The Flood - Christian Only Thread

Fanny Cradock

Húrin wrote: »

Well, given the sophistication of the shipbuilding, and the large volume of wood needed, it likely occured in an agricultural civilisation. Writing would also be required in order to record the events. Neither agriculture (which happens before Noah in Genesis 2:15 and 3:17) nor writing existed 30,000 years ago.

Of course you think that it happened longer ago than that - your interpretation demands that it happened much longer ago than I am suggesting.

Humm... I would actually think that the more agricultural a society became the less tree would be available. This is certainly the experience of Ireland and a number of other countries I am aware of.

I am more troubled by the logistics involved. For instance, the amount of trees required to build such a vessel; the work required to process, treat and transport the wood; gathering huuuuuge amounts of supplies; and finally constructing the vessel.

Húrin

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Humm... I would actually think that the more agricultural a society became the less tree would be available. This is certainly the experience of Ireland and a number of other countries I am aware of.

I am more troubled by the logistics involved. For instance, the amount of trees required to build such a vessel; the work required to process, treat and transport the wood; gathering huuuuuge amounts of supplies; and finally constructing the vessel.

Indeed, all of these jobs require a labour force that does not need to devote time to gathering or growing food (as in a horticultural society). Such labour forces are only found in agriculture based societies such as ancient Egypt, Sumer, Israel and our own society.

PDN

Húrin wrote: »

Indeed, all of these jobs require a labour force that does not need to devote time to gathering or growing food (as in a horticultural society). Such labour forces are only found in agriculture based societies such as ancient Egypt, Sumer, Israel and our own society.

First of all, I think you're overestimating the time that a hunter gatherer society actually spends looking for food. I was reading a magazine article recently (I'm wracking my brains but for the life of me I can't remember where it was) that said hunter gatherers in South Africa were incredibly lazy and actually spent less than an hour a day getting their food.

Secondly, your whole timescale is worked out on a view of civilisation developing that has already excluded the Flood as a possibility - so it becomes circular reasoning.

Consider this scenario. The human race begins somewhere in Africa (time of Mitochondrial Eve?) and makes its way to somewhere in the Ancient Middle East. There it increases numerically, develops towns, various technologies & some sort of agriculture (all pre-Noah according to the Bible) but is still geographically confined to a fairly small location. Then a localised flood wipes them all out leaving a small group to start again (time of Y-chromosomal Adam?).

From this small group, over thousands of years, people spread across the earth and develop various societies, civilizations and technologies.

Now, this is pure speculation, and may well raise more questions than it answers, but it appears to me to be one possible way that the Biblical account squares with the general pattern of human migration, which does appear to have spread slowly from Africa/the Near East only reaching some parts of the Pacific in the last millenium.

Then again I might be completely wrong.

Have you ever looked into the dozens of other deluge myths from different civilisations? Almost every culture in every part of the world has one. I personally think that the Bible account of the flood, and all of the other floods from different cultures, are accounts of the same, real, happening. So in that sense I'd agree with PDN: that perhaps some time, maybe 20-40,000 years ago, there actually was a localized flood - which wiped out a lot of the known world - and the story has propogated thoughout all cultures - including ancient Israel, and hence, the Old Testament. I'm not saying anything about Noah, just the flood. It's interesting stuff anyway.

Fanny Cradock

I'm still getting through the paper but I thought some folks might find it an interesting read. It looks at the flood from the perspective of a Christian geologist. Though I haven't got to the very core of his thesis (about half way there) he approaches the story in a very even-handed and honest manner.

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Bible-Science/PSCF12-97Morton.html

Galvasean

PDN wrote: »

First of all, I think you're overestimating the time that a hunter gatherer society actually spends looking for food. I was reading a magazine article recently (I'm wracking my brains but for the life of me I can't remember where it was) that said hunter gatherers in South Africa were incredibly lazy and actually spent less than an hour a day getting their food.

Although I wouldn't call them lazy, hunter gatherers spent a lot less time working than your average modern day 9-5 employee. They actually had a lot of free time.

Zombrex

I suppose people are itching to discuss the details of how a Biblical Flood is possible/impossible, so perhaps we will leave this thread with a final question

If it was convincingly demonstrated that the Flood didn't happen or was impossible (baring some massive and unexplained deceptive "clean up" by God), how would that effect your faith in the Bible or God?

Fanny Cradock

If Jesus had not of referenced the flood in Matt 24 I could possibly wiggle my way out of difficulty by taking a drastically different view on the authority of scripture or seeing it as a metaphorical tale. But these options do not appear to be open to us. So I figure it is a case of all or nothing.

Morbert

If Jesus had not of referenced the flood in Matt 24 I could possibly wiggle my way out of difficulty by taking a drastically different view on the authority of scripture or seeing it as an allegorical tale. But these options do not appear to be open to us. So I figure it is a case of all or nothing.

Are you sure that's wise? Even if a local flood could explain the event, nobody would be able to save two of every kind of animal.

[edit]-Also, doesn't the Bible place the flood around 4,000 years ago? The human race would not have been localised at that stage.

Fanny Cradock

Morbert wrote: »

Are you sure that's wise?

What do you mean by wise? I base my faith upon what I believe, not what I should believe. But thanks for the warning.

Húrin

Wicknight wrote: »

If it was convincingly demonstrated that the Flood didn't happen or was impossible (baring some massive and unexplained deceptive "clean up" by God), how would that effect your faith in the Bible or God?

Not at all. Why should it? At most it would influence me to disagree with Biblical inerrancy.

This constant hunt for the one "fact" that will demonstrate how the theists are "clearly" mistaken about God (also apparent in JammyDodger's recent thread about aliens) shows a sad inability on the part of many atheists to consider that maybe atheistic beliefs are wrong, or at least equally deserving of scrutiny.

Húrin

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

If Jesus had not of referenced the flood in Matt 24 I could possibly wiggle my way out of difficulty by taking a drastically different view on the authority of scripture or seeing it as a metaphorical tale. But these options do not appear to be open to us. So I figure it is a case of all or nothing.

I don't go in at all for this kind of intellectual suicide. There are plenty of reasons why Jesus may have spoken of the Noah story as if it were fact. He had a lot to say (likened to fill more than enough books to fill the world by John) and it would be pointless to explain the true nature of the deluge myth to a people who believed it to be history.

Zombrex

Húrin wrote: »

Not at all. Why should it?

Well because an awful lot of Christians take Biblical inerrancy pretty seriously, so I feel it was a valid question if I'm trying to find out Christian views of the matter.

If you don't consider an accurate of Biblical history to be vital to your faith in, well, the Bible that's great, it is a perfectly valid answer, but the purpose of the question was to determine how the Christians in general on this forum feel and I don't really think you are in a position to speak for all of them, especially considering that some of the response are far from "Not at all, why should it"

Húrin wrote: »

shows a sad inability on the part of many atheists to consider that maybe atheistic beliefs are wrong, or at least equally deserving of scrutiny.

I'm not sure how Christian views of the accuracy of Biblical historical events such as the Flood relates to atheists beliefs being wrong, but I certainly agree that atheists beliefs are deserving of strong scrutiny.

Húrin

Wicknight wrote: »

If you don't consider an accurate of Biblical history to be vital to your faith in, well, the Bible that's great, it is a perfectly valid answer, but the purpose of the question was to determine how the Christians in general on this forum feel and I don't really think you are in a position to speak for all of them, especially considering that some of the response are far from "Not at all, why should it"

As far as I can see I'm the only one to answer your question so far. I made no claim to speak for everyone either.

studiorat

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I am more troubled by the logistics involved. For instance, the amount of trees required to build such a vessel; the work required to process, treat and transport the wood; gathering huuuuuge amounts of supplies; and finally constructing the vessel.

He had plenty of time. He was already 600 years old when the flood happened, he lived to the ripe old age of 950. Must have been all the wine.

Morbert

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

What do you mean by wise? I base my faith upon what I believe, not what I should believe. But thanks for the warning.

I didn't warn you; I asked you a question. The death and resurrection of Jesus lies at the core of Christianity. God killing a bunch of things except for two of every kind, and placing the survivors in a boat that's far too small, doesn't.

In other words, you can always believe that the large inconsistencies in the literal account are explained by miracles, but then miracles are reduced to little more than ad hoc magic tricks, used to support a specific inference of what Jesus said.

PDN

I am assuming Wicknight's question refers to conclusive proof, not one of these "it seems unlikely that the Flood could have happened" arguments.

If it was conclusively proved that the Flood did not take place then I would see there to be two options:
a) One would be to admit that my assessment of the Flood count as history rather than metaphor/parable was wrong. This would not destroy my Christian faith, but it would leave me pretty unsure of the meaning of many other passages of Scripture since it would torpedo the criteria by which we distinguish fact from poetry etc. It would not affect my conviction that Jesus lived, died, rose from the dead, and has transformed my life. But I would be less confident on many of the more peripheral beliefs.

b) The second option would be to abandon my belief in biblical inerrancy and instead to treat the Bible as a book that is inspired by God, contains many wonderful divine revelations, but one that has also been affected or corrupted by the actions and thinking of men and so contains errors. This would also, but to a lesser extent, make me less confident on certain peripheral beliefs - as I would be wondering if they were inspired or were an error that had crept in.

I think, in the unlikely event of the Flood being conclusively disproved, that I would go for option (b).

PDN

studiorat wrote: »

Given the oral nature of historical tradition of the time in question it wouldn't be a huge jump from a flood of the known world to a flood of the entire world.

It wouldn't be a jump at all since the same language is used in Scripture to refer to the entire planet and also to the known world.

Studiorat, I have edited out the rest of your post because, once again, it ignores the OP's requests for Christian responses only. I have allowed some atheist contributions to this thread to stand because they are in the spirit of the OP and serve to tease out what Christians actually do or do not believe. But posts that try to attack and challenge Christian belief are breaking the convention on this board of allowing certain threads to be designated as 'Christian only'.

As a moderator, and I am directing this at all posters & not just Studiorat, I am getting sick of having to delete posts and even lock threads because somes cannot abide by a simple convention that depends on courtesy and cooperation.

studiorat

PDN: Would you be so kind as to remove the whole post and not edit it to appear to back up your own POV.

I did say that proof of a flood is not proof that noah built an ark, which I believe is the actual issue.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

I am assuming Wicknight's question refers to conclusive proof, not one of these "it seems unlikely that the Flood could have happened" arguments.

Well when dealing with the supernatural it is unlikely that you will ever get conclusive "proof" (using the layman's use of that word, which I assume you were :pac:) of anything as there is always a supernatural explanation to explain why something is actually X while looking Y. It is very difficult to demonstrate a supernatural event didn't happen as they are, almost by definition, untestable.

What I mean is a theoretical model the Biblical Flood didn't happen that is far more convincing than one that it did, in the same way that say the model that the Earth is billions of years old is far more convincing (to most people) than that it is a few thousand years old (the former explains the vast majority of observation, the latter hardly any observations), without the introduction of a lot of "God did that to test our faith" explanations.

BTW to anyone reading that I'm simply explaining what I meant to PDN, there is a Creationist thread to debate why everything I just said is nonsense.

PDN wrote: »

I think, in the unlikely event of the Flood being conclusively disproved, that I would go for option (b).

Thanks

Zombrex

studiorat wrote: »

I did say that proof of a flood is not proof that noah built an ark, which I believe is the actual issue.

It may be an issue but it isn't the issue of this thread.

Quite a few people seem to be itching for a "The Flood never happened" thread (my work here is done, <evil laugh>), and I'm surprised no one has started one yet. I probably will get around to one this weekend to discuss some of the issues raised in this thread, if someone doesn't beat me to the punch (trying to decide if A&A would be a better forum, and also how to keep it distinct enough from the Creationist thread that it is relevant).

But as PDN noted, this isn't the purpose of this thread. It is a fact finding mission, I am often accused of making arguments based on what I assume Christians believe, rather than simply asking them what they believe, and that was the purpose of this thread.

So please can we keep this to Christian responses to the questions. By all means ask questions to clarify positions, but a debate to justify these positions is not the purpose of this thread.