Noah's Ark

[omega]

Is it heretical to say that some of the stories in the bible are mythical as a religious instructor advised me? I am questioning the biblical facts relative to Noah’s Ark.

1. There is no scientific markings of a global deluge, however there was a great deluge in Iraq at the time of Noah and there are markings to prove it.
2. I have heard scientifically, there is no way to gather all living things of the world into the biblical Noah’s boat–it would have taken 30 years, manpower, animals dying, propagating, feeding, cleaning ect. However, there is a possibility of all the animals in the area where Noah lived being put in a boat.
3. There is no way a boat could have been made of wood in a huge sizeable shape–it would actually break apart in the water. There could have been cubicles attached to each other (like a barge)–and this was done in Noah’s time.
   So, could it be that the old testament referred to the whole world was really just in the area Noah resided (Iraq) and it was translated to teach their children as the “world” becaused that is how they believed? And all the animals were just the animals in Noah’s area?

 

[rayne89]

I don’t think we obligated to believe that the story of Noah’s Ark was an actual event. I believe it is within church teaching to believe that telling of Noah’s Ark was allegorical.

 

[puzzleannie]

It is not a scientific account or an historical account, it is an account of God’s promise, man’s obedience, and God’s fidelity. Don’t use standards of science, geography and history to judge literature that is none of these things. Also do not cite spurious scientific sources to rebut biblical accounts. There is plenty of geological evidence for catastrophic flooding in different stages of earth’s history, and in biblical times in the Near East where this account took place.

 

[abu_kamoon]

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.

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?

ابو كمون

 

[AKG]

But remember Catholic teaching does not allow us to call all stories that we cannot logically explain as allegories. If it did, we could believe that Joseph was Jesus’ literal father, that he used hyperbole when speaking of the Eucharist, and that he didn’t literally rise from the dead and ascend into heaven.

 

[cpayne]

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.

ابو كمون

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.

 

[rwoehmke]

The further back one goes in time the more the stories take on the character of myth or legend. Neither category should be construed as being untrue because they still contain truth concerning God and His plan as well as having some basis in fact. The stories are not history as we know it today when the time, the place, the action, and the cast of characters are well known and verifiable. I have no doubt that a person like Noah existed at one time in the Middle East and that the events in the story have some basis in fact. That is how some of us see these stories, others view them in quite a different light.

 

[Orogeny]

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.

Or that God was teaching us a lesson by using a story.

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?

I’m sorry, but you don’t seem to understand the nature of the fossil record. The fossil record in no way supports a global flood.

Peace

Tim

 

[rwoehmke]

So are you all trying to claim that all of Jesus’ parables were true stories about people and events that he recalled? God never lied about matters of faith and morals, but you might say he could also spin a good yarn with a point to it. I don’t think even today that we would call writers of fiction liers. And to say that good fiction cannot teach is well…uneducated.

 

[abu_kamoon]

A parable is a story with a lesson. It is not necessarily a true story. When other parts of the Bible are considered parables, the question becomes, what is true, and what is allegory? Who is to decide?

It’s sort of like the Protestant private interpretation. If there are over 20,000 interpretations, which one is correct?

Why would God claim that with man’s sin came death? Didn’t He know about evolution? Hadn’t He read Darwin?

Or, why did He make up a story about the Arc? Did He think we would fall for it? Well, people believed it for thousands of years. I don’t give too much credibility to Darwin and his entourage. I find the Biblical account more credible that what “science” is telling us. After all, science wasn’t there.

ابو كمون

 

[Erich]

There is no way a boat could have been made of wood in a huge sizeable shape–it would actually break apart in the water. There could have been cubicles attached to each other (like a barge)–and this was done in Noah’s time.

An ark 1/5 the size of Noah’s appears to not have broken up in the water… check out the “making of” portion of arkvannoach.com/

An article from March 2006, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4853890.stm, indicates that this replica ark is certainly intended to be seaworthy!

 

[rayne89]

But remember Catholic teaching does not allow us to call all stories that we cannot logically explain as allegories. If it did, we could believe that Joseph was Jesus’ literal father, that he used hyperbole when speaking of the Eucharist, and that he didn’t literally rise from the dead and ascend into heaven.

Agreed.

110 In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. "For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression."76

As far as the Eucharist Jesus says “For my flesh is real food
and my blood is real drink.” This is very literal language. And the Church is very clear this something we must believe. That is one of the big reasons we look to the church for proper guidance.

 

[Cari]

You know, I’ve heard it said that one of the reasons Luther used to support his rejection of the book of Tobit (and other people after him) was that it supported erroneous medical treatments (i.e. the cure of Tobit’s father’s cateracts). Yet, these same people have no problem with the story of the Ark. Weird.

Anyway, as puzzleannie pointed out, the important part of the story is God’s covenant with Noah and, by extention, all humans. However, just because science can’t explain things in the Bible doesn’t mean we’re at liberty to “dismiss” them as “allegory”. Take, for example, the Church’s teachings on Adam and Eve. Science, at this time, is unable to “explain” this. Does that mean it never will? Well, ask all those nice scientists who were convinced that the earth was flat. Or thought that leprosy was spread by immediate, casual contact. Or that pre-born children don’t feel pain…

 

[Talmida]

The story is a Myth – but the word “myth” has been misused a lot.

A myth is “a traditional story concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, typically involving the supernatural” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

I am reminded of what Cardinal Ratzinger, as he then was, said about the Creation stories in Genesis in his book ‘In the Beginning…’:

…the Bible is not a natural science textbook, nor does it intend to be such. It is a religious book, and consequently one cannot obtain information about the natural sciences from it. One cannot get from it a scientific explanation of how the world arose; one can only glean religious experience from it. Anything else is an image and a away of describing things whose aim is to make profound realities graspable to human beings.

So whether or not the flood (or a flood) really happened is not the point of the story. The point of the story is religious.



And Noah’s ark was NOT a boat, by the way, it was just a box. An ark, like the ark of the covenant. It had no way to steer, no sails, no oars. Noah, his family, and the animals floated in the box, completely powerless, totally dependent on God.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

Hi Omega, professional Christian geologists believe that Noah’s flood was regional, local in nature. That is percisely what the scientific evidence points to. ( see Ryan and Pitman’s book below ).

wheaton.edu/ACG/

bringyou.to/apologetics/p82.htm

asa3.org/ASA/

talkorigins.org/faqs/organizations/

Noah’s Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About The Event That Changed History (Paperback)
by William Ryan (Author), Walter Pitman

amazon.com/Noahs-Flood-Scientific-Discoveries-Changed/dp/0684859203

talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Noah’s Flood by YEC estimates was only a few ( six??) thousand years ago, and yet Native Americans, crossed the land bridge over 20,000 years ago and were NOT wiped out by a global flood.

 

[az_4_faith]

It’s interesting, I’ve never had a problem believing alot of Genesis as literal.

Sure, it’s confusing and difficult to fit into my understanding of nature and science.

But because the stories were direct encounters with God the Creator, I’ve always been inclined to believe that they’re extraordinary events, and as such, would not necessarily fit into the confines of my human knowledge and understanding.

So, if God literally created the world in six days and made it appear to be millions of years old when it may be only several thousand, I have no problem with that. He’s God and He can do it.
After all, He made man and woman from only dirt and His Breath.

He can flood the entire world (or just a portion of it) if He chooses to, and command a human being to build a vessel to house an incredible amount of creatures who naturally couldn’t cohabitate together for that amount of time.

He could make the mountains and hills appear to be a million years old. He can do anything.

To me, this simply displays His Omnipotence.

I’d like to take Him literally. If we’re so sure these stories are myths, when do we separate the myths from the literals? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Is the Eucharist really His Body and Blood?

But that’s just my opinion. I don’t really worry about it.

 

[cpayne]

I’d like to take Him literally. If we’re so sure these stories are myths, when do we separate the myths from the literals? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Is the Eucharist really His Body and Blood?

But that’s just my opinion. I don’t really worry about it.

Separating aspects:

Eyewitnesses to the stories?
Contemporaries?
Effects in history?
Etc.

The Gospels are historical in nature because they have all of these corroborating criteria. Stories which have none of them (the opening of Genesis, for example) are a different type of story.

 

[rwoehmke]

But remember Catholic teaching does not allow us to call all stories that we cannot logically explain as allegories. If it did, we could believe that Joseph was Jesus’ literal father, that he used hyperbole when speaking of the Eucharist, and that he didn’t literally rise from the dead and ascend into heaven.

Allegory or allegorical interpretation is only one of several ways of interpreting Scripture. The Bible contains myth, fiction, some history, theology, biography and more and some books contain more than one genre. If there was only one way of interpreting Scripture we wouldn’t need a magisterium. I think it is important to rely on both right reason and Faith which will not contradict each other. I found the following material to be most appropriate to these discussions on Noah’s Ark.

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.

 

[mdcpensive1]

It seems there are two camps. The literalists and the mythists. I see these two combined into a third.
I believe the Bible in that there was a flood. How extensive, is up to the archeologists. The writers of the Bible knew there was a great flood and used words to describe it in language they understood. Language that invoked meanings we may not understand in the 21st century. Anyhow, cultural anthropology (I’ve been told) can trace migratory patterns of human travelings in three major directions on the earth as if from the three sons of Noah. Isn’t that interesting.

mdcpensive1

 

[cpayne]

It seems there are two camps. The literalists and the mythists. I see these two combined into a third.

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).