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Was Noah's flood global?

The Barbarian

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Like I said, not every nation had a Noah but there are stories of one man saving his family and a bunch of animals.
The first story cited by AIG has none of those elements.
How so? Yes, there have been catastrophic floods all over the world and there are still catastrophic floods all over the world. It doesn't mean that a worldwide flood didn't happen.
It just means that flood stories can't be assumed to be the same as the one in the Bible. We can't just make up stories to fit our wishes.

that's not really examining history that is seeing history through the eyes of faith and not necessarily evidence.
"Faith" doesn't include making up non-Biblical stories.
What if the creation model is only considering the history of the Hebrew people?
That wouldn't explain why people of other groups wouldn't know. By the creationist revision, all humans are descended from Noah.

Which means either there was one big flood all at once, or there have been many catastrophic floods in many different places. Seeing as we have historical records of many of those, the latter is really the only choice we have.

Does it have to be either or?
Comes down to evidence. Lots of floods fit the evidence. And we have neither Biblical support nor physical evidence for a global flood in human history.
 
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Vambram

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The New Testament verses about the flood in Genesis do provide Biblical support for a massive global flood in human history.
 
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Diamond72

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What is your interpretation of the New Testament verses which refer back to the Flood in Genesis 7 and
Do you mean no one knows the day or the hour? That is difficult for me as a dispensationalist because the second day has to end the third day begins and we know a day is 1,000 years. We do know the day and the hour when the Church began. When Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit was poured out.
 
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Vambram

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Do you mean no one knows the day or the hour? That is difficult for me as a dispensationalist because the second day has to end the third day begins and we know a day is 1,000 years. We do know the day and the hour when the Church began. When Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit was poured out.
Those are not the verses that I was talking about. Please look at posts numbers #50 and #52 of this thread.
 
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Diamond72

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It just means that flood stories can't be assumed to be the same as the one in the Bible. We can't just make up stories to fit our wishes.
Noah saved Eden, that is significant. IF you want to save Adam's descendants then they are going to need food to eat. Man needs a whole biodiverse eco system to sustain him. This was the beginning of man being a food producer and the beginning of civilization. The population could grow and expand because they had food to feed the people.

I went to a fish hatchery once. In the natural 3% of the fish survive. In the hatchery 97% survived.
 
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Vambram

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trophy33

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Hebrews 11:7 II Peter 2:5 II Peter 3:5-7

IMO, the authors are referring to Hebrew traditional/biblical stories to make a theological or rather eschatological point; like Jesus was referring to the story of Jonah, for example

It was cultural, not scientific.
 
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The Barbarian

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This was the beginning of man being a food producer and the beginning of civilization. The population could grow and expand because they had food to feed the people.
This was not necessarily a good thing from the standpoint of health and happiness. Hunter-gathers tend to larger and healthier than farmers. Dependence on a few food sources in monocultures leads to crop failures and famines. Agriculture generally led to settlements, property, technology, literacy, government, wars, etc.

It's what we have now, but it's not an unmixed blessing.
 
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The Barbarian

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I went to a fish hatchery once. In the natural 3% of the fish survive. In the hatchery 97% survived.
Used to be one a few blocks from my childhood home. Interesting place. But if 97% of them survived in nature, the ecosystem would collapse.
 
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The Barbarian

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The New Testament verses about the flood in Genesis do provide Biblical support for a massive global flood in human history.
You are perhaps thinking of 2 Peter.

2 Peter 2:5 And spared not the original world, but preserved Noe, the eighth person, the preacher of justice, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.

The word translated to "world" is the Koine Greek κόσμος (kosmos), which did not mean "entire Earth." For example...

Luke 2:1 And it came to pass, that in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the whole world should be enrolled.

Now, Luke certainly knew that the decree could only apply to the part of the Earth that was under Roman Rule. He used "κόσμος" also.

Finkelberg (1998: 126) misconstrues the Greek by claiming that the rendering of κόσμος as ‘world’ or ‘world-order’ raises some problems. First, κόσμος is contrasted with ἀκολασία, but ‘world’ can hardly be the opposite of ‘intemperance’. To be sure, κόσμος is explicitly contrasted with ἀκοσμία, then elaborated (οὐδὲ) to refer to ἀκολασία by Socrates in the context of his discussion with Callicles, the determined adherent to pleonexia. This is unsurprising as a Socratic dialectical appropriation. The contrasting of opposite elements through κόσμος and ἀκοσμία is not an invention of Plato: it is attested in other contemporary philosophical contexts, before (e.g. Gorg. Hel. 1 and Pal. 30) and after Plato (e.g. Arist. Fr. 17 Rose³).

The whole essay is well worth reading if you really want to know about this.

And of course, there have been many massive floods in human history. One of the greatest, the flood that filled the Black Sea Basin, happened in the right place and at the right time to be the flood of Noah.
 
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Ted-01

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I don't quite get the localized flood idea... while there are several aspects of it that I have problems with, one kinda' stands out.

If it was localized, and if it was Mt. Ararat that the ark finally came to rest on... that's 16,000-17,000 feet above sea level. How much land would not be under water, on the rest of the planet?
 
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Diamond72

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Used to be one a few blocks from my childhood home. Interesting place. But if 97% of them survived in nature, the ecosystem would collapse.
We have a wild area out back. The oak and maple trees put out a lot of seeds. A lot of them take root and grow but my wife pulls them out every chance she gets.
 
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trophy33

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I don't quite get the localized flood idea... while there are several aspects of it that I have problems with, one kinda' stands out.

If it was localized, and if it was Mt. Ararat that the ark finally came to rest on... that's 16,000-17,000 feet above sea level. How much land would not be under water, on the rest of the planet?
1. You do not need to measure it from the top of the mountain, the ark could land anywhere on the mountain

2. We do not know what area the flood covered, so we do not know what mountain it was. The text says: "on the mountains of Ararat", not "on the Mt Ararat". They did not use our modern maps and names, therefore they might mean something different from our era.

3. The info about landing on Ararat mountains could be only an addition. The story shows symbolic meanings, so its not a precise history.
 
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The Barbarian

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We do not know what area the flood covered, so we do not know what mountain it was. The text says: "on the mountains of Ararat", not "on the Mt Ararat". They did not use our modern maps and names, therefore they might mean something different from our era.
Exactly. "Ararat" is Uratu in Assyrian, the area of the Kingdom of Van. What is now Armenia. So the account says that the Ark came to rest somewhere in the ancient area that was Armenia. Which just happens to be on the shore of the Black Sea. Imagine that.
 
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Diamond72

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I don't quite get the localized flood idea...
You would have to study your Biology book to understand what a Biodiverse Eco system is. Eden was a very special eco system because this was the beginning of man being a food producer. Noah needed food to eat so you have to preserve that for him.
 
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The Barbarian

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Do you think they sold tours of the ARK to raise a little pocket money :}
I think someone else recently had that idea...

iu
 
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Ted-01

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1. You do not need to measure it from the top of the mountain, the ark could land anywhere on the mountain

2. We do not know what area the flood covered, so we do not know what mountain it was. The text says: "on the mountains of Ararat", not "on the Mt Ararat". They did not use our modern maps and names, therefore they might mean something different from our era.

3. The info about landing on Ararat mountains could be only an addition. The story shows symbolic meanings, so its not a precise history.
Those are excellent points! Thank you.

I'm not quite sure what views are on the "story" of Noah is... I haven't read the whole thread and if I get a chance later, I'll try to review. But I do agree that a "plain reading" of the account doesn't give a whole lot of historic detail. Not sure what you see as symbolic or what is literal, if anything?

Anyway, I did a quick look at the topo of the area and some of the lower areas are about 3000-4000 feet above sea level. So, though dramatically less than a 16,000-foot flooding, a 3,000-foot flood would cover how much of the local area, do you think? See, I'm just not sure how local, local is?
 
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Ted-01

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You would have to study your Biology book to understand what a Biodiverse Eco system is. Eden was a very special eco system because this was the beginning of man being a food producer. Noah needed food to eat so you have to preserve that for him.
Yes, that might be a good idea!! My school days were quite a while ago!!
Though, I usually got very high marks in biology and natural sciences. But I don't recall studying the ecosystem of Eden.
How do you thing that Noah got past the cherubim? Swung around to the west side and kept a low profile? ^_^
 
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