Symbolism Of Noah And The Ark

[CASteinman]

It bothers me to live in such a day that so many would be so easily convinced that the flood and ark story is fiction or some kind of fable. At what point does Jesus Christ, the resurrection, and eternal life also become fiction?

It doesn't bother me on two counts:

1. I have heard it is not a sin to err on Doctrine.

2. It is possible that it is part of an ancient Temple Ceremony -- and if so, then it may be a true story allegorized to be a lesson for everyone. Not fiction -- but not exactly what happened either.

If that latter is true -- then it might easily result in confusion.

I know -- I am seriously confused about how the earth could have been entirely covered with liquid water -- all at the same time. I'm not going to run around and just insist that it wasn't. But I can't find any way to actually figure out how it is possible or detect any actual evidence that this happened.

Now.. Ice -- well maybe. But probably not in the time of humans.

[Nathair/|\]

It bothers me to live in such a day that so many would be so easily convinced that the flood and ark story is fiction or some kind of fable. At what point does Jesus Christ, the resurrection, and eternal life also become fiction?

It may be better to call it myth rather than fiction or fable. A myth can be literally true, as in the instance of Reagan when he said, "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall." What makes it myth are the lessons it teaches and what it tells us about the culture it's drawn from.

[cinepro]

Helen, do you really have to ask this? It's quite simple, according to Bruce R McConkie the continents split after the flood, apparently some kangaroos and koala bears hitched a ride on the chunk of land we now call Australia. Now according to 99.9% of scientists it didn't happen this way, but as with the dinosaurs bones, we know that Satan was just playing tricks on us. He simply changed the structure of the Earth to make it look like it happened over several billion years. God in his mysterious, yet benevolent ways allowed him to do it so he could you know...test us?

Hey, don't pin this on Elder McConkie. Here's what the current Doctrine and Covenants CES manual teaches the college-age LDS students about Peleg and the earth being "divided":

D&C 133:23–24. Will the Continents Be Rejoined?

Genesis indicates that in the early history of the world the land masses were united. Moses recorded that one of the great-great-grandsons of Shem was named Peleg (a Hebrew word meaning division) because “in his days was the earth divided” (Genesis 10:25). Many scholars have passed this reference off as meaning some sort of cultural or political division, but modern prophets have taught that this statement should be taken literally.

An article published early in the history of the Church under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith stated: “The Eternal God hath declared that the great deep shall roll back into the north countries and that the land of Zion and the land of Jerusalem shall be joined together, as they were before they were divided in the days of Peleg. No wonder the mind starts at the sound of the last days!” (“The Last Days,” Evening and Morning Star, Feb. 1833, p. 1.)

President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: “If … the earth is to be restored as it was in the beginning, then all the land surface will again be in one place as it was before the days of Peleg, when this great division was accomplished. Europe, Africa, and the islands of the sea including Australia, New Zealand, and other places in the Pacific must be brought back and joined together as they were in the beginning.” (Answers to Gospel Questions, 5:74.)

In an introduction to a book on continental drift, a scientist writes:

“Formerly, most scientists regarded the earth as rigid and the continents as fixed, but now the surface of the earth is seen as slowly deformable and the continents as ‘rafts’ floating on a ‘sea’ of denser rock. The continents have repeatedly collided and joined, repeatedly broken and separated in different patterns, and, very likely, they have grown larger in the process.

“This scientific revolution, as others before it, was long in the making, but it was not until the late 1960s that it began to succeed. At a meeting of the world’s geophysicists in August of 1971, it was made clear that the notion of continental drift, which had been heresy only a few years before, had become the orthodoxy of the great majority.” (Continents Adrift, preface.)

Though the time of this division of the land is placed much earlier by scientists than by the biblical chronology, the idea of one land mass is widely accepted. This revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 133 declares that sometime in the future that geographical unity will be restored.

Edited March 18, 2013 by cinepro

[Freedom]

Having the story of Noah in the bible written as an allegory does not mean that Noah did not exist, but rather that the way it is rendered in the bible is not intended to be an accurate historical portrayal of the actual events. 1 Nephi is a similar text, the event did happen, but the way they were recorded serve (in part) to establish Nephi as king.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

As usual, I disagree with that article cinepro likes to link to. Since I don't think it's terribly helpful to just point out flaws, then let's find a better paradigm to replace them with! So here goes.

No one needs to cringe if, while doing the best they knew, they taught the Flood story as literally true down to the last detail. And there is no particular connection or danger to the Resurrection story to recognize that some motifs in scripture might be based on a "fable". (As Orson Scott Card wrote in his novel Xenocide: "The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them.")

Nibley has written quite a bit about the Book of Enoch as a Theodicy dealing with the Flood. In particular, he emphasizes two interlocking ideas:

1. That there was literally a physical pollution of the earth's ecosystem which simply could not be corrected except through massive renewing of the underlying biology, and

2. That there were multiple, repeatedly-offered ferry-systems offered by Angels acting as a sort of shuttle-service for anyone who wanted to get out of harm's way. God repeatedly warned people of the coming catastrophe, and was caught in a double of bind of renewing the land for future generations versus preserving individual Agency.

These ideas do much to counteract the viciousness of the usual version of the Flood story. In particular, our view of a limited God who works through physical means implies some logical constraints on His abilities; He can't just snap His fingers and magic away problems, it takes real effort. However, Nibley was a bit more of a Catastrophist than I am (and far more distrustful of evolution than I am), and I personally don't think his account is ultimately successful as Theodicy.

At the same time, it's good to keep in mind that in such pieces as Before Adam, Nibley also thought that a local Flood would perfectly satisfy all the requirements of the text, and indeed help to clarify some points, such as what was special about Noah's blessing if all life on earth -- rather than just the earthy soil of one particular part of the planet -- was destroyed and all future people were descended from just one family:

Speaking of Noah, God promised Enoch "that he [God] would call upon the children of Noah; and he sent forth an unalterable decree, that a remnant of his seed [Enoch's through Noah] should always be found among all nations, while the earth should stand; and the Lord said: Blessed is he through whose seed Messiah shall come." (Moses 7:51—53.) Methuselah boasted about his line as something special. (Moses 8:2—3.) Why special if it included the whole human race? These blessings have no meaning if all the people of the earth and all the nations are the seed of Noah and Enoch. What other line could the Messiah come through?

Furthermore, Nibley noted long ago (when was The World of the Jaredites published? How many decades ago?) that while some authorities had supposed that the references to "dividing the earth" were to be applied to the literal movement of continents, the ancient context clearly shows that it was a dispersal, a migration in which lands were divided between peoples.

Certainly it is quite as legitimate to think of the days of Peleg as the time when, as the old Jewish writers describe it, "the children of Noah began to divide the earth among themselves," as, without the least authority, to visualize the drifting of the continents or the rending apart of the terrestrial globe. A reader's first reaction to an ancient and fragmentary text usually becomes a lifelong credo, though research and revelation have combined in latter days to discredit this obvious and easy solution of the mysteries.

Joseph Smith's quote in the manual would not be out of place in exegesis from the 1800s, though of course even then there was fierce controversy about the topic. Joseph Fielding Smith, as we all know, was influenced by Fundamentalist literature. We have to interpret these things in context; let's remember, as the article itself states, that Plate Tectonics only came to be widely accepted in the late 1950s and early 1960s, after all. It's a good thing that the manual is willing to accept modern science (or at least make a gesture towards it); it's an honest mistake to try to apply it to an anachronistic context (which is itself admitted -- "much earlier by scientists" indeed!)

Since our leaders (and our non-canonical manuals) are explicitly said to be fallible in the D&C, and their "power" is only effective insofar as they are able to persuade others by reasoning, it should not be surprising that they will sometimes err about historical questions. There are tons of contradictions in the Bible, because it is a mass of human documents made of squiggles of ink scribbled onto pieces of dead trees. Personally, I'm simply not convinced that the geological and biological evidence can support the idea of a literal worldwide Flood, despite the fact that some people will continue to interpret the story that way.

The above, by the way, is not a knock on Nibley's scholarship at all, which (as an unrepentant Nibleyophile) I think still holds up far better than the received wisdom about sloppy footnoting might have one believe; he was doing excellent work with the best sources of his day. Our generation has simply had the benefit of a few decades of learning since his time; he'd be the first to call his previous conclusions into question when new evidence appeared.

This whole issue is compounded by the fact that there are untold numbers of different versions of the Flood story found throughout the world.

Though frustrating for those of us who aren't linguists who speak a bazillion languages like Nibley, it's always best to get as close to the source text as we can, even if it must be filtered through translation. One popular place to start is the Epic of Gilgamesh.

These stories are passed along generation after generation. One retelling I'm especially fond of is Orson Scott Card's sci-fi take in Atlantis. (Note the time depth here: writing separated by literally thousands of years -- and even across continents separated by oceans -- can still share motifs drawn from a common source. Oh, The Anxiety of Influence!) What I think is incredibly useful in his version is the idea that a small, localized Flood which covered "the entire earth" -- as far as the observers were able to see -- is a perfectly logical position to take.

It's important to keep in mind, however, that his version of the story is decidedly fictionalized, with some liberties taken. Card himself has noted that he carelessly misnamed one of the characters, and he's simply historically incorrect to assert within the text that the Americas did not owe a debt to the Flood stories -- see, for instance, The Great Flood: A Handbook of World Flood Myths by the great James Frazer.

I wonder if anyone has identified the olive with the world tree/Yggdrasil with it's roots in the underworld, it's trunk in this world, and it's leaves in the heavens.

Indeed, many people have! This leads to my next point: Card's version, though far more palatable to me, is still concretizing things a bit too much. The view of the Flood which I think has by far the most evidence to support it is that which sees the innumerable Flood myths from around the world as survivals of an ancient calendrical system which had to be passed on by the use of vivid imagery.

Dechend and Santillana pointed out long ago that the "Dry Earth" was the ideal plane going through the celestial equator. The "flat-earth", then, was simply the square made by the four points of the solstices and equinoxes inscribed within the circle of the ecliptic, with the Axis Mundi being the sacred World-Tree Ladder to the North Star/World Nail supported by the Cosmic Mountain and surrounded by the "waters" Above and Below. Due to precession, the calendar is based on a conceptual structure pivoting around an axis in which the "Dry Earth" disappears under a "Flood" heralding a new Age.

The point is, in order to pass on the idea of a calendar in preliterate societies, old stories could be repurposed to form heuristic teaching devices. You have to have seen the ocean and a Big Flood (perhaps runoff from the last Ice Age, which was definitely more than 6,000 years ago) in the past in order to describe part of your calendar as the Dry Earth dying beneath a Flood. You have to have seen a boat in order to create a constellation that looks like one. In that sense, the story might very well be based on a kernel of historical "truth".

But that doesn't imply that when you repurpose the imagery to teach a calendar date -- associated with Chaos and the beginning of a new World Age -- that the figurative language literally occurred at that date. (Dates cannot literally be darkened, and yet we can say with perfect accuracy that the day after Thanksgiving will be a Black Friday no matter how sunny the physical environment may be.) The stories in Genesis were not just randomly selected from history; they were very carefully edited to make particular points to people who'd understand the references.

(Since baptism is itself a symbolic ritual, there is no reason why a symbolic baptism of the earth should have to be based on a literal-down-to-the-last-word event. Whether the Flood was a "fictional" calendrical event based on "literal" localized imagery, or a literal worldwide catastrophe, it makes no particular difference to the symbolism of a baptismal death and rebirth, but it can definitely hinder geological studies when disconfirming evidence not accounted for by the story is shouted down due to one literalized interpretation becoming accepted as entrenched and unquestionable dogma.)

Okay, so I've added

to my 'Ancient Mysteries Solved By Me' scoreboard and we can all stop arguing now, right? Next up, world peace? Right? Right?

... right?

... siiigh ...

Edited March 18, 2013 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[Tacenda]

As usual, I disagree with that article cinepro likes to link to. Since I don't think it's terribly helpful to just point out flaws, then let's find a better paradigm to replace them with! So here goes.

No one needs to cringe if, while doing the best they knew, they taught the Flood story as literally true down to the last detail. And there is no particular connection or danger to the Resurrection story to recognize that some motifs in scripture might be based on a "fable". (As Orson Scott Card wrote in his novel Xenocide: "The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them.")

Nibley has written quite a bit about the Book of Enoch as a Theodicy dealing with the Flood. In particular, he emphasizes two interlocking ideas:

1. That there was literally a physical pollution of the earth's ecosystem which simply could not be corrected except through massive renewing of the underlying biology, and

2. That there were multiple, repeatedly-offered ferry-systems offered by Angels acting as a sort of shuttle-service for anyone who wanted to get out of harm's way. God repeatedly warned people of the coming catastrophe, and was caught in a double of bind of renewing the land for future generations versus preserving individual Agency.

These ideas do much to counteract the viciousness of the usual version of the Flood story. In particular, our view of a limited God who works through physical means implies some logical constraints on His abilities; He can't just snap His fingers and magic away problems, it takes real effort. However, Nibley was a bit more of a Catastrophist than I am (and far more distrustful of evolution than I am), and I personally don't think his account is ultimately successful as Theodicy.

At the same time, it's good to keep in mind that in such pieces as Before Adam, Nibley also thought that a local Flood would perfectly satisfy all the requirements of the text, and indeed help to clarify some points, such as what was special about Noah's blessing if all life on earth -- rather than just the earthy soil of one particular part of the planet -- was destroyed and all future people were descended from just one family:

Furthermore, Nibley noted long ago (when was The World of the Jaredites published? How many decades ago?) that while some authorities had supposed that the references to "dividing the earth" were to be applied to the literal movement of continents, the ancient context clearly shows that it was a dispersal, a migration in which lands were divided between peoples.

Joseph Smith's quote in the manual would not be out of place in exegesis from the 1800s, though of course even then there was fierce controversy about the topic. Joseph Fielding Smith, as we all know, was influenced by Fundamentalist literature. We have to interpret these things in context; let's remember, as the article itself states, that Plate Tectonics only came to be widely accepted in the late 1950s and early 1960s, after all. It's a good thing that the manual is willing to accept modern science (or at least make a gesture towards it); it's an honest mistake to try to apply it to an anachronistic context (which is itself admitted -- "much earlier by scientists" indeed!)

Since our leaders (and our non-canonical manuals) are explicitly said to be fallible in the D&C, and their "power" is only effective insofar as they are able to persuade others by reasoning, it should not be surprising that they will sometimes err about historical questions. There are tons of contradictions in the Bible, because it is a mass of human documents made of squiggles of ink scribbled onto pieces of dead trees. Personally, I'm simply not convinced that the geological and biological evidence can support the idea of a literal worldwide Flood, despite the fact that some people will continue to interpret the story that way.

The above, by the way, is not a knock on Nibley's scholarship at all, which (as an unrepentant Nibleyophile) I think still holds up far better than the received wisdom about sloppy footnoting might have one believe; he was doing excellent work with the best sources of his day. Our generation has simply had the benefit of a few decades of learning since his time; he'd be the first to call his previous conclusions into question when new evidence appeared.

This whole issue is compounded by the fact that there are untold numbers of different versions of the Flood story found throughout the world.

Though frustrating for those of us who aren't linguists who speak a bazillion languages like Nibley, it's always best to get as close to the source text as we can, even if it must be filtered through translation. One popular place to start is the Epic of Gilgamesh.

These stories are passed along generation after generation. One retelling I'm especially fond of is Orson Scott Card's sci-fi take in Atlantis. (Note the time depth here: writing separated by literally thousands of years -- and even across continents separated by oceans -- can still share motifs drawn from a common source. Oh, The Anxiety of Influence!) What I think is incredibly useful in his version is the idea that a small, localized Flood which covered "the entire earth" -- as far as the observers were able to see -- is a perfectly logical position to take.

It's important to keep in mind, however, that his version of the story is decidedly fictionalized, with some liberties taken. Card himself has noted that he carelessly misnamed one of the characters, and he's simply historically incorrect to assert within the text that the Americas did not owe a debt to the Flood stories -- see, for instance, The Great Flood: A Handbook of World Flood Myths by the great James Frazer.

Indeed, many people have! This leads to my next point: Card's version, though far more palatable to me, is still concretizing things a bit too much. The view of the Flood which I think has by far the most evidence to support it is that which sees the innumerable Flood myths from around the world as survivals of an ancient calendrical system which had to be passed on by the use of vivid imagery.

Dechend and Santillana pointed out long ago that the "Dry Earth" was the ideal plane going through the celestial equator. The "flat-earth", then, was simply the square made by the four points of the solstices and equinoxes inscribed within the circle of the ecliptic, with the Axis Mundi being the sacred World-Tree Ladder to the North Star/World Nail supported by the Cosmic Mountain and surrounded by the "waters" Above and Below. Due to precession, the calendar is based on a conceptual structure pivoting around an axis in which the "Dry Earth" disappears under a "Flood" heralding a new Age.

The point is, in order to pass on the idea of a calendar in preliterate societies, old stories could be repurposed to form heuristic teaching devices. You have to have seen the ocean and a Big Flood (perhaps runoff from the last Ice Age, which was definitely more than 6,000 years ago) in the past in order to describe part of your calendar as the Dry Earth dying beneath a Flood. You have to have seen a boat in order to create a constellation that looks like one. In that sense, the story might very well be based on a kernel of historical "truth".

But that doesn't imply that when you repurpose the imagery to teach a calendar date -- associated with Chaos and the beginning of a new World Age -- that the figurative language literally occurred at that date. (Dates cannot literally be darkened, and yet we can say with perfect accuracy that the day after Thanksgiving will be a Black Friday no matter how sunny the physical environment may be.) The stories in Genesis were not just randomly selected from history; they were very carefully edited to make particular points to people who'd understand the references.

(Since baptism is itself a symbolic ritual, there is no reason why a symbolic baptism of the earth should have to be based on a literal-down-to-the-last-word event. Whether the Flood was a "fictional" calendrical event based on "literal" localized imagery, or a literal worldwide catastrophe, it makes no particular difference to the symbolism of a baptismal death and rebirth, but it can definitely hinder geological studies when disconfirming evidence not accounted for by the story is shouted down due to one literalized interpretation becoming accepted as entrenched and unquestionable dogma.)

Okay, so I've added

to my 'Ancient Mysteries Solved By Me' scoreboard and we can all stop arguing now, right? Next up, world peace? Right? Right?

... right?

... siiigh ...

I cringe no more.... plus I like believing the bible to be the word of God. Wow, I just had an epiphany. What if since the Saviour has left His word with us through the bible we can say it's another one of His beloved parables.

[bcuzbcuz]

It bothers me to live in such a day that so many would be so easily convinced that the flood and ark story is fiction or some kind of fable. At what point does Jesus Christ, the resurrection, and eternal life also become fiction?

And it bothers me to live in such a day that so many are so easily convinced that the flood and ark story has any kind of veracity when absolutely nothing exists that can verify it. There is zero evidence of a world wide flood. Nothing exists in the geologic or archaeologic records that coincide with a world flood, neither 4000, 6000, or ten thousand years ago. Genetic science shows that a bottleneck of population roughly 4000 years ago would not lead to an increase of populations but rather extinction of many.

Do you mean that, for you, finding out that the story of Noah is simply an allegorical myth, that your faith would be dealt such a blow that you would call into question all aspects of your faith? Sorry to hear that.

[bcuzbcuz]

Hey, don't pin this on Elder McConkie. Here's what the current Doctrine and Covenants CES manual teaches the college-age LDS students about Peleg and the earth being "divided":

I thought Pegleg was a pirate. Oh, you wrote Peleg. Never mind.

[Questing Beast]

The platypus, I want answers to how did the platypus made it to Oz....

[Questing Beast]

It bothers me to live in such a day that so many would be so easily convinced that the flood and ark story is fiction or some kind of fable. At what point does Jesus Christ, the resurrection, and eternal life also become fiction?

How about right at the getgo? ALL stories are fictions, beyond the third generation of the original participants, i.e. when the last living witness is dead and gone, ALL "history" is fiction, because it is transmitted by those who do not know what they are talking about: only what they heard about.

The "Jesus Story" is the greatest, most influential and important piece of "fiction" this planet has ever produced and disseminated. Whole worldwide religions have spun off that one. And I have to believe that it is all okay with "God", the way these kinds of things get around....

[LDSGuy]

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. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. Gen 7:2-3

I'd be interested in the numbers. Why seven (the divine completion) and two (division/ disunity)?

I think the birds were taken by sevens so that they could be eaten on the ark.

[Rob Osborn]

And it bothers me to live in such a day that so many are so easily convinced that the flood and ark story has any kind of veracity when absolutely nothing exists that can verify it. There is zero evidence of a world wide flood. Nothing exists in the geologic or archaeologic records that coincide with a world flood, neither 4000, 6000, or ten thousand years ago. Genetic science shows that a bottleneck of population roughly 4000 years ago would not lead to an increase of populations but rather extinction of many.

Do you mean that, for you, finding out that the story of Noah is simply an allegorical myth, that your faith would be dealt such a blow that you would call into question all aspects of your faith? Sorry to hear that.

It just depends on how one interprets the evidence. Everymajor mountain chain in the world is made of water lain strata that was then upthrust. You can see all these sedimentary layers as a testimony of them indeed made under water in the past. In Psalms, the scriptures actually state that after the flood God caused the mountains to upthrust and valleys to form to create a natural barrier so thatthe flood waters would never again cover the whole earth. Of course, if one does believe this then it completely destroys theories like that of evolution and the age of the earth, dinosaurs,etc.

[LDSGuy]

"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. Of fowls also of the air by sevens,

the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth" (Genesis 7:2-3).

Would you re-specify your 'altar' analysis.

Thanks,

Jim

I didn't have my scriptures in front of me at the time. I was going on pure memory, which isn't always that great. I just think that the temple doesn't necessarily focus on individual salvation, but on the salvation and exaltation of man and woman together. If the ark is symbolic of the temple, and the animals went in by two (with the exception of birds and clean animals, which were probably used for food because there were more), I think that it is symbolic of men and women entering the temple together to be saved to together, not separately. I think the unclean animals were based on the Mosaic law, since it was Moses writing the book of Genesis, and his audience would have understood which animals were unclean. Unclean here does not mean unworthy, because obviously they were worthy of salvation from the flood.

[changed]

Do you mean "symbolism" in the sense that the original authors and transmitters of the story intended it to have meaning, or "symbolism" in the ways that modern readers can add their own meaning to it? In other words, are you trying to "discover" the original meaning of the story (i.e. a question of history or anthropology), or just find meaning for it in our day (a question of creativity)?

All of the above. Did the original authors understand the full symbolism behind the animal sacrifices they performed? or half of what they did? I think symbolism goes beyond what the original authors may or may not have understood about it - God works line upon line, there is always more to discover in what He teaches I think. It's good to learn from the past, but hopefully we can also see further too - "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" and all that.

And if you're LDS, the article in my signature has some great insight into the LDS view of the symbolic nature of the flood.

http://www.insectlor...CFeyPPAodUnEAkA

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out!

Yes, I'm LDS - with 3 kids. I'm trying to decide how to best teach them to give them a strong foundation in the basic principles, while at the same time giving them room to come to their own conclusions on how some of the details of it all work out. There is a difference between having a testimony in the reality of God - in the principles of humility/charity/faith/love - in the Savior.... vs. understanding all the details of it. I'm trying to be very careful not to present as doctrine things that are not actually doctrinal, and think the important things to teach are the principles within the stories - the principle of working for something in the face of mockery, of patience, family loyalty, that following God's words brings protection from the storms etc. etc. At some point I think the Earth was baptized in water, but I don't know how long ago or how that happened - but the important part of the story isn't the time line, or the details of it all - the principles are the important part, and that's what I want my kids to latch onto.

(Pearl of Great Price | Articles of Faith 1:9)

9 We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

Everything has not been revealed yet, and that is ok - it makes it exciting, and interesting, and makes for a fun puzzle to solve... I won't tell my kids how to solve their puzzles, and I won't pretend I know how to put all the pieces together...

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

- Antoine de Saint Exupéry

I don't want them to be carried away or distracted by any controversies, I want to teach them to long for righteousness, to embrace charity, to seek truth wherever they might find it... I want them to fall in love with God and all His clever parables and dealings with mankind.

Edited March 18, 2013 by changed

[bcuzbcuz]

It just depends on how one interprets the evidence. Everymajor mountain chain in the world is made of water lain strata that was then upthrust. You can see all these sedimentary layers as a testimony of them indeed made under water in the past. In Psalms, the scriptures actually state that after the flood God caused the mountains to upthrust and valleys to form to create a natural barrier so thatthe flood waters would never again cover the whole earth. Of course, if one does believe this then it completely destroys theories like that of evolution and the age of the earth, dinosaurs,etc.

It doesn't honestly sound like you're interpretting the evidence as much as ignoring it altogether. Any properly written book on geology should give you a better understanding of sedimentary layers, both how they're lain down and the time required and how ages of layers are evaluated and verified. I say properly written geography book because I know there are books severely outdated and simply wrong, either through ignorance or intention.

Get a hammer and go out and dig some fossils yourself. They're not hard to find if you know where to look. But take good notes of the layers you find them in. Go to the Grand Canyon and dig. Count the layers. Measure the layers.

If you want to disprove evolution, all you need is one moden skeleton mixed in a deeper fossil layer. If you find one you'll be famous. Good luck.

[blackstrap]

Just in case you prefer evidence of what a catastrophy can do to shorten timelines: http://www.icr.org/article/mt-st-helens-catastrophism/

[Stone holm]

I remember doin a research paper about forty years ago and discovering that nearly every ancient civilization on every continent had some version of a universal catastrophic flood. Many had very similar elements in the story. Since then, I have been forced to conclude that some historical event occurred -- so I don't see this Old Testament story to be simply symbolic.

[blackstrap]

It is not inconceivable that we have the 'Noah ' version of the flood as it pertains to his region. There may have been several noahs from several regions who each acted as saviors of their area during a time of massive upheaval around the earth .

[Rob Osborn]

It doesn't honestly sound like you're interpretting the evidence as much as ignoring it altogether. Any properly written book on geology should give you a better understanding of sedimentary layers, both how they're lain down and the time required and how ages of layers are evaluated and verified. I say properly written geography book because I know there are books severely outdated and simply wrong, either through ignorance or intention.

Get a hammer and go out and dig some fossils yourself. They're not hard to find if you know where to look. But take good notes of the layers you find them in. Go to the Grand Canyon and dig. Count the layers. Measure the layers.

If you want to disprove evolution, all you need is one moden skeleton mixed in a deeper fossil layer. If you find one you'll be famous. Good luck.

I dont have to prove to anyone how I interpret the evidence. I see it as plain as day. I have read a few geography books and I am not even partially convinced to how they interpret things. The key to the past is not the present. Nowhere on earth are we witnessing the type of catastrophic events that made the geologic column- there is no global flood happening right now and thus why we witnesd no new sedimentary layers.

[cinepro]

I remember doin a research paper about forty years ago and discovering that nearly every ancient civilization on every continent had some version of a universal catastrophic flood. Many had very similar elements in the story. Since then, I have been forced to conclude that some historical event occurred -- so I don't see this Old Testament story to be simply symbolic.

Wait, are you saying that people all over the world have experienced floods? That wouldn't be possible unless the story of Noah is true.

[bcuzbcuz]

Just in case you prefer evidence of what a catastrophy can do to shorten timelines: http://www.icr.org/a...-catastrophism/

The old "Mt. St. Helens" trick. Unfortunately, whoever put together that piece of written work is blatantly trying to misrepresent the actual facts. I was in Spokane when Mt. St. Helens blew. The layers of dust were incredible.

The reference you give can best be understood if you go to Mt. St. Helens with a shovel. Find a spot where the gravelly, black volcanic ash is stacked several meters thick. Beside a small creek would be good. Then you can get a grasp of how deep the channel of water has cut a cgrove through the ash since 1980.

Notice how much ash you can pick up with each shovel. Notice how easily your shovel cuts through the piles of ash. Dig a hole 1 meter deep (a little more than a yard deep). Notice how the sides of the hole collapse under their own weight. Notice that the hole quickly refills with black ash sliding back down the sides of your hole.

Now go to a part of the Grand Canyon where you're allowed to dig ( Don't pick the popular tourist areas) Take your shovel and try to dig a hole 1 meter deep. Notice the resistence to your shovel. The sand layers laid down many millions of years ago have compacted to the extent that you need a hammar to chip away at the rock. When you have arduously struggled to dig your hole, note how the sides of the hole only collpase in slight trickles, a little around the edges. If you look carefully through the layers of the Grand Canyon you may find similar black ash as from Mt. St. Helens. Try to dig through that layer with your shovel. You are allowed to swear when it doesn't work.

The site you reference is an so blatantly false as to be almost humorous. It ranks right up there with the idea of faking pictures from the Apollo missions or of Chupacabra on the internet.

[bcuzbcuz]

It is not inconceivable that we have the 'Noah ' version of the flood as it pertains to his region. There may have been several noahs from several regions who each acted as saviors of their area during a time of massive upheaval around the earth .

Did all these other Noahs also live to be 900 years old and did each of them take 7 other family members and 7 clean and two unclean of every animal on their ark? It makes good sense though since it explains how kangaroos got to Australia. Now all you need to find is references to an Australian Noah. (How do you say Noah in Australian?) Did God also tell them that he would send them a sign that no more floods would occur or did they get rainbows as well?

[bcuzbcuz]

I dont have to prove to anyone how I interpret the evidence. I see it as plain as day. I have read a few geography books and I am not even partially convinced to how they interpret things. The key to the past is not the present. Nowhere on earth are we witnessing the type of catastrophic events that made the geologic column- there is no global flood happening right now and thus why we witnesd no new sedimentary layers.

So if you can't witness building of the geologic column with your own eyes you don't believe it. Interesting.

I'm assuming that your goal in life is to become God-like. To eventually build your own worlds. Which Geography books will you be taking with you?

[CASteinman]

The old "Mt. St. Helens" trick. Unfortunately, whoever put together that piece of written work is blatantly trying to misrepresent the actual facts. I was in Spokane when Mt. St. Helens blew. The layers of dust were incredible.

The reference you give can best be understood if you go to Mt. St. Helens with a shovel. Find a spot where the gravelly, black volcanic ash is stacked several meters thick. Beside a small creek would be good. Then you can get a grasp of how deep the channel of water has cut a cgrove through the ash since 1980.

Notice how much ash you can pick up with each shovel. Notice how easily your shovel cuts through the piles of ash. Dig a hole 1 meter deep (a little more than a yard deep). Notice how the sides of the hole collapse under their own weight. Notice that the hole quickly refills with black ash sliding back down the sides of your hole.

Now go to a part of the Grand Canyon where you're allowed to dig ( Don't pick the popular tourist areas) Take your shovel and try to dig a hole 1 meter deep. Notice the resistence to your shovel. The sand layers laid down many millions of years ago have compacted to the extent that you need a hammar to chip away at the rock. When you have arduously struggled to dig your hole, note how the sides of the hole only collpase in slight trickles, a little around the edges. If you look carefully through the layers of the Grand Canyon you may find similar black ash as from Mt. St. Helens. Try to dig through that layer with your shovel. You are allowed to swear when it doesn't work.

The site you reference is an so blatantly false as to be almost humorous. It ranks right up there with the idea of faking pictures from the Apollo missions or of Chupacabra on the internet.

Your critique is unscientific and provides no obvious connection to the article cited.

[Rob Osborn]

So if you can't witness building of the geologic column with your own eyes you don't believe it. Interesting.

I'm assuming that your goal in life is to become God-like. To eventually build your own worlds. Which Geography books will you be taking with you?

In areas like the Grand Canyon we can readily see the massive sedimentary layers. We are told that these layers built up over the course of millions and millions of years. That is supposed to be the model for how it works. But, you have a huge massive problem therein. The amount of deposit material from a distant source would be like a neverending mountain eroding and depositing over millions of acres all the while some shallow sea comes and goes. Not only improbable but impossible. Nowhere on earthdo we see deposits on the scale happening as we see in the GC. Deposits we see in the GC can only happen on a severley catastrophic level with massive material already under water. Let me ask- why is the GC not building up new sedimentary layers today? Why are the layers being slowly eroded away? Whats hapoening in the present is not what was happening in the past. So, you have several insurmountable problems to answer. The first is showing the source f the neverending mountain or material that was eroded to deposit the GC. The second problem is how does a constant advancing and retreating sea not disturb and erode or change the layers already deposited.