The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

which is interpreted as post-Flood by most creation geologists (Whitmore and Garner 2008). Furthermore, it is hard to imagine how any site, let alone Gӧbekli Tepe, could have survived the destructive power of the Flood. The question that this paper is trying to address is how long after the Flood this site was constructed. Our biblical timeline splits into two somewhat differing branches starting at Nahor, Abraham’s grandfather, as we go back in time (Genesis 11:24). The one branch is the well-known Masoretic (MT) timeline. The other is the Septuagintal (LXX) timeline, which differs because of the longer ages to fatherhood in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11. We could therefore argue that we are dealing with three timelines when we place Gӧbekli Tepe in history: the conventional, the biblical MT and the biblical LXX. Young (2003) provides further information on the LXX and provides an extensive comparison of the MT and LXX. In this paper, Fig. 3 shows the conventional timeline versus the MT biblical timeline and Fig. 4 shows the conventional timeline versus the LXX timeline. DETERMINING THE DATA POINTS TO BE PLACED ON THE CONVENTIONALAND BIBLICAL TIMELINES To see how the conventional and biblical timelines line up against each other in Figs. 3 and 4, we will first need to determine the historical data points that will go on the timelines. In both figures we have placed data points for the Babel dispersion and Abraham’s visit to Egypt at the beginning and end of the lower biblical timelines. Now we will work out data points for the upper conventional timelines. These upper data points will be addressed from left to right on the upper (conventional) timelines and will be the same in both Figs. 3 and 4. 1. Acheulean tools as a conventional timeline data point We will start with a data point on the conventional timeline that represents very early humans. On a biblical timeline, this data point is the date of the earliest tools that would have been used by early post-Flood humans. In the evolutionary view, stone tools evolved from very primitive to more advanced; any given tools are therefore dated according to an assessment of how “advanced” they are. We must therefore proceed cautiously because some of the objects that they claim are very early tools look like nothing but broken stones; what complicates their thesis is that there are animals like chimpanzees that make and use tools (e.g. stones and twigs) even today. But the most telling information on this subject is that there is a sudden leap in sophistication of stone tools with the Acheulean ones (named after Saint-Acheul in France). These Acheulean hand- axes show admirable skill in their making; we will take the view here that the Acheulean tools were made by humans and could not possibly have been made by animals (see Diez-Martin et al., 2015, for a scholarly paper on Acheulean tools). These Acheulean tools give us a data point of about 1.76 million years ago for the earliest Acheulean tools that have been found so far (Schick and Toth 2012, p. 267). We know that Acheulean tools are post Babel because they are widely spread geographically; however, because the conventional timeline is stretching out breathtakingly fast in this part of our timeline we cannot say how long after Babel these earliest Acheulean tools date. In other words, the exact date where the Babel dispersion lies on the conventional timeline is impossible to determine with current information. We assume here that the Acheulean tools form a data point on the conventional timelines (Figs. 3 and 4) that essentially approaches the date of the Babel dispersion shown on the lower biblical timelines. The Babel dispersion is therefore about 1.76 million years ago on the conventional timeline. 2. The Neanderthals as a conventional timeline data point These ancient people are brought into this discussion because conventional scientists are certain that the Neanderthals had died out before the Ice Age was over. Scientists’ date for the last lingering Neanderthals is as late as 23,000 BC(CT) (Finlayson et al. 2008; Zilhao and Pettitt 2006), about 13,000 conventional years before the end of the Ice Age. We therefore put 23,000 BC(CT) as our second data point on the conventional timeline in the figures. 3. Gӧbekli Tepe founding and end of the Ice Age deglaciation as a conventional timeline data point As noted earlier, the earliest level of Gӧbekli Tepe dates to just under 10,000 BC (CT). This date is significant because 10,000 BC(CT) was approximately the end of the great Ice Age, and the beginning of the Holocene era (Walker et al. 2009). Therefore, the data point of 10,000 BC(CT) has a double meaning: it will go on the conventional timeline for both the founding of Gӧbekli Tepe and the end of the deglaciation in both figures. If we knew exactly when the Ice Age ended in the Old Testament, we would have an easy answer to the question of the biblical dating of Gӧbekli Tepe. But Scripture is silent on the end of the Ice Age. Therefore, the Habermehl ◀ Göbekli Tepe ▶ 2018 ICC 8 Figure 1. Map of Turkey, showing the location of Gӧbekli Tepe. This is about 50 km north of Abraham’s city of Haran, today modern Harran, in Şanlıurfa Province. (Work by Bjoertvedt 2008, Wikipedia .) Figure 2. View of the Gӧbekli Tepe site before the first (temporary) cover was built for protection against the elements. A permanent roof is now being built. (Photo by Teomancimit 2011, Wikipedia .)