The flood in Genesis

[Just_me_Mike]

Sorry. I do not understand what you do not understand. The lunar month is - and has been for quite some time - roughly 29.53 days. Twelve such months would therefore be approximately 354.367 days, or nearly 11 days shy of a year. There is a strong tendency for the Tanakh to deal in standard time frames: weeks, years, 40-year periods, etc. The Priestly source painted a picture such that "the judgment of the Generation of the Flood was for a whole year."

OK I understand now, and yes you did already say that. Thank you for clarifying.

So since we don't usually count days in .53, but rather as whole numbers. Would it not be OK to round up to 30? Do you think this rounding was ever done in the bible, and I guess in my OP, a Lunar year could be rounded to 360 days?

Maybe I am way off base. Sorry to waste time with this!

Thanks...

 

[Just_me_Mike]

As for J and P, see Documentary hypothesis

Much appreciated...

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

So since we don't usually count days in .53, but rather as whole numbers. Would it not be OK to round up to 30? Do you think this rounding was ever done in the bible, ...

Hebrew Calendar.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

Hebrew Calendar.

OK, got it thanks...

 

[Autodidact]

At Matthew 24:37-39, Jesus Christ made a comparison between the days of Noah and the last days, where we now find ourselves. He said: “Just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.”
It the flood were a mere myth, Jesus words would have no real significance.

Well you've got a problem then, because it's absolutely clear, without doubt, there was never any such flood. Might want to revise your theology accordingly.

There is evidence for a global deluge, including quick-frozen mammoths with green grass still in their mouths.

Baloney of the best quality.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

Well you've got a problem then, because it's absolutely clear, without doubt, there was never any such flood. Might want to revise your theology accordingly.

Are you speaking of the Noah story specifically or do you dispute the idea of any flood? What about the Black Sea Flood theory currently going around?

Black Sea deluge theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.meteo.mcgill.ca/~tremblay/Courses/ATOC530/BlackSeaFlood_Nov17th.ppt

 

[Dirty Penguin]

I noticed studying the story of the flood that Noah entered the ark at a certain date, and then exited the ark at a certain date. According to my calulations it was exactly 370 days from the time they entered to the time they exited.

What was curious about this to me, was the fact the land had become dry 2 months and 27 days prior to then exiting. Why dos the story have them hanging out another 2 months and 27 days before exiting.

Any Genesis buffs here, want to shed some light?

Thanks...

Ponder if thou will. Tis a story re-told and sold to those who would believe it to be true. It's pretty much the Epic Of Gilgamesh but the names have been change to protect those who didn't exist in the first place.

 

[Autodidact]

Trey why does it have to be literal to find greater meaning? I guess I am saying that there is no doubt truth found in scripture, and as we examine parts like the OP we are able to address if there is something to be learned.
However if you are of the mindset, that the words are just arbitrarily placed in the entire scripture, than truly this excercise will have no value for you.
No big deal, but I never said this had to be understood literally in order to discuss and analyze.

I think the message of the story is really pretty simple: Do what God says or He will smite you. I don't think it matters how many days the flood lasted or anything like that.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

Ponder if thou will. Tis a story re-told and sold to those who would believe it to be true. It's pretty much the Epic Of Gilgamesh but the names have been change to protect those who didn't exist in the first place.

So much is lost when comparisons are generically made, and truth is forgotten about in the quest to devalue something not understood.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

So much is lost when comparisons are generically made, and truth is forgotten about in the quest to devalue something not understood.

You must recite your words again and look at yourself in a mirror when you do. It's without a doubt the Flood story is from an earlier story (Epic Of Gilgamesh). I'm quite sure yo know it (the story). If you don't then research it. There's a Sumerian Table of the "Great Flood" that predates the Epic Of Gilgamesh by a thousand years.... So the biblical story is nothing new. See, I never said the biblical flood narrative holds no value.....rather the story is not new nor is it original to the bible. It was an old story that was retold......(in the Old Testament)

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

I think the message of the story is really pretty simple: Do what God says or He will smite you. I don't think it matters how many days the flood lasted or anything like that.

Agreed, but I think that it also illustrates mankinds search for meaning in the events of their lives. The fact that they assign blame to a supernatural entity who's actions are the result of humanities choices in life is very interesting. Understanding man's thought processes during these times gives us insight into our thought processes today.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

You must recite your words again and look at yourself in a mirror when you do. It's without a doubt the Flood story is from an earlier story (Epic Of Gilgamesh). I'm quite sure yo know it (the story). If you don't then research it. I never said the biblical flood narrative holds no value.....rather the story is not new nor is it original to the bible. It was an old story that was retold......(in the Old Testament)

OK genius then lets run with you logic. Gilgamesh recorded something similar first.
Using your logic, all this does is point to an event that may have happened. Does it make the one in Gilgamesh correct?

You know I read a book by Ray Manzarek on Jim Morrison. I am sure if Jim were alive still he would explain things differently than Ray explained them. However, just because Ray recorded his version in a book does that make it correct?

At the very least it makes the story plausible, because we are learning about it from so many different sources.
Of course you can choose the opposite view, and say there are so many sources because it is just folk lore and that is what folk lore is just fake stories handed around and rehashed.
You are choosing to look at it from only one side. I have no beef with that, but there is another perspective to look at things.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Agreed, but I think that it also illustrates mankinds search for meaning in the events of their lives. The fact that they assign blame to a supernatural entity who's actions are the result of humanities choices in life is very interesting. Understanding man's thought processes during these times gives us insight into our thought processes today.

At its core, it seems to be an expression of the common experience of, as children, being punished by our parents for doing something bad. When people experience guilt as adults for doing something "bad", they subconsciously expect/want? to be punished for their actions by a higher authority and feel that they deserve to be.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

At its core, it seems to be an expression of the common experience of, as children, being punished by our parents for doing something bad. When people experience guilt as adults for doing something "bad", they subconsciously expect/want? to be punished for their actions by a higher authority and feel that they deserve to be.

Sure, but it is also a coping mechanism. Ancient man especially was helpless to affect many of the events that took place in his time. There was a desire to give some kind of meaning to the event in order to ease the feeling of helplessness. A higher power working to some incomprehensible plan filled this need.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

It is likely a number of things. Studies in oral transmission indicate a tendency to conflate and telescope events and themes in an effort to provide an over-arching etiology or lesson.

 

[painted wolf]

I think the attitude that the Noah story is "do as god says or he'll smite you" is over simplified to the point of parody. (hard line christian authoritarianism)

If that was all there was to it, then why the apology from god?

Also the end of the story shows that God was still unable to remove the very human behaviors that he sought to wipe out... Noah promptly becomes drunk and the cycle of evil begins again.

God is just as flawed a character in this story as any other.

The story shows a profound desire to not only explain away a terrible (possibly loosely historically based) event, but to show how both man and god grow in their relationship to one another. The Jewish God has by the end made a promise that no other deity of the time and place has ever replicated.... I promise that I'll never do such a terrible thing again.

It's a very profound concept when you compare such a thought to the gods of say, Mesopotamia. Who were quite fond of causing all sorts of ills... which is why you worshiped them.. to keep them happy enough that they wouldn't just kill you outright.
Even the best you could hope for in the after life was a miserable existence...

wa:do

 

[Dirty Penguin]

OK genius then lets run with you logic. Gilgamesh recorded something similar first.
Using your logic, all this does is point to an event that may have happened. Does it make the one in Gilgamesh correct?

Did I his a nerve or something. You gettin' all worked up for nothin'......

Gilgamesh, from what I can tell wasn't the first. There was another tablet that predated that story by a thousand years. It doesn't mean any of them are right. What I said was that the story in the bible was a retelling. I shed no light on either of them being authentic or not.

At the very least it makes the story plausible, because we are learning about it from so many different sources.

Wrong. All it means is that you have multiple stories that are similar on certain levels but very different on other levels. There's no actual evidence that a "worldwide" flood occurred. Maybe a regional one......Geology says no to a worldwide flood...(Regardless of which "story" you choose to believe)...

Of course you can choose the opposite view, and say there are so many sources because it is just folk lore and that is what folk lore is just fake stories handed around and rehashed.
You are choosing to look at it from only one side. I have no beef with that, but there is another perspective to look at things.

Don't make the assumption I have only looked at it from one side. I've looked it from a literal point of view and geologically it is incorrect. Oh...and yes....it is folklore...as well....

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Gilgamesh, from what I can tell wasn't the first. There was another tablet that predated that story by a thousand years. It doesn't mean any of them are right. What I said was that the story in the bible was a retelling.

It was far more than that. It was a reformulation seeking to imbue the listener with the sense of a value-based God rather than a wholly capricious one. It did not simply transmit the thematic elements of Gilgamesh. It negated them while reinstating an element of universalism.

 

[painted wolf]

The evolution of how humanity views deity is IMHO a very fascinating one.

Emergent religions like the alien based Raelians and Scientology and the corporate faiths like Mega-Churches and again Scientology... IMHO have a lot to say about modern culture.

wa:do

 

[Dirty Penguin]

It was far more than that. It was a reformulation seeking to imbue the listener with the sense of a value-based God rather than a wholly capricious one. It did not simply transmit the thematic elements of Gilgamesh. It negated them while reinstating an element of universalism.

And see, I have no problem with the story just that people should understand it shouldn't be taken literally.....(IMHO)....