FunOnlineMan Posted January 2, 2019 Author Posted January 2, 2019 3 hours ago, CV75 said: I'm sure there's some real-world basis to it no matter how imperfectly it has been transmitted. You can make the account as wild as you want! I think the canonized version is sufficiently wild. 3 hours ago, CV75 said: The covenant meaning is the same, any way one conceptualizes the writings. And you can even make the covenant as meaningless as you want, too! The covenant being what, exactly?
FunOnlineMan Posted January 2, 2019 Author Posted January 2, 2019 1 hour ago, The Nehor said: Not really, if you take the account as Noah describing what he saw and the more localized understanding of “the world”. In modern scripture we talk about the end of the world but it does not involve a Death Star-style destruction or even everyone dying. And I do not believe God packed two of every animal into that ark. They would not fit. It does sound like he was told to pack up his breeding stock which makes sense so he could rebuild his herds. I see now why so much artistic license was used. If it’s just Noah packing a couple of goats and a donkey into a boat and waiting out a typical North Carolina weather event, it doesn’t sell as many subscriptions.
carbon dioxide Posted January 2, 2019 Posted January 2, 2019 (edited) 17 hours ago, SouthernMo said: So if Noah lived on the American continent, when did his descendants cross the ocean to the Middle East? Or, was there only one continent then (3,000BC)? Or, is it your position that your version of the flood carried him to Mesopotamia? Only 40 days of natural currents to transverse the Atlantic? Did the currents and winds thread him through the Strait of Gibraltar to Israel? Or, did they take his ark south around the Horn of Africa, and north to the Arabian Peninsula? The idea that The man Adam (or Noah) lived in Missouri or anywhere on the American continent is full of holes both historical and scriptural. The crossed during the flood. The continents were separate. You assume that natural currents today were the same as currents during the flood period. I would assume that the whole natural cycles that would be going on from currents and wind direction would be out of wack. The rains were "40 days" but that does not mean they were floating or moving for just 40 days. They were moving for at least 150 days. How far could a boat move in that period. I don't know but if it floated in a certain direction say 2 mph average then over that period it would travel 7200 miles. Nowhere does it say Noah dropped an anchor and remained in the same spot. Suffice to say, Noah probably landed quite a distance from where he started. Perhaps Noah had some steering devices on the ark. I see no holes in the scriptures regarding it. There is a river called the Euphrates in the middle east but that does not mean its the same exact river as mentioned in Genesis 2. The modern dan Euphrates empties into the Persian Gulf and is not connected to a larger river. Genesis 2 says that the river that watered the garden of Eden parted and into 4 heads of which one was the Euphrates. Does that really match what we see today? Gihon is said to "compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia" yet there is no river in the Middle East that matches this. How about the river Pison? "The name of the first [is] Pison: that [is] it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where [there is] gold; And the gold of that land [is] good: there [is] bdellium and the onyx stone" (Genesis 2:11-12) Nothing like this exists in the Middle East. There are different rivers in the mid west. The Missouri river matches Pison better than one you can find in the Middle East. That flows from South Dakota which holds among the largest gold reserves in North America. Edited January 2, 2019 by carbon dioxide
CV75 Posted January 2, 2019 Posted January 2, 2019 50 minutes ago, FunOnlineMan said: I think the canonized version is sufficiently wild. The covenant being what, exactly? Whichever one you are thinking of at the moment, or all of them in general: https://www.lds.org/topics/covenant?lang=eng
The Nehor Posted January 2, 2019 Posted January 2, 2019 39 minutes ago, FunOnlineMan said: I see now why so much artistic license was used. If it’s just Noah packing a couple of goats and a donkey into a boat and waiting out a typical North Carolina weather event, it doesn’t sell as many subscriptions. I do suspect there were a number of climate events that wiped out a lot of people including whatever civilization Noah was a part of. Whether that meant he moved from North America to Mesopotamia I do not take a stand on. If the Genesis account is accurate about the timeline then there was over a millennium and a half between Adam and the flood. Plenty of time for migrations from the New World to the Old World. It is difficult to draw conclusions. Whoever wrote Genesis seemed to think everything before Abraham was just prologue and rushed through it. The story only follows one family line and ignores the rest of humanity for over 1,500 years. There was definitely a lot more going on. 1
FunOnlineMan Posted January 2, 2019 Author Posted January 2, 2019 4 minutes ago, CV75 said: Whichever one you are thinking of at the moment, or all of them in general: https://www.lds.org/topics/covenant?lang=eng Thank you for the delightful read. I thought you meant a covenant tied to the Noah myth
FunOnlineMan Posted January 2, 2019 Author Posted January 2, 2019 3 minutes ago, The Nehor said: I do suspect there were a number of climate events that wiped out a lot of people including whatever civilization Noah was a part of. Whether that meant he moved from North America to Mesopotamia I do not take a stand on. If the Genesis account is accurate about the timeline then there was over a millennium and a half between Adam and the flood. Plenty of time for migrations from the New World to the Old World. It is difficult to draw conclusions. Whoever wrote Genesis seemed to think everything before Abraham was just prologue and rushed through it. The story only follows one family line and ignores the rest of humanity for over 1,500 years. There was definitely a lot more going on. That’s fair. Why do the brethren Take the genesis account so literally then?
The Nehor Posted January 2, 2019 Posted January 2, 2019 6 minutes ago, FunOnlineMan said: That’s fair. Why do the brethren Take the genesis account so literally then? I take it pretty literally. I believe there was a literal garden in Eden (wherever that is). I just see the flood story as picking up a lot of detritus along the way. There is nothing in the Genesis account suggesting that it wiped out all of humanity except the intro piece which gives us God’s views on the whole thing. I always get suspicious when writers do this. I also find it laughable that God who sees the end from the beginning looks at humanity and says “Wow, I really should not have made these humans.” That to me smells of someone along the way putting int their own explanation and I have no idea who that person is or if they are qualified to make that observation. The rest of the destruction could easily be hyperbole. The Book of Mormon authors get a pass from me on the explaining God’s views on things as that was their job and they were prophets. 1
CV75 Posted January 2, 2019 Posted January 2, 2019 7 minutes ago, FunOnlineMan said: Thank you for the delightful read. I thought you meant a covenant tied to the Noah myth Myth or not, the Flood might as well have been literal. The covenant is that God will preserve the faithful in that the earth will not be wasted, both in the sense of being destroyed and in the sense of having no purpose in bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. All the covenants tie to that basic covenant, which as i mentioned before has been passed down since Adam.
FunOnlineMan Posted January 2, 2019 Author Posted January 2, 2019 2 minutes ago, The Nehor said: I take it pretty literally. I believe there was a literal garden in Eden (wherever that is). I just see the flood story as picking up a lot of detritus along the way. There is nothing in the Genesis account suggesting that it wiped out all of humanity except the intro piece which gives us God’s views on the whole thing. I always get suspicious when writers do this. I also find it laughable that God who sees the end from the beginning looks at humanity and says “Wow, I really should not have made these humans.” That to me smells of someone along the way putting int their own explanation and I have no idea who that person is or if they are qualified to make that observation. The rest of the destruction could easily be hyperbole. The Book of Mormon authors get a pass from me on the explaining God’s views on things as that was their job and they were prophets. Not to derail my own thread, but how, to you, is the garden of Eden story more plausible than Noah’s?
FunOnlineMan Posted January 2, 2019 Author Posted January 2, 2019 1 minute ago, CV75 said: Myth or not, the Flood might as well have been literal. The covenant is that God will preserve the faithful in that the earth will not be wasted, both in the sense of being destroyed and in the sense of having no purpose in bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. All the covenants tie to that basic covenant, which as i mentioned before has been passed down since Adam. If the flood might as well have been literal but still wasn’t literal, then all humanity wasn’t wiped out, it was just a myth or fable based on a real flood that killed local population in either Missouri or the Carolinas or Mesopotamia, but left the rest of the earth alone. I think that means god actually preserved more unfaithful people than faithful. As divine achievements go, this one’s nothing to write home about.
The Nehor Posted January 2, 2019 Posted January 2, 2019 8 minutes ago, FunOnlineMan said: Not to derail my own thread, but how, to you, is the garden of Eden story more plausible than Noah’s? It is not more plausible in the sense that it is less miraculous. I do not have a problem with miraculous stories. My problem with the flood story is that it does not make a ton of sense even when you factor in the miraculous. Wipe out civilizations? Sure, God does that. Have a guy pack every animal on earth into a smallish boat and sail around the world for almost a year.....why? Also, where is the physical evidence for it? Yeah, God could hide it but why? Finding out there was a catastrophic flood does not prove the existence of a God any more then evidence that there was a famine in Egypt during the days of Joseph would. The Garden and the Fall make sense as a beginning for which the atonement is required. It is clearly miraculous by our standards but it would also not leave a ton of physical evidence behind if it were true and fits with what I know to be true by revelation. Plus, Elder Holland believes it and not in an offhand manner of blasé acceptance like you find in most General Authority quotes about the Flood. 1
carbon dioxide Posted January 2, 2019 Posted January 2, 2019 15 hours ago, SouthernMo said: It is FAR less of a stretch for the Adam/Noah story to be true if a man in Mesopotamia built a barge that floated on a local flood, and drifted randomly about until the waters receded. Why is it that embracing the most complex, implausible explanation for something is sometimes viewed as the most ‘faithful’ perspective? The Noah story really does not make a lot of sense for a local flood. Nothing unusual about a local flood and why build an ark and send animals to that ark when one just can go on a journey and walk out of the way? Plenty of high mountains in Pakistan and the surrounding areas they could walk to to get out of the way of a local flood. I don't have the normal view of the flood. I believe the flood was too big for Noah to just go on a trek to get away from but not so big that it killed all the animals and people on the earth from. People read the following passages Genesis 6:17: "And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." Genesis 7:19-24: "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days." And assume that it means the whole planet. The scriptures use similar expressions in other places that clearly do not mean the whole planet but more likely the known world to the people living in the places it was given. Exodus 10:14-15: "And the locust went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. For they covered the face of the whole earth..." 1 Kings 10:24: "And all the earth sought to Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart." Jeremiah 15:10: "Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!..." Jeremiah 50:23: "How is the hammer [Babylon] of the whole earth cut asunder and broken! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! Jeremiah 51:7: "Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad." Isaiah 23:17: "And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth." Daniel 2:39: "And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass [Greece], which shall bear rule over all the earth." Luke 2:1: "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." Acts 19:27: "So that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth." Romans 1:8: "First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world." These expressions are limited in scope and I see the same with Noah flood. The whole earth being the place where Noah lived. Not necessarily speaking of places 5000 miles away. In a nutshell this is how I see the events played out Noah is in say the Carolina area. The flood probably was a result of comet or asteroid strikes in the earth. Since most of the earth is ocean, most of the hits would be in the ocean. That would send large amounts of heated water vapor in the air which would change global weather and that is where you get large rain and wind storms. The water currents would get screwed up. It should be noted the scriptures do not say the the 40 days of rain caused the flood. The flood started on day one. The rain just goes along with the flood. The initial water hit was not rain but a tsunami caused by the impacts. Think of the movie "deep impact" but probably not how Hollywood made that to be. Noah being on the coast gets into the Atlantic. Ocean currents are different, wind and weather are not the normal. Noah floats in the open water for MONTHS and he landed on other side of the world. This view resolves a number of problems. Not all animal species of the planet got on the ark. No space for that. Just a number of species from the area Noah started. It also avoids issues of placing those animals back to their natural habitat. How did the Alaskan brown bear, Koala bear, and Anaconda get from Alaska, Australia, and Brazil to where Noah was and how did they get back from the mountains of Ararat so fast? Answer is they did not go in the first place. How did the human population rebound so fast? The tower of babel account occur only several hundred years after the Noah flood yet that account implies quite a number of people being alive on the earth. How did a group of 8 people re-populate the earth in such a short time? Did they literally reproduce like rabbits? Answer. Only those 8 are the survivors of the place where Noah lived in say Carolina area. People still survived the events thousands of miles away. Finally you are probably think I am crazy thinking that the flood was caused by asteroids of comets. Well perhaps I am crazy but I am simply relying on secular sources of archeology. I am relying on I guess science. Shame on me. This is a very old article from Space.com from Nov 13, 2001 called "Comets, Meteors & Myth: New Evidence for Toppled Civilizations and Biblical Tales By Robert Roy Britt, Senior Science Writer. " I copied it a long time ago and so it may not be online anymore. "Biblical stories, apocalyptic visions, ancient art and scientific data all seem to intersect at around 2350 B.C., when one or more catastrophic events wiped out several advanced societies in Europe, Asia and Africa.... "The Epic of Gilgamesh describes the fire, brimstone and flood of possibly mythical events. Omens predicting the Akkadian collapse preserve a record that "many stars were falling from the sky." The "Curse of Akkad," dated to about 2200 B.C., speaks of "flaming potsherds raining from the sky." "Roughly 2000 years later, the Jewish astronomer Rabbi bar Nachmani created what could be considered the first impact theory: That Noah's Flood was triggered by two "stars" that fell from the sky. "When God decided to bring about the Flood, He took two stars from Khima, threw them on Earth, and brought about the Flood." "Mounting hard evidence collected from tree rings, soil layers and even dust that long ago settled to the ocean floor indicates there were widespread environmental nightmares in the Near East during the Early Bronze Age: Abrupt cooling of the climate, sudden floods and surges from the seas, huge earthquakes... "One or more devastating impacts could have rocked the planet, chilled the air, and created unthinkable tsunamis - ocean waves hundreds of feet high... "If it [the impact crater in Iraq] were a comet, the impact would have occurred on what was once a shallow sea, triggering massive flooding following the fire generated by the object's partial vaporization as it screamed through the atmosphere. The comet would have plunged through the water and dug into the earth below. ... "[Astronomer Bill Napier] and his colleagues have been arguing since 1982 that such events are possible. And, he says, it might have happened right around the time the first urban civilizations were crumbling. "Napier thinks a comet called Encke, discovered in 1786, is the remnant of a larger comet that broke apart 5,000 years ago. Large chunks and vast clouds of smaller debris were cast into space. Napier said it's possible that Earth ran through that material during the Early Bronze Age. "The night sky would have been lit up for years by a fireworks-like display of comet fragments and dust vaporizing upon impact with Earth's atmosphere. The Sun would have struggled to shine through the debris. Napier has tied the possible event to a cooling of the climate, measured in tree rings, that ran from 2354-2345 B.C. ... "For every crater discovered on land, we should expect two oceanic impacts with even worse consequences," he [Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist who studies such impacts] said. "Tsunamis generated in deep water can rise even taller when they reach a shore..." I have another article on that from the same period if you want it. 3
The Nehor Posted January 2, 2019 Posted January 2, 2019 (edited) 9 minutes ago, FunOnlineMan said: If the flood might as well have been literal but still wasn’t literal, then all humanity wasn’t wiped out, it was just a myth or fable based on a real flood that killed local population in either Missouri or the Carolinas or Mesopotamia, but left the rest of the earth alone. I think that means god actually preserved more unfaithful people than faithful. As divine achievements go, this one’s nothing to write home about. All those dead people waiting in hell for the Savior to come to offer them deliverance would probably disagree. Edited January 2, 2019 by The Nehor 2
CV75 Posted January 2, 2019 Posted January 2, 2019 1 hour ago, FunOnlineMan said: If the flood might as well have been literal but still wasn’t literal, then all humanity wasn’t wiped out, it was just a myth or fable based on a real flood that killed local population in either Missouri or the Carolinas or Mesopotamia, but left the rest of the earth alone. I think that means god actually preserved more unfaithful people than faithful. As divine achievements go, this one’s nothing to write home about. "If" has nothing to do with keeping the covenants. People cannot be unfaithful to what they never had a chance to believe or covenant (and note, that principle in itself is a great divine achievement) so I don't take any that He preserved to have been unfaithful.
rodheadlee Posted January 3, 2019 Posted January 3, 2019 15 hours ago, FunOnlineMan said: How does Noah leave North America? He jumped in the Gulf Stream get a current map or rather a map of the ocean currents.
Robert F. Smith Posted January 3, 2019 Posted January 3, 2019 8 hours ago, FunOnlineMan said: God seems to be establishing a peculiar and confusing pattern. Actually such patterns are remarkably stable over time --- thousands of years -- regardless of culture. 8 hours ago, FunOnlineMan said: So, god had Noah tell the people they would all be destroyed, had him construct a giant box out of gopherwood, had him load all the local animals into his box, had him get in the box, flooded some stuff, but not everything, covertly transported Noah to wherever Mt. Asterisk Ararat is, let Noah out and convinced Noah that all his old enemies were dead? The type of wood and the design in these accounts varies, but some constant features are the birds being sent out. The idea that everybody else dies may be no more than hyperbole, any mound or hill doing just fine as a mountain, since who can really tell what is going on during a deluge -- until it's over. 8 hours ago, FunOnlineMan said: What reason would we have to believe Noah’s account over these older versions? That is just the point: We don't. What has always interested the scholars is that the Great Deluge is a worldwide tale, told even in areas free from flooding. Why? 8 hours ago, FunOnlineMan said: If was a snake, it would’a bit ya. I'm a little slow on the uptake. 8 hours ago, FunOnlineMan said: Have scholars found any indication that any of these accounts are anything more than tall tales about a really rainy day? The fact that they are a worldwide myth has led some scholars to attribute the Deluge to the horrendous rains of the Pluvial era just following the last Ice Age. We have never had such heavy rains anytime since.
Calm Posted January 3, 2019 Posted January 3, 2019 14 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said: I'm a little slow on the uptake. I think he means "Mormon". He has done it in a couple of posts. http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/71392-joseph-smith-on-mormonism/?do=findComment&comment=1209876357
Robert F. Smith Posted January 3, 2019 Posted January 3, 2019 23 minutes ago, Calm said: I think he means "Mormon". He has done it in a couple of posts. http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/71392-joseph-smith-on-mormonism/?do=findComment&comment=1209876357 Yeah, I finally got that. Very clever.
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