The Narrow Path Ministries

Recently I listened to an interesting podcast about the archaeological excavation known as Gobekli Tepe ( you can read about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göbekli_Tepe

It is believed to have been built by hunter-gatherers who had not yet developed agriculture, animal husbandry, etc. It even pre-dated the invention of the wheel.

This was a very ancient site that was apparently created before the invention of pottery. However, it contains very large megaliths similar to those seen at Stonehenge and other such sites. I guess they say it was created prior to the invention of pottery based on a couple of things: based on dating, etc in pre-exists the time that pottery was known to have been first created, and two, there is absolutely no pottery or shards found at the site (however there are stone tools and implements like bowls carved out of stone).

I admit I have a very hard understanding how sites like this fit into the Biblical narrative. It would have to post-date the flood (otherwise the flood would have destroyed it), but current YEC theory has the flood occurring at around 2300 BC. Modern archaeology accepts that the first pottery was created long before this. Yet we have sites like Gobekli Tepe, which must have been built post-flood, which by all evidence was created in a pre-pottery age.

Of course there are other problems as well, like the Great Pyramid and Sphinx which are dated as older than the accepted date of the flood.

Does anyone have any insight on problems like this?

Would the flood have necessarily destroyed everything? We have floods today and many things survive them. I don't know that pottery or even the pyramids would have been reduced down to mud.

I think the consensus among folks who take the flood account literally is that it was very catastrophic and the earth was essentially a different landscape when the waters receded. I am sure they would say that no man made structure would have survived the flood.

Even a "local flood" theory does not necessarily help with Gobekli Tepe, because the location is in a location that a local flood would have covered. However, one might argue that a local flood would not have been as destructive as a global flood.

I don't have time to read it right now, but a quick search found that Answers in Genesis has published an article about that particular site https://answersingenesis.org/archaeolog ... cient-man/

Very interesting article. Being an old earth creationist I tend to believe we don't know much at all about timelines.

I read the AIG article some time ago and it doesn’t really answer the question as to where it fits other that it was built after Babel and after the flood. For some reason I have a hard time accepting that because the bible says there were cities very early on (Cain built cities) and Gobekl Tepe was built prior to people settling in towns and cities (ie by hunter gatherers).

TK wrote:I read the AIG article some time ago and it doesn’t really answer the question as to where it fits other that it was built after Babel and after the flood. For some reason I have a hard time accepting that because the bible says there were cities very early on (Cain built cities) and Gobekl Tepe was built prior to people settling in towns and cities (ie by hunter gatherers).

My only response would be that I don't find it that hard to accept that even after some humans were capable of building cities other humans still lived as hunter gatherers. It's 2018 and some humans live in cities while others are farmers while others still live in what we would consider primitive tribes in the jungle. When small groups of humans get isolated from the rest of humanity (on purpose or on accident) and multiply, they can develop (or choose not to develop) at their own pace in terms of technology.

I guess it is not very hard for me to imagine a group from Babel becoming isolated and going 'backwards' (technologically speaking) in their culture.

Matt
Very good post, and not just cuz I was thinking the same thing.

Reminds me of some missionaries years ago who were working in the jungle in South America with an isolated tribe. They had great difficulty explaining how a person was nailed to a cross. They couldn't get the people to understand what a nail was. Then one day they opened a can of food and somehow it had been contaminated with a nail!

So do you guys disregard the accepted date of things like this? I assume so but wanted to make sure!

I don't disregard the date. I just don't take it as 100% fact. It seems to me a lot of their dating methods are based on presuppositions.

I am genuinely open to multiple views (theistic evolution, old earth creationism & young earth creationism). I am a young earth creationist because I was persuaded toward that view early in my life and haven't yet been persuaded otherwise.

I haven't really done much digging in this area for almost a decade now. In my early 20's I was fascinated by the subject.