Where the Pyramids Built Before the FLOOD? (1 Viewer)

[Napoleon]

You're fudging quite a bit here, Napoleon. That temple was built in the pre-pottery Neolithic period by hunter gatherers between 9,600 and 8,200 BCE -- before writing or the wheel. Not exactly the kind of "civilization" we're talking about here.

The notion that these sites were built by isolated Hunter gatherers strains credulity. The Aztecs didn’t have the wheel. Would deny that they had a civilization?

 

[Napoleon]

Gobekli Tepe isn’t a civilization as historians, archaeologists, and other social scientists use the word.

“Civilization” is used to describe a particular kind of society. The key factor in determining whether or not something is a civilization is right there in the name. Civilization comes from the Latin civis, which means city. Civilizations are characterized by certain kinds of social complexity like craft specialization and status hierarchies, but first and foremost by the presence of cities.

Gobekli Tepe is not a city. It’s not even a village or town (there are minimum size requirements for social scientists to regard something as a city). It’s some kind of ritual center, perhaps a temple of some sort. It represents a surprisingly early capability to coordinate a significant amount of labor from across a sizable area. But that’s not the same thing as civilization. There is no evidence of specialization of labor, or a system of writing.

Don't get me wrong: the place is amazing and a remarkable archeological find- perhaps one of the most significant ever. But it's not civilization as the term is defined. Words should be used carefully.

Less than 10% of the Gobekli Tempe site has been excavated. It is a large site which is very similar to site 300km away which predates it by 1,000 years. In order for this happen, you need a large group of people with shared cultural beliefs living in the same area and passing their knowledge and skills down through 1,000 years of generations. That is a civilization.

 

[longview]

The notion that these sites were built by isolated Hunter gatherers strains credulity. The Aztecs didn’t have the wheel. Would deny that they had a civilization?

I would like to add that 9,500 BCE and 11,500 BP is the same date.

 

[ataraxia]

Less than 10% of the Gobekli Tempe site has been excavated. It is a large site which is very similar to site 300km away which predates it by 1,000 years. In order for this happen, you need a large group of people with shared cultural beliefs living in the same area and passing their knowledge and skills down through 1,000 years of generations. That is a civilization.

So do you know of any credible historians or archeologists who are calling this place a "civilization" right now?

 

[DCCougar]

...the beautiful city. The sea covered up everything... There was no trace of the city. Dvaraka was just a name; just a memory.
— Mausala Parva of Mahabharata

That's a good trick, since the Mahabharata was written no earlier than 400 BCE. When did this "great flood" occur that we're talking about? We do know that an attempt was made to establish Noah as a real, non-mythical person who lived in Mesopotamia around 2900 BC. Whatever the Mahabharata says, it cannot contain any "eyewitness account" of the Noachian flood.

 

[Napoleon]

So do you know of any credible historians or archeologists who are calling this place a "civilization" right now?

What I know is that it was the “credible historians” who dismissed the site as a medieval cemetery until 30 years later when somebody who told the “credible historians” to shove it started digging.

 

[Napoleon]

That's a good trick, since the Mahabharata was written no earlier than 400 BCE. When did this "great flood" occur that we're talking about? We do know that an attempt was made to establish Noah as a real, non-mythical person who lived in Mesopotamia around 2900 BC. Whatever the Mahabharata says, it cannot contain any "eyewitness account" of the Noachian flood.

The Mahabharata was written down for the first time around then, but much of its content concerns events which took place thousands of years earlier.

 

[DCCougar]

....what is “the world” to someone in the Paleolithic?

Yeah, probably not the whole world as we know it today. THEN WHY do religionists continue to claim that it was a global flood even today?

One of the basic tenets of many biblical literalists (creation scientists) is that Noah’s Flood was a universal phenomenon—that is, flood waters covered the entire planet Earth up to at least the height of Mount Ararat, which is ~17,000 feet (5000 m) in elevation. The Noachian Flood, Universal or Local? [pdf]

 

[ataraxia]

What I know is that it was the “credible historians” who dismissed the site as a medieval cemetery until 30 years later when somebody who told the “credible historians” to shove it started digging.

OK fine.

So now: what does all this have to do with the topic of this thread? I feel like I have gotten lost on a side-road here.

 

[iguanaman]

Dvaraka was a large, thriving, rich, bustling city. And then one day it wasn’t because it was suddenly submerged under at least 120 feet of water that never receded and nobody knows why.

Coastal erosion is thought to be the cause of a part of Dvaraka being underwater. It happens all the time and God has nothing to do with it either.

https://www.gujaratexpert.com/dwarka-history/

 

[DCCougar]

The Mahabharata was written down for the first time around then, but much of its content concerns events which took place thousands of years earlier.

Which you like to believe because it fits in with your faithful beliefs, regardless of any supporting evidence.

 

[Napoleon]

OK fine.

So now: what does all this have to do with the topic of this thread? I feel like I have gotten lost on a side-road here.

The moral of the story is that the works of the ancients require careful reading, an open mind, and unbiased scholarly analysis.

 

[Grand Mal]

Dvaraka is a great example of a sudden, large scale, catastrophic flood event impacting an ancient civilization that was dismissed as a myth because of the same prejudice expressed in this thread. And as usually happens in these cases - the detractors were ultimately exposed as being full of their own ****.

I don't know much about it but I'll flat-out guarantee you that if the city was suddenly, catastrophically flooded by the ocean it was built below sea level.

 

[longview]

The Mahabharata was written down for the first time around then, but much of its content concerns events which took place thousands of years earlier.

I remember reading a funny story about how the tribes in South America had an oral history that had a story about hunting
giant sloths. Now Giant Sloths went extinct about 12,000 years ago, but the name they had for it was Arrow proof.
Modern analysis of Giant Sloth remains show that the structure of the skin would have made it almost impervious to arrows.
I suspect oral histories allowed vast amounts of or history to persist until they could be written down.

 

[ataraxia]

The moral of the story is that the works of the ancients require careful reading, an open mind, and unbiased scholarly analysis.

How is the approach we take to the semi-historical/semi-mythological accounts of the Bible different than what we take toward other such texts, such as Homer's Iliad, the Persian Shahnameh, or the Finnish Kalevala?

 

[Integrityrespec]

There are more obvious Biblical time-line problems than that. A major one being the conspicuous lack of human fossils in that (instantly?) ‘created by the great flood’ (single?) fossil layer collection.

Which Came First, the Pyramids or the Flood? - Apologetics Press

[EDITOR’S NOTE: On occasion, we publish articles authored by one or more of the interns who work with us during the summer. This month’s article is by one of those interns, Alden Bass, who spent his fourth year with us during the summer of 2003. Alden is a junior religious studies major at Yale...

apologeticspress.org

 

[Grand Mal]

In the Black Sea, when the ice dam broke, they estimate the water would have risen 2 feet a day, you could walk away from it, but you would have to start soon.

You're talking about someplace that was below sea level, right? And whatever was holding the sea back failed.
None of this supports the notion that the sea level rising because the ice age ended triggered any global flood myths.
See Manx Skipper's post number 64. It took 2,000 years for the rising sea level to turn Britain into an island.

 

[Grand Mal]

The Mahabharata was written down for the first time around then, but much of its content concerns events which took place thousands of years earlier.

It's an eye-witness account. I quoted it to you.
For sure the city was built below sea level.

 

[longview]

You're talking about someplace that was below sea level, right? And whatever was holding the sea back failed.
None of this supports the notion that the sea level rising because the ice age ended triggered any global flood myths.
See Manx Skipper's post number 64. It took 2,000 years for the rising sea level to turn Britain into an island.

I am just saying that for the world around the lake under what is now the Black Sea, their world flooded,
and not over several lifetimes but over a few weeks.
Most people could walk and stay ahead of the water, but the experience would have left a large mark
within the oral history.

 

[Exquisitor]

Here is an interesting point. According to the Septuagint they were NOT. It would appear that the Masoretic text was corrupted but why and by whom? The answer may be a real eye opener!

Very interesting. I like knowing about those hundred years, but the story is a fable, fiction anyways.

The Flood was a three mile wide meteor that left an eighteen mile wide crater in the South Indian Ocean about 2807 BC with tons of water in the atmosphere. Everybody wished they had an ark and wrote epic stories of greater events.

Indian priests knew where and when the Lord would appear and that he needed a people, so they preached to the descendants of the failed cities living in the hills.

 

[Napoleon]

How is the approach we take to the semi-historical/semi-mythological accounts of the Bible different than what we take toward other such texts, such as Homer's Iliad, the Persian Shahnameh, or the Finnish Kalevala?

The detractors take the same approach to all of it. And they’re always wrong. Homer’s Iliad is a wonderful example of that. Not only did the Trojan War happen, but it’s also the only credible explanation there is for the late Bronze Age collapse.

 

[ataraxia]

The detractors take the same approach to all of it. And they’re always wrong. Homer’s Iliad is a wonderful example of that. Not only did the Trojan War happen, but it’s also the only credible explanation there is for the late Bronze Age collapse.

Sure. However, the Iliad also says that the sea god Poseidon was on the side of the Greeks against the Trojans. Must we take that seriously as historical fact as well? Or are we being unfairly skeptical of the text if we consider it as probably some mythology mixed in with probable historical events?

 

[Rumpel]

But it's true, the Noah myth was not a real global flood that actually happened as described. Utter tripe.

Exactly - there never was a global flood.

 

[Napoleon]

Sure. However, the Iliad also says that the sea god Poseidon was on the side of the Greeks against the Trojans. Must we take that seriously as historical fact as well? Or are we being unfairly skeptical of the text if we consider it as probably some mythology mixed in with probable historical events?

Poseidon, along with the other gods, frequently changed their allegiances throughout the story. What to believe about the gods is a complicated topic best reserved for a different thread, but a lot of their nature is revealed in the Iliad. The concept of a god was very different then than it is today.

 

[ataraxia]

Poseidon, along with the other gods, frequently changed their allegiances throughout the story. What to believe about the gods is a complicated topic best reserved for a different thread, but a lot of their nature is revealed in the Iliad. The concept of a god was very different then than it is today.

Again, agreed.

But is the story of a wrathful Poseidon sending sea serpents to take down Laocoon and his sons somehow less obviously mythological than a wrathful Judeo-Christian God sending a flood?

In looking at both these stories of gods as probably not factual or historical are we somehow unfairly denying that many of these events probably did have some historical basis, and were later mythologized?