Global flood?

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I. Finkelstein and N.A. Silberman in their book “The Bible Unearthed” make a pretty fair case for the “mega-details”(my words) of things like the Flood, The Exodus, the Capture of Canaan, etc. as being basically carriers for some level of factual material that was used in writing the Pentateuch in about the 7th Century BC. Like taking the names and perhaps some details about ones great-great-great grandparents and writing a gripping story around them whose purpose is to teach certain lessons to the reader. According to their book there is precious little if any archeological evidence for the stories of the Patriarchs(Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the Flood of Noah, The Exodus, or Joshua’s seizing of Canaan. That is as far as I have gotten in the book so far. I would venture to say that it is not a good idea to get too absolutist one way or the other as to some of the details in the earlier times of the Bible. That is not to question that the writers of the Bible, whenever they wrote, were not inspired by God to teach mankind what they needed to know for their salvation. After all even Aasops Fables and Grimm’s fairy tales taught valuble lessons, but no one would venture to say the story that carried the “facts” were absolute truth. The authors by the way are both Israelis and possibly non-believers.
 
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buffalo:
Then you submit the others are too?
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What others? This thread is only about the Great Flood!
 
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TPJCatholic:
David,

I take no issue with allegorical interpretations, unless there is no literal interpretation to go alongside it.

As for “my” interpratation, I agree. However, quoting what the Bible actually says is not interpreting.
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Actually, to a certain extent, it is. You’re taking a single phrase out of the verse, chapter, pericope, and book from which it is found and making a statement about what it means. Please don’t get me wrong – I have no problem with you doing so – all of us who use the Scriptures do so (including, for example, the people who constructed the Lectionary, etc.)

Put another way, nearly any reading is, to a greater or lesser extent, an interpretation of meaning. The larger the passage used, the less interpretation; the smaller the passage used, the more interpretation. The more interpretation, the greater possibility of error.

Blessings,
 
David Zampino:
Actually, to a certain extent, it is. You’re taking a single phrase out of the verse, chapter, pericope, and book from which it is found and making a statement about what it means. Please don’t get me wrong – I have no problem with you doing so – all of us who use the Scriptures do so (including, for example, the people who constructed the Lectionary, etc.)

Put another way, nearly any reading is, to a greater or lesser extent, an interpretation of meaning. The larger the passage used, the less interpretation; the smaller the passage used, the more interpretation. The more interpretation, the greater possibility of error.

Blessings,
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ENCYCLICAL LETTER
***FIDES ET RATIO ***

The Pope speaks of the need for philosophy.

Current tasks for theology
Code: 
        92. As an understanding of Revelation, theology has always had to       respond in different historical moments to the demands of different       cultures, in order then to mediate the content of faith to those cultures       in a coherent and conceptually clear way. Today, too, theology faces a       dual task. On the one hand, it must be increasingly committed to the task       entrusted to it by the Second Vatican Council, the task of renewing its       specific methods in order to serve evangelization more effectively. How       can we fail to recall in this regard the words of Pope John XXIII at the       opening of the Council? He said then: “In line with the keen       expectation of those who sincerely love the Christian, Catholic and       apostolic religion, this doctrine must be known more widely and deeply,       and souls must be instructed and formed in it more completely; and this       certain and unchangeable doctrine, always to be faithfully respected, must       be understood more profoundly and presented in a way which meets the needs       of our time”. (107)

        On the other hand, theology must look to the ultimate truth which       Revelation entrusts to it, never content to stop short of that goal.       Theologians should remember that their work corresponds “to a       dynamism found in the faith itself” and that the proper object of       their enquiry is “the Truth which is the living God and his plan for       salvation revealed in Jesus Christ”. (108) This task, which is       theology's prime concern, challenges philosophy as well. The array of       problems which today need to be tackled demands a joint effort—approached,       it is true, with different methods—so that the truth may once again       be known and expressed. The Truth, which is Christ, imposes itself as an       all-embracing authority which holds out to theology and philosophy alike       the prospect of support, stimulation and increase (cf. *Eph* 4:15).
  1. The word of God is not addressed to any one people or to any one period of history. Similarly, dogmatic statements, while reflecting at times the culture of the period in which they were defined, formulate an unchanging and ultimate truth. This prompts the question of how one can reconcile the absoluteness and the universality of truth with the unavoidable historical and cultural conditioning of the formulas which express that truth. The claims of historicism, I noted earlier, are untenable; but the use of a hermeneutic open to the appeal of metaphysics can show how it is possible to move from the historical and contingent circumstances in which the texts developed to the truth which they express, a truth transcending those circumstances.
    Human language may be conditioned by history and constricted in other ways, but the human being can still express truths which surpass the phenomenon of language. Truth can never be confined to time and culture; in history it is known, but it also reaches beyond history.
 
I don’t have a firm opinion, but one thing I once heard was convincing. If “world” didn’t mean the entire earth, then God was seemingly “wrong” about not sending anymore floods to cover the earth.

Something to think about.
 
David,

Actually, what you are saying about my last post is not true. I reflected what Genesis 6 says, not what I think it says. God is the one who said He had determined to make an end to “ALL” flesh and that “everything that is on the earth shall die.” God said that, not me.

Now, we can mince words all day, yet when God states that He (I am rephrasing now) is fed-up with His creation and intends to wipe it off the face of the earth…I personally tend to believe Him (again, this second paragraph contains my rephrasing, yet it is based on the entire chapter six of Genesis, not just a small passage).

As I stated earlier, I feel we humans have very little trust in matters of faith…we want to tell God what He meant and what He did.
 
David Zampino:
This is fine. The Church certainly permits you to take this point of view. But it still remains an opinon and a personal interpretation of Scripture, rather than a definitive one.

I certainly was not trying to by “coy” by asking for a definition of what was meant by “entire world”. (Heck, in Hebrew, Bill Clintion COULD have gotten away with "It all depends on what the meaning of “is” is – because ancient Hebrew has no verb which translates “to be”! 🙂 ) My question was legitimate and is the type of question Biblical scholars (who are NOT all liberal wackos) legitimately ask in the course of their study and research.

Do you have difficulty with an allegorical reading of “In His hands are all the four corners of the earth”?

Blessings,
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Apart from saying that God is also Lord of Narnians & Eldils :D, I was wondering whether there is a way of persuading people that that question is indeed legitimate. I have no objection to reading Father Most, but I very much doubt that those who read him will ever read Wellhausen or Schweizer - let alone anyone more modern. If only the old is valid, we should all be Hindus.​

Attempting to ignore all Biblical scholarship since 1800 or so - however satanically possessed and devil-inspired one may think the critics to be - risks making Catholic thinking about the Bible as irrelevant to the world at large as sticking to Scholastic categories & concepts as an all-sufficient theological method did during the 17th century. And a Church which is irrelevant, is a Church which is not carrying out her commission. ##
 
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rwoehmke:
I. Finkelstein and N.A. Silberman in their book “The Bible Unearthed” make a pretty fair case for the “mega-details”(my words) of things like the Flood, The Exodus, the Capture of Canaan, etc. as being basically carriers for some level of factual material that was used in writing the Pentateuch in about the 7th Century BC. Like taking the names and perhaps some details about ones great-great-great grandparents and writing a gripping story around them whose purpose is to teach certain lessons to the reader. According to their book there is precious little if any archeological evidence for the stories of the Patriarchs(Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the Flood of Noah, The Exodus, or Joshua’s seizing of Canaan. That is as far as I have gotten in the book so far. I would venture to say that it is not a good idea to get too absolutist one way or the other as to some of the details in the earlier times of the Bible. That is not to question that the writers of the Bible, whenever they wrote, were not inspired by God to teach mankind what they needed to know for their salvation. After all even Aasops Fables and Grimm’s fairy tales taught valuble lessons, but no one would venture to say the story that carried the “facts” were absolute truth. The authors by the way are both Israelis and possibly non-believers.
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That sounds like a very sane and sensible and balanced summary - so far anyway.​

What I don’t understand is what you mean by your word “mega-details” 🙂 ##
 
Gottle of Geer said:
## Apart from saying that God is also Lord of Narnians & Eldils :D, I was wondering whether there is a way of persuading people that that question is indeed legitimate. I have no objection to reading Father Most, but I very much doubt that those who read him will ever read Wellhausen or Schweizer - let alone anyone more modern. If only the old is valid, we should all be Hindus.

Attempting to ignore all Biblical scholarship since 1800 or so - however satanically possessed and devil-inspired one may think the critics to be - risks making Catholic thinking about the Bible as irrelevant to the world at large as sticking to Scholastic categories & concepts as an all-sufficient theological method did during the 17th century. And a Church which is irrelevant, is a Church which is not carrying out her commission. ##
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The Bible is not a living document changing to suit the times. :tsktsk: It is the gold standard by which we measure ourselves.
 
buffalo,

I agree…the Bible does not change and great deal of the Bible is simple lanuage, very easy to understand.
 
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TPJCatholic:
buffalo,

I agree…the Bible does not change and great deal of the Bible is simple lanuage, very easy to understand.
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That’s basically what JPII was saying in my post #84
 
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buffalo:
The Bible is not a living document changing to suit the times. :tsktsk: It is the gold standard by which we measure ourselves.
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Wrong! :nope:

Everything about it changes and it is a living document:
  • Our translations change as we learn more of the ancient languages and ways of speaking, especially as we discover new version and fragments of the texts.
  • Our understanding changes as we learn more of the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another.
  • Our interpretation changes as we learn more of history and as our knowledge in the sciences changes our views on the incorrect science in the scriptures.
The focus of biblical scholarship and hence our knowledge base changed radically after the publication of Dei Verbum and *Divino Adlante Spiritu. *There are an awful law of people we could do without if it were not a living document (including the pontifical biblical commission).
 
By mega-details I mean the details of the narrative or story such as time and place and details of the event but not its meaning in terms of God’s message.
 
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patg:
Wrong! :nope:

Everything about it changes and it is a living document:
  • Our translations change as we learn more of the ancient languages and ways of speaking, especially as we discover new version and fragments of the texts.
  • Our understanding changes as we learn more of the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another.
  • Our interpretation changes as we learn more of history and as our knowledge in the sciences changes our views on the incorrect science in the scriptures.
The focus of biblical scholarship and hence our knowledge base changed radically after the publication of Dei Verbum and *Divino Adlante Spiritu. *There are an awful law of people we could do without if it were not a living document (including the pontifical biblical commission).
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The Church’s understanding of the Bible grows organically, it gets fuller.

First of all Tradition reconciles with the Bible. One cannot research the Bible in a vacuum and then draw conclusions then claim it changes.

If you are suggesting future doctinal reversals are coming because of recent Biblical Scholarship - not!!!

If it were truly living in the sense I believe you are speaking of, then why no more Revelation?
 
patg,

“We” are the living Body of Christ. Yet God’s Word is unchangeable and does not “move” or “live.”

When God said “Thou Shall Not Steal,” He was not talking about chewing gum. 🙂
 
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TPJCatholic:
David,

I agree with you, the Church does not give a definitive statement about the flood being local or universal. However, the Church makes it clear the flood did happen…it was a real event and the Church makes it clear that God’s Word is inspired by God…and God’s Word said the flood covered the entire world. We can try to be coy and ask questions about what the “entire world” means, yet God’s Holy Word tells us that the flood wiped out every living creature on earth…it does not say some, or part, or only those in the area…it says every living creature. Sounds like a global flood to me. 🙂
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God’s Holy Word also speaks of:​

  • “the brothers of Jesus”
  • “the breaking of the bread”
  • Jesus’ rejection of tradition
  • and much more of the same. One great strength of critical study of the text, is that it does not require the Bible to be read so as to allow only those interpretations of it which a particular confessional body - whether the CC, or the Presbyterian churches, or others - find agreeable to their confessional documents at any one time. The interpreter is free of having to ensure that his conclusions suit the Book of Concord, the Westminster Confession, the dogmatic degrees of Trent, or any other orthodoxy. In this way, the Bible can be unmuzzled, and allowed to speak for itself, and to have its effect. If one is allowed only to find in what some form of Christian orthodoxy permits, one is not studying the Bible, but reading one’s own credal orthodoxies into it. And that is not the reading of the Bible, but of texts which however useful are not the texts of the Bible nor comments upon it.
Critical study of the Bible is not a replacement for doctrine - but neither is doctrine a replacement for critical study of the Bible. The magisterium of the theologians (critical scholars included) can’t replace the magisterium of the bishops; but the bishops can’t replace the scholars either. It would be very good & convenient if the bishops and theologians were still the same people: but they have not usually been that for a long time. That’s why the bishops need their periti at Ecumenical Councils. ##
 
gottle,

To this point I will happily agree: “let us unmuzzzle the Bible and let it speak for itself.”

I like that thought…unmuzzling of the Bible…hmmm…🙂
 
patg and gottle,

Please, I implore you to study this JPII document.

excerpts:

Later, in his Encyclical Letter Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII warned against mistaken interpretations linked to evolutionism, existentialism and historicism. He made it clear that these theories had not been proposed and developed by theologians, but had their origins “outside the sheepfold of Christ”.(68) He added, however, that errors of this kind should not simply be rejected but should be examined critically: “Catholic theologians and philosophers, whose grave duty it is to defend natural and supernatural truth and instill it in human hearts, cannot afford to ignore these more or less erroneous opinions. Rather they must come to understand these theories well, not only because diseases are properly treated only if rightly diagnosed and because even in these false theories some truth is found at times, but because in the end these theories provoke a more discriminating discussion and evaluation of philosophical and theological truths”.(69)

There are also signs of a resurgence of fideism, which fails to recognize the importance of rational knowledge and philosophical discourse for the understanding of faith, indeed for the very possibility of belief in God. One currently widespread symptom of this fideistic tendency is a “biblicism” which tends to make the reading and exegesis of Sacred Scripture the sole criterion of truth. In consequence, the word of God is identified with Sacred Scripture alone, thus eliminating the doctrine of the Church which the Second Vatican Council stressed quite specifically. Having recalled that the word of God is present in both Scripture and Tradition,(73) the Constitution *Dei Verbum *continues emphatically: “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture comprise a single sacred deposit of the word of God entrusted to the Church. Embracing this deposit and united with their pastors, the People of God remain always faithful to the teaching of the Apostles”.(74) Scripture, therefore, is not the Church’s sole point of reference. The “supreme rule of her faith” (75) derives from the unity which the Spirit has created between Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church in a reciprocity which means that none of the three can survive without the others.(76)
Moreover, one should not underestimate the danger inherent in seeking to derive the truth of Sacred Scripture from the use of one method alone, ignoring the need for a more comprehensive exegesis which enables the exegete, together with the whole Church, to arrive at the full sense of the texts. Those who devote themselves to the study of Sacred Scripture should always remember that the various hermeneutical approaches have their own philosophical underpinnings, which need to be carefully evaluated before they are applied to the sacred texts.
 
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