Thoughts on Noah's Ark

[PAboy57]

I believe it happened with no question.

Almighty God certainly made it all happen including calming the animals during the flood.

If our God can create the universe out of nothing He certainly arrange for a flood and calming the animals during the boat ride. There is nothing God can’t do.

I believe it all.

 

[patrick457]

We now come to the cake itself, after delving through all that layers of icing.

The site makes the popular (it also appears in a host of other sites as a Google or Yahoo or whatever search would testify to) claim that 船 (‘ship’) must be a reference to Noah, because 舟 ‘boat’ + 八 ‘eight’ + 口 ‘mouth’ equals 船.
Sorry to burst any bubbles here, but 船 is just another phono-semantic character: [㕣](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A) forms the phonetic compound, while 舟 suggests a relation with watercraft. Which brings us to 八. Originally, the character is a pictograph [depicting a separation or split](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A). It was only later when it was borrowed as the character for ‘eight’ due to the similarity of sounds, which makes it a rebus (aka phonetic loan character), where an existing character is used to represent an unrelated word with similar pronunciation, sometimes resulting in the disappearance of the old meaning.

共 (‘common’, ‘together’) doesn’t have anything in relation to ‘eight people in a post-flood earth’: it’s just [a picture of two hands 廾 holding a communal drinking bowl](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A).

Chinese Etymology å—æº

洪 (‘flood’) and 沿 (‘the brim’, ‘continuous’, ‘go along/follow course’) are [another couple of](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A) [phono-semantic characters](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A), so no further explanation there.

Conclusion: Based on the evidence, I believe that the makers of the website have noble intentions, but use rather questionable means of conveying what they want to convey. They usually base their ‘evidence’ off superficial similarities (most often involving how Chinese characters appear today - as opposed to how they would have looked like, say, 2500-3000 years ago), and a rather forced attempt to connect any stroke or dot, even the slightest one, with something from the Bible. The sad part is, that this page capitalizes on the Western fascination and ignorance about Chinese characters - which leads them to make blunders such as these.

 

[buffalo]

Conclusion: Based on the evidence, I believe that the makers of the website have noble intentions, but use rather questionable means of conveying what they want to convey. They usually base their ‘evidence’ off superficial similarities (most often involving how Chinese characters appear today - as opposed to how they would have looked like, say, 2500-3000 years ago), and a rather forced attempt to connect any stroke or dot, even the slightest one, with something from the Bible. The sad part is, that this page capitalizes on the Western fascination and ignorance about Chinese characters - which leads them to make blunders such as these.

Thanks for the critique.

Your claim then this has no merit at all?

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

True story. Just a few things to think over. First of all it was not just 2 of every animal. of animal that were clean it was to be 7 pairs and unlcean was the 2 . Next does that mean it was 7 of every type of dog? or was maybe there just one typt of dog at that time. See what i am getting at. It also was a hundered yeas from when Noah started the ark till the flood. a lot of time for the aniamls to get to Noah. Some one asked about how the Polar bears and penguines would have gotten from the poles to the mid east, polar bears are bears so it could have been 6000 or so years ago just a bear. and penguines are a type of bird. As far as it not being Global, that is moderen talk to down play the whole thing.

 

[Barbkw]

I always left to question whether the flood was global or specific to an area that effected the Mediterranean.

I was reading through Wiki on Mitochondrial Eve:

Not the most recent ancestor shared by all humans

Main article: Most recent common ancestor

Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor, not the most recent common ancestor (MRCA).

Since the mtDNA is inherited maternally and recombination is either rare or absent, it is relatively easy to track the ancestry of the lineages back to a MRCA; however this MRCA is valid only when discussing mitochondrial DNA.

An approximate sequence from newest to oldest can list various important points in the ancestor of modern human populations:

The Human MRCA. **All humans alive today share a surprisingly recent common ancestor, perhaps even within the last 5,000 years, even for people born on different continents.**12]

The Identical ancestors point. Just a few thousand years before the most recent single ancestor shared by all living humans comes the time at which all humans who were alive either left no descendants or are common ancestors to all humans alive today. In other words, from this point back in time “each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors”. This is far more recent than Mitochondrial Eve.[12]

**“Y-Chromosomal Adam”, **the most recent male-line ancestor of all living men, was much more recent than Mitochondrial Eve, but is also likely to have been long before the Identical ancestors point.

 

[buffalo]

I always left to question whether the flood was global or specific to an area that effected the Mediterranean.

I was reading through Wiki on Mitochondrial Eve:

Not the most recent ancestor shared by all humans

Main article: Most recent common ancestor

Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor, not the most recent common ancestor (MRCA).

Since the mtDNA is inherited maternally and recombination is either rare or absent, it is relatively easy to track the ancestry of the lineages back to a MRCA; however this MRCA is valid only when discussing mitochondrial DNA.

An approximate sequence from newest to oldest can list various important points in the ancestor of modern human populations:

The Human MRCA. **All humans alive today share a surprisingly recent common ancestor, perhaps even within the last 5,000 years, even for people born on different continents.**12]

The Identical ancestors point. Just a few thousand years before the most recent single ancestor shared by all living humans comes the time at which all humans who were alive either left no descendants or are common ancestors to all humans alive today. In other words, from this point back in time “each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors”. This is far more recent than Mitochondrial Eve.[12]

**“Y-Chromosomal Adam”, **the most recent male-line ancestor of all living men, was much more recent than Mitochondrial Eve, but is also likely to have been long before the Identical ancestors point.

It is now known MtDNA can be passed by the father too.

 

[Robert_Sock]

How could the flood cause people to go from long lives (around 900 years old) to short lives of today (around 80 years old)? It all happened at the time of the flood. Why did this happen?

 

[nickybr38]

Remember that there is an upper world called “Heaven” that is surely more advanced than we are. There are references in Revelation that there was a war in Heaven with Lucifer being cast down to earth along with a third of the stars. Jewish mysticism states that there exist multiple worlds, with our world being the lowest! Jewish mysticism also insists that we need to go beyond the stories of the bible to get at the root of knowledge. Also, there are rumors of ancient city called “Atlantis” that is below the oceans.

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world–he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.
–Revelation 10:7-10

*Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us.
–Ecclesiastes 1:10 *

That’s it for references, the rest is mainly thoughts of imagination, without which we are stuck with an unlikely story of a Noah’s ark.

Oh! I love this!!! When I was a kid my brother and I used to toy with this idea. What if the time before the flood was MORE ADVANCED then we are now? What if this was part of their sin? Because they had gotten to the point where they felt they were gods themselves (cloning, test tube babies… etc. etc.) and as a result they had completely forgotten God.

Haha. It’s kind of neat to see someone else has toyed with this idea.

I don’t care if it’s completely ridiculous, it’s fun to think about.

 

[patrick457]

Thanks for the critique.

Your claim then this has no merit at all?

One word: yes. Unfortunately.
The whole thing would be quite comparable, IMHO, to taking every letter of the Latin Alphabet and assigning (rather arbitrarily) Biblical meanings on the merest stroke. It might be a good teaching device, but I can’t help but get the feeling that the people behind the page are trying too hard.

BTW, I can’t really get why they left this one Chinese character: 十 (10).

 

[buffalo]

One word: yes. Unfortunately.
The whole thing would be quite comparable, IMHO, to taking every letter of the Latin Alphabet and assigning (rather arbitrarily) Biblical meanings on the merest stroke. It might be a good teaching device, but I can’t help but get the feeling that the people behind the page are trying too hard.

BTW, I can’t really get why they left this one Chinese character: 十 (10).

and Shang Di the creator God whom the Chinese worship is false?

 

[patrick457]

and Shang Di the creator God whom the Chinese worship is false?

This is where I say: they would have made a better case with Shangdi and ancient Chinese Heaven worship than questionable etymologies, what with all the similarities that are actually there (lack of images and animal (bull) sacrifice for instance).