Dilemma of history and prehistory dating and literate data and illiterate data as seen by D. H. French
--- My Suggestion is this: Do not use Pre-historical Archaeological
dating as absolute chronology but only as an attempt to put data in sequential
order. This is why. ---History from literary sources started around 2500/2600 BC. Although I
am a Biblicist, non-biblicists are saying this. ---Before 2600 BC, we just have pre-history in modern terms. ---No written sources. No chronology. No people mentioned by name.
Nameless, date-less yet the objects or fashion are there. ---So how do scholars work out the “history” of the object that early? ---Educated guesses and guesses they are with imagination running
sometimes not only wild but mainly bewildered and insane. ---Imagine Richard Dawkins millions of years or the words so commonly
used by these scholars “sometime in the distant past”. ---Why are the scholars so utterly confused and perplexed? ---They believe…believe in their materialistic charcoal tests,
Dendron-chronology, and the list goes on. ---They think everything was running uniformly the same for millions of
years. Proof? No believe. ---But it is science. Science? Bla. ---They are using psychological overreacted Charles Darwin’s anger
against God for “killing” his daughter Emma in New York by cancer invention of
Evolution as a counteraction against Creationism, blatant imagination. Fairy
tale of the frog and the toad. ---He said it himself in the last Appendix to the book of Origin of Species. Now you know.
---An article was written by D.H. French on the specific relationship
between archaeology and religion.[1]
---French's article concerned itself with prehistory which he indicated
"is open to dramatic reconstructions based on subjective value-judgments."[2]
---He ascribes this tendency to fill pages with all kinds of
reconstructions on the origins of religion in all its aspects as due to an
absence of written texts since it was the period before literacy. ---Since the origins of religion in the past was described without the
aid of written sources to serve as check and balance to the theories proposed,
it means that very "dramatic interpretations" resulted about
"exempli gratia magic, superstition, belief, practice, symbolic
decoration, theology, monotheism, polytheism, ceremonial, festivals,
celebrations" etc.[3] ---The article of French serves to illustrate the need of the Text to
stand side by side with the Tel attempting to interpret the limited,
fragmented, selected "past" and its religion. ---He asked the legitimate question whether it is possible "to
extrapolate from a literate Second Millennium to the pre-literate Sixth
Millennium and reconstruct a sequence of religious development?"[4] ---This critical analysis of French to attempt to carry into a period
before literacy, the results of the period during which literacy was prevalent,
is worth looking at. French contend that there is a danger that the nature of
the religious traditions in the Classical period may itself be misunderstood,
and therefore "there is a need to state the premises on which all
reconstructions or extrapolations are based."[5]
---Hardly any researcher states his/her premises frontal and consciously
clear. ---The next question that one should ask pursuing in the line of thinking
of that of French, is where does researchers gather the data to set up the
criteria for investigating the Second Millennium, the First and any era for
that matter. ---In the final analysis we are back at the limitations of research,
namely that all researchers are sitting at the edge of the "big, ugly
ditch" that separates the past from the present. ---It is known by analysts that the baggage one carries to the ditch
forms part of the analytical theory of the researcher. ---There are as many results as there are researchers upon the face of
the earth. ---This could be one reason why latest books speak of science as an
"art". ---Everyone perceives his/her own way and collect and arrange data
according to the norms or criteria that he/she perceives will be able to uphold
the status quo amidst the burocracy of academics in the same science. ---The consensus of the burocracy of academics is attained by its own
science-political and other power tools that functions to impress upon a
learnhungry society with their massmedia what is "appropriate, modest and
expected." ---I do not belong to AASOR, BASOR, SBL, Evangelical Society, Catholic
League, but you do not need to belong to any of them to realize the major
problems all of them have to cope with. ---Hebrews were the only nation that I know of, who had a strict
recordkeeping agenda of events and times in chronological order. ---Ellen White said, you have nothing to fear for the future except you
forget how God has led us in the past. Nice right? ---So do not come to me with stories of millions of years ago or 50
thousand years ago. ---Noah’s Flood was in the year 2692 BC according to strict Masoretic
Text chronology using also Paul statement of Abraham in Galatians 3:17-19 not
as Abraham Seed but the seed of Joseph, the last one who confirmed the covenant.
This is the key to unlock the proper chronology of the Old Testament. Many
scholars failed in their calculations ending up putting Abraham in the time of
Hammurabi in 1798 BC! ---Secondly, do not use Edwin Thiele’s 4th year of Solomon as
966/965 BC. Use William Shea’s as 970 BC. It is the way I have it too, Julius
Nam, Richard Davidson. That means 2692 BC for the Flood. Thanks. ---Now, because the Flood covered all mountains about ten meters above,
therefore no culture survived in pre-Flood eras. Sorry millions of years
theorists. Sorry Uniformists. Thanks to Hebrew historiography. ---Now one can align the sequential data and park them orderly after 2692
BC and catch up with literate sources around 2400 BC easily. Nice right? The rest
remains untouched and the same using the article by W. Ward on Egyptian
chronology. ---Everything starts to make sense and the Hebrew historiography of the
Masoretic Text becomes a sure guide for history of the past, and I say, for the
present as well using the prophets.