Noah's Ark

[AV1611VET]

Objection: loaded question.

I take it no evidence generated because no flood occurred as documented?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I take it no evidence generated because no flood occurred as documented?

Exactly why I called your original question a loaded question.

 

[stevevw]

I don't think Noahs flood was a local flood because the Sumariens who also have a very similar flood story say their flood was inherited from their ancient ancestors. As does many other flood stories that are far away from the Middle east and the Mesopotamian local flood.

That means all other flood stories either had to have taken on a flood story that was not in their own history or they each had a seperate local flood which I think is unlikely and too much a coincident.

But if we look at our history for any major global sized flood we do find one around 14,000 years ago. The evidence that most people cite such as the giant ripples in the landscape and massive washing away of landscape to form the Scablands and other major signatures is from this same global sized flood at the end of the last iceage.

Some sort of big melt and massive amounts of water in a fairly short time washed over the Northern hemisphere and left its marks.

The strange this is at the same time we can trace many cultures stories back to prehistory.

I think the flood that Noahs flood is based on was a global sized event that washed the land away, flooded entire societies along coasts around the middle east but also ancient peoples living in Island nations far away as these stories go as far as Easter Island.

We also coincidently see the wiping out of a large amount of Megafauna. I don't think local floods can do that and that sophisticated beliefs would just make up a massive extinction but base it on a real extnction event to last and be so consistent in the stories.

Because it was such a massive event it was ingrained into human psych and that is why just about all cultures have such stories of the same event which has been passed down and elaborated on according to the culture.

It makes sense because the majority of people would have been in the NH and around a small area branching out for the middle east into all the areas affected. So that even the more primitive cultures at the fringes ancestors still experienced this flood before people spreading to distant lands to add their cultural elaborations.

In the case of Noah this is Gods revelation of that real flood that all cultures believed came from their gods. God used a real event to send a message about how humans disobeyed and thought they could be like God. Building idols to the skygods. And how only one man Noah was the only holy man that carried on Gods line to Christ.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I don't think Noahs flood was a local flood because the Sumariens who also have a very similar flood story say their flood was inherited from their ancient ancestors. As does many other flood stories that are far away from the Middle east and the Mesopotamian local flood.

Right idea, backward causality. We have *written* copies of the Mesopotamian version that are older than the entire Israelite culture.

That means all other flood stories either had to have taken on a flood story that was not in their own history or they each had a seperate local flood which I think is unlikely and too much a coincident.

Why? Lots of places have floods and frequently.

But if we look at our history for any major global sized flood we do find one around 14,000 years ago. The evidence that most people cite such as the giant ripples in the landscape and massive washing away of landscape to form the Scablands and other major signatures is from this same global sized flood at the end of the last iceage.

The Scablands of the (US) Pacific Northwest (all in Washington, I think) were formed by a series of floods from an identified source (a glacial lake) in Montana. They are not part of any other floods elsewhere in North America.

Some sort of big melt and massive amounts of water in a fairly short time washed over the Northern hemisphere and left its marks.

It did not. There are many, non-coincident glacial outflow floods in NA and Europe most of which have identified dates and sources.

The strange this is at the same time we can trace many cultures stories back to prehistory.

These floods occurred thousands of years before writing. We have no direct way to track back the inspiration of early writings about floods.

I think the flood that Noahs flood is based on was a global sized event that washed the land away, flooded entire societies along coasts around the middle east but also ancient peoples living in Island nations far away as these stories go as far as Easter Island.

Easter Island was settled about 1000 years ago, long *after* the time of Jesus.

We also coincidently see the wiping out of a large amount of Megafauna. I don't think local floods can do that and that sophisticated beliefs would just make up a massive extinction but base it on a real extnction event to last and be so consistent in the stories.

Glacial outflow floods occurred during the last retreat of the ice sheets, so there was definitely climate change, but there were also inflows of new H. sapiens populations into those areas at the same time. (More people + climate change = extinction event)

Because it was such a massive event it was ingrained into human psych and that is why just about all cultures have such stories of the same event which has been passed down and elaborated on according to the culture.

The people who study myths and legends don't agree with you about there being "one source" for such stories.

It makes sense because the majority of people would have been in the NH and around a small area branching out for the middle east into all the areas affected. So that even the more primitive cultures at the fringes ancestors still experienced this flood before people spreading to distant lands to add their cultural elaborations.

In the case of Noah this is Gods revelation of that real flood that all cultures believed came from their gods. God used a real event to send a message about how humans disobeyed and thought they could be like God. Building idols to the skygods. And how only one man Noah was the only holy man that carried on Gods line to Christ.

This divine communication seems a bit broken if it couldn't even transmit the true nature of the same god to all peoples who received it. Your post makes too many grandiose claims and collapses under their weight.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Right idea, backward causality. We have *written* copies of the Mesopotamian version that are older than the entire Israelite culture.

Why? Lots of places have floods and frequently.

The Scablands of the (US) Pacific Northwest (all in Washington, I think) were formed by a series of floods from an identified source (a glacial lake) in Montana. They are not part of any other floods elsewhere in North America.

It did not. There are many, non-coincident glacial outflow floods in NA and Europe most of which have identified dates and sources.

These floods occurred thousands of years before writing. We have no direct way to track back the inspiration of early writings about floods.

Easter Island was settled about 1000 years ago, long *after* the time of Jesus.

Glacial outflow floods occurred during the last retreat of the ice sheets, so there was definitely climate change, but there were also inflows of new H. sapiens populations into those areas at the same time. (More people + climate change = extinction event)

The people who study myths and legends don't agree with you about there being "one source" for such stories.

This divine communication seems a bit broken if it couldn't even transmit the true nature of the same god to all peoples who received it. Your post makes too many grandiose claims and collapses under their weight.

He's still on this?

 

[Hans Blaster]

He's still on this?

A new joining to this thread. There was an old discussion late last year I was working in, but took a forced vacation. I only noticed this thread because it was the "most recently posted" thread for "P&LS" when viewed from the D&D index. (A page I only visit when switching to a different board to see if there are any new threads of interest.) We'll see how it goes this time.

 

[dlamberth]

But if we look at our history for any major global sized flood we do find one around 14,000 years ago. The evidence that most people cite such as the giant ripples in the landscape and massive washing away of landscape to form the Scablands and other major signatures is from this same global sized flood at the end of the last iceage.

Some sort of big melt and massive amounts of water in a fairly short time washed over the Northern hemisphere and left its marks.

Living in the Pacific Northwest and having been a member of the Ice Age Flood Institute for a period of time, I'm fairly well versed in the floods that ran through Eastern Washington. Though the floods were large ( there were many over many years) they were contained in a known path. We know how large some of those flood were, where they originated, the amount of water released and in some places the speed through which the water passed. No where are there any physical signs of floods outside of the geographical area where the Ice Floods occurred. It's a well defined and known area.

 

[AV1611VET]

No where are there any physical signs of floods outside of the geographical area where the Ice Floods occurred. It's a well defined and known area.

Let me get this straight.

You're saying that the one giant flood that the Bible talks about in Noah's day was nothing more than a series of local floods all over the earth?

If that's so, then wouldn't it stand to reason that, if there was a worldwide flood in Noah's day, the evidence would have been destroyed by all your local floods over the centuries?

Can you find evidence of Hurricane Camille in New Orleans today?

Or was it washed away by hurricanes Betsy, Cindy, Laura, Ida, Gustav, and Rita?

 

[dlamberth]

Let me get this straight.

You're saying that the one giant flood that the Bible talks about in Noah's day was nothing more than a series of local floods all over the earth?

If that's so, then wouldn't it stand to reason that, if there was a worldwide flood in Noah's day, the evidence would have been destroyed by all your local floods over the centuries?

Can you find evidence of Hurricane Camille in New Orleans today?

Or was it washed away by hurricanes Betsy, Cindy, Laura, Ida, Gustav, and Rita?

Funny...I was stationed at Keelser Air Force Base in Biloxi Mississippi when Camille hit. At the time I was being trained to repair B-52 and KC-135 navigational equipment. That stopped for a several months as we were reassigned to help clean up the mess left behind.

But to your question, in the 4 states that the Ice Age Floods occurred there is a LOT of physical geological evidence of that series of floods. On the other hand, there is absolutely no evidence of any other large floods outside of that geological area.

 

[AV1611VET]

Funny...I was stationed at Keelser Air Force Base in Biloxi Mississippi when Camille hit. At the time I was being trained to repair B-52 and KC-135 navigational equipment. That stopped for a several months as we were reassigned to help clean up the mess left behind.

TACAMO?

But to your question, in the 4 states that the Ice Age Floods occurred there is a LOT of physical geological evidence of that series of floods. On the other hand, there is absolutely no evidence of any other large floods outside of that geological area.

Yes, and I submit that, if there was -- (and I don't think so) -- but if there was evidence left behind on purpose (that is, not cleaned up), it would have been erased by local floods over time.

It's ... as they say ... basic physics.

 

[Hans Blaster]

But to your question, in the 4 states that the Ice Age Floods occurred there is a LOT of physical geological evidence of that series of floods. On the other hand, there is absolutely no evidence of any other large floods outside of that geological area.

In addition to the Missoula floods and Bonneville Flood in the PNW, there are other floods from catastrophic failures of ice dams holding back glacial lakes:

Lake Ojibway - Wikipedia in Ontario

The formation of the Dells of the Wisconsin River in a single flood event:

And probably a few more in North America.

 

[stevevw]

Right idea, backward causality. We have *written* copies of the Mesopotamian version that are older than the entire Israelite culture.

Except I think the origin of the flood story is even older than that.

Why? Lots of places have floods and frequently.

Because small floods don't make legends and if there was a global sized flood in human history then that is what is going to be ingrained into human psyche that will trump any local flood.

If there was a local flood the Sumariens experienced some 6,000 years ago it would pale into insignificance to the global sized flood their ancestors would have experienced and be already passing the story down. Why would cultures then want to use a local flood as the basis when they all already had a global flood within their history to draw upon.

The Scablands of the (US) Pacific Northwest (all in Washington, I think) were formed by a series of floods from an identified source (a glacial lake) in Montana. They are not part of any other floods elsewhere in North America.

The glacial melt that caused the Scablands as far as I understanding comes from the same event as the glacials melts in the rest of the northen hemisphere at the end of the last iceage.

Nevertheless these big floods in the Northern hemisphere were etched into cultures and the story of them passed down. Which means that there were flood stories well before the local Mesopotamian one. The Sumerians already had their flood story well before any local flood 6,000 years ago.

It did not. There are many, non-coincident glacial outflow floods in NA and Europe most of which have identified dates and sources.

We know of massive floods from the ice melts though in that area around the NH around the same time at the end of the last iceage.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-11/3%20The%20Younger%20Dryas%20-FINAL%20NOV%20%281%29.pdf

These floods occurred thousands of years before writing. We have no direct way to track back the inspiration of early writings about floods.

But they happened when humans were around that this event was etched into their psyche. This was passed down orally and this is how it became encultured as people developed.

The Sumerian flood story is from an older story passed down. The same with most cultures flood satories. Having such a major global event in human history so early would mean that these cultures did not need a local flood later to create their flood story. It was already there.

Easter Island was settled about 1000 years ago, long *after* the time of Jesus.

Yes so whoever were their ancestors it was them who exprienced the flood and passed down their story which they took with them to wherever they settled.

Glacial outflow floods occurred during the last retreat of the ice sheets, so there was definitely climate change, but there were also inflows of new H. sapiens populations into those areas at the same time. (More people + climate change = extinction event)

These floods during the end of the last iceage for whoever was around being such an extinction event would create stories about this forever etched in their psyche. Then their culture is overlayed onto this real event giving the different versions of the flood story.

The people who study myths and legends don't agree with you about there being "one source" for such stories.

Well all I know is that if there was a global sized extinction flood event in our distant past that people experienced, which most of the prehistorical world knew of. Then a legendary flood myth would come from this.

So any local flood that happened later cultures already had a flood myth to go by. So later localised flood would have only built upon this. I am sure people some 6,000 years ago with pretty elaborate thinking and belief would know the difference between a local flood that their trading nations did not experience and a legendary globalised flood that wiped out everything.

This divine communication seems a bit broken if it couldn't even transmit the true nature of the same god to all peoples who received it. Your post makes too many grandiose claims and collapses under their weight.

If you consider that before God revealed Himself as Yahweh humans did not know of the one true God. They were making sacrifices to gods before God has instituted His sacrifice that became so significant for Christianity. So humans knew about God but worshipped false gods and idols. They knew about sacrificing to gods as a natural inclination.

Then God came along and revealed to Abraham the true source of all this worshipping and sacrificing. God used what was naturally happening to reveal Himself to us. Without that pre existing understanding this would not have made sense to Abraham.

It makes sense to me that a similar revelation happened with Noahs flood. A real flood event happened in our distant past before humans could write and this was orally developed over time. Another piece of evidence is the glyphs and some of these talk about a great flood.

But as cultures evolved more sophisticated beliefs they developed the flood story. The important thing is that they all seen that this flood was from the gods as punishment. Once again the ancient stories passed down speak of this.

The God revealed to Moses who is suppose to have written the Genesis the true story of the flood. Just like God comes along to Abraham and reveals the true story of all these gods and sacrifices being made. He reveals to Moses the true source and reason for all these flood stories everyone was already believing but attributing this to the false gods.

PS if it sounds like an hypothesis (if you could call it that) its because it is. I am not saying that this is all correct. I am thinking out loud in trying to reconcile everything.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Except I think the origin of the flood story is even older than that.

Which you can not prove.

Because small floods don't make legends and if there was a global sized flood in human history then that is what is going to be ingrained into human psyche that will trump any local flood.

There is no geological evidence for a global sized flood. None. (I thought you were looking for a single large, non-global flood at the end of the last glacial maximum as the source of the legend(s).)

If there was a local flood the Sumariens experienced some 6,000 years ago it would pale into insignificance to the global sized flood their ancestors would have experienced and be already passing the story down. Why would cultures then want to use a local flood as the basis when they all already had a global flood within their history to draw upon.

I suppose, but you have no evidence of a flood the ancestors of the Sumerians would have passed down to them in legend.

The glacial melt that caused the Scablands as far as I understanding comes from the same event as the glacials melts in the rest of the northen hemisphere at the end of the last iceage.

The Missoula Floods where themselves not a single event, but dozens of floods over about 2000 years. Then there is the Bonneville Flood and the draining of glacial Lakes Ojibway and Wisconsin are all separate and independent and collectively cover a period of about 7000 years (15000 bp to 8000 bp). The ONLY thing they have in common is that they are connected to the melting and retreat of the ice sheets of the Wisconsonian glaciation. While they are locally large, none was even close to continental in scope. They are NOT the thing you think you are looking at.

Nevertheless these big floods in the Northern hemisphere were etched into cultures and the story of them passed down. Which means that there were flood stories well before the local Mesopotamian one. The Sumerians already had their flood story well before any local flood 6,000 years ago.

There was no contact between the witnesses (if any) of the North American glacial floods and Mesopotamia.

We know of massive floods from the ice melts though in that area around the NH around the same time at the end of the last iceage.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-11/3%20The%20Younger%20Dryas%20-FINAL%20NOV%20%281%29.pdf

What is "the NH"?

But they happened when humans were around that this event was etched into their psyche. This was passed down orally and this is how it became encultured as people developed.

The Sumerian flood story is from an older story passed down. The same with most cultures flood satories. Having such a major global event in human history so early would mean that these cultures did not need a local flood later to create their flood story. It was already there.

How can you possibly demonstrate that? You are one step away from claiming nonsense like Jung's "Race memory".

Yes so whoever were their ancestors it was them who exprienced the flood and passed down their story which they took with them to wherever they settled.

The Polynesian expansion is well understood. We know where they came from. If you have an actual flood story from Rapa Nui, then post a link to it. I have just reviewed their mythology as best I could and I see nothing of floods or even rivers or rising waters.

These floods during the end of the last iceage for whoever was around being such an extinction event would create stories about this forever etched in their psyche. Then their culture is overlayed onto this real event giving the different versions of the flood story.

The floods at the end of the ice age I described above were not (near) extinction events. North and South America were largely unaffected as were any people who already lived there.

Well all I know is that if there was a global sized extinction flood event in our distant past that people experienced, which most of the prehistorical world knew of. Then a legendary flood myth would come from this.

So any local flood that happened later cultures already had a flood myth to go by. So later localised flood would have only built upon this. I am sure people some 6,000 years ago with pretty elaborate thinking and belief would know the difference between a local flood that their trading nations did not experience and a legendary globalised flood that wiped out everything.

There is evidence of such a flood in geology or genetics, no near extinction event.

If you consider that before God revealed Himself as Yahweh humans did not know of the one true God. They were making sacrifices to gods before God has instituted His sacrifice that became so significant for Christianity. So humans knew about God but worshipped false gods and idols. They knew about sacrificing to gods as a natural inclination.

Then God came along and revealed to Abraham the true source of all this worshipping and sacrificing. God used what was naturally happening to reveal Himself to us. Without that pre existing understanding this would not have made sense to Abraham.

It makes sense to me that a similar revelation happened with Noahs flood. A real flood event happened in our distant past before humans could write and this was orally developed over time. Another piece of evidence is the glyphs and some of these talk about a great flood.

But as cultures evolved more sophisticated beliefs they developed the flood story. The important thing is that they all seen that this flood was from the gods as punishment. Once again the ancient stories passed down speak of this.

The God revealed to Moses who is suppose to have written the Genesis the true story of the flood. Just like God comes along to Abraham and reveals the true story of all these gods and sacrifices being made. He reveals to Moses the true source and reason for all these flood stories everyone was already believing but attributing this to the false gods.

PS if it sounds like an hypothesis (if you could call it that) its because it is. I am not saying that this is all correct. I am thinking out loud in trying to reconcile everything.

Most of that made no sense at all, particularly when you started with Jesus (I think) then revelation to Abra(ha)m and then talk about Noah. This doesn't even make sense in terms of the narrative in Genesis.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

PS if it sounds like an hypothesis (if you could call it that) its because it is. I am not saying that this is all correct. I am thinking out loud in trying to reconcile everything.

And you're doing the same old problem of starting with the conclusion and working backwards through the evidence we have to try and prove your hypothesis right. You're doing bad science. Stop it.

 

[Apple Sky]

I believe that in Noah's time people were far more advanced in high tech than we gave them credit for, especially Noah.

For example in Noah's time they may have been advanced in the art of splicing the DNA to create half human & half animal beings, so could Noah have taken the DNA of all the animals on to the Ark ?

This is more of a logical answer.

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark - Mathew 24:36

You are to take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate; a pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate; and seven pairs of every kind of bird of the air, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of all the earth. Genesis 7: 2

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I believe that in Noah's time people were far more advanced in high tech than we gave them credit for, especially Noah.

For example in Noah's time they may have been advanced in the art of splicing the DNA to create half human & half animal beings, so could Noah have taken the DNA of all the animals on to the Ark ?

This is more of a logical answer.

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark - Mathew 24:36

You are to take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate; a pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate; and seven pairs of every kind of bird of the air, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of all the earth. Genesis 7: 2

And that's as absolutely nonsense, both scientifically and Biblically. If you have to resort to such strange and asinine ideas to attempt to make your story make sense does not mean you have a logical answer: it just means you have created a fantasy.

 

[Lost4words]

I believe that in Noah's time people were far more advanced in high tech than we gave them credit for, especially Noah.

For example in Noah's time they may have been advanced in the art of splicing the DNA to create half human & half animal beings, so could Noah have taken the DNA of all the animals on to the Ark ?

This is more of a logical answer.

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark - Mathew 24:36

You are to take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate; a pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate; and seven pairs of every kind of bird of the air, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of all the earth. Genesis 7: 2

Noah had the state of the art tech lab on the Ark. All modern machines etc! Lol

 

[Apple Sky]

Noah had the state of the art tech lab on the Ark. All modern machines etc! Lol

Yes - why not ? It was in the days of the fallen angels who gave them this knowledge.

 

[David Lamb]

I believe that in Noah's time people were far more advanced in high tech than we gave them credit for, especially Noah.

For example in Noah's time they may have been advanced in the art of splicing the DNA to create half human & half animal beings, so could Noah have taken the DNA of all the animals on to the Ark ?

This is more of a logical answer.

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark - Mathew 24:36

You are to take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate; a pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate; and seven pairs of every kind of bird of the air, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of all the earth. Genesis 7: 2

I am sure we do underestimate the abilities of people of Noah's day. However, I think it is too much of a stretch to imagine him having the knowledge and ability to splice DNA.

 

[David Lamb]

Yes - why not ? It was in the days of the fallen angels who gave them this knowledge.

Why ever would fallen angels have helped Noah, who was being saved from the Flood by God, and who, the bible says, "found grace in the eyes of the Lord?" They would be more likely to try to hinder Noah.