Noah'S Flood

[CASteinman]

It would have nothing to do with the earth's mantle, but its crust.

It has to do with the mantle. The Crust floats on the mantle. If it is going to sink.. it must sink into the mantle. Which.. incidentally must rise.

What of the earth being rolled together as a scroll - as prophesied by Isaiah?

I do not believe the earth is flat.

What of the mountains which fled from Enoch and the Brother of Jared?

I do not know. I was not there. I do not know where they went or what is meant by the idea of them fleeing.

How much of the scriptures do you want to deny, because things "just don't do that"?

I do not worship the Scriptures nor do I consider them to be perfect.

Maybe Mormon was a liar?

If he was, I don't know anything about that. You seem to be stepping over some lines here. Back up and take a breath.

Edited July 30, 2012 by CASteinman

[ANACO]

Thank you for sharing your personal belief system. It answered my questions.

[danielwoods]

This does not make an scientific sense to me. The Crust floats on the mantle. Whole continents cannot sink and then rise in 180 days. They can't just do that.

The narrative is written from Noah's perspective. It was an amazing event as we can imagine. However, he doesn't pretend to explain exactly how it happened. I've heard some postulate that the "fountains of the deep" might be referring to under many water volcanos, which super heated water causing rapid evaporation and rain as a result. Though it must be understood that all we can do is speculate how it might have occurred. That it occurred in Earth's history is testified by Noah and Moses via the scriptures.

Edited July 30, 2012 by danielwoods

[CASteinman]

The narrative is written from Noah's perspective. It was an amazing event as we can imagine. However, he doesn't pretend to explain exactly how it happened. I've heard some postulate that the "fountains of the deep" might be referring to under many water volcanos, which super heated water causing rapid evaporation and rain as a result. Though it must be understood that all we can do is speculate how it might have occurred. That it occurred in Earth's history is testified by Noah and Moses via the scriptures.

Maybe. As I said the text is not explainable to me. I have several variants of explanation for the Garden of Eden story. But not for the Flood.

[Ron Beron]

Unfortunately it doesn't read like a parable. I agree that Jesus used parables, however it's not hard to distinguish between a parable and a historical event being told. For example. Parables don't mention exact times and dates. Notice Noah's exact age is given when the flood hit. And further notice the references to other times for other events, like when the mountains became visible, etc.. This doesn't read like a parable.

Firstly, why is it so important that it is true? Would it change the meaning? Does it make the Bible less authoritative?

Secondly, It is important to understand that the Jewish tradition teaches that all sacred text contains many levels of meaning. In fact, there are infinite levels of reality. While a Jew might or might not except the literal historicity of the Bible he does hold to a infinite levels of meaning while western thought holds that all truth is finite and can only be one thing. In an excellent book Paul Veyne in Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?: An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination describes how the ancients viewed truth. In short, there were various levels of understanding of the myths and truths of Greek religious beliefs that while incredible still showed the ultimate truth that was behind the story.

[Helen47]

"for those concerned that kangaroos and wombats couldn't make it back to Australia. LOL"

How did they make it without the lions etc eating them. What did they eat on the way? Must have been a lot of incest among the animals. So all lions are descendent from two who spent time on the Ark. Were they vegetarians? Did Noah have a deep freeze?

[ANACO]

"for those concerned that kangaroos and wombats couldn't make it back to Australia. LOL"

How did they make it without the lions etc eating them. What did they eat on the way? Must have been a lot of incest among the animals. So all lions are descendent from two who spent time on the Ark. Were they vegetarians? Did Noah have a deep freeze?

Housekeeping concerns? Luke 10:41

Kind regards.

[thesometimesaint]

Blackstrap:

So what is the true message of the Flood story? If you do wickedness to a sufficient level,then God will destroy you,except not really,just metaphorically,some time in the afterlife,except maybe that's just a myth too.

When I read the 'myths' of creation from other civilizations, there is a sense of the metaphorical ( worlds on the back of a giant turtle,etc.) .

When I read the story of the Flood,there is a day to day reality reflected in it.( note the details of the construction of the ship)

Obviously,I am not sufficiently sophisticated and trained to see all the nuances.

God for some reason hasn't made his destruction of large numbers of people plainly evident for a few years now.

Talking snakes, and magical trees aren't enough, a place where there was no death, not counting whom the heck did Cain marry?

Wood is not the best material for shipbuilding. It is not enough that a ship be built to hold together; it must also be sturdy enough that the changing stresses don't open gaps in its hull. Wood is simply not strong enough to prevent separation between the joints, especially in the heavy seas that the Ark would have encountered. The longest wooden ships in modern seas are about 300 feet, and these require reinforcing with iron straps and leak so badly they must be constantly pumped. The ark was 450 feet long. See genesis account, Could an ark that size be made seaworthy?

[CASteinman]

Wood is not the best material for shipbuilding. It is not enough that a ship be built to hold together; it must also be sturdy enough that the changing stresses don't open gaps in its hull. Wood is simply not strong enough to prevent separation between the joints, especially in the heavy seas that the Ark would have encountered.

Hmmm... if only Columbus had read this post before trying to sail the ocean in a wooden boat...

[ANACO]

"for those concerned that kangaroos and wombats couldn't make it back to Australia. LOL"

How did they make it without the lions etc eating them. What did they eat on the way? Must have been a lot of incest among the animals. So all lions are descendent from two who spent time on the Ark. Were they vegetarians? Did Noah have a deep freeze?

Genesis 7:

2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

So Noah took 7 pair of the clean beasts, 7 pair of the fowls. Two pair of unclean. I suspect lions were considered unclean. And wombats. Maybe they were fed the extra fowl. or straw.

Edited July 30, 2012 by ANACO

[mfbukowski]

Since you were able to determine that they mean different things, the distinction must not be meaningless.

You are not getting this. Those were your words- I see no difference.

For the millionth time:

"There are no facts, only interpretations"- Nietzsche

Edited July 30, 2012 by mfbukowski

[Cobalt-70]

I'm really quite surprised by this line of argumentation. History had not been invented yet? All of their lives were based in history. The question of who you are, back then, entailed a long retelling of history and how you are connected to it. Consider when Stephen was defending himself before the Sanhedrin, he started with Abraham and worked all the way through their history, yes it was their actual history, which they were connected to, not a mythological history, not one that is made up to tell a story, but history that had correspondence to reality, that gave justification for Stephens actions. Just as we use history today.

History, as we understand it today, had not yet been invented. Myth and history were the same thing. So asserting that Jesus had a "correct" understanding of history is like imaging that Jesus' teachings were correct according to the rules of Dadaism, or steampunk.

[danielwoods]

Firstly, why is it so important that it is true? Would it change the meaning? Does it make the Bible less authoritative?

Secondly, It is important to understand that the Jewish tradition teaches that all sacred text contains many levels of meaning. In fact, there are infinite levels of reality. While a Jew might or might not except the literal historicity of the Bible he does hold to a infinite levels of meaning while western thought holds that all truth is finite and can only be one thing. In an excellent book Paul Veyne in Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?: An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination describes how the ancients viewed truth. In short, there were various levels of understanding of the myths and truths of Greek religious beliefs that while incredible still showed the ultimate truth that was behind the story.

If someone told you that this story is factually true, and you based your life on it, then later you realized or learned that the story wasn't factually true, does that change the meaning?

Maybe not the meaning but it certainly changes how it impacts your life, and changes your view of the other things taught by this same source.

As I queried earlier, if it's not factually/historically true doesn't it undermine Jesus and his authority? It makes his prediction that the last days will be like the days of Noah less impactful, and more mythical and ultimately untrue. If he believed it was true history, and we realize it wasn't, how can Jesus be trusted in other things we can't verify?

[danielwoods]

You are not getting this. Those were your words- I see no difference.

For the millionth time:

"There are no facts, only interpretations"- Nietzsche

If there is no difference, then there ought to be no complaint?

[danielwoods]

History, as we understand it today, had not yet been invented. Myth and history were the same thing. So asserting that Jesus had a "correct" understanding of history is like imaging that Jesus' teachings were correct according to the rules of Dadaism, or steampunk.

This is not my understanding of that era. It is my understanding that people understood the difference between made up stories (ie Myth) and true history.

[Ron Beron]

History, as we understand it today, had not yet been invented. Myth and history were the same thing. So asserting that Jesus had a "correct" understanding of history is like imaging that Jesus' teachings were correct according to the rules of Dadaism, or steampunk.

Not entirely true because Herodotus had attempted "to preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements both of our own and of other peoples; and more particularly, to show how they came into conflict." Homer was also an historian in part because he attempted to tell the story of the Iliad within the framework he knew even though it had comprised mainly Greek myths. Edited July 30, 2012 by Ron Beron

[Ron Beron]

If someone told you that this story is factually true, and you based your life on it, then later you realized or learned that the story wasn't factually true, does that change the meaning?

Maybe not the meaning but it certainly changes how it impacts your life, and changes your view of the other things taught by this same source.

As I queried earlier, if it's not factually/historically true doesn't it undermine Jesus and his authority? It makes his prediction that the last days will be like the days of Noah less impactful, and more mythical and ultimately untrue. If he believed it was true history, and we realize it wasn't, how can Jesus be trusted in other things we can't verify?

Let's go backwards, it doesn't bother me that some of what Jesus taught in metaphor and allegory wasn't historically accurate. I say this because much of what we know about Jesus may be historically inaccurate because the synoptic scriptures are not always what they purport to be.

To Jesus' thinking the last days were present in the 1st century not in the 21st century. Was the ending of the Jewish world coming to an end? Yes, in 70 AD the temple was destroyed and the people killed or sold into slavery.

[Cobalt-70]

Not entirely true because Herodotus had attempted to set down "to preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements both of our own and of other peoples; and more particularly, to show how they came into conflict." Homer was also an historian in part because he attempted to tell the story of the Iliad within the framework of the framework he knew even though it comprised of mainly Greek myths.

Heroditus was a chronicler, and did indeed represent an early form of protohistory. But as I said in a prior post, this development was limited to a few Greek and Roman elites. The only person doing this type of work in the Roman back-woods of Israel was probably Josephus. Protohistory was not sufficiently pervasive enough, by a long shot, to have had any influence on Jesus or the culture in which he operated.

[Cobalt-70]

This is not my understanding of that era. It is my understanding that people understood the difference between made up stories (ie Myth) and true history.

Myth is not made-up stories, and history is not, by contrast, true fact. Both myth and history are made-up stories, usually but not always based on some understanding of fact.

[Calm]

Peleg was born after Noah (Genesis 10:25) and it was in his day that the earth was divided, so it implies there was only one continent during Noah's day - for those concerned that kangaroos and wombats couldn't make it back to Australia. LOL!

I believe the idea of Peleg's day being a physical separation of lands is a relatively recent one based on scientific ideas rather than religious ones.

The Jews understood the story to be of a division into nations:

In the year 1569 after the creation of the world, Noah divided the earth by lot among his three sons, in the presence of an angel. Each one stretched forth his hand and took a slip from the bosom of Noah. Shem's slip was inscribed with the middle of the earth, and this portion became the inheritance of his descendants unto all eternity. Noah rejoiced that the lot had assigned it to Shem. Thus was fulfilled his blessing upon him, "And God in the habitation of Shem," for three holy places fell within his precincts--the Holy of Holies in the Temple, Mount Sinai, the middle point of the desert, and Mount Zion, the middle point of the navel of the earth.

The south fell to the lot of Ham, and the north became the inheritance of Japheth. The land of Ham is hot, Japheth's cold, but Shem's is neither hot nor cold, its temperature is hot and cold mixed.[68]

This division of the earth took place toward the end of the life of Peleg, the name given to him by his father Eber, who, being a prophet, knew that the division of the earth would take place in the time of his son.[69] The brother of Peleg was called Joktan, because the duration of the life of man was shortened in his time.[70]

In turn, the three sons of Noah, while they were still standing in the presence of their father, divided each his portion among his children, Noah threatening with his curse any who should stretch out his hand to take a portion not assigned to him by lot. And they all cried, "So be it! So be it!"[71]

Thus were divided one hundred and four lands and ninety-nine islands among seventy-two nations, each with a language of its own, using sixteen different sets of characters for writing. To Japheth were allotted forty-four lands, thirty-three islands, twenty-two languages, and five kinds of writing; Ham received thirty-four lands, thirty-three islands, twenty-four languages, and five kinds of writing; and Shem twenty-six lands, thirty-three islands, twenty-six languages, and six kinds of writing--one set of written characters more to Shem than to either of his brothers, the extra set being the Hebrew.[72]

The land appointed as the inheritance of the twelve sons of Jacob was provisionally granted to Canaan, Zidon, Heth, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. It was the duty of these nations to take care of the land until the rightful owners should come.[73]

http://philologos.or...vol1/four.htm#9

There are even many creationists who disagree with the concept that this is a physical division and not a linguistic/national one:

Which arguments should definitely not be used?.....

“Earth’s division in the days of Peleg (Gen. 10:25) refers to catastrophic splitting of the continents.”

Commentators both before and after Lyell and Darwin (including Calvin, Keil and Delitzsch, and Leupold) are almost unanimous that this passage refers to linguistic division at Babel and subsequent territorial division. We should always interpret Scripture with Scripture, and there’s nothing else in Scripture to indicate that this referred to continental division. But only eight verses on (note that chapter and verse divisions were not inspired), the Bible states, ‘Now the whole earth had one language and one speech’ (Gen. 11:1), and as a result of their disobedience, ‘the LORD confused the language of all the earth’ (Gen. 11:9). This conclusively proves that the ‘Earth’ that was divided was the same Earth that spoke only one language, i.e. ‘Earth’ refers in this context to the people of the Earth, not Planet Earth.

http://creation.com/...-should-not-use Edited July 30, 2012 by calmoriah

[bcuzbcuz]

Hmmm... if only Columbus had read this post before trying to sail the ocean in a wooden boat...

Columbus' ship, the Santa Maria, was about 120 feet long (36 meters) but was lost at sea. The other two ships were half that size. Compare that to 300 cubits (Noah's ark), roughly 160 meters. Then calculate in wooden ships tendencies to hogging and sagging.

[thesometimesaint]

danielwoods:

The narrative is written from Noah's perspective. It was an amazing event as we can imagine. However, he doesn't pretend to explain exactly how it happened. I've heard some postulate that the "fountains of the deep" might be referring to under many water volcanos, which super heated water causing rapid evaporation and rain as a result. Though it must be understood that all we can do is speculate how it might have occurred. That it occurred in Earth's history is testified by Noah and Moses via the scriptures.

Another physical impossibility.

Vapor canopy. This model, proposed by Whitcomb & Morris and others, proposes that much of the Flood water was suspended overhead until the 40 days of rain which caused the Flood. The following objections are covered in more detail by Brown.

• How was the water suspended, and what caused it to fall all at once when it did?
  
• If a canopy holding the equivalent to more than 40 feet of water were part of the atmosphere, it would raise the atmospheric pressure accordingly, raising oxygen and nitrogen levels to toxic levels.
  
• If the canopy began as vapor, any water from it would be superheated. This scenario essentially starts with most of the Flood waters boiled off. Noah and company would be poached. If the water began as ice in orbit, the gravitational potential energy would likewise raise the temperature past boiling.
  
• A canopy of any significant thickness would have blocked a great deal of light, lowering the temperature of the earth greatly before the Flood.
  
• Any water above the ozone layer would not be shielded from ultraviolet light, and the light would break apart the water molecules.
  

Hydroplate. Walt Brown's model proposes that the Flood waters came from a layer of water about ten miles underground, which was released by a catastrophic rupture of the earth's crust, shot above the atmosphere, and fell as rain.

• How was the water contained? Rock, at least the rock which makes up the earth's crust, doesn't float. The water would have been forced to the surface long before Noah's time, or Adam's time for that matter.
  
• Even a mile deep, the earth is boiling hot, and thus the reservoir of water would be superheated. Further heat would be added by the energy of the water falling from above the atmosphere. As with the vapor canopy model, Noah would have been poached.
  
• Where is the evidence? The escaping waters would have eroded the sides of the fissures, producing poorly sorted basaltic erosional deposits. These would be concentrated mainly near the fissures, but some would be shot thousands of miles along with the water. (Noah would have had to worry about falling rocks along with the rain.) Such deposits would be quite noticeable but have never been seen.
  

Comet. Kent Hovind proposed that the Flood water came from a comet which broke up and fell on the earth. Again, this has the problem of the heat from the gravitational potential energy. The water would be steam by the time it reached the surface of the earth.

Runaway subduction. John Baumgardner created the runaway subduction model, which proposes that the pre-Flood lithosphere (ocean floor), being denser than the underlying mantle, began sinking. The heat released in the process decreased the viscosity of the mantle, so the process accelerated catastrophically. All the original lithosphere became subducted; the rising magma which replaced it raised the ocean floor, causing sea levels to rise and boiling off enough of the ocean to cause 150 days of rain. When it cooled, the ocean floor lowered again, and the Flood waters receded. Sedimentary mountains such as the Sierras and Andes rose after the Flood by isostatic rebound. [Baumgardner, 1990a; Austin et al., 1994]

• The main difficulty of this theory is that it admittedly doesn't work without miracles. [Baumgardner, 1990a, 1990b] The thermal diffusivity of the earth, for example, would have to increase 10,000 fold to get the subduction rates proposed [Matsumura, 1997], and miracles are also necessary to cool the new ocean floor and to raise sedimentary mountains in months rather than in the millions of years it would ordinarily take.
  
• Baumgardner estimates a release of 10²⁸ joules from the subduction process. This is more than enough to boil off all the oceans. In addition, Baumgardner postulates that the mantle was much hotter before the Flood (giving it greater viscosity); that heat would have to go somewhere, too.
  
• Cenozoic sediments are post-Flood according to this model. Yet fossils from Cenozoic sediments alone show a 65-million-year record of evolution, including a great deal of the diversification of mammals and angiosperms. [Carroll, 1997, chpts. 5, 6, & 13]
  
• Subduction on the scale Baumgardner proposes would have produced very much more vulcanism around plate boundaries than we see. [Matsumura, 1997]
  

New ocean basins. Most flood models (including those above, possibly excepting Hovind's) deal with the water after the flood by proposing that it became our present oceans. The earth's terrain, according to this model, was much, much flatter during the Flood, and through cataclysms, the mountains were pushed up and the ocean basins lowered. (Brown proposes that the cataclysms were caused by the crust sliding around on a cushion of water; Whitcomb & Morris don't give a cause.)

• How could such a change be effected? To change the density and/or temperature of at least a quarter of the earth's crust fast enough to raise and lower the ocean floor in a matter of months would require mechanisms beyond any proposed in any of the flood models.
  
• Why are most sediments on high ground? Most sediments are carried until the water slows down or stops. If the water stopped in the oceans, we should expect more sediments there. Baumgardner's own modeling shows that, during the Flood, currents would be faster over continents than over ocean basins [Baumgardner, 1994], so sediments should, on the whole, be removed from continents and deposited in ocean basins. Yet sediments on the ocean basin average 0.6 km thick, while on continents (including continental shelves), they average 2.6 km thick. [Poldervaart, 1955]
  
• Where's the evidence? The water draining from the continents would have produced tremendous torrents. There is evidence of similar flooding in the Scablands of Washington state (from the draining of a lake after the breaking of an ice dam) and on the far western floor of the Mediterranean Sea (from the ocean breaking through the Straits of Gibralter). Why is such evidence not found worldwide?
  
• How did the ark survive the process? Such a wholesale restructuring of the earth's topography, compressed into just a few months, would have produced tsunamis large enough to circle the earth. The aftershocks alone would have been devastating for years afterwards.
  

References

Austin, Steven A., John R. Baumgardner, D. Russell Humphreys, Andrew A. Snelling, Larry Vardiman, & Kurt P. Wise, 1994. Catastrophic plate tectonics: a global flood model of earth history. Proceedings of the third international conference on creationism, technical symposium sessions, pp. 609-621.

Brown, Walt, 1997. In the beginning: compelling evidence for creation and the Flood. ( www.creationscience.com/onlinebook)

Baumgardner, John R., 1990a. Changes accompanying Noah's Flood. Proceedings of the second international conference on creationism, vol. II, pp. 35-45.

Baumgardner, John R., 1990b. The imparative of non-stationary natural law in relation to Noah's Flood. Creation Research Society Quarterly 27(3): 98-100.

Baumgardner, John R., 1994. Patterns of ocean circulation over the continents during Noah's Flood. Proceedings of the third international conference on creationism, technical symposium sessions, pp. 77-86.

Carroll, Robert L., 1997. Patterns and processes of vertebrate evolution, Cambridge University Press.

Matsumura, Molleen, 1997. Miracles in, creationism out: "The geophysics of God". Reports of the National Center for Science Education 17(3): 29-32.

<a name="r5Poldervaart"> Poldervaart, Arie, 1955. Chemistry of the earth's crust. pp. 119-144 In: Poldervaart, A., ed., Crust of the Earth, Geological Society of America Special Paper 62, Waverly Press, MD.

Whitcomb, J.C. Jr. & H.M. Morris, 1961. The Genesis Flood. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., Philadelphia PA.

[CASteinman]

Columbus' ship, the Santa Maria, was about 120 feet long (36 meters) but was lost at sea. The other two ships were half that size. Compare that to 300 cubits (Noah's ark), roughly 160 meters. Then calculate in wooden ships tendencies to hogging and sagging.

So, your issue is not the wood, but rather the size.

How deeply familiar are you with the revealed plans and design features for the Ark?

How much engineering analysis have you done on "gopher wood"?

Edited July 30, 2012 by CASteinman

[Ron Beron]

So, your issue is not the wood, but rather the size.

How deeply familiar are you with the revealed plans and design features for the Ark?

A shipwright, given the dimensions and materials for the ark, said that the vessal would be unfeasible and more than likely break into two.

[Ron Beron]

Heroditus was a chronicler, and did indeed represent an early form of protohistory. But as I said in a prior post, this development was limited to a few Greek and Roman elites. The only person doing this type of work in the Roman back-woods of Israel was probably Josephus. Protohistory was not sufficiently pervasive enough, by a long shot, to have had any influence on Jesus or the culture in which he operated.

I would agree, but the process that he used, however archaic was well-established in the Hellenistic world. Certainly, it was more subjective than it is today, but along with Josephus we have the accounts of many who tried to establish a history of the early church, including Eusebius, et al. In the terms of OT historicity I think that the viewpoints offered were completely subjective to the religious views of the authors and were somewhat devoid of objectivity.