I'm Not the One Who Cuts Himself Off From Arguments

I was certainly not willing to change my mind when hearing this, but I was willing to take debate coming back:

The Third Judgment: What Really Happened at Babel
BLK SHP Bible Talk | 31 July 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRGVe3iUyiQ

These are my comments and at the end we find BLK SHP Bible Talk doesn't share my disposition:

4:20 Shinar is Southern Mesopotamia?

Why Southern ... if they journeyed from the East, not from the North, and started in the Mountains of Armenia, Northern Mesopotamia is a much better fit.

I think I have miqqedem with all translations prior to a Swedish one in 1700 on my side.

[Bible of Charles XII translates "österut" instead of "från östern" or "österifrån".]

5:04 Before we even get to chapter 11?

As in, there is no chronological overlap between the two narratives?

8:43 Where does Genesis say idolatry happened at this point in history?

I mean, as normally understood, as a form of religion. Self idolatry is another matter.

9:48 "similar amount of space"

Well, no.

For instance, if the Hebrews preserved Hebrew because they refused to do Nimrod's work, that would mean they were somewhere in the margins, where they would not get the full story, but salient important detail ... the edges of the puzzle, if you like.

In the Ark the covenant was with all eight aboard, and so the ancestors of Moses had a very "first seat" view. Giving them much more detail.

10:54, ah, you mean Thera and Nachor as idolaters would point to the time of Babel?

No. Not in a LXX timeline. In the chronology of the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day (He was born so and so many years after such and such events before you come to "in the 42nd year of Augustus, in the sixth age, when the world was at peace"), Genesis 11 is LXX without the second Cainan. Peleg would have been born 2608 BC.

He died 2218 BC, and in 2165 BC, Nachor, Abram's grandpa, was born.

Babel happened when Peleg was born.

And nowhere does it say Nachor and Thera were born into idolatry, one can assume that Acts 7:4 doesn't refer to when Thera physically died, but when he died spiritually by becoming an idolater, when Abraham was 75 years old, so, 1941 BC.

Babel 2608, first named idolater 1941 BC.

12:55 Ah, OK, Genesis 11 rewinds the clock to before the different languages, OK, I'm good with that.

13:21 You are forgotting what you just said.

If Babel is a flashback, the disunion of languages in Genesis 10 is not something which already happened before. Or even started to happen before.

13:57 That clearly depends on when in archaeology you put Abraham leaving Ur.

I put Abraham banning Ishmael 50 years after Negev had a city near Beersheba that disappeared archaeologically in 3700 BC. I put Genesis 14 at archaeologically 3500 BC.

Why? Because Amorrhaeans were in En Geddi. They were attacked. Now, the only or latest possible archaeological population is the one that's dated 3500 BC based on reed mats used in the evacuation of temple treasures.

15:15 OK, by now you have an economic interest in disagreeing with me.

Not sure how much though.

15:46 My evidence for people spreading outward is, Babel, a k a Göbekli Tepe, launched the agricultural revolution.

A certain narrow path which functioned as a trap for wild beasts near Göbekli Tepe became a corral, allowing people to settle in the area, instead of hunting, as most of the economy was, barring Noah's farm and its débacle, and towards the end of Babel, wheat was being sown.

16:15 Yamnaya ...

Two huge problems for your reading.

1) Since Iberian was Basque, and Spain was settled from Yamnaya, Yamnaya isn't the probable origin of Indo-European languages, but of the single language Basque plus lots of substrate below Indo-European ones closer "home" ...

2) In my chronology, where I have given a good argument for Genesis 14, and at least some for placing Babel in Göbekli Tepe, Yamnaya 3300 to 2600 BC translates to after Genesis 14 to after Joseph died.

1881 BC

Terah died

1877 BC

83.97 pmC, dated as 3321 BC

1857 BC

84.371 pmC, dated as 3262 BC

1856 BC

Jacob and Esau born

...

1687

Joseph dies.

1678 BC

89.449 pmC, dated as 2600 BC

For full tables with some explanation of my method, go to the blog Creation vs. Evolution, crea vs evolu dot blogspot dot com, and look up December 2024.

[Newer Tables: Preliminaries · Flood to Joseph in Egypt · Joseph in Egypt to Fall of Troy.]

16:33 You are misunderstanding the relation between archaeology and linguistics.

One cannot usually trace one language or its ancestry to one place thousands of years before it's written down.

The learned men are comparing spreads of populations and spreads of languages, but the earliest written Indo-European ones are Hittite, Mycenean Greek, and the Aryan vocabulary of the Mitanni.

All three in or near Turkey and at least the first two I mentioned West of Göbekli Tepe. BUT c. 1000 years after Babel.

18:22 How long after the Flood do you put this?

I find representatives of all mankind feasible between 350 and 401 after the Flood, i e Noah's death to Peleg's birth, with Göbekli Tepe built in 40 of the 51 years, and for that, there needs to have been sufficient people, and also for people staying home and not going there.

8 * 1.02^101 = 59 8 * 1.05^101 = 1105

101 years after the Flood, 5 % annual population growth would not suffice to more than little over 1000 people.

401 years after the Flood, we don't need that much:

8 * 1.02^401 = 22 478
More than twenty times more, just for 2 % annual population growth.
8 * 1.05^401 = 2 511 880 150
Two billion people with 5 % is way more than needed, and even more than probable.

531 years could also work:

8 * 1.02^531 = 294 972

Same blog, November 2024.

20:01 Actually, guess work.

Apart from a few divine names, like Juppiter having matches in Greek and Indian, or, without the Father part, in Germanic. But Tewes daeg doesn't translate Dies Jovis, it translates Dies Martis.

The idea of a "tripartite society and religion" isn't matched by all Indo-European cultures and is too common in itself to be a specifically Indo-European invention.

---

Tried to add this Josephus quote to a comment about Nimrod being more like Anthon La Vey and Vlad Tepec than the new high priest of an old false religion:

Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it was through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!

And then I discovered, all my comments were gone. First the added comment below the other didn't get posted, then I renewed to post it as a separate one, then I saw a comment section with my comments gone.

Another Failed Attempt at Denying Genesis 5 and 11's Obvious Chronological Implications

Is It Even Our Math? What Biblical History Tells Us About Genesis
BLK SHP Bible Talk | 17 July 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfdxxeeecBM

The Bible isn't divided into things that tell plain facts and call for deeper consideration.

Each passage, not one exception, does both jobs.

Do you want to know the real theological value of Genesis 5 and 11, beyond the face value?

Luke 3:22—38
https://drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=49&ch=3&l=22-38#x

Don't miss that Jesus was 72nd from Adam.

But that doesn't take away the face. And if you want to reexamine the life spans, but still admit Jesus is 72nd from Adam, that leaves an even shorter timespan for Earth.

If you pretend Jesus was 720th or 7200th from Adam, that changes God's covenant fidelity just as radically as if Antichrist got 1260 rather than 3 1/2 solar years.

2:50 What did you just say about camels?

Rebecca also, when she saw Isaac, lighted off the camel,
[Genesis 24:64]

3:08 I'm not sure Ur Kasdim is Woolley's Ur in South East Mesopotamia.

Ur basically means "city" and you find it in Ur, Uruk, to the best of my knowledge perhaps even Nipp-ur, so why not Ur-fa ... also known as Edessa, North West Mesopotamia, modern Turkey near the Syrian border. Modern name "venerable Urfa" or in Turkish: Şanlıurfa.

I am however pretty sure Genesis 14 carbon dates to 3500 BC. This means that we have no cuneiform texts (perhaps just inscriptions like "5 geese for temple of ..." and "this belongs to so and so" perhaps not even that). Which explains why the kings in that chapter are tricky to identify. I'd say Woolley's Ur was founded when Abram was very young, like a child of seven or perhaps newborn (carbon dating to 4000 BC).

3:34 If that Amorrhite migration came in carbon dated 2200 BC to 1800 BC, that would have been during the sojourn in Egypt. And yes, the 400 years would telescope into a shorter period. The 2200 BC date is misdated by more than the 1800 BC date.

So, no, Abraham came before that migration.

However, there were Amorrhites in Canaan in an on and off city called En Geddi, or back in that day Asason Tamar. Genesis 14 is presumably when their chalcolithic occupation thereof ended. If not, that would mean the carbon date of Genesis 14 would be even further back than 3500 BC.

5:04 1950 BC is not all bad. The Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day says Christ was born 5199 after Creation, 2957 after Flood and ... 2015 after the birth of Abraham.

The problem is, 2015 BC wouldn't line up with carbon dated 2000 BC, but with carbon dated 4000 BC.

5:17 I disagree. If Ur Kasdim really was Woolley's Ur, Abram left it in a stage of build-up.

Just as at 75 / 76, Abraham arrived in an Egypt in a build-up stage. The carbon date would have been 3500 BC, but like Abraham, so also the pharao would have died decades later which would carbon date to centuries later:

1916 BC

Isaac born.

83.166 pmC, dated as 3440 BC

1897 BC

83.568 pmC, dated as 3381 BC

1881 BC

Terah died

1877 BC

83.97 pmC, dated as 3321 BC

1857 BC

84.371 pmC, dated as 3262 BC

1856 BC

Jacob and Esau born

1841 BC

Abraham died

1838 BC

84.77 pmC, dated as 3204 BC

[Creation vs. Evolution: Newer Tables, Flood to Joseph in Egypt
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2024/12/newer-tables-flood-to-joseph-in-egypt.html]

5:47 What we know as the Sumerian King List may have been totally unknown to Abraham:

The Sumerian King List (abbreviated SKL) or Chronicle of the One Monarchy is an ancient literary composition written in Sumerian that was likely created and redacted to legitimize the claims to power of various city-states and kingdoms in southern Mesopotamia during the late third and early second millennium BC.[2][3][4] It does so by repetitively listing Sumerian cities, the kings that ruled there, and the lengths of their reigns. Especially in the early part of the list, these reigns often span thousands of years. In the oldest known version, dated to the Ur III period (c. 2112 – c. 2004 BC) but probably based on Akkadian source material, the SKL reflected a more linear transition of power from Kish, the first city to receive kingship, to Akkad.

Ur III was during the sojourn in Egypt.

5:55 "this was scribal school material, popular literature in Abram's youth"

Scribes were a very restricted élite by the time we get to the king's list.

It would apart from that kind of functionary also have included monarchs, so, Egypt functioned on a similar basis, Moses had the knowledge of Egyptian scribes. However supposing such scribes even existed back when Abram was young, nothing says he would himself have been involved with them.

8:43 Yes, the SKL does have a number of pre-Flood kings corresponding to Genesis 5 minus Adam and Noah.

That's also Genesis 4 plus one king after Lamech.

12:05 So, your point is basically, if a pair of stories in the Bible are related in a literary genre sort of way, they need to have at least one unliteral?

Did Eve not listen to the serpent? Or did Mary not listen to the word of God through Gabriel?

For me, obviously both literally did so, even if that makes them a literary pair and one which Medieval theology made very famous.

16:18 Thank you for not holding to pre-Adamism.

The Catholic Church condemned it.

18:09 "Already speaking different languages."

Does not follow.

I'd say that "and their languages" is here used proleptically, and the section ends in Genesis 11:1. In order to note that this division of languages hinted at hadn't happened yet.

Then the narrative starts in Genesis 11:2 with a subject given as "masculine plural" translated as an unspecified "they" which need not refer to mankind, unlike the previous verse.

20:17 In Matthew one, at least three of four omitted kings can be seen as omitted for a reason: the three cursed generations after Athaliah.

If there is an actual parallel in Genesis 5 or 11, it would probably be:

And Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and begot Sale
[Genesis 11:12]

Where the LXX has:

12 And Arphaxad lived a hundred and thirty-five years, and begot Cainan. 13 And Arphaxad lived after he had begotten Cainan, four hundred years, and begot sons and daughters, and died. And Cainan lived a hundred and thirty years and begot Sala; and Cainan lived after he had begotten Sala, three hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.

Now see this:

It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the omission of the name of Cainan from the Hebrew text, and the consequent general rejection of him by historians, there are more traditions preserved of him than of his son Salah. "The Alexandrine Chronicle derives the Samaritans from Cainan; Eustachius Antiochenus, the Saggodians; George Syncellus, the Gaspheni; Epiphanius the Cajani. Besides the particulars already mentioned, it is said Cainan was the first after the flood who invented astronomy, and that his sons made a god of him, and worshiped his image after his death. The founding of the city of Harran in Mesopotamia is also attributed to him; which, it is pretended, is so called from a son he had of that name." – Anc. Univ. Hist., vol. i, p. 96, note.

Quoted from The Patriarchal Age: or, the History and Religion of Mankind (1854), George Smith

Sounds like a good reason to omit him, if he existed.

21:00 Babel fits into the timeline if Peleg was born 401 or 531 after the Flood.

LXX without the second Cainan, as per Roman Martyrology, or standard LXX with him.

Archaeologically, Babel is carbon dated to 9500 to 8000 BC. For c. 40 years, though it covers 51 in my tables.

Yes, Babel is in Shinar, also known as Mesopotamia. Yes, Babel is the same name as Nebuchadnezzar's city.

This is a city sharing the name of a tea party famed one:

At the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII during the English Reformation, Boston's Dominican, Franciscan, Carmelite, and Augustinian friaries—erected during the boom years of the 13th and 14th centuries—were all expropriated.

As you can imagine, this didn't involve offering fish more than just one cups of tea. But it also isn't the same place, even. There is an Atlantic between them.

21:16 "would have shown up clearly in the historical record"

Exactly what historical record?

Btw, Göbekli Tepe does show up in a cataclysm, starting the Neolithic / Agricultural revolution.

So, on that account clearly fits the bill. But as Göbekli Tepe was pre-preserved and deciphered writing, so was Nimrod's Babel. Just like the founding of Boston's friar convents was before the printing press. And before Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick in the other Boston.

22:01 David begat Solomon.

This is the normal meaning.

22:23 No ... 1) Adam didn't cease to head the covenant people at age 130 or 230. 2) Henoch never became head of the covenant people, since he was lifted up before his father died.

But, also, 3) even if you were right, that wouldn't prolong the timeline.

22:42 130 or 230 adds up with 105 or 205, regardless of whether it ends the times before Adam fathered Seth and Seth fathered Enosh, or it ends the time of Adam's covenant responsibility and than that of Seth's covenant responsibility.

As there has always been a covenant people, there are no gaps between these.

This is where your solution fails to accomodate standard dates from archaeology.

I'm usually for the Mass of Pope St. Pius V, not that said to be of "Pope Paul VI" but I have worshipped within the latter too, and I know by heart one line in Swedish:

"genom alla tider samlar du åt dig ett folk"
"Through all ages thou gatherest to thyself a people"

Unlike Islam or Mormonism, there is no time for a people of God to lapse before another is raised, but all generations from Abel to John on Patmos are included in the line that goes up to the New Covenant, to the Catholic Church.

Therefore there cannot be any gap between the 130 / 230 and the ensuing 105 / 205 years.

23:10 They do record biological birth.

500 years old reflects the iniquity Noah had to bear, either being deprived of earlier sons or being barred for unusually long from marrying.

Jesus said the last days would look like the days of Noah and St. Paul says the last days would include evil people who forbade (presumably not all, but the righteous) to marry.

I'm 57 and going on 58. I am unmarried and think we are in the last days.

[The following two comments have disappeared]

23:59 "same time, different cities"

Sumerian ideology believed in the unity of mankind. A reaction against Babel's cataclysm. A unity under one monarch (a bit like our world is likely to sadly see for 3 1/2 years). That's why, if they couldn't deny either of two parallel dynasties, they serialised them.

Egypt did the same, which gives sufficient room for cramming regnal years of Old and Mid Kingdoms to fit my carbon dates revision.

24:06 The Sumerian list maker was lying.

Instead of admitting that Nioppur and Lagash for instance were independent of each other, they pretended one had ruled the other before the other had ruled the one.

A horrible idea to put this move into the interpretation of Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies.

[Taking a pause now, before perhaps commenting more tomorrow]

24:18 "this was simply not what the SKL was trying to do"

Speculation.

We are not sure they weren't trying to overwhelm with a huge past.

Christmas Explained with Apocalypse 12

WHY isn't THIS STORY told each CHRISTMAS?
BLK SHP Bible Talk | 19 Dec. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-PZOAyrm2k

8:46 There is a problem here.

In 2017, people were saying that the Apoc. 12 Constellation, searched by the same software, occurred once, 2017, and before that you needed to go back before Creation.

Was that search too specific about the stars, or what happened?

11:04 Solution. The Blessed Virgin Mary is more than just "one woman" ...

The Holy Family is the household of faith, and it's patriarch is called Joseph (for a reason).

Herself, She is called "blessed among women" because like Jael and Judith, She killed an important enemy of Israel. However, in Her case, that's a snake. And Luke 1:28 comes before Luke 1:31, She was already victorious before She was pregnant with God in the flesh.

12:55 You just called the woman "faithful Israel" ... but Romans 3:23 states no Israelite was without sin ... except the exception.

Mary is, personally, "daughter Zion", and as such faithful. Genesis 3:15 makes both Jesus and Mary an exception.

15:21 "of Rome"?

Herod sent his own soldiers, Hebrews. At the time, Judaea was a Protectorate, not a Province.

He was vassal to Rome, sure, but so was Antiochus Epiphanes. Nevertheless, when Antiochus attacked Hebrews faithful to the law, his soldiers spoke Greek, not Latin. Herod's spoke Hebrew, not Latin or Greek.

If you have data refuting this, bring them on.

And no, Luke 2:4 doesn't mean there was a Roman tax collector in Bethlehem. Joseph was a patriot and got enrolled to pay the Temple tax. He avoided Roman tax collectors by quitting Galilee. That's why the first Roman census in Judaea is not relevant to the historicity of the Gospels. The one in Galilee was earlier, under the governors of Syria, one other (Saturninus, I think) assisted by Quirinius. It was forgotten except by Luke, because it sparked no revolt.

18:01 Note, Calvary changes the deal.

From Calvary, Jesus conquered back the authority that had been formerly given to Satan. On Calvary, Satan was bound for a thousand years. Before Calvary He says:

Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.
[John 12:31]

32:45 Commandments and Testimony.

What commandments? "I am the Lord thy God" certainly. Not eating pork ... maybe not so relevant any more.

You spoke of a household. It has been a visible community through history. That should be a clue as to its confessional identity. Or some would say "denominational" ... the same city they were first called Christians is where a bishop first called them Catholic (time of Peter, time of his second successor in Antioch, Ignatius).

32:49 Thank you for the final quote.

It's on the frontispiece of St. Nicolas du Chardonnet, where I last worshipped with others for a longer period, except they accept the wrong Pope.