Back in the day I'm pretty sure I was told that the JW's believe that the world was surrounded by a water barrier before the flood which caused the Earth's climate to be 'greenhouse like'. I was lead to believe that there were no polar ice caps before the flood. Is there anything in the JW literature archive which alludes to this theory or was I just told something not supported by the Society?
Pre-flood climate according to JW's.
by veen 13 Replies latest watchtower bible
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oompa
you are correct veen...i think that is still current...i know i heard it for 40 years....oomps
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Shepherd Book
The newest reference to it that I'm aware of is the book "From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained". Page 43 says there was a water canopy prior to the flood. If the Society still holds to this teaching, they haven't explicity said so in many years. Also, such a teaching would contradict statements they make in "Life- How Did it Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation?"
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blondie
*** w80 11/15 p. 23 par. 4 "Jehovah of Armies" to the Rescue! ***The fact that today we do not have a vast water canopy suspended high up in space and all around our globe and thus blocking direct sunlight, moonlight and starlight is because Jehovah saw what was going on down here upon his terrestrial footstool and took action. He deluged those suspended waters down from on high upon his footstool, not to bathe his feet, but to wipe out bad conditions among all mankind. The inspired record of this says: "Jehovah saw that the badness of man was abundant in the earth and every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only bad all the time. . . . So Jehovah said: ‘I am going to wipe men whom I have created off the surface of the ground, . . .’ But Noah found favor in the eyes of Jehovah." (Gen. 6:5-8) All of us are indebted to this God-fearing Noah, because he and his family, eight human souls all together, built an ark at Jehovah’s command and in it safely passed through the global flood, so as to have us as their descendants.
*** w76 12/1 p. 712 Insight on the News ***Yet Ellesmere Island is now largely ice covered. What accounts for this complete change of climate? The Bible’s historical record suggests an answer. It describes the creation of an "expanse" around the earth that made a ‘division between the waters beneath the expanse and the waters above the expanse.’ Thus the atmosphere around the globe would have a relatively uniform warm climate due to the hothouse effect created by the water canopy "above the expanse."—Gen. 1:6, 7.
Second Peter 3:5, 6 confirms that the earth was "standing compactly out of water and in the midst of water," and that it was "by those means the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water." Apparently the canopy disappeared as the waters deluged the earth, and this could be a major factor in the Arctic areas’ becoming frigid.
*** po chap. 6 p. 75 par. 30 Human Life Outside Paradise Until the Deluge ***To understand the possibilities for such a planetary flood of water, we have to visualize the state of things with regard to our globe as a whole. At its surface there were landmasses, large and small, sticking up above the seas. Up above all of this there was a vault or expanse containing the atmosphere that mankind and other living creatures breathed. But out beyond this there was a deep watery canopy that surrounded the earth like a swaddling band and that the Creator had caused to be lifted up to a scientifically accurate height on the second creative "day." There it remained in suspension like an envelope around the earthly globe, to collapse back to the earth only according to the Creator’s purpose and at His command. (Genesis 1:6-8) An inspired Bible commentator of the first century C.E. nicely described it, saying: "There were heavens from of old and an earth standing compactly out of water and in the midst of water by the word of God."—2 Peter 3:5, NW;JerusalemBible.
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veen
Oh, this is just absolute gold! So why would Jehovah create polar bears then? Were there polar bears on the ark? I love you Blondie.
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WTWizard
I wonder what that would have done to our view of the stars. There are many references in the Bible (and in the Washtowel) that indicate that the stars were created for our enjoyment--Tyrant David wrote many of those. And, had the water canopy obscured that view, it would have prevented that. I guess the stars were man's reward for disobeying that Almighty Lowlife Scumbag.
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moshe
The ice canopy theory is totally without merit. The Newtonian laws of physics indicate that a vast canopy of suspended water vapor has the same weight as the liquid water does on Earth and the weight of that water vapor above the Earth would press against our bodies in the same fashion as the air canopy does now. We would have all been crushed to death. I was a smart cookie in school, but somehow that one went right over my head and I never had any householder point out that error to me during the 16 years I was a JW, either.
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kurtbethel
It is amazing what lengths someone would go to in order to explain a figurative flood story as being literal. Orbital mechanics would require something like water (assuming it did not dissipate and was in the form of ice) to orbit in a ring like those surrounding Saturn. The reason for this is that an orbiting body must travel around the entire circumference of the center of gravity. Water that was orbiting at different lattitudes would have to cross the equator in the plane of orbit and pass over the opposite lattitude. Eventually it would collide with other water over the equator and be tossed out of orbit or be funneled into a ring that would represent the average orbital momentum. It is not possible for it to orbit in a canopy shell as described. That is simply unscientific nonsense crafted by someone who had very little scientific knowledge and education.
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veen
This is my kind of thread.
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oompa
moshe: The ice canopy theory is totally without merit. The Newtonian laws of physics indicate that a vast canopy of suspended water vapor has the same weight as the liquid water does on Earth and the weight of that water vapor above the Earth would press against our bodies in the same fashion as the air canopy does now. We would have all been crushed to death. I was a smart cookie in school, but somehow that one went right over my head and I never had any householder point out that error to me during the 16 years I was a JW, either.
but moshe...god can undo, reverse, and control the laws of physics....surely you know this....he can do anything except right?...except:
(Judges
1:19)19 And Jehovah continued with Judah, so that he took possession of the mountainous region, but he could not dispossess the inhabitants of the low plain, because they had war chariots with iron scythes.damm those iron charriots as the KJ version calls them...he always has an earthly org. to do his will (wt says) but damm...he could not help them against iron...haha.......oompa