present time. This is something that I came up with just about a year ago, and I think it's fairly significant.

Think about it. Do you hear about scientists getting real contentious and argumentative about the freezing temperature of water. No, and why not? Well, you think about, pardon? Yeah, no, there's that. Yeah, in other words, you can do that, and if you say, well, I don't believe you, I'll get my own thermometer and my own water, and it is easily tested in the present and easily repeated. And also, things that are at a smaller scale, like the freezing temperature of water, here's another one like the pendulum, the behavior of a pendulum, things that are smaller scale and repeatable, you're much less likely to have controversy over that. As you step either into larger scope and scale, like, you know, do we have global warming, things like that, larger scope and scale, even in the present, you start getting contention.

One more thing. is when you go into the past, there are methods available along with a set of assumptions if it's in the historical period. But you at least have somebody who claims to have been a witness, sometimes multiple people who claim to have been a witness. For example, when Sennacherib attacked Hezekiah in Jerusalem, there are about five different historical accounts of that event. So you have different witnesses, and from that you can determine what actually took place because of the multiple historical accounts. When you step into the period of prehistory, you step into a situation where you can observe now what remaining evidence there is, But you have to make a number of assumptions that will never ever be scientifically verified. A lot of assumptions and they will never be scientifically verified. None of the assumptions behind history have any chance of being verified. I'm going to have to cut it quick here.

How will we verify that all radioactive decay rates have remained constant over the assumed millions of years? And we have in fact discovered within the last decade several different means that radioactive decay rates vary and they are all a surprise. We had no idea that these things, neutrinos from the sun, impact radioactive decay rates. Cavitation, this is where hydraulic forces take place and you get actual kind of a suction, negative pressure phenomenon, also changes radioactive decay rates. So that's one.

Can we go back in time to objectively observe primates evolving into human beings? Nobody is ever going to do that. We showed the skulls, and which one is related to what? The only thing I can do, with a rare exception, the only thing I can do is say, this looks like it's closer to that in dimensions, appearance, things of that sort. I can never objectively go back and say, now there's one kind of primate turning into another kind of primate. We cannot ever do that. We make assumptions that will never be scientifically verified.

Why has science determined that life does not generate spontaneously? And that was finally done in 1859. It started in 1668, by the way. But science also assumes without any chance of verification that life did generate itself spontaneously three and a half billion years ago. And guess when the Origin of Species was published? 1859, the same year that they said, now this proves that life can't generate itself. But now we've got a book that says, yes, it does. And assumes that it can never verify it scientifically, because you can't go back three and a half million years. Yeah. Yeah.

Can anyone verify objectively that soft tissue found in fossils that are supposed to be tens of millions of years old should actually be there after all those vast spans of time? Over 20 cases, so far, 20 cases of actual protein tissues remain, including one just north of us here, Green River Formation. Supposedly 40 plus million years old.

Here's a lizard tail and hind legs. It has skin proteins in here that have been extracted and analyzed. Hmm. Here's another one. Soft tissue from a T-Rex thigh bone, supposedly 70 million years old from the sandstone formation in Montana. This is found about roughly 10 years ago by Mary Schweitzer. And so there you have it now. So it's soft tissue. It's supposedly from 70 million years ago. Hmm. Now, here is some that, look at the fine detail. This is the same T-Rex thigh bone. Look at the fine detail. Even here's blood vessels with blood in the vessels. See the fine tissues here? That's all still remaining? Hmm.

Something doesn't sound right. Here's another one, soft tissue from a 70 million year old mosasaur. That's a seagoing dinosaur, a large one. It was carbon 14 dated by a lab in Lund, Switzerland, excuse me, Sweden, at 26,400 years old. That's forcing it too. So carbon 14 says 26,400, but our other dating systems say 70 million. But there's soft tissue like this, okay? By the way, the carbon-14 dating method, that's the formula that's used. I did a special project on carbon-14 dating in a physics class that I had some years back. That's the formula that's used, but the formula assumes that the Earth is old. So the assumption that it is old is used to demonstrate that it is old.

Oh, that's nice. Okay, yes. Yes. And there's a whole bunch of different issues. So anyway, we've got to rush through this. So that's it. Now, next we'll be going to post-flood and patriarchal cultures dealing with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc. Time to pray. We've got way past time here.

Lord, we do thank you for the things you've revealed in your word. We pray particularly, though this certainly comes into historical and scientific issues, we pray particularly that this would give us understanding and insight about the spiritual issues that are involved. And we just thank you as we go through this that you have revealed your word because you love us and care for us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.