How we know that there was no Flood of Noah.

[Audie]

I can't believe I have to explain this.

Some stories aren't stories at all. They're genetic

memories. Life on this Earth began from a very hot, very steam place. People like to talk about meteors but no there was life, it just got a jumpstart. The life we are speaking about are bacteria of a sort suited to hostile life. If you had (like most humans do) genetic code from previous beings, you'd have information as a sort of garbled racial memory of all the Earth being land (speaking frankly, a hot land). Then suddenly, moisture collects, and it collects, and it collects, until the world is flooded. This isn't a rainstorm btw. This is a Paleozoic flood period where most of the life is marine. And then suddenly it isn't, you're a genetic group that became suited for dry land. In fact, this happens a few times. Remember the test where they sent out birds? These are false dry periods, where there is some land but the land doesn't really come back.

In other words, no we're not describing a rainstorm. Millions of years of evolution is having a brain fart, and telling a story they shouldn't be able to know.

Or it could be the Black Sea inundation. But a flood def happened.

This is worse than the "hydroplate theory"!

You HAVE to tell us if this is a Poe thing.

 

[ecco]

What now? We know there was a flood. The Swiss Alps have melt lines. I researched on this and wrote a midterm paper for a religion course.

Is there evidence that the flood was global? | Bibleinfo.com

http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/questions/there-evidence-flood-was-global

Is the above linked paper the paper you wrote for a midterm?

It only mentions the alps twice.

The northwest flanks of the Swiss Alps consist of mountains of uplifted conglomerate that have been washed off the Alps.​

There is nothing about "melt lines". Perhaps you could explain.

There is geological proof that there was a flood (of better quality than virtually anything else in religion), whether or not it involved a man named Noah, Yamato, or Utnapishtim.

There was massive flooding in Texas from hurricane Harvey. There have been massive floods along the Mississippi. When you say "a flood (of better quality than virtually anything else in religion)" are you talking about a flood that covered the Swiss Alps?

 

[Samantha Rinne]

The people of the bible didn't know how big the world was, to them likely the world was as far as the eye could see. if a flood happened and everywhere they saw was flooded, then they would likely think that the entire world was flooded. Where else in the world is ancient Hebrew existence found? Is it just isolated to between Egypt and Jerusalem? That's not exactly that large a portion of the globe, like 3-4% of the landmass.

But to them that 3-4% was the whole world.

If you take the bible as literal, and apply the interpretation to the whole planet, then frankly you are an idiot. These people were not worldly. Evidence of their un-worldliness can be found from not finding evidence of their people being anywhere else other than that 3-4% swath of land, of the planet's landmass. . Other civilizations existed elsewhere, yet have no records of meeting these Hebrew peoples.

Yet another insufferable person who thinks ancient people are dumb idiots.

Most people think the pyramids are built like we build buildings. Bottom up using scaffolding. They tried to do do with a mini-replica, and wound up running inro problems with gravity heavy blocks uphill even with a ramp, not happening. This was barely 20 ft off the ground with a small crew. "If we just had more ppl, this it totally how it worked." No, sorry you don't win the prize.

The Surprising Truth About How the Great Pyramids Were Built

They were built top down. Not only does this never occur to modern people but they think you're crazy to suggest this. Dig and push, dig and push. No elaborate ramps, just move blocks under blocks. But yeah, ancient ppl are stupid. We modern ppl are so much more brilliant with our computers, which we spend all day checking social media on, only to find out that no, nobody STILL loves you, because you haven't built or created anything and want to tear down other people's work.

The Egyptians had come up with something like a battery. The Romans had aqueducts, cement ( far better than ours too, as they have structures that are over a 100 years made from cement) and subfloor heating, and all of this without electricity. You can't even live a month without electricity.

The Biblical people knew about Asia, about Africa, about Europe. You can figure this out when Christians spread there's no "what is this new land?" The Jews just didn't care about it.

 

[Audie]

Yet another insufferable person who thinks ancient people are dumb idiots.
.

And a person who thinks her audience is insane.

 

[Samantha Rinne]

Probably cuz they are. They deny stuff that are basically facts aboutour geological history so they can deny the Bible. They act like they're brilliant and superior when most of them have never built anything, or personally discovered anything. They're just referring to what old men in glasses say, not understanding some of them have political agendas and others are senile.

To answer the question, no that's not my midterm linked there. Mine was based on a newspaper article about an underground cave found inside the Alps that showed a water line long ago. It's like this. When a rock area is submerged for a great deal of time, there are water lines. It's not that these dry off. Rather they discolor the rock in such a way that you can always tell that at one point the water was this height. We had relative evidence about how size inside this mountain melted then later refroze. But as you can see from that article, flooding happened in places other than just the Alps.

 

[sealchan]

It is, first and foremost, a theological polemic which invests a monotheistic god with moral purpose. That you find it to be ahistorical as well is underwhelming at best.

The Flood story is about humanity dealing with the realities of natural disaster and what it takes to survive. Think of a modern day Noah as a visionary who wants to create a way for humanity to survive if a giant asteroid collides with the earth and causes major devastation. It is also about the isolation one feels when one does survive although so many others did not and how survival isn't about deserving it even though that is what one so strongly wants to believe.

I know this interpretation isn't common but it is highly supportable given the text and it explains a few things in terms of realistic potential human experience of trauma that most readers pass off as cheap actual historical fact.

 

[Twilight Hue]

What now? We know there was a flood. The Swiss Alps have melt lines. I researched on this and wrote a midterm paper for a religion course.

Is there evidence that the flood was global? | Bibleinfo.com

There is geological proof that there was a flood (of better quality than virtually anything else in religion), whether or not it involved a man named Noah, Yamato, or Utnapishtim.

I would say you're talking about evidences regarding glacial activity. Certainly not a flood.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The Flood story is about ...

<yawn>

I'll bet you have fun reading clouds and tea leaves as well.​

</yawn>

 

[sealchan]

I am not a fan of that one. If you do the math you will find that the rate of inundation was rapid enough to drown cities, but not people. It was a flood that people could have literally crawled away from.

Instead I like the candidate in this article:

Yes, Noah's Flood May Have Happened, But Not Over the Whole Earth

I think that the article makes sense but I also favor the following theory...story-teller tradition/memory of Ice Age glacial dam melting. I think that we have discussed the Lake Missoula floods of Eastern Washington. If anyone wants to see evidence of an enormous sudden flood go to Eastern Washington and visit the Columbia River Gorge as well (for all the other reasons...cause the Pacific Northwest is awesome).

Missoula Floods - Wikipedia

 

[dfnj]

There are many different interpretations of the Noah's Ark myth in Genesis. From my experience all of them can be shown to have never occurred. My only assumption here will be that it God exists he does not lie.

Of course I can't demonstrate a concept to be in error until people clearly state their beliefs. So please tell us what you mean by the Floor and we can discuss your version.

Why are you so interested in showing people to "be in error". Does that make you feel like you are a better person?

 

[Valjean]

Floods are a common phenomenon, and most people have always lived near rivers and coastlines. They're a convenient and familiar agent of cataclysm and could be expected to figure prominently in folklore worldwide.

 

[exchemist]

Why are you so interested in showing people to "be in error". Does that make you feel like you are a better person?

Exposing erroneous ideas is one of the ways to improve the knowledge of humanity. A moment's thought should make that obvious.

 

[dfnj]

There are many different interpretations of the Noah's Ark myth in Genesis. From my experience all of them can be shown to have never occurred. My only assumption here will be that it God exists he does not lie.

Of course I can't demonstrate a concept to be in error until people clearly state their beliefs. So please tell us what you mean by the Floor and we can discuss your version.

This is a really strange way to start a conversation. How can an interpretation of Noah's Ark myth never occur? People interpret the Bible in many ways. Nobody is doubting the existence of interpretations about Bible stories.

Are you trying to say the story of Noah's Ark never occurred? Well, people who believe the Bible is the word of God just assume it did occur because it is in the Bible.

I don't think it really matters too much if the story of Noah actually happened in reality. The essential message of the Bible is having morality is important. I don't see why being skeptical about Bible stories happening in reality changes the message about the importance of having morality.

 

[dfnj]

Exposing erroneous ideas is one of the ways to improve the knowledge of humanity. A moment's thought should make that obvious.

So you believe the Bible is an erroneous idea. What else do you hate?

 

[exchemist]

So you believe the Bible is an erroneous idea. What else do you hate?

What a ridiculous reply. I simply answered your (rather unpleasantly insinuating) question about the motives of someone interested in exposing erroneous ideas. If nobody had exposed the phlogiston theory as wrong, or the idea that disease came from "bad air", we might still believe these notions today. And then where would we be? THINK!

 

[sealchan]

<yawn>

I'll bet you have fun reading clouds and tea leaves as well.​

</yawn>

Read any good books lately?

 

[sealchan]

This is a really strange way to start a conversation. How can an interpretation of Noah's Ark myth never occur? People interpret the Bible in many ways. Nobody is doubting the existence of interpretations about Bible stories.

Are you trying to say the story of Noah's Ark never occurred? Well, people who believe the Bible is the word of God just assume it did occur because it is in the Bible.

I don't think it really matters too much if the story of Noah actually happened in reality. The essential message of the Bible is having morality is important. I don't see why being skeptical about Bible stories happening in reality changes the message about the importance of having morality.

I'm not sure that the Flood story is all about morality. (Please excuse the long riff here on what you said...it sparked some thoughts). What story in early Genesis demonstrates a clear boundary between good and evil? God is very much implicitly involved in deception and tricks as anyone else. Although the story is placed in the context of a judgment by God against the Earth...but consider what sort of judgment that was. So many naively read that as Father Knows Best and we should accept our punishment...but I don't think that even the authors of that story in Genesis believed that...they give you clues in the story to suggest that that surface narrative is...superficial. God over-reacted as did Noah after the Flood. God placed the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden but then "hastily" had to remove the Tree of Life. God confused the languages of humanity because of what humanity (unexpectedly?) was about to do.

God, as experienced in Genesis at least, was a trickster from the point of view of humanity. The fact that humanity is alive today is both a criticism of and a miracle of the God who (purportedly in these stories) created us.

I will admit that reading those sections of the Bible that delineate laws and instructions is tedious and it gives one a sense that this final revelation to Moses is meant to cure all of what went on before and maybe that would make sense if all you see is the Torah. But given the sort of technical, rule-based response of a people to a reality that seemed largely capricious (including invasion by foreign powers) and unfriendly, to me that was a daring attempt to create a morality in a world unfriendly to idealistic behavior. Their God was a lonely voice in the desert in their early experience. Later as a people with no lack of a sense of desperation, time and time again, the religious story was of a persecuted people crying out for justice.

The desire to take this all literally is based on a sense that it is easier to accept one's fate if it is in the hands of a punishing Father if you believe and know that Father to be Good. This is essential to the coping. But when one's life and livelihood is no longer on the line, such attitudes get extended into self-serving and self-pitying behavior.

When a conquering nation came in and punished the Jews, that was a just but firm Father. When a conquering nation came in and saved the Jews, then that was a compassionate and caring Father (aka Mother).

The power of this way of thinking can be seen in the split in attitudes of America's polarized political parties.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Garbled version of Black Sea isnt bad,
as a possibility.

Of course, there are (said to be) hundreds of
"great flood" myths from all around the world,
so perhaps something deeper is involved.

Floods are something that happens all over the world, too, so it's not surprising that there are stories about big floods all over the place.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

I would opt for the latter.

Some of the JEDPR folks like Friedman trace the J narrative to sometime between 922 and 722 BCE. Others suggest that it's considerably more recent.

The Black Sea Inundation event (sic) is posited to have occurred roughly 5 millennia earlier. Can you share anything that suggests that cultural memory can be sustained over such a period? Conflation strikes me as a far better explanation.

Note that your reference to Black Sea Inundation event is prejudicial in that "event" suggest something far different than does "process." You might wish to review this ...

I first encountered the idea in Human Instinct by Robert Winston. It is just a theory, or more properly, an hypothesis. I'm not claiming it as a fact, just an idea that appeals and makes sense to me

 

[Audie]

Floods are something that happens all over the world, too, so it's not surprising that there are stories about big floods all over the place.

Not surprising at all.

You have though seen the claims that they show
a consistent pattern of similarity to the bible story.