... to Quorans Challenging Catholicism, Creationism and Spain

Q I

Can a creationist explain the second and fourth days of the biblical creation story (Genesis 1:6-8 and Genesis 1:14-19, KJV)?
https://www.quora.com/Can-a-creationist-explain-the-second-and-fourth-days-of-the-biblical-creation-story-Genesis-1-6-8-and-Genesis-1-14-19-KJV/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

C on Q

Explain what the “firmament” is and, especially, what the waters above it might be.

…and please deliver the explanation in a lucid, logical, vivid description -- in effect, a “word picture” -- so that anyone can form a clear mental image as to precisely what’s going on in those two passages.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Blog : "http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com". Debating evolutionists for 15 years +.

Answered Thu

On my view, the firmament is the rotating part of the ether (ether in “heaven” above the stars is not rotating, but still), which can be viewed as a fluid in which atomic nuclei are comparable to solid grains.

It is the rotation of the ether which makes the Sun, Moon and Stars rotate around us each roughly 24 hours (less for stars, more for moon).

Since firmament was created on day 2 and light started rotating around earth already on day 1, in that interval, it was light alone, a quality of the ether, not the generalised whole ether medium below the upper heaven, which rotated.

Note, rotation of Sun and Moon around earth are NOT year or month, these being changing positions between Sun and Zodiak or between Moon and Sun along Zodiak.

This would mean there is no unclarity about day 4, suffice it to say that with geocentrism the parallax measures are moot and stars are not billions of light years away.

Remain water above firmament.

I take this as mainly waters in upper (supra-atmospheric) part of firmament, namely the water molecules and hydrogen molecules observed by spectroscopy.

The implication for Genesis 6:11 would be that hydrogen layer went low on a back then higher oxygen layer of atmosphere, and the resulting Brown’s gas was lighted by lightnings into a rain water not depending on previous water cycle and afterwards resumed into greater ocean depths, as with waters of the deep.

Q II

I believe in evolution. Can you prove me wrong?
https://www.quora.com/I-believe-in-evolution-Can-you-prove-me-wrong/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Alex Pismenny

upvoted this :

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?

Answered Thu

Explain the changing number of chromosomes, especially changes upward in number, if all mammals have a common ancestor.

Explain why so far land vertebrates have not been found in two layers strictly speaking above each other, except by talking of “one upper layer” on one place of a country or state, and “one other lower layer” on quite another one.

Maggie Eriksson

Thu

1 upvote including Hans-Georg Lundahl

I have been in Christian ministry for close to 50 years, but my university training and professional experience was as a research scientist in biological sciences prior to becoming Christian. On the geological time chart, land vertebrates have such a recent history, that you can’t expect them to have a major place in Earth’s history. The Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago. It took 4 billion before ANY life formed. It took 2 billion just for Earth to cool down enough to accumulate its first drop of water and first molecule of atmosphere. The first multicellular organisms did not develop until half a billion years ago, and the first land organisms until just 200 million years ago. 200 million seems like a long time in terms of building up sediment layers, but it is only 5/one-thousands’ of the time Earth has existed.

Adding chromosomes, or even creation of chromosomes was merely an advance in the stages of evolution through mutation. Additional chromosomes were added by the breaking of pre-existing chromosome-pairs.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

3m ago

• Maggie, you forget that layers like Hadean and even Palaeozoic ones are not all layers geologists believe there are : there is plenty of late Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic layers where such a above and below of two beings (a dinosaur above a biarmosuchian, for instance, or a pterosaur or Tertiary big extinct mammal above a moschops) could have occurred. Specifically in Karoo, where you find Permian, Triassic, Jurassic all three side by side, but somehow you never dug through a Jurassic layer to see if there was any Triassic or Permian fossil under the Jurassic one.
• “Additional chromosomes were added by the breaking of pre-existing chromosome-pairs.”
  
  Oh, you did look into it. How about explaining that mammalian chromosomes all have two telomeres and a centromere, except individual variations?

Tyler Vornberg

Thu

1 upvote including Hans-Georg Lundahl

“Explain the changing number of chromosomes”. It’s due to evolution. Individuals from the same species don’t have identical number of chromosomes. There’s always those rare variances. When those rare variances just so happen to cause an individual to be better suited to the environment they live in, that individual survives to adulthood and makes babies that also have that rare variance. They survive and have kids with the rare variant, who have more kids with the rare variant and before you know it that rare variance becomes very common.

Regarding your second point, can you elaborate? I’m having a hard time understanding what you’re trying to say.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

• “ Individuals from the same species don’t have identical number of chromosomes. There’s always those rare variances. When those rare variances just so happen to cause an individual to be better suited to the environment they live in, that individual survives to adulthood and makes babies that also have that rare variance”
  
  An extra chromosome is not an advantage. An extra chromosome 1 or 3, you die usually before you get born. An extra chromosome 21, you have Down’s syndrome. An extra sex chromosome (female with three X, male with YXX OR with YYX) will make you less fertile.
  
  
• In Karoo, there are places where they find Jurassic fossils (Drakkenberg, I think). They have so far not found any Triassic or Permian fossils straight under those.

John Ruland

Fri

1 upvote including Hans-Georg Lundahl

because of the ice age the earth went through

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

What does that even have to do with either?

Q III

Why doesn't Catholicism educate the laity on the scientific nature of the symbolism that they codified into the sacred scriptures and artwork?
https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Catholicism-educate-the-laity-on-the-scientific-nature-of-the-symbolism-that-they-codified-into-the-sacred-scriptures-and-artwork/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?

Answered Sat

I am not even sure of what you mean by "scientific nature of the symbolism that they codified into the sacred scriptures" and would like to know what you mean by implying they are educating clergy on it.

First, Biblical history is history, before there is any symbolism in it.

Second, Catholic Church as extant today is not codifying anything into sacred scriptures but just inheriting what was codified in them prior to death of the last Apostle.

Third, the symbolism in Genesis is not symbolically accounting a history which in scientific terms would sound otherwise, it is symbolism inherent in a literal historic account and it is symbolism about later history, namely about Jesus Christ.

Fourth, while the Catholic Church is truly heir of the Jewish Church in which Moses codified Genesis, She received the Old Testament from the predecessor, from the Jewish Church, as extant up to when Kaiaphas broke the Covenant with God by plotting Crucifixion of Christ by iniquitous judgement. The Catholic Church did not codify Genesis Herself, after Pentecost, and has no liberty to recodify it.

Fifth : it sounds like you had been listening to some theory about Catholic Church being some kind of freemasonry, She is not. Laymen are not forbidden to learn Latin, laymen are not forbidden to learn Scholasticism and no learning as learning is reserved to priests, though application of some in practise is so reserved : a layman can know everything there is to know, everything the priest is taught, about Holy Mass, it is just that he cannot say Holy Mass; he can be an expert in moral theology, in canon law and on the Sacrament of Penance, but he can neither give absolution to himself (no one can, not even a priest), nor to someone else (only a priest can do that). That, and not degrees of learning, is the basic difference between clergy and laity.

EDIT : "I have written four books and two academic works and another 39-independent academic papers showing scientific with DEMONSTRABLE EVIDENCE this inexplicable esoteric (hidden) science I speak of. Go to my face book page WILLIAM JOHN MEEGAN and you can read a lot of those independent papers freely."

If there is truly scientific knowledge encoded* in the Bible, this is the work of God, in order to validate the Bible as His word.

It does not in any way detract from the normal reading of the Bible, not any more than the Bible code does.

It is not per se the work of the Church, but it is for the Church to validate, to reject or to wait and see about any such claims, whether Meegan's claim or the claims about the Bible code.

* Note : encoded, not directly visible to a normal reader not looking specifically to break such a code.

Q IV

Why is the Bible so hard for me to understand?
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-Bible-so-hard-for-me-to-understand/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?

Answered Mon

I think I’d be more useful if you told me exactly what you found difficult.

Two things, though.

• Holy Writte is not one story from cover to cover, there are other genres, like legislation, poetry, wisdom. A résumé of Biblical history is another book than a Bible and would probably be useful.
• Especially outside what’s strictly history, sometimes in that too, you need a commentary.
  
  Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition.
  http://haydock1859.tripod.com/

Q V

Has Spain ever issued a formal apology to its former colonial empire?
https://www.quora.com/Has-Spain-ever-issued-a-formal-apology-to-its-former-colonial-empire/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

studied at Lund University

Answered 3m ago

Why should they?

They were, with the French, the best one.

They did not conquer any land really guilty of nothing prior to their arrival, Yaquis were especially not conquered, since they said they were already basically Christian, just needed some more instruction.

Catholic priests were sent, but not Spanish military.

In the taking of Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City) which was bloody, the conquering troops were more Meso-Americans fed up with Aztecs than Spaniards.

As to the misdemanours of Pizarro, which there were, he was punished for them by Spain, I think he even died as an outlaw, killed by Spanish troops, despite his undoubted bravery.

Q VI

Is there historical documentation of pagan extremism/revanchism against the Christianization of Europe?
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-historical-documentation-of-pagan-extremism-revanchism-against-the-Christianization-of-Europe/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Alex Pismenny

upvoted this :

Hans-Georg Lundahl

History buff since childhood. CSL & Eco added to Medieval lore. + Classics.

Answered Mon

St Erik of Sweden was going to Holy Mass before a battle against the followers of Erik Blood Axe.

He went out and was killed by an axe in his head, but this did not stop the Christianisation of Sweden.

Earlier example, Penda of Mercia.

And some have said that the Viking age was a revenge for the felling of Irminsul in Saxony after Charlemagne conquered the Saxons.

Q VII

Why do you think your sacred scriptures are right? And why aren't others right?
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-you-think-your-sacred-scriptures-are-right-And-why-arent-others-right/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?

Answered Sat

First, in so far as sacred scriptures are historical, I think the sacred scriptures of some other religions are right in many details as history : they are only wrong as theology.

Second, if we take Mahabharata, Iliad and Odyssey, Genesis, Exodus, Gospels and Acts as all historically true or close to, it is actually the Christian history which best backs up the own theological claims.

Krishna and Homeric gods are not ultrafamous for raising the dead.

As to historic connection, Iliad and Odyssey are not very good at backing up the gods believed by their author, and Mahabharata has lots less than Iliad and Odyssey, meaning Gospels have a record close relation to other history in the same time span. On the other hand, they include very direct backing up of the theological claims. Theogony and Book of Mormon and Quran were revealed with a direct backing up, but in a similar and insufficient manner, cancelling each other out in theological claims.

Q VIII

As a Christian, why do you believe it is possible for god to have come from nothing, but not the universe?
https://www.quora.com/As-a-Christian-why-do-you-believe-it-is-possible-for-god-to-have-come-from-nothing-but-not-the-universe/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

C on Q

I am curios as to how you find it more realistic that a god has created himself/ came from nothing/ always existed. Then the possibility of the universe “coming from nothing”.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?

Answered just now

No Christian believes God can have come from nothing.

We believe God always existed, which is sth else.

... on Anthropology concurring with Noah's Flood (a refutation of AronRa)

... on Anthropology concurring with Noah's Flood (a refutation of AronRa) · More on Anthropology

How Anthropology Disproves Noah's Flood
AronRa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BitwnxiPH34

I intro

[He introduced the subject with an excursion on how evolution works, and used a linguistic parable, hence my first comment:]

3:20 The Original Don Quixote was certainly Spanish. It may be a Spanish a few centuries older, but saying Cervantes is between Latin and Spanish is like saying Shakespear is between supposed Proto-Germanic and English.

In a sense, there was a social event when Spanish was first written, and that came when Latin writing ceased to be the writing of the Spanish (i e Castilian) pronunciation. Which up to then had been a pronunciation and popular phraseology of the written language ... Latin.

You probably mean there never was a time when someone was born using all the new traits of Spanish when his parents had used all the older traits of Latin. There was a time when someone whose fathers had distinguished between v and b didn't bother to do that himself. There was a time when someone whose father had pronounced Caelum and Ferrum with short open e (the one which looks like a Greek epsilon in IPA) pronounced them with ie instead. There was a time when someone whose father started ferrum with ach-laut as standin for f weakened this to an h, and a later time when even the h disappeared - while the process started over for a former sh or even zh gone sh, as in Juan.

The point you are making about linguistics is, these were not the same time, and that is fair enough.

II Erectus and Florensis

5:44 Recorded history - a few thousand years. Fossil record of homo erectus - a couple million years.

And these million years are not recorded history, but a phoney dating method (often enough the K-Ar dating which is discredited since Mount St Helen's).

9:14 "none of these should exist"

Not the young Earth creationist view of them.

Lucy, Arti = apes.

Homo erectus (or most of, Peking man and Java man dubious), Heidelbergensis, Neanderthalensis, Denisovan and Sapiens Sapiens = human, descended from Adam.

But you might be coming to a defense of the implication, waiting ...

9:27 When exactly did we Creationists say that Homo erectus cannot exist?

Especially all of us?

10:52 Did you say 17 000 BP for Homo florensis?

If so, a post-Flood man, descending from Noah via Shem, Cham and Japheth.

Not meaning "flood was 40 000 / 35 000 years ago" BUT "flood would carbon date as 40 000 / 35 000 years ago", and I presume the 17 000 BP date for Hobbit would have been a carbon date.

III Genetic diversity of post-Flood man

12:28 I recall seeing a video with Cavalli Sforza (or if it was an online article, it was last year, OK) in which there was a notice that Near East was a possible alternative to Africa, genetically speaking.

Which is of course a far better fit with post-Flood humanity starting at Ararat.

12:58 "average once every 60 generations"

In a post-Babel break up with resulting genetic bottlenecks all over the place, the new markers would have broken through very much quicker than once every 60 generations, meaning this "genetic clock" is severely off.

13:30 Two little things.

"no evidence of a global flood" - outside all the fossils.

"shorelines fluctuating substantially" - sure, which would be why early post-Flood boat builders would have to be seeked out by scuba divers, by now, if even that would help.

Also, this is a solution to how cangaroos came from Ararat to Oz after the Flood.

14:11 [He had mentioned dating by supervolcano Toba] OK, potassium argon was debunked at Mount St Helen's.

Do you have any carbon date? While off, they would show a bit more about relative position within Biblical chronology.

15:53 You know, black Africans could have a recent ancestry in Kish and other parts of Sumer ... Sargon was lauded by Akkadians for expelling black heads = Sumerians, and Kish matches Kush, the ancestor of south of Egypt Africans.

I find that match fairly good.

IV Cheddar Man and Population of Britain

16:03 "The skeletal remains date to the Mesolithic (ca. 7150 BC),"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheddar_Man

Now, 7150 BC is after 8600 BC - the archaeological or carbon dated end of Göbekli Tepe, which I identify with the Tower or Babel project.

So, Cheddar man came to Britain after Babel. And not 1500 years after it either, as the carbon dates would per se suggest. With fast rising carbon 14 in atmosphere, this would reduce to perhaps less than a century, perhaps a little more.

I take it there were about 400 to 450 years between Babel and Stonehenge - in real Biblical chronology. And megalithic structures were not built with 1000-year long delays as some carbon dates would suggest, but in time spans reminiscent of building of some cathedrals.

16:11 No, I'll not "ignore" mutation rates because I am a Creationist, I'll consider them as unknown because that they are.

THEN they can be roughly and on average concluded from either evolutionist or creationist scenarios, giving very different averages. But these averages cannot be used as an independent dating tool to prove either scenario.

And if carbon dated 7150 BC is before any suggested date for Flood, this carbon date presumes the C14 content was about 100 pmc (% modern carbon, as I am sure you know, some other readers of this might not know this), and if carbon content back "then" - when Cheddar man lived - c. 50 pmc, this means he has c. one half life, c. 5730 years too much in the carbon dates.

16:41 As compressing the carbon dates of Cheddar man to ... know what, I'll cite relevant portion of my dating table:

XVIII 2657 BC

55.763 pmc 7486 BC

Shelah +

2633 BC

XIX 2617 BC

58.038 pmc 7114 BC

Creation vs. Evolution : Interim III, Flood to Abraham with Syncellus
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2017/05/interim-iii-flood-to-abraham-with.html

7150 BC is between inflated carbon dates 7486 BC and 7114 BC (closer to the latter), and this means the real date for this would be (also closer to the latter) between 2657 BC and 2617 BC (with a Flood in 3358 BC according to the monk George Syncellus - I tend to use more St Jerome's chronology).

Of course a man who died around the time of the post-Flood patriarch Shelah could have living descendants now! No problem at all!

16:49 "this could only be the case if there was never a global Flood"

Or, significant alternative, if the Global Flood was earlier than the Cheddar Man.

Which is the normal YEC position.

17:05 I am on the contrary delighted that Cheddar man had a descendant half a mile away!

It means that Belloc was right, Anglo-Saxon invasion was not simply replacing one population with another. Nor was any (possible, but not certain) Celtic invasion prior to the Roman one, which we know involved legions and romanisation, but no major replacement of populations.

It is a complete strawman you are drawing up about creationists!

V Pacific Coast DNA marker from peopling of Americas

17:27 13 000 - 14 000 years old. Pacific coast of Americas, tools and bones.

= 11 000 - 12 000 BC.

XII 2906 BC

26.23 pmc 13 969 BC

XIII 2865 BC

33.994 pmc 11 785 BC

Shem +

2858 BC

Peleg *

2829 BC

XIV 2824 BC

44.057 pmc 9600 BC

Much closer to 2865 BC than either to 2906 BC or 2824 BC (with Flood in 3358 BC, as it is from same table as previous).

18:10 I agree with the genetic markers, I have as "whatever excuse is necessary" simply a rising carbon 14 level, meaning the datings are systematically inflated, fortunately, thanks to the mechanism in a systematically deflatable way, which makes radiocarbon dating useful as a tool for YEC too. Once you do the necessary modifications.

18:28 "took tens of thousands of years"

You know, European migrations to Americas have resulted in even greater populations of mainly European descended people and these have NOT taken 10 000 years or even 5000 years. Rather, less than 500 years, since the influx to Statten Island after 1900 is fairly marginal to the whites of the Americas.

18:32 "from only 8 people" - yes.

"in only a century or so" - not quite.

Use the LXX or Samaritan version for post-Flood patriarchs, and you have about a thousand years between Flood and Abraham.

18:54 As stated, I am very much accepting this genetic marker.

One of the things it means is that carbon dated 14 000 BP is post-Flood, a confirmation of what I was thinking anyway.

19:07 No shit Sherlock!

My dear Watson, the one thing you overlooked is that the carbon date for 14 000 BP could be in reality a post-Flood one and that because of carbon 14 levels rising in the post-Flood atmosphere.

... Jonah and Noah, Allegory and History and Archaeology

Q I

How did Jonah in the Bible live in the belly of the Whale for 3 days without getting digested in the Whale's stomach?
https://www.quora.com/How-did-Jonah-in-the-Bible-live-in-the-belly-of-the-Whale-for-3-days-without-getting-digested-in-the-Whales-stomach/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

studied at Lund University

Answered just now

We are not told in Jonah that the fish was a whale, but it is the only fish large enough (not fish in modern Linnean, but in traditional terminology) large enough to swallow a man into his belly without his being munched to pieces first.

In the New Testament I think it is either Jesus or Paul who directly says it was a whale, which either had from oral (paratextual) tradition.

We are also not told he survived in the belly Gepetto-wise, as in Pinocchio. Since Jonah was an allegoric prefiguring of Christ, it is also possible he died and miraculously resurrected.

His being in the belly three days and nights would have been known not from his own reckoning of time, but from weekday when he was rescued and either his recalling weekday of storm or people on shore doing so.

The question I find intriguing is, if the voyage was in the Mediterranean (I think he was trying to get to Tharshish, in Spain, I haven’t looked it up right now), what was a whale doing there? Were they more common then than now there?

Q II

What is the allegory about Jonah and the whale, in the Christian Bible?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-allegory-about-Jonah-and-the-whale-in-the-Christian-Bible/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?

Answered 1h ago

Literally Jonah was three days and nights in the belly of a whale and then was released because the whale found him no doubt somewhat indigestible.

Allegorically this signifies Jesus being inside Earth, His soul down in Sheol and most of the time his body in the grave too during three consecutive calendar nychthemera.

Q III

If Genesis is an allegory, as believed by many Christians, then why is the entire Bible not an allegory?
https://www.quora.com/If-Genesis-is-an-allegory-as-believed-by-many-Christians-then-why-is-the-entire-Bible-not-an-allegory/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

studied at Lund University

Answered 54m ago

The entire Bible is allegory.

Nevertheless, next to nothing (in terms of percent out of the total textmass*) in the Bible is AN allegory as literary form.

You have prophets using allegories (the literary form) to criticise the behaviours of King David against Urias the Hittite and of Ahab against Naboth. You have one pharao in the time of Joseph (possibly Djoser) and one Nebuchadnezzar in the time of Daniel dreaming and Joseph and Daniel treating their dreams as allegories (three of them, Nebuchadnezzar had two dreams, I think).

You also have visions in Daniel and Apocalypse some of which may be allegoric.

All of the private life of the prophet Hosea is an allegory about God’s relation to Israel. Its end is an allegory about the conversion of the Jews.

Genesis as a whole is allegory in the sense that the literal sense carries an allegoric sense, but not AN allegory as literary form, it is the literary form of straightforward history (most of Genesis 1 would be vision, since Adam and Eve were not yet around witnessing it : Genesis has 50 chapters).

You find allegories about Jesus all through it.

• Eve created out of the opened side of Adam while he was sleeping (Genesis 2) = allegorically the Church born from the opened heart of Jesus on Calvary (both the Cross and the Paradise where grounds where Adam and Jesus were in a way sleeping). Before that Adam had named the animals, while Jesus before that had quoted a psalm naming his mockers and tormentors diverse animals, like lions and dogs and bulls of Bashan.
• Melchisedech makes his sacrifice by offering up bread and wine (Genesis 14) = allegory of the Eucharist and of Christ as Eucharistic priest “according to the order of Melchisedech”.
• Isaac carries the wood for his burnt offering (he is himself still designed as the sacrifice) (Genesis 22) = allegorically Christ carrying his cross to the same place, to Calvary (Mount Moria mentioned in Genesis comprises both the Jewish Temple and Calvary).

In other words, the allegories are not written by men in the text, they are written by God in the events of which Genesis is a history, not an allegory.

* I am not sure I was not overdoing, but the fact remains is that history is a far more prevalent genre than allegory.

Q IV

Noah lived about 1000 years old (according to the Quran and the Bible). Do we have any archeological proof that early patriarchs lived long lives?
https://www.quora.com/Noah-lived-about-1000-years-old-according-to-the-Quran-and-the-Bible-Do-we-have-any-archeological-proof-that-early-patriarchs-lived-long-lives/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?

Answered just now

How long a life Noah lived is a historic question.

How do you propose to settle this kind of historic question with archaeology?

Historical questions are mostly settled by narrative. I am not sure you could any more prove the Battle of Waterloo occurred archaeologically, at least at that large scale, and I am sure archaeological digs at Waterloo cannot prove who won the battle. Even if each corpse could be identified as having worn a French or an English or a Prussian uniform, first, this is at least three diverse national uniforms (corresponding to the troops we know from history but not archaeology at Waterloo to have been commanded by Napoleon, Wellington and Blücher - there is historic divergence on whether B or W was most operative in beating N), and archaeology, as opposed to history could not tell us who was allied to whom. THEN again, archaeology could not even tell us what side won.

The rule is not like whichever side has most men killed loses. It is rather like whichever side has most men surviving wins. And while archaeology could tell us which side lost most men (if uniforms had been very well preserved, which by now is unlikely for most), this would not automatically tell us which side had most men left. Plus even that is not totally a mathematical issue, it is normally in many battles an estimate on what risks are worth taking and also has to do with what shape the troops are in.

Archaeology could also not tell us a bit on which importance the battle of Waterloo had in the general scheme of things, that it cemented the victory of the powers of Reaction.

So, how exactly would you use archaeology as a test for life spans in the past?

I know some English or perhaps rather Scottish doctors have made conclusions about Medieval lifespans from archaeology. 60 corpses of Anglo-Saxon serfs (thus, between Roman legions leaving 410 and Arthur’s successors being beaten, and Anglo-Saxons themselves being beaten by William in 1066) have been medically investigated and conclusion have been none of them lived to 50.

But what was this conclusion based on?

Most likely, they looked at the tear and wear on the skeletons, where muscles had been attached. They calculated age from the tear and wear. This means that if they misestimated either what tear and wear a serf in agriculture was subjected to (and since farm hands were in overwhelming majority, each had so much less of the total food mass to cultivate, so they could easily have lived lazier lives than now) or what shape the bodies were originally in (they could have been a race in which tear and wear had less impact than on modern men - very theoretically and unlikely in this case), they would have miscalculated the ages.

Now, how would this impact on archaeological evidence for patriarchs?

Obviously, if you lived to near 1000, like Noah and most people back to Adam, you WERE very certainly of a sturdier race than the one we have now. This means tear and wear would have less impact, and this in turn that any medical examination of their skeleta, if identified, would be misleading and give far younger lifespans than they had.

Next, they are probably not there any more.

If the just of the Old Testament were resurrecting and ascending to Heaven during Christ’s death and resurrection, this means their corpses are no longer there. You won’t find the corpse of either King David or of Jonah, either Abraham or Noah in their graves.

When ISIS bashed the tomb of Jonah in Mossul, they inadvertently gave the Church (most directly Oriental Christians, Chaldeans or Nestorians, I think Chaldeans) a chance to test this on Jonah’s case.

For just post-Flood patriarchs, like Shem, Cham and Japheth, the lifespans were still very high (about 600 years) and it is possible the corpse of Cham would still be around.

THEN is the next question where to find them.

Have you verified that the tomb of Julius Caesar or of Alexander the Great or of Pericles or of the poet Aeschylus is still there to be identified? What is the archaeological proof that Attila and Genghis Khan lived?

You will probably NOT find most people who lived or even who are historically known. And in many cases, if you do find a historically known person in the grave, you won’t know it is he.

Even so, some have tried. A dentist Jack Cuozzo went to Paris to investigate Neanderthal skulls and concluded they were of a much more long lived race than we. Their wisdom teeth would have come out at a very late age, their puberty would have been so much slower than ours, they needed to be longlived, plus some of the thicker bone ridges on their skulls are evidence of very high age.

That is perhaps as good as you can get.

Between Flood and Babel life spans were still fairly long. According to LXX and in terms of year after flood, here is a lifespan corresponding to Babel : Peleg 529 - 868. 341 years. Near triple and at least two and a half times the present life spans.

If my own theory of correspondences between carbon dates and Biblical dates is correct, the time between Flood and Babel is the time between carbon dated 40 000 BP and the times of Göbekli Tepe.

This means the relevant material would be human skeleta from Upper Palaeolithic. Meaning of course that estimates of these having died at around 30 would be fairly bogus - or exceptional.

But that would be a question of how much of the medical evaluations of skeleta are subject to caution, as with the Anglo-Saxon skeleta.

So, my main answer is : archaeology is not the best place to start looking. You may find something, but don’t take it as definitive or as decisive. History is the right place and Genesis is history.

Update

next day:

EDIT next day:

For instance, I think that the grave at Sunghir would fit well for early post-Flood patriarchs in carbon timing, between Flood and Babel.

I think it would be the grave of perhaps Magog and his family.

The Russian Sunghir burials and skull reconstructions
Posted on September 23, 2008 : Mathilda’s Anthropology Blog.
https://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/the-russian-sunghir-burials-and-skull-reconstructions/

I also therefore think that an estimate of his having lived 60 years before dying is about 200 or 300 years too low. At 260 or 360 or sth (or perhaps some little more as yet, he was an earlier generation than Peleg) Magog would have been in the shape of a man of 60.

On the other hand, if he is Magog he can’t have lived too long either, since carbon dating 25 000 BP means he died well before Tower of Babel with its city started getting built in “carbon dated 9600 BC” at Göbekli Tepe.

And the latest estimate - counting from Flood forward - for when this was would be 534 after the Flood, when Peleg was 5, if he was born 529 after Flood (a pure LXX reading, including the “II Cainan”, as per George Syncellus and Byzantine liturgy). If this is carbon dated as 11 600 BP, a carbon date like 25 000 BP must be before 500 after Flood, I presume, and since Magog was a grandson or greatgrandson of Noah, this gives his birth as not too early after Flood either.

Earlier Update

an hour after previous Q originally posted, or so.

Q V

Do Christians really still believe in Noah's Ark, Santa Claus, and Jonah living inside the whale?
https://www.quora.com/Do-Christians-really-still-believe-in-Noahs-Ark-Santa-Claus-and-Jonah-living-inside-the-whale/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Thomist after starting with CSLewis

Answered just now

I believe in Saint Nicholas of Myra who slapped Arius at Council of Nicea and threw in money through a window so three girls would not need to prostitute themselves.

I believe in Noah’s living on the Ark with seven other men.

I belive Jonah either lived or perhaps even more probably died and resurrected in the belly of the whale (not identified as such in the book, but I think in the New Testament).

... in Reply to Joe's Reply to Lizzie

... on Misrepresenting Origins of Catholic Church · ... in Reply to Lizzie · ... in Reply to Joe's Reply to Lizzie

Reply to LizziesAnswers: 10 Lies Protestants Believe About Catholicism! (From a Protestant)
Joe Angelo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLNDeAEIfyQ

You know, while I first intended to see this, I thought the last parenthesis in the title of this video meant you are a Protestant too, not that you quoted her title in full.

I was even preparing to defend the Rosary against your attacks.

12:36 Suppose you believe 1962 - 1965 in the Vatican saw a genuine Church Council.

I think it was a robber council.

12:43 You might want to check this [unbelievers should not be forced to embrace the faith, i e under any circumstances] out with St Thomas Aquinas.

Question 10. Unbelief in general
Summa Theologiae > Second Part of the Second Part
http://newadvent.com/summa/3010.htm
[More than one article apt on question. Actually 7 to 12, all articles, more or less.]

14:27 I was just trying to investigate whether Fides et Ratio was heretical (against YEC, against Geocentrism, or against Five Ways of Proving God, for instance), but found it a bit long on a quick look.

What paragraph can you recommend on the Galileo issue, if any?

There is one Laudato Si which I refer, it is of course by the Saint from Assisi.

Would you agree there are points of agreement between it (or between song of the Three Young Men in the Furnace, which you know from the hours) and animism / shintoism, except there is a ONE God above the nature spirits?

16:09 Thank you very much for touching on the relationship between infallibility and Biblical inerrancy.

If God can do the one, He can do the other.

Hey Prots, if God can make St Luke's human investigation providentially free from all error, He can also make Pope St Leo's comment on among others it free from all doctrinal error!

Hey Modernists, if God can make Pope Pius IX's Ineffabilis Deus free from all doctrinal error, He can also make Moses' research about Patriarchs back to Adam (stitching patriarchal text onto patriarchal text) free from all factual error!

17:20 sth "finally dogmatised at Trent"

Trent certainly finally included I and II Maccabees. But are you sure it as certainly finally excluded III and IV Maccabees?

Trent certainly finally included Baruch (calling it appendix to Jeremiah, since one could view the books defined as canonic either 72 "or 73 if Baruch counts separate from Jeremiah"). But are you sure it as certainly finally excluded Henoch (the book held as canonic by Ethiopians)?

22:43 The Catechism of Pope Pius X has the stamp of approval by an undoubted Pope and undoubted Saint.

22:48 I would not call CCC a sure norm for teaching the faith, therefore also not Wojtyla a Pope.

He was arguably validly ordained a priest, perhaps even validly consecrated bishop (not sure of the when), but he was arguably not eligible to papacy, since heretical. See decisions like Assisi and Assisi II.

24:48 Chemical means of contraception, now as then, are also abortive : if an ovulum is fertilised, it is prevented from nesting.

25:21 Lambeth Conference 1920 - as anti-Contraception as ever.

Lambeth Conference of 1930 - suddenly pro-Contraception.

Otherwise they would have had to condemn certain innovations in states of US and Canada (perhaps England too), which Pope Pius XI duly condemned in Casti Connubii.

Orthodox Modernists (who like to trace the common Christian view to St Augustine's Manichaean past!) were episcopates following suit about 40 years later.

25:35 Unlike Humanae Vitae, Casti Connubii is actually by a Pope:

CASTI CONNUBII
Pius XI Encyclicals
https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html

I love it.

... in Reply to Lizzie

... on Misrepresenting Origins of Catholic Church · ... in Reply to Lizzie · ... in Reply to Joe's Reply to Lizzie

This series of comments might seem a bit disconnected if not compared to the video I am answering to, as often is the case with the video comment videos. Watch it along with my comment./HGL

10 Lies Protestants Believe About Catholicism! (From a Protestant)
LizziesAnswers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8p9i696K-o

From one convert about another.

Have you checked out Stephan Borgehammar? His father was a Lutheran clergyman. He is now a Catholic, but I think he wrote this book while still a Lutheran:

How the Holy Cross was found : from event to medieval legend : with an appendix of texts
Responsibility : Stephen Borgehammar.
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/2181965

5:05 What was Martin Luther's motive?

Well, II Maccabees endorses sacrifice for the dead, and Martin Luther was attacking Masses said for the dead.

6:55 When it comes to relics = bones, check out 4th Book Of Kings (2 Kings) : chapter 13.

9:31 Actually, council of Nicaea was not yet establishing what books were Scripture.

You find local councils doing that a bit later, and disagreeing (Laodicaea council has no Maccabees - but also no Apocalypse!). Canon of Trent agrees (or is meant to agree, some dispute the success) with the canons of councils of Rome and Carthage.

11:29 Actually, Jesus did give the basic training on certain things to do and on hiererarchy, He did make choices like "72, 12, Peter". Only hierarchic choice not explicitly attributed to Jesus was the deacons, Acts, seven deacons in Jerusalem.

BUT a lot of the things we see the Apostles doing must have been directly mentioned by Jesus, or they would not have dared to come up with it. That is what Haydock comment says about Extreme Unction mentioned in James.

Or said, I think the comment has changed, or I misrecalled where it was:

ST. JAMES - Chapter 5
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition.
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id263.html

Epistle Of Saint James : Chapter 5
Douay-Rheims Bible + Challoner Notes
http://drbo.org/chapter/66005.htm

12:47 What is awful about the Crusades?

I don't mean this that or other war crime under crusades, but crusades as such : was it awful to deliver Mossul from ISIS? It cost some killing.

12:55 Thirty Years War was a war in which Protestants were one belligerent party. Including Gustavus Adolphus, king or better usurper of Sweden, who was executing two converts to Catholicism as traitors. Georg Bäär or Georgius Ursinus, and the mayor of Södertelge, Zacharias Anthelius.

Unlike some, Lutherans and Anglicans never made pacifism a test of their religion, and of those who did, some had just a generation earlier been violent and revolutionary. Hussites like Ziska were basically the back then version of Commies, at least comparable to Bela Kun and Rosa Luxemburg.

14:42 "together with us they adore the one merciful God"

Well, not all Catholics agree with that, some, including me, consider these words as an act of apostasy.

If it had been like

// like we, they believe there is one God //

that would have been OK, as Muslims have a philosophically correct concept of God.

But saying they are together with us adoring God would mean they are adressing their prayers to the right God. A generally correct philosophical description of God is not sufficient for a right identifification of Him.

Check out this catechism:

CATECHISM OF SAINT PIUS X
https://www.ewtn.com/library/CATECHSM/PIUSXCAT.HTM

BALTIMORE CATECHISM #3
From the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore(1891 Version)
http://www.baltimore-catechism.com/

15:27 And there are some of us Catholics who believe the world is six or seven thousand years old, and who are geocentrics.

No, all creationists and even global manmade warming deniers are not Protestants, I am among the Catholic ones.

15:40 What exact statement are you speaking about and which Pope?

Certainly not Pope St Pius X!

16:00 Truth cannot contradict truth, sure.

Can you say even one YEC who would deny that?

A YEC by definition does not think millions of years is true. And a falsehood (like millions of years) can contradict truth (like Genesis).

16:16 First trial of Galileo in 1616 about his book and about Foscarini's letter:

In 1616 Bellarmine became involved in the Copernican controversy, which was brought to a head by the publication of Paolo Antonio Foscarini's book defending the Copernican system from the charge that it clashed with the Scriptures. It was he who administered the controversial admonition to Galileo not to hold or defend the Copernican theory.

Robert Cardinal Bellarmine (1542-1621)
The Galileo Project > Christianity > Robert Cardinal Bellarmine
http://galileo.rice.edu/chr/bellarmine.html

The thing is, Bellarmine was not judging Galileo's personality, but the science and theology. And St Robert has remained the better scientist to this very day.

16:27 He made a dialogue in which the character Simplicio reflects the cardinal Barberini whom he had talked to as a personal friend before Barberini became Pope. Galileo did not mention the Pope by name, only his (the Pope's) private friends would have known how close he was to Simplicio.

Plus, making fun of the Pope is NOT a matter for lifelong house arrest or abjuration under threat of otherwise being burned as a heretic.

It most certainly WAS about Heliocentrism : Earth turning around Sun and also around itself in a daily motion were the two only things Galileo had to abjure.

The dialogue was put on the index because it argued for Heliocentrism.

Arguing otherwise, saying Galileo was punished for "an attitude problem" is as Satanic as boot camps, if you accept this.

16:33 In 1633 Galileo was not told to show Pope Urban VIII more respect, he was told to abjure what he had considered two major scientific discoveries or two aspects of one such.

"Disrespectful to the Pope" means very little in the Catholic Church. Dante and Walter von der Vogelweide had been disrespectful to Popes. Sts Bridget and Catherine of Siena had on behalf of God been disrespectful to Popes.

And Galileo had not even given clues except to very close friends of Pope Urban that Simplicio was reflecting his own acuaintance with the thitherto cardinal Barberini.

Pope Urban even was absent from the trial so his personal feelings should not interfere with the outcome.

What you are saying about the affair, and the Catholics you heard it from, is very disrespectful to his objectivity as a pastor.

16:49 "Have always interpreted Genesis 1 as an allegory"

Probably true, but more like true of Genesis 2, where creation of Eve when Adam slept is an allegory for Good Friday, Church born of the opened side of the Last Adam.

BUT "have never interpreted Genesis 1 and 2 as literally true" [not actual quote, but rendering what is often understood under the other]?

False. Check out the Church Fathers (canonised saints, not Origen or Philo Judaeus!) like St Basil, St Augustine, St John Chrysostom. They all take Genesis account as literally true, and so do the Scholastics of the Middle Ages.

You see, interpreting x as allegory does not mean interpreting x as not literally true in the first place. It is not synonymous to interpreting it as "an allegory" a literary genre only meant to give other truths through a false story. Check out Quadriga Cassiani.

Check out this reference:

[I was looking for another one, the Quadriga Cassiani which used to be an article on wikipedia]

Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture
on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Exegesis:_The_Four_Senses_of_Scripture

It actually miscites:

the four-fold method of scriptural interpretation, i.e., allegory, typology, tropology, and anagogy.

Four senses are actually : Literal, Allegoric, Moral and Anagogic.

Not sure if Lubac got that, but you can (so far) look it up in Summa Theologica:

Article 10. Whether in Holy Scripture a word may have several senses?
Summa Theologiae > First Part > Question 1
http://newadvent.com/summa/1001.htm#article10

16:39 I agree our education system is very biassed.

Anti-Catholic. Anti-Monarchist. Anti-Middle Ages. Anti-Geocentric. Anti-Young Earth Creationist. Anti-Moral. Anti-Theist. Antichristian.

17:45 There was an indulgenced alms scandal in Germany involving Dominicans not handing all alms over to building of St Peters, but part of them to a debt they had to the Fuggers.

A bit as if the gifts had been just any kind of income.

Council of Trent looked into the office of alms collectors.

19:47 "not physically but metaphysically"

Better not visibly, but in actual fact. Apart from that, congratulations, you have got apostolic succession, absolution from sins, transsubstantiation fairly right.

20:45 God has NOT given us a way to reinterpret the Bible through the years to fit the culture!

Papal infallibility was defined by the Vatican Council of 1869, interrupted in 1870. This use of it was specifically excluded.

FIRST VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870)
https://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/v1.htm

Session 4 : 18 July 1870

First dogmatic constitution on the Church of Christ

Chapter 4.

On the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff

6.

For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles.

Indeed, their apostolic teaching was embraced by all the venerable fathers and reverenced and followed by all the holy orthodox doctors, for they knew very well that this See of St. Peter always remains unblemished by any error, in accordance with the divine promise of our Lord and Savior to the prince of his disciples: I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren[60].

New issues that come up, that is another matter.

Yes, if an issue seems new, it may happen it really is and the pope has to come up with a new decision, but even so, it must be only a new aspect of an old decision.

Usually, the issues aren't even new, the Pope just comes up with finding what already has been decided.

24:06 Being anti-authority is not just any Protestant - it is Congregationalist.

Luther, Cranmer, Calvin all lowered authority and all changed structure but at the end of the day still had a fairly hierarchic and structured one.

Sometimes so much more oppressive than Catholicism could ever be (up to then, not counting modern deviations).

24:16 Why not check out what Jesus did about hierarchy Himself?

He made disciples. He chose 72 among the rest. He chose 12 among the 72. He chose Peter among the 12.

The 72 got privileges the others didn't have (and there were no women in the 72), the 12 privileges the rest of the 72 didn't have and Peter some the rest of the 12 didn't have (at least on Catholic understanding, some Orthodox would say "until later than he").

25:22 if it is in a good Catechism, one should not disagree with it.

Diverse points have diverse weight in the catechism. But if behind the catechism there is an infallible teaching (papal bull, decree of a council), you are bound to it.

26:09 Orthodox tend to have gone along very well with the points you mentioned from St Augustine.

Where they traditionally do disagree with him is on:

• the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and from the Son (there are other Church Fathers, including St Athanasius, THE great hero of the Arian crisis for this);
• the "Roma locuta est, causa finita est".

You seem to have come across some modernist Orthodox.

26:10 Why are you going to be on birth control?

If you don't want children, why marry?

If you marry, why avoid children?

27:08 Was Heaven closed to man or wasn't it, until Christ redeemed us?

St Thomas Aquinas and an Evangelical Swedish song both say Christ has opened the pearly gate. Are you saying it was never even closed because of Adam's sin? Are you saying Lazarus was so many million miles from the Rich Man he wasn't even down in the Netherworld?

28:09 Check out how St Clement of Rome (one of the early Popes) deals with Corinth.

A bit as if he had authority over it, right?

... on Misrepresenting Origins of Catholic Church

... on Misrepresenting Origins of Catholic Church · ... in Reply to Lizzie · ... in Reply to Joe's Reply to Lizzie

The Origin Of Roman Catholic Religion - with Peter Michael Martinez
Peter Martinez
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoCQpSN_kGk

4:17 "streamed into the NEW Christian Church"?

• 1) The Edict of Milan was not founding any Church, just recognising as legal and as in certain ways privileged one already in existence;
  
  
• 2) What do you consider then and there happened to the 280 years OLD one?

4:25 "And the NEW Polytheistic Christianity" ... There you go again!

• 1) You have not pointed to any point which reasonably could have been then and there a founding act for a new counterfeit Christian Church, the edict if Milan was not one;
  
  
• 2) You are still not explaining what happened to the original Christian Church.

4:46 "The wholesale conversion of the Roman people without any understanding of the original doctrine of the Apostles"

• 1) The edict of Milan, unlike that of Theodosius, decades later, obliged no Pagans to desist even from public Paganism and was therefore not forcing people with a taste for public religion to become Christians;
  
  
• 2) If the Christians in Rome and Empire in 312 had an understanding of the original Christian doctrine, why would the Church lose it in 313?
  
  
• 3) And since Christian clergy had privileges, they could impose on the ones wanting to convert to study the faith for some time before getting to baptism : it was called being a Catechumen. In other words, your whole scenario breaks down as impossible.

4:54 "many pagan and polytheistic beliefs were incorporated into the New State Church"

• 1) Except that the Edict of Milan didn't make Christianity a State Church.
  
  
• 2) Except that the original Church, which would normally still have been extant and which would normally have been the first beneficiaries of the Edict (at least before Constantine supposedly meddled with it at Nicaea) were still around to prevent such paganism flowing in.

5:11 "Converted in mass to the all inclusive new religion"

Sorry, but the Catholic Church just after 313 was anything BUT "all inclusive"!

It is not exactly like the Vatican II Council "Catholicism", you know!

5:41 "it was decided to incorporate as many of the customs and beliefs"

When and where?

What decision?

What historical fact can you point to?

You are telling a just so story, not very different from the one given by Dan Brown, through his character Teabing!

5:51 "they thought they would increase the number of Pagan converts"

Again, when and where?

If you look at Pope St Gregory the Great, he is a fan of including customs from Pagans, as long as the remains of these customs include nothing in conflict with the Christian belief.

BUT Pope St Gregory I is Pope 590 to 604.

You are supposedly still talking about just after the Edict of Milan. 313. Nearly 300 years before Pope St Gregory I.

6:03 J. L. von Monsheim, Ecclesiastical History, vol. I.

Thank you for citing your authority, at least.

I can google it, and it gives exactly five hits on some korean page.

In other words, the book probably does not exist. You are probably a fraud.

And you are also not even giving page numbers, fair enough, since the page numbers cannot exist without the book.

What however does exist is a 4 vol. Institutionum historiae ecclesiasticae libri IV, 1726, by one Johann Lorenz von Mosheim. Mosheim, not Monsheim.

As he was a Lutheran, his view of the Catholic Church can be suspected of being somewhat biassed. Especially back then in 1726.

6:41 "had found a way ... without confronting false religions"

Why was the Catholic Church then so very busy doing that, precisely confronting false religions?

Oh, it is perhaps not in von Monsheim, but it is in more real Ecclesiastical histories.

Take the Annals of Quedlinburg monastery. They tell of a monk and priest who went to Lithuania and who was nearly sacrificed to Lithuanian gods, only a horse gave a nudge interpreted as gods being against the sacrifice, and he survived and could tell of it.

Or take the men who came to Birka, Sts Ansgar and Rimbert and bishop Gauzbert - confronting Odinism near its headquarters in Sweden (Birka to Elder Uppsala is a fairly short distance, c. 92 km - using the municipalities they are part of, Ekerö and Uppsala).

If their Catholicism was so all inclusive as you claim, why take the trouble?

Speaking of Pope St Gregory, again : if his Catholicism was so all inclusive, why did he bother to tell bishops in Gaul (now France) they should NOT read in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid, poems containing pagan names of false gods?

This last in R. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries.

7:21 Identifying Jesus with the sun god ... "Et orietur vobis timentibus nomen meum sol justitiae, et sanitas in pennis ejus: et egrediemini, et salietis sicut vituli de armento." [Malachias (Malachi) 4:2]

Catholics hardly did so more than Malachy did! You do consider Malachy a real prophet of the Old Testament, do you?

7:31 Imagery repackaged from sunworshippers?

Possible - but for another purpose.

IDOLS repackaged from sunworshippers?

You'd have to document that!

7:45 "Rather than convert the people to the Gospel, the new Church in Rome decided to convert their traditions and customs and simply call them Christian."

Funny, then, that you don't find solar looking monstrances until centuries after sun worship was gone.

Funny also, then, that you STILL have:

• 1) not answered by what act of apostasy or new foundation the "New" Christian Church arose;
  
  
• 2) NOR explained what happened to the old Christian Church, the one which Roman Pagans had persecuted along with Jews for 280 years.

8:28 OK, you are speaking of Constantine in 321 introducing Sunday rest.

Can you show that Sunworshippers before that had been resting on Sundays?

8:42 Tim Dowley, noted.

9:09 Sorry, but Christmas celebrated on december 25 is actually older than Constantine and arguably it could at least be older than Aurelian instituting Sol Invictus on Dec. 25 a few decades earlier than Constantine.

9:34 If one had only had one Church in Rome / Roman Empire ceasing to be purely Christian and becoming a new Church, this could have been possible. Actually it did happen too, they were called Arians, one of the times.

BUT you are not just saying this happened, you are also saying it happened after the Church had already become a new Church purely through the Edict of Milan, and also you are at least not giving any evidence of showing there was another Church surviving and resisting apostasy beside this. If Christianity had merely been human or demonic, no problem. But since Christianity is from God, you are contradicting Matthew 28.

Unless you claim sth other than the RC Church continued to be the Christian Church that Christ had founded.

... on Misidentification of Tower of Babel

Some Very Compelling Evidence the Tower of Babel Was Real
Smithsonian Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgksU2F18lg

3:35 Seriously? Tower of Babel from c. 600 BC = Biblical account?

No.

In 600 BC all the world was no longer just one people and of one tongue. While Nebuchadnezzar II could have been inspired by Nimrod (at one time he tried to get divine honours for himself and commit Daniel to death penalty for refusing that), he is way too late for being the real Nimrod behind the real Tower of Babel.

Far from confirming the Genesis story, this would instead demote it from fact to a fiction set in prehistory which lampoons contemporary fact - all the while also setting composition of Genesis at way too late. A Christian cannot accept this.

The Sticky Clue That Links the Tower of Babel to the Bible
Smithsonian Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_vxg-IWhIM

It seems here that people are saying Genesis is a product of the Babylonian captivity.

No. It is very much not. Friedrich Delitzsch was wrong in 1902 and he is still wrong.

"They utilised the tower of Babylon as inspiration for the Tower of Babel story in the Bible."

This means, far from being real old history preserved to Ezra et al. from way before Babylonian captivity, Genesis is a piece of "history fiction" written millennia after the events and in which he (or someone like him in his day) placed parodies of contemporary events and things.

I find it way more likely that Nebuchadnezzar II was inspired from traditions back to Nimrod in his country - or even in an early look at Judaism (well before Daniel converted him!) was inspired by real old history in the Genesis story - but inspired in the wrong way. Emulating the bad guys.

2:22 I have argued that baked bricks and bitumen were there in Göbekli Tepe but were later removed.

The tower of Nebuchadnezzar could be where it was removed to. He could have tried to get luck from his predecessor in Shinar plains (and Neo-Babylonian Empire included Göbekli Tepe / Edessa, or so it looks from the map) and tried to do so by reusing all of the bricks he could find in GT. Which was then covered with sand as to non-brick stone foundations.

Of course, stamps from the time of Nebuchadnezzar II could have been somewhat difficult to add two thousand years after they were originally made, so these stamps could refute this theory.

3:14 The Bible doesn't specifically say the Tower of Babel was never finished. It was the city that was ceased from being built.

I have argued that the Tower of Babel has lately been finished in Cape Canaveral and in Bajkonur, etc. The project was a rocket and good for us, we are using O2 and H2 for rocket fuel.

Nimrod would probably have known explosive qualities of Uranium from pre-Flood wars as reflected in Mahabharata and he would have tried that. Disastrously, especially with all men together around it.