An Eric Hovind Press Release, What's Missing?

[Mojo]

It doesn't matter.

And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth: (Genesis 5:3)

And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: (Genesis 5:6)​

etc etc etc

How old was Adam when he begat Seth? How old was Seth when he begat Enos?

 

[TheGoldcountry]

How old was Adam when he begat Seth? How old was Seth when he begat Enos?

you know what, there are a whole bunch of non-believers here debating stuff that we outgrew when we were ten years old- what's the point?

 

[Dinwar]

It's like asking who would win in a fight, Iron Man or Batman. It's fun to talk about fiction.

 

[Craig B]

There is always the unanswerable question of where Cain found a wife, when his parents were supposed to be the original parents of EVERYONE.

He found her in the Land of Nod. See Genesis 4:16,17.

 

[kedo1981]

Even the most basic observations of reality show the biblical claims of supernatural events including creation are just made up BS.
This is an 800 lb gorilla in the creationist's/religonist's “room”.
It simply can't be denied or ignored by anyone with half a brain.

 

[Stellafane]

There is always the unanswerable question of where Cain found a wife, when his parents were supposed to be the original parents of EVERYONE.

Simple solution: "Hi, Mom!"

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The biblical elders overlapped to a great extent, but they're never shown as interacting. Why is that?

 

[TheGoldcountry]

He found her in the Land of Nod. See Genesis 4:16,17.

I know the literal explanation. Where the hell did she come from, Venus?

 

[TheGoldcountry]

It's like asking who would win in a fight, Iron Man or Batman. It's fun to talk about fiction.

Batman always wins. Next question?

 

[GodMark2]

There is always the unanswerable question of where Cain found a wife, when his parents were supposed to be the original parents of EVERYONE.

Adam and Eve were the ancestors of the chosen people (jews) not 'everyone'. The 'not-chosen' people weren't worthy of mention in the creation story, just like nematodes and bacteria.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Simple solution: "Hi, Mom!"

Or "Hi, little Sis!" Female descendents were not considered as important as male ones.

 

[psionl0]

How old was Adam when he begat Seth? How old was Seth when he begat Enos?

From the Contemporary English Version:

^3-4 When Adam was one hundred thirty, he had a son who was just like him, and he named him Seth. Adam had more children ⁵ and died at the age of nine hundred thirty.

⁶ When Seth was one hundred five, he had a son named Enosh. ⁷ Seth had more children ⁸ and died at the age of nine hundred twelve.

 

[psionl0]

Adam and Eve were the ancestors of the chosen people (jews) not 'everyone'. The 'not-chosen' people weren't worthy of mention in the creation story, just like nematodes and bacteria.

"And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living." - (Genesis 3:20 KJV).

 

[Craig B]

I know the literal explanation. Where the hell did she come from, Venus?

It gets worse:

17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

We've now got to explain where a whole city full of people came from. Maybe the God of Nod was in the creation business too.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Adam and Eve were the ancestors of the chosen people (jews) not 'everyone'. The 'not-chosen' people weren't worthy of mention in the creation story, just like nematodes and bacteria.

Thankfully then, at least some of us could swim. &

Oh. Just thought. Were two of us taken on board the Ark? In which case; &

 

[TheGoldcountry]

Adam and Eve were the ancestors of the chosen people (jews) not 'everyone'. The 'not-chosen' people weren't worthy of mention in the creation story, just like nematodes and bacteria.

then that means there was LIFE THAT GOD DIDN'T CREATE

 

[xtifr]

Now before y'all go bashing too much on ol' James Ussher, keep in mind that his defenders include none other than Stephen Jay Gould, in his essay, "Fall in the House of Ussher" (from Eight Little Piggies, W. W. Norton & Co., 1993).

I shall be defending Ussher's chronology as an honorable effort for its time and arguing that our usual ridicule only records the lamentable small-mindedness based on mistaken use of present criteria to judge a distant and different past [...]

Gould, of course, doesn't support Ussher's date, which is easily falsifiable and false, but he applauds Ussher's work, given that he started from false premises, through no fault of his own.

What of the scientists who assumed that the continents were stable, that the hereditary material was protein, or that all the other galaxies lay within the Milky Way? These false and abandoned efforts were pursued with passion by brilliant and honorable scientists.

Nor did Ussher simply add up the ages of people mentioned in the Bible. As Gould points out, that method starts to break down around the time of Solomon, and fails utterly once you reach the end of the Old Testament. Basically, it's a dead end, and Ussher didn't even bother with it. Gould does discuss his methods, but I won't bother, because it's irrelevant here.

Beyond that, though, Ussher's goal doesn't seem to have been to establish the date of creation. That was simply one step in his goal to create a framework for studying and analyzing all human history. And here Gould quotes historian James Barr (see Gould's bibliography for details).

The Annales are an attempt at a comprehensive chronological synthesis of all known historical knowledge, biblical and classical... Of its volume only perhaps one sixth or less is biblical material.

(Emphasis mine.)

So, diss the Young Earth Creationists all you want. They don't have any excuse for their deliberate and wilful ignorance and blind stupidity. But don't try to lump poor Bishop Ussher in with that pack of idiots. It's not his fault that his attempt at good scholarship has been adopted by a pack of loons.

 

[Dinwar]

That's all well and good, xtifr, except for a few small points:

1) None of this has to do with the current argument, which is about where the other people came from. Ussher himself may not have used the framework of the family trees, but many modern-day Creationists do. And the glaring holes in the logic are there regardless of what anyone does with them--humans can't live for 900+ years (yet, and certainly not back then), and either God created all people, in which case incest was unavoidable, or he didn't, in which case much of the later parts of the Bible are wrong.

2) Ussher WAS wrong, and mocking people who were wrong is certainly not unknown in science. Science isn't nice, and it's certainly not as dispassionate as many of its advocates claim it to be.

3) Most of us don't mock Ussher, but the people who still use 6ka for the age of the Earth. That's more akin to mocking current-day Lemarkians.

4) Gould was a great scientist, but he's not above reproach. Nor are his words gospel. Thus, it's entirely plausible for someone to say "I disagree" (in fact, I once spent a rather long [and delicious] meal engaged in a conversation that amounted to someone saying exactly that).

 

[xtifr]

1. The fact that Ussher himself rejected the adding-up-the-ages approach is a good rebuttal for those modern-day YEC's who claim that's a valid approach. Probably more productive than trying to reproduce the adding-up, as several people in this thread seem to have been attempting.

2. Ussher was wrong, but pointing out that the idiots who misinterpret his work don't even understand his work is surely more telling than simply saying it's wrong.

3. Fully agree.

4. Fully agree.

cheers

 

[Craig B]

1. The fact that Ussher himself rejected the adding-up-the-ages approach is a good rebuttal for those modern-day YEC's who claim that's a valid approach. Probably more productive than trying to reproduce the adding-up, as several people in this thread seem to have been attempting.

2. Ussher was wrong, but pointing out that the idiots who misinterpret his work don't even understand his work is surely more telling than simply saying it's wrong.

I think Ussher simply decided to go for round numbers. He assumed Jesus was born in 4 BC. We know that Herod died that year. Then he subtracted round thousands of years. He was aware that the world existed in 3004 BC, but knew nothing about 4004 BC, so he went for that. He was manufacturing the least possible duration of the world consistent with using the date of Jesus' birth as his starting point.

Proof of this is that he predicted that the world would end in 1996. Two thousand years after 4 BC. I missed that, if it happened.

Gould, by the way, was capable of total idiocy when he undertook to discourse upon religion, as his absurd NOMA doctrine clearly demonstrates.