Literalists And The Flood, Etc.

[SolarPowered]

Yes I am aware that the Book of Ether actually begins with the Tower of Babel.

However, I think the premise still stands, since the Book of Ether was written perhaps 1500 years after (and maybe more), and then edited by yet another person (Mormon) who lived another 1000 years later. It is a VERY OLD story when it finally arrives in the Book of Mormon.

To clarify what I think: The Tower of Babel really happened (and therefore Jared and his Brother and friends really existed), and people engaged in that worthy project (heh) DID have their language confounded. It does not follow, though, that no other languages existed in the world before that time. But the story would grow as it was spread around the world (like the Flood story).

As for timing: I have noticed that Year 1 in the Mayan calendar is around 3,000 bce. Is it possible that this is dated from Jared's encounter with the Tower of Babel? (Just speculation)

Beowulf

OK, I'll agree with that logic.

Further, the Book of Ether would seem to give support to the "local Tower theory" , because Bro and company leave the peoples (the plural is intentional here) whose language was confounded at the Tower, and travel to another land that was unknown to those peoples. Thus, there clearly were parts of the Earth that weren't involved in the goings on at the Tower.

[Uncle Dale]

...

I beg of someone-anyone! to prove me wrong by producing a single quote from

anywhere on the Church website....

I guess we'll just have to wait until the folks at the Lee Library get around to digitizing

Apostle Talmadge's private correspondence to the First Presidency.

Uncle "Heber J. Grant, where are you when we need you?" Dale

[SolarPowered]

Why not? If Noah built his ark on the east coast of the United States and the flood carried him into the Atlantic Ocean, what would have kept him from landing in the Middle East?

T-Shirt

That's an interesting idea. It ties in decently with the ~one year they spent on the ark.

It doesn't appear to work with the landing in the "mountains of Ararat", though.

I suppose that part of it could be a later addition, similar in nature to what d'Unk was showing us in the Song of Miriam.

(To Sethbag: Yes, this is just wild speculation. However, I'm starting out from the position that I believe that there is a God, and that he did in fact bring forth the BoM in the way Joseph describes. With the result that, when I see things that initially don't make sense, I start asking, "Is there some interpretation of what I know that does make sense?" When you examine enough crazy ideas, it sometimes happens that you eventually stumble onto the truth. For example: When the Shroud of Turin C14-dated to the fourteenth century (+/- -- I don't recall the exact dates), people who had done very careful forensic study of the Shroud said, "This doesn't make sense!" They started tossing around all kinds of crazy theories to explain the discrepency, until someone found the actual cause of the problem--they had dated a medieval patch to the Shroud! Mystery solved, but not until a bunch of crazy theories had been examined. The same plays out in all parts of science, and also sometimes plays out in the FAIR/FARMS/etc. context.)

[Uncle Dale]

I suppose that part of it could be a later addition, similar in nature to what d'Unk was

showing us in the Song of Miriam.

A composite text -- at least two Israelite stories woven together into one -- both dependant

upon an earlier Mesopotamian original.

What bird was sent out, a raven or a dove? ---- There are reasons that each particular type of bird is

part of each of the two joined Israelite precursor accounts. Can we solve the puzzle by postulating two

different birds? --- or by postulating animals chosen by twos AND by sevens? Maybe not.....

How Many Animals of Each Kind did Noah Take into the Ark?

Ask most children who are somewhat familiar with the biblical account of the Flood how many animals of each kind Noah took into the ark, and the answer you likely will hear is, “Two!” These Bible students are familiar with the instructions recorded in Genesis 6:19 that God gave to Noah: “And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female” (Genesis 6:19, emp. added; cf. 7:15). It seems that fewer people, however, are aware that God also instructed Noah, saying, “You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth” (Genesis 7:2-3, emp. added). According to Bible critics, these verses are contradictory. “Are clean beasts to enter by 2’s or by 7’s?” ...

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/525

Uncle "have you heard the one about the Yahwist, the Elohist, the Priest and the Editor? -- it's a gas!" Dale

.

[SolarPowered]

Uncle "have you heard the one about the Yahwist, the Elohist, the Priest and the Editor? -- it's a gas!" Dale

Yah, I think I read about that one in a couple of Margaret Barker's books...

[Sethbag]

Sethbag's $64 question (or $64 billion question... it doesn't really matter the size here, since no one's going to get paid for it anyway... heh) is really related to "what should prophets know about the world around them".

This is interesting, because the answer from people like himself is that they should know approximately what a modern quantum physicist/astronomer knows about the world (and no more or no less, apparently...) If not, it proves that God does not exist.

Quite a leap of logic, in my mind...

The leap of logic is in you saying I think a prophet needs to know as much as a quantum physicist and/or an astronomer. I'm not saying that at all. There is a huge difference between not knowing something, and thinking that you do know something, and teaching it as fact, when you are in fact completely wrong.

When a prophet says that Adam and Eve, a few thousand years ago, were the first human beings on this earth, this isn't merely someone who is ignorant of modern science. It's far worse than that - it's someone teaching as fact some bronze-age mythology that is completely wrong. And even worse, we continue teaching this as fact many decades after we already have the information sufficient to demonstrate to us that in fact this mythology is wrong, and we ignore it or discount it.

When someone teaches that all of humankind save Noah and his family were destroyed a few thousand years ago in a global flood, it's not merely a teaching born from not knowing modern science. It's worse than that - it's a teaching born of the mythologies of a bronze-age people, being taught by a man who claims to receive revelation from God for the rest of us, and which is completely and utterly false, and which we've known, as a world (at least those who were paying attention) was completely and utterly false for over a hundred years or more.

[Thinking]

There is a huge difference between not knowing something, and thinking that you do know something, and teaching it as fact, when you are in fact completely wrong.

One of your best statements to date!

[T-Shirt]

It doesn't appear to work with the landing in the "mountains of Ararat", though.

Well, at nearly 17,000 feet, it doesn't fit into a Middle East local flood either. If the water was that high in Turkey, it would have been much more than a local flood.

T-Shirt

[SolarPowered]

Well, at nearly 17,000 feet, it doesn't fit into a Middle East local flood either. If the water was that high in Turkey, it would have been much more than a local flood.

T-Shirt

Read carefully, It says "mountains of Ararat", not "on the peak of Mt. Ararat." The mountains of Ararat are a rather large range of mountians, with many elevations.

Interestingly, they are close enough to the Black Sea that the Black Sea flood might have delivered a boat to a location that could have been termed in those times "the mountains of Ararat." (This flood, though, would appear to have been too early to have been the Noahic flood.)

[Sethbag]

To give one trivial example. In D&C20:1, there is a formulaic intro stating that the Church of Jesus Christ is being established exactly 1,830 years after the birth of our Savior. Is this a revelation stating the exact date of Jesus' birth? (My seminary teacher thought so.) But what if the calendar were wrong? (A highly likely possibility, considering man's ability to screw things up...) Should God have intervened and told JS that, "No, this is wrong, it is actually 1,834 years"? What would have been the result? Answer: Bedlam, as everyone in the room gets all excited about this amazing factoid that the calendar is off by four years, and they promptly forget what they were there for: To establish the Church.

The same objection goes for D&C 77, which is NOT a proclamation on the Age of the Earth, as secularists love to make merry about. If God had stated (through JS) that the Earth is actually 4.5 billion years old (in a year when the prevailing scientific opinion about the geologic history of the world did not even extend back one million years) would have completely distracted from the real point of the revelation, as everyone gasps at JS' recondity (or more likely, blow a raspberry... "everyone knows that the universe isn't 4.5 billion years old... how stupid!").

I hope you get my drift...

Beowulf

I get your drift. You think it's fine for the Lord to lie to us, rather than to confuse us with things we "can't handle" at the time, despite the fact that in the future, we will know that it wasn't true, and that it will hurt the credibility of whichever Prophet, Seer, and Revelator "revealed" to us the lie in the first place.

Beowulf, there's a simple answer here, and you're missing it completely. If God didn't want to distract us with the actual, true exact number of years since Christ's birth, they why not just leave that figure out? If God didn't want to confuse the people of the time about the true age of the earth, why not just leave that part out? Rather than take these easy, and obvious route, you believe in a God who is not averse to blowing smoke in our faces and then wondering why we don't take him seriously when we actually progress enough to figure out that he was blowing smoke in our faces.

[Sethbag]

I guess we'll just have to wait until the folks at the Lee Library get around to digitizing

Apostle Talmadge's private correspondence to the First Presidency.

Correspondence which the First Presidency did not see fit, in all their Prophetic, Seerific, and Revelatory powers of discernment, and which their successors to this very day have likewise never seen fit to respond to publically, nor to correct their errors.

[SolarPowered]

I get your drift. You think it's fine for the Lord to lie to us, rather than to confuse us with things we "can't handle" at the time, despite the fact that in the future, we will know that it wasn't true, and that it will hurt the credibility of whichever Prophet, Seer, and Revelator "revealed" to us the lie in the first place.

Beowulf, there's a simple answer here, and you're missing it completely. If God didn't want to distract us with the actual, true exact number of years since Christ's birth, they why not just leave that figure out? If God didn't want to confuse the people of the time about the true age of the earth, why not just leave that part out? Rather than take these easy, and obvious route, you believe in a God who is not averse to blowing smoke in our faces and then wondering why we don't take him seriously when we actually progress enough to figure out that he was blowing smoke in our faces.

I'll jump in on this one. There is good evidence that April 6, 1 B.C., actually was Christ's birthday.

The reason people have trouble with this idea is because Josephus' timeline for Herod the Great places the death of Herod at around 4 B.C. So, everyone assumes that Christ must have been born before 4 B.C. Very few people stop to consider that Josephus may have been in error. John Pratt has pointed out that Josephus' timeline is clearly defective, because there is nowhere near enough time for the sequence of events that occurs around Herod's death. Pratt points out things in Jesephus that suggest that he was working with apparently conflicting records, and reconciled the records incorrectly. And he actually points out the place in Josephus where he apparently went awry.

This, combined with a lunar eclipse on December 29, 1 B.C., suggests that Herod actually died in the spring of 1 A.D.

If one combines the accounts of the Passion with astronomical data relating to the Jewish calendar, one finds that it is quite likely that the Crucifixion occurred on Friday, April 3, 33 A.D. Now, if you go to the Book of Mormon, it says, IIRC, that there were 33 years and four or five days from the sign of the birth of the savior to the sign of his death. We happen to actually understand the calendar that was used in Mesoamerica at that time; it has years that are 365 days long, with no leap years. If you account for this difference calendars, and the difference in time zones, counting back from April 3, 33 A.D. gets you to April 6, 1 B.C. Just as the D&C says.

Also, the biblical record also makes it clear that Christ was around 33 years of age when he died. There are multiple items that point to the Passover as the time of Christ's birth. The Passover 33 years before his death occurred after sundown on April 6, 1 B.C.

So, I wouldn't be too quick to write off April 6, 1 B.C.

[Beowulf]

No Sethbag. You miss MY point. D&C20:1 is not a revelation at all! It is merely a formulaic intro to the rest of the section, and just a fancy way of naming the date WHICH EVERYONE WAS ALREADY FAMILIAR WITH. (I said as much when I was in that Seminary class, back in 1969, thereby showing what an annoying teenager I could be...)

It would be pointless for God to intervene in Verse 1, when revealing the REAL truth (so-called) would merely distract from the content of the main text.

What if, years later, we actually do discover the exact date of Jesus' birth. Will it prove JS is a false prophet because he named a different date in 1830? (Or worse, show that God is a cad, as you seem to be insinuating....) Well, only to fundies or to secularists like you. People like me will just shrug, and accept the new datum as interesting.

The same goes for D&C77, btw.

It is not that God is a cad for not telling us the whole truth, because we are not ready for it. God actually has other things on his mind, like teaching humans the Plan of Salvation, so that telling them about quantum physics or the actual age of the universe would be merely distracting from the main point. (Or letting Peter go on and on about "eight saved by water" when there were probably more that survived...) We live on imperfect knowledge. God lets us get on with it, but then teaches us the really important stuff, about the Atonement and Salvation, and Exaltation.

Mankind will figure out that other stuff on their own, soon enough.

Beowulf

[Beowulf]

Actually, SolarPowered, I am aware of the possibility that the date may actually be right. That's fine if it is...

But my point is that IT DOES NOT MATTER EITHER WAY, since the D&C20:1 is just a formulaic opening greeting, not a revelation from God.

Beowulf

[T-Shirt]

Read carefully, It says "mountains of Ararat", not "on the peak of Mt. Ararat." The mountains of Ararat are a rather large range of mountians, with many elevations.

Interestingly, they are close enough to the Black Sea that the Black Sea flood might have delivered a boat to a location that could have been termed in those times "the mountains of Ararat." (This flood, though, would appear to have been too early to have been the Noahic flood.)

This is true. However, I think the Hebrew actually reads, the Mountains of Armenia, which may have included parts of modern day Turkey. Armenia is a very mountainous region with most of the land above 5000 feet. This would still require an awful lot of water that would affect more than just the Black Sea region.

T-Shirt

[valkator]

Megaflood Created The Divide Between Britain and France

[Ron Beron]

Glad I'm not theologically painted into THAT particular corner.

d'Unk

Well, that does it!! I guess I'll to turn in my temple recommend and stop believing in Jesus! None of us is bound to believe all doctrine, especially if it is shaky.

[Ron Beron]

Cinepro writes,

So, while I may not label them as "apostate", I would certain suggest that those who adopt a local or allegorical interpretation of Noah's Flood are taking a radical, unsupported and unprecedented departure from Official Mormon Doctrine.

The problem with making anything official is that it also legalizes a certain doctrine. Certainly, those who make up the doctrines of the church did so with light and knowledge that they were given. From that we get our doctrine. To legalize it, however, is to skirt a dangerous line that Jesus would be loathe to accept. It was accepted Jewish doctrine to avoid lepers, shun the poor and sinner, and not pick food on the sabbath. Was Jesus also a heretic or did he suggest we think for ourselves. Within the scriptures there is text and context that tells us what and where, but only the subtext illuminates the mind and feeling of the writer/speaker. In reading the many accounts of the flood story I see lots of text and context which tells me what and where, but the subtext illustrates the reasons behind the story. The story is not the doctrine. The teachings behind the story is the doctrine. The story, like all good folktale, legend, myth contains a subtext that is more profound than the story itself. Therefore, in the story of Noah we have a man who is set adrift amidst a torrential storm which annihilates the entire population of the world while saving 2 to 7 of the world's animals. What is more important is the sub textual account that we need to obey God otherwise we might be punished.

[Ron Beron]

Well, at nearly 17,000 feet, it doesn't fit into a Middle East local flood either. If the water was that high in Turkey, it would have been much more than a local flood.

T-Shirt

It says the mountains of Ararat not Mount Ararat which wasn't even called such until the Christian century. The actual legendary mountain is the mountains of Urartu specifically Judi Dagh. Below is illustrated a memorial shrine that was built to commemorate the landing of Noah on this mountain.

[Uncle Dale]

Well, that does it!! I guess I'll to turn in my temple recommend and stop believing in Jesus! None of us is bound to believe all doctrine, especially if it is shaky.

It's not the believing part that troubled me so much, as it was my having to teach it.

Below is illustrated a memorial shrine that was built to commemorate the landing of Noah on this mountain...

Yeah that sort of stuff -- but the RLDS Sunday lessons were mostly about how the Maya were really Nephites.

Uncle "and now Senior Galileo will teach you young catechants how the sun goes around the earth" Dale

.

[T-Shirt]

It says the mountains of Ararat not Mount Ararat which wasn't even called such until the Christian century. The actual legendary mountain is the mountains of Urartu specifically Judi Dagh. Below is illustrated a memorial shrine that was built to commemorate the landing of Noah on this mountain.

See my post above (post #90)

T-Shirt

[SolarPowered]

The problem with making anything official is that it also legalizes a certain doctrine. Certainly, those who make up the doctrines of the church did so with light and knowledge that they were given. From that we get our doctrine. To legalize it, however, is to skirt a dangerous line that Jesus would be loathe to accept. It was accepted Jewish doctrine to avoid lepers, shun the poor and sinner, and not pick food on the sabbath. Was Jesus also a heretic or did he suggest we think for ourselves. Within the scriptures there is text and context that tells us what and where, but only the subtext illuminates the mind and feeling of the writer/speaker. In reading the many accounts of the flood story I see lots of text and context which tells me what and where, but the subtext illustrates the reasons behind the story. The story is not the doctrine. The teachings behind the story is the doctrine. The story, like all good folktale, legend, myth contains a subtext that is more profound than the story itself. Therefore, in the story of Noah we have a man who is set adrift amidst a torrential storm which annihilates the entire population of the world while saving 2 to 7 of the world's animals. What is more important is the sub textual account that we need to obey God otherwise we might be punished.

While I agree with that in general, there are some specific stories that "need" to be true. For a couple of examples in the other direction, consider Job and Jonah. If Job never existed, and Jonah was never swallowed by a fish/whale/whatever, it makes no real difference; the importance of the story is its moral, not the historical event.

On the other hand, it is pretty central to our theology that Michael/Adam was the first man, that he did something that resulted in The Fall, that he is the great Patriarch of the human family, and that he will give his keys to Christ at the council at Adam-ondi-ahman. That there apparently were humans running around on this Earth before the time of Adam raises questions that I haven't seen really good answers for yet.

Similarly, Noah and his three sons are also rather significant people in the biblical history. Though they are not quite as indispensible as Adam, the idea that they are totally mythical just doesn't work very well.

[Uncle Dale]

If Job never existed, and Jonah was never swallowed by a fish/whale/whatever,

it makes no real difference; the importance of the story is its moral, not the historical event.

What is so moral about a huge (pod-plant tree? vine? gourd? mushroom?) springing up out of nowhere to

shade poor Jonah's sunstoked noggin?

All of Ninevah must have been abuzz over that fancy miracle -- even before they all converted

to become Israelites...

Uncle "'twould have helped us out a bit, had Jesus spoken of the mythical sign of Noah, eh?" Dale

.

[Ron Beron]

Solar Powered writes,

On the other hand, it is pretty central to our theology that Michael/Adam was the first man, that he did something that resulted in The Fall, that he is the great Patriarch of the human family, and that he will give his keys to Christ at the council at Adam-ondi-ahman. That there apparently were humans running around on this Earth before the time of Adam raises questions that I haven't seen really good answers for yet.

Similarly, Noah and his three sons are also rather significant people in the biblical history. Though they are not quite as indispensable as Adam, the idea that they are totally mythical just doesn't work very well.

I agree that an acceptance of Adam is fairly important in light of latter day revelation, and frankly, I am uncertain as to the historicity of Adam. The existence of Pre-Adamites is fairly certain given the fossil evidence, while can be dismissed, cannot be done easily. Along with Potassium Argon and C14 testing which some have called into question there are secondary and third level counter tests that validate the first two such as dendrochronology, pottery testing, geological situations among others. JS's use of Adam as an "American" prophet at Adam-ondi-ahman is certainly doctrinal yet I am uncertain what his purpose was in including it. It stretches credulity.

I am not so certain as to the need to accept Noah and his sons. In the Sumerian and Akkadian account the family is not really mentioned. It would seem that it had more impact in the Hebrew version.

[SolarPowered]

I am not so certain as to the need to accept Noah and his sons. In the Sumerian and Akkadian account the family is not really mentioned. It would seem that it had more impact in the Hebrew version.

OK, yah, I'll agree that if Noah never existed, it doesn't destroy any major doctrines. It does make the account of Ether a bit problematic, though, because of the close ties between Jared & co. and the events of the Flood. These are possibly not insurmountable, though.