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ThePlottingPlodder
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topic title explains my question pretty much.
How to debate an athiest claiming Noah's ark never happened?
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adamhovey1988
Guest
Ask why every culture on earth has some sort of flood myth. Of course, then you get into the argument about whether it was global flood or a local flood (if I recall correctly, the word for earth in Hebrew doesn’t have to mean the entire planet).
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mythbuster1
Guest
There are vast reservoirs of water in the mantle. Geologist estimates on their size peg them at 3-5 times the combined volume of the world’s oceans, which would be sufficient to flood the entire world.
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TK421
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Noah’s Ark is based on a major flood that happened in western Asia.
There was no such thing as a global flood that covered the earth.
There was no such thing as a global flood that covered the earth.
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ServusDei1
Guest
The prose of the Jews was much more poetic than today’s. It could be allegory for God and His Church, or like TK421 said, it could be a regional flood described by hyperbolic language.
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Roseeurekacross
Guest
Did you realise Catholics are free to NOT take the first 11 Chapters of the Bible literally.
So if your Atheist says it never happened, thats ok, because Catholics are also free to believe it is not literal.
You will do the Catholic faith a great disservice attempting to debate this.
Instead , tell your atheist friend that Catholics are free not to take the first 11 Chapters literally either. Just like him or her. So your atheist is right in questioning this .
What you should be focussing on is the first Covenant between God and man came out of the Noah story. Explain that and just what a Covenant is. And that it is unbreakable through the history of the earth and humankind until the end of time on God’s side. Humans of course being weak creatures, are always breaking the Covenants .
When we get to Chapter 12, and Abraham, thats when the acknowledged history of the Jewish people begins.
So if your Atheist says it never happened, thats ok, because Catholics are also free to believe it is not literal.
You will do the Catholic faith a great disservice attempting to debate this.
Instead , tell your atheist friend that Catholics are free not to take the first 11 Chapters literally either. Just like him or her. So your atheist is right in questioning this .
What you should be focussing on is the first Covenant between God and man came out of the Noah story. Explain that and just what a Covenant is. And that it is unbreakable through the history of the earth and humankind until the end of time on God’s side. Humans of course being weak creatures, are always breaking the Covenants .
When we get to Chapter 12, and Abraham, thats when the acknowledged history of the Jewish people begins.
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KevinK
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That’s not what the Bible says.
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KevinK
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And then suddenly in Chapter 12 it turns literal? It seems inconsistent and arbitrary to not believe literally for 11 Chapters and then suddenly literally believe that a person could live in the belly of a whale or turn into a pillar of salt.
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ascetic
Guest
This is just a brief answer. The book link at the bottom answers it exhaustively.
I’m pretty sure that the great flood is an example of didactic fiction, I could have sworn I read that once, but I was unable to find it just now. Either way, I’d focus on the lesson it teaches.
If he wanted to keep steering it back to the literal words of the text and how implausible they seem, I’d remind him that it was writers’ custom in the ancient world to NOT write literally as we have begun to do fairly recently. You may also want to point out that scripture is divinely inspired, which is not synonymous with literal interpretation.
If he wanted to say that Judeo-Christianity just ripped off other myths from other cultures, I’d say that only shows us that we have more in common than we may think, which gets back to the lesson it teaches…
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01I2F3TSE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
I’m pretty sure that the great flood is an example of didactic fiction, I could have sworn I read that once, but I was unable to find it just now. Either way, I’d focus on the lesson it teaches.
If he wanted to keep steering it back to the literal words of the text and how implausible they seem, I’d remind him that it was writers’ custom in the ancient world to NOT write literally as we have begun to do fairly recently. You may also want to point out that scripture is divinely inspired, which is not synonymous with literal interpretation.
If he wanted to say that Judeo-Christianity just ripped off other myths from other cultures, I’d say that only shows us that we have more in common than we may think, which gets back to the lesson it teaches…
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01I2F3TSE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
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JMMJ
Guest
I wouldn’t debate this with an atheist or anyone else. You aren’t going to change their mind, and they aren’t going to change yours. Spend that effort, instead, in trying to live a life in demonstration of God’s love for all.
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TechieGuy
Guest
Just explain to him the logistics of how seven people managed to keep that many animals fed and their stables cleaned during the time the Ask was afloat and he’ll see that it is perfectly reasonable to believe the flood narrative is literal history
Then explain to him how a Just God could drown all the infants that were alive at the time and still be considered Just.
Then explain to him how a Just God could drown all the infants that were alive at the time and still be considered Just.
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JMMJ
Guest
Perfect response!!
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Gorgias
Guest
The real question, then, is @KevinK’s: how do we make sense of a narrative that is in some parts literal and some parts figurative, when the text itself doesn’t literally say “OK, this is just a story we made up in order to teach a lesson.”…?
The answer, IIRC, comes from Augustine: if we see a text that asserts that God is doing something unjust, then we realize that we’re not reading ‘history’, but rather ‘allegory’ (and it’s our task to understand what the text is really saying).
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TheLittleLady
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Annie
Guest
When people say “the books of the Bible,” they mean just that. I might as well ask why the books in the first three aisles of the library are not to be taken literally, but the books in the next three aisles are.
You might try finding out more about the Bible and apologetics in general before getting into discussions like this.
You might try finding out more about the Bible and apologetics in general before getting into discussions like this.
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TechieGuy
Guest
That certainly makes sense…
Also, are there any Jewish people around? I bet they could shed some light on the subject, them having done the writing and all…
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Gorgias
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Here’s the problem, though: we’re talking about things from a Catholic theological perspective. Necessarily, the Jewish theological perspective will diverge. So, we can’t really gain an insight about Catholic theology by relying on Jewish theology to explain it.
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thelibrarian
Guest
Is the atheist debating that the flood never happened or that Noah didn’t build an ark and put all those animals on it? Two completely different approaches. You also might want to deduce whether the person is genuinely seeking answers/really wants to be educated to make up their mind or is wanting a “GOTCHA” moment. You could ask them to prove it DID NOT happen.
There is geological evidence of the flood, not to mention the folklore of non-Jewish peoples. If the duration is literal, 40 days is plausible. If you ever have been stranded anywhere unable to return home, or without electricity or something, 40 days seems like a eternity. Three days seems like a month, doens’t it? It’s a looong time when you are in the middle of it, not to mention recent examples of how much just one week of flooding can do to destroy a place. There would be nothing left.
Christian apologetics has defended the latter as completely plausible if Noah gathered younger specimens of the animals, etc. It would have made more sense to do that anyways. Zoos release younger animals back into the wild to perpetuate the species and diversify genetics. They do not release elderly animals or those past their breeding prime. They release young animals who have not yet paired up for breeding, especially species that mate for life. Buckets of well formed older tadpoles, a group of yearlings, etc. The 15 year old animal born in captivity stays put.
To me, its also an example of great faith and trust.
There is geological evidence of the flood, not to mention the folklore of non-Jewish peoples. If the duration is literal, 40 days is plausible. If you ever have been stranded anywhere unable to return home, or without electricity or something, 40 days seems like a eternity. Three days seems like a month, doens’t it? It’s a looong time when you are in the middle of it, not to mention recent examples of how much just one week of flooding can do to destroy a place. There would be nothing left.
Christian apologetics has defended the latter as completely plausible if Noah gathered younger specimens of the animals, etc. It would have made more sense to do that anyways. Zoos release younger animals back into the wild to perpetuate the species and diversify genetics. They do not release elderly animals or those past their breeding prime. They release young animals who have not yet paired up for breeding, especially species that mate for life. Buckets of well formed older tadpoles, a group of yearlings, etc. The 15 year old animal born in captivity stays put.
To me, its also an example of great faith and trust.
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paperwight
Guest
You do realise that the Bible wasn’t written in chapters? It wasn’t divided into chapters until the end of the 12th/beginning of the 13th Century, and not into verses until the 16th.Roseeurekacross:
And then suddenly in Chapter 12 it turns literal? It seems inconsistent and arbitrary to not believe literally for 11 Chapters and then suddenly literally believe that a person could live in the belly of a whale or turn into a pillar of salt.
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TechieGuy
Guest
Well if the Jewish experts say something along the lines of, “Naw, man - that was a bunch of our mythology that we wrote down - it really is a lesson about how G-d will save those who follow Him and keep His Commandments” then you’ve pretty much got your answer straight from the source…
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