Question regarding the Flood account

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pelly
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
P

Pelly

Guest
I need advice on handling apparent discrepancies in Scripture.
The Wikipedia article on the flood narrative claims that there are inconsistencies regarding the duration of the flood, the quantities of each species taken in, etc. I opened up my Bible and found the claimed inconsistencies.
Can somebody help me?
 
We are not required to believe the flood account is a historic, scientific fact. It is a story, like a parable, used to teach a lesson.
 
Pelly said:
I need advice on handling apparent discrepancies in Scripture.
The Wikipedia article on the flood narrative claims that there are inconsistencies regarding the duration of the flood, the quantities of each species taken in, etc. I opened up my Bible and found the claimed inconsistencies.
Can somebody help me?
Click to expand...
Many biblical scholars believe that the flood narrative in Genesis is woven together from at least two ancient sources. The resulting narrative has some apparent inconsistencies because the two narratives were not identical (e.g. the conflict between what Gen 6 says about how many pairs of each animal were to be carried in the Ark, and what Gen 7 says on the same topic). This narrative construction, while endlessly interesting to biblical scholars, need not stand in the way of the message - which is spiritual and theological, not historical.
 
According to their website: “a Catholic apostolate dedicated to proclaiming the truth about the origins of man & the universe”
 
TheLittleLady said:
They are a young earth Creation group, right?
Click to expand...
They are way out there on the loopy fringe of Catholic thought. Basically a rehash of Protestant sola-scriptura Young Earth Creationism dressed up in Catholic vocabulary, with a healthy dose of other fringe anti-science nonsense, like geocentrism. They blame just about every evil in this world on science literacy.
 
Check out Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson. Graham isn’t a Christian, I am not sure about Randall but both have solid evidence of a world wide flood around 12,000 years ago that coincides with the end of the last ice age. It did not cover the entire globe in water but look at google earth at the continental shelf. That was all above water during the peak of the last ice age. Also look at where all major population centers are today and where they were in the ancient world- on or near the coast. Which to those living there there at the time would have appeared to be a world wide flood. Something happened in our recent past involving a LOT of water and flooding, so I would not completely discount the flood narrative in the Bible as just a story.
 
GordonP said:
They are way out there on the loopy fringe of Catholic thought. Basically a rehash of Protestant sola-scriptura Young Earth Creationism dressed up in Catholic vocabulary, with a healthy dose of other fringe anti-science nonsense, like geocentrism. They blame just about every evil in this world on science literacy.
Click to expand...
edwest211 said:
That wasn’t an unbiased assessment.
Click to expand...
I don’t know. I pretty quick review of that site seems to confirm that it contains some pretty fringe stuff. Dinosaurs living at the same time as people type stuff.
 
Just out of curiosity, what does any of this have to do with the OP’s question or the article at hand?
 
TheLittleLady said:
We are not required to believe the flood account is a historic, scientific fact
Click to expand...
I see this stated about several things in the Old Testament especially the creation stories and the flood but other parts as well. I realize that it is accurate, but even if it is not required people can still believe correct? It is something I have wondered about for many years. Is it wrong to believe these accounts are accurate?

I realize I quoted TheLittleLady but this isn’t directly asked of you. I just have had this curiosity and decided it was the easiest way to ask.
 
Writing seems to have started somewhere around 3,000 to 3,500 BC. There is evidence of at least two major floods in the western US; the Bonneville flood about 14,500 years ago, and the Missoula floods, several times between about 15,000 and 13,000 years ago. Both were due to the ending of the last major ice age.

As to Noah, that there was one individual by that name is something we likely will not know this side of the veil.
 
I don’t think that “wrong” is the term I would use.

There is geologic evidence of massive floods throughout the world. There does not appear to be reliable evidence that the world was inundated completely all at one time. the Story of Noah is far, far more important to us for its theological meaning than it is for trying to make Genesis into a history book.

Let me give a different example: Christ told the story of the vineyard owner who hired help at different times during the day and paid them all the same. Once could turn evey rock out there upside down looking for evidence of where the vineyard was, and who the owner was. the short of it is that Christ was not talking about someone he knew; he was making a theological point.

Was there a vineyard owner? Why in the world would it make any difference? Christ did not tell the story for the truth of the facts; he told the facts for the truth of the theological point.

Was there a man named Noah? Why in the world would it make any difference? and assuming there was, does that change the theological impact of the story? Does it change it if there was not such a person?

There very well may have been such a person. Putting one’s belief in the truth of the Bible needs to be put on solid ground; not on side issues; that does not mean it is wrong to believe there was a man called Noah. But to believe that God intervened in human history is far more important than trying to tie down side issues.

Multiple groups of people in various areas have had a flood narrative; and evidence exists to show that massive floods have occurred. that, however, is not the point of the narrative.
 
Pelly said:
I need advice on handling apparent discrepancies in Scripture.
The Wikipedia article on the flood narrative claims that there are inconsistencies regarding the duration of the flood, the quantities of each species taken in, etc. I opened up my Bible and found the claimed inconsistencies.
Can somebody help me?
Click to expand...
Wikipedia should never be taken as accurate or factual. Anyone can and does publish to wikipedia.
The flood is part of Genesis first 11 chapters. We are free to take them literally or not.
If you read Genesis untranslated, i.e. Biblical Hebrew, no doubt there will be more questions, and confusion when comparing the flood account with the most popular English Bible translations.
 
Last edited:
edwest211 said:
http://kolbecenter.org/evidence-for-a-global-flood-and-its-importance-for-our-times/
Click to expand...
Physical Evidence for a Global Flood

This brings us to the physical evidence for a Global Flood. We will examine six bodies of evidence:
  1. Eyewitness testimony from all over the world.
  2. Marine fossils on top of Earth’s high mountains.
  3. Billions of well-preserved fossils all over the Earth.
  4. Sediment layers cover vast areas.
  5. No slow and gradual erosion. Rapid deposition.
  6. Over-sized valleys, water gaps, and vast planation surfaces.
point number 1.
As only Noah and his family survived the flood on a global scale, there can be no eyewitness testimony from all over the world.

2 Marine fossils end up on tops of mountains due to geological processes, I point to the fact that the Himalayas are still being pushed upward at quite a rate, annually. Marine fossils also indicate that these mountain tops were once shallow sea beds.
  1. there are not billions of well preserved fossils. It is quite difficult to become preserved as a fossil. A certain process has to be undertaken. And then your fossil can be washed out of its rock bed by processes such as quakes, flooding, volcanoes, continents smashing into each other…then your fossil is adrift at sea so to speak.
  2. sediment layers cover vast areas? What does this even mean scientifically. Are we looking at one layer of sandstone or shale along an ancient coast line? This statement makes absolutely no scientific sense.
  3. Again having an understanding of the mechanical processes that make up the land will tell us that erosion and deposition are two ends to the same equation. where something is eroding, somewhere else it is being deposited. Matter cannot be destroyed. The earth continually recycles its substance.
  4. water gaps? Oversized valleys? vast planation surfaces?
    Children and teenagers and adults who are studying science, please do not use these terms in any valid discussions.
I am just stunned at water gaps.

And that is where I stopped reading that link.

Unfortunately really bad pseudo science like the above destroys any intelligent discourse on investigations such as was there really a flood and did Noah exist.
 
Last edited:
Well at the first place why do you want to have such an approach to the sacred Scripture? I suggest not to read the Bible from a critical point of view. God is the author and the Bible is God`s work written by those chosen by Him. There is absolutely no error in the Bible. It is not intended to be read as history text, a science book, or a political manifesto. In the Bible, God teaches us the truths that we need for the sake of our salvation. Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says,

II. Inspiration and Truth of Sacred Scripture

105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."69

"For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church herself."70

106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."71

107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."72

108 Still, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book”. Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, “not a written and mute word, but incarnate and living”.73 If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open (our) minds to understand the Scriptures."74
 
IamBaptist said:
Luke 17:26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.

It sure seems to me that Jesus was convinced that the flood occurred as he should be, He was the one who broke up the fountains of the great deep and opened the windows of heaven.

If there was no flood and if it did not happen the way the scriptures say it did , then Jesus is a liar.
Click to expand...
I see this argument often, but it seems to me a very weak argument. As has been pointed out by others, Jesus spoke in figurative language often - as everyone does. If I say to someone, "he is a Hamlet figure,’ or “she is a fierce as a dragon,” or make reference to Arthurian times, or whatever, that does not mean I believe in the actual historical existence of Hamlet, or dragons, or King Arthur. In Luke 17, Jesus was making a point about the timing of the coming of the Kingdom, he was not giving a history lecture. The apostles did not walk away from that event thinking they had learned something about history - they learned something about faith. We should take that same lesson.
 
It doesn’t have to be literal. It’s not like if the Flood isn’t global, Christianity tears at the seams.
 
Or Jesus was using a parable, as he did (above example of the Vineyard Owner).

Same way you or I might say “This weekend, my spouse slept like Rip Van Winkle” and someone recorded it. 2,000 years from now, are people going to think my spouse actually slept for 20 years or will they simply know this is a shared cultural expression for long periods of sleep? Would the literalists think I was a liar?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top