Israeli geologists said Monday they have examined a stone tablet detailing repair plans for the Jewish Temple of King Solomon that, if authenticated, would be a rare piece of physical evidence confirming biblical narrative.
It could also strengthen Jewish claims to a disputed holy site in Jerusalem's Old City that is now home to two major mosques.
Muslim clerics insist, despite overwhelming archaeological evidence, that no Jewish shrine ever stood at the site. That claim was made by Palestinian officials in failed negotiations with Israel in 2000 over who would be sovereign there.
It'll be very interesting to see how this plays out...
Err..
quote:
Carbon dating confirms the writing goes back to the 9th century B.C., he said.
I'm sorry, I'm not altogether familiar with carbon-dating and how it works -- or DOESN'T work according to recent assertations that carbon dating may not be anywhere near as effective as it was once thought to be -- but it strikes me that any piece of sand stone might have sat in a cliff face or mountainside for 250,000 years before being extracted, cut up and carved by some writer in the 9th century BC. If that's the case, how could the stone itself date to 9th century BC? The stone was created 250,000 years about, not 2800 years.. Can carbon dating actually determine the age of the carvings in the face of the stone? Sounds far-fetched to me.. the only reasonable explanation to me would be if they were "dating" not the stone itself, but fragments of the carving tool left in the stone. Even so, the materials of the carving tool itself had existed long before the human who wielded it came about, so this just leads to further lack of clarity for me..
In the outer layer, Ilani and his colleagues found microscopic flecks of gold that could have been burnt into the stone when a building containing both the tablet and gold objects was destroyed.
So, would the manipulation of gold matter on the tablet somehow reset the status of the carbon found on the tablet (?)
It could be this act that allows them to place a date on the tablet.
On another note, I've heard that carbon-dating becomes far less accurate as it places items further back in time. One report I read claimed that carbon-dating could not realistically place a date on an item any further back than several thousand years.
Last edited by Marc Flemming on 02-16-2003 at 05:36 AM |
Carbon dating has an "effectivive" range of a few thousand years (approx 5-6000) I put effective in quotes because it can be a pretty flawed system. Doing a simple search on the limitations of carbon dating will show its flaws.
Sean, about dating a stone that is really old but has recent writing on it, that is a sweet question. I have no idea how they can date a stone tablet, unless they can somehow date the writing on it. (who knows how that would happen though)
Regardless of how this plays out, I think the Dead Sea Scrolls provide a lot of evidence for Biblical accuracy. From the DSS to the next documented Bible, everything is the same. Over a 900 year pass in time and a document is still the same, without computers or technology. That is impressive!
01-13-2003 10:13 PM
