gluadys said:
The measurements that tell us there is not enough water to cover the earth with a global flood are not just measurements of liquid water and surface water. They include ground water, frozen water and atmospheric water vapour. All the water on earth, no matter where it is found, no matter in what form it is found, is not enough to bury the whole earth in 15 cubits of water.
Two important notes you may not be taking into account:
1.) What measurements exist that tell us exactly how much water within it's various forms existed way back when the Genesis flood took place?
2.) Even if there were not by sceintific standards a possible natural way for the flood occur, the Biblical account plainly states it was certainly no natural occurance, but supernatural. And it happened for a specific reason, mankind's sinfullness which drove God to destroy all on the earth save one family and repersentatives of each species. Natural disasters don't work in that fashion. As someone else stated, God works through the laws He alone has set for nature. That does not mean He is bound to them, nor that can't work past them.
Science is a study of the world in which we live. However, what we know of the world in which we live is ever-changing. God created and designed the Earth and everything on, in, and outside of it. Only arrogance would claim to know fully what our Creator does about His creation.
So even after counting the water in icebergs and clouds and aquifers, you still need to find a source for more water, and a place for it to go afterwards.
God Himself created the waters. Why is it imposossible to consider they were removed...or they were usued to sustain an entirely new set of climates that had never been seen before the flood occured? Remember, within the Genesis account from Creation to the flood there had never been a sort of hard rain even mentioned. Why do you think the people of Noah's day would have laughed at him when he built a boat on dry land?
...6,000 years is no where near long enough for mountains to form. The Himalayas are still rising at a rate of few centimetres a year...
And? What in Scripture states they were formed and not created as it is written within the Genesis account?
...In the last 4 billion years or so, there has been no new water created on earth. Every drop of water we use today has been recycled and recycled and recyled countless times since then...
How is this related to the occurance of an unnatural global flood which is fully supported by the Scriptures within their literary context within both the Old and New Testaments?
Also, how and why do you claim "4 billion years" when, as there's no reliable source to back up that number?
... Since when is accepting the fact that some parts of the bible are fiction equivalent to discounting those parts of the bible?
Are you really saying that you cannot accept a God who tells stories? Are you putting conditions on how God reveals his word?
The Scriptures are to be read within their literary context. Meaning the passages themselves state and indicate what they mean.
Are you stating then that the creation of the world and a global flood in Genesis are any more unbelievable than the a virgin concieving and bearing a son who happens to be God Himself, Second Person of the Holy Trinity who created the world? (
ref: John 1) Are you saying it's more unbelievable than our Savior Jesus who put Himself under the Law and took the ultimate punishment in our stead on the cross so we could have the complete forgiveness of sins? And are you saying it's more unbelievable than Him rising from the dead? Or later being seen by 500 people
at one time? (ref:
1 Corinthians 15)
To state an individual would read the Bible and passes occurances as fiction simply because it does not go understood or does not hold to human reason when there is nothing in the context of the passage which states it is such, is evidence once does not wish to take God at His word whether or not it does go completely understood.
The passages which indicate they are true historical accouts, or prophecy, or similie, or metaphorical, etc. already have indicated themselves to be such.
One usually reads a book the same way. Going by the literary context and allowing that to convey what the author means. It's no less true regarding the Author of the Scriptures and how He wants us to read His word.
I would think the sole reason why some have said some portions of the Bible are untrue and some not without the Bible indicating it is due to unbelief itself.
You don't believe the biblical account in Genesis? If you discount part of the bible as fiction, then you cannot accept it as truth! Plain and simple. You either accept His word (all of it) or you deny Him being the Lord of this world.
It's true Jesus spoke in parables (stories), but to equate God's word as mere fiction is to limit God. You can not fathom the mind of God. Your infinite mind could never comprehend His (mine either). So to tell God that He was speaking in riddles when He gave us the account of the flood would be to say Jesus was speaking in riddles and fiction about the end times.
