I got a question about Noah and the flood.

Originally posted by Adrianay
"dude, the whole old testament is made up of FABLES to explain the way the world works and how one should go about living their lives. they are tall tales, elaborated stories of what actually occured, or explanations of the way things are."

Try to actually prove your point with facts instead of accusing the bible of this or that based on opinion.

geez man...sorry....
oh wait no nevermind, im not sorry.

heres why:

These are some examples of mistakes: The ambiguous word for hill or country was mistranslated as mountain. The words that identified the flood as a river flood were changed to indicate an ocean deluge. The archaic number signs in which the Genesis 5 numbers and Noah's age were recorded, were mistranslated which made them about ten times their original value. The "flood" of Genesis 6-7 was confused with the "waters" of Genesis 8. A journey on foot to Mount Judi in the Mountains of Ararat was confused with a journey on the water of the Persian Gulf. The numbers in the Sumerian King List were also mistraslated by an ancient scribe.

and:

Are flood models consistent with the Bible? Creationists who write about the Flood often contradict the very story they're trying to support. For example, Whitcomb & Morris [1961, p. 69n] suggest that large numbers of kinds of land animals became extinct because of the Flood, while Genesis repeatedly says that Noah was ordered to take a representative sample of all kinds of land animals on the Ark to save them from extinction, and that Noah did as ordered. Woodmorappe [1996, p. 3] wants to leave invertebrates (i.e., just about "every creeping thing on the ground") off the ark. Why should we give credence to a story whose most ardent supporters abandon when it's inconvenient?

and:

Genesis 6-8 speaks only of rain, fountains, and a flood; it makes no mention of other catastrophies which many Creationists associate with the Flood. Their proposed Flood models not only contradict geology, they have no Biblical support, either.

and:

How can a literal interpretation be consistent with reality? How could Noah have gathered male and female of each kind [Gen. 7:15-16 ] when some species are asexual, others are parthenogenic and have only females, and others (such as earthworms) are hermaphrodites? And what about social animals like ants and termites which need the whole nest to survive?

and:

Why is there no mention of the Flood in the records of Egyptian or Mesopotamian civilizations which existed at the time? Biblical dates (I Kings 6:1 , Gal 3:17 , various generation lengths given in Genesis) place the Flood 1300 years before Solomon began the first temple. We can construct reliable chronologies for near Eastern history, particularly for Egypt, from many kinds of records from the literate cultures in the near East. These records are independent of, but supported by, dating methods such as dendrochronology and carbon-14. The building of the first temple can be dated to 950 B.C. +/- some small delta, placing the Flood around 2250 B.C. Unfortunately, the Egyptians (among others) have written records dating well back before 2250 B.C. (the Great Pyramid, for example dates to the 26th century B.C., 300 years before the Biblical date for the Flood). No sign in Egyptian inscriptions of this global flood around 2250 B.C.

and:

Why should we expect Genesis to be accurate? We know that other people's sacred stories change over time [Baaren, 1972] and that changes to the Genesis Flood story have occurred in later traditions [Ginzberg, 1909; Utley, 1961]. Is it not reasonable to assume that changes occurred between the story's origin and its being written down in its present form?

and:

How many forests would it take to provide the lumber for such a boat? How many people working how many years would be required? Building a pyramid would be peanuts compared to building the ark. But remember, people lived a lot longer in those days. Noah was 600 years old when he built his giant boat in the desert.

and (a nice whip of cynicism here):

Finally, belief in the universal flood or even belief in the building of the ark are not nearly as strange as the belief that this event of mass destruction was the direct work of the Creator to show anger at people who would dare to enjoy this life and have a good time rather than spend all their free time worshipping the Almighty.

once again...the flood is simply
ADVANCED AESOP

though it does teach a great lesson:
do as i say, not as i do

www.flood-myth.com...
www.talkorigins.org...
skepdic.com...

Originally posted by ktprktpr
NotTooHappy - "It's not the water thing that bugs me. I wonder how he fit 2 of every one of the 30,000,000+ species of land animals in to that ark he built. I mean, it must've been one hell of a big boat."

Simple. Noah took genetic samples of each animal, male, female, clean and unclean. That way he could fit every species on the planet. That's only way I can see it working. All he needed to do is get a blood sample from each animal, mark it, and store it on the ship.

so youre saying...noah was a modern geneticist? with the white lab coat and everything? taped glasses? sorry, this was just the image in my mind i got when i read that, i dunno why,

but according to da big book, he DID have every animal...not just their DNA:

17: Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
18: And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him:
19: Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.

hehehhee i could see little petri dished with legs walking out of a big ship...thats be pretty funny

Originally posted by Adrianay


Some people are saying that noahs ark is a load of rubbish.Can anyone tell me why you believe this?????

because i believe that the whole bible (but old testament esp.) is abig book of fables, good stories, totem pole tales, and good old time passers on how to live life well and love one another.

Psalm 104:5-8

"He established the earth on its foundations; it will never be upended. The watery deep covered it like a garment; the waters reached above the mountains. Your shout made the waters retreat; at the sound of your thunderous voice they hurried off� as the mountains rose up, and the valleys went down�to the place you appointed for them. You set up a boundary for them that they could not cross, so that they would not cover the earth again."

This suggests the creationist view that continental drift was more like continental sprint and that plate tectonics cause the mountains to rise to their current height in a very short amount of time rather than billions of years.

More on the flood here

The whole story loses me with the salt/freshwater thing.

How could the salt water speicies survive the inundation of fresh water? Did they magically "evolve" to accept their new environment? Also did they evolve back when the waters receded to become salt lakes and oceans?

How about that one window deal. Could you imagine the smell? Not to mention all the food, hay, oxygen all those animals would require. Noah would have suffocated.

How about those kangaroos or Koala bears? They reside on only one continent. How did Noah get them to the ark?

There is not one thing in the world that could get me to believe this tale.

What bothers me the most is most X-ians don't consider that 'god' killed everyone for the wickedness of a percentage. He killed mothers, pregnant women, and children who were probably no doubt righteous but not priveliged enough to be born into Noahs family unit. Does this seem like a fair god? It seems to me if he really was all powerful, loving and generous he would have made the wicked people disappear or better yet, never allow them to be conceived! That seems more humane. But that would be too easy and doesn't make for an interesting story subject.

The whole saltwater/freshwater question sounds like a very good question to me too. If a great flood covered the entire planet maybe the time of the event by our reasoning is way off. I say this because of another question. If Noah and his family/relatives were the only survivors of a planet wide flood, then how long would it take for a few people to change into all the known races of man?

Here's a tale of how the great flood could have occurred (speculation). The earth was mostly flat land with only a few not so tall mountains which today would probably be considered hills. This event is far back in time, many tens of thousands years ago. A large object entered the inner solar system and drifted close "astronomically" to the earth resulting in a catastrophy. Huge reservoirs of water deep within the earth cracked open the mid atlantic and other ridges and spewed 10 miles high into space eventually raining down on the earth. Continents shifted and the whole flat earth was covered in water. Former hills called mountains became real mountains and grew taller. Continents raced away from each other forming oceans as the water receded into their lower areas.

Finally the one group of survivors spread out among the continents and over 80,000 years later their skin changed colors and mutations developed to form the races we see today.

Perhaps there was one large ocean on Earth and only a few inland lakes on this vast low flat supercontinent. Then if freshwater rained down, it would totally cover all the land and "mountains" but not kill the aquatic life. Of course this tale raises new questions. How long would it take a few survivors to create all the known races of man? I guess it might depend on how varied Noah and his relatives were. I'm just speculating here any comments?

I've read through this whole post and can't believe that not one person has mentioned the Epic of Gilgamesh.

www.ancienttexts.org...

This is where the story of Noah comes from. It was a localised flood caused when the Euphrates flooded. Hebrew Bible compilers later took the story, embellished it with symbolism and placed it in the scriptures.

The world deluge described in the Bible did not occur. Any flood of this magnitude would have left a signature. You would need 3 times the amount of water contained in the Earth's oceans and lakes to cover the entire world. If that much water was stored and came from underground, the Earth would be a bog. If an asteroid hit the Earth it would have to be 1000 miles across and even Noah wouldn't have survived that.

The Gilgamesh flood is both logically and scientifically likely to have occured. The flood signature has been found and the historical figure that the story refers to is thought to have existed.

Probably evaporation, some probably formed the polar caps(I read somewhere that the earths climate was much different during the times before the flood)
And after awhile I imagine that alot of the water soaked back into the earth

well orion, one problem is that continent, dont race, they move sluggishly. if there was one supercontinent as you suggest, and then earth is 6000 years old as the biblee suggests, then the north american and european continent moving awat from eachother at over 150 ft per year, which doesnt seem fast but for a continent it is. If this speed kept the same for all tectonic plates then places like the himilayas where two plates are colliding the mountains would rise at a rate of roughly 6.5 miles every hundred years, something that obviously doesnt happen. problem two. where is this enourmous object that came so close to earth, i mean something big enough to ahev a gravity large enough to pull water from the center of the earth doenst just disappear. third. a species cant be started by one family. One problem to me is that is it possible to get a poppulation of 6 billion out of 5 in 80,000 years. A second problem is that there would be severe incest so we would all be very veryt simmiliar people, so our immune systems would also be very simmialiar so a disease such as the black plague would have killed nearly everyone, imagine a middle age city like london or paris just becoming a ghost town in one year because of one disease that nobodys immune system could defend against because all their immune systems were so simmiliar because they themsleves were so simmiliar.

Originally posted by Adrianay
"dude, the whole old testament is made up of FABLES to explain the way the world works and how one should go about living their lives. they are tall tales, elaborated stories of what actually occured, or explanations of the way things are."

Try to actually prove your point with facts instead of accusing the bible of this or that based on opinion.

This is something that I just couldn't pass up.
The bible is written from the point of view of a bronze age tribe in the middle east. This expalins a great deal, especially as it gets an awful lot of things wrong, or muddles others. A good example is the story of Joseph, which seems to be a confused account of the Hyskos invasion of Egypt. Another example is the invasion of Canaan, which, rather embarrassingly, is not backed up by archaeological evidence in the ground. A number of towns that were supposed to be sacked by the Israelites, um, weren't at the times claimed. The Hittites, one of the most powerful nations in the Middle East at one time, only get a few mentions despite their wars against Egypt. The origin of the Philistines (Mycenean Greek exiles) is never mentioned. The Ark, the most important part of the Jewish religion, mysteriously vanishes.
Other things: The bible appears to have been selectively edited at some point, especially the New Testament. Paul's leadership starts, would you believe it, at the end of the Jewish rebellion. The previous leader was James who was based in Jerusalem - which was then burnt to the ground by the Roman Army under Titus. Based on the various parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls that have been unveiled, I suspect that the more nationalistic parts of the Bible have been pruned or rewritten. It's certainly telling that Paul made a big deal of his Roman citizenship and that there are mentions of him toning parts of his teachings down under pressure from Jerusalem (in other words, James when he was alive). The chances are that once Jerusalem was a heap of burning rubble and James was dead, Paul stepped into the vacuum and changed things to be more Roman-friendly.
The bible is a collection of tales, myths, and tweaked parts. And those are the bits that we know about. Anyone who claims that it is all true, from beginning to end, has a bit of mind-expanding to do.