The Spanish Habsburg Had A Nose Formed by Inbreeding

Image courtesy of Don Juan Carreño de Miranda, Public Domain.



Joel Kontinen

A trait of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain was the Habsburg jaw, that was most likely the result of centuries of inbreeding.

The line from the 16th to the 18th centuries that came to an end, when Charles 2 died in 1700, failing to produce an heir.

Now, scientists have said that centuries of inbreeding had brought this deformity on their faces.

This causes us to wonder at the goodness of God and to say that this deformity was caused by selection.- not the natural kind - of centuries of inbreeding caused by genetic homozygosity, when all descendants share the same genes to produce a human being.

Thus, inbreeding can spoil the great walks of God, who wants us to be elegant.

Source:

Saplakoglu, Yasemin. 2019, Inbreeding Caused the Distinctive 'Habsburg Jaw' of 17th Century Royals That Ruled Europe. Live Science (2 December).

Sir Isaac Newton Believed in the Bible’s History

Sir Isaac Newton's portrait by Godfrey Kneller (1702). Image courtesy of Wikipedia. Newton was one of the most famous creation scientists of all time.



Joel Kontinen


Michael Shermer, a well-known American skeptic, has promoted Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday (25th December) as a replacement for Christmas. The idea is somewhat odd since Newton was probably the best-known creation scientist of all times.

Newton wrote surprisingly much about the Bible. He believed that its revelation of the past history of humans and its predictions of the future were entirely reliable. He also studied the history of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern nations and concluded that both Greek and Egyptian historians had artificially stretched their history to make it appear longer than it actually was.

Ancient nations seemed to have had a competition for the longest national history. Historians could for instance invent fictive rulers in order to make the past of their own country appear longer than the history of neighbouring countries.

According to Newton, the history written in the Bible differed from the stories of other nations since it described the past reliably.

Source:

The Newton Project.

Have They Found King Solomon’s Mines?

An 18th century Russian icon depicting King Solomon. Image from Wikipedia.

Joel Kontinen

The Old Testament describes King Solomon as a man of great wisdom, wealth and power. Jesus Christ spoke about him in the Gospels. A recent article in Biblical Archaeology Review suggested that a first century AD painting depicting his wise judgement has been found in the ruins of Pompeii.

The fame of King Solomon has also made its way into popular literature. For instance, the British writer Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) published a fictitious novel describing the adventures of Allan Quatermain, who eventually finds the mines in South Africa. Several popular films are based on the book.

However, some archaeologists known as minimalists have doubted the veracity of the Old Testament’s description of King Solomon. Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University has suggested that archaeological evidence does not support the biblical record of Solomon.

A new radiocarbon dating of an old copper smeltery challenges Finkelstein’s claim. Recently, Los Angeles Times reported on a spectacular find that throws more light on the issue. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Thomas E. Levy of the University of California, San Diego, who has directed the excavations in Jordan, says a huge copper smelting plant found in the biblical land of Edom is at least 300 years older than previously thought.

While Levy does not say the find proves the veracity of the biblical record of Solomon, he says, “we've brought empirical data that shows we have to reevaluate those questions. We're back in the ballgame now."

Archaeologist William Schniedewind supports Levy. In his view, Levy “is completely right. The scientific evidence seems to be going in his favor."

While Finkelstein and other minimalists still doubt the significance of the find, the new radiocarbon dates square nicely with the biblical dates for King Solomon’s reign (971-931 BC).

The site Levy reports on is known as Khirbat en-Nahas or “ruins of copper” in Arabic. It is a 24-acre area 30 miles (50 km) south of the Dead Sea and 30 miles (50 km) north of Petra. It includes over 100 buildings. The huge amount of black slag, which is up to 20 feet (6 metres) deep, shows that the place was by far the largest iron age copper mine.

It is thus very likely that Levy is right and the remains of King Solomon’s mines have indeed been found.

This would be no surprise. We would expect the Bible to be a record of true history.

Recently, an old seal impression found in Jerusalem indicates that the old Testament writers recorded history meticulously and accurately.

Sources:

Feder, Theodore. 2008. Solomon, Socrates and Aristotle. Biblical Archaeology Review 34:5, 32-36 (September-October 2008).

Maugh II, Thomas H. 2008. Copper ruins in Jordan bolster biblical record of King Solomon. Los Angeles Times. (28 October)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-sci-solomon28-2008oct28,0,1332762.story

Genesis is History

Hebrew scholar believes Genesis is history. Adam and Eve at AIG's Creation Museum.




Joel Kontinen

Associate Professor Steven W. Boyd, who has a Ph.D. in Hebraic and Cognate Studies, examined the text of Genesis 1:1-2:3 statistically and concluded that it was historical narrative.

Ancient Hebrew poetry uses parallelism, for instance Psalm 8:4 uses a literary device called synonymic parallelism:

what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

The same thing is described twice in different words (man – son of man, mindful of – care for).

Genesis chapter 1 does not use such parallelism. Doctor Steven W. Boyd compared Genesis 1 to a number of Old Testament passages in which the same story is described both as historical narrative and as poetry. These include:

· Crossing the Red Sea: Exodus 14 (historical narrative) vs. Exodus 15:1–19 (poetry)
· The victory of Barak and Debora over the Canaanites: Judges 4 (historical narrative) vs. Judges 5 (poetry)
· The creation account: Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 (historical narrative) vs. Psalm 104 (poetry).

By computing the distribution of preterites to finite verbs and assessing the results statistically doctor Boyd concluded that the probability of Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 being prose is 0.999972604.

James Barr, Oriel Professor of the interpretation of the Holy Scripture, Oxford University, wrote:

Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:
1. creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience
2. the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story
3. Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.

While professor Barr did not believe that the Genesis account is literal history, he nevertheless confirmed Boyd’s conclusion.

Boyd is more consistent: he believes that Genesis 1:1-2:3 is a reliable historical account of creation. His study was part of the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) project of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR).

Sources:

Barr, James. 1984. Letter to David C.C. Watson, 23 April 1984.

Boyd, Steven W. 2004. The Biblical Hebrew Creation Account: New Numbers Tell The Story. Acts & Facts 33:11, i-iv (November 2004).

The Seventh from Adam

The letter of Jude also mentions Cain, who killed his brother Abel. Pictured here in the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum.

Joel Kontinen

What did the New Testament writers teach about the age of mankind? The letter of Jude includes a fascinating verse that says, ” Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: ’See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones’ ”.

The genealogy in Genesis chapter 5 mentions Enoch who belonged to the seventh generation, counting from Adam. Those who believe that God used evolution or that there are gaps in the genealogy cannot find support for their views in the New Testament.

Not all scholars believe that Jude was the brother of James as he says in the opening verse of his letter since he used Jewish apocalyptic literature as sources. However, this does not make him unreliable. Even Paul used the writings of Greek poets as sources on two occasions (Acts 17: 28; Titus 1:12).

Jude and James were Jesus’ earthly brothers. Before the crucifixion and resurrection they did not believe that Jesus was God but already in the first chapter of Acts they were part of the group of disciples who met at Jerusalem to receive the power Jesus had promised them.

In addition to Enoch , the letter of Jude also mentions Cain, who killed his brother Abel.

Jesus and the writers of the New Testament believed that Genesis was history and that the characters mentioned in the first eleven chapters of the book were real people.

Jesus taught: ” at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female”(Mark 10:6). He regarded Abel, who belonged to the second generation, as a historical person (Luke 11:51) and the flood of Noah’s days as a real event (Matthew 24:37).

Paul wrote that sin came into the world through the trespass of one man – Adam (Romans 5:12-14). Sin brought death and suffering into the world but Jesus Christ overcame death on the cross.