Noah's Ark?

[Kevin_Walker]

Orogeny:

Nope. Just the opposite.

Nope. Wrong.

Nope. Try again.

Nope. Fourth wrong.

It could be an explaination, but since there is no evidence that that is the case, there is no rational reason to believe it.

You mean tectonic plates? There is not nearly enough water on the earth to come close to covering it as described.

Peace

Tim

Hi Tim,

I think you better go back and review your ancient history. There are several references to a massive flood found in the writings in Ur, Babylon, and Egypt. So independent historical sources indicate that something large and wet did happen. You cannot simply dismiss the flood!

More and more aspects of the Bible are being historically proven by the hard work of archeologists and non-religious historians. The Bible seems to be a curious mixture of historical fact, allegory, and metaphor. According to outside literature, some sort of flood did happen.

 

[Meggie]

Orogeny:

You mean tectonic plates? There is not nearly enough water on the earth to come close to covering it as described.

Peace

Tim

Well, umm…did the Tsunami have no affect on you…see the massive wave caused by one, tinsy, tiny earthquake (in comparision to what would of happened if the contanants shifted)

About the icecaps freezing…there is theory to support that…its called the bering straight…

 

[Dph]

Where did all the water come from?? Hmmm Let’s see…

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"In God, everything is possible"
- Jesus Christ.

 

[Orogeny]

Kevin Walker:

Hi Tim,

I think you better go back and review your ancient history. There are several references to a massive flood found in the writings in Ur, Babylon, and Egypt. So independent historical sources indicate that something large and wet did happen. You cannot simply dismiss the flood!

I haven’t dismissed the flood. But there is absolutely no physical evidence of a global flood. You cannot have a flood of the proportions of the flood of Genesis and not leave physical evidence.

Flood stories abound because civilizations grow in areas that tend to be prone to flooding. It is not unbelievable that there was a very large local flood that those stories are based on. But I will repeat - there is no phyisical evidence of a global flood.

Peace

Tim

 

[Orogeny]

Meggie:

Well, umm…did the Tsunami have no affect on you…see the massive wave caused by one, tinsy, tiny earthquake (in comparision to what would of happened if the contanants shifted)

Of course the tsunami had an effect on me, but that has nothing to do with the flood of Genesis. That was one tiny earthquake only if you have no concept of the power of earthquakes.

Oh, and by the way, that itsy bitsy earthquake and tsunami left lots of physical evidence.

There is NO evidence that there has been a major shifting of the continents on the order you are suggesting over the period of the last 10,000 years. Trust me. That would be very easy to determine if only we were still alive.

About the icecaps freezing…there is theory to support that…its called the bering straight…

Not sure what you are talking about here, but yes, there are icecaps and there is a Bering Strait, but it is not a theory. You got me there.

Peace

Tim

 

[Orogeny]

Where did all the water come from?? Hmmm Let’s see…

"In God, everything is possible"
- Jesus Christ.

True, but unless God is a great practical joker that has hidden the evidence for a global flood, there was no global flood.

Peace

Tim

 

[Kevin_Walker]

Orogeny:

I haven’t dismissed the flood. But there is absolutely no physical evidence of a global flood. You cannot have a flood of the proportions of the flood of Genesis and not leave physical evidence.

Flood stories abound because civilizations grow in areas that tend to be prone to flooding. It is not unbelievable that there was a very large local flood that those stories are based on. But I will repeat - there is no phyisical evidence of a global flood.

Peace

Tim

Hi Tim,

Global Flooding is a relevant term. Six thousand years ago the world consisted of the Fertile Cresent; two thousand years ago the world consisted of the Mediteranean basin; one thousand years ago the world consisted of Europe and Asia Minor; etc…

In the eyes of the authors of the Old Testament, the Flood was global in proportion. Archeologists have found evidence of a great flood in the region of Mesopotamia in the form of out of place plant spores and the layering effect of large areas of sandstone, which could only have occured in the presence of a large volume of moving water. So a flood larger than that of Jonestown, PA could have been expanded in the telling and became global.

I agree basically with what you said except the historiographic mistake of being present minded. Six thousand years ago the scholars didn’t know the earth was round with other continents on the other side of the ocean, if they knew of an ocean besides the Med.

 

[Orogeny]

Hi, Kevin.

I don’t discount a local or regional flood. There have been studies in the Black Sea area that may have identified a major, catastrophic flood. That flood may be possible candidate for the event that spawned the stories such as those found in Genesis or the Gilgamesh epic.

A regional flood is not what has been claimed in this thread. That is also not what many fundamentalist protestants believe. Unfortunately, what I have read on this thread is a verbatum recitation of claims from fundamentalist web pages.

Peace

Tim

 

[Zooey]

Where did all the water come from?? Hmmm Let’s see…

"In God, everything is possible"
- Jesus Christ.

:clapping:

 

[abu_kamoon]

For those who wonder about where the water came from, you need to read a book called THE BIBLICAL FLOOD AND THE ICE EPOCH, by Donald Wesley Patten. Mr. Patten’s book is the only one that makes any sense when you consider the frozen wolly mammoths found in polar regions. There is no natural mechanism that could explain how animals of that size could be quick frozen.

Believers in evolution claim that the climate changed. This is even more irrational than the evolutionary theory. The only way that we could quick freeze these animals today is to emerse them in liquid nitrogen, or some other liquid close to absolute zero. The book gives a scenario of an ice ball or comet passing close to the Earth. When it got to a point known as Roche’s Limit, the gravity of Earth caused it to break apart. It rained down on the Earth, water and super-cooled ice.

The gravity exerted by the ice ball also casused the crust of the Earth to fracture releasing subterrainian water. Dynamic forces released by these fissures eventually caused the crust to buckle, which in turn gave us our present mountain ranges. The water eventually settled in the lower region and became the oceans.

Contrast this with the monkey to man, fossils deposited over “millions of years”, and a climate change that quick froze animals with tropical vegetation in their mouths, and tell me what is harder to believe.

ابو كمون

 

[Orogeny]

For those who wonder about where the water came from, you need to read a book called THE BIBLICAL FLOOD AND THE ICE EPOCH, by Donald Wesley Patten. Mr. Patten’s book is the only one that makes any sense when you consider the frozen wolly mammoths found in polar regions. There is no natural mechanism that could explain how animals of that size could be quick frozen.

Believers in evolution claim that the climate changed. This is even more irrational than the evolutionary theory. The only way that we could quick freeze these animals today is to emerse them in liquid nitrogen, or some other liquid close to absolute zero. The book gives a scenario of an ice ball or comet passing close to the Earth. When it got to a point known as Roche’s Limit, the gravity of Earth caused it to break apart. It rained down on the Earth, water and super-cooled ice.

The gravity exerted by the ice ball also casused the crust of the Earth to fracture releasing subterrainian water. Dynamic forces released by these fissures eventually caused the crust to buckle, which in turn gave us our present mountain ranges. The water eventually settled in the lower region and became the oceans.

Contrast this with the monkey to man, fossils deposited over “millions of years”, and a climate change that quick froze animals with tropical vegetation in their mouths, and tell me what is harder to believe.

ابو كمون

It is hard for me to believe that anyone would fall for that!

By the way, just for the sake of accuracy, no credible scientist claims that wooly mammoths were “quick frozen”, items entering the earth’s atmosphere heat up rather than cool down and evolution (which isn’t the topic here) doesn’t claim monkeys to men.

Peace

Tim

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

The hebrew word for “earth” means dirt, land, not planet earth.

The hebrew word translated as “mountians” can also be translated simply as “hills”.

Noah’s Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed History William Ryan & Walter Pitman

This book proves beyond doubt that the flood was local in nature.

In a rare marriage of science and myth, two geologists draw on their worldwide oceanographic expeditions in search of evidence of the biblical flood. The authors first trace attempts to establish the historicity of the flood back to the work of archaeologists and scientists in the 1820s and '30s. Then, looking at the physical evidence, according to Ryan and Pitman (both geology professors at Columbia University), indicates that the cataclysm actually occurred 7,600 years ago; it consisted of the Mediterranean rising in Marmara and crashing through the natural dam of the Bosporus, raising the Black Sea 280 feet in 12 months. The archaeological evidence, according to the authors, is that the resulting dispersion of the populace led to the spread of farming skills, languages, and cultures to new settlements in southern Europe, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Asia. The archaeological record is supported by DNA studies that reveal genetic connections between modern peoples of these regions and remains found around the flood region. But Ryan and Pitman dont draw only on science, they study as well the flood stories of various cultures, from Sumer to India, contending that they remain remarkably similar despite local coloring and storytellers embellishments. These tales tell of the destruction of the world as it was then known, but they universally also offer hope of salvation, regeneration, and divine forgiveness. The authors offer clear explanations of the scientific techniques involved in gathering evidence of the flood, and couch it in a historical narrative that preserves for readers the sense of discovery and wonder experienced by scientists through the 19th and 20th centuries (somewhat oddly, in keeping with this narrative, they relate their own research in the third person). An impressive marshalling of geophysical and archaeological evidence to reconstruct the truth behind an ancient myth. (illustrations and maps)
centuryone.com/1052-2.html

 

[abu_kamoon]

It doesn’t take a creditable scientists to realize that an animal with tropical vegetation in its mouth was quick frozen! For an animal to be in a tropical environment one moment, and frozen the next requires some sort of unusual mechanism. Otherwise, these animals would decompose long before they could be preserved in the ice.

You are correct when you state that objects passing through the atmosphere heat up. Now, consider an ice ball that breaks up from the Earth’s gravitation. The smaller pieces melt and fall to earth as rain. The very large pieces do not melt, just as all meteors do not burn up before striking the Earth. These large pieces were close to absolute zero minutes before.

If you have a more logical explanation, I would like to hear it. I am not gullible enough to believe that people “evolved” from some sort of ape-like simian.

ابو كمون

 

[Orogeny]

It doesn’t take a creditable scientists to realize that an animal with tropical vegetation in its mouth was quick frozen! For an animal to be in a tropical environment one moment, and frozen the next requires some sort of unusual mechanism. Otherwise, these animals would decompose long before they could be preserved in the ice.

Well, in that case, Donald Patten is qualified! He was so enamored with his own “scientific theories” that he apparently didn’t spend any time studying the evidence. The frozen mammoths lived and died during one of the recent ice ages. They died and froze over a relatively rapid period of time, but there is no evidence that they were “quick froze” as if liquid nitrogen was used.

You are correct when you state that objects passing through the atmosphere heat up. Now, consider an ice ball that breaks up from the Earth’s gravitation. The smaller pieces melt and fall to earth as rain. The very large pieces do not melt, just as all meteors do not burn up before striking the Earth. These large pieces were close to absolute zero minutes before.

Then how did water fall as rain? If it were that cold, why didn’t it fall as ice? Why didn’t Noah and the rest of life on earth freeze to death?

If you have a more logical explanation, I would like to hear it. I am not gullible enough to believe that people “evolved” from some sort of ape-like simian.

ابو كمون

How about there was no global flood? That would fit with the physical observations and wouldn’t require a change in physical laws.

You may not be “gullible” enough to believe that people evolved, but that doesn’t effect the accuracy of the science. Your belief isn’t required.

Evolution, though, isn’t the topic. Evolution could be completely wrong and there still isn’t any evidence for a global flood. Geology is the topic and geologists find absolutely NO evidence of a global flood. None. Nada. Zip.

Peace

Tim

 

[abu_kamoon]

With regard to the frozen mammoths, the particles of ice that did not melt and fall as rain did not fall uniformly accross the globe. They appear to have fallen in the polar regions where the mammoths were found. And the mammoths were found with ferns in their mouths. Where would they have gotten ferns to eat in an environment cold enough to freeze their bodies? And why are there thousands of them?

The most obvious proof for a global flood is the existence of fossilized shell fish thousands of miles from the ocean. Evolution believers claim that the poles shifted, and the climate changed. Everything but the obvious.

We have an explanation for what we observe. We can accept it or we can reject it. If we chose to reject it, and go with the current fad, shouldn’t we reject the entire Bible? If part of it is myth, what would lead us to believe that any of it were true?

ابو كمون

 

[Orogeny]

With regard to the frozen mammoths, the particles of ice that did not melt and fall as rain did not fall uniformly accross the globe. They appear to have fallen in the polar regions where the mammoths were found.

Well, isn’t that convenient!

And the mammoths were found with ferns in their mouths. Where would they have gotten ferns to eat in an environment cold enough to freeze their bodies? And why are there thousands of them?

Ever been to Alaska? They have ferns there.

The most obvious proof for a global flood is the existence of fossilized shell fish thousands of miles from the ocean. Evolution believers claim that the poles shifted, and the climate changed. Everything but the obvious.

You don’t understand geology or you wouldn’t even begin to use that argument as “proof” of a global flood. One quick obvious question - why aren’t there human and dinosaur skeletons distributed among those shellfish fossils? After all, those animals would have been victims of the flood just as the shellfish were. In fact, why don’t we find dinosaur and human skeletons together?

We have an explanation for what we observe. We can accept it or we can reject it. If we chose to reject it, and go with the current fad, shouldn’t we reject the entire Bible?

Does the fact that the earth orbits the sun cause you to question your faith? How about the fact that the earth is not flat? If not, why would the idea that the story of Noah is not a historical story but a moral story cause you to reject the entire bible?

If part of it is myth, what would lead us to believe that any of it were true?

ابو كمون

I find it interesting that you seem willing to reject the teaching of the Church in this matter.

Peace

Tim

 

[rwoehmke]

Pope after pope has said that our Faith is reasonable, yet we find ourselves having discussions like this. I found a quote f that I think is very appropriate.
In his book Thomas E. Woods Jr.( How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization) has a quotation from Edward Grants book “Science and Technology in the Middle Ages” which is attributed to Thomas Aquinas. It says as follows:

“First, the truth of Scripture must be held inviolable. Secondly when there are different ways of explaining a Scriptural text, no particular explanation should be held so rigidly that, if convincing arguements show it to be false, anyone dare to insist that it still is the definitive sense of the text. Otherwise unbelievers will scorn Sacred Scripture and the way to faith will be closed to them.”

In this day when there is sufficent archeological and/or scientific evidence that contradicts certain historical or scientific parts of the Scriptures it seems obvious that biblical history and science in the Old Testament needs be taken as carrying only theological truth. So what is to be made of narratives like the Creation, the Exodus, Noah’s Ark, David and Solomons Kingdom and such like?
newadvent.org/summa/106801.htm
On the contrary, It is written (Genesis 1:6): “God said: let there be a firmament,” and further on (verse 8); “And the evening and morning were the second day.”

I answer that, In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to observed, as Augustine teaches (Gen. ad lit. i, 18). The first is, to hold the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation, only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it, if it be proved with certainty to be false; lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing.

 

[Boniface]

A good thing to keep in mind is that we are only required to believe that the Flood was anthropologically universal, not geographically universal. Here’s a good post on the subject:

unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2007/09/as-lover-of-history-and-of-faith-i-have.html

 

[Thoughtfulone]

It is my understanding that this is not required by the Church to be taken in a literalist sense. Obviously, the Bible is not a historical textbook (as such), nor is it a text on evolutionary biology. I believe we are free to see Noah’s ark as an allegorical story, and not 100% accurate history. While inerrent, it must be understood to be what it is - the guideplan of God’s revelation of Himself and the lamppost unto our feet, lighting the way to our salvation. If I am wrong, PLEASE CORRECT ME, as I am trying to hold firm to the teachings of the Church and want to obey the Magisterium.

Peace in Christ,
RyanL

Agreed. I believe there was a flood that wiped out the area and everything in it, but not the entire world, per se. I also believe that Noah gathered the animals he would have needed/wanted to start a new life after the flood; cows, sheep, chickens, doves, horses, geese, donkeys, dogs, cats, etc. I don’t think he necessarily had kimodo dragons and tarantulas on board.

 

[Third_Day]

Agreed. I believe there was a flood that wiped out the area and everything in it, but not the entire world, per se. I also believe that Noah gathered the animals he would have needed/wanted to start a new life after the flood; cows, sheep, chickens, doves, horses, geese, donkeys, dogs, cats, etc. I don’t think he necessarily had kimodo dragons and tarantulas on board.

Why not believe that the flood covered the entire earth when scripture says that it did?

Genesis 6: 7 states that the flood would destroy man and the animals from the face of the earth.That hardly could be a local flood.
Genesis 7:11 “ALL the fountains of the great burst forth.”
Genesus 7:19 “ALL the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered”
Peter says in 2 Peter 3:6 “the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.” In context Peter is comparing the destruction of the entire world at the end of time with the destruction of the entire world by the flood.

We should always read the bible literally unless the is a obvious reason to do otherwise

Regarding the animals that you mentioned I would like to suggest two books The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris and *The Doctrines of Genesis *by Father Victor Warkulwiz