How do you know a whole earth flood has NEVER taken place? Have we been here as long as the earth to say so for sure? But if you do know somehow, I'm open to hear it.
Ice core samples going back a million years for one, which tell us exactly what gases were in the atmosphere and how much rain and a lot more. Called Paleoclimatology.
Paleoclimatology: The Ice Core Record
Paleoclimatology: The Ice Core Record : Feature Articles
as well as
Antarctic Hills Haven't Seen Water in 14 Million Years
"Water has not flowed across Antarctica's Friis Hills for 14 million years, researchers reported Tuesday (Oct. 29) at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting in Denver.
The Friis Hills rise 2,000 feet (600 meters) above Antarctica's Taylor Valley, one of the "Dry Valleys" west of McMurdo Sound. Fossils show tundra mosses and a lake once covered the flat-topped hills, when Earth's climate was warmer more than 14 million years ago. "
Antarctic Hills Haven't Seen Water in 14 Million Years | LiveScience
Parts of the Atacama Desert in Chile the driest desert on Earth, haven't had rain over two inches in million and millions of years.. How do we know this?
At 7.56 minutes into this video, although I recommend watching the whole thing. But a rock called Gypsum dissolves in water. "If there would have been any rainfall above 2 inches it would have been washed away." The desert is 150 million years old. The desert formed as a shallow seabed and is now 2 miles high from plate tectonics and uplifting.
[youtube]gPHU1AbZTqw[/youtube]
History Ch How the Earth Was Made Complete Season 1 06of13 Driest Place On Earth XviD AC3 MVGroup or - YouTube
No global flood for a fact!!! It was probably local in that area, as they had a lot of flooding.
This really shows the similarities.
Points of similarity between the
Babylonian and Noachian flood stories
COMPARISON OF BABYLONIAN AND NOAHIC FLOOD STORIES
The great Flood: the Eridu Genesis-Sumer
The great Flood: Eridu Genesis
The great Flood: the Epic of Gilgame-Babylonia
"etimes an almost verbatim quote from the Epic of Atrahasis."
The great Flood: Eridu Genesis
Its also not just the flood story, the Creation story Comparison of Genesis' first Creation Story with Enuma Elish, a Babylonian creation story
"The Babylonian creation story is called by its first two words "Enuma Elish." According to archaeologists, it was originally written circa 1120 BCE. It was discovered in 1875 CE. It bears many points of similarity to the first creation story in the Bible: 1"
Comparing the Genesis and Babylonian stories of creation
"The many points of similarity between the two traditions is conclusive proof that one story was derived from the other (or that both were derived from a still older original).
According to liberal theologians, the Babylonian account of creation was written in the 12th century BCE, centuries earlier than the Biblical account. According to conservative Christian theologians, the opposite happened: the Babylonian account was written after the Biblical account."
Yet they are two very different religions.
Then you have "There are two detailed descriptions of the creation process in Genesis:"
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT CREATION?
Israel Finkelstein is part of this documentary and he is the one the OP posted about with the earlier ark story.
NOVA "The Bible's Buried Secrets".
And you also have two versions of the Noah flood story
"What are some obvious inconsistencies, for instance in the Noah story?
"The Book of Genesis offers what appear to be two disparate accounts of Noah and the flood interwoven together."
In the story of the flood, in Genesis chapters 6 to 9, there seem to be two accounts that have been combined, and they have a number of inconsistencies. For example, how many of each species of animals is Noah supposed to bring into the ark? One text says two, a pair of every kind of animal. Another text says seven pairs of the clean animals and only two of the unclean animals."
NOVA | Writers of the Bible
"WHAT TO NOTICE:
In the first place, it is significant that it is possible to separate the text into two continuous stories like this. And it is even more significant that we can find this throughout the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Five Books of Moses. Thus:
The P text here always calls the deity "God" (16 times). The J text always calls the deity by the proper name "YHWH" (10 times).
The P text uses the word "expired." The J text uses the word "died."
In J, it rains for 40 days and nights, and the water recedes for 40 days. In P, the whole process adds up to a calendar year.
In J, Noah releases a dove. In P, he releases a raven.
P has two of each species of animal, a male and a female. J has 14 (seven pairs) of each species of the pure animals (animals that may be sacrificed) and only two of the animals that are not pure. This is important because J ends the story with Noah making a sacrificeso he needs more than two of each animal or he would make a species extinct!
P has details of cubits, dates, and ages. J does not.
In J, God is personal and involved: known by a personal name ("YHWH"), personally closing the ark, personally smelling Noah's sacrifice, described as "grieved to his heart." In P, God's name is not yet known ("God," in Hebrew Elohim, is not a name; it is what God is), and there are none of the anthropomorphic descriptions that are found in J.
And the point is not just that these differences are maintained consistently in this particular text. These differences are also consistent with the language and characteristics of the other P and J texts throughout the Five Books. P consistently is concerned with dates, ages, and measurements. P uses the word "expired" for death elsewhere (11 times); it never occurs in J. And the distinction regarding the name of God is maintained through over 2,000 occurrences in the Torah with only three exceptions. In the P creation story, God creates a space (firmament) that separates waters that are above it from waters below. The universe in that story is thus a habitable bubble surrounded by water. That same conception is assumed here in the P flood story, in which the "apertures of the skies" and the "fountains of the great deep" are broken up so that the waters flow in. The word "rain" does not occur. The J creation account, on the other hand, has no such conception, and here in the J flood story it just rains."
NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Who Wrote the Flood Story? | PBS
You might also notice if you watch the NOVA "The Bible's Buried Secrets". the early Israelites worshiped more then one God.
The Many Gods of Israel
By David Levin
Bill Dever has investigated the archeology of the ancient Near East for more than three decades. He says that in addition to the Hebrew god Yahweh, ancient Israelites may have also worshipped Canaanite gods and goddesses.
"BILL DEVER: I discovered a Hebrew inscription of the eighth century BCE. And it gives the name of the deceased, and says, "blessed may X be by Yahweh," that's good biblical Hebrew. But it says, "by Yahweh and his Asherah." And Asherah is the name of the old Canaanite mother goddess, the consort of the El, the principal deity of the Canaanite pantheon.
DAVID LEVIN: So why would a Hebrew inscription mention Yahweh with another diety?
BILL DEVER: Well, in popular religion, they were a pair. I think Asherah was widely venerated in ancient Israel. If you look at Second Kings 23, which describes the reforms of King Josiah in the late seventh century, he talks about purging the temple of all the cult paraphernalia of Asherah. So the popular cult so-called folk religion even penetrated the temple in Jerusalem. This is the extent to which the old Canaanite cults prevailed despite the ideal in the Hebrew Bible of monotheism. That's the ideal. The reality was very different."
NOVA | The Many Gods of Israel