Scientific research has proven that the flood of Noah's story did occur - they just don't agree on whether it could have been caused by the Santorini volcanic eruption that destroyed Crete, or whether it was much further back and could have been remembered by the descendants of the survivors of the sinking of Atlantis. In either case, when they talk about the world being destroyed, it's their part of the globe as they knew it at the time. We know from the story itself, as told, that Noah and his descendants met other people in their travels, which would indicate it was a regional thing, and not that the entire globe was underwater.
Another story that has intrigued people for a long time was about Joshua asking God for help in a battle, and having the Sun stand still long enough for them to win the battle they were fighting. This one has been exhaustively researched, also, including running a computer backwards in time to see if any unusual weather phenomenon could be found to explain what was written. I understand that Egyptian history around 1550 B.C. to 1450 B.C. was also studied. Unfortunately I have not kept up with that research, so I don't know what they may have learned. If you are familiar with it, I hope you can share what you know.
Greetings, Gathomas88. :2wave:
Hmmm. I wonder? Most of the attention seems to be on Noah's flood as far as research goes, but your post makes sense because there were other people around. And in the Exodus story, they would have brought their animals and plant life along to start anew wherever they ended up. Good point! :thumbs:
Greetings, Manc Skipper. :2wave:
You and other keep mentioning "research" but you don't actually ever provide this research. You do realize such a claim is completely worthless if you're unable to back it up?
Again, I'd argue that anyone who defends the story in such a dogmatically literal sense in the first place is missing the forest for the trees anyway. The point of the story isn't the flood, but what the flood represents. In that regard, the Biblical story readily serves the purpose it was meant to serve.
The "flood" was neither global in origin, nor does the Bible even necessarily state that it
has to be viewed as such in definitive terms. The meaning of the Hebrew word used in the original texts is actually more akin to "land" (i.e. the 'land' of Noah's people) than that used to denote the whole of the world. Besides, as I've already pointed out, we have plenty of evidence for "floods" and other natural catastrophes in humanity's past, on both a regional and even global scale, which might've very well fit the bill where the Biblical account is concerned.
As to the matter of homosexual behavior, the key basis for Christian opposition to it isn't even found in the Old Testament anyway, but the new. There, it is found both in the words of Christ himself, as well as those of the Apostles.
New Testament Scriptures dealing with homosexuality
Extensive condemnation of homosexuality is also found in the writings of early Church philosophers removed from the Biblical texts as well.
A local flood makes absolutely no sense, and you've been absolutely incapable of reconciling that with the scripture. Why would god give Noah a 120 year warning to build a massive boat to save his family and all of the land based animals on earth if all Noah would've had to do was move away from mesopotamia? Why would god destroy just mesopotamia? The point was to rid the earth of wickedness.
Have you ever considered that the flood wasn't local to your religion's location, but rather just local to your religion altogether? I would think you'd be relieved to know that your god didn't kill millions of innocent women and children just to prove a point. The author of Genesis wasn't even there, so even he didn't know if it happened or not.
And about homosexuality, hey, the bible was pretty straightforward describing a global flood destroying mankind, and you claim that was just a metaphor, so maybe when Jesus said homosexuality is wrong, it was also just a metaphor. That's what's fun about religion isn't it? You can just change and mold it however YOU want.
The fact is, most christians DO believe that the story of Noah was global and that it did happen. You've gone into religionist defense mode because I showed the bible couldn't have happened the way it was described, so you just move the goal posts to something I can't prove. "Well, there were floods throughout earth's history, so maybe it was one of those other ones we don't know about. The ambiguous scientists I like to refer to all agree."
Ok, a) why do they figure the global flood happened in 4500 years ago?
B) other cultures flood stories talk about survivors, running to the hills and high lands.
C) who even says the bibles events are in strict chronological order?
Realistically, at the end of the last ice age, when the polar ice sheet went down, what past New York?
The oceans would have been hundreds of feet shallower, the flood in that case would be
A) global
B) catastrophic
C) have very little remaining evidence
So, if we are talking, which is it 11000 bc or 11000 years ago?
That's a better place to look for the flood.
A) I provided sources showing the calculation. Feel free to follow along in your own bible and do the math yourself, if the numbers aren't too big.
B) Ok? Floods happen, we know that. What we also know is that a global, man killer flood as described in the bible never occurred. If you can prove otherwise do so.
C) Considering it lists lineages after lineages and who gives birth to who, it kind of has to be in some chronological order.
I have absolutely no idea why you're bringing up the ice age as it was about 8,000 years off of Noah's alleged flood.
When you're ready to provide a post with more substance and on topic, I'll be here.
Hardly global.
People should stop taking the English versions as literal and study what the English words are translated from.
By all means, then explain to us all why god would make Noah build an ark and have all of the world's animals travel to the middle east so that he could flood the middle east. It took 120 years to build the boat (you know, assuming we believe the idiotic claims of the bible in the first place). Why not just walk somewhere else where it's not going to flood?
