Noah's Ark

[mdcpensive1]

Not to promote myself relentlessly (this is actually the second time), but: “Where Myth and History Meet: A Christian Response to Myth.” Available on amazon.com, ridiculously overpriced for such a short text (it was the publisher’s fault).

Thanks for the suggestion to read a book. Will I find in it what you are questioning in my post?

mdcpensive1

 

[cpayne]

Thanks for the suggestion to read a book. Will I find in it what you are questioning in my post?

mdcpensive1

Your mention of the “third” camp reminded me of it, but probably not, to answer your question. I argued that the Gospels (in particular) are neither mythic nor presented as a straightforward history, but rather a unique amalgam of the two–a third camp, you might say.

The opening of Genesis is rather different. Creation is a fact, but the opening biblical chapters are not presented as historical in the way the Gospels are.

 

[mdcpensive1]

Your mention of the “third” camp reminded me of it, but probably not, to answer your question. I argued that the Gospels (in particular) are neither mythic nor presented as a straightforward history, but rather a unique amalgam of the two–a third camp, you might say.

The opening of Genesis is rather different. Creation is a fact, but the opening biblical chapters are not presented as historical in the way the Gospels are.

So many books to read ! I have the diary of St. Faustina but when I look at it I see the size of War and Peace. Anyhow:

I agree the authors of scripture were not writing a chronological history or books based on myth. They wrote a story to us of our salvation history in the way they understood writing at their time.

It reminds me of an episode of Startrek TNG where a race of people talked in metaphore. Their sentences were only understood if you knew the meaning behind the words. We however, are better off than Captain Picard. We are not guided by long range sensors, but the Holy Spirit in the Church.

mdcpensive1

 

[spauline]

actually, this really raises the issue of what, at a bare minimum, we must get from Biblical history. On the one hand, Fundamentalists insist every freaking detail of Scripture is absolutely true in a literalistic sense, both in figures, places, chronology, statistics, etc. Hence, when one book reports there were 800 baths in a particular temple, and another account says 1800, they call in bug and crease investigators to tear through every detail and nook and crany to try to say it must reconcile. On the other hand, you have ultra liberals who essentially regard the totality of Scripture as nothing but mostly fictitious stories that are merely meant to illustrate some moral lesson and that have little or no connection to history that is real.

Firmly in between these extremes is the Church: Essentially, the overall major history of the OT is true, for God indeed needed to prepare, within human history itself, through mighty deeds and Revelation, the coming of His Incarnate Son. But the Church does not insist that Scripture is necessarily without error in regards to minor temporal details that are not directly pertinent to Salvation.

So, it is one thing to say that a date here or certain temporal details there are little inaccurate, versus, “there never was any flood, nor a calling of Abraham, nor any real major Exodus, etc.”. In regards to this, certain Early Fathers, including Augustine, seem to spell out the bare minimum great subages of OT history, which they delineate as five (hint, seems well gelled with Revelation 17 and the beast: “five have fallen”).

As Augustine spells out the five ages of the old law:

I. From Adam to Noah
II. From Noah to Abraham
III. From Abraham to David
IV. From David to the Babylonian Captivity
V. From the Captivity to Christ

and just for the record, the general data strongly suggests three ages for the Church, corresponding to the three of the Jews:

I. From Christ to Catholic Christendom
II. From Catholic Christendom to the Coming Age of Peace (Millennium of Rest)
III. From the Age of Peace to the New Creation (Christ again, i.e., Second Coming)

 

[Contarini]

If you believe that it was a local flood, rather than a world-wide deluge, that leaves you with several conclusions: the Bible is not the word of God because it says that the Flood was world-wide; God made a mistake, He thought it was world-wide but He didn’t have the benefit of modern science; the God lied to us.

No, these are not the only conclusions. They all assume that the story is intended to be literal history. What makes you think this?

All over the world you find fossils. Obviously, these animals were burried rapidly in a catatastrophy. They were not laid down over millions of years as evolutionists claim. How long do you think a dead animal would last before scavengers and decomposition did their work?

Actually it seems to me that fossils are relatively rare (given the vast number of animals that have died in the history of the world), and there are circumstances under which their bodies would have been preserved (caught in a rockslide, for instance). Also, aren’t most fossilized animals skeletal?

Edwin

 

[abu_kamoon]

Edwin,

Why would the Bible say that the water covered the entire Earth? It goes so far as to say that it was so many feet above the highest mountain. (I beleve that the mountains were much lower than they are today)

It makes no sense to me to give us a story that would tend to discredit the Bible if it were not true. What would be the point?

Probably a better analogy is the Creation story. Believers in the Evolution faith insist that we are here as descendents of the animals (which implies that we are really just animals too). The Bible states that before man, there was no death. It also states that man was made out of the dust of the Earth, and further it says that each animal reproduced after its kind. Doesn’t that kind of ether rule out the Evolutionary theory, or completely nullify the Bible?

Why would the Word of God tell us a story about a world wide flood if it never happened? And why wouldn’t He have told us about Evolution, if that were true? It seems to me, He was very specific about the fact that we were created, not evolved.

Sadly, there are people in the Church who have lost their faith. They wish to be politically correct. I think that they are in the wrong line of work.

ابو كمون

 

[cpayne]

Not necessarily; the biblical use of “all the earth,” even in the N.T., often refers to the Middle East, or sometimes the Roman Empire. For example, when Jesus was born, Luke 2 records that “all the earth” was taxed by the Romans.

The Greek word “oikumene” (entry 3625, I believe, in Strong’s Concordance) is often translated “world,” but means “Roman empire” and is sometimes translated as such.