Flood Geology?
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The ARK was a model, like an earlier model ARK, that holds the promise that believers
will not suffer the fate of those without faith in God, and will be transported to the
other side where they will have a new life.
The ARK is the promise and fulfillment of being saved.
The next Ark model was Jesus Himself.
I think they call them "archetypes".
Archetype - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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stevevw
inquisitive
If you would have referred to the link I had it shows that the original Hebrew for the words whole earth or all the earth. It then gives several uses for those Hebrew words which describe the meaning of those words as localized when applied to all the examples in the bible. For example the words that are used in the flood story are used to describe the land around the rivers of Havilah and Cush. So this was not the whole earth but the local area. There are many examples like this if you check out the link I attached.
So the original context of the Hebrew words are for kol is all and erets is earth or land, country or ground. When you look at the uses for those words they are almost always used as a local meaning. IE.
- The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole [kol] land [erets] of Havilah, where there is gold. (Genesis 2:11)
- And the name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole [kol] land [erets] of Cush. (Genesis 2:13)
Examples of where kol erets refers to a local area include the following verses:
And the people of all [kol] the earth [erets] came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the earth. (Genesis 41:57) (The people from the Americas did not go to Egypt)
Is not the whole [kol] land [erets] before you? Please separate from me: if to the left, then I will go to the right; or if to the right, then I will go to the left." (Genesis 13:9) (The "whole land" was only the land of Canaan)
There are many other examples of where kol erets actually refers to people rather than the geography of the "whole earth":
And all [kol] the people of the land [erets] entered the forest, and there was honey on the ground. (1 Samuel 14:25) (The words "the people of" are added to the English, since they are not found in the Hebrew. The actual translation would be "all the land entered the forest," obviously referring to the people and not to the land itself moving into the forest.)
"I am going the way of all [kol] the earth [erets]. Be strong, therefore, and show yourself a man. (1 Kings 2:2) (David was going the way of all people in the earth, whose ultimate destiny is death.)
There are plenty more in this link. So as you can see the original Hebrew doesn't just refer to the actual whole earth but can mean the land, country and ground or the people themselves. So we need to get the proper translation first. So when it says "The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth." The Hebrew word where earth actually means ground, lands, country or earth. So when it says all flesh it can mean all flesh in that country or land. Besides if the flood was local and was not long after Adam then the entire population of the earth would have been around the middle east at that time.
The story of the Tower of Babel has all the worlds populations around that area and then God has made all their languages to be different. From there they would have dispersed throughout the globe. Outside Genesis one (through Genesis 2:5), the entire Genesis account through the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) specifically refers to local geography. All the place names mentioned are in the Mesopotamian flood plain. Therefore, all the instances of the word erets can and should be translated "land," instead of "earth," since it all refers to local geography. There is no reason to think that the flood account is any different from the rest of the Genesis account through chapter 11.
Other examples are.
[FONT=ARIAL,HELVETICA,SANS-SERIF] Luke 2:1 refers to a decree which went out to tax "the whole world." But this only refers to the territories that the Romans controlled. [/FONT]
[FONT=ARIAL,HELVETICA,SANS-SERIF] In Jeremiah 34:1, "all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the peoples, fought against Jerusalem." There the phrase "of the earth" is limited to "his dominion," i.e., the dominion of Nebuchadnezzar. [/FONT]
http://ecclesia.org/truth/flood.html
But even if the population was more wide spread the story can certainly cater for all people living in that land or country that were destroyed to be understood in that time as the entire worlds population as they wouldn't have known otherwise. They would have believed that the people that lived around them and the land as far as they could see was the entire world. The writer of Genesis couldn't have had any concept of what the earth was like and that there was people on the other side of the globe.
So its not as simple as a straight reading and you have to understand the original interpretations and what it was like back then. Then check this with other parts of the bible to see how it all fits in and whether it runs consistent with what other verses are saying..
The Genesis Flood: Why the Bible Says It Must be Local
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Okay, but Noah built the Ark under orders from God, who certainly would know how big the world really was. Why not just have Noah move to a safe area? Why have him build an Ark to escape?
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I've not seen anyone calm the storm
nor part the seas
nor have water come out of a rock
nor have water turn into wine
nor close the door of the Ark.
But I do believe all those things happened,
even without seeing them happen.
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stevevw
inquisitive
If the flood was a local one it doesn't mean that it wasn't big. It could have covered a very large area around the middle east. Noah may have ended up being miles from any dry land. If he thought the whole world had flooded then it would have been covered with water as far as Noah could see like an inland sea. The ark may have been symbolic and the bible says that all the people were warned of Gods judgement as the ark was being built. So maybe this was needed as a way to show people of the coming flood and to warn them. God sometimes works in ways we dont understand. God could have just wiped out everyone in a word. Why did he make Joshua march around the city walls of Jericho for 7 days when he could have brought them down with His say so.
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Queller
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They do if they want to cover Mt Everest. And no, you can't have Mt. Everest drop low enough to be covered with water without massive upheavals that would completely destroy your "slow, gentle encroachment".
Except this isn't possible without additional miracles. It certainly can't happen according to what we know about physics.
If the earth was the size of a billiard ball, it would also be smoother than a billiard ball. That's really irrelevant though as on the scasle we're talking about it does make a difference.
Which matters how, exactly?
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Kylie
Defeater of Illogic
Okay, let's assume that you are right here and all the other creationists who say it was a worldwide flood are wrong...
Let's assume that "local" meant the Middle East. Perhaps you could give me a map which has the exact boundaries of the area affected? But in any case...
The Bible says that the flood waters rose 15 cubits.
That's 22 feet. Are you honestly telling me that the Great Flood was only 22 feet deep?
On the other hand, Mt Ararat, you know, where the flood deposited Noah's Ark, is 16,854 feet tall. Are you suggesting that the flood somehow deposited the Ark 16,832 feet above its highest level? But wait... The Bible says that the waters covered Mt Ararat. Was the mountain less than 22 feet tall back then?
And finally, if the localised flood is going to be deep enough to cover a 16,000+ foot mountain, then you are going to need a 16000+ foot wall to keep the water contained, otherwise it will just spread out acros the entire surface of the globe.
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stevevw
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If you read the link I attached it actually addressed those things you brought up as they are obvious things that need to be answered as part of the flood story. It says that in the original interpretation that the flood doesn't say it covered the highest mountains and that it was only 15 cubits deep and not 15 cubits above the highest mountain. It also questions the meaning for the word mountain and says it can mean hills. So the logical argument is that the ark didn't land near the top of Mount Ararat but somewhere lower. This is put down to poor translations as it just doesn't make sense with what is said in the verses to have the ark sitting up so high above all things.
There is another indication in the text that the flood did not cover the highest mountains. Again, from Genesis 8:
So he waited yet another seven days; and again he sent out the dove from the ark. And the dove came to him toward evening; and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth. (Genesis 8:10-11)
If the ark had come to rest on the top of Mount Ararat, this would be at 17,000 foot elevation. Olive trees (and every other tree) do not grow at 17,000 feet. In fact, you will not find olive trees growing much above 5,000 feet. Therefore, we know from the Bible that the ark did not come to rest on or near the top of Mount Ararat, but probably somewhere on the foothills of the mountain.
Does the Genesis text indicate that the flood was local? If you read it carefully, you can determine that the perspective is local. Most English translations are actually interpretations that are intentionally skewed to favor a global flood interpretation. For example, Genesis 7:20 is usually translated as:
The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. (Genesis 7:20)
In reality, the Hebrew word ma‛al, translated "higher" really means "upward." So, in essence, the text is saying that the flood was 15 cubits (20 feet) deep, in total, not 15 cubits above the mountains. In addition, the Hebrew word har really refers most often to hills rather than mountains. See below.
But logic tells us that this cant be the case. If the flood water covered the highest mountain by 22 feet then that is around a 29,000 feet deep flood covering the entire planet. This cant be the case as the water needed would be astronomical and where would it go. The bible says that the water from the flood went down 4 inches a day. This would take nearly 250 years to completely go down to normal levels. So though there are some aspects of the local flood interpretation that have to be taken as just being a poor interpretation it makes more sense in that there is support in the bible for a local flood with a lot of the meanings.
I am not saying that there may not have been a world wide flood of some sort. But I think its important to check out the proper translations of the original Hebrew and get the correct meaning of what the story is saying. It seems to go against the bible to make the entire story a myth as it can affect other parts of the bible and then weakens them as well. Because the Hebrew language can have more than one meaning in words this is where we have to do some research to see which meaning fits better with other parts of the bible. So it can be easy for people to get the wrong meanings by just taking things at face value. Just because its in the bible doesn't mean that humans can make errors with how they understand things.
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