Monday, January 10, 2005

GH Classic: The Nes-Nissayon Theory

A while back, I posted this explanation of the alternative "Nes-Nissayon" (a.k.a. Gosse) theory, which seems to be well on its way to becoming normative peshat in the RW UO world, if you insist that the world is 6,000 years old.

Many people mistakenly think that this theory means G-d created the world in 6 days, but created it in a mature state, just like the Gemarah says Adam was created as a fully formed 20 year old, even with a navel. (Though I assume without fake memories of a childhood). After the 6 days of creation ended, things continued as normal (though with some funny stuff around the time of the mabul).

However that doesn't work. There are continuous records of civilization in many parts of the world, going back 10,000 years. The "faking" and "planting" of evidence would have had to have continued, for a very long time after creation, at least until after the mabul, or more likely until have the dispersion of the dor haflagah. Otherwise how can you account for ancient building 5,000 and 6,000 years old in parts of the US or Australia ?

So its not just that you have to believe G-d created a world looking older than it is, but that He continually "fixed" things for many thousand of years after that just to keep it looking authentically old. Alternatively, you could say this was all planted before the 6 days ended, but the carbon atoms were arranged so that they would give off false "young" ages when tested later.

I guess if everything is a ness and a nissayon thats okay, but it all sounds pretty strange to me.