Isn’t Hinduism older than Judaism? And other questions about early history.

Question:

Isn't Hinduism older than Judaism?

Why does my textbook always talk about dates as far as 10,000 years back? For example, “farming methods were discovered almost 10 thousand years ago in Mesopotamia" is in a 9th-grade geography book.

In one post you said animals were herbivores before the flood. How, if some animals' teeth are sharp? Does that prove evolution or is that adaptation?

Sorry, but I have another question. How did people in their early years, like Cain, know how to do certain things like farming, or herding?

Thanks a lot!

Answer:

If you date Judaism from the giving of the law of Mount Sinai, then there were many religions that predate the Law of Moses. The Egyptians had their gods. The Canaanites worshiped Baal and Asherah prior to the Israelite's arrival. The Ammonites were worshiping Molech. How long or how soon a false religion was followed does not make it a superior religion. The one false notion is that the worship of one God is claimed to be a newer innovation. But the evidence given is based on a lack of contradictory evidence. That is a weak claim because it is just as likely that the evidence has been missed or overlooked. The Bible tells us that Abraham, Lot, and Melchizedek in Salem all were worshippers of God. That dates back nearly 2,500 years before Christ. If we accept the rest of the Bible as history, then the truth is that men started as worshiping one God and had decayed into polytheism with monotheists being a small minority (Matthew 7:13-14).

What is rarely mentioned is that the dating methods used are totally unreliable. Typically a target date is estimated and then "proof" is supplied to support that date. Sometimes these are called "just so" stories. For example, it is assumed that men gradually became civilized because that is what evolution says must have happened slowly over time. Just a quick glance on the internet shows people giving dates from 12,000 to 9,000 years ago. Not only are the dates varying, but the lack of evidence for the claim is notable. I did find a comment, "Evidence for fairly sophisticated political and social organization has been identified in Mesopotamia as long ago as 4700 BC" [http://archaeology.about.com/od/temporalstudies/u/human_history.htm] This becomes interesting because what you see is people assuming that if there is sophisticated farming at 4700 BC, then it must have taken thousands of years to get to that level of sophistication -- but again without evidence.

But if we read Genesis, we see that man became quite sophisticated within just a few generations. If men have always been men, then that isn't surprising. If we put you and a few other people in an isolated wilderness, how long would it take for you to start civilizing your existence? There is a fictional story called The Swiss Family Robinson that uses this as its premise. But it isn't a totally made-up premise. People have been stranded in out-of-the-way places and it doesn't take them long to invent ways to simplify life. What the Bible shows is that man started being inventive and we see that men still are inventive. It is evolution that claims men were different in the past than in the present -- but it is without evidence. So, how did Cain and his descendants know how to farm, the same way you would quickly learn to farm if your life required it and you had no teacher.

The change in diet that the Bible records are not evidence of evolution or adaptation. God made changes to His creation after the flood. Exactly what those changes were, we don't know.

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