Potholer on Egyptian Chronology

Since potholer54 did not provide links to the Answers in Genesis articles he pretends to show as mutually refuting, I don't feel I need to link to the video this is from comments under.

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"5,000 years of Egyptian history"

Which version of it?

Manetho?

Abydos Kinglist?

Turin Kinglist?

Archaeology and carbon dating?

Max Mac

The Bible...Which version?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Max Mac Whichever version, it is more fleshed out for most of the time concerned than Egyptian history prior to Manetho.

The three main versions of Pentateuch are better in accordance than Abydos and Turin Kinglists between them or with Manetho.

II

3:21 You missed that the page by CMI actually does give non-Biblical evidence against traditional Egyptian history:

The Egyptian evidence consists of numerous inscriptions, texts, papyrus documents, and artifacts. Although it is very helpful, this evidence provides an incomplete picture of Egyptian history.

The ancient writings of Herodotus, Manetho, Josephus, Africanus and Eusebius provide added historical insight. Herodotus, the famous Greek historian, traveled to Egypt in the 5th century BC and interviewed priests and other knowledgeable individuals. Manetho, as stated above, composed a history of Egypt for the library at Alexandria in the 3rd century BC. Josephus, the famous Jewish historian, quoted from Manetho when writing his historical anthologies in the first-century AD. Africanus and Bishop Eusebius, renowned historians writing in the third and fourth centuries AD respectively, also quoted Manetho and wrote about Egyptian history. However, all of these highly esteemed historians often disagree with one another in the calculation of Egyptian chronology.

Because of the discordant nature of Egyptian chronology, it is impossible to present a comprehensive list of dates, pharaohs, and dynasties. Sir Alan Gardiner wrote, ‘Our materials for the reconstruction of a coherent picture are hopelessly inadequate.’ As a result, we must cross reference the Egyptian accounts with other accurate historical sources. Biblical and Assyrian chronology offer highly consistent dates that can be utilized to rectify many of the ambiguities of Egyptian history. In other words, if Old Testament and Assyrian historical records significantly overlap, then a revision of Egyptian chronology would be perfectly logical in order to harmonize with two independent reliable sources.

Egyptian history and the biblical record: a perfect match?
Published: 23 January 2007 (GMT+10) | By Daniel Anderson
https://creation.com/egyptian-history-and-the-biblical-record-a-perfect-match

III

Conservapedia on Egypt:

"Egypt has endured as a unified state for more than 5,000 years, and archaeological evidence indicates that a developed Egyptian society has existed for much longer. Egyptians take pride in their "pharaonic heritage" and in their descent from what they consider mankind's earliest civilization. The Arabic word for Egypt is Misr, which originally connoted "civilization" or "metropolis.""

https://www.conservapedia.com/Egypt

Would "for more than 5000 years" refer to archaeology which is carbon dated?

Bec. early dynastic Egypt is carbon dated to 3150 BC. Predynastic Egypt goes further back in carbon dates.

However, this is a thing which is fairly easy to fix with assuming a rise in carbon levels and a carbon level lower than present behind an early dynastic Egypt which historically in context fits very well with Abraham c. 2000 BC.

I did an article specifically on this one:

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Nabta Playa, Hieraconopolis and Buto
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2017/08/nabta-playa-hieraconopolis-and-buto.html

Also, you need not assume all editors on Conservapedia are YEC.

IV

4:20 "That's what you get when you try to squeeze things into time scales that don't fit."

Or what you get when you use a wiki type encyclopedia as if it were an editorially unified one. Conservapedia is not a man who has contradicted himself, Conservapedians are men who have contradicted each other (as on more than one wiki).

V

5:42 Sorry, in your comparison you forget, the post-Flood society was not one in which people had to actually scramble for resources.

Also, Mizraim ... in a Masoretic timeline view, he would have been around at Babel and still around when his tribe moved to Egypt.

However, it would not have been necessarily a very small tribe by that time.

This means, there would have been human resources to do the building.

Also, many pathogens would not yet have developed into those species of bacteria. There would have been more resources and less disease just after the Flood (not "no disease" since I consider any skeleton from Upper Palaeolithic as a prematurely dead early post-Flood centuries man).

VI

5:55 You are reading a lot of factuality into "statistics" that are, since previous to 1800 strictly just estimates.

Archaeological evidence is part of what they are based on, but a fairly small part.

If not in proportion to other inputs, at least in proportion to conclusions arrived at.

VII

6:10 [in] 2188 [BC] "Mizraim and his family of eight people"?

Is that what they say?

[I cannot check, I cannot find the article and potholer doesn't link]

Are you sure you are not reading too much into a picture, for one?

Did you note they have different opinions on AiG between different writers on whether Egypt started in 2188 BC?

6:34 "There would have been about 12 of them"

... assuming the doublings were evenly distributed.

We would rather assume population rose much faster just after the Flood.

Here I get to an article saying Step Pyramid starts pre-Abraham:

"Netjerykhet (later dynasties called him Zoser or Djoser) was the second king of the 3rd Dynasty, and his pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Saqqara, was built of stone blocks rather than mud bricks. ... Zoser would have lived around the time of Terah, the father of Abraham of the Bible."

AiG : The Step Pyramid
by David Down and Dr. John Ashton on July 23, 2009
https://answersingenesis.org/archaeology/ancient-egypt/the-step-pyramid/

I differ, I consider carbon dates of Djoser as carbon dates of his vizier Imhotep = Joseph in Egypt (identification built on Hungere Stele).

This further allows population growth in and outside Egypt before Step Pyramid.

I consider Narmer as a candidate for Abraham's Pharao in Genesis 13.

8:57 As said, population growth factors is not a constant like pi - it can vary over time.

Population doubling every 15 years (their actual words stating : each couple having 8 children in 30 years) is probably good guess for early post-Flood times.

9:46 "just hope no one asks both questions at the same time in the same room"

Why?

The growth rates do not contradict each other, unless you assume both apply to same set of people at same time, which clearly was not the assumption.

About as brilliant, potholer, as when you trusted Quentin Atkinson as a linguist, which he is not ...

Michael Dodds

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Abraham never existed

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Michael Dodds Except he did .... without going into Biblical inerrancy between us:

• 1) the Bible book Genesis, which reads as history says he did
• 2) it has been received by the Hebrew nation as the early history of mankind and of its own nation
• 3) it has not been received at a traceable earlier stage as non-history.

Even on naturalistic grounds, this should suffice as a prima facie case Genesis historically attests his existence.

charles madison

Seems like there was a bit of incest & inter-breeding, no?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@charles madison Inbreeding in modern terms, certainly.

Incest is a crime and where the limits are ultimately depends on God's decision, but, after the Flood, cousins would have been available. Generation after three sons of Noah and their wives, that is.

Thomas Binney

Hans-Georg Lundahl Except he still didn’t, and using the Bible to prove the Bible isn’t going to get you anywhere.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Thomas Binney I wasn't using the text of the Bible to prove its truthful historicity.

I was using its reception as a historic work (in the case of Genesis) to prove it is a historic source and not some other kind of text.

FROM THERE it is at least probable Abraham existed.

VIII

13:59 Sorry, but the song is a bit tasteless in this context ...

[One reason not to link.]

IX

[added later]

On the sandstone problem:

Creation vs. Evolution : Quick Take on Sandstone in Egypt
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/12/quick-take-on-sandstone-in-egypt.html