Story of Noah: Who believes it to be real?

[buffalo]

Create a strawman and knock it down.

He did, certain portions weren’t accurately represented in the Bible.

Here are issue that come to mind that would not have been accounted for by primitive men recounting oral accounts:

The bugs of all types and sizes, are those included? The ticks, fleas, did they just exist on two animals? The hundreds of species of reptiles and amphibians and birds. Did they sit around and not eat for however long it took? The fish alone would be killed by the desalination and lack of algae due to lack of sunlight. What about the overall effect on the oceans after all the top soil is washed into the sea? If the whole earth was covered with water, what about the icecaps? What about penguins and warm climate animals living in the same closed ship for as long as it took?

The oral accounts that were handed down for a multitude of generations prior to a written word by a primitive man with a primitive language tool set is the issue, not God. God is not limited to the language of man, man is only limited by the ability to describe the divine.

The Bible is the salvation story of Jesus Christ. Genesis up to the time of Abraham was minimal accounts just to explain that a loving God created you, will judge you for sin. Why is that such a bad thing? How many stupid animals got on the Ark is not the issue. The story of Noah is about God’s judgement on sinful man. Even Jesus in referencing the story used it to refer to the end of time.

I know - people just get all riled up when they just can’t seem to grasp how all this could happen.

Let’s take it again from the top - If you believe God can create the universe, you can believe He could do the Noah story. The only reason the flood story is rejected is because we cannot find suitable evidence and we cannot get our arms around the logistics. But then again we cannot get our arms around the logistics of the creation of the universe. So we reduce this to God’s judgement of sinful man. Where is your faith man?

 

[Brian_Millar]

Nephilim were around before “and” after the flood, they did not enter the arc because they didn’t need one, they had their own means for survival, we call them UFO’s, today, that’s my take on that one.

2 of everything back then, the amount of animals alive then were not the same as today, the continents were not divided as well, this allowed for all of them to be able to easily reach the arc, I’m sure in many cases, God himself needed to intervene in order to get them to it on time, again, my take on this story.

I could go into some crazy theories about it not being necessarily a story about the earth, but about how the beginning of mankind and all of the animals started on Mars, the arc being transported through space to earth, but I’ll leave that one up to crazy speculation, it would be an interesting twist on this story and it does have some merit. IE. Noah was not allowed to open it up for 40 days and nights, the shortened life span of mankind due to the increased gravity and atmospheric changes, and the logistix behind keeping the thing to the point where it had gravity and oxygen, etc. but that would require more to contemplate which is completely outside of what we have been taught and totally outside of the normal realm of which most people are not prepared to handle.

If we are to look at this story, all I can say is that you can believe it to be true, that God filled in the gaps himself, or if you believe it to be symbolic, it loses a great deal of merit for it teaches nothing in those regards. I can also point to the above speculation if you want to go onto a wild tangent.

 

[whiteknite]

Brian Millar:-

Nephilim were around before “and” after the flood, they did not enter the arc because they didn’t need one, they had their own means for survival, we call them UFO’s, today, that’s my take on that one.

Its nothing to do with UFO’s. This comes from early scholars…
The idea of the flood was to rid us of this breed.
You must be refering to the Sumerian texts of Nibiru and there account of the higher beings that created man to mine minerals (Gold/Silver/onyx) for there atmosphere. and once they were finished with us, Left us to the flood as they didnt need us any more…

According to the New American Bible, the Nephilim appear as part of the “increasing wickedness of mankind”. Their appearance accounts for the prehistoric “giants” of Canaan, whom the Israelites called the Nephilim, but additionally to introduce the story of the flood with a moral orientation

Also, the commentary suggests that the phrase “(as well as later)” stated above is a reference to the Book of Numbers 13:33, how the Israelites likened the tall aborigines (“Anakim”) to the Nephilim, possibly due to seeing the very tall structures of Canaan that appeared to have been built by a race of giants.

The New American Bible commentary draws a parallel to the Letter of Jude and the statements set forth in Genesis, suggesting that the Epistle refers implicitly to the paternity of Nephilim as heavenly beings who came to earth and had sexual intercourse with women.

The angels too, who did not keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains, in gloom, for the judgement of the great day. Likewise, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding towns, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual promiscuity and practiced unnatural vice, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

According to the New Oxford Annotated Bible, the Genesis verses only indicate that the Nephilim existed at the same time as the products of divine-human intercourse.

 

[Contarini]

I’m sorry Contarini but i was under the opinion that you had read the Bible…

Genesis 6:2-4 :- That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

The names of the race that followed was Nephilim!!
We know them as off-springs of the fallen Angels…

Why would that be Rascist??

Because you asserted that one purpose of the Flood was to wipe out the mixed-race offspring of these marriages. That is genocidal racism. There’s no other way to describe it.

Genesis does not say that the Flood was an act of ethnic cleansing. It says that the Flood was a response to human violence. As part of the explanation for this violence, it notes that this was an era of giants (sounds a lot like what the Greeks called the “age of heroes”), and explains the giants (superheroes/villains?) by these intermarriages. Whether the intermarriages described were between humans and nonhumans or between two groups of humans is not really the point. The point is that if any sentient beings are condemned as evil simply because of their biological origin, then that is racism and is radically immoral. Their origins may well have given them superpowers that they were tempted to use for evil, and very many of them clearly succumbed to the temptation. But they were condemned for their violent actions, not for something they could not help.

Edwin

 

[drpmjhess]

Actually no. Because the Hebrew generations only go back about 6000 years. So 11,000 BC might have produced a world wide flood but not the one mentioned in the Bible.

goofyjim, a worldwide flood is hydrologically impossible, since you would need 29,035 feet of water to cover Mt. Everest. Forty days of the hardest rain survivable would never produce that much…

Petrus

 

[drpmjhess]

Because you asserted that one purpose of the Flood was to wipe out the mixed-race offspring of these marriages. That is genocidal racism. There’s no other way to describe it.

The God of the Old Testament was among other things an ethinic cleanser, Read Joshua 6:16-17, 8:24-26

 

[drpmjhess]

2 of everything back then, the amount of animals alive then were not the same as today, the continents were not divided as well, this allowed for all of them to be able to easily reach the arc, I’m sure in many cases, God himself needed to intervene in order to get them to it on time, again, my take on this story.

Sorry, but Australia had already separated from the other continents by 50 million BP. God could magically bring them to the ark, but the marsupials couldn’t get there on their own.

 

[buffalo]

Sorry, but Australia had already separated from the other continents by 50 million BP. God could magically bring them to the ark, but the marsupials couldn’t get there on their own.

Correctly substituting"

God could supernaturally bring them to the ark, and they couldn’t supernaturally get to Australia?

 

[drpmjhess]

Correctly substituting"

God could supernaturally bring them to the ark, and they couldn’t supernaturally get to Australia?

Well, Buffalo, if you want to go that route, fine. God supernaturally built an ark for Noah that could supernaturally hold 60 million animals; God supernaturally flooded the earth with 29,035 feet of supernatural water and then supernaturally took it away; God supernaturally recreated the flood-destroyed life-sustaining ecosystems of the earth immediately after the ark landed; God supernaturally recreated thousands of feet and tens of thousands of years of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic; God supernaturally recreated the genetic diversity lost in narrowing each species down to a few breeding pairs; God supernaturally transported each species back to its proper ecological niche on its own continent; God supernaturally rearranged Earth’s geology to hide any evidence of a worldwide flood.

But then why go to the other of this immense amount of work, when in an instant God could create memories and records as if all this had happened? And if you take this route, science goes out the window, as everything is has become a miracle. And if you go this route, you have no reason other than sheer xenophobic prejudice to deny the other wonderful cosmogonic myths from around the world. The North American muskrat diver myth is scientifically no less believable than the scenario painted by a miraculous Noachian flood.

Petrus

 

[Brian_Millar]

Correctly substituting"

God could supernaturally bring them to the ark, and they couldn’t supernaturally get to Australia?

I think we are dealing with an agnostic here buffalo, it’s too bad he’s closed himself off to the truth and replaced it with his perceptions. According to him, all that we see here is all that there is, and if he cannot explain it in utter detail on all levels he want’s nothing to do with it.

Let’s throw this one back to science for those that want to make that argument. 1st, do you have something you yourself have gone back in time, 50 million years in this case, marked it, then came back and compared it to current analasis? You cannot perform a proper conclusion without that, for you are only looking at part of the equasion. Can you prove the continents move at a constant rate and have always moved at a constant rate? Can you prove that the mountain ranges were the same height back then as they are today? I like how the canopy I discussed earlier has never even been considered, it’s kind of a big piece of the equasion here as to where the water came from, wait, there is no science covering that one. Then we have the world wide conspiracy where cultures everywhere made up the flood story, that was quite the feat to accompolish, lucky us, we don’t need to believe it anymore because some guy told us that it’s a lie, thank you for saving us from utter condemnation for having this crazy thing called faith, we sure won’t make that mistake again… I’ll be sure to tell Noah that he never existed as well, can’t have a figmant of our imagination floating around in heavan, that would be unthinkable…

drpmjhess, when is science going to tell us there is no afterlife as well, or is it going to create one for us so that we can live on to worship the test tube and mankinds infinite wisdom… afterall, man knows everything there is to know, he has reached the end of all knowledge, the world is a perfect place and all mysteries are solved.

 

[whiteknite]

Because you asserted that one purpose of the Flood was to wipe out the mixed-race offspring of these marriages. That is genocidal racism. There’s no other way to describe it.

Genesis does not say that the Flood was an act of ethnic cleansing. It says that the Flood was a response to human violence. As part of the explanation for this violence, it notes that this was an era of giants (sounds a lot like what the Greeks called the “age of heroes”), and explains the giants (superheroes/villains?) by these intermarriages. Whether the intermarriages described were between humans and nonhumans or between two groups of humans is not really the point. The point is that if any sentient beings are condemned as evil simply because of their biological origin, then that is racism and is radically immoral. Their origins may well have given them superpowers that they were tempted to use for evil, and very many of them clearly succumbed to the temptation. But they were condemned for their violent actions, not for something they could not help.

Edwin

I think you should read the Bible again Edwin, Maybe you missed what i was pointing to…
The Nephilim race turned man into slaves and ate all the animals, Then once the food had run dry they ate humans, THAT i would say was the point of God doing the Ethnic cleansing…
You think that God would have just left his creation to the evil Nephilim breed that the fallen angels created??
If you look further ahead to a man called goliath! He was 1 of 5 brothers who was left from this breed of Nephilim…

 

[buffalo]

Well, Buffalo, if you want to go that route, fine. God supernaturally built an ark for Noah that could supernaturally hold 60 million animals; God supernaturally flooded the earth with 29,035 feet of supernatural water and then supernaturally took it away; God supernaturally recreated the flood-destroyed life-sustaining ecosystems of the earth immediately after the ark landed; God supernaturally recreated thousands of feet and tens of thousands of years of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic; God supernaturally recreated the genetic diversity lost in narrowing each species down to a few breeding pairs; God supernaturally transported each species back to its proper ecological niche on its own continent; God supernaturally rearranged Earth’s geology to hide any evidence of a worldwide flood.

But then why go to the other of this immense amount of work, when in an instant God could create memories and records as if all this had happened? And if you take this route, science goes out the window, as everything is has become a miracle. And if you go this route, you have no reason other than sheer xenophobic prejudice to deny the other wonderful cosmogonic myths from around the world. The North American muskrat diver myth is scientifically no less believable than the scenario painted by a miraculous Noachian flood.

Petrus

Well actually this is the way it is - God - creation is indeed a miracle by definition. He did supernaturally create and put into motion everything we see. So everything really is a miracle. Now within this framework we can observe ordinary miracles and extraordinary (supernatural) miracles.

The Chruch has specific rules to try to determine the difference. Just because we observe common things/events around us that seem to arise through natural means does exclude their miraculous nature. (in a macro sense)

Science is a manifestation of God. Science is also miraculous since it flows from the very same God. Science is part of God, but not God. Our limited sense of observation and reasoning ability is deficient.

Now we know God has created this miraculous world in a state of journeying. What we assume is that the rate is what we calculate. Perhaps the rate of journeying is much slower than in the begining. Do you deny God that ability?

Your last paragraph - we do not know with certainty the height of the highest mountain at the time of the flood. (or were you there to measure it?) Obviously, after the waters receded environments would be again formed. The earth did not lose its fertility in the flood. It did not lose its potential.

If genetic diversity arose from one pair once before, why not again? What’s to prevent it?

And no, science dees not and cannot go out the window. Is that what you are so tenaciously attached to? By your arguments you would seem to be so emotionally attached to this worldview you will not allow yourself to see anything else. That my friend is exactly the result of scientism - isolating yourself and limiting your curiousity.

 

[drpmjhess]

drpmjhess, when is science going to tell us there is no afterlife as well,.

Never – that’s a matter of faith, not science!

 

[Brian_Millar]

Never – that’s a matter of faith, not science!

I watched Ghost hunters last night, I rarely watch TV, and I was too lazy to change the channel since I can’t find my remote. Well, I watched this thing throw a brick accross the room, it’s documented there, now if science is so bold, why isn’t there a team there to analyze it, it’s obviously manifest as a poltergiest, proving there is an afterlife of sorts, at least in that permutation. Why is it ignored, especially when you can observe something with your own eyes?

 

[drpmjhess]

Your last paragraph - we do not know with certainty the height of the highest mountain at the time of the flood. (or were you there to measure it?) .

We know that the rate of rise of the Himalaya is 5mm per year, or 5 meters per thousand years. Assuming that a literal Noachian flood took place 4,000 years ago, the Himalaya were then 65 feet lower, or 28970 feet high. Thus God had to produce and remove 28,970 feet of water. Not an impossible miracle, of course.

What I was referring to in my previous post was the pointlessness of the earnest search by creationists and biblical literalists for scientific validation. If everything about the flood was miraculous – which clearly it must have been – why the desperate search for “scientific” support? Why not just say the science is hogwash and be done with it?

Your “were you there?” is a pathetic dodge typical of creationists. It’s akin to challenging my claim that I was biologically conceived by my parents by saying “were you there?”.

 

[buffalo]

We know that the rate of rise of the Himalaya is 5mm per year, or 5 meters per thousand years. Assuming that a literal Noachian flood took place 4,000 years ago, the Himalaya were then 65 feet lower, or 28970 feet high. Thus God had to produce and remove 28,970 feet of water. Not an impossible miracle, of course.

What I was referring to in my previous post was the pointlessness of the earnest search by creationists and biblical literalists for scientific validation. If everything about the flood was miraculous – which clearly it must have been – why the desperate search for “scientific” support? Why not just say the science is hogwash and be done with it?

Your “were you there?” is a pathetic dodge typical of creationists. It’s akin to challenging my claim that I was biologically conceived by my parents by saying “were you there?”.

It is really cool when science does validate. For example, archaeology is constantly validating Biblical places and stories that were thought to be myth.

It is cool when science confirms that the Shroud or Turin is really the burial cloth of Jesus. It is really cool when science creates a 3d statue based on the image.

Science is cool. It has to be. Scientism is not cool.

Let the creationists search. What are you afraid of. What will you lose? It costs you nothing. In fact it seems to give you humor.

Now again - the Church teaches that God can use natural or supernatural means to affect miracles. He is not limited to one or the other.

According to your logic, God did not even need to explain why he sent the flood. He could have just wiped out all the living with His word. Instead He allowed a falsehood to perpetuate itself. Isn’t that a miracle in itself? Now God cannot deceive or be deceived. I conclude- we are missing something.

 

[Philipp]

It is really cool when science does validate. For example, archaeology is constantly validating Biblical places and stories that were thought to be myth.

It is cool when science confirms that the Shroud or Turin is really the burial cloth of Jesus. It is really cool when science creates a 3d statue based on the image.

Science is cool. It has to be. Scientism is not cool.

Let the creationists search. What are you afraid of. What will you lose? It costs you nothing. In fact it seems to give you humor.

Now again - the Church teaches that God can use natural or supernatural means to affect miracles. He is not limited to one or the other.

According to your logic, God did not even need to explain why he sent the flood. He could have just wiped out all the living with His word. Instead He allowed a falsehood to perpetuate itself. Isn’t that a miracle in itself? Now God cannot deceive or be deceived. I conclude- we are missing something.

Philipp: Well spoken Buffalo. There is some real hard data that at least supports the claim that Dinosaurs did not become extinct 12 million years ago (geological assumptions of ~1924) or 65 million years ago as claimed by proponents of evolution using K/Ar and other dating methods. Could some have been taken aboard the Ark as small juveniles as some scientists claim?

This C-14 data shows that dinosaurs lived with megafauna like mammoths, mastodons, sloths, and saber tooth tigers etc. How it fits in with the flood of Noah will probably be left for future geerations to solve if they are allowed to do so.by academia which is highly doubtful.

 

[Philipp]

Here is C-14 data reported in the literature. References are available upon request from extensive files.

Below are dates for some mega fauna, and dinosaurs,
(1) La Brea Tar Pit Series of Los Angeles, [4 of 12 RC dates as examples, 1964)
12,650 +/-160 UCLA 1292B, left femur, from Pit 3.
23,700 +/-600 UCLA 1292H, right femur from pit 60
26,700 +/-900 UCLA 1292G, right femur from pit 4
28,000 +/-1400 UCLA 1292 D, left femur from pit 4
(
2) Bison bone collagen, 30,810 +/- 975 RC years BP (AMS) with evidence of human activity in Yukon region. Also, wolf bone collagen at 27,920 +/-650 RC years BP (AMS).

(3) About 50 Mammoth bones from Hot Springs, SD, 26,000 years BP for bone bioapatite.

(4) 350 Mammoth bone reports from Eurasia continent, 9,670 +/- 60 to >53,170 RC years BP. All were less than 40,000 RC years except for 21; most of the 21 were about the same age as for unfossilized wood from drill core samples deep in the permafrost of Prudhoe Bay Alaska at 43,380 +/- 380 RC years at 60m depth.

(5) Eight mammoth bones, tusks and teeth from Wrangell Island above Siberia were dated at less than 5,000 years BP using purified collagen.

(6) A musk ox carcass frozen in Alaskan, USA, muck gave dates of 24,140 +/- 2200 years and 17,210 +/- 500 RC years BP for scalp muscle tissue and hair, respectively.

(7) Dung of Ground Sloth in Rampart Cave, 10,800 to 40,000 RC years BP

(8) through (13) are radiocarbon dates for dinosaur bone bioapatite and organic components, the same as for the above magafauna; all lived at the same time period. There is NO 65 million years between man and dinosaur and therefore NO evolution of man. Pristine human footprints have also been found repeatedly with Dinosaur footprints in alleged 100 million year old strata over the last 25 years in Texas limestone thus confirming C-14 data for their bones. Dinosaur depictions are world wide as noted on many web sites.

(8) 11,750 +/-150 years BP camarasaurus (WY), bioapatite, 1905 [from Carnegie Museum].
(9) 16,120 +/- 220 years BP, Allosaurus (CO), bioapatite, Hall team, 1986
(10)17,420 +/- +/-330 years BP, Camarasaurus (WY), bioapaite, 1905, [Carnegie Museum]
(11) 23,760 +/- 270 years BP, Acrocanthosaurus (TX) on AMS, bioapatite, Baugh team, 1984
(12) 25,750 +/- 280 years BP, Acrocanthosaurus (TX) on AMS, bioapatite, Baugh team,1984
(13) 31,050 + 230/-220 years BP, Hadrosaur (AK) on AMS, total organics.

Conclusions: The time-line for dinosaur/megafauna is the same, based on C-14 dating of the bones themselves [total organics and carbonate replacement of bone phosphate during the life of the beasts give the same age range - no contamination]. — These all important radiocarbon dates for fossils support the contentions that (1) the 65 million years of alleged evolution between man and dinosaurs does not exist and
(2) C-14 dating supports other lines of evidence that man and dinosaurs coexisted in time such as depictions of Brontosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Torosaurus and Crylophosaurus with the last two on Jewish temples. There are other types of dinosaurs world-wide that even Carl Sagan admitted exist and
(3) Challenges the age of 600 million years for the geologic column and descent of all life forms from common ancestors. In other words: Dinosaurs, saber tooth tigers, mammoths, mastodons, bison and sloths all lived at the same time based on radiocarbon dating of their bones alone. There is also ample scientific evidences that demonstrate that even the above radiocarbon dates may be too old. Depictions from only 100’s to 1000’s of years ago and human population calculations also show modern man [post flood man including Neanderthals] lived with the dinosaurian survivors of the Deluge.

 

[Contarini]

P Could some have been taken aboard the Ark as small juveniles as some scientists claim?

Who are these scientists and what are their credentials?

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

The God of the Old Testament was among other things an ethinic cleanser, Read Joshua 6:16-17, 8:24-26

But there and throughout the OT the reason given is behavior, not an intrinsic racial taint.

Edwin