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Bible says Noah's flood was regional.

Paleocon said:
I agree that the flood only covered that area of the planet where humans lived, yet I fail to see what the tree you reference has to do with it. Genetic evidence indicates that the common male ancestor of humans (Noah) lived around sixty thousand years ago. So the flood happened well before that tree was around.
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I was referring to the young earth creationists who believe the earth is only six thousand years old.
 
Jerry said:
No one said it was.
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Genetic evidence indicates the common male ancestor of humans lived around sixty thousand years ago, so that is probably when the flood happened.
 
Jerry said:
If you're accusing me of being an evangelical Christian, you should know that while I was raised Christian, I practice Bhuddism. The topic of Noah's flood is a good example of why I grew apart from Christianity; the text has been twisted to fit agendas, in this case to fit Young Earth Creationism. I explained this in the OP.

I have never and will never be a religious recruiter.
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Please take anti-religious posts to their proper forum.
 
Paleocon said:
The Chinese Empire is not sixty thousand years old.
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We have ice core samples of glaciers that go back several hundred thousand years. They show no evidence of a 'world wide flood' either. In fact, of evidence for there being no world wide flood for that late bunch of millions of years is overwhelming.
 
RAMOSS said:
We have ice core samples of glaciers that go back several hundred thousand years. They show no evidence of a 'world wide flood' either. In fact, of evidence for there being no world wide flood for that late bunch of millions of years is overwhelming.
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The point being?
 
danarhea said:
I was referring to the young earth creationists who believe the earth is only six thousand years old.
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What does young earth creationist have to do with "mistranslations" about a catastrophic flood? Believing that the flood was global instead of regional seems like a completely different subject than believing the earth is 10,000 years old.
 
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Jerry said:
~~Psalms 104 is a retelling of the Creation event in more detail. Psalms 104; 5-9 says "He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. 6 You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; 8 they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. 9 You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth." According to Psalms 104, the Earth was completely covered by water before dry land first appeared, and never again.
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That Psalms passage could be referring to the Noah story. God promised noah that he wouldn't flood the earth again. Creating a covenant (I haven't read the section in a while but I know he promised not to do it again.) It sounds like Psalms here could easily be talking about the noah story instead of the creation story.
 
Jerry said:
God does a lot of things in a way meant to display power. You and I may look for the most efficient method to perform a task, but we aren't trying to guide cultures over centuries.

You say God waisted Noah's time but here we are still talking about the event thousands of years later.
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God did small and large things that we are still talking about. So they the size of the deed isn't relevant.


A few months out of Noah's life in exchange for at least 4,000 years worth or influence seems like a good rate of return to me.
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If you believe the bible then it took a 120 years just to build the boat.
 
Jerry said:
The story of Noah beginning in Genesis 6;9 is a retelling of The Epic of Gilgamesh, a major flood in antiquity for which many cultures allover the world have a memory of.

The idea of Noah's flood being a global event gained real momentum in the mid 20th century as Henry M. Morris used it as a way to white-wash contrary scientific findings in the promoting of his new Young Earth Creation pseudoscience.

If we disregard the snake-oil salesmen of the last century and return to the original text itself, we can come closer to the truth.

~~The Hebrew for 'the entire planet' is 'Tebel' and is used in the Genesis creation story, and the judgment of the earth. The word 'Kol' was used to describe all of a particular region. The word 'Tebel' does not occur in Noah's flood account, but 'kol-eretz' is used.

~~Genesis 8:5 tells us that Noah could see the tops of the mountains. Four verses later it notes the dove returned to the Ark as water covered all the earth. If Noah could see mountain tops, then it follows all of the rest of the region was flooded--not all the earth, as mountains were no longer covered.

~~Psalms 104 is a retelling of the Creation event in more detail. Psalms 104; 5-9 says "He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. 6 You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; 8 they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. 9
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
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never again will they cover the earth
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." According to Psalms 104, the Earth was completely covered by water before dry land first appeared, and never again. This means Noah's flood did not cover the whole planet.

For more on Noah's flood:

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Looks like we can all safely cancel our flood insurance, eh?

Maybe I don't have to build that beach house up on stilts after all.
 
jamesrage said:
If you believe the bible then it took a 120 years just to build the boat.
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....if....

I have no doubt it took a long time to build the arc, it was the largest ship ever made up to that point. But Noah was a wealthy merchant with many barges under his control already, so 120 years sounds like Genesis is telescoping the span of time again.
 
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The original Hebrew is very explicit about the flood covering the whole world.
 
Jerry said:
I gave spicific examples of hebrew saying the contrary.
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You listed translations. Your OP even cites the New International Version, which is a very recent, cherry-picked, and politically motivated work specifically to support modern fundamentalist interpretations. You said nothing at all about the Hebrew text. I, meanwhile, have actually read it. In Hebrew. (I admit that I'm making an assumption about the fidelity of the Hebrew text itself. Revisions and editing in Christian scripture are well documented, Jewish scripture not so much.) But the Torahs that Jews read from, they say explicitly that the flood covered the whole world.
 
Paschendale said:
The original Hebrew is very explicit about the flood covering the whole world.
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It says the water rose fifteen cubits.

In any case, the point is that it covered all of the inhabited world.
 
Paschendale said:
You listed translations. Your OP even cites the New International Version, which is a very recent, cherry-picked, and politically motivated work specifically to support modern fundamentalist interpretations. You said nothing at all about the Hebrew text. I, meanwhile, have actually read it. In Hebrew. (I admit that I'm making an assumption about the fidelity of the Hebrew text itself. Revisions and editing in Christian scripture are well documented, Jewish scripture not so much.) But the Torahs that Jews read from, they say explicitly that the flood covered the whole world.
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You're welcome to use that knowledge to start making an argument any time.
 
Jerry said:
You're welcome to use that knowledge to start making an argument any time.
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I have no argument to make here. My stance is that the whole thing is nonsense, especially when you try to attach supernatural elements to it. Once you take out the god parts, it's not "Noah's" flood anymore. It's just a regular flood, which are commonplace. However, I don't like the practice of trying to alter the stories later on after they've been disproved by physical evidence. It's another form of the "god of the gaps" argument. I also dislike when Christians (current or former) mischaracterize elements of Judaism and Jewish scripture or tradition to attempt to validate Christianity while at the same time proclaiming an unbroken history through Judaism. Interpret your own religion however you like, but when you try to incorporate someone else's, you shouldn't presume to alter it.
 
Paleocon said:
That's plenty to cover vast areas of middle eastern desert.
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Sure, but it can't touch china, and it didn't, which means the flood did not cover all of the inhabited land.
 
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