The Flood: Fact and fiction

[lithium.]

Originally posted by Chris H
I'd like to see our pumkin sailor buddy explain how ten million species rode together on a boat 450 feet long.

Chris

haha that is also Very well said.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by Chris H
I'd like to see our pumkin sailor buddy explain how ten million species rode together on a boat 450 feet long.

Actually, in researching the creationist viewpoint, the idea is that Noah only took different "kinds" of animals on board the ark (and only land-dwelling ones, at that), not species. Of course, the definition of "kind" is, at best, a moving target, so estimates of the number of animals on board the ark tends to vary (from thousands, to tens of thousands).

But, of course, you have to accept a pretty good amount of evolution to explain the variety of life we see today (est. 5-50 million different worldwide species). And yet, creationists will still speak out against evolution. The irony is just frightening.

 

[secularfuture]

Did Noah also take microorganisms / single celled organisms on the ark?

 

[ocean]

The Flood is obviously symbolic, and not meant to be taken literally.

 

[Chris H]

Originally posted by ocean
The Flood is obviously symbolic, and not meant to be taken literally.

True, so true...

Why ruin a beautiful story of creation and rebirth by forcing it to fit an unrealistic literal timeline?



Chris H

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by secularfuture
Did Noah also take microorganisms / single celled organisms on the ark?

Seeing as how I doubt they had decontamination chambers on the Ark, they wouldn't have had a choice. Besides, the Bible doesn't even mention such organisms (not surprisingly; they didn't know about them back them), so it's irrelevant.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by ocean
The Flood is obviously symbolic, and not meant to be taken literally.

Obvious and yet, not obvious. A literal flood as depicted in Genesis could not have taken place (at least, not based on the evidence we have/don't have for such an event).

Yet, it may be based on fact, which is what the whole Black Sea theory is about. So, from that angle, the Bible story provides an interesting account of a (possible) real-world historical event.

 

[secularfuture]

ocean,

"The Flood is obviously symbolic, and not meant to be taken literally."

Be sure to tell the fundamentalists that when you get a chance.

 

[Humanista]

Originally posted by secularfuture
Did Noah also take microorganisms / single celled organisms on the ark?

Plague, smallpox, leperosy, polio. cholera, anthrax and HIV would also have to have been present--some only survive in a human host, so Noah & family were host to some pretty powerful illnesses.

Must have been hard to get all those animals fed, watered and their waste thrown overboard when you are that sick.

All the animal-borne diseases couldn't have evolved either---those were some sick animals he had there, and no medication to help them.

 

[jon1101]

Originally posted by Humanista
Plague, smallpox, leperosy, polio. cholera, anthrax and HIV would also have to have been present--some only survive in a human host, so Noah & family were host to some pretty powerful illnesses.

Very interesting point. Would you be so kind as to point me towards some documentation on the ailments that only survive in a human host? Thanks.

-jon

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by Chris H
I'd like to see our pumkin sailor buddy explain how ten million species rode together on a boat 450 feet long.

Chris

That's Mr. Pumpkin Sailor to you, bud.

If I believed that, I might want to explain it. But IMO that's not even an accurate literal interpretation of what the Bible says about the flood, so you've only constructed a straw man there.

 

[Chris H]

O.K. Construct any rational model of all species extant (or whatever other model you wish to provide) riding in a wooden boat for a full year.

I'm all ears, bud.

Chris

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by Chris H
O.K. Construct any rational model of all species extant

Why would I do that? "Species" isn't something defined in the Bible. Even by scientific standards, speciation and extinctions have occurred since the flood, so your premise makes no sense.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by npetreley
Why would I do that? "Species" isn't something defined in the Bible. Even by scientific standards, speciation and extinctions have occurred since the flood, so your premise makes no sense.

Nope, the Bible has "kinds". So what is a "kind" anyway?

 

[TScott]

I think that a flood of great magnitude took place in Mesopotamia about 3000-5000 years before the common era. I think that the Babylonians and Sumerians had stories of this flood that passed down through the ages and became mythologised. I think that in the 6th or seventh century before the common era, at about the time the second temple was built, some people wrote the Genesis acount of the flood based on the earlier Babylonian and Sumerian myths, adapting them to the Hebrew religion and god.

 

[npetreley]

Originally posted by Pete Harcoff
Nope, the Bible has "kinds". So what is a "kind" anyway?

I don't know.

 

[Morat]

  I do. From the way I've seen it used in the past by Creationists (including the big names in the field), "kind" is defined as follows:

  Two species are of the same "kind" if evidence of transitionals exist between them. If not, they're of "different kinds".

   Last I checked, the "Bear Kind" had everything from koalas and pandas to Kodiak bears...a much greater genetic gulf than between say...humans and apes. And, in 4000 years, a rate of evolution orders of magnitude faster than biologists claim.

 

 

[npetreley]

G~d knows what "kinds" are, and Adam apparently knew, too. People today can speculate, or come up with arbitrary classifications like species. It's all pretty meaningless in a discussion like this, IMO.

 

[judge]

Originally posted by Chris H
If we take the geneologies in Genesis literally we contradict known historical events, as I pointed out in a previous post.



Would you please explain this in light of your post on the accuracy of biblical literalism?

Chris

 

Hi chris!

I think what you say here is correct, but only if we use the Massoretic geneologies (which by the way are the ones used in our bibles). However they differ by roughly 1000 years with the geneologies in the LXX, which seem to be the one used by the early church and the the one underlying the text used by Josephus.

One attempt to date the flood using the LXX geneologies arriving at 3537 B.C can be found here.

http://www.ldolphin.org/barrychron.html

 

All the best.