Did the flood really happen?

[First Thought]

Do you believe the Biblical Flood actually took place?

I want to see WallEye back up his claim that the Biblical Flood actually occurred. WallEye claims that there is geological evidence to support his position.

I take it at face value because it is proven by geological science. There are also records of other cultures mentioning a great flood.

 

[JoeMama]

If there is evidence, I'd believe it.

If there is no evidence:
I will rely on human logic. And since logic says that it didn't happen I'd say no.

So it depends if there really is evidence or not

 

[First Thought]

If there is evidence, I'd believe it.

If there is no evidence:
I will rely on human logic. And since logic says that it didn't happen I'd say no.

So it depends if there really is evidence or not

I am still waiting for some to presented. I will not hold my breathe, though.

 

[JoeMama]

I will not hold my breathe, though.

Good, because you might die if you waited too long; And we can't a afford to lose a good forum member

 

[walleye]

I will begin with a Christian physicist and his view.

Physics and the Bible: The Terrible Flood of Noah - Lambert Dolphin - Koinonia House

 

[First Thought]

I will begin with a Christian physicist and his view.

Physics and the Bible: The Terrible Flood of Noah - Lambert Dolphin - Koinonia House

So this is what you choose to bring to the table?

THE FLOOD

During the formation of the earth on the second and third days of creation, large quantities of water were evidently placed between the earth's crust and mantle in what might be called giant subterranean reservoirs. This water was probably under high pressure to begin with (causing artesian springs and geysers to abound), but after the fall of man and the angels-when some of the heavier atomic elements were apparently made unstable by reduced nuclear binding forces so that radioactive decay commenced - the shorter-lived isotopes could well have heated the subsurface to a point of criticality where it could scarcely be contained by the strength of the overlying crust. We mentioned this in last month's article as a possible cause for the explosion of a planet where the asteroid belt now is found.

Extensive volcanic activity may have occurred at the same time-the fountains of the great deep were thus broken open and volcanic ash hurtling into the stratosphere could have collapsed the vapor canopy by dispersing condensation nuclei around which raindrops formed.

 

[JoeMama]

So this is what you choose to bring to the table?

ouch...egofftib, no need to strike such a harsh blow ... :violin

 

[JoeMama]

Ok, I'll stop with these un-funny wisecracks now...
:angel?: ....

 

[First Thought]

ouch...egofftib, no need to strike such a harsh blow ... :violin

I am just making sure that this is the source he wishes to use before I tear it to pieces.

 

[First Thought]

Here's one that uses the Bible to argue against the flood:

There are many reasons why Noah's flood can not account for all the geology we have. The Bible says all life on earth was destroyed by the 40 days and nights of rain. There were no survivors! Genesis 7:21-23 says, "All flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life-and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." If everything died how can there be millions of dinosaur tracks in different layers when 22 feet of water covered the earth. How can there be dinosaur nests with eggs, and young dinosaurs running around in the middle of the flood. According to the Bible all life was destroyed by the flood, yet there are many animal tracks, nests, ripple marks, and erosion between layers.


The flood does not account for the thousands of annual layers of varies, thousands of layers of ice, coral reef growth, evaporates, and many layers of coal deposits (Wonderly 1987). One of the greatest misunderstandings is that dinosaurs and humans lived together, and therefore Noah must have brought dinosaurs on the ark. There were no dinosaurs on the ark. Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.

IBSS - The Bible - Genesis: Impossible Flood Geology!

 

[marduc]

I think the real question is did a flood happen as described in the bible?

This is a tale that permeates many different cultures (globally) and also locally in the mid east region (such as Epic of Gilgamesh). Whether these tales around the world are the same flood event, or separate events is undetermined (floods are a force of nature, and I am sure almost all of the world has had their shares of devestating floods at one time or other).

What is and would be scribed as a great flood would obviously be centered in the Mideast/Eurasian area since this is where the biblical tale emerges.

Floods are a force of nature, and to the isolated world of someone living millenniums ago, what is an epic local flood would be construed as a global event, since their "global" viewpoint is relatively small.

At some point as a result of the end of the last ice age (10,000 years ago) there was a substantial rise in the oceans of our world from former levels. Also there is both geological and archeological evidence of flooding in the Black Sea area. This includes settlements buried beneath the sea, and also fresh water fossils in the bed of the black sea prior to its inundation with salt water. The Black Sea was once a fresh water lake before being inundated with Saline waters from the Mediterranean via the Bosporus straights.

This is likely the origin of the flood story, something that happened in human prehistory, and in this case was a localized event, but if you happened to live in the area of the Black Sea, that most certainly would be "global". This event and its likely timing is right when humans in that area were just starting to establish communities and be sedentary and agricultural. An event this large would most certainly be woven into the lore of the people, and passed on from generation to generation, potentially for millenia. As the tale gets told orally though there is bound to be embellishment and exaggeration, like one giant large scale seriously drawn out game of telephone.

When these nascent agriculturalists progressed to the point that the worlds first written records came to be in Mesopotamia, and the historic era began the tale was at last scribed, along with its bastardizations as The Epic of Gilgamesh by the Sumerian culture, and later by Hebrew people as the biblical flood story we are so familiar with. Both have similiarities to each other, yet are vastly different, attributable to different paths of divergence as the tale evolved over thousands of years of oral traditions through seperate peoples and lineages in the area of the event.

So yes a flood really happened, one that would make an impact and spawn a historical oral legacy amongst the people in the area, and yes if you lived in that area ans were witness to the flood it sure as hell would seem as if the entire earth was covered in water.

Did it happen as told in the Old Testament? nahh, that is as much embellishment as the ancient Greek tales of dinosaur bones being the bones of Titans and heroes.

Are there corresponding real world events which are the basis of this tale?? Most certainly.

 

[mikhail]

If it did happen what does that mean that Noahs sons and daughters ****ed each other?

 

[First Thought]

If it did happen what does that mean that Noahs sons and daughters ****ed each other?

Yeah. But, if we take the bible at face value, we are all the progeny of Adam and Eve. We are all the product of incest.

 

[mikhail]

Yeah. But, if we take the bible at face value, we are all the progeny of Adam and Eve. We are all the product of incest.

It was a rhetorical question.

 

[Jomiarias]

Of course it happened, but, just like the creation, people couldn't explain well what happened, so the recorded things in the Bible are incomplete.

For example, the Bible, never says there wasn't a Big Bang. The Big Bang doesn't mean that God doesn't exist.

The Bible say what the ancient people understood, so, as they didn't know hydrogen or helium, they had to explain it different. If you see the order in which things were created in both theories is almost the same.

The Big Bang theory is what the scientists can understand by observing the space and the evidence, but, they can't see who made that thing explode or how. He is God.

 

[moe]

I posted this another thread. I have done a little editing to make it more applicable to this thread. It reflects my personal views of what the Bible actually teaches about the flood.

We have become locked in on the statement that only 8 people survived the flood and that it was a global event. My literal interpretation of this is that the bible does not teach that the flood was a global event but a very large scale local event. The ancient writers commonly used hyperbole for their stories intended to show that certain events were with out precedence, great importance etc.

Below is an example of a biblical hyperbolic statement

Isa 24:1 Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.

Has the earth ever been made completely empty? No. Did he ever turn it upside down? No Neither did the writer ever expect that his readers would think that it had been made empty or turned upside down. But he surly is writing of great, massive and unprecedented destruction.

Such is the story of the flood. Only 8 souls were saved true. But does that mean that only 8 souls survived the flood? Or only 8 souls were saved by divine intervention? God's primary intent was to ensure the survival of the Line of Seth. God offered all who would listen a chance to escape the coming disaster. Only 8 people responded and were saved by God himself, As to the rest. Many perished but using internal evidence from the bible itself, Not all who did not enter the ark died. Using this pre flood verse,

Ge 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

After the flood we still have Giants. And yet there were no Giants in the ark.

De 3:11 For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.

Notice the verse says a remnant of surviving giants?

Same with the Tower of Babel. A city of full grown adult people building towers so soon after the flood?


During the Exodus the people of Israel were afraid of the original inhabitants of the promised land, These people were called the Rephaim.

Goliath was a descendant of the nephilim and there is a record in the bible of others warriors under the command of David that slew other nephilim descended Giants. For these Giants to have parents, The ancestors must have survived the flood.

There are lots of biblical examples of flood survivors such as Abraham was a city dweller in what today would be Iraq and there were many settlements already scattered through out the middle east and his own father survived the flood. Bible and secular scholars have wondered over the advancement of Egyptian civilization so soon after a supposed world wide disaster that killed all but 8 people. Egypt was most likely far outside the disaster zone.

Looking at Noah himself.

Ge 7:6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

It was the nature of ancient writers to only mention key characters in their writings. All of Noah's sons were married. There is no reason to doubt that the grandchildren of Noah were also on the ark

So yes I do take the flood story literally. As I do every other story in the bible. A great unprecedented disaster struck a very large area in the middle east. It was not just a flood either. The Bible says the very earth ripped open, A great earth quake accompanied or perhaps was even the cause of the flood. Noah was of the line of Seth and God chose to preserve that line for his own reasons. He offered assistance to others but they would not accept it. Many maybe even most of them died. Some type of craft was built with enough food and supplies for the family of Noah to survive the flooding and start over again. Important animals were also taken aboard to help repopulate the decimated area. Why the unclean animals? They are scavengers and they are actually very important to a proper ecosystem.

But most Christians will reject a local disaster and cling to a global event of which there is no real substantial evidence for because that is what the churches teach. And for some reason, Atheists seem to think the very same thing. Every body except 8 people died and they reject the biblical story of Noah as a literal event in history.

Moe

 

[Jomiarias]

Moe, I don't speak english as a native language, can you explain me why does the text uses past tense verbs with th at the end??? It's an old expression?

 

[Thorgasm]

Wouldn't the cave man cave drawings have been washed away?

 

[First Thought]

Moe, I don't speak english as a native language, can you explain me why does the text uses past tense verbs with th at the end??? It's an old expression?

Yeah, that's Middle English for you. Lot's of "killeth" and "taketh" and "washeth".

 

[moe]

Moe, I don't speak english as a native language, can you explain me why does the text uses past tense verbs with th at the end??? It's an old expression?

Every thing is past tense because this information is being given to Israel after their release from the Egyptian captivity. Several thousand years of previous history of where the ancestors of Israel came from

The th endings are from an older style of English used in the 1600's. The verse quotes are from the King James Version Bible usually abbreviated as KJV.

Moe

 

[Arch Enemy]

Of course it happened, but, just like the creation, people couldn't explain well what happened, so the recorded things in the Bible are incomplete.

For example, the Bible, never says there wasn't a Big Bang. The Big Bang doesn't mean that God doesn't exist.

The Bible say what the ancient people understood, so, as they didn't know hydrogen or helium, they had to explain it different. If you see the order in which things were created in both theories is almost the same.

The Big Bang theory is what the scientists can understand by observing the space and the evidence, but, they can't see who made that thing explode or how. He is God.

It is impossible to have knowledge of the metaphysical world, and to prove it through any type of logical reasoning.

 

[Arch Enemy]

We have become locked in on the statement that only 8 people survived the flood and that it was a global event. My literal interpretation of this is that the bible does not teach that the flood was a global event but a very large scale local event. The ancient writers commonly used hyperbole for their stories intended to show that certain events were with out precedence, great importance etc.

Below is an example of a biblical hyperbolic statement

Isa 24:1 Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.

Has the earth ever been made completely empty? No. Did he ever turn it upside down? No Neither did the writer ever expect that his readers would think that it had been made empty or turned upside down. But he surly is writing of great, massive and unprecedented destruction.

Such is the story of the flood. Only 8 souls were saved true. But does that mean that only 8 souls survived the flood? Or only 8 souls were saved by divine intervention? God's primary intent was to ensure the survival of the Line of Seth. God offered all who would listen a chance to escape the coming disaster. Only 8 people responded and were saved by God himself, As to the rest. Many perished but using internal evidence from the bible itself, Not all who did not enter the ark died. Using this pre flood verse,

Ge 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

After the flood we still have Giants. And yet there were no Giants in the ark.

De 3:11 For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.

Notice the verse says a remnant of surviving giants?

Same with the Tower of Babel. A city of full grown adult people building towers so soon after the flood?


During the Exodus the people of Israel were afraid of the original inhabitants of the promised land, These people were called the Rephaim.

Goliath was a descendant of the nephilim and there is a record in the bible of others warriors under the command of David that slew other nephilim descended Giants. For these Giants to have parents, The ancestors must have survived the flood.

There are lots of biblical examples of flood survivors such as Abraham was a city dweller in what today would be Iraq and there were many settlements already scattered through out the middle east and his own father survived the flood. Bible and secular scholars have wondered over the advancement of Egyptian civilization so soon after a supposed world wide disaster that killed all but 8 people. Egypt was most likely far outside the disaster zone.

Looking at Noah himself.

Ge 7:6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

It was the nature of ancient writers to only mention key characters in their writings. All of Noah's sons were married. There is no reason to doubt that the grandchildren of Noah were also on the ark

So yes I do take the flood story literally. As I do every other story in the bible. A great unprecedented disaster struck a very large area in the middle east. It was not just a flood either. The Bible says the very earth ripped open, A great earth quake accompanied or perhaps was even the cause of the flood. Noah was of the line of Seth and God chose to preserve that line for his own reasons. He offered assistance to others but they would not accept it. Many maybe even most of them died. Some type of craft was built with enough food and supplies for the family of Noah to survive the flooding and start over again. Important animals were also taken aboard to help repopulate the decimated area. Why the unclean animals? They are scavengers and they are actually very important to a proper ecosystem.

But most Christians will reject a local disaster and cling to a global event of which there is no real substantial evidence for because that is what the churches teach. And for some reason, Atheists seem to think the very same thing. Every body except 8 people died and they reject the biblical story of Noah as a literal event in history.

Moe

It's not exaggeration that the stories deal with, as much as it is unkown numbers. For example in the original Hebrew text the numbers "40" and "7" are not to be taken seriously, as they are pretty much variables. I think if you take the story literally you are missing the entire message of the account. The story tellers, which no doubt had influences from the Gilgamesh's 11th tablet, are not as concerned as relating history as much as relating a message for their respective religion.

 

[moe]

It is impossible to have knowledge of the metaphysical world, and to prove it through any type of logical reasoning.

Agreed. That is why they call it faith. But in the instance of the bible it actually demands that we investigate the physical evidences of it's claims. Like the flood. We have the Noah account in Genesis but we also have the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic. There are various legends from the time that exist down to this day that tell us that significant things happened in our physical space in the past.

Like the biblical exodus account and the Egyptian Ipuwer papyrus.

Ipuwer Papyrus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ipuwer describes Egypt as afflicted by natural disasters and in a state of chaos, a topsy-turvy world where the poor have become rich, and the rich poor, and warfare, famine and death are everywhere. One symptom of this collapse of order is the lament that servants are leaving their servitude and acting rebelliously. Because of this, and such statements as "the River is blood", some have interpreted the document as an Egyptian account of the Plagues of Egypt and the Exodus in the Old Testament of the Bible, and it is often cited as proof for the Biblical account by various religious organisations[5][6].

There are all kinds of debates and doubts about this papyrus as concerning it being related to the actual biblical exodus account but still we have an ancient non biblical and even non Hebrew document that does seem to indicate that some kind unexplained disasters seem to strike Egypt.

The easiest counter argument of course is that it was natural for people back then to credit unexplainable things to various gods for various reasons and we even have the same attitudes amongst the religious today


Moe

 

[moe]

It's not exaggeration that the stories deal with, as much as it is unkown numbers. For example in the original Hebrew text the numbers "40" and "7" are not to be taken seriously, as they are pretty much variables. I think if you take the story literally you are missing the entire message of the account.

3, 7, 12, 40, etc are considered holy numbers. Although I understand your point I do not think that they should be entirely dismissed either.

It depends on the context in which they are used.

Moe

 

[Arch Enemy]

Oh I have no doubt that there were natural disasters that hit Egypt around that time. The Volcano on Minoa would have done the trick to "part" the red sea, block out the sun, send animals scurrying and what not. However, there is no chance I am going to buy that Moses threw down a staff and caused these to happen. That is ridiculous. The stories of the Bible, in my mind, hold just as much credibility (as fact) as the stories of Loki, Zeus, Isis, and such. There are figures such as Moses and such as Jesus throughout most religions, regardless of how many Gods.