Actually, I don't think anyone has yet pointed out the reason why it's believed by fundamentalists that man has been here for 6,000 years. It comes from a reconstruction of the Bible timeline using periods of years such as stated lifespans. There's a margin for error, but that hasn't stopped people from making definite statements, like Bishop Ussher, who concluded that 4004BCE was the first year of Adam's life. The Society arrived at 4026BCE, which made 1975 the 6000th year of man.
Humans have been on the earth for 6,000 years?
by make yourself 76 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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bohm
James Brown:
I see you skipped my question. I ask again. What dating techniques do you accept to arrive at the view world history started around 5000 years ago? I am asking because the same techniques can be used to eg. trace agricultural civilizations back at least 8000 years.
If you rely on standard books on archeology, fine, so do I. Just accept the books rely on techniques that are in full conflict with a biblical view on world events.
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Crazyguy
Its interesting that the bible tells us that man was near perfection after Adam and lived for a very long time. Yet even though they were so close to perfection the best they could do with writing was pictures until the Akkadians came up with a symbol style alphabet.
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bohm
Crazyguy: Other accomplishments which may supposedly be attributed to mans near-perfect state of being include 1) slow progression of technology (stone age techonlogy, invention of agriculture, invention of bronze technology, invention of the wheel etc. 2) dying early of various diseases also found today and 3) forming very violent societies and frequent warfare.
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James Brown
James Brown:
I see you skipped my question. I ask again. What dating techniques do you accept to arrive at the view world history started around 5000 years ago? I am asking because the same techniques can be used to eg. trace agricultural civilizations back at least 8000 years.
If you rely on standard books on archeology, fine, so do I. Just accept the books rely on techniques that are in full conflict with a biblical view on world events.
I am not versed or an expert on dating techniques. So I am not going to argue about them.
If You read what I said I am just posting what I read in history books and the internet about history and prehistory.
I think society calls the time before writing pre-history.
And the time after writing as history.
Similar to how the use b.c and a.d.
To clarify it has nothing to do with Jesus or religion, the time before writing is pre history. I posted a link you can refer to.
If you are such a great evolutionary expert, I am amazed you are not familiar with the most basic historical termonology.
Who's scaming who here?
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Oubliette
The best evidence is that anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) have been on earth for 160,000 - 200,000 years (±5,000).
The invention of writing, with the corresponding beginning of written history, is fairly recent. Again, the best evidence is that true writing of language was first invented in Mesopotamia around 3,200 BCE. - Ancient Mesopatamia, the Invention of Writing, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
The implication is pretty profound: we only have 2-3% of our history self-documented. The rest is a puzzle put together by archaeologists and paleontologists. They are forensic scientists working the "crime scenes" trying to determine our history without any first hand accounts (which aren't always reliable anyways).
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Tablets with Semi-Pictographic Writing Clay
Uruk-Jamdat Nasr Period (ca. 3200-2900 B.C.)
Left: Tell Asmar
Excavated by the Oriental Institute, 1933. OIM A12259.
Right: Purchased in Paris, 1920. OIM A2514Click HERE to see larger images of the tablets (the note under the tablets is part of the jpeg and not an active link).
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bohm
James Brown:
I am not versed or an expert on dating techniques. So I am not going to argue about them.
If You read what I said I am just posting what I read in history books and the internet about history and prehistory.
I think society calls the time before writing pre-history.
That is true by definition. However, if you want to claim that in this-or-this century humans invented writing you need some sort of dating technique. Now, a bit of reflection on your part will reveal those dating techniques did not suddenly begin to work with the invention of writing.
So if you rely on a book to say humans invented writing, say, 5000 years ago, you are by extension accepting that the dating technique the claim is *directly* based upon works and therefore you should also accept the results obtained by the SAME technique when applied to older artificacts, say those of ancient agricultural civilizations dating back 7-8000 years or more, or other remains of humans dating back 20-30'000 years and more.
This is a matter of simple logic; ofcourse you can insist the books are right when they agree with you and wrong when they dont but clearly you wont convince any reasonable person with such an obvious double standard.
If you are such a great evolutionary expert, I am amazed you are not familiar with the most basic historical termonology.
Why thankyou. I am amazed by your continuing inability to comprehend what I thought was a very simple point.
So, again, and hopefully accepting 'it says so in a book' is not a dating technique in itself: which dating techniques is it you accept to arrive at your view written history began 5000 years ago? (tip: It is no doubt Carbon-14).
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FadeToBlack
I think perhaps, everyone is missing JB's point. He is not saying (I hope) that there was no human activity on the earth long before the supposed creation date of Adam (according to WT) in 4026... I thought he was just saying that before writing came about, and actually quite a bit of time after that, there was no concept of creating a historical record of anything. The concept of creating a written, historical record of past events was actually a much later event. Most of early writing attempts are not at all attempts to provide a historical record.
A good question is actually: who was the first historian?
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AndDontCallMeShirley
JB: Who's scaming who here?
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Interesting wording, JB. I fail to see where anyone here is "scamming" anyone else. Bohm is asking you a simple question, which you cannot/will not answer, others here have posted links and supporting information to offer a counter-point to your assertions, yet you interpret all of this as a 'scam'.
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I think I can safely say this is an open discussion, not a scam.
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James Brown
I am reading 2 very popular secular history books. I dont think they get into how things are dated in prehistoric times.
They don't even tell how they are dated in historical times.
I would think they gather documents and then find older documents by reading the earlier documents and noting the references.
I feel pretty comfortable beliving that history began in Sumer. I have read it in numerous places througout my life.
If you don't have the books I mentioned above and you want references there are a lot of them in
the following article on Sumer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer
I don't know if any of those references are going to tell you how they date Sumer.