Noahs Ark and the Biblical World Wide Flood Never Happened

originally posted by: Venkuish1

originally posted by: FlyersFan

originally posted by: Venkuish1
We all know it was never meant to be an allegory no matter how ambiguous Biblical stories are according to some Christians.

Genesis was written around 500 BC. I am not a Jewish scholar and don't have Jewish texts here to check, but I would think that the authors probably actually believed the story to be true. I could be wrong. I can't find anything online that says what the people who wrote Genesis were thinking at the time. Jewish tradition is that Moses wrote it. But that's impossible. I don't know what modern Jews think of the story either .. if they believe it is historical or not.

The Catholic Council of Carthage put the bible together in 397AD. They decided to use the Jewish holy books as the Old Testament. I have a lot of texts here about church history and bible history, but nothing speaks to the mindset of those who put the bible together if they actually believed it was literal history or if they thought it was just a myth that taught a lesson on God. There might be something deep in the Vatican archives about why the Council picked those books, but I don't have it and I can't find it online.

We have four bibles in this house. When we read the bible we use the one printed in 1970. It has footnotes. In the footnotes for the Noahs Ark passages it states that the story is not to be read as literal history. This has been the teaching of the Catholic church for a long time but I can't say if any official pronouncements were made on it or if it was always the teaching that it wasn't literal history. I don't have that information.

For the protestants - I'm pretty sure the fundamentalists believe it's literal history. Baptist, Church of Christ, etc. But the regular mainline ones like Episcopal and Lutheran and Methodist etc have their own sets of beliefs on this and it could go either way. We would have to ask multiple ministers from each of those denominations what the teaching is. (I can't be bothered)

The problem are the retrospective claims made when it comes to the Biblical stories. We all know these stories are told by the authors who believed they were true and so Christians (at least until very recently) believe them to be true too.

I can't see why people insist and take these stories literally in the 21st century. They are clearly works of fiction and I don't think Jewish mythology has any place in today's secular western societies.

What's more, the Noah account (IMO just a children's bedtime story) was based on Gilgamesh which was based on Atrahasis which describes ..... a violent storm hitting a coastal community. Not a pangolin, playpus or penquin to be seen!

originally posted by: WaESN

originally posted by: Venkuish1

originally posted by: FlyersFan

originally posted by: Venkuish1
We all know it was never meant to be an allegory no matter how ambiguous Biblical stories are according to some Christians.

Genesis was written around 500 BC. I am not a Jewish scholar and don't have Jewish texts here to check, but I would think that the authors probably actually believed the story to be true. I could be wrong. I can't find anything online that says what the people who wrote Genesis were thinking at the time. Jewish tradition is that Moses wrote it. But that's impossible. I don't know what modern Jews think of the story either .. if they believe it is historical or not.

The Catholic Council of Carthage put the bible together in 397AD. They decided to use the Jewish holy books as the Old Testament. I have a lot of texts here about church history and bible history, but nothing speaks to the mindset of those who put the bible together if they actually believed it was literal history or if they thought it was just a myth that taught a lesson on God. There might be something deep in the Vatican archives about why the Council picked those books, but I don't have it and I can't find it online.

We have four bibles in this house. When we read the bible we use the one printed in 1970. It has footnotes. In the footnotes for the Noahs Ark passages it states that the story is not to be read as literal history. This has been the teaching of the Catholic church for a long time but I can't say if any official pronouncements were made on it or if it was always the teaching that it wasn't literal history. I don't have that information.

For the protestants - I'm pretty sure the fundamentalists believe it's literal history. Baptist, Church of Christ, etc. But the regular mainline ones like Episcopal and Lutheran and Methodist etc have their own sets of beliefs on this and it could go either way. We would have to ask multiple ministers from each of those denominations what the teaching is. (I can't be bothered)

The problem are the retrospective claims made when it comes to the Biblical stories. We all know these stories are told by the authors who believed they were true and so Christians (at least until very recently) believe them to be true too.

I can't see why people insist and take these stories literally in the 21st century. They are clearly works of fiction and I don't think Jewish mythology has any place in today's secular western societies.

What's more, the Noah account (IMO just a children's bedtime story) was based on Gilgamesh which was based on Atrahasis which describes ..... a violent storm hitting a coastal community. Not a pangolin, playpus or penquin to be seen!

It's your opinion but it's a correct opinion!

This is a myth and it's not the only one with respect to great floods because God or God's were angry. It looks like similar accounts of great floods exist in many civilizations over different periods of time.

Same is true with the stories of parthenogenesis in which the 'saviour' or the 'chosen' is born out of a virgin.

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation." For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. (2 Peter 3:1-18 ESV)

a reply to: TheGoodNews

Highlighting that statement says you feel you convey a divinely interpreted message from god in response to people who call BS on very human narratives like the flood. Or that critiquing it is wicked.

I also come with a message from a god, or sorts, and she wants to riff on your interjection that revived this thread.

knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation." For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

See, that's my deal with The New Testament. In 70 CE that made sense taken literally, you have to kinda plant yourself in an anthropomorphic mindset.

I need the updated one where god knew about hydrogen.

Like the universe didn't say "let there be light" until about 10 seconds in, until after the leptons and anti-leptons annihilated each-other. But the light (photons) dominated for 380,000 years until the early universe cooled enough for hydrogen and helium to form.

But in God's awesome extremely minimal planning, it worked creation in several stages. We know there's more than just Hydrogen and Helium in the universe, and that's why God needed the program to run through a first generation of stars. Those took millions of years to happen. They lived fast and died explosively to create the heavier elements which the earth is made of.

God is so much cooler if it created a universe to do that on its own.

The living and interacting god really needs to just hurry up and name the freaking prophet so they can come back and explain to everyone why listening to an antiquated narrative with a collapse clause written in is fundimentally a bad way to do the god thing.

Or why it might be a misstep to assume someone contradicting a mortal's attempts to channel the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is the will of an unholy deceiver.

I'm all for people developing a relationship with a god of their choosing, but some of us don't trust that 15 or 16 different writers spent 70 years, channeling with absolute clarity a singular muse.

Simon Peter was okay, better than Paul The Apostle.

Honestly, IMO, the writers of the second temple that pretended to be King Solomon, using Persian loan-words, knocked it out of the park with Ecclesiastes.

A lot of what was fraudulently attributed to Solomon is just so good. The concurrently written Avesta influenced parts are great too.

The point of all this is, a singular interacting god and voice doesn't use 50-60 different writers, hundreds of years, two testaments, and loan words from other languages to convey something specific, and then later rework what was said, if it's not a human attempt to channel what they feel is divinely inspired.

The naysayers should be judged on actions, think that's what someone imagined god said too. I think you can both "do good" and believe in all the blasphemous contradictory science you want.

a reply to: TheGoodNews

... and none of that addresses the facts presented in this thread, such as the fact that the animals all couldn't fit on the ark, nor could their food and water, and the fact that the animals couldn't get to the ark, and that Noah couldn't collect the food needed for the animals, and the fact that there is ZERO evidence of a world wide flood on Earth ... etc etc.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.....this thread rears its head again.