Genesis

[rmwilliamsll]

Global flood...hmmm...Moses spoke of it; Jesus told us if we can't believe Moses' words, we can't believe His words...and good ol Peter spoke of it. Soooo, are Moses, Jesus and Peter liars? or do we get to pick and choose what belongs in the bible? I don't like my neighbor, maybe I'll throw that thou shalt not kill stuff out...hahaha jk

show where Jesus teaches a universal flood.
then show where He teaches a global flood.
they are not the same thing.

 

[simplyg123]

So you have a tape or video of Jesus "saying" this?
And it was people that did pick and choose what belongs in the Bible. How else do you explain the mess called Revelation being in the Canon? You don't think Jesus selected the Canon do you?

We do not have tape nor video, yet something much more trustworthy, the Holy Bible, and to say it does not speak the truth is blasphemy, and you lack faith in the lord our God

You call revelation a mess, why is this, it it because you dont agree, Do you know something noone else knows. Are you a prophet?

show where Jesus teaches a universal flood.
then show where He teaches a global flood.
they are not the same thing.

Gen 6:17 And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is in the earth shall die.

2Pe 2:5 and spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Gen 6:17 And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is in the earth shall die.

2Pe 2:5 and spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;


thank you.
however:
1) they are not Jesus' words, do not claim to be Jesus' words.

2)the interpretation of each verse depends on the meanings of just a few words:
"the earth", "all flesh", "the world"
with the words "under heaven" and "ancient world" potential help in working on the issues.

so key to understanding if the first verse teaches or requires Christians and Jews to believe in a global or a universal flood is the meaning of:
'erets := earth
and the meaning of the phrase:
basar ruwach chay
the "hint" that it is not all animal and plant flesh is that the phrase "basar ruwach chay" is a direct reference to the creation of Adam. The best way to interpret this verse is that of a flood aimed at Adam's offspring, that is all life like that of Adam, or following Adam is to be destroyed, not a global flood. eretz most commonly is land of Israel or even Greater Israel, there is no evidence that the ancient Hebrews had any conception of a globe or cared the least little bit for China, as any example. The OT is strictly a book of the Hebrews and their surrounding neighbors. The most faithful interpretation to the context and the specific words here is a local flood that killed all of Adam's descendents except those specifically exempted-Noah and the ark's contingent.

I believe that Genesis teaches that Adam was the progenitor of the Semite people, so it is naturally a story about the destruction of all but Noah's family from these people. It has nothing to do with the Chinese, nor the Americas nor Australian aboriginals, just the Semites. So it is not a universal as in humankind flood but specific to the offspring of Adam, those in a direct line to Abram. Who after all is the key person in Genesis. This over-universalization is a common problem in Genesis, for most people over the last 2 millennium reading it have been gentiles, not Jews and have mistakenly read their own physical ancestry into the book. It is not the story of Chinese or any other "race" but the Semites, the Hebrews. It is not a universal human story but a specifically Jewish one.

so, i interpret the verse to mean not-global and not-universal. and justify it with the context of the verse and the meaning of the words.

Peter is quoting these sections of Genesis and is not adding to our knowledge of them, but explaining more about the immediacy of it. I see no reason from the terms Peter uses to think that God is teaching us more than we know from Genesis, a local flood destroying those progenitor people to the ancient Israelites. His purpose and choice of words is all about the rapidity of judgement.

so i believe that either a global or a universal flood is taking the verses out of context and misapplying universal terms for what are very local and Semite terms.

 

[Deamiter]

I also find it quite interesting that Jesus uses the same phrase in describing those who were destroyed in Sodom and those who were destroyed in the flood. We know Sodom was a localized event. Anyway, it shows that when Jesus IS directly quoted, he doesn't distinguish between a local event and a global event -- he's always just using the flood to make a seperate theological point.

Note that the phrase, "destroyed them all" is the same both times in Greek as well as English.
[bible]luke 17:26-29[/bible]

 

[jds1977]

John 5:47: "But if ye believe not his (Moses) writings, how shall ye believe my words?"-Jesus
If it wasn't a global flood and just a local flood...why did God tell Noah to build an ark and put all the animals on it? why didn't He just tell Noah to move? (like he did w/ Abraham and Lot) Is God that dumb? I don't think so.
The Hebrew word erets does also mean land but nowhere in Scripture does it mention one specific area being flooded. In Mat.24:37-39, Jesus refers to the flood in a context of judging "all" the world. If we say that erets only refers to Israel, then Gen 1:1 would say...In the beginning God created the heaven and the Israel. I think 2 Peter 3 describes those who scoff at the bible as being "willingly ignorant" of the creation and flood.
If the flood was local, then God didn't keep his promise. There have been hundreds of floods since then where people have perished. He promised to never destroy the earth w/ a flood(Gen.9:11) So, if earth (erets) means this local land, then God lied. if it was local, why didn't the people just move to higher ground away from the flood? Then, not "all" would have perished. If the flood was local, why did God need to take all the animals? There were probably plenty more scattered across the earth. Why take birds? they could just fly to safety. The Bible is pretty clear that it was global. Let's not be scoffers. But, then again, I guess it's just a sign of the last days.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

The Bible is pretty clear that it was global.

at least as clear as "this is my body" anyhow.
the ancient Hebrews had no concept of the globe, nor how large the world is, nor how many different people and cultures it contained. The Bible is completely unaware of and uninterested in Chinese, the Americas and Australian aboriginals. Just like it is uninterested and unaware of any life on Alpha Centari or anywhere else in the universe. So What?

curious that your argument is not textual but philosophic. God could only have done X, or it is only wise for God to have done Y. The text and good hermeneutics clearly allows for a series of potentially Scriptural interpretations from global/universal to local/Semite. and a series of finer distinctions between these two ends.

notes:

Jesus refers to the flood in a context of judging "all" the world.

God so loved all the world.
yet i'm reformed. so i have no problem see the "all" world in particularistic terms.
only universalists are consistent enough to see "all" all the time as all everything.

 

[simplyg123]

If it wasn't a global flood and just a local flood...why did God tell Noah to build an ark and put all the animals on it?

this statement clealy proves it was global.

why salvage all these animals if they would not ALL be desroyed

 

[rmwilliamsll]

this statement clealy proves it was global.

why salvage all these animals if they would not ALL be desroyed

If it wasn't a global flood and just a local flood...why did God tell Noah to build an ark and put all the animals on it?

OTOH people will affirm the mystery of God and let God be God, then OTOH they will demand that God act in a way they find appropriate.

God flooded a bunch of people. One family escaped because they made a boat and took all their domesticated animals aboard. It becomes a great metaphor for salvation, for God's mighty acts. Now why, in order to demonstrate God's ?whatever?, do you require that the Chinese, the Egyptians, the MesoAmericans and Australian aboriginals participate in your little flood? the ancient Israelites knew nothing about them and cared even less.

To the ancients the world was flat and visible from the highest mountain peaks in it's entirety. their world was spatially and temporally very much smaller than ours. They were content with flooding their little world, why must you infer that your much larger world must be likewise flooded in order for their story to be true?

All the world should be taxed.
God so loved the world.

only universalists are consistent, all only means the extent of the domain under discussion for those people Scripture was written by, not us. our world is much much bigger and longer lived than anything ever imagined by the ANE mind.

 

[noholdsbarred]

I have started this thread to explore the creation.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth

i have heard theorys of a layer of water over the atmosphere causing higher levels of oxygen to be present, causing animals and plants to be enormuous. This could explain lots of things, dinosaurs, the amout of coal found, they say the earth is billions of years old, one thing they base this one is the plantlife, they say it would take billions of years to create the amount of coal that is present today. Speculating of course if there was the same amount of planlife as today.

But if the trees were bigger, plants bushier, not to mention there was more land above water then, therfore more plants growing on it. The theory states it is possible to have the amount of coal, ok, enough from me, what do you think

I do believe there was a Canopy around the Earth.

I appreciate this thread friend

noholdsbarred!

 

[artybloke]

God flooded a bunch of people.

One of the reasons for my taking this story as metaphor rather than history is that I don't believe any God who does that is worthy of Christ.

 

[jad123]

One of the reasons for my taking this story as metaphor rather than history is that I don't believe any God who does that is worthy of Christ.

 

[jds1977]

I keep seeing all these arguments about the Chinese and Americans, etc... Go back and read Genesis, the world did not disperse into nationalities until after the flood at Babel. A lot of people scoff at the flood account because they think "God is love" and He would never judge like that. But, because God is love, He must judge. I love babies, therefore, I hate abortion. God is angry w/ the wicked everyday. God is a God of righteousness and he will judge in righteousness like He did w/ the flood, next time it will be by fire.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I keep seeing all these arguments about the Chinese and Americans, etc... Go back and read Genesis, the world did not disperse into nationalities until after the flood at Babel. A lot of people scoff at the flood account because they think "God is love" and He would never judge like that. But, because God is love, He must judge. I love babies, therefore, I hate abortion. God is angry w/ the wicked everyday. God is a God of righteousness and he will judge in righteousness like He did w/ the flood, next time it will be by fire.

There is good evidence for people in the Americas 10Kya, Australian aboriginals there 40Kya, and Chinese writing 5Kya.

There is no internal evidence for any knowledge of any of these peoples in Genesis. The tower of Babel is long after the dispersion of human beings around the world and therefore is not about all people but only those the Hebrews are interested in, their lineage.

 

[jds1977]

There is good evidence for people in the Americas 10Kya, Australian aboriginals there 40Kya, and Chinese writing 5Kya.

I'm sure you're aware of the flood legends these people have also. If you don't mind, please show me the evidence for the 40k aboriginals and the 10k americans. I know the Chinese date back w/ their writing...

In contrast to Sumerian writing, whose history can be traced to its very beginning, the origins of Chinese writing are obscure and much debated. The earliest form known to us dates from the Shang dynasty (1200-1045 b.c.). By that time the script was already a highly developed system based on principles which have continued to characterize the system to the present.

Ironically, if you use the geneaologies of Genesis, you can calculate that the flood happened about 4300-4400 yrs. ago. Which would set the Chinese writing much later than the flood and Babel.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

If you don't mind, please show me the evidence for the 40k aboriginals and the 10k americans.

google is your friend:
from: http://www.biology.iastate.edu/intop/1Australia/04papers/TressaAborigOrign.htm

Ingman and Gyllensten studied 101 complete mitochondrial genomes from contemporary populations in Australia and many other regions. The mitochondrial genetic diversity of Aboriginals is remarkably high, similar to that found in Asia. Ingman and Gyllesten estimated colonization of Australia at 40,000-70,000 years ago and supported multiple waves of migration. Another study by Adcock and others indicates that anatomically modern humans were present in Australia before complete fixation of the mtDNA lineage, but does not establish a colonization date.

colonization 40K-60K is the common scientific wisdom.

there is more new stuff on the America however
from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0903_030903_bajaskull.html

Conventional wisdom says that Native Americans descended from prehistoric hunters who walked from northeast Asia across a land bridge, formed at the end of the Ice Age, to Alaska some 12,000 years ago. American Indians resemble the people of Mongolia, China and Siberia.

expresses common wisdom even in order to deny it and pose another theory.

Ironically, if you use the geneaologies of Genesis, you can calculate that the flood happened about 4300-4400 yrs. ago. Which would set the Chinese writing much later than the flood and Babel.
not ironically but completely neglecting the fact that they had to get to China and establish communites etc first. in addition to the extraordinary problems associated with writing invention.

analogous to how did Noah get kangaroos on the ark and how did he get them back to Australia without a single one leaving a fossil in between Mt Ararat and Oz.

simulateousness on opposite sides of the globe don't really demonstrate what YECists would desire.

I'm sure you're aware of the flood legends these people have also. If
many of these flood stories are deeply contaminated by those Westerns who first heard them.
if you can point me to a culture that existed in a place without common flooding that had a flood story that would be a piece of data i have yet to find. For example, Innuit, or Tibetans, or Mongolians. someone who would not have experienced a flood in nature but yet had invented both the vocabulary and story ot predict one outside of their normal experience.
plus documented not oral histories collected by Christian missionaries.

 

[jds1977]

Your sources make secular assumptions. They reak of evolutionary thinking. I'm using the bible to look at history and most TE's disregard the bible as just stories, so...we'll never agree.

not ironically but completely neglecting the fact that they had to get to China and establish communites etc first. in addition to the extraordinary problems associated with writing invention.

I think even I could migrate a family across the span of Turkey to China in a few years...that's not hard to believe. The dates between the flood and the earliest Chinese writing is a gap of approx. 1000 yrs....so that gives plenty of time.

analogous to how did Noah get kangaroos on the ark and how did he get them back to Australia without a single one leaving a fossil in between Mt Ararat and Oz.

You're starting w/ the assumption that kangaroos have ONLY lived in Aust. Who's to say there aren't kangaroo bones or fossils elsewhere? They probably came to Australia by a land bridge just as the possibility of the American Indians came to America, and then were landlocked by rising water or a change in the geological structures of that area.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Your sources make secular assumptions.

exactly what are these assumptions?

notes:
You're starting w/ the assumption that kangaroos have ONLY lived in Aust. Who's to say there aren't kangaroo bones or fossils elsewhere?

no, it is a conclusion from the data seen. There are no kangaroo nor kangaroo precursors outside of Oz. marsupial mammals are well explained and supported by understanding that they arrived before placental mammals developed and then the land bridge disappeared under water. in any case, it is not an assumption but a conclusion given the data. please note, assumptions are a very particular form of principle, they are unsupported, unprovable, but necessary in order to do the theorizing.


so again.
what are these assumptions evident in the above posting?
and don't resort to loaded words like "reeking", it only decreases the effectiveness of your argument to restort to such language.

 

[Mallon]

Your sources make secular assumptions. They reak of evolutionary thinking. I'm using the bible to look at history and most TE's disregard the bible as just stories, so...we'll never agree.

The techniques used to date the very antiquity of the Scriptures and illuminate early Judeo-Christian communities are the same used to date human establishments elsewhere in the world. You can't have it both ways.

 

[pgp_protector]

The techniques used to date the very antiquity of the Scriptures and illuminate early Judeo-Christian communities are the same used to date human establishments elsewhere in the world. You can't have it both ways.

Shhh

If the results support biblical history, the science is right, if the same science & method support an older civilization, then in that case the science is wrong, even though it's the same science.

 

[Deamiter]

I think even I could migrate a family across the span of Turkey to China in a few years...that's not hard to believe. The dates between the flood and the earliest Chinese writing is a gap of approx. 1000 yrs....so that gives plenty of time.

Um... yes there may be 1000 years between your date for a flood and the first written artifact, but the Chinese civilization extends back fully 10,000 years before Christ without interruption.

And why do you think these descendants of Noah traveled thousands of miles to begin an entirely new civilization when the entire population of the WORLD was in the thousands and there was next to nothing in the way of animals worldwide...