Thursday, January 6, 2011

Chronology Wars

Answers In Genesis had a great article in their latest quarterly edition of Answers Magazine regarding ancient chronological history. Though most people do not realize it, the vast majority of ancient history is not nearly as explicit in its chronology as the Bible.

When the Bible makes a multitude of explicit claims on years and dates, we take that for granted. In comparison to other ancient writings, the Bible is much easier to understand chronologically. On the contrary, other cultures were rampant in age inflation and often times did not include the sinful characteristics of a various monarchies and governments. Because of these two problems, it can be difficult to ascertain an accurate chronology and explanation of events in ancient history, especially epochs preceding those of the Greeks before the time of the 1st Olympiad, which was when the Greeks began to be more meticulous historians.

Ultimately, this shows us that we should not pigeon hole ourselves into thinking that we must 'fit' the Bible into pagan history because their respective timelines collapse down pretty signficantly when analyzed in more depth. The Egyptians and Babylonians were notorious for this, not to mention the reality of regimes in Egypt that once appeared to occur in different eras but have now been shown to have existed concurrently in different regions of Egypt.

Therefore, it is pagan history that must fit into a reliable Biblical history and not the other way around.

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