We Wish All Christians Knew THIS About the Book of Genesis
Answers in Genesis | 4 Sept. 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L72rO2eoimw
St. Paul treats Melchisedec as a real person.
This means, he takes Genesis 14 as real history.
Now, in a non-inspired work, real history could include pseudo-facts, like WW-I propaganda about Germans making lamp shades of human skin. However, in an inspired work, the only reason for a non-factual statement would be "not meant as real history" ... like the lost son who came back, we cannot be sure any specific man ever ate or tried to eat the husks he gave to swine (nor that there wasn't one). But this venue is not open about Genesis 14.
It's real history, not parable. AND it's inspired, not fallible.
And they returned, and came to the fountain of Misphat, the same is Cades: and they smote all the country of the Amalecites, and the Amorrhean that dwelt in Asasonthamar
[Genesis 14:7]
And where is Asasonthamar?
And there came messengers, and told Josaphat, saying: There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea, and out of Syria, and behold they are in Asasonthamar, which is Engaddi
[2 Paralipomenon (2 Chronicles) 20:2]
Now, the archaeology for Ein Gedi shows no human habitation between the presumable Amorrhean habitation of the chalcolithic, ending 3500 BC (carbon dated) and the Iron Age which is definitely too late.
I think Osgood for all the facts except the 3500 BC carbon date, had to look that one up elsewhere.
However, Genesis 14 cannot have happened in actual 3500 BC, since Abraham was c. 5 years earlier called 430 years before the Exodus, that was 480 or 480 + years prior to the Temple of Solomon, and that was c. 390 years prior to the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.
This means, there is a discrepancy between the carbon date and the actual date. If we take Abraham as born in 2016 BC (as the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day does), and allow Abraham to be around 80 (more than the 75 in chapter 12, less than the 86 in chapter 16), this automatically involves a discrepancy of 1564 extra years.
But 1564 extra years is a carbon 14 level of 82.763 pmC * . Perfectly viable if the carbon 14 level was still rising from an initially lower level, but impossible as just a "wiggle" in the c. 100 pmC roughly speaking stable level.
* (Since .5^(1564/5730) = 0.8276258493022752)
3:49 Obviously, St. Augustine who believed at least on and off in a one moment creation was saved too.
However, if you think Adam had progenitors, you are in trouble.
Two scenarios:
a) they were fully human = he was not the first man, his sin could not be decisive, directly condemned by Trent Session V;
b) they weren't = God put a sinless human child in harm's way.
The idea of Adam having fully human parents was certainly not allowed anywhere among purported Catholics in 1950. The second idea was, by Pius XII, "left on trial" rather than directly condemned.
This had been kind of, but less officially, the case since 1941.
And some were not taking it to "we can defend in a discussion that Adam had non-human progenitors, but we can't actually believe it unless the Church first accepts our arguments", no, they were not just or even foremost defending it, they were believing it. That part of Catholic clergy started the modern child abuse crisis. Remember the 1941 date I just mentioned?
A few years ago, when people who had been big children but below puberty in the 1930's were still alive, a French commission started on the child and youth abuses. Their earliest examples were from the 1940's ... Romans 1:26 ...
7:37 Logically, if you know your science, if you accept long periods of time, you'd suppose the atmosphere was c. 100 pmC both in 3500 BC and in 1936 BC, so full and inerrant historicity of Genesis 14 is out.
Somehow those people never make that connection.
Let's add a closing line in response to their final question:
I allow the Catholic Church to define as first or at least second tier issues whatever She proclaims as dogma.
Note, a statement to the effect "let's say there is so far no dogma on the issue, you can discuss this behind closed doors" is not a dogma, and Pius XII did not define (technical term) that Adam having ancestry was even licit to hold. It isn't. He conditioned the discussions on the willingness to submit to a definite statement of the Church, but didn't say it had to be a future one. I do. Trent Session V echoes Romans Chapter V and this makes Theistic Evolutionism an absolute no go zone.
Accepting millions of years but also believing a literal Adam is simply lazy thought. You can probably be saved, as in a state of grace, but you can't be coherent as in a good philosopher if you do that.
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