Biblical Timelines & Neanderthals

Poof! History and Science explode bible as pure myth?

Proven history is an objective observer that has no agenda. Science is a search for truth such as it upturns that which is proven wrong. The bible is static, full of errors that many cling to without question or care of proof otherwise. That would be fine if they didn't try to forcibly make everyone else adhere to their beliefs. They even have timelines as evidence of their correctness, as well as unfounded beliefs.

From the time of the "creation of Adam," the bible provides a timeline that churches have often used. Assuming that Adam was created soon after the initial "creation", theologians quickly used this timeline to estimate the earth being about six (6) thousand years old, and later, some modified it to about ten (10) thousand years or so old.

For over two thousand years, churches have kept people from asking questions to the point of burning so called "heretics" at the stake, usually after they'd killed them, but on special occasions, to make their point to any others who thought to question, they were burned while fully alive.

They've used a timeline provided by the bible to prove their point in one thing, but hid another timeline provided by the bible itself. The Catholic church wouldn't allow any but priests to read the bible, then only in a restricted fashion, and no questions were to be asked by the laity. Martin Luther hated reason as the enemy of faith and belief. Calvin was more tolerant of others—if they were out of his jurisdiction—inside of his jurisdiction, he too would kill the "heretics" who didn't agree with him.

Anyone can see where they came by their timeline as the bible does give Adam's age at death, as well as the generations of significant people in the bible's story generation by generation, and their ages. One can either go from Adam to see how they came to the age of the earth, as well as our present time, or go from Noah's time when all was said to be destroyed by the so-called flood—again, years lived are given to significant people generation by generation—and draw a time from Noah to our present.

From either of these methods (whether you want to know from Adam or from Noah), they blend their fictional story later on to a couple of different real time lines in history, and again, the bible is very specific in doing so, the most popularly used one by a extremely direct inference, and one other by specifically mentioned dates. Let's look at these timeline methods individually.

First, the most popularly used timeline

From the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the bible, it says:

Exodus (Chapter 1)

1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, 4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.5 The total number of people born to Jacob was seventy. Joseph was already in Egypt. 6 Then Joseph died, and all his brothers, and that whole generation. 7 But the Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.

The Israelites Are Oppressed

8 Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 He said to his people, 'Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.' 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labour.They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh.12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. 13 The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labour. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.

(See also: Genesis 47:11; Exodus 12:37; Numbers 33:3 & 5)

Note the biblical verse in bold is my bold.

Rameses has to refer to Rameses II who is the one whom history says built the cities mentioned (Pi-Rameses is the Rameses mentioned along with Pithom). There was no Rameses as Pharaoh until Rameses I, the grandfather of Rameses II, who originally was Pramses before shortening it to Rameses.

The time of Rameses II was in the 1200s BCE. This is the indirect, yet very rich timeline attributed to in the bible.

Second, the very specific time given in the bible.

From the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the bible, it says:

1Kings (Chapter 6)

1 In thefour hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord.

Note the biblical bold and underline are my bold and underline.

Solomon is said to have reigned from 970 to 931 BCE. Four years into his reign comes to 966 BCE.

If we add four hundred and eighty years, mentioned in 1Kings, to 966, we have a time of the Exodus beginning at 1446 BCE in this timeline which is very date specific.

As an aside, some bible believers are now saying that the Exodus was in the time of Akenaten, but biblically, that is not feasible as Akenaten ruled in the 1300s BCE.

This time, 1446 BCE, is a about two hundred (200) years before Rameses and the cities of Pi-Rameses and Pithom that Genesis, Numbers, and Exodus says was the time of the Exodus.

Thus we are given two historical timelines by the bible for hooking up the story of all of creation/the flood. By the way, neither can be right historically for Egypt was in its glory as the power into Syria and beyond (at times up to the Euphrates) in the time mentioned in 1Kings, and history again is the agenda free objective observer.

What difference do timelines make?

Aside from the bible being in error in all of these points, fundamentalists, among others, because of the timeline (that they select and ignore the other) in the bible, say that it is not possible for there to have been any other humans, or human type species, and that would include Neanderthals who have been identified first in the Neander Valley in Germany, and subsequently said to have roamed much of Europe, and other places such as Israel.

Neanderthals are said to have existed about 200,000 years in Europe, and about 350,000 or so years in Eurasia (evidence of their having lived in a cave in modern day Israel has been found), far more time than before creation is said to have occurred. Who is wrong, and who is right?

Until now, fossils have been used, and science done on many fossils give credence to the existence of humanoids for millions of years, but direct evidence? No, not until...

"The researchers recovered ancient DNA of Neanderthals by extracting the DNA from the femur bones of three 38,000-year-old female Neanderthal specimens..." (from Wikipedia).

PBS Nova recently ran a program on TV that gave the story of this recovery of Neanderthal DNA this month (January 9, I think).

Literotica does not permit the posting of URLs, but if you will look at my bio, I have placed a couple of them there for any that are interested.

Within the DNA taken from their bones, it was found, after careful testing, and comparing it to modern humans, that many of us present day humans have up to four percent (4%) Neanderthal DNA (testing of many humans was done to compare with the Neanderthal DNA). Again, not everyone has Neanderthal DNA, but many do.

What this means is that if this holds up, as it probably will, then it is incontrovertible proof that humans were on the earth long before the bible says they were.

However, Neanderthals or not, no one questions that the bones are very old, probably as stated, so the biblical timeline is done away with scientifically either way.

There is no taking the bible literally as the fundamentalists say. From the very first book of the bible, Genesis, in the very first chapter, and in the very first verse, we know positively that it is wrong, in error, and written by several men for whatever reason (many researchers believe it was written to keep a fractured nation together by having a common religion, and mainly written by Babylonian exiles in the 500s BCE).

Why this matters

In previous essays I have recorded where many fundamentalist preachers and believers have not only threatened lesbians from the pulpit with damnation and the everlasting fires of hell, as well as total separation from God, called them an abomination before God, and very specifically screamed at them to repent of their sinful and evil ways.

All of this has been because they believe in the literalness of the words in the bible being from God, therefore to be followed without question. This has made the lives of many a young girl miserable in that what their bodies tell them is that they should, and need to, love other women and not any man. It has torn at the very fabric of their being and caused many to enter into marriages in which they are miserable, or to live apart from much of society as well as family.

Now we know without a doubt that others have lived long before Adam is said to have been created, and long before Noah's so-called flood that destroyed all of humanity.

A few words about DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)

Taking the bible literally, and as God's word that is to be followed without question is being shredded by DNA.

DNA is the set of instructions that dictate how we are to be made. Humans have billions of these molecules termed nucleotides. They contain our hereditary information as received from each of our two parents.

The language reads in genetic words of three letters long (ATG, for instance). There are special codes built in to basically start and stop reading for there are no spaces in this language. A string of these words (a sequence) make up a gene's instructions for making us. We have about 20,000 to 25,000 genes in our DNA structure made up from sequences of nucleotides.

Since our DNA is a merger of copies from each parent, like all copying, errors can occur, or in fact can mutate. Either of these copying errors or mutations is there to be passed on to our children if the strand with the error or mutation is passed on as opposed to the strand which is error and mutation free (a parent may have one error or mutation free strand and another that is not free of error or mutation). Thus one of our children can have the error or mutation, and others not if they received the strand without error or mutation.

We have twenty-three pairs (23) of chromosomes. Each and every cell has a chromosome (which is a long DNA double helix). We have trillions of cells, and cells replicate themselves for several reasons, thus copying and mutations are to be expected to slip by on occasion.

The one really peculiar thing about DNA is that if we have a change in our makeup, and a word, or words is/are rendered unneeded in favor of the new word(s), the previous word(s) in DNA language do not go away. If need be, it merely shuts off and becomes inactive, but stays where it/they are. This means that we have a history of our heritage built into our DNA by virtue of the old, shut off, no longer used DNA sequences.

It's no surprise that DNA changes for we know positively that bacteria and viruses mutate into new strains. We now have a near medical emergency in that antibacterial medicine has been being rendered useless due to mutations, and this year, the flu virus has mutated so that our flu shots don't cover us as we all would hope. Mutations and change are the way of all life, and mutations happen all the time even though it may not make any difference initially in us, but it may in later generations.

It is in sequencing our DNA, and reading the words of our personal makeup, that we can find connections with others. Genealogy often works in much this same manner (if you have a sample of the other person's DNA to match up with).

And therein lays our connection to Neanderthals. The three Neanderthal women from Europe have had their DNA sequenced (words read), and there is a match to our DNA sufficient to say that Homo sapiens (our forebears/ancestors) interbred with Neanderthals back when, and the Neanderthal DNA has in part been passed on to many of us as a part of our heritage else we would not have some of the significant DNA matches as stated earlier here.

To be honest, not everyone agrees that many of us have had Neanderthal DNA passed on to us, but the science was very carefully done by very reputable genetic specialists.

More importantly, again, is that there are three women who once lived about thirty-eight thousand years ago blows away the notion expressed in the bible—by its own timelines, various though they are—that humans were created six or so thousand years ago.

Conclusion

The bible is full of errors as has been shown in previous essays, as well as in this one, and science is further exploding the myth that the bible is God's word and is error free—inerrant—and to be followed as ordained initially.

Humans have great variety as we see visually even in the same families, and great variety as known within us medically. We have a sense of smell, but that sense is not the same for all; the same is true of taste. A female also has a sense of whether she should love a man or a woman—this is a part of human diversity too. As is well known, our diversity is also in our fingerprints and our DNA. Diversity is a fact of our existence, period!

Being that the bible in full of factually known—and not so well known—errors, it is wrong of preachers, fundamentalist or otherwise, including Catholics and Latter Day Saints, to preach against that which is natural to so many women, and worse, to openly threaten them with death. To me, that's a hate crime if ever there was one.

It is not only definitely wrong to call for killing them, but to ostracize them, or traumatize, humiliate, shame, scare them mentally and emotionally, and make them feel guilty for being as they were born to be. This is blatantly wrong and, again, they should be charged with a hate crime as many of these lesbians know within their person early on from childhood that they love females. That they are dragged to church with their families who are ignorant of these facts (knowingly or from not being made aware of them by preachers), or choose to be willfully blind, are thus making their lesbian children a captive audience and forcing them to endure what no person should, child or not.

This is madness due to willful blindness, ignorance, or deliberately lying for personal or financial gain.

See my biography for Internet sites that help in substantiating what is written here.

Of particular use in understanding the basics of DNA is "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" by Carl Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyan.

Thank you for reading, and as always, I welcome comments.