The Flood

[σύνδουλόν]

I'm supprised there arn't more people who think it was worldwide here

Does not the Bible teach that the Flood was world-wide, whatever one may believe outside of it?

 

[gluadys]

Does not the Bible teach that the Flood was world-wide, whatever one may believe outside of it?

No, not really. The Hebrew term translated "earth" can also mean "land" "territory". So a significant regional flood would be consistent with the text.

That is, if one assumes there was a historical flood at the basis of the story in the first place.

 

[σύνδουλόν]

No, not really. The Hebrew term translated "earth" can also mean "land" "territory". So a significant regional flood would be consistent with the text.

That is, if one assumes there was a historical flood at the basis of the story in the first place.

Are you positive that it does not teach a completely universal and global flood? What texts have been considered in coming to such a conclusion?

What happens to the Promise and Covenant God had made with Noah (and all peoples afterward) then?

And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. Genesis 9:11

There have been numerous local floods since. If this covenant does not safeguard against a complete and total world-wide flood, then it is meaningless and false.

There are other questions to also consider as well.

 

[gluadys]

Are you positive that it does not teach a completely universal and global flood? What texts have been considered in coming to such a conclusion?

What happens to the Promise and Covenant God had made with Noah (and all peoples afterward) then?

And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. Genesis 9:11

There have been numerous local floods since. If this covenant does not safeguard against a complete and total world-wide flood, then it is meaningless and false.

There are other questions to also consider as well.

Good reasons not to consider the flood as actual history. Literalism makes no sense of it. The important things are the teachings: God's horror of wickedness, the certainty of judgment, the mercy of his promise, his faithfulness to his covenant.

 

[σύνδουλόν]

Good reasons not to consider the flood as actual history. Literalism makes no sense of it. The important things are the teachings: God's horror of wickedness, the certainty of judgment, the mercy of his promise, his faithfulness to his covenant.

Yet scripture does teach the Global Flood, apart from what anyone believes outside of the text (at this point merely discussing internally, external is yet further). If a person believes the scripture, they must concede that it teaches a global flood (even atheists will admit this, though they do not believe it to be literal, yet some will say it does indeed teach a global flood).

Genesis (thus Noah; and Moses who penned it), Psalms, Isaiah, Jesus (in the Gospels, thus each of the Gospels), Peter, Job, etc all specifically detail a global flood. Would you consider some points if I raised them?

May I ask, to what Faithfulness are you speaking of? The Covenant was that He promised to never flood the whole world again. A local flood (beside not being present in the text) makes the Covenant of no-effect, a covenant which means nothing, for local floods have continued to happen. To reduce the Flood to a mythologized, hyperbolaic or fictional event makes the covenant worthless.

Reducing the flood (noachian deluge) to a such as those, it then also reduces the end-time judgment to nothing but mythology, hyperbole or fiction or "localized" event. Jesus directly compares the two events as being equal, as does Peter. Jesus speaks of the end-time events as earth shatteringly, blaringly, awesomely world-wide - in fact so much so that even the dead are raised.

 

[Assyrian]

I thought his promise was to Noah and those who came out of the ark?

Gen 9:9 "Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you,
10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth.
11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
12 And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations
Has the land where Noah and his descendants and the descendants of the animals settled after the flood, the hills of Ararat and the plain of Shinar, been destroyed in a flood and every living creature wiped out?

 

[gluadys]

May I ask, to what Faithfulness are you speaking of? The Covenant was that He promised to never flood the whole world again.

That is assuming the whole world was flooded in the first place. But given that 'erets' also means 'land', 'territory', 'region' the promise to not destroy the 'erets' would not necessarily mean the whole earth, but the land that was flooded.


Again, that is assuming there was a historical flood in the first place.

One cannot apply literalist assumptions to a story; not even a story with a basis in history. The point of a story is what it teaches, not the details of the narrative per se.

 

[lucaspa]

I'm supprised there arn't more people who think it was worldwide here

We listen to God, and God in His Creation tells us there was no world-wide flood.

 

[lucaspa]

Yet scripture does teach the Global Flood, apart from what anyone believes outside of the text (at this point merely discussing internally, external is yet further). If a person believes the scripture, they must concede that it teaches a global flood (even atheists will admit this, though they do not believe it to be literal, yet some will say it does indeed teach a global flood).

It's not clear in Hebrew if the story is teaching a global flood. The words used are more limited.

Genesis (thus Noah; and Moses who penned it), Psalms, Isaiah, Jesus (in the Gospels, thus each of the Gospels), Peter, Job, etc all specifically detail a global flood.

Everyone else uses the flood story as a story that everyone knows. From that story, they derive non-literal messages. For instance, Jesus does not specifically detail a global flood.

The Covenant was that He promised to never flood the whole world again. A local flood (beside not being present in the text) makes the Covenant of no-effect, a covenant which means nothing, for local floods have continued to happen. To reduce the Flood to a mythologized, hyperbolaic or fictional event makes the covenant worthless.

Not in the historical context. Remember, the flood is originally a Babylonian story and the Noah version is made during the Babylonian Conquest. The "flood" is a flood of Babylonian soldiers that overran Israel and destroyed it. Yet a few of the faithful (2 tribes out of 10) survived and are rebuilding Israel. The covenant would be that God would never again destroy Israel by Babylonian conquest. It's what the Hebrews hoped for.

The Flood stories (and there are 2 intertwined) are not to be taken literally. They are there for theological value, not history.

Reducing the flood (noachian deluge) to a such as those, it then also reduces the end-time judgment to nothing but mythology, hyperbole or fiction or "localized" event.

Oh good grief. This is just way too much of a slippery slope argument that won't stand examination.

Jesus directly compares the two events as being equal, as does Peter.

No they don't. Jesus speaks of the end-times coming as a surprise, just as the Flood was a surprise. The flood story doesn't have to be world-wide, or even literal, the way Jesus uses it. Everyone knows the story and knows the story says the flood was a surprise. So Jesus can make the analogy without the flood story being real. But still have a real end of the world.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

I'm supprised there arn't more people who think it was worldwide here

He wasn't invited to give His Word on it, here

 

[yeshuasavedme]

No, not really. The Hebrew term translated "earth" can also mean "land" "territory". So a significant regional flood would be consistent with the text.

That is, if one assumes there was a historical flood at the basis of the story in the first place.

The Hebrew word translated "land" that was covered with the waters of the flood was the word "dry", firstly.

The "dry" was commanded to appear when the waters were commanded to be gathered together in one place.

יַבָּשָׁה1) dry land, dry ground Gen 1:9 ¶ And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so.
Gen 1:10 And God called the dry [land] Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that [it was] good.
Gen 7:22 All in whose nostrils [was] the breath of life, of all that [was] in the dry [land], died.

land is added by the translators. The word is "חָרָבָה-dry"

Psa 33:8 Let all the earth/eretz fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world/tebel stand in awe of him.

2Pe 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

 

[yeshuasavedme]

I thought his promise was to Noah and those who came out of the ark?

Gen 9:9 "Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you,
10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth.
11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
12 And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations
Has the land where Noah and his descendants and the descendants of the animals settled after the flood, the hills of Ararat and the plain of Shinar, been destroyed in a flood and every living creature wiped out?

"You" existed as a seed in the loins of one of Noah's sons, having been created and named in the Book of Life and bodily designed there, to come forth into your being in your appointed season, from the loins of the fathers who came before you, all the way back to Adam.

Just as surely as Levi came forth from Abraham's loins [Hebrews 7:9 ], so you were seed, named already, in the loins of one of Noah's sons, and so "you" came out of the ark, and to "you" were the commands and promises made, when Noah, as the firstborn of earth and the high king and high priest of it [who stood before the LORD to intercede on behalf of every one on earth at that time and for all who would come forth from their loins] received the promises and commands.
Gen 35:11 And God said unto him, I [am] God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;
Gen 46:26 All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls [were] threescore and six;

1Ki 8:19 Nevertheless thou shalt not build the house; but thy son that shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house unto my name.

Hbr 7:9 And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham.
Hbr 7:10 For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.

 

[Mallon]

Why don't more fundamentalists reject epigenesis and advocate preformatism, as the Bible obviously assumes?

 

[lucaspa]

He wasn't invited to give His Word on it, here

God has already given His word on it. There was no world-wide flood.

 

[lucaspa]

Why don't more fundamentalists reject epigenesis and advocate preformatism, as the Bible obviously assumes?

I don't think you mean this the way it is used in philosophy: Epigenesis and Preformationism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Because the Bible isn't "obvious" about preformatism. Yes, Genesis 1:2 can be taken to mean there is pre-existing stuff, but elsewhere in the Bible the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is stated. For instance, the major creative act that the Israelites knew Yahweh by -- the creation of Israel -- is ex nihilo.

Within the context of how Genesis 1 was written -- as refutation of the Enuma Elish -- the first Babylonian gods are Apsu and Tiamet. God and goddess of saltwater and sweetwater. They just are. When Yahweh separates the waters, Apsu and Tiamet are being destroyed. You can't be a god when the thing you are god of is created by Yahweh.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

God has already given His word on it. There was no world-wide flood.

You are not God. Your word has no weight.

 

[Rex Lex]

You are not God. Your word has no weight.

Amen. Anyone who denies the world-wide flood as found in Genesis is denying God's Word.

"And the water prevailed exceedingly upon the earth: and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven, were covered....and all flesh died that moved upon the earth...All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle and creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth." Genesis 7:18-23

"Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." II Peter 3: 6

The scriptures clearly teach it. The evidence for its occurrence is obvious <edit>

 

[Mallon]

I don't think you mean this the way it is used in philosophy: Epigenesis and Preformationism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

No, I mean it more in the biological sense of embryonic development (e.g., homonculus and all that). Denis Lamoureux goes into some detail about the preformatism of the Bible in his book Evolutionary Creation.

 

[theFijian]

You are not God. Your word has no weight.

Neither are you God, so likewise your word has no weight. So why should we pay attention to anything you say?

 

[Rex Lex]

Neither are you God, so likewise your word has no weight. So why should we pay attention to anything you say?

Your position is error, not Yeshuasavedme. You are not standing on what was clearly revealed by Moses in Genesis 7. God's words there are plain enough to any honest person. You just don't believe them.