Comparing Land of Promise Location to Scripture Descriptions

When looking for a Land of Promise location model, it should, above all else, match the descriptive statements in the Book of Mormon about such a location. If any model does not match Nephi, Jacob, Mormon and Moroni’s clear statements, then it should be summarily rejected.

Ammon reached “a hill, which was north of the Land of Shilom, and there they pitched their tents, and Ammon took three of his brethren and they went down into the Land of Nephi

As an example, Mormon tells us that the cities of Shilom and Shemlon were within view of a tower built on a hill overlooking the city of Shilom. “[Noah] built a tower near the temple; yea, a very high tower, even so high that he could stand upon the top thereof and overlook the land of Shilom, and also the land of Shemlon, which was possessed by the Lamanites; and he could even look over all the land round about (Mosiah 11:12, emphasis added).
    This tower was on a hill which Mormon tells us: “He [Noah] caused many buildings to be built in the land Shilom; and he caused a great tower to be built on the hill north of the land Shilom, which had been a resort for the children of Nephi at the time they fled out of the land (Mosiah 11:13, emphasis added). This tower was: “he built a tower near the temple; yea, a very high tower, even so high that he could stand upon the top thereof and overlook the land of Shilom, and also the land of Shemlon, which was possessed by the Lamanites; and he could even look over all the land round about.
    Further, we learn that the land of Shilom was next to the Land of Nephi, “when they had wandered forty days they came to a hill, which is north of the land of Shilom, and there they pitched their tents. And Ammon took three of his brethren, and their names were Amaleki, Helem, and Hem, and they went down into the land of Nephi. And behold, they met the king of the people who were in the land of Nephi, and in the land of Shilom; and they were surrounded by the king's guard, and were taken, and were bound, and were committed to prison” (Mosiah 7:5-7, emphasis added).
    Evidently, then, a temple on a hill overlooking a valley which was large enough for two cities, Shilom and Nephi, to be located, and that from that hill, the Land of Shemlon could be seen (Mosiah 19:6).

Cuzco Valley in Peru in which today is located the city of Cuzco, and anciently was the city of Nephi, Shilom and Shemlon

Consequently, such a location should be able to be identified from the specific terrain and city location in a proposed Land of Promise. This is true in Andean South America, when looking at the Valley of Cuzco on the eastern side of the Knot of Cuzco in the Southern Sierras, directly adjacent to the Sacred Valley, which is also known locally as the Urubamba Valley, that is 12 miles north of Cuzco.

Location of Sacsayhuaman within the area of Cuzco in Peru

Today this entire area is considered within the boundaries of the City of Cuzco, that currently has around 350,000 population, showing its size large enough to easily include the three Nephite cities of Nephi, Shilom and Shemlon in BC times.
    In addition, Nephi tells us that after settling in the Land of Nephi, he “did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance” (2 Nephi 5:15). We also know that earlier, Nephi was taught by the Lord while building his ship: “We did work timbers of curious workmanship. And the Lord did show me from time to time after what manner I should work the timbers of the ship. Now I, Nephi, did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men. And I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord; wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things” (1 Nephi 18:1-3, emphasis added).
    Sacsahuaman, perched on a hill above the city is an immense fortified work six hundred yards long, built in three lines of wall consisting of enormous stones, some of which are twenty-seven feet in high. Pissac is also the site of wonderful ruined masonry and an ancient observatory. At Ollantaytambo, forty-five miles to the north of Cuzco, is another of these gigantic fortresses, built to defend the valley of the Yucay. This stronghold is constructed for the most part of red porphyry, and its walls average twenty-five feet in height. The great cliff on which Ollantay is perched is covered from end to end with stupendous walls which zigzag from point to point of it like the salient angles of some modern fortalice. At intervals are placed round towers of stone provided with loopholes, from which doubtless arrows were discharged at the enemy. 
    This outwork embraces a series of terraces, world-famous because of their gigantic outline and the problem of the use to which they were put. It is now practically agreed that these terraces were employed for the production of maize, in order that during a prolonged investment the beleaguered troops and country-folk might not want for a sufficiency of provender. The stone of which this fortress was built was quarried at a distance of seven miles, in a spot upwards of three thousand feet above the valley, and was dragged up the steep declivity of Ollantay by sheer human strength. The nicety with which the stones were fitted is beyond marvelous, bordering on the unbelievable.
    Obviously, Nephi was well instructed by the Lord in advanced techniques in building, since his instruction and subsequent work was “not after the manner of men.” But if not after the manner of men, or the techniques of his day, then who or what were they after?
    Certainly it was after the knowledge of God, whose knowledge and ability formed the Universe—He certainly would have known how to build far in advance of Nephi’s time, or even our own. In turn, Nephi passed that knowledge and skill along to his people when he “taught them how to build buildings,” who then built a temple, “Like unto Solomon’s” (2 Nephi 5:16).

The three-tiered stone walls around Sacsahuaman on the hill above the Cuzco Valley

In addition, Sacsahuaman was surrounded by a cliff on one side, and a three-tiered stone wall on the other sides that is considered not only beyond the ability of people to build in BC times, given their equipment of the day, but is also considered beyond the abilities of today without the use of cranes, backhoes, and mechanized construction equipment.
    As Mormon wrote: “building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land” (Alma 48:8).
    Where else in the Americas do we find such workmanship as well as such stone walls for defense surrounding cities and throughout the land? Not Mesoamerica, whose stone work, though impressive, was seldom built for defense, almost all of their cities being unwalled and open to the surrounding land. And certainly not in North America, where no stone walls of any workmanship or use in defending the area within.

Fortifications that Mormon described were difficult for the Lamanites to enter. These stone forts were nearly impregnable; Upper Left: Chinchero; Upper Right: Pachacamac; Lower Left: Kuelap; Lower Right: Ollantaytambo

   
Again, Mormon said of the Nephites, “[he] caused them to erect fortifications that they might secure their armies and their people from the hands of their enemies” (Alma 50:10). Also, “all their fortifications” (Alma 51:23), and “all of which were strongly fortified after the manner of the fortifications of Moroni” (Alma 51:27). There is also “sought protection in their fortifications” (Alma 52:2); “While they were in their fortifications” (Alma 52:17); “he did employ his men in preparing for war, yea, and in making fortifications to guard against the Lamanites” (Alma 53:7); “they should commence a labor in strengthening the fortifications round about the city Gid” (Alma 55:25). In fact, the Nephites were constantly building and strengthening already built forts” (49:13,18); “Attack them in their forts” (Alma 52:5); “built forts of security, for every city in all the land round about” (Alma 49:13).
    The point is, the Nephites built forts, had fortresses, and places of resort—small forts.
    Thus, in any model of the Land of Promise, there should be evidence of stone forts, or fortresses with stone walls around it, secure enough to stop an advancing army, for the “Lamanites could not get into their forts of security by any other way save by the entrance” (Alma 49:18).
    In addition, when Mormon described the Nephite forts as being impregnable, saying that the Lamanites “could not get into their forts of security by any other way save by the entrance” (Alma 49:18), we can rightly assume that these entrances were a strong deterrent to attack.

Sample of special entrances designed to repel attacks, with narrow, uphill climbs with defenders on top and each side of the wall, throwing rocks, shooting arrows or throwing spears down on the attackers, or blind entrances that lead nowhere once inside as shown

Thus, of the some 60+ scriptural references about geography or descriptive information regarding the Land of Promise, all match the lands within Andean Peru. Consequently, the descriptions and locations described in these articles is based upon the scriptural record and not opinions, assumptions, or beliefs.

The Fall of the Inca Foretold by Lehi

According to the uninformed and most South America tourist guides, the Inca were responsible for all the ancient artifacts, development and building found in the Andean area throughout Chile, Peru, Ecuador and western Bolivia. However, as we have repeatedly said in this blog, the Inca were late comers to the many cultures that inhabited this area, and though extremely capable and effective in managing and enlarging the territory they overran, they were not particularly effective in building or erection of cities, defenses, or outstanding walls with blocks weighing many tons.
    Much of what has been credited to them by these ill-informed people was not created by them, but by the cultures that long preceded them, since the Inca were nothing more than a small, inconsequently tribe prior to 1400 AD. It is well established that they were in power when the Spanish conquistadors arrived and much misinformation has arisen about that, as well.
    What is little known about the Inca is the history of the so-called civil war which had been raging since the death of a previous Sapa Inca, Huayna Capac, around the year 1527, and how it was pivotal not only in the outcome of the arrival of the Spanish, but in the ending of the lineage of the Inca themselves.
    Huayna Capac was Sapa Inca (Sapan Inka: “the only Inca”) from 1493 to 1527, his demise came at the hand of foreign disease, most probably small pox, which had worked its way down the coast from Panama, an early Spanish colony and stronghold—in fact, these diseases not only would affect the Sapa Inca and people of Ecuador, but would rapidly work its way south.

Division of the Inca civilization by Huayna Capac for his two sons to rule

On his deathbed, Huayna Capac decreed that the Inca civilization should be divided between his two eldest sons. Tradition had been consistent, from the time of the first Sapa Inca Manco capac, that the first born son would become the heir. This process was supposedly evidently obeyed by the next nine Sapa Inca. Until 1527 and Huayna Capac, who, along with his first-born son, Ninan Cuyochi, also became infected with small pox and died before any issue. Thus, the next in line, Huáscar, was to be appointed Sapa Inca.
    Possibly in a state of illness induced delusion, or, with the situation of the line of succession being interrupted, Huayna Capac, who was the most powerful man in the Empire and who the people believed was descended from the sun god, decided to give the newly acquired area in which he lived (present day Ecuador) to Atahualpa, his son of an Ecuadorian noble woman. The rest of the Empire was given to Huáscar (Waskar Inka), and composed of all lands south of there, which was a territory that bordered the Pacific Ocean and edged the Amazon basin inland, as far south as Santiago de Chile.
    Huáscar was born as Inti Cusi Huallpa, which means “Sun of Joy.” The Huáscar was imposed by a ceremony ordered by his father to celebrate his birth; the ceremony consisted of more than 200 noble Indians to conducting a dance in the main square of Cuzco (Huacaypata), holding up a string of gold for 350 steps. The chain or rope, "huasca" as thick as a cuff-link chain, gave name to this Inca.
    After Huayna Capac’s death the two brothers lived in relative harmony for a few years, but then tensions began to appear. As it was always the duty of a Sapa Inca to expand the territory of the Tahuantinsuyu (four corners or quarters of the Inca world) during his time as ruler, Huáscar was in a quandary. He clearly could not expand north into Atahualpa’s land, for that had been given to him by their father. To the west was the Pacific Ocean, and to the east was problematic, as the Amazon was seemingly quite full of Indigenous people who were possibly not eager to join, by treaty or force, the Tahuantinsuyu. An attempt by the Inca to move in by force would have involved jungle warfare, and the natives would clearly have the upper hand in such a densely foliaged area. Also, a southern expansion perhaps would have meant that the military and other supply lines would be stretched beyond what was practical from the center at Cuzco. So this Sapa Inca was denied any ideas of territorial expansion.
    In addition, Huáscar was probably a little edgy about the intentions of his half-brother as well, since Atahualpa was a half-blood Inca, and it was not clear the two had ever had much contact face to face. Huáscar had grown up in Cuzco, with the other full blood children of Huayna Capac and his full blooded sister/wife. Atahalpa on the other hand had grown up in Quito, where Huayna Capac had chosen to live out the last years of his life by choice, surely unaware that a foreign disease would overtake he and his first son well before their natural time.

Inti Cusi Huallpa Huáscar

So Huáscar sent a message to Atahualpa, trying to determine the latter’s state of mind and level of contentment. He wrote to his half-brother: “You are certainly aware of the fact that, according to the laws of the first Inca, Manco Capac, the kingdom of Quito and all of your provinces belong to the crown and to the Empire of Cuzco. By rights, therefore, I was in no way obliged to relinquish the government of this kingdom to you, and if I did so, it was not because I was forced or compelled, but merely not to oppose our father’s wishes. Now that he is no longer with us, I am willing, out of respect for his memory, not to go back on this decision, but on two conditions. These are: first, that you will make no attempt to add so much, as a particle of land to the extent of your kingdom, since any newly acquired land belongs by rights to our Empire; the other is that, leaving everything else aside, you will swear allegiance to me and acknowledge that you are my vassal” (Garcilaso de la Vega, The Royal Commentaries of the Inca, 1609).
    Atahualpa sent word back, by Chasqui (royal messenger) that he agreed to these terms, and, in fact, if Huáscar so wished, Atahualpa would return all lands given to him in stewardship by their father, and would return to Cuzco to serve the Sapa Inca in whatever capacity he deemed suitable.
    Feeling a sense of ease, Huáscar confirmed the titles to Atahualpa that Manco Capac had bestowed on him, and invited his half-brother to Cuzco to pay his respects, and take the oath of faithful, loyal allegiance. To this Atahualpa agreed, and suggested that representatives from all of the districts of Quito could accompany him to Cuzco, in order to witness his pledge of allegiance, and to celebrate the life and works of their father, Huayna Capac.
    Huáscar was delighted by these ideas, and gave free reign to Atahualpa to bring whom he wished, and to depart for Cuzco at a date that he chose himself. In a plot against his brother, Atahualpa chose, as his representatives, experienced army personnel who were secretly armed—making the delegation a war party of 30,000 men, whose intent was to capture Huáscar and hold him prisoner. The elite of the Inca army had been stationed in Ecuador, both to protect Huayna Capac, and also that is where their last military campaign had been conducted.

Rumiñawi (Kichwa rumi ("rock face"), who after the death of Emperor Atahualpa, led the resistance against the Spanish in the northern part of the Empire

Just before Atahualpa`s forces were about to enter the Cuzco area, they were observed by Huáscar`s advisors, who warned the Inca that a delegation of 30,000 was far too large to be on a peaceful mission. They recommended that Huáscar form a defensive strategy, immediately, which he did in earnest. All fighting men were summoned to Cuzco from the Tahuantinsuyu, and though they numbered 30,000 in number, few if any of them was in a battle-ready state, as peace had been the norm in this area for years.
    Atahualpa`s forces destroyed Huáscar`s defenses in the course of a single day. Huáscar was captured and held prisoner under guard, day and night, and Atahualpa sent news of this throughout the Tahuantinsuyu in order to discourage any ideas among Huáscar`s loyal followers of rescuing their sovereign.
    His next moves were even more insidious. He summoned all Inca family members of full blood to hasten to Cuzco at once, in order to formulate new laws that would ensure peace and tranquility between the two kingdoms. However, as soon as these royal descendants arrived, all were murdered in heinous ways, from Huáscar`s uncles, aunts, and cousins, down to people of a fourth degree of familial relationship. Therefore, the majority of the bloodline of the Inca had been destroyed, forever, by the hand of one of their own, or at least a half blooded one.

The capture of Athualpa

All of this occurred while Atahualpa himself was out of harm`s way in the city of Juaja, some 530 miles from Cuzco. It is also possible that he was in the city of Cajamarca, farther to the northeast; accounts differ. Soon afterwards the Spanish conquistador Pizarro and his contingent of approximately 160 soldiers of fortune would in turn dupe Atahualpa into what Pizarro stated was to be a peaceful meeting—the result was the capture of Atahualpa, and the beginning of the further vicious and cruel destruction of the Inca state, killing many and making slaves in forced labor of the rest—only a few escaped into the high mountains.
It is well documented that the conquistadors were notorious for their cruelty and ferocity.
    Local populations were enslaved, abused and killed. In 1542, colonial laws were introduced to protect the Amerindians. In 1552 a book about the conquistadors' abuse was published by Bartolomé de las Casas. It was called a Short Account of the Destruction of the West Indies.
    It might be of interest to remember Lehi saying: “If the day shall come that they will reject the Holy One of Israel, the true Messiah, their Redeemer and their God, behold, the judgments of him that is just shall rest upon them” (2 Nephi 1:10); and “Thus saith the Lord God: ‘Cursed shall be the land, yea, this land, unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, unto destruction, which do wickedly, when they are fully ripe; and as I have said so shall it be; for this is the cursing and the blessing of God upon the land, for the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance’” (Alma 45:16).
    Perhaps the most relevant is the statement made by Lehi of his eventual descendants, the Lamanites, when he said that the Lord, “will bring other nations unto them, and he will give unto them power, and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten” (2Nephi 1:11).

An Interesting Side Note on the Bible

While Christians and many people today accept the Bible as it is written without basic questions, and in some ways has become part of the public conscience, not only do many disagree with the contents, time and location, there have always been those that do not believe there is sufficient “proof” of the holy lands to warrant scriptural consistency. That is, many claim there is no “proof” of the lands in that location, therefore no “proof” of the Bible.
   While Christians and many people today accept the Bible as it is written without basic questions, and in some ways has become part of the public conscience, not only do many disagree with the contents, time and location, there have always been those that do not believe there is sufficient “proof” of the holy lands to warrant scriptural consistency. That is, many claim there is no “proof” of the lands in that location, therefore no “proof” of the Bible.
    In fact, the question they ask is: “Did the ancient land of Israel really exist?
    Not covered well in this country, and not too much in other Christian societies, the period of time surrounding King David and King Solomon have been under fire for some time, with many claiming the society depicted in the scriptures really did not begin until the 8^th century, some 300 years later, and that in the 10^th century period, many historians believe that Israel was nothing but a small nomadic, illiterate tribe in the foothills.
    In fact, many ask the question: “Did the ancient land of Israel exist?” In addition, many archaeologists have debated this question for decades. It might be a surprise to many today to think there is a question about the authenticity of not only Biblical events, but of the Israelite existence entirely. Not unlike those who question the existence of Book of Mormon events and places, the Bible has few areas that can known and understood. As an example, the city of She’arayim mentioned in the Bible, a city appearing in the list of Judah's tribal inheritance, after Socoh and Azekah (Josephus 15,36). Also after David killed Goliath, the Philistines ran away and were slain on the “road to She'arayim" (1 Samuel 17:52). In the city list of the tribe of Simeon, She'arayim is mentioned as one of the cities "unto the reign of David" (1 Chronicles 4:31).
    Yet, it’s existence is unknown after all of the meticulous archaeological work done in the area of Israel. AT least, until 2012 when archaeological finds 15 miles southwest of Jerusalem confirmed the existence of the biblical figures King David and King Solomon. The confirmation rests on excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, an archaeological site considered to be the biblical city of Sha’arayim, which dates back to the 10^th  century BC.
    Uncovered at the site were two monumental buildings, one massive structure measuring over 10,000 square feet at the center of the site that “reflects power and authority over the city, as well as the region.” They believe it was an administrative center of the recently established Davidic kingdom. When the discovery was first announced, it was heralded as King David’s palace in the popular media, and the archaeologists write that while “he lived in his palace at Jerusalem…as the major administrative center on the western edge of David’s kingdom, it could have been a palatial building.”
    Model shrines discovered at Khirbet Qeiyafa were meant to represent Solomon’s Temple, and was the original home of the Ark of the covenant. Carbon dating places these relics within the time frame of biblical accounts of David's kingdom. Not only is the timing correct, but the relics potentially support the possible existence of a Jewish realm with a dedicated religion. Then there is the already observed fact that Khirbet Qeiyafa was a walled city, indicating that it was a town within a larger polity with a centralized administration Wynne Parry, “Earliest Evidence of Biblical Cult Discovered,” May 10, 2012).

Believed to be the site of She’arayim on a hilltop overlooking the Elah Valley in the Judean Hills, the valley of the terebinth (tree)

After excavating the site, Yossi Garfinkel of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and others believe that Khirbet Qeiyafa is She'arayim. Field work uncovered a wall that makes a nearly complete circuit with two gates. Garfinkel says it is the only contender for She'arayim as all other sites dated to the period have a single city gate (“Oldest Hebrew inscription' Discovered in Israelite Fort on Philistine border,” Biblical Archaeology Review, Washington DC, March/April 2010, p52).
    This is a clear example of how Biblical events are continually being discovered through archaeology. For the first time, archaeologists have uncovered shrines from the time of the early Biblical kings in the Holy Land, providing the earliest evidence of a cult, they say.
    Excavation within the remains of the roughly 3,000-year-old fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, 19 miles southwest of Jerusalem, have revealed three large rooms used as shrines, along with artifacts, including tools, pottery and objects, such as alters associated with worship.
    The three shrines were part of larger building complexes, and the artifacts included five standing stones, two basalt altars, two pottery libation vessels and two portable shrines, one made of pottery, the other of stone.

Aerial photo of Khirbet Qeiyafa at the end of the excavation project. It is located southwest of Jerusalem, on the summit of a hill that borders the Elah Valley on the north

When a readable ostrocon (a potsherd used as a writing surface) was found at a place called Khirbet Qelyafa (Hirbet Kaifeh) the fortress overlooking the Elah valley (where David fought Goliath), it changed all the hints at a nomadic group of tribes in Israel. The ostrocon dated from around the time in which king David would have lived and the inscription was interesting, both for its language, as well as its archaeological context.
    First of all, there were words in it that clearly represented some type of set kingdom such as king [מלך] and judge [שפט]. Second, there were words that were, although not non-existent in other Northwest Semitic languages, they were most typical of Hebrew, for example, "to do" [עשה] and "judge" someone [שפט]. Also, finding this ostrocon in the context of a fortress also showed the fallacy that Israel was just simply a nomadic tribe.
    Much work has been going on at Qelyafa, which fortress covers nearly 6 acres and is encircled by a 2300-foot-long city wall constructed of stones weighing up to eight tons each.
    A number of archaeologists have claimed that it might be the biblical city of Sha’arayim while many claim it was Judhaite or Canaanite fortress. This is a key strategic location in the biblical Kingdom of Judah, on the main road from Philistia and the Coastal Plain to Jerusalem and Hebron in the hill country. The city was constructed on bedrock, 2.3 hectares in area, surrounded by massive fortifications of megalithic stones. Five seasons of excavation were carried out in 2007-2011, five areas of the site were examined, and nearly 20% of the city has been uncovered. The expedition excavated 656-feet of the city wall, two gates, a pillar building like a small stable, and 10 houses. In this area one of the world's most famous battles took place, the battle between David and Goliath.
    The city has the most impressive First Temple period fortifications, including an encircling casemate city wall. The gates are of identical size, with one in the east and one in the south, and consist of four chambers. This is the only known city from the First Temple period with two gates. The urban planning of Khirbet Qeiyafa includes the casemate city wall and a belt of houses abutting the casemates, incorporating them as part of the construction. Such urban planning has not been found at any Canaanite or Philistine city, nor in the northern Kingdom of Israel, but is a typical feature of city planning in Judean cities: Beersheba, Tell Beit Mirsim, Tell en-Nasbeh and Tell Beth-Shemesh.
    Khirbet Qeiyafa is the earliest known example of this city plan and indicates that this pattern had already been developed by the time of King David.
    The city came to an end in a sudden destruction, as indicated by hundreds of restorable pottery vessels, stone utensils and metal objects left on the floors of the houses. Thus, during these five excavation seasons, very rich assemblages of pottery, stone tools and metal objects were found, as well as many cultic objects, scarabs, seals and the most famous Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon, an inscription written with ink on a pottery sherd.
     The massive construction of Khirbet Qeiyafa and its urban planning clearly indicate central authority in Judah in the early 10th century BC, the time of King David.

This inscription was discovered in 2008 and dates to the late-11th/early-10th century B.C., around the time of the Biblical Saul and David. It may be the oldest Hebrew inscription yet discovered, and some scholars believe it to be Hebrew written in Early Alphabetic script, though others assert we cannot rule out other similar languages such as Phoenician.

    Ancient words for “judge,” “king,” and “slave” are visible but too many of the other letters are faded to permit a sure translation of the message.

    Since it has taken many years, in fact more than two centuries, of digging for Biblical artifacts, and now just recently discovering for certainty of the origin of the Davidic era and that of Solomon, one can only wonder how long it will take to find the same settings for Book of Mormon archaeology which, surely as that of the Bible, will one day come indisputedly out of the ground.

Why is it so Difficult to Obtain Accurate Dates? - Part VII

Continuing from the previous post on the manner in which C-14 dates are often manipulated by the scientists in order to provide the dates needed to support personal views and paradigms. To better understand this, especially in light of the fallacious claim that the atmosphere is in equilibrium as scientists want us to believe, we can a look at Dr. Kent Hovind’s claims that the atmospheric C-14 is presently only-one-third of the way to equilibrium, though the scientific community has completely rejected his theory.
    First of all, the idea that the Earth’s atmosphere was not in equilibrium was first popularized by Henry Morris, who used some calculations done in 1968 by Melvin A. Cook to get the 10,000-year figure—that is, that the amount of carbon buildup in the atmosphere was such that it showed the Earth to be only about 10,000 years old. In 1968 another creationist, Robert L. Whitelaw, using a greater ratio of carbon-14 production to decay, concluded that only 5000 years had passed since carbon-14 started forming in the atmosphere! In either case, we are talking about an atmosphere far out of equilibrium—so far out that it doesn’t even show a balance of 30,000 years, but much younger.

Unfortunately, many researchers either begin with their own assumptions, or inject them when the results do not agree with their assumptions

Regarding this age, Dr. Kent Hovind, a controversial figure in the Young Earth creationist movement, and an adherent of the Bible’s claim of a young Earth, and author of Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution, claims that the atmospheric C-14 is presently only one-third of the way to an equilibrium value which will be reached in 30,000 years. This nullifies the carbon-14 method as well as demonstrating that the earth is around 10,000 years old.
    To counter this argument, Arthur N. Strahler (Science and Earth History, Prometheus Books, New York, 1987) claims that these measurements were developed before the cycles of C-14 variation we described had been fully documented. The point is that fluctuations in the rate of C-14 production mean that at times the production rate will exceed the decay rate, while at other times the decay rate will be the larger.” However, for this to be of any value, the increase and decrease would have to be exactly the same so a measurement could be maintained and equilibrium maintained.
    Consequently, even if we were to grant that Strahler’s assertions were true, his argument actually, on the face of it, undermines the case for the usefulness of C-14 dating in general, because this requires an equilibrium, which have other sources showing it is not in equilibrium, such as deep earth diamonds. Thus the presence of C-14 in diamonds and coal is now being emphasized, and as a result has shown the lack of equilibrium, it has become a great enemy for the evolutionary concept of an Earth that is billions of years old.
    Eight PhD scientists recently released their findings on the radioisotope evidence for the age of the earth. Called the RATE group (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth), this team of eight scientists spent eight years on the project. They studied many radioisotopic dating methods including Carbon-14, since diamonds contain carbon. Obviously, since Carbon-14 has a half-life of only 5,730 years, any biological object that is older than twenty Carbon-14 half-lives should not have any detectable Carbon-14 at all. In other words, since carbon 14's half-life is 5,730 years, twenty half-lives would be 114,600 years. Yet deep Earth diamonds show a high amount of carbon that would not exist if the Earth was any appreciable age.

It was Melvin Alonzo Cook (left), a noted American chemist, and best known from his work in the research and development of explosives, including the development of shaped charges and slurry explosives, and based on his work as found in Prehistory and Earth Models, Max Parish, Bel Air California, 1966; and its sequel Scientific Prehistory: A Sequel of Prehistory and Earth Models, Family History Publishers, West Valley City, UT, 1993), that showed where not only was the Earth atmosphere not in equilibrium, the atmosphere was, at most, only about 6000 years old.
    We also need to note that historical dates only go back a few thousand years. In fact, the earliest are 3000 B.C., with the earliest authenticated dates only going back to 1600 B.C. This means that well authenticated dates are only about 3600 years old—1600 B.C.—in Egyptian history, according to John G. Read (J.G. Read, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol.29, No.1, 1970). Thus, the meaning of dates by C-14 prior to 1600 B.C. is still as yet controversial” (Henry Madison Morris, et al., Science and Creation, 1971, p85).
    On this subject, Libby wrote: “The first shock Dr. Arnold and I had was that our advisors informed us that history extended back only 5,000 years…You read books and find statements that such and such a society or archaeological site is [said to be] 20,000 years old. We learned rather abruptly that these numbers, these ancient ages, are not known; in fact, it is about the time of the first dynasty in Egypt that the last [earliest] historical date of any real certainty has been established” (Willard F. Libby, "Radiocarbon Dating," University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1952, p107).
    U.S. Department of Energy gathered 10 coal samples all analyzed by the best carbon lab in the world. The results were that they found no difference in the levels of the Carbon-14 in the coal near the top and the coal near the bottom—this means that all of this material, though found at very different levels of the geologic column actually lived at the same time and died at the same time. Obviously, just additional strong evidence that the entire fossil record has the same age, contrary to the evolutionary views of strata dating.

According to Dr. John Baumgardner (left), one of the lead RATE team members and a geophysicist with expertise in tectonic modeling, analyzed several diamonds of C-14 and was excited to find significant levels of C-14 in diamonds, 100 times the detection threshold. It should be kept in mind that diamonds are formed 100 miles down in the Earth, and should be considered some of the earliest material involved when the Earth was formed, probably dating to the time of creation. At that depth, it would have been impossible to have been contaminated by other elements or processes, in fact, could not be contaminated, and shows the earth is young, only a few thousand years old or the C-14 in the diamonds would have long since decayed—showing that diamonds must date to the original creation of the earth itself a few thousand years ago.
    The measurements also show that all these fossils lived at the same time and were buried at the same time a few thousand years ago, which is an extremely important results and a strong support of the Biblical Flood around 2444 B.C. This Flood naturally would have greatly upset the carbon balance in the atmosphere since it buried a huge amount of carbon, which became coal, oil, etc., lowering the total C-12 in the biosphere (including the atmosphere—plants regrowing after the flood absorb CO2, which is not replaced by the decay of the buried vegetation).
    Total C-14 is also proportionately lowered at this time, but whereas no terrestrial process generates any more C-12, the C-14 is continually being produced, and at a rate which does not depend on carbon levels (it comes from nitrogen). Therefore, the C-14/C-12 ratio in plants, animals and the atmosphere before the flood had to be lower than what it is now.
    One of the first questions this should raise, is why is the same level of C-14 found in deep earth diamonds as well as fossils from top to bottom of the fossil record if the earth was formed billions of years ago and these animals appeared on the scene only a short time ago—doesn’t this support the evidence that the earth is only thousands of years old, not billions?
    It would not be, of course, if the Earth was indeed millions or billions of years old—it would exist (and does) only if the Earth were less than 50,000 years.

The thing we need to keep in mind is that the method of the Earth’s formation along with its atmosphere, geosphere and hydrosphere are set by unchanging factors. As is the biosphere, heat exchange and other forces, such as the weather. As an example, carbon moves between the atmosphere and the biosphere through photosynthesis and cellular respiration. It moves from the biosphere to the lithosphere through decaying organisms and animal waste products. Also, carbon moves from the atmosphere to the hydrosphere through dissolution of organic and inorganic carbon. Finally, carbon moves from the lithosphere to the hydrosphere through erosion.
    These factors are unchanging as is the process of Cosmic Rays of energetic neutrons when they collide with nitrogen-14, turning into Carbon-14. No amount of fudging the issue, the Carbon-14 can then be known within the atmosphere. And today that is about 30% of the 50,000-year cycle, making the Earth less than 30,000 years old. However, do not mistake this to mean that the parts of the Earth used to form it are not much older. In fact, matter cannot be destroyed, merely altered. When the Earth was formed, parts of ancient matter in the forms of the bui8lding blocks of rock needed came from former particles existing in the universe, thus, much of the Earth on an individual basis can be measured to be very old, while the formation of the planet itself is quite young.

The unalterable fact of Carbon-14 atoms is formed on Earth in well-defined manner, cannot be altered. Nor the fact that they are created when cosmic rays from the sun collide with atoms in the atmosphere 
The point is, most carbon-14 dates arrived at through testing do not agree with the theory and as a result, are discarded. "It may come as a shock to some, but fewer than 50 percent of the radiocarbon dates from geological and archaeological samples in northeastern North America have been adopted as “acceptable” by investigators" (J. Gordon Ogden III, "The Use and Abuse of Radiocarbon Dating," Annals of the New York Academy of Science, Vol.288, New York, 1977, pp167-173).
    As can easily be seen, there has been a tendency, if not outright hell-bent effort, to sell the idea of Carbon-14 testing and so-called “time clock” to the non-scientific populace from the very beginning. The fact that this has been achieved is evidenced through the national conscience of Carbon-14 dating as an accurate means to know and place specimens and time frames of the past. However, as pointed out above and in this series, such is not the case, and the system is not only flawed, but continually delivers inaccurate dating and information. Using C-14 dates to determine dates of events in the early Americas and the civilizations that inhabited those areas is not only not recommended but emphatically shown to be in total error.

Why is it so Difficult to Obtain Accurate Dates? – Part VI

Continued from the previous post regarding Carbon-14 dates being manipulated by scientists in order to provide the dates needed to support personal views and paradigms, and the problems associated with it, which involves how scientists manipulate the findings of the carbon testing so that the dates they use from the testing agrees with the accepted view of the evolutionary geologic column.
    Since so much depends upon an accurate understanding of correct time frames and fully understanding how inaccurate the geologic clock of evolution is, it cannot be overstated that the famed Willard Libby Carbon-14 “time clock” dating is based on the fallacy of a constant amount of C-14 or equilibrium in the atmosphere, as well as the fallacy of a constant ratio between C-12 and C-14.
    There are many situations and events, as pointed out earlier, that can skew the data regarding the carbon content in the atmosphere. Take for example in our recent history of the nuclear testing in the atmosphere that has increased dramatically the carbon content.

Atmospheric Carbon-14 measured in (red line) New Zealand (Southern Hemisphere) and (blue line) in Austria (Northern Hemisphere), showing a 40-year spike that altered the Carbon-14 in the atmosphere as compared to the (green line) natural levels

The New Zealand curve (above) is representative for the Southern Hemisphere, the Austrian curve is representative for the Northern Hemisphere. Atmospheric atomic and nuclear weapon tests almost doubled the concentration of Carbon-14 in the Northern Hemisphere (I. Levin, et al., “ōC-14 Record from Vermunt,” Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, 1994).
    Thus, the nuclear weapon testing in the atmosphere caused a drastic spike in the Carbon-14 content. When this testing was stopped, the peak started to decrease through interaction of the atmosphere with the other carbon reservoirs. Thus, the C-14 data showing the bomb peak on the northern and southern hemisphere reflect the exchange between both hemispheres, which is quite different, and though totally understood by scientists today, some unknowing measurement centuries from now would  be faced with the following problems:
1. When did the spike occur?
2. Was it world-wide?
3. What caused it?
4. Did animal life absorbing the spiked amount move about? (such as from one hemisphere to another, changing the inside ratio to the outside ratio—an unknown factor to the future scientist).
    This is pretty much our difficulty in trying to determine changes in the distant past. We don’t know if circumstances changed in any of the periods being measured. Since big changes in the atmosphere can throw off this method, like releasing tons of extra carbon dioxide into the air from burning fossil fuels—because fossil fuels like coal and oil are so old, they have no radiocarbon left. When burned, they increase the amount of carbon dioxide, which dilutes the radiocarbon in the atmosphere and the amount that can be absorbed by organic material (Alison Kanski, “Fossil Fuels May Bring Major Changes to Carbon Dating,” Climate Central, Princeton, New Jersey, July 28, 2015).
    This is what has happened in the past, with one exception—we don’t know if and when some occurrence changed the Carbon-14 content, how often such changes occurred, and what might have cause it.
    It should be noted that when the problems of C-14 amounts not being constant were discovered, scientists decided to use the amount in the atmosphere in 1950 as a standard; and when the dates still didn’t match the assumptions of the scientists, they applied a “correction table” to make them match. And if, after all of these “adjustments” are made, a carbon date still doesn’t match the ideas of the scientist, the carbon dating data is simply ignored (Bruce A. Bucholz, et al., “Bomb Pulse Radiocarbon Dating of Skeletal Tissues, Science Direct, in Krista Latham, et al., New Perspectives in Forensic Human Skeletal Identification, Academic Press (Elsevier), Cambridge, MA, 2018, pp185-196).
    This is basically the way we have arrived at the understanding that carbon in the atmosphere is in “equilibrium.”
    To see how this looks in a real application, we can examine the example of what scientists call Cro-Magnon man. According to scientists, Cro-Magnon footprints recently found in the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in southern France, which contains some of the best-preserved figurative cave painting in the world, are estimated to be about 26,000 years old.

Within the cave are hundreds of animal paintings that have been catalogued, depicting at least 13 different species, including some rarely or never found in other ice-age paintings. Rather than depicting only the familiar herbivores that predominate in Paleolithic cave art, i.e. horses, aurochs, mammoths, etc., the walls of the Chauvet Cave feature many predatory animals, i.e., cave lions, leopards, bears, rhinoceroses and cave hyenas (Laurie Adams, Art Across Time (4th ed.), Mc-Graw Hill, 2011, p34).
    The soft, clay-like floor of the cave retains the paw prints of not only bears, there were large, rounded depressions that are believed to be the "nests" where the bears slept. Fossilized bones are abundant and include the skulls of cave bears and the horned skull of an ibex. A set of foot prints of a young child and a wolf or dog walking side by side was found in this cave. This information suggests the origin of the domestic dog could date to before the last ice age (Laura Hobgood-Oster, A Dog's History of the World, Baylor University Press, Waco, Texas, 2014, pp6–7).
    The estimated age of the footprint is based on carbon dating of the soot from torches on the cave ceiling and floor. The test shows about 2%-3% of the C-14 present in the soot as would have been present in 1950 (the standard year). Since it would take about 26,000 years for the C-14 to decay that far, the age is set at 26,000 years old. This assumes, of course, that the world’s carbon-14 content in the atmosphere is both in equilibrium and has held constant over the extended period of time.
    However, because we know C-14 is not in a state of equilibrium (stable), and that it is unstable, it is necessary to “estimate” what it would have been in the past. If we use the current growth rate of C-14 in the atmosphere and calculate back from there, we find it actually may have been only 4,000 years ago that the 2%-3% figure would have been true.
    This is because in calculating backward how much C-14 was in the atmosphere last year, and 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago and so on. Since about 4,000 years ago there would only be about 19 percent as much C-14 in the atmosphere as the standard year of 1950, the wood the soot comes from would only have absorbed 19 percent as much C-14 as expected. Then, knowing the half-life/decay rate, we can calculate the 2%-3% figure to be all that would be left today.

So the footprints of Cro-Magnon man, considered by evolutionists to be 26,000 years old, may well be only 4,000 years old. Of course, most scientists simply reject such figures. After all, “everyone knows the Earth is millions of years old.”
    It comes back to one of the center-planks of modern science, evolution. Anything that does not support evolution is considered wrong, and no further questions are tolerated.
    Regarding the variations in atmospheric Carbon-14, changes in climate from ice-age to warmer periods, and all the other unknown factors of the distant past, scientists simply do not know and there is no way to know, so they arrive at an average or determine the present rate of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere and all measurements are then based on that assumption (as they have done with the 1950 baseline). Yet scientists agree that the present burning of fossil fuels releases the carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere that “within the next 20 to 30 years, it will be difficult to distinguish newly produced materials from historical artifacts several hundred years old using radiocarbon dating techniques (Heather Graven, “Impact of fossil fuel emissions on atmospheric radiocarbon and various applications of radiocarbon over this century,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science)s.
    In fact, it is claimed that by the year 2100, with forecast emissions, the atmosphere will have a radiocarbon age of 2,000 years old (Adrienne LaFrance (executive editor), “Global Warming Could Make Carbon Dating Impossible,” The Atlantic, Boston July 23, 2015).

The four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) expected throughout this century will range from very high (RCP8.5) through to very low (RCP2.6) future concentrations (The numerical values of the RCPs (2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5) refer to the concentrations in 2100)

It should be kept in mind that the population would have been greater before the Flood than after, affecting a lengthy change in the Carbon Dioxide, thus making the projected steady-state accumulation of Carbon-14 emissions in the atmosphere non-steady and therefor different than scientists claim.
    The point is, throughout world history, there have been numerous incidents that would have affected the amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere, thus rendering the measurement of such without such knowledge could only result in erroneous measurement years.
    However, once again, the carbon-14 time clock, according to Bronk Ramsey, a geochronologist at the University of Oxford, U.K., ”assumes that the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere was constant—any variation would speed up or slow down the clock. The clock was initially calibrated by dating objects of known age such as Egyptian mummies and bread from Pompeii; work that won Willard Libby the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
     But even he “realized that there probably would be variation.” In fact, since the 1960s, scientists have started accounting for the variations by calibrating the clock against the known ages of tree rings. As a rule, carbon dates are younger than calendar dates: a bone carbon-dated to 10,000 years is around 11,000 years old, and 20,000 carbon years roughly equates to 24,000 calendar years (Ewen Callaway, “Carbon Dating Gets a Reset,” Nature Magazine, October 18, 2012).
    Thus, it is obvious that various geologic, atmospheric and solar processes can influence atmospheric carbon-14 levels.
(See the next post, “Why is it so Difficult to Obtain Accurate Dates? – Part VII,” for more on the manner in which C-14 dates are manipulated by scientists)

Why is it so Difficult to Obtain Accurate Dates? – Part V

Continuing from the previous post on the manner in which Carbon-14 dates are sometimes manipulated by the scientists in order to provide the dates needed to support personal views and paradigms, and the problems associated with it as discussed in the previous posts. This involves how scientists manipulate the findings of the carbon testing so that the dates they use from the testing agrees with the accepted view of the evolutionary geologic column.
    The Carbon atom, of course, is the building block of all known physical life, which is constantly decaying, but also constantly being produced. As understood,

Carbon-14 is produced in the upper layers of the troposphere and the stratosphere by thermal neutron atoms. When cosmic rays enter the atmosphere, they undergo various transformations, including the production of neutrons. Carbon-14 occurs when an electron and an electron antineutrino, one of the neutrons in the carbon-14 atom decays to a proton and the carbon-14 into the stable (non-radioactive) isotope nitrogen-14, which can be measured.
    For radiocarbon dates derived from the measurement of Carbon-14 to be accurate, a long list of assumptions and conditions must be met. One of the primary conditions is that the level of carbon 14 entering the atmosphere from cosmic rays that strike nitrogen atoms and split them to produce C-14, which then combines with oxygen to form a particular kind of CO2 gas, which becomes part of the photosynthesis process, and must remain relative constant; however, scholars have long known that this is not the case, which is why the calibration curve was developed in an attempt to correct for these fluctuations of C-14.
    Again, however, this does not eliminate the problems found in radiocarbon dating. Take, as an example, the 1990 report of scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Laboratory of Columbia University at Palisades, N.Y., who reported in the British Journal Nature, that some estimates of age based on carbon analyses were wrong by as much as 3,500 years.
    They arrived at this conclusion by comparing age estimates obtained using two different methods—analysis of radioactive carbon in a sample and also determination of the ratio of uranium to thorium in the sample. As numerous scientists know, that in some cases, the latter ratio appears to be a much more accurate gauge of age than the customary method of carbon dating. According to the article, scientists have long recognized that carbon dating is subject to error because of a variety of factors, including contamination by outside sources of carbon. Therefore, they have sought ways to calibrate and correct the carbon dating method (Malcolm W. Browne, “Errors Are Feared in Carbon Dating, The New York Times, May 31,1990, Section A, p21).
    The problem is that since 1949, the process of carbon dating has become widely (if not universally) accepted to the point where it has supposedly settled many of those dating disputes.
    However, a new study out of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, calls into question the standards associated with the carbon dating method used to date archaeological remains in the region of Israel. These findings lead to bigger questions about the radiocarbon dating process as a whole, which may have huge ramifications for how biblical events align with the timelines of the ancient world. The bottom line is that the history of Egypt and Israel may need to be rewritten.

Clearly defined tree rings can be measured for time sequence

Sturt Manning, Professor of Classical Archaeology at Cornell, and colleagues, recorded a series of Carbon-14 dates in tree rings from southern Jordan near Petra that have sent tremors through the field of archaeology. Manning tested juniper trees (Juniperus phoenicea) that were of a type used for building construction at Taybet Zaman, Jordan, and could give unbroken sequences of rings back several hundred years.
    According to Manning, a Goldwin Smith Professor of Classical Archaeology in the Department of Classics, and director of the Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory, these tree rings were of known dates between 1610 AD and 1940. They showed that the average discrepancy over a 330-year period between the known ages and those supplied by radiocarbon dating was 19 years
    Thus, the carbon dates made the samples appear older than they really were.
    Manning added that “going further back in time might magnify the problem.” This means, when extrapolating specimens over several thousand years, with a possible increase in discrepancy, archaeology dates determined by Carbon-14 dating is off a considerable amount—even centuries.
    It should be remembered that the amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere is the key to the equilibrium principle that makes Willard Libby’s time clock work. However, the group at Columbia University theorizes that large errors in carbon dating result from fluctuations in the amount of carbon-14 in the air. Such variable circumstances would change the amount of carbon as:

Earth's magnetosphere, with the rounded, bullet-like shape represents the bow shock as the magnetosphere confronts solar winds. The gray area between the magnetosphere and the bow shock, is called the magnetosheath, while the magnetopause is the boundary between the magnetosphere and the magnetosheath. The Earth's magnetosphere extends about 10 Earth radii toward the Sun and perhaps similar distances outward on the flanks. The magnetotail is thought to extend as far as 1,000 Earth radii away from the Sun. 1 : Bow shock 2 : Magnetosheath 3 : Magnetopause 4 : Magnetosphere 5 : Northern tail lobe 6 : Southern tail lobe 7 : Plasmasphere

1. Changes or fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field;
2. Intensity of cosmic ray bombardment of the atmosphere;
3. Contamination by outside sources of carbon;
4. The amount of reliable constant of the specimen (it has not come in contact with water or other discordant);
5. Inconsistency between specimen (parent) and daughter (nitrogen-14) products;
6. Variance of the amount of uranium in the soils (which makes the measurement of marine organisms more reliable than land animal).
7. Stratification of the oceans.
8. Fossil Fuel
9. Nuclear testing in the atmosphere

Nuclear Tests on the Earth and in space since 1945, effecting the atmosphere and the amount of Carbon-14

As stated earlier, it is also imperative that we fully understand the concept of equilibrium in the atmosphere in order for C-14 to accurately measure dates. Erroneously, the scientific community has long accepted that fact that the atmospheric carbon is in equilibrium—in fact, such an attitude is absolutely required by the evolutionists since evolutionary principles and the geologic column are not workable if the carbon is not in equilibrium. In short, if the carbon is in equilibrium, the earth must be over 50,000 years old. However, if it is not in equilibrium, then the Earth is less than 50,000 years old. To the evolutionist, it is that simple, therefore, the evolutionist demands that the atmosphere be in equilibrium.
    As mentioned previously, when Willard Libby, the inventor of the time clock, discovered by his own experiments that the measurements showed the atmosphere was not in equilibrium, he simply ignored his own findings stating that “everyone knows the Earth is millions of years old,” and reset his clock to an atmosphere in equilibrium.
    Scientists have sought other indicators of age against which carbon dates can be compared. One such indicator is the Uranium-Thorium dating method, which has been conducted on samples of coral drilled from a reef off the island of Barbados that samples represented animals that lived at various times during the last 30,000 years. This led to an understanding that the dates obtained between Carbon-14 and the Uranium-Thorium method are off as much as 3,500 years as the comparison between the two methods of measurement.
    Dr. Alan Zindler, a professor of geology at Columbia University who is a member of the Lamont-Doherty research group, said age estimates using the carbon dating and uranium-thorium dating differed only slightly initially, ''But at earlier times, the carbon dates were substantially younger than the dates we estimated by uranium-thorium analysis,'' he said. ''The largest deviation, 3,500 years, was obtained for samples that are about 20,000 years old.''
    One reason the group believes the uranium-thorium estimates to be more accurate than carbon dating is that they produce better matches between known changes in the Earth's orbit and changes in global glaciation.
    According to carbon dating of fossil animals and plants, the spreading and receding of great ice sheets lagged behind orbital changes by several thousand years, a delay that scientists found hard to explain.
(See the next post, “Why is it so Difficult to Obtain Accurate Dates? – Part VI,” for more on the manner in which C-14 dates are manipulated by scientists)

Why is it so Difficult to Obtain Accurate Dates? – Part IV

Continuing with the previous discussion on Carbon-14 being in equilibrium in the Earth’s atmosphere, it should be noted that in 1997, Charles Ginenthal, author of Celestial Motion and Cosmology, stated that “Radiocarbon dating is not employed to test theories, but to support them…radiocarbon always gives a scattered set of dates. The theorists then pick the ones they believe to be correct.”

Left: Charles Ginenthal; Center: Immanuel Velikovsky; Right: Carl Sagan

Ginenthal, a noted supporter of the controversial Immanuel Velikovsky, and the author of Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky, and co-author of Stephen J. Gould and Immanuel Velikovsky, has published papers in the Journals Aeon, Meta Research and the Velikovskian, as well as in Rebels & Devils, The Psychology of Liberation, with distinguished authors Robert Anton Wilson, William S. Burroughs, and Timothy Leary, as written numerous articles supporting Velikovsky’s theories, believes strongly on the lack of accuracy of the radiocarbon system to determine historical dates.
    As an example, if the archaeologist is working in an area where the strata is considered to be 25,000 years old based on the geologic column, and a test of wood samples comes back say, 8,000 years, 11,000 years, 7,500 years and 28,000 years, the first three dates will be discarded in favor of the 28,000 year date, since it is the one that is closely aligned with the figures of the column and what the scientist expected.
    Theoretically, carbon dating can be used to estimate the ages of once-living samples as old as 30,000-40,000 years, although some earlier claims were as high, such as D. R. Harris et al., of the Department of Human Environment, at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, to 80,000 years, but is “strictly theoretical "(Michael G.L. Baillie, Tree-Ring Dating and Archaeology, University Chicago Press, 1989, p223; Harris, “The Impact on Archaeology of Radiocarbon Dating by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry and Discussion,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal society of London, Vol.323, No.1569, August 25, 1987, pp22-23).
    However, Hedges and Gowlett claim that “Due to the minute amounts of carbon-14 in any specimen, the radioactive emanations from older objects are difficult to separate from background radiation” (Robert E.M. Hedges and J.A.J. Gowlett, “Radiocarbon Dating by AMS,” Scientific American, January, 1986, p100).
    In fact, we are informed that “so few parent atoms remain after seven or eight half-lives (less than 1%) that experimental uncertainty creates a limit for radiometric methods” (B. W. Pipkin. Geology and the Environment, St. Paul, West Publishing, 1994, p36).

Left: Michael G.L. Baillie; Center: Robert .E.M. Hedges; Right: John Otis Brew

A famous American scientist, Professor John Otis Brew, Editor of One Hundred Years of Anthropology, Peabody Professor of American Archaeology and Ethnology and Director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University—who not only was considered a titan in archaeology and conducted extensive archaeological research, but was also an author whose publications are still used today by archaeologists that conduct their work in the American southwest—in short, he briefly summarized a common attitude among archaeologists toward Carbon-14 dating when he said: “If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote.
And if it is completely out of date, we just drop it’” (J.O. Brew, quoted by T. Save-Soderbergh (Egyptologist) & Ingrid Olsson (Physicist) in "C-14 Dating and Egyptian Chronology" in Proceedings of the Twelfth Nobel Symposium, John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1970 p35).
    In fact, few archaeologists who have concerned themselves with absolute chronology are innocent of having sometimes applied this method” (J. Säve-Söderbergh and Y. Olsson, “C14 Dating and Egyptian Chronology,” Proceedings of 12th Nobel Symposium, Institute of Physics, Uppsala University, 1970, p35). In addition, most people think carbon dating can be used to establish the age of anything old. They believe every artifact dug up or discovered by archeologists, anthropologists, geologists, or other scientists can have its age accurately determined by carbon dating, within a narrow range. But is that the truth? Let’s look at carbon-14 dating to discover just how accurate and reliable it really is.

First of all, C-14 dating is based on the ratio of two elements—Carbon 12 (C-12) to Carbon 14 (C-14)—found in a sample of the object being dated. The ratio of C-12 to C-14 is approximately 1 billion to one in today’s atmosphere. All living things, directly or indirectly, absorb carbon from the atmosphere. The carbon absorbed is both C-12 and C-14 and it is absorbed at the same ratio as it exists in the atmosphere.
    As stated earlier, once a living thing dies, it stops absorbing both C-12 and C-14 (Note that something must have been living at one time to absorb C-12 and C-14. Therefore, it is not possible to date inorganic material.
    Anything that was never alive cannot be dated using carbon dating methods. References to carbon dating of rocks, for example, are inaccurate since rocks were never alive.
    A basic quality of C-12, the most prevalent form of carbon, is stability—it doesn’t change. C-14, however, is unstable and begins changing immediately after it is formed. Each C-14 atom will lose an electron from the nucleus. The process of losing electrons is referred to as decay. The rate of decay is considered constant and measurable, and is expressed by the term “half-life,” which can be understood, for our purpose, by thinking of a block of ice. Our block weighs 10 pounds and begins to melt. The time it takes to melt until it weighs only 5 pounds (half the original weight) is called its “half-life.” For this example, let’s say the ice takes five hours to melt from 10 pounds down to 5 pounds. The half life would be five hours. This is not exactly the way C-14 acts, but it serves for a comparison.
    Unlike ice melting, the half-life of carbon and other unstable elements is constant. In other words, if it takes 5,730 years for 10 pounds of C-14 to decay to only 5 pounds, it would also take 5,730 years for 5 pounds to become 2.5 pounds. No matter how much you start with, it will take the same amount of time to reduce it to half, hence the term half-life.
    Since it takes about 30,000 years to go from zero C-14 until equilibrium is reached in the atmosphere, to the scientists that accept the concept of evolution, they conclude that the atmosphere is millions of years old. Since C-14 equilibrium would certainly have been reached in the first 30,000 years, it is assumed to have already happened millions of years ago.

Equilibrium is a state in which opposing forces are balanced, and hence a system does not change in time

As has been pointed out earlier, it is estimated to take about 30,000 years for the carbon in the atmosphere to reach equilibrium. Therefore, if that 30,000-year period has passed, then the present measurement of the atmosphere would be in equilibrium. However, if it is not in equilibrium, then the age of the Earth would have to be less than 30,000 years.
    In the late 1960s it was estimated that not only had the atmosphere not reached equilibrium but that measurements of about one-third, or show it had only reached a point around 10,000 years of age. In this regard it should be noted that while the most widely known form of radiometric dating is carbon-14—it cannot be used in dating dinosaur bones. With the half-life of carbon-14 at only 5,730 years, then at the outside Carbon-14 can only date samples up to about 50,000 years, so carbon-14 dating cannot date dinosaur bones which are supposedly tens of millions of years old.
    Yet, in a discovery recently by Dr. Brian Thomas, it was discovered that dinosaur bones still held dinosaur proteins over 70 million years after the demise of all dinosaurs. Obviously, the measurement showed that time elapsed between those dinosaur bones and he present could not possibly have been over 30,000 to 50,000 years old.
    This is one of the biggest questions that secular paleontologists have faced in the last two decades. To counter this fact, many of these scientists reason that some unique but undiscovered set of conditions grant proteins power to defy all odds and somehow survive unimaginable time scales. They think someone, someday, will discover the protein’s secret to survival.
    Dr. Thomas is a Research Associate at the Institute for Creation Research in Dallas, Texas. He writes Creation Science Updates for ICR.org, articles for Acts & Facts magazine, and has contributed to ICR books including Guide to Creation Basics, Guide to Dinosaurs, Creation Basics and Beyond, and the Science for Kids series. Dr. Thomas’ book Dinosaurs and the Bible has sold over 26,000 copies. He earned a masters in biotechnology from Stephen F. Austin State University in 1999 and a Ph.D. in paleobiochemistry from the University of Liverpool in 2019. Creation magazine helped move Brian from evolution to creation. This led him to teach, write, speak, and research from a biblical creation perspective.
    As we pointed out, when the Carbon-14 “time clock” dating was first developed, it was based on the idea that the amount of C-14 was, in fact, stable and unchanging and, therefore, the ratio between C-12 and C-14 was thought to be constant, or in equilibrium. But in the 1960s, research proved this to be incorrect. It was discovered that C-14 equilibrium had not yet been reached in the atmosphere. In fact, it was estimated that the formation rate of C-14 was 30% greater than the decay rate, meaning the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere was (and still is) increasing.
    What was the solution for scientists to be able to continue using carbon-14 dating? They set the year of 1950 as a standard, deciding to use the ratio of C-12 to C-14 present in that year, despite having no data to back up this decision. They then considered the figures of 1950 as the criteria for measurement, ignoring the fact that at that the atmospheric equilibrium had not been reached.
    Further steps were needed since even this point of reference did not produce ages for material complementary to evolutionist thinking. So, scientists produced “correction tables.” When something is tested and carbon-14 dating doesn’t give the age scientists like, they apply these correction tables and change the age to match their predetermined estimates of the sample’s age.
    There is another remedy used in science to resolve conflicts with carbon-14 dating and preconceived notions: They simply don’t include the carbon-14 dating results as Professor Brew pointed out at the symposium. As an example, if a sample is “thought” to be 15,500 years old and carbon-14 dating suggests it is only 4,000 years old, the carbon-14 dating data is simply dropped from the records.
    And just like that, the conflict is resolved.
    The point is, and should never be forgotten, is that scientists have their own views on matters and when they write papers, often use figures and information that only promotes or supports their views. Some are not beyond the fudging level that most historians and scientists use to promote their own individual bias.
(See the next post,” Why is it so Difficult to Obtain Accurate Dates? – Part V,” for more on the manner in which C-14 dates are manipulated by the scientists)