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Radiometric Dating from the Perspective of Biblical Chronology

Proposal

The minimal constraints imposed by a conservative grammatical-historical exegesis of the Bible on the Interpretation of radioisotope data are (1) the Initiation of conditions suitable for the support of organic life, and (2) the introduction of living organisms, on planet Earth (3) within a one-week period of time not less than about 6000 or more than about 8000 years ago. Some exegetes Impose an additional constraint (4) that all material substance within the Solar System originated during the same week.

Constraint number (4) requires all data for radiometric ages greater than the order of 10,000 years on inorganic material to be Interpreted as the consequence of characteristics that were part of the original design at creation, subject to such modifications as may have occurred subsequently as a result of exposure to heat, water and radiation, and not as indicators of age.

Constraints (1) - (3) allow radiometric age data to have time significance for the history of Inorganic material prior to its association with a fossil. This time significance could be totally or partially preserved in the relocation that brought a fossil and Inorganic material Into strati graphic relationship. Accordingly, without constraint number (4) radiometric age data for Inorganic material may be Interpreted as the combined consequence of original design at a primeval creation, subsequent exposure to heat, water and radiation, and time.

Data on the concentration of radioactive atoms in carbon that was once part of a living organism, when Interpreted in accord with constraints (2) and{3), indicate that during the early centuries following the catastrophe described in Genesis 6-8 the carbon-14/ carbon-12 ratio in the biosphere Increased at least 200-fold, and possibly more. Remains of organisms that lived during this time now have radiocarbon ages in excess of their true historical age.

Keywords

Radiometric dating, creationism

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