The questioner says:
My independent study of a biblical timeline agrees with Abraham’s birth of 1946 BC. I am thrilled that there are others who support this sound date. Why have you not placed any further dates that seemingly can go back to a birth date for Adam?
Another date I have seen for Abraham’s birth is 1976 BC.
Obviously the further back in history the less certain is the chronology. So let’s start with some solid chronology.
The divided kingdom probably commenced in 930 BC and ended in 586 BC.1
The reigns of Saul and David may have commenced in 1050 BC and 1010 BC.2
1 Kings 6:1 says that the Exodus was 480 years before the construction of Solomon’s temple, placing it at about 1450 BC. However, there are other opinions by experts that dispute that date, placing it a couple of hundred years later. I am not qualified to be able to determine which suggested Exodus date is more likely.
Earlier dates such as Abraham’s birth are consequently able to be stated even less confidently, and attempts to date events before Abraham speculative. The numbers in the genealogy list of Genesis 11 differ between the Masoretic text, two varying Septuagint texts and the Samaritan text. So even if the date of Abraham’s birth were known confidently, earlier dates would not be. Agriculture commenced in the ancient near east around 10,000 years ago, so that must give an approximate early limit for Cain and Abel who were farmers. Adam cannot have been earlier than about 8,000 BC.
| [1] | E. R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, Grand Rapids MI: The Zondervan Corporation, 1983. |
| [2] | L. McFall, “The Chronology of Saul and David,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 475-533, September 2010. |
The Masoretic text is directly translated into English from the Hebrew original and oldest source. As I understand it, the Septuagint and Samaritan texts are much newer sources in which the original Masoretic text dates where changed. These date changes were because a group of scholars did not believe in the Patriarch ages at the time of their sons birth in the original Masoretic text. However in my opinion, the Masoretic text dates where reasonable enough to be considered infallible. As such, I would submit that these newer(LXX/Samaratan) interpretations/adjustments of the original data can not be trusted. If you hold to this principle, then the Masoretic text date for Adam’s creation can be determined to be 3954 BC within statistical probability of approximetly 10 years on either side of that date. I believe that Dr Hyndman has a better handle on the statistical probabilities than do I, but I doubt this is far off from his postition.
As for the Agriculture around 10,000 yrs and Adam no earlier than 8,000 yrs position I would submit these have been arrived at in a hindsite contrived dating system that is very unreliable due to unknown enviramental condition confounders of the data and as such can not be trusted.
Finally, the 1976 BC date for Abrahams birth would be inconsistant with the Masoretic text date for the Exodus of 1446 BC, when using the current BC/AD dating system as we know it today.