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Among scientists, archaeologists and historians the battle over dating methods continues (though few school children hear of it, even in college, and National Geographic never mentions it in their programs). What sounds simple and definitive is far from it. David Rohl in "Pharaohs and Kings" (see post #305 or the book review posted elsewhere on the LW site) notes that neither he nor most Egyptologists rely on radiocarbon dating (C-14). In his appendix C (p. 314) he comments on the efforts to correct C-14 dates by calibrating them with American bristlecone pine and sequoia data and European oak dendrochronology. Rohl notes that "the historian tends to be selective in his use of C-14 dates." Radiocarbon dates are definitely at odds, to the point of being unusable, when compared with standard historical and archaeological interpretations on dates beyond 2000 B.C. (the time of Abraham) and even down to the 18th dynasty (the mid second millenium B.C., about the time of Moses and Joshua). The problems and conflicts presented by dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating are huge for the historian and archaeologist. Known facts don't fit the supposed "absolute" evidence beyond about 500 B.C. Unfortunately, no really important historical questions are being answered by dendrochronology or radiocarbon dating on this side of 500 B.C., which is for Europe, Asia, Palestine and Egypt already well attested historically. It is beyond 500 B.C. that archaeologists would like to have a truly reliable absolute dating method, and radiocarbon-dendrochronlogy don't qualify at this time. I think that Peter nailed the fundamental problem when he observed that scoffers will say, "...everything goes on as it has since the beginning..." (2 Peter 3:3-4) and then reminds us that the earth does not have a uniformitarian history, but rather a catastrophic one. The Bible (and for that matter other ancient histories and legends) describes a world that has undergone several wrenching changes. Modern paleontologists have finally bought into at least some catastrophic perspective (asteroid impacts for example) in their efforts to explain apparent mass extinctions in the past (including the dinosaurs). Assumptions of "uniformity of natural causes in a closed system" have not proven accurate or helpful, but by and large continue to be taught by schools and mass media.
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