Do you believe the Flood was a historical event?

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The flood?

worldwide?

if it was worldwide how would they know? i mean how far can u drift in a boat in a few weeks.
They did not know about North America until much later so that cant be on the list which includes the world.

Genesis describes a flat earth with a dome around it to separate the waters of the sky. Thus, These people did not have a good grasp on just how big the earth is and their cosmology was wrong. They didnt know the earth was round or how big it was. Therefore regardless of the authors intention there is no way he would have had the concept of the earth that we do today and what our concept of a global flood would entail.

The story is most likely based on fact but it is not a worldwide flood. Again, they didnt even know what worldwide was back then, nor could they have verified it. One can only see for a few miles because of the curvature of the earth. There are some theories of a flood from the black sea but no proof.
 
Zenkai said:
The argument is that Scripture is inspired by God and that God would not allow false information in the Bible.

No it doesn’t.
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The bible says the world was created in 7 days. But we do not have to believe in a literal 7 days. The Church does not teach a literal 7 days as dogma.

likewise, the flood supposedly covering the whole world does not have to mean a literal entire earth. As i said before their world was much smaller and did not encomass the entire known world as we know it today. This idea of a local flood is not new and many promimant Catholic scholars lean towards it. Fr. Mitch Pacwa for one. There is no scientific evidence to support a worldwide flood.

Scripture can be inspired and still use a type of language that is meant to convey meaning but not science.

The idea that the world was flat with a dome was quite common including in Egyptian cosmology. Just pick up a textbook about the history of cosmology and you will see that this is so.
 
fisherman_carl said:
The bible says the world was created in 7 days. But we do not have to believe in a literal 7 days. The Church does not teach a literal 7 days as dogma.

likewise, the flood supposedly covering the whole world does not have to mean a literal entire earth. As i said before their world was much smaller and did not encomass the entire known world as we know it today. This idea of a local flood is not new and many promimant Catholic scholars lean towards it. Fr. Mitch Pacwa for one. There is no scientific evidence to support a worldwide flood.

Scripture can be inspired and still use a type of language that is meant to convey meaning but not science.

The idea that the world was flat with a dome was quite common including in Egyptian cosmology. Just pick up a textbook about the history of cosmology and you will see that this is so.
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The problem I had with your other post was that you made it sound like the Bible was not inspired by God. You said “if it was worldwide, how would they know?”. Well, we would know because Moses, through inspiration from God, as he recorded in Genesis, says that it was a worldwide flood. It may be symbolic, but if it was actually a local flood, Moses, through inspiration from God, would have written in Genesis that it was local, not worldwide.
 
"Finally, it is worth pointing out that the world picture of the Jewish people, as reconstructed from various passages in the Bible, was essentially the same as that of the Egyptians and the Babylonians. According to the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who in 1903 published a book on the subject, it can be summarized… The flat, disc shaped Earth is surrounded by a sea; beneath the Earth, there are wells and fountains connected with the upper part of the Earth as well as with the deep, called Tehom. The Earth rests on pillars, and above it is the sky or firmament. Waters are to be found not only on the Earth or beneath it, but also above the firmament.

After all on the second day of creation, God commanded, ‘“Let there be a dome to divide the water and to keep it in two separate places”- and it was done. So God made a dome, and it separated the water under it from the water above it. He named the dome “Sky”’ (Genesis 1:6-7). "
  • ‘Conceptions of Cosmos’ by Helge Kragh
 
Zenkai said:
The problem I had with your other post was that you made it sound like the Bible was not inspired by God. You said “if it was worldwide, how would they know?”. Well, we would know because Moses, through inspiration from God, as he recorded in Genesis, says that it was a worldwide flood. It may be symbolic, but if it was actually a local flood, Moses, through inspiration from God, would have written in Genesis that it was local, not worldwide.
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It was inspired by God but using the ideas that were available to them at the time. God did not dictate the bible to the authors but inspired them to convey truth. God did not dictate General relativity or the motions of the planets to Moses. They would not have understood. It would be similar to us saying that God started the Big Bang and writing that down as scripture. And then in a 1000 years we discover the big bang did not actually occur but that the universe occurred some other way. So even though the Big Bang never happened the scripture conveys the truth that God created the universe.

The truth that God wanted to convey was not the science of the event, because that can change according to our understanding of it, but He wanted to convey that He created the universe. It may be in fact that the science of creation is beyond our understanding and so God was not so much into making us into scientists as he was into making Himself known to His children.
 
randybako said:
I know Catholic Spiritual writer who claims it to be a symbolic event , while others(Thomas Aquinas Bible Study on the web) claim it to be a true historical event but with supernatural help e.g., how could 8 people feed all those animals and clean up all the dung; the dung would have been overvearing for humans and the animals; morevover, the dung would have worn through the bottom of the boat, so God must have acted in this event
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GIven that the end of the Ice Age caused all sorts of events and that reports of a great flood are ubiquitous, it seems likely that it took place. And it does not require that Mount Eeverest or even Mt. Araphat be covered by water. Only what happened where men lived at the time.
 
And so when Moses wrote about the flood over the world his understanding of what the world was is much smaller than our understanding of it. He would not have written a local flood if he thought it encompassed his entire known world.
 
RobbyS said:
GIven that the end of the Ice Age caused all sorts of events and that reports of a great flood are ubiquitous, it seems likely that it took place. And it does not require that Mount Eeverest or even Mt. Araphat be covered by water. Only what happened where men lived at the time.
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There was great floods from ice ages 11000 to 14000 years ago. Could these be the source of the flood stories from around the world? I am not sure I would want to speculate. Some seem to say it was Noah’s flood that caused the ice age. Of course this is all speculation on their part.

www.cosmographicresearch.org/ice_age_floods.htm
 
Zenkai said:
…but if it was actually a local flood, Moses, through inspiration from God, would have written in Genesis that it was local, not worldwide.
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Not true. What you are saying involves a verbal plenary inspiration, that every word was inspired exactly as it was written. First, this is not Catholic doctrine. Second, if God dictated the Scripture, as KJV- only believe, then there would be no such animal as differeing writing styles between Moses, the Prophets, the Evangelists, St. Paul, etc. It would all be God’s style.

We have in the Bible known euphemisms. Alexander was said to have conquered the world when he was alive. There is nothing contrary to Church teaching to deny that the image of the whole world could not be taken euphemistically. Could God have done it? Sure. Did he? It is not Church doctrine that he did. I am curious as to what motive anyone would give God for doing that in a land where people did not exist, where that much water came from, and where it went.
 
pnewton said:
Not true. What you are saying involves a verbal plenary inspiration, that every word was inspired exactly as it was written. First, this is not Catholic doctrine. Second, if God dictated the Scripture, as KJV- only believe, then there would be no such animal as differeing writing styles between Moses, the Prophets, the Evangelists, St. Paul, etc. It would all be God’s style.

We have in the Bible known euphemisms. Alexander was said to have conquered the world when he was alive. There is nothing contrary to Church teaching to deny that the image of the whole world could not be taken euphemistically. Could God have done it? Sure. Did he? It is not Church doctrine that he did. I am curious as to what motive anyone would give God for doing that in a land where people did not exist, where that much water came from, and where it went.
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This is too much to unpack in one thread, and I am not an expert. For what the Church really teaches regarding Biblical inspiration, I would invite interested readers to look at the following website:

rtforum.org/lt/index.html

It should be clear, after reading the pertinent essays, what the Catholic Church really teaches in this area.
 
Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, in scripture, speaks of the Flood as a living, breathing, true event. I’m going to take Him at his word. I do believe personally at that time that the “world” was still one mass i.e. pangea.

Genesis 10, after the Flood, speaks of the days of Peleg “when the world was divided”.

The problem is young earth creationists believe the actual numbers in OT writings so they believe Noah was only 350 years before Abram. No, Genesis 1-11 events cannot be specifically timed, but that doesn’t mean they did not happen.

I read a book years ago written by a Protestant theologian and the best quote I’ve ever read went like this, “The Bible is not meant to be a science book and science is not supposed to prove God.” Peace.👍
 
pnewton said:
Not true. What you are saying involves a verbal plenary inspiration, that every word was inspired exactly as it was written. First, this is not Catholic doctrine. Second, if God dictated the Scripture, as KJV- only believe, then there would be no such animal as differeing writing styles between Moses, the Prophets, the Evangelists, St. Paul, etc. It would all be God’s style.

We have in the Bible known euphemisms. Alexander was said to have conquered the world when he was alive. There is nothing contrary to Church teaching to deny that the image of the whole world could not be taken euphemistically. Could God have done it? Sure. Did he? It is not Church doctrine that he did. I am curious as to what motive anyone would give God for doing that in a land where people did not exist, where that much water came from, and where it went.
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I doubt the Holy Spirit would allow something factually incorrect to be included in Scripture.
 
Why didnt God teach Moses English since that is the language most use today? Or why didn’t God teach him advanced mathematics? Because God spoke through the language and understanding of things they had at the time. So, if the entire world to them consisted of the middle East then why would we expect to translate the world as any different using our modern understanding of it. We need to interpret according to the customs and understanding of things they had, not according to our understanding. Since ours is so much different.
 
Zenkai said:
I doubt the Holy Spirit would allow something factually incorrect to be included in Scripture.
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Euphemisms, figures of speech, metaphors, parables, etc. are not facts. Your statement misses this point. If you think the Holy Spirit would never allow such a literary device to contain an inaccurate fact, then I can only say that the Catholic Church does not teach what you hold.
 
pnewton said:
Euphemisms, figures of speech, metaphors, parables, etc. are not facts. Your statement misses this point. If you think the Holy Spirit would never allow such a literary device to contain an inaccurate fact, then I can only say that the Catholic Church does not teach what you hold.
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I agree that the Bible uses metaphors, parables, etc. However, why would Moses write something factually incorrect if it was just a symbolic story? He could have easily said it was just a local flood and the moral of the story would not have been changed. If it was only a local flood, what would be the point of saying it was worldwide? It just doesn’t add anything to the lesson of the story. I personally think it was either a factual worldwide flood or it was just an allegory.

I hope you understand what I’m trying to say.
 
just_came_back said:
Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, in scripture, speaks of the Flood as a living, breathing, true event. I’m going to take Him at his word. I do believe personally at that time that the “world” was still one mass i.e. pangea.

Genesis 10, after the Flood, speaks of the days of Peleg “when the world was divided”.

The problem is young earth creationists believe the actual numbers in OT writings so they believe Noah was only 350 years before Abram. No, Genesis 1-11 events cannot be specifically timed, but that doesn’t mean they did not happen.

I read a book years ago written by a Protestant theologian and the best quote I’ve ever read went like this, “The Bible is not meant to be a science book and science is not supposed to prove God.” Peace.👍
Click to expand...
Pangea? Don’t believe those scientists.

You think God would sit around and wait for the world to transfrom over millions of years when He can do what He wants, how He wants, when He wants and all in an instant.
 
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