Genesis, Ephesus Harbor, and Radiocarbon Dating

Posted by -

Rivers produce sediment through erosion, and they also pick up other particles, eventually dropping the silt when the currents decrease. At the mouth of a river, dropped silt changes the landscape. Harbors get clogged over time.

The city of Ephesus was important in New Testament times, and was located on an estuary of the River Kaystros. This became silted up and useless as a harbor, and the silting was observed in recorded history. Geologists are studying the area but have troubles with the dating methods.

Ephesus was on an estuary that was later filled in with silt. Secular geologists have problems with dates and should use creation science Flood models.
Views of the harbor road in Ephesus, Flickr / michael.berlin (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Core samples were taken, but the radiometric dating involved has a great deal of difficulty from contamination and that cold ocean water inflates the results. There are also problems correlating dates with historical records. It is indeed unfortunate that secularists reject biblical history and creation science Genesis Flood and Ice Age models out of hand, since those would help them get better radiocarbon dating results.

This paper highlights research relating to the history of the Kaystros estuary and Ephesus harbour as a 30-metre-deep estuary silted up through several thousand years of recorded history. While secular science extends the period of human settlement to 3000 to 5000 BC, the rate of sedimentation at the earliest times fits better within the biblical timeframe. Human activity likely speeded up rates of sedimentation due to the agricultural requirements of a growing population causing faster soil erosion. But the discontinuity in the secular timeframe is considered excessive, i.e. between the Classical-Hellenistic period and that of previous generations. It is considered likely that carbon-14 was not in equilibrium between the atmosphere and ocean towards the end of the Ice Age, which renders carbon-dating erroneous at the earliest time with a widening margin of error.

Although a bit technical, y'all are intelligent folks and even those without strong science backgrounds should be able to get something out of this. To read the rest, deposit yourself at "Delta formation in the Kaystros estuary and silting of the Ephesus Harbour within biblical history."