Noah's Flood

[RedAndy]

yea but why would they pass on a story about a river overflowing.....it had to be somthing more.

My guess would be that the annual flooding of the river would be perceived as a gift from the gods to keep the soil rich, providing they had sacrificed enough goats or whatever. Maybe one year there was a particularly bad flood, and this was attributed to the people having angered the gods. All it would take would be for the story to be passed on and exaggerated over the generations, and for the story to be rewritten to conform to a monotheistic theology. Voila, one Noahic flood account.

people have differnt ways of interpeting things, and like you said....it was passed on generation by generation so the chances of the story staying the same is slim. The fact that such a story about "a river overlowing" doesnt make sense, it would have to be a massive flood.

See above. It may not have been a "massive flood," just one that was a bit worse than previous floods.

The Bible states, every word is through the breath of God. The Bible also states that to add or take away a single word of the Bible would corrupt it. (parents have told me both in past, ill look up specific verses). Because of this i think that the Bible is not a bunch of interpetions, its written the way it is...and was never intended to be any differnt.

Would this not contradict your above assertion that the flood story was passed down over many generations? The point is that no matter how much the authors of the Bible insist that Noah's Flood happened exactly the way it says in Genesis, as long as there is no physical evidence to support it then we cannot accept a literal interpretation of the flood account. Reality just doesn't lie.

 

[pyro214]

Would this not contradict your above assertion that the flood story was passed down over many generations? The point is that no matter how much the authors of the Bible insist that Noah's Flood happened exactly the way it says in Genesis, as long as there is no physical evidence to support it then we cannot accept a literal interpretation of the flood account. Reality just doesn't lie.

i was refering to flood stories by all the cultures, not the one that was written in the Bible.

as far as your theory on how such a story would be passed on. doubtful, but possible....yet i dont think it would be true for a majority of the legends.

 

[RedAndy]

i was refering to flood stories by all the cultures, not the one that was written in the Bible.

as far as your theory on how such a story would be passed on. doubtful, but possible....yet i dont think it would be true for a majority of the legends.

Many of the flood stories could be derived from a single account passed down through different tribes. For example, many of the Native American flood myths could have been derived originally from a single flood myth.

Furthermore, since you accept that flood myths could be changed considerably over the generations, why grant exclusive status to the Bible as the preservation of "truth"? Why were the stories contained in it not subject to the same processes of exaggeration and change over the generations, when this happened to all other accounts?

 

[artybloke]

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break,
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break,
When The Levee Breaks I'll have no place to stay.

Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Lord, mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.

Don't it make you feel bad
When you're tryin' to find your way home,
You don't know which way to go?
If you're goin' down South
They go no work to do,
If you don't know about Chicago.

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.

All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin' 'bout me baby and my happy home.
Going, go'n' to Chicago,
Go'n' to Chicago,
Sorry but I can't take you.
Going down, going down now, going down.

This is a song about one particular flood (pre-Katrina by about 50 years) in New Orleans. The idea that local floods don't cause no myths is hereby disproved.

 

[pyro214]

Many of the flood stories could be derived from a single account passed down through different tribes. For example, many of the Native American flood myths could have been derived originally from a single flood myth.

Furthermore, since you accept that flood myths could be changed considerably over the generations, why grant exclusive status to the Bible as the preservation of "truth"? Why were the stories contained in it not subject to the same processes of exaggeration and change over the generations, when this happened to all other accounts?

because the Bible is not myths, each word is through the breath of God. Whats in the Bible was intended to be exactly that way.

 

[pyro214]

I just had a thought.
Didn't the flood supposedly cover all landforms, including the tips of the mountains?
Considering the hieght of Mt. Everest, wouldn't everything in the Ark die at that altitude?
The cold alone would kill almost anything, not to mention the lack of oxygen.

the landforms at the time are unknown also.

-the elevation of water was rised, this results in air being pressed up.
-if the air was risen, the pressure relative to height was also increased.

therefore it was very possible for them to survive at that altitude

 

[KCDAD]

the landforms at the time are unknown also.

-the elevation of water was rised, this results in air being pressed up.
-if the air was risen, the pressure relative to height was also increased.

therefore it was very possible for them to survive at that altitude

We may not know how high Everest was then, but we know how fast it is still rising because of the sub continent of India crashing into the belly of Asia... about an inch an year, I believe. That means in a 6000 year old world Everest would have been around 28,500 feet (compared to the little more than 29,000 feet today.)

That's a heck of a lot of water! I wonder what that would have done to the jet stream and other weather phenomena? You do know of course it is the difference in altitudes of the mountains and lowlands that disrupts and redirects weather patterns to make life possible on this glorious, green, little planet.

 

[pyro214]

We may not know how high Everest was then, but we know how fast it is still rising because of the sub continent of India crashing into the belly of Asia... about an inch an year, I believe. That means in a 6000 year old world Everest would have been around 28,500 feet (compared to the little more than 29,000 feet today.)

That's a heck of a lot of water! I wonder what that would have done to the jet stream and other weather phenomena? You do know of course it is the difference in altitudes of the mountains and lowlands that disrupts and redirects weather patterns to make life possible on this glorious, green, little planet.

most likley, others think that the Everest may not even of existed at the time....many things could of happened during the flood. As several miracles took place just for it to happen.

 

[ebia]

most likley, others think that the Everest may not even of existed at the time....many things could of happened during the flood. As several miracles took place just for it to happen.

But they never manage to provide a set of them that is not fundamentally flawed in some way. All they ever do is multiply the things they can't explain.

 

[ebia]

because the Bible is not myths, each word is through the breath of God.

The two are not incompatible. God isn't a 20th Century modernist restricted to communicating through facts. Most of the time he communicates through the most ageless of human media - narrative.

Whats in the Bible was intended to be exactly that way.

That in no way excludes myth or any other form of narrative.

 

[Parmenio]

Assume the water flooded the entire earth, and that, seen from space, all you got was a ball of blue water. I honestly think that water being that high would force quite a bit of atmosphere to disperse. The density of our atmosphere is dictated by the gravitational well that the earth provides. The earth can only hold certain gases at certain distances from the center. I do not believe that the pressure would have been increased at the altitude that Noah would have been at, as this assumes that there is a ceiling through which the air cannot pass. This is just fundamentally wrong. The air pressure would have most likely been the same as atmosphere would have just been vented into space to accommodate for the surge in water levels.

 

[flatworm]

most likley, others think that the Everest may not even of existed at the time....many things could of happened during the flood. As several miracles took place just for it to happen.

Floods do not build mountains. This is because water, you may have noticed, flows downhill. It therefore moves sediment from high spots down to low spots. Ergo, mountain building is right out.

Remember, every time you invoke a miracle, you are admitting the physical impossibility of your claim. Miracles can be invoked to rescue any explanation for any set of observations whatsoever. There's no way to distinguish a true miracle-based explanation from a false one.

Assume the water flooded the entire earth, and that, seen from space, all you got was a ball of blue water. I honestly think that water being that high would force quite a bit of atmosphere to disperse. The density of our atmosphere is dictated by the gravitational well that the earth provides. The earth can only hold certain gases at certain distances from the center. I do not believe that the pressure would have been increased at the altitude that Noah would have been at, as this assumes that there is a ceiling through which the air cannot pass. This is just fundamentally wrong. The air pressure would have most likely been the same as atmosphere would have just been vented into space to accommodate for the surge in water levels.

I think you're close- the atmosphere would not be "lost" to space, of course. It would still be confined to earth's gravity well. The point is if water covered Mount Everest, all the air that was below that point would be displaced upwards, and provide nearly the same pressure at the new "sea level" as it did at the old.

There is more scientific proof against the Noachian flood than there is against Santa's North Pole workshop, but lack of air pressure doesn't appear to be part of it.

 

[UberLutheran]

One problem with a world-wide flood covering all mountains, as described in Genesis:

Water would have to top mountains such as the Himalayas, the Andes and the Alaskan ranges -- all of which top out at over 20,000 feet (and Mt. Everest tops out at 29,035 feet).

ASSUMING a sea level temperature equal to the highest sea water temperature recorded in the Persian Gulf (96 F), and noting that the cooling lapse rate is 3.5 degrees per 1,000 feet, the water temperature at 20,000 feet would be 26 degrees F. which is certainly cold enough to freeze sea water; and would drop to -5.5 F. at the top of Mount Everest.

Given the cooling lapse rate of 3.5 degrees per 1,000 feet, the hottest air temperature ever recorded on Earth (136 F. at Azziya, Libya) would produce a temperature of 35 degrees F at the top of Mount Everest; and the place with the warmest average temperature on Earth ([SIZE=-1]Dallol, Ethiopia where the average temperature is 93.2 °F) would produce a temperature of -8 degrees F at a temperature of 29,000 feet.

Had the story in Genesis actually taken place, the entire planet would be permanently encased in 1.5 to 2 miles of ice.
[/SIZE]

 

[KCDAD]

One problem with a world-wide flood covering all mountains, as described in Genesis:

Water would have to top mountains such as the Himalayas, the Andes and the Alaskan ranges -- all of which top out at over 20,000 feet (and Mt. Everest tops out at 29,035 feet).

ASSUMING a sea level temperature equal to the highest sea water temperature recorded in the Persian Gulf (96 F), and noting that the cooling lapse rate is 3.5 degrees per 1,000 feet, the water temperature at 20,000 feet would be 26 degrees F. which is certainly cold enough to freeze sea water; and would drop to -5.5 F. at the top of Mount Everest.

Given the cooling lapse rate of 3.5 degrees per 1,000 feet, the hottest air temperature ever recorded on Earth (136 F. at Azziya, Libya) would produce a temperature of 35 degrees F at the top of Mount Everest; and the place with the warmest average temperature on Earth ([SIZE=-1]Dallol, Ethiopia where the average temperature is 93.2 °F) would produce a temperature of -8 degrees F at a temperature of 29,000 feet.

Had the story in Genesis actually taken place, the entire planet would be permanently encased in 1.5 to 2 miles of ice.
[/SIZE]

Can you imagine how popular hockey would be then!

 

[UberLutheran]

Can you imagine how popular hockey would be then!

And imagine how good the ice fishing would be!

 

[Parmenio]

Oh man... Noah was the best speed skater ever! He had thousands of open miles! Good thing he had the oxygen tank so he could still breath at that altitude.

 

[Skaloop]

Can you imagine how popular hockey would be then!

If only it were that popular now; it deserves to be...

 

[pyro214]

Oh man... Noah was the best speed skater ever! He had thousands of open miles! Good thing he had the oxygen tank so he could still breath at that altitude.

raise in water causes the air to move up aswell, no need for oxygen tank.

 

[pyro214]

One problem with a world-wide flood covering all mountains, as described in Genesis:

Water would have to top mountains such as the Himalayas, the Andes and the Alaskan ranges -- all of which top out at over 20,000 feet (and Mt. Everest tops out at 29,035 feet).

ASSUMING a sea level temperature equal to the highest sea water temperature recorded in the Persian Gulf (96 F), and noting that the cooling lapse rate is 3.5 degrees per 1,000 feet, the water temperature at 20,000 feet would be 26 degrees F. which is certainly cold enough to freeze sea water; and would drop to -5.5 F. at the top of Mount Everest.

Given the cooling lapse rate of 3.5 degrees per 1,000 feet, the hottest air temperature ever recorded on Earth (136 F. at Azziya, Libya) would produce a temperature of 35 degrees F at the top of Mount Everest; and the place with the warmest average temperature on Earth ([SIZE=-1]Dallol, Ethiopia where the average temperature is 93.2 °F) would produce a temperature of -8 degrees F at a temperature of 29,000 feet.

Had the story in Genesis actually taken place, the entire planet would be permanently encased in 1.5 to 2 miles of ice.
[/SIZE]

if you were to bring a glass of water up a mountian this would be true. Although a raise in water would cause an elevation in air itself. Would this not effect temperatures, pressures, etc... at the given altitude?

 

[KCDAD]

if you were to bring a glass of water up a mountian this would be true. Although a raise in water would cause an elevation in air itself. Would this not effect temperatures, pressures, etc... at the given altitude?

I am not a expert here, but it seems to me that water maintains it temperature much better than air or land does... so if the world were covered with water, the polar caps would melt, and what would cause them to refreeze after the flood? According to the flood account, the entire episode lasts over a year. A year in a barge with every animal in the world doing what animals do best!!!

What about the jet stream... where does it go with no mountains to redirect it?

The science of the episode is much too complicated to try and justify it as a literal acount, in my biased opinion.