Ancient flood stories from many parts of the world

[johnhanks]

It is not just I, but scientists and biologists that say the evidence for evolution doesn't exist...

To be precise, a very tiny minority of "scientists and biologists" who let their religious beliefs take precedence over their science.
If I am wrong, please produce a list of biologists who reject evolution on grounds unconnected with their religion.

 

[Agnostic75]

.......the Dead Sea Scrolls, containing the complete scroll of Isaiah, and fragments of several other books of the Hebrew scriptures, are reliably dated to not later then the 1st or 2nd century before Christ?

Which has what to do with whether or not a global flood supposedly occurred many centuries earlier?

That human survivors of the Flood, 8 people, were eyewitnesses of that event? The lives of Shem (one of the survivors) and Abraham overlapped about 150 years. Thus, Abraham could have received first-hand knowledge of the Flood.

Or, a Bible writer could have had some innocent but inaccurate revelations. The writer of the book of Genesis never claimed that he saw a flood occur, and never claimed that he got his information from eyewitnesses.

At any rate, you do not know enough about geology to adequate debate from an entirely scientific perspective whether or not a global flood occurred. The same thing does for evolution. You do not know enough about evolution to debate from an entirely scientific perspective whether or not creationism is true.

 

[Agnostic75]

Message to rusra02: You do not know enough about evolution to discredit it. If you know a lot about evolution, then you should be able to adequately critique an article at The Flagellum Unspun by Dr. Ken Miller about the evolution of the flagellum, but you know that you can't. Logically, it is impossible for a person to adequately discredit something that he does not understand.

Some natives who live in remote jungles in Africa are Christians, do not know how to read and write, and have very little contact with the outside world. They know next to nothing about evolution, and yet you are happy that they became Christians. So much for your pretense that you are interested in science. If it is acceptable for those natives to accept creationism when they know next to nothing about it, wouldn't it also be acceptable for evolutionists to accept evolution when they know next to nothing about it?

 

[outhouse]

You do not know enough about evolution to discredit it.

he has been explained evolution, upside down and sideways

were talking about refusal of knowledge

 

[camanintx]

Jesus Christ firmly believed in the Bible's account of the Flood. (Luke 17:26,27) So do Christ's true followers. I find nothing in the record of the Flood to be implausible nor absurd. To the contrary, the geological, fossil, and archeological evidence, while not conclusive, certainly supports the idea of a great disaster involving water occurring in the historical past. How can someone know the Flood is a myth, especially as a child? To know implies having irrefutable facts as evidence. I know of no such facts.

Has anyone even tried to explain the presense of fossilized charcoal layers within the geologic columns supposedly desposited during the flood? How do you explain massive wildfires when the Earth was supposedly covered in water?

 

[darkendless]

I get more disillusioned with the critical reasoning of humanity every time a "flood thread" is created.

 

[rusra02]

Which has what to do with whether or not a global flood supposedly occurred many centuries earlier?

You apparently did not read the post carefully. I was responding to the claim below made by the previous post:
"Secondly, the Bible was first compiled around 400ad and contains testimonies supposed from people who lived no earlier than 70ad. There are no eyewitness accounts of the global flood in the Bible."
Obviously, the Bible predates the dates given in this post, as evidenced by the Dead Sea Scrolls dated to the 1st or 2nd century before Christ.

Or, a Bible writer could have had some innocent but inaccurate revelations. The writer of the book of Genesis never claimed that he saw a flood occur, and never claimed that he got his information from eyewitnesses.

The claim was there were no eyewitnesses to the Flood. The evidence in Genesis proves otherwise. The eight survivors were eyewitnesses

At any rate, you do not know enough about geology to adequate debate from an entirely scientific perspective whether or not a global flood occurred. The same thing does for evolution. You do not know enough about evolution to debate from an entirely scientific perspective whether or not creationism is true.

The arrogance and dismissiveness displayed in the above statement is sadly typical of ToE proponents.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Obviously, the Bible predates the dates given in this post, as evidenced by the Dead Sea Scrolls dated to the 1st or 2nd century before Christ.

And how many texts found in the Dead Sea Scrolls can be found in the Bible?

The claim was there were no eyewitnesses to the Flood. The evidence in Genesis proves otherwise. The eight survivors were eyewitnesses

The eight alleged survivors according to a book written and compiled by people who do not even have second-hand accounts of their testimony. If this is evidence, then if I get seven of my friends to write that they saw a donkey jump over a rainbow, that should count as eyewitness testimony.

 

[johnhanks]

The claim was there were no eyewitnesses to the Flood.

No, the claim was that there is no eyewitness testimony found in the Bible. Eyewitness testimony means testimony written by an eyewitness. If somebody else's reporting of Abraham's supposed conversations with Shem counts as eyewitness testimony, then by your reckoning my childhood conversations with my grandfather mean I can write eyewitness testimony of World War I. Why aren't military historians queuing up at my door?

 

[rusra02]

And how many texts found in the Dead Sea Scrolls can be found in the Bible?


The eight alleged survivors according to a book written and compiled by people who do not even have second-hand accounts of their testimony. If this is evidence, then if I get seven of my friends to write that they saw a donkey jump over a rainbow, that should count as eyewitness testimony.

I don't understand your question about the Dead Sea Scrolls. But the scrolls contain texts from Exodus, Leviticus, Ruth, Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, and commentaries from several addtional books of the Hebrew Scriptures.

I believe the record of Creation, the Flood, and other historical events are recorded by authors who "spoke from God." (2 Peter 1:21) Obviously, there were no human eyewitnesses to Creation. But there were eyewitnesses, most notably the Creator himself. The writer of Genesis faithfully recorded what he was inspired to write. "All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching." (2 Timothy 3:16) Jehovah God and Jesus Christ are the chief witnesses to the Bible's truthfulness, and they are both eyewitnesses. Human eyewitnesses add their testimony to the Bible's veracity.

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[rusra02]

No, the claim was that there is no eyewitness testimony found in the Bible. Eyewitness testimony means testimony written by an eyewitness. If somebody else's reporting of Abraham's supposed conversations with Shem counts as eyewitness testimony, then by your reckoning my childhood conversations with my grandfather mean I can write eyewitness testimony of World War I. Why aren't military historians queuing up at my door?

Noah and his family were eyewitnesses to the Flood. It is not necessary that eyewitnesses write out their testimony for them to be called eyewitnesses.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I don't understand your question about the Dead Sea Scrolls. But the scrolls contain texts from Exodus, Leviticus, Ruth, Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, and commentaries from several addtional books of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Could you provide a source?

I believe the record of Creation, the Flood, and other historical events are recorded by authors who "spoke from God." (2 Peter 1:21) Obviously, there were no human eyewitnesses to Creation. But there were eyewitnesses, most notably the Creator himself.

A donkey jumped over a rainbow once. There were no eyewitnesses, but the donkey himself was an eye witness. Therefore, this is a reliable, historical account.

The writer of Genesis faithfully recorded what he was inspired to write.

How do you know he didn't just make it up? This seems like a huge assumption.

"All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching." (2 Timothy 3:16)

... Says them.

Jehovah God and Jesus Christ are the chief witnesses to the Bible's truthfulness, and they are both eyewitnesses. Human eyewitnesses add their testimony to the Bible's veracity.

The fact that you outright deny scientific facts while happily taking the Bible at it's word without any scepticism or investigation whatsoever clearly demonstrates that you possess a deep and unquestionable religious bias against science.

Noah and his family were eyewitnesses to the Flood. It is not necessary that eyewitnesses write out their testimony for them to be called eyewitnesses.

But it is necesarry when you say that there are eyewitness testimonies. That means testimonies directly from eyewitnesses.

 

[johnhanks]

Noah and his family were eyewitnesses to the Flood. It is not necessary that eyewitnesses write out their testimony for them to be called eyewitnesses.

No, but it is if the testimony is to be called eyewitness testimony. All else is hearsay.

The writer of Genesis faithfully recorded ...

It was established many years ago that Genesis did not have a single author.

 

[rusra02]

No, but it is if the testimony is to be called eyewitness testimony. All else is hearsay.
It was established many years ago that Genesis did not have a single author.

Established by whom?

 

[johnhanks]

Established by whom?

Several generations of scholars, many of whose names I am sure you know. Few if any scholars still attribute authorship to Moses, and almost all agree it was redacted from a number of sources over several centuries. I'm not in the habit of citing Wikipedia, but this article summarises current thinking well.

 

[gnostic]

To rusra02:

It doesn't track.

Traditionally, Moses was said to have receive the Torah through the "revelation", from God. The Torah would include the narrative of Genesis.

But if you saying that Shem being an eyewitness, had passed everything about the Flood on to Abraham, and then Abraham had passed to his son, from generation to generation, all the way to Moses, in oral tradition, then we would discount Moses receiving the divine revelation from God.

Abraham wrote nothing down...unless you going by the non-canonical texts, such as from the Apocrypha or the Pseudepigrapha. But if you go through oral-tradition route, what is in the Genesis still wouldn't be first-hand testimonies.

What is more believable is that who ever wrote the Genesis, had borrowed the Flood myth, from another culture - namely the Babylonians. During the 2nd millennium BCE, a number of tablet fragments about Gilgamesh and other myths (including the Flood) were found in the Near East, including the Levant, Egypt and the Hittite kingdom, in the west.

The Babylonians themselves borrowed the Flood legend (as well as that of Gilgamesh) from even older culture, in the 3rd millennium BCE - the Sumerians. The original Deluge hero was Ziusudra. The Akkadian-Babylonian called him Atrahasis or Utnapishtim

 

[rusra02]

To rusra02:

It doesn't track.

Traditionally, Moses was said to have receive the Torah through the "revelation", from God. The Torah would include the narrative of Genesis.

But if you saying that Shem being an eyewitness, had passed everything about the Flood on to Abraham, and then Abraham had passed to his son, from generation to generation, all the way to Moses, in oral tradition, then we would discount Moses receiving the divine revelation from God.

Abraham wrote nothing down...unless you going by the non-canonical texts, such as from the Apocrypha or the Pseudepigrapha. But if you go through oral-tradition route, what is in the Genesis still wouldn't be first-hand testimonies.

What is more believable is that who ever wrote the Genesis, had borrowed the Flood myth, from another culture - namely the Babylonians. During the 2nd millennium BCE, a number of tablet fragments about Gilgamesh and other myths (including the Flood) were found in the Near East, including the Levant, Egypt and the Hittite kingdom, in the west.

The Babylonians themselves borrowed the Flood legend (as well as that of Gilgamesh) from even older culture, in the 3rd millennium BCE - the Sumerians. The original Deluge hero was Ziusudra. The Akkadian-Babylonian called him Atrahasis or Utnapishtim

Review of historical records and divine inspiration are not mutually exclusive.
It is possible that Moses received information from historical records available to him. Since the Bible does not say, it is pointless to speculate. The point I was making is that the facts about the Flood would have been available to Abraham. The Bible does mention that Abraham would pass on the truth to his family. (Genesis 18:19) Abraham's descendants "were entrusted with the sacred pronouncements of God." (Romans 3:2) Moses wrote under God's inspiration the first five books of the Bible, ensuring their accuracy. There is no connection to the obviously false myths of Gilgamesh and the Bible's historical accounts.

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[outhouse]

There is no connection to the obviously false myths of Gilgamesh and the Bible's historical accounts.

false

and you have provided ZERO evidence of such.

Its a known fact Israelites used the Mesopotamian version that came before the israelite version that has copied it word for word in some places.

And the Mesopotamian version was copied from the Sumerian versions from a real attested river flood in 2900BC when the Euphrates overflowed

exactly WHERE the bible states noahs legend came from


try again with more dishonesty, and you will get called on it.

 

[outhouse]

Moses wrote under God's inspiration the first five books of the Bible, ensuring their accuracy. There is no connection to the obviously false myths of Gilgamesh and the Bible's historical accounts.

Moses write no such thing according to all credible historians

as a matter of fact, there is ZERO evidence moses ever existed outside of mythology.


it is also a fact Israel did not exist before 1200 BC, nor any of its forfathers or founders.

 

[Valjean]

How does one assess the veracity of revealed texts, Rusra?
I could go into a mental hospital and find a dozen 'inspired' individuals recording various revelations from God. What makes these less authoritative than the 'inspired revelations' of the ancients?

At least the inmate's scriptures are unitary, first-hand accounts of known authors.