Noah's Ark

AV1611VET · Aug 8, 2025

2PhiloVoid said:
Wha---whuh-----whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? From where are you getting this teaching?

From AI Overview:

The "Tablet Theory," also known as the Wiseman Hypothesis, suggests that the Book of Genesis was compiled by Moses from a series of clay tablets written by individuals who experienced the events described, such as Adam, Noah, and Abraham.

2PhiloVoid said:
Here's the thing, AV, all of what you're saying is heartfelt hearsay and doesn't even count as historical or archeological testimony.

I disagree.

From AI Overview:

In the Book of Genesis, "colophons" refer to recurring phrases like "These are the generations of..." (e.g., Genesis 2:4, 5:1, 6:9) which are thought to mark the end of a specific narrative section and potentially indicate the source or author of that section. This idea is linked to the Wiseman hypothesis, which suggests Genesis was compiled from older, cuneiform tablets that included colophons like those found in ancient Mesopotamian texts.

2PhiloVoid said:
But the following discourse by Dr. Andrew Mark Henry about the biblical flood narrative's place among the other Ancient Near Eastern flood accounts DOES count for that, and it doesn't look like it's easily dismiss-able:

I'll dismiss it later, when I have more time.

I'll watch it and comment on it -- (if you're interested).

2PhiloVoid · Aug 8, 2025

AV1611VET said:
From AI Overview:

The "Tablet Theory," also known as the Wiseman Hypothesis, suggests that the Book of Genesis was compiled by Moses from a series of clay tablets written by individuals who experienced the events described, such as Adam, Noah, and Abraham.

I prefer actual source citations, so I see I'll have to search for my own since you're ai-ing it.

AV1611VET said:
I disagree.

From AI Overview:

In the Book of Genesis, "colophons" refer to recurring phrases like "These are the generations of..." (e.g., Genesis 2:4, 5:1, 6:9) which are thought to mark the end of a specific narrative section and potentially indicate the source or author of that section. This idea is linked to the Wiseman hypothesis, which suggests Genesis was compiled from older, cuneiform tablets that included colophons like those found in ancient Mesopotamian texts.

From what I've found, it appears not all strict Creationists, such as the Creation Research Society listed below, are on board with this hypothesis, and for reasons that I surmised.
But.............to be fair.............you have helped me learn something to add to my existing repertoire of academic awareness. And I thank you for that, even if I still disagree with your interpretive position.

From the Armstrong Institute

The ‘Genesis Tablets’: An Introduction to the Wiseman Hypothesis

An alternative theory to the Documentary Hypothesis, relating to the earliest composition of the Bible

armstronginstitute.org

From the Creation Research Society (Creation Research Society) [Actual position paper in the link below]

https://crsq.creationresearch.org/id/eprint/1212/1/A%20Critical%20Evaluation%20of%20the%20Tablet%20Model%3A%20Considerations%20on%20the%20Origin%20of%20the%20Book%20of%20Genesis.pdf

Wiseman hypothesis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

AV1611VET said:
I'll dismiss it later, when I have more time.

I'll watch it and comment on it -- (if you're interested).

That's fine. I am interested in hearing what you have to say.

AV1611VET · Aug 8, 2025

2PhiloVoid said:
I am interested in hearing what you have to say.

Okay ... here we go.

In the video he says:

In the Book of Genesis God instructs Noah how to build a rectangular Ark which artists over the years have envisioned in various ways ... but there are ancient Mesopotamian flood stories predating Genesis that describe an ark that looks very different.

To that, I say these ancient flood stories that "predate Genesis" do so because they simply outlasted the original story.

Just because Story A is older than Story B, doesn't mean Story A came before Story B.

As I have pointed out before, Shem lived right up to the time of Jacob.

He probably copied and recopied his father's story over and over and over -- (he lived 502 years after the Flood) -- every time the paper it was written on began to decay.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, on the other hand, was never taken seriously and just sat on the shelf collecting dust, until it was found centuries later.

Thus it would be considered older than the true story.

In the case of the Flood, fact came before fiction; but fact was used over and over, and the fiction was shelved.

DamianWarS · Aug 8, 2025

AV1611VET said:
God doesn't leave this earth without his Word in written form.

Who told you this?

AV1611VET · Aug 8, 2025

DamianWarS said:
Who told you this?

Because we are all going to stand before God and be judged from the "books" on Judgement Day.

And that includes Adam, Cain, Abel, Noah, everyone.

Imagine Abel standing before the LORD and being judged from a book that wasn't written until Moses showed up?

I think not.

AV1611VET · Aug 8, 2025

2PhiloVoid said:
That's fine. I am interested in hearing what you have to say.

Andrew Mark Henry says:

Scholars have long known that the flood story in Genesis draws from earlier stories, like the Atrahasis.

To that, I submit a fake story I once made up here that puts that to rest:

Re: The Epic of Gilgamesh

Shem: What's this trash you wrote, Nimrod; are you okay!?

Nimrod: Don't start on me again, uncle; you've always looked down on us Hamites.

Shem: That's garbage too! You used to be a mighty hunter before the LORD, what went wrong?

Nimrod: You think you Shemites are so much better than us, just because my grandfather was cursed for what his father did to your mother in that tent that day.

Shem: I watched you grow up, Nimrod, and how you used to love the LORD so much; but somewhere along the line you went astray and broke away from the rest of us and went and formed your own little empire. Well ... you do what you want, but as long as I live, I'll make sure my eyewitness testimony trumps your lies.

Nimrod: And what makes you an authority on the Flood over me?

Shem: I was there! Remember??? I was on the Ark ... you weren't!

Nimrod: Oh, that's right ... somehow I forgot ... what with there being no evidence and all.

Shem: [facepalms]

I don't doubt that, over the centuries, fictitious stories began popping up.

But Shem was right there to keep the record straight -- in writing.

God saw to that.

AV1611VET · Aug 9, 2025

2PhiloVoid said:
That's fine. I am interested in hearing what you have to say.

All of these flood stories from empires that are mentioned are nothing more than mockeries of the true story of what really happened.

Andrew Henry is being fooled by Satan's wiles.

Satan's favorite line is ...

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And that line has fooled more scholars than a dog has fleas.

Henry gives equal status to the Sumerian Flood story, the Atrahasis epic, and the Epic of Gilgamesh; and in doing so, he is falling right into Satan's trap.

He also falls for that JEPD theory of authorship of the Bible.

I pray for his soul.

2PhiloVoid · Aug 9, 2025

AV1611VET said:
All of these flood stories from empires that are mentioned are nothing more than mockeries of the true story of what really happened.

Andrew Henry is being fooled by Satan's wiles.

Satan's favorite line is ...

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And that line has fooled more scholars than a dog has fleas.

Henry gives equal status to the Sumerian Flood story, the Atrahasis epic, and the Epic of Gilgamesh; and in doing so, he is falling right into Satan's trap.

He also falls for that JEPD theory of authorship of the Bible.

I pray for his soul.

I don't. Like EVERYTHING, even the JEPD gets the special critical sauce that I so unsparringly whip-up as a philosopher. I'm not daunted by it, and I'm under no compulsion to either believe or advocate for it, even if I do think the Old Testament Pentateuch/Torah has probably been revised and/or emended by later scribes through another form of historiographical processes.

And with my study of Historiography, I tend to think that Moses (and whomever else had a hand in writing the Old Testament books during whichever Age those were worked, whether Bronze or Iron) probably did draw from some earlier accounts. I'm just not sure that those accounts were the same ones that Wiseman hypothesizes.

As for the Flood, while I don't go the whole way with critical scholars such as Andrew Mark Henry, I still tend to think that the remnant Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian texts go at least a small way in suggesting to us that some kind of significant flood actually took place, even if it was regional to the Middle East and left a legendary mark in the cultural memories of those people and by which Moses prophetically offered his own special re-representation of it for polemical and theological effect. And I think somewhere in there, God supplied some info and inspiration for Moses' account, even if I can't account perfectly for how all of that was done and my perspective is underdetermined where evidence and science offer any form of substantiation.

And as I've more than once cited, where history, archeology, historiography and theology cross-pollinate, it's a book (many books actually) like the following that serves as my beginning point for study and deliberation, especially for something like Noah's Flood:

Hoffmeier, James K., Gordon John Wenham, and Kenton Sparks. Genesis: History, fiction, or neither?: Three views on the Bible’s earliest chapters. Zondervan Academic, 2015.

AV1611VET · Aug 9, 2025

2PhiloVoid said:
As for the Flood, while I don't go the whole way with critical scholars such as Andrew Mark Henry, I still tend to think that the remnant Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian texts go at least a small way in suggesting to us that some kind of significant flood actually took place, even if it was regional to the Middle East and left a legendary mark in the cultural memories of those people ...

I won't dispute that one bit.

I do believe there were regional floods all over the place that left indelible marks on the people.

But to refer to one of those regional floods as a worldwide flood is ludicrous.

Note that Joshua refers to the Jordan river as a "flood."

Jos 24:2 And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.

Jos 24:3 And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.

Jos 24:14 Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.

Jos 24:15 ¶ And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

But my pastor points out that he is referring to the Jordan River at "flood stage."

Anyone can call Hurricane Katrina a worldwide superstorm -- but they're wrong.

2PhiloVoid · Aug 9, 2025

AV1611VET said:
I won't dispute that one bit.

I do believe there were regional floods all over the place that left indelible marks on the people.

But to refer to one of those regional floods as a worldwide flood is ludicrous.

It's really not if the historiography and the narrative structures of ancient people like Moses were of a different conceptual form and literary function in human communication than that which we use today in the techno-modern, 21st century English speaking world.

It's a fact that people in the Ancient Near East did not conceptualize the world of their time as a 'globe.' We just have to choke down that fact and accept it.

And that's all I'll say because of two things: 1) it barely is worth my time mentioning the enormous lines of thought that make up my reading, interpretation and valuation of the Biblical collection of books if someone like you, dear brother, has absolutely no felt use for engaging any of that by which to have an actual understanding of my mode of thought (and faith in Christ), and 2) because of my historiographical views, the sort of conceptualization I have about the historical literalness of the Flood account is different than how I also evaluate the later narrative of Abraham and the Patriarchs and every other narrative that comes after that.

IOW, I don't assume anyone knows with absolute certainty what the extent of literalness within the biblical texts are or are not, whether they be critical and liberal, or fundamental and conservative. No one knows, although I do think it is plausible to think the Exodus from Egypt happened essentially, even if not exactly to the 't' the way it's represented as expressed in Exodus.

AV1611VET said:
Note that Joshua refers to the Jordan river as a "flood."

Jos 24:2 And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.

Jos 24:3 And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.

Jos 24:14 Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.

Jos 24:15 ¶ And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

But my pastor points out that he is referring to the Jordan River at "flood stage."

Anyone can call Hurricane Katrina a worldwide superstorm -- but they're wrong.

The problem here is that I will take your pastor to account for his hermeneutical methodology and exegesis. In other words, I'm sure he learned his exegesis from a different set of biblical teachers (or even scholars) than I have.

AV1611VET · Aug 9, 2025

2PhiloVoid said:
The problem here is that I will take your pastor to account for his hermeneutical methodology and exegesis. In other words, I'm sure he learned his exegesis from a different set of biblical teachers (or even scholars) than I have.

Do any of your equal airtime myths mention [their] god saying he/she/it would never flood the earth again?

If the Biblical flood was just a local one, then God owes New Orleans an apology, doesn't He?

2PhiloVoid · Aug 9, 2025

AV1611VET said:
Do any of your equal airtime myths mention [their] god saying he/she/it would never flood the earth again?

I'm not understanding your question. What do you mean by "equal airtime myths"?

AV1611VET said:
If the Biblical flood was just a local one, then God owes New Orleans an apology, doesn't He?

Not really. There's no analogous symmetry in your comparison of New Orleans' geography and its modern population, and how that population understands its world and its "place" in that world cosmogonically, with the geography, population and cosmogony of an ancient Mosaic mind.

To make it even more complicated historiographically, there's also a difference between a Mosaic understanding of these things compared to earlier Sumerians and Babylonians, as well as Egyptians of whatever time. But that's just how paradigms among human beings are and those paradigms affect how they communicate and conceptualize the nature of the world in which they live during the eras and cultures in which they live.

AV1611VET · Aug 9, 2025

2PhiloVoid said:
Not really.

Have a nice day.

2PhiloVoid · Aug 9, 2025

AV1611VET said:
Have a nice day.

You too.

DamianWarS · Aug 9, 2025

AV1611VET said:
Because we are all going to stand before God and be judged from the "books" on Judgement Day.

And that includes Adam, Cain, Abel, Noah, everyone.

Imagine Abel standing before the LORD and being judged from a book that wasn't written until Moses showed up?

The books are a record of things done, not a standard of judgement. There is no biblical suggestion that judgment is unfair without a written standard first and I'm not sure why that's important to you.

The law of God prexists the texts and the idea it requires written text is an odd assertion that belongs in controversial threads not here. You seem to be caught looking at the trees not the forest and have successfully digressed the topic, perhaps even intentionally, so that I don't even know what we're discussing about any more.

requiring Noah to pen the account (not merely passing it on orally) cannot be substantiated and shouldn't be used to develope a doctrine with so little. I'm not saying you can't disagree with me but you've gone off on an end that isn't responsible and for that reason I can't respect the position.

AV1611VET · Aug 10, 2025

DamianWarS said:
requiring Noah to pen the account (not merely passing it on orally) cannot be substantiated ...

And why not?

Even academia says otherwise.

From AI Overview:

It's likely that writing existed before the time of Noah, although the biblical account doesn't explicitly state it. The Bible suggests that writing was present before the flood, with the book of Genesis implying a written record from Adam to Noah. Furthermore, archaeological discoveries show writing existed centuries before the flood.

DamianWarS · Aug 10, 2025

AV1611VET said:
And why not?

Even academia says otherwise.

From AI Overview:

It's likely that writing existed before the time of Noah, although the biblical account doesn't explicitly state it. The Bible suggests that writing was present before the flood, with the book of Genesis implying a written record from Adam to Noah. Furthermore, archaeological discoveries show writing existed centuries before the flood.

It's not that it could have happened but the Bible does not feel it important enough to highlight it. Traditional authorship of Genesis is Moses, modern academia will say even latter. Something that could happen is not enough to develope doctrine on this is why it's irresponsible. This discussion belongs in the controversial threads, not here.

2PhiloVoid · Aug 10, 2025

AV1611VET said:
And why not?

Even academia says otherwise.

From AI Overview:

It's likely that writing existed before the time of Noah, although the biblical account doesn't explicitly state it. The Bible suggests that writing was present before the flood, with the book of Genesis implying a written record from Adam to Noah. Furthermore, archaeological discoveries show writing existed centuries before the flood.

And what was the specific question you asked the A.I.? And from which sources did it draw its answer to you?

AV1611VET · Aug 10, 2025

DamianWarS said:
It's not that it could have happened but the Bible does not feel it important enough to highlight it.

And how should it have been highlighted then to satisfy the academic world?

Should it have said, "And Adam wrote ..."? "And Noah wrote ..."? "And Abraham wrote ..."?

Would that have done it?

I seriously doubt it, in view of the fact that the Bible says others wrote, and that doesn't mean a thing to the naysayers.

DamianWarS said:
Traditional authorship of Genesis is Moses,

I don't follow tradition.

DamianWarS said:
... modern academia will say even latter.

Modern academia is wrong.

DamianWarS said:
Something that could happen is not enough to develop doctrine on this is why it's irresponsible.

And just because it doesn't go out of its way to "satisfy" -- (not that it would though) -- but "satisfy" the academic world by preambling everything with, "And [list author here] wrote ..." doesn't mean it couldn't have happened.

DamianWarS said:
This discussion belongs in the controversial threads, not here.

Why do you want it in the controversial section?

Are you wanting a Christian website to treat it as such?

That's like saying the Bible should be sold in the fiction section of bookstores.

AV1611VET · Aug 10, 2025

2PhiloVoid said:
And what was the specific question you asked the A.I.? And from which sources did it draw its answer to you?

I don't remember now, but check this out:

Q: Was there writing in Noah's time?

A: Yes, there's evidence of writing systems existing before the time of Noah, and it's likely that writing was also present during his time. While the Bible doesn't explicitly state Noah was literate, the existence of writing before the flood is implied.

The Bible itself uses terms like "book" and "scroll" in relation to pre-flood events, suggesting that writing was known.

Some interpretations of Genesis suggest that Adam kept a written record of his experiences, which was then passed down through generations.

While the exact form of writing used in Noah's time is debated, some believe it may have been an early form of Hebrew, even if different from the modern script.

It's likely that Noah and his family, being the sole survivors of the flood, would have preserved and passed on knowledge, including writing, to future generations.

In conclusion: While the Bible doesn't explicitly state that Noah was literate, evidence from archaeology and biblical interpretation suggests that writing was known and practiced before and during his time.

Noah's Ark

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