Was the Noah flood real ? Did Noah put all living things in his boat?

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The animals were by association with humans part of a sin-infested world. Genesis makes the point of saying that “all flesh” were contaminated by sin, which would include animal flesh.

Incidentally, the flood itself, while it destroyed the earth also purified it. It was like a huge mikvah or baptism that washed away the impurities of sin.
 
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This is a good article on interpretation of Scripture, based on and explaining the Catechism sections dealing with Scripture.

Note that “literal” does NOT mean you take everything written in the Bible literally. It means you try to understand what the author is trying to convey through the author’s use of what might be idioms, allegories, etc.

 
JimmyTolder said:
Please give me a Church document where it clearly says that you may deny the clear and obvious literal meaning of Scripture,
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The problem is the clear and obvious literal meaning isn’t always that. That’s why we need the church to give interpretive guidance. In this case, it isn’t taking a position. Probably because it doesn’t know for sure and it’s not really important for the faith anyway.
 
JimmyTolder said:
gainst the opinion of all the Church Fathers and all the Theologians?
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I’m not sure what the church fathers thought of this subject. Maybe you can post some quotes.

Personally, I find it compelling that the Church has no definitive teaching of a global flood. Modern science says it didn’t happen. Can you imagine if the Church definitively taught it? Then we’d be faced with the modern question of where all that water came from and went. I guess it could have been a miracle…

We need to be thankful for Church guidance. I sat for years in fundamentalist churches that claimed to teach the plain meaning of scripture. But they all found ways to disagree on the plain meaning. The Bible is an ancient document of many authors and genres written across many years and none of it in english. Understanding what it’s saying isn’t always easy.
 
John10 said:
Is the flood account a figurative narrative or did it actually happened?
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The studies and interpretations that I’ve read, make the flood more of a local occurrence and not a world wide flood. Which does, in my opinion, make more sense.
 
Ok, I’ve research a bit more on this. It seems the flood was global and literally killed everything outside of Noah’s arc.

Granted that the Catholic Church has no official teaching on this, but after the research it does seem only a global flooding would make sense.
 
That site does not have a reputation for solid science. Making sense is not the same as providing solid verifiable evidence. But you are free to believe it if you wish.
 
I agree with you that there are other things the site does not get right. However for Noah flooding the article does provide evidence of why a massive flooding happened.

There would need to be a refutation of each of the evidence they present.
 
Just looking at #1, I can see there really isn’t any understanding of the facts on their side. I am not really trying to sway you as I really do believe that you can hold that opinion if you wish, but there are better sources for generally accepted science that describes a much different process. For example, there are “fossils of sea creatures” (marble) in the high elevations of Tennessee near the Appalachian Mountain range. It is there because the ancient sea bed was thrust up as part of the process that formed the Appalachian Mountains. I don’t really have time to go through every single point listed (kind of a written Gish Gallop IMHO) but a few simple Google searches of terms related to the formations described as opposed to those related specifically to the Flood narrative (try “geologic history of the Appalachians” to start with) will provide you with a plethora of information.

Or don’t; it really doesn’t matter to me personally if you believe in a literal worldwide flood or not.
 
John10 said:
Ok, I’ve research a bit more on this. It seems the flood was global and literally killed everything outside of Noah’s arc.

Granted that the Catholic Church has no official teaching on this, but after the research it does seem only a global flooding would make sense.
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Well, apart from the complete lack of physical evidence, that is. The entire science of modern geology was largely founded in the 18th century, with the original intent to find physical evidence of the Noahaic Flood, but coming with up an extraordinary amount of evidence that not only did no such global flood occur, but rather that the Earth was millions (now as it turns out billions) of years old.
 
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There are still plenty of other issues to address. They also mention

“We find fossils of sea creatures in rock layers that cover all the continents”, so even if the Appalachian Mountain did occur because of the sea bed thrust up, we would still to explain all the the other marine life elsewhere.

However, you are correct we may or may not believe it, it is not an issue from the Catholic Church perspective.

God Bless
 
Hobgoblin said:
According to articles on this website, the Church allows for interpretations that don’t involve global flooding. There’s no scientific support for a worldwide flood, but there is evidence of massive regional flooding in the Near East a few thousand years ago.
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Local Flood.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
Hobgoblin said:
There’s evidence of regional floods around the world. There’s not evidence of a global flood though. In fact, the amount of water required to submerge the tallest mountains is about 3 times the amount of water currently in the worlds oceans.
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No. This has been resolved. If the earth is leveled out we would be under several thousand feet of water.
 
on_the_hill said:
Of the millions of animal species in the world, a breeding pair of each was loaded onto the arc? Polar bears? Penguins? Elephant seals? Orangutans? Gila monsters? North American bison? Piliated woodpeckers? Baltimore orioles? American goldfinches? Kiwis? Galapagos tortoises?
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Millions? How many species (remember species is a man made classification system) were there at the time of Noah and how do you know?
 
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