How could Noahs family be the only survivors?

[mikekle]

I didn’t read every post in this thread so I don’t know if it was brought up already, but I looked up that passage in several of the older OT translations: The Septuagint, Douay Rheims and Luther’s bible. Punctuation can make a world of difference in how something is interpreted. My understanding of the Hebrew OT is that it is extremely difficult to interpret. There is no punctuation, nor vowels, nor breaks between words and sentences.

My guess is, that a correct interpretation of anything written in ancient Hebrew must come from a native speaker who is intimately familiar with the original stories, such as a rabbi in BC times would be. Those people don’t exist anymore. Modern Hebrew is nothing like ancient Hebrew. There will always be questions about the OT as it is the work of an extinct people writing in a primitive, dead language.

Septuagint

Douay Rheims 1899

Luther’s bible 1545- English translation via Google

See the difference? Even a simple change in punctuation can change an entire doctrine. See here:

Traditional bible:

Jehovah’s Witness bible:

The traditional bible affirms that the thief will go to heaven that very day. The JW bible makes no such promise. Jesus says the thief will go to heaven, but not necessarily today. When will the thief go to heaven? Who knows. Oh, the difference punctuation makes.

OH yes, I agree, I know as catholics, we are supposed to trust our version, but still, this is something written 2000 yrs ago, it was re-written, past around many times, by many different people, its very tough to believe 100% that EVERY little thing is correct they way we have it…Im sorry, but that is just impossible, heck even with computers, people get things mixed up after a couple pages of posts, all happening within a week, much less something that is over 2000 yrs old!!

 

[ericc]

Im a bit stuck on the “in those days” and the “also afterward” statements, you said the event was the mating with daughters of men, but in other verses, when "in those days’ is used,it usually refers to the days BEFORE the flood or the days of Noah…right?

The question to ask yourself is what “afterward” refer to. There are a million events after “afterward” was said. So how does one know that it refer to the flood when that topic wasn’t mentioned till verse 17? To determine that “afterward” must refer to the flood is just plain cherry picking. The proper way to understand the verse is to look at the immediate subject matter regarding the “afterward”. And you would notice that explanation of “afterward” preceded immediately with the “when” the sons of God came in to the daughters of men. Within verse 4 itself. Not verse 17 or any verse elsewhere for that matter…“In those days” typically refer to “during that time”. And the time is given by Gen 6:1-3. Try not to cherry pick your favorite time too.

Kind of like how it is said the end times will be like the days of Noah.

Im finding it difficult to understand the bible, upon reading that verse, my very first thought is that it was referring to after the flood, Many other parts of the bible have had the same effect, I will read them, and will think it means this and after reading on here or other places, I come to find out it means something totally different than what I was thinking…?? If all these things are true, they sure went to great lengths to ensure the bible can either be interpreted many different ways and/or its difficult to understand/interpret at all. If it was meant to draw people to God, why write it in such in way as to confuse?

If one has no preconceived notion what it should be, it would be easy not to form such unwarranted conclusions. Only when one has a favorite theme does one start to imagine linkages when the verses don’t support it, silent or contradict verses elsewhere. The Bible is the Word of God. He doesn’t contradict himself. The best explanation is one that doesn’t result in contradictions . The best explanation is one that ties up the most details cohesively. For example, an explanation that explains one or 2 verses is inferior to one that explains twenty verses cohesively i.e the clearer the picture the better it is. Many people picks up one verse and latched to it as if that is the only truth whereas that explanation falls short in several places. We must try to avoid that. Personally, if an explanation contradict scriptures elsewhere without a good explanation for the contradiction, it is just not a valid explanation. It is ok to admit ignorance but not ok to willfully proffer an explanation that you know is contradictory without highlighting that it is contradictory when you know it contradicts. Guilt by omission.

 

[Faith1960]

Do you believe only eight people survived the Flood? Science tells us that there never were fewer than 10,000 people or so on earth.

 

[Faith1960]

And you should get a good bible commentary…since you know very little about the origins of the story of Noah and the ark (hint; research the ancient Mesopotamian story The Epic of Gilgamesh) and, apparently, what the Church does and does not teach about the early chapters of Genesis.

If you want to be a bible fundamentalist, then that’s up to you but don’t criticize others when we uphold a perspective that is perfectly in line with the authority of the Church, the doctors of the Church and ancient Tradition.

Can you recommend a good Bible commentary that discusses Noah and the Ark?