by aChristian 251 Replies latest jw friends
The Flood may have been caused by all of the other planets being on one side of the earth at the same time. God may have inserted the "youngest" planet Neptune they said on the other side of earth to act as a gravitational corrective to make sure it doesn't happen again!"
- The Golden Age
That's just great..so funny.
ashi
Alan,
Obviously I don't have all the answers. My primary point in starting the thread, as you can see from its title, is that I find the tree ring dating of a major climate altering event, such as a large meteor impact, in 2350 B.C. quite interesting. For that is the exact date that Bible chronology provides us with for Noah's flood. How a meteor impact could have caused a flood like the one described in Genesis is not clear. Your suggestion that "such a large disaster could easily have given rise to a Flood Myth," but could not account for a flood in which "all the high mountains were covered for nearly half a year," certainly seems to be a reasonable one. Keep in mind, however, that advocates of a local flood point out that the expression "high mountains" should be translated "high hills" and refers only to the hills in a portion of southern Iraq, which are not all that "high" now and were even less "high" then.
Though you seem absolutely certain that no large flood even vaugely fitting the description of the one described in Genesis could have been caused by a meteor impact, others evidently are not so sure, as evidenced from the contents of the space.com article. Do you really know what may or may not have resulted from such an impact? Could it have cracked the earth's crust causing ground water to rise to the surface for several months before draining into the Persian Gulf? Could it have caused several volcanic erruptions which spewed vast amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere? Could it have caused other flood producing effects you and I are not now aware of? I don't know. But the fact of the matter is that tree ring studies now date a very significant climate altering event, such as a large meteor impact or several such impacts, to 2350 B.C., the same date the Bible indicates Noah's flood took place.
aChristian,
I would urge caution. Bear in mind that while the theory may be at least plausible, the evidence is currently insubstantial and has not yet been subjected to peer review. If true, however, it would once and for all prove definitively that the story of Noah as described in the bible is utterly false. It would be interesting to know exactly how the myth (and other flood myths) originated. The "multiple impact" theory may do it, or it may turn out to be another red herring.
--
"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
Derek wrote: If true, however, it would once and for all prove definitively that the story of Noah as described in the bible is utterly false.
I disagree. Such would only be the case if the writer of Genesis was definitely describing a global flood. But many do not believe he was. Possibly Derek and others here are not aware of the arguments put forth by Christians who believe that the writer of Genesis was describing a local flood. If not, here are some of those arguments:
That our earth has never been completely covered with water since land masses first arose from its primordial global sea has been firmly established by modern science in more ways than I can possibly here begin to mention. For a discussion of this subject matter see Problems with a Global Flood at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html .
A conservative Christian's typical response to such information is to say that they choose to believe the Word of God over the findings of scientists. This certainly sounds quite noble. And I suppose I would commend them for their stance if such a stance was called for by the Bible itself. But it is not. For a careful study of the flood account in Genesis reveals that the Bible does not tell us that the flood of Noah's day was global. And an examination of the scientific "evidence" presented by Christian fundamentalists in support of a global flood, sea shells on mountain tops and the like, quickly reveals that the presenters of this so-called evidence have a very poor understanding of science. ( By the way, sea shells on mountain tops are the result of earth's plate tectonics causing land masses to slowly rise from the sea over many millions of years. This process is an ongoing occurrence and can be proven by comparing the measured heights of various mountain peaks today to their measured heights just a few years ago.)
That the Bible itself does not tell us that a global flood occurred in Noah's day can be seen from a careful examination of the text. To begin with we do well to keep in mind that the word widely translated as "earth" in the flood narrative, giving the impression that our entire planet was flooded, is often translated elsewhere in the Old Testament as "land." ( In acknowledging this fact, the translators of The New American Standard Bible chose to translate the same Hebrew word as both "land" and "earth" throughout the flood narrative.) We can certainly understand that without our modern means of global communication and global travel ancient peoples must have had a much more limited view of their world than we do today. That being the case, it seems more likely that the flood account in Genesis recounted the story of the whole "land" of Noah being flooded than the whole "earth" being flooded.
But doesn't the Bible's story of the flood say that all the high "mountains" were covered with water? And if that was true, since water seeks its own level, wouldn't that mean the whole earth had to have been flooded? For an answer to such questions we again have to look at the ancient Hebrew language. The ancient Hebrew word which has been widely translated as "mountains" in the flood narrative is translated elsewhere in the Old Testament simply as "hills." You see, the ancient Hebrews had only one word to describe what may have been either a small mound of earth or a Himalayan peak. That being the case, the flood narrative can certainly be understood as telling us that "all the high hills in the land of Noah were covered with water to a depth of about twenty feet." (see Gen. 7:20, 21)
But what about the unmistakably "universal" language used in the account? Doesn't the Bible tell us that God destroyed "all life under the heavens" (Gen. 6:17) during the flood? Yes, it does. But it also tells us that "all nations under heaven" lived in fear because of Joshua's conquest of Canaan. (Deut. 2:25) We are also told that during a famine that occurred at the time of Joseph, "The people of all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph." (Gen. 41:57) And it tells us that at the time of Paul the good news of Jesus Christ had been "proclaimed to every creature under heaven." (Col. 1:23) Are we to believe such statements included the nations of people which then lived in North America, South America, China and Australia?
We must remember that the world of the Bible writers was a much smaller world than our world today. Their part of the earth was then for them "the whole world." We should also accept the possibility that Bible writers may, at times, have used larger than life expressions, just as we often do today. We often use figures of speech such as, "This book weighs a ton," or "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." This common form of speech is called hyperbole. It is certainly possible that it may, at times, also have been used by Bible writers. When we use such exaggerated figures of speech for dramatic impact we are being neither inaccurate nor dishonest. The same can be said for the writers of Scripture.
But why would God have had Noah construct such a large ark if it was intended to carry only Noah, his family, and a collection of animals from his own land? Could it be that Noah was instructed to build an ark big enough to hold every person in the land that was about to be flooded! An ark with room enough for all those who might repent but didn't? We know that "God does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance." How could Noah be telling a land full of people to repent and get on the ark if that ark had no room for them? God's plan of salvation today has room for everyone on earth, does it not? Should we believe that God's plan of salvation in Noah's day did not?
Another question that is sometimes asked is, "If the flood was confined to the land of Noah, why would God not have simply told Noah to take his family and pairs of animals and flee to higher ground?" Many who believe that the flood of Noah's day, as described in Genesis, was confined to the land of Noah say that the answer to this question can be found in 1 Peter 3:20,21. There we are told that Noah and his family, "were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism." So, they say that by choosing to save the lives of Noah and his family as they passed through the waters of the flood, God was symbolically pointing to a time when his people (Christians) would find salvation as they passed through the waters of baptism.
I encourage all Christians to investigate the possibility that the Bible does not really teach that the whole earth was flooded at the time of Noah. For I believe that when Christians now promote this teaching, a teaching which conflicts with all serious scientific evidence, they only succeed in making themselves, and Christianity, look very foolish to very many people.
_______________________________
The following was posted by COJ at H2O on September 01, 2000, before the meteor impact theory was put forth:
Hi Mike,
I haven’t found much time lately for visiting H2O (we now also have a Swedish discussion site!). But yesterday I noticed the new debate on the Flood and would like to add a few comments.
As has been discussed earlier on this site, and as most modern Bible dictionaries point out, the "Ararat" of the Bible was not a mountain, but originally a geographical area, which later, in the Assyrian period, was consolidated into a kingdom (2 Kings 19:37; Isa. 37:38; Jer. 51:27). The later kingdom lay north and northeast of Mesopotamia with its center around the seas of Van and Urmia. In cuneiform inscriptions the form of the name is "Urartu". Gen. 8:4 states that the Ark "came to rest on the mountains (or ’hills’) of Ararat." The plural, "mountains, hills," should be noted. It is only in later Christian tradition that the mountain of Agri Dag in northeastern Turkey came to be called "Ararat" and was identified as the site of the landing.
The Targums and the early Syriac translation render Ararat as "Korduene" (Karduchia), and this is also where Berossus locates the site of landing, according to Josephus (Ant. I.3.6). Korduene seems to refer to the area occupied by the Kurds, Kurdistan, or the former Armenia. The Latin versions, in fact, render Ararat as "Armenia". This roughtly corresponds to the earlier kingdom of Urartu, which was destroyed late in the 7th century BC, after which the name disappears. An excellent recent work on the Urartu/Ararat kingdom is URARTU—DAS REICH AM ARARAT, by Ralf-Bernhard Wartke (Mainz am Rhein, 1993).
Archaeological findings show that the southern border of the kingdom of Urartu extended down to the area of Nineveh (close to present-day Mosul) and the Zab rivers. (It is quite possible that the earlier geographical area called Urartu was larger and extended further south and southeast.) Vast areas of the southern kingdom of Urartu was only between 300 and 200 meters above sea level. The Hamrin range that you mention, which is further south, reaches to about 500 meters.
But at the time of the Flood these areas may have been much lower, as the mountain building movements of Iraq and southwestern Persia have been going on since that time. Drs. G. M. Lees and N. L. Falcon point out: "This mountain system has developed out of a broader zone of depression or geosyncline, by a relative approach between central Persia and the stable massif of Arabia which compressed the mobile strip between and formed a series of giant earth waves or fold mountains. The time of the maximum tangential movement was in the late Pliocene but THE ELEVATION OF THE MOUNTAIN BELT AS A WHOLE, AS DISTINCT FROM FOLD MOVEMENTS, CONTINUED INTO RECENT TIME AND IS IN FACT STILL ACTIVE." ("The Geographical History of the Mesopotamian Plains," The Geographical Journal, Vol. CXVIII, 1952, p. 27. My emphasis.)
With respect to the Hebrew plural noun ’harim’, which clearly can mean both "mountains" and "hills", J.H. insists that it is "typically bad exegesis to argue that ... it is possible to translate the expression ’high hills’." His statement implies that "high hills" is an impossible translation. If it is, why did the translators, not only of King James version, but also the modern translators of the New King James Version translate "high hills" at Gen. 7:19? Bullinger’s The Companion Bible, too, translates "high hills". And Ferrar Fenton’s The Five Books of Moses, has "all the hills and mountains". I do not think any of these translators chose the word "hills" because they believed the Flood was local, so that their choice of word was due to "bad exegesis". And contrary to J.H. (and myself, of course), they had a thorough knowledge of the Hebrew language. The only reasonable conclusion to draw, therefore, is that "high hills" is a fully possible and legitimate rendering. And it would be especially appropriate if the Flood story, as is commonly believed, originated in Mesopotamia, where the only mountains the inhabitants could see were hills.
I have checked just a couple of dozens translations. I’m sure there are more examples that could be added by a Bible collector.
That an enormous Flood, dated by geologists to approximately 3,500 BC, drowned at least the southern plains of Mesopotamia and swept away the pre-Sumerian Ubaid civilization in the area seems now to have been clearly established by recent geological and geomorphological research in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf area, as I pointed out in an earlier post (September 25, 1999). There I referred to and quoted from the summary of the evidence presented by Theresa Howard-Carter in the article, "The Tangible Evidence for the Earliest Dilmun," published in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 33, 1981, pp. 210-223.
It seems obvious to me that this disastrous catastrophe was the historical background of the Biblical and Mesopotamian Flood traditions. It would be foolish just to ignore this evidence or wave it aside. How far northward this "giant flood" reached is still an open question. An enormous sea wave from the Persian Gulf could reach a very long way northwards along the plain, even up to the mountainous districts of northern Iraq. It should be remembered that most of the Mesopotamian plains below that area are very low. The whole delta lowland south of Baghdad, for example, is extremely flat and rises only a few meters from the Persian Gulf to Baghdad 600 kilometers north of the Gulf, so that Baghdad is still less than 10 (ten) meters above sea level! Therefore, to categorically reject the possibility that a local inundation of the Mesopotamian plains about 5,000 years ago could have reached the areas of southern Urartu, would be a sign of ignorance, stubborn dogmatism, and blind faith.
Marine shells, marine terraces, and other evidence show that the waters that drowned the cities of the Ubaid civilization was caused by a massive movement of the sea from the Gulf. This finding agrees with the statement at Gen. 7:11 that the waters of the Flood had two sources: (1) "the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and (2) the windows of heaven were opened." The "great deep" (Hebr. ’tehom rabba’) is used in the Bible especially of the sea (e.g., Isa. 51:10; 63:3; Jonah 2:4). The inundation from the Persian Gulf explains why the ark of Noah (= the Sumerian Ziusudra, who is stated to have lived in the city of Shuruppak in southern Mesopotamia) was brought northwards. If the Flood had been caused only by rains from above and inundations of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, the ark would have been brought southwards to the Gulf.
AF, who in our previous discussion of this subject was careful not to be dogmatic, points out that, for a local flood to last more than a few hours or days there has to be an enclosed region that includes the entire Tigris-Euphrates region. This is an important argument.
The fact is that Iraq is often described as a "trough". The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 12 (1969), for example, explains: "Iraq consists of a lowland trough lying between asymmetrical and very different upland massifs to the east, north and west, and continuing southeastward as the Persian gulf." (Page 527) Similarly, Dr. Susan Pollock says in her recent work, Ancient Mesopotamia (Cambridge, 1999): "Mesopotamia is, geologically speaking, a trough created as the Arabian shield has pushed up against the Asiatic landmass, raising the Zagros Mountains and depressing the land to the southwest of them. Within this trench, the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers and their tributaries have laid down enormous quantities of alluvial sediments, forming the Lower Mesopotamian Plain (also known as the alluvial Mesopotamian plain). Today the Lower Mesopotamian Plain stretches some 700 kilometers, from approximately the latitude of Ramadi and Baquba in the northwest to the Gulf, which has flooded its southeastern end." (Page 29)
As we don’t know exactly what caused the massive movement of the sea to inundate the Mesopotamian plain, there may have been circumstances involved unknown to us today that prevented the water from turning back too quickly to the sea again. These matters are still debated, and much research remains to be done.
Anyway, there was indeed a Flood. I believe it was local and limited to Mesopotamia, as is also indicated by the Sumerian Flood tradition, in which it is stated that the Flood covered "The Land", sum. ’kalam’. ’Kalam’ was the name the Sumerians used of their own country, which roughly covered the area from the Gulf up to present Baghdad, before it in the later Akkadian period was divided into Sumer and Akkad. The Biblical and Mesopotamian Flood traditions are closely related, although it cannot be shown that the Biblical story was derived from the others, or vice versa. They clearly originate in a common source or event. That’s why it seems likely to me that the Biblical tradition, like the Mesopotamian traditions, speaks of a local catastrophe. As we have pointed out earlier, the Biblical word for "earth", ’erets’, usually was used in the sense of "land", and more rarely in the sense of "earth" (= the globe). It seems probable, therefore, that it referred to the "land" of Mesopotamia, like the Sumerian word ’kalam’. The context should always decide whether ’erets’ means "land" or "earth". And if the Scriptural context is not enough for deciding the matter, the historical context in which the story originated may be our best guide.
Carl
I fail to see the relevance of the meteorite theory, even if it is true.
The Bible says that it RAINED for 40 days and 40 nights, and that
is why the earth was covered in water.
So, if side A is right, and there was a flood caused by a meteorite,
then the Bible is wrong. If side B is right, and there never was a global
flood, then the Bible is wrong. Either way, the Bible is out to lunch.
aC, I made a little writeup some time back debunking the "local flood" scenario. It may well be true that some local flooding (great or small) inspired the flood legends, but no serious reading of the Genesis flood legend can possibly be harmonized with physical facts.
See "Does Genesis Teach a Local Flood" at http://home.broadpark.no/~jhauglan/localflood.htm
Comments welcome. Last time I posted this link, nobody made any attempt to debunk it in any way.
- Jan
--
"Doctor how can you diagnose someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and then act like I had some choice about barging in here right now?" -- As Good As It Gets
RUNNING, it was explained (you didn't read?) it doesn’t say it just rained but Ge 7:11 “all the springs of the vast watery deep were broken open AND the floodgates of the heavens were opened” indicating the earth’s mantle was split after which water also came from rain, supporting comet impact
ALAN, after 5,000 years a comet site in a sedimentary region as with Iraq’s flood plain fills in making it shallow; and I myself stated scientists knowledgeable of impact sites had yet to see investigate in person so your saying you aptly dismissed what I said is wholly untrue.
The hypothesis remains that multiple comet impacts were sustained including one in the Middle/Near East. Whether fact or not is yet to be seen but playing word games only erodes your own credibility, Alan.
I suppose the good thing about believing in a local flood is that it means that God isn't as big a mass murderer as we thought.
When I first read this post I commented:"Very interesting"
I think it is interesting but I don't feel that enough evidence has been uncovered yet to proclaim it as fact.
And I don't think anyone here is really saying this is a fact.
It will be interesting to see what is uncovered when they do a more thorough investigation on land.
I think to prove meteors/meteor could cause what the Bible say happened back then durring the flood, you would need some very good mathematicians and well respected scientists to do so.
I think achristian bought up some interesting information that may or may not be correct. Right now it is still speculation that's all.
To be fair I have too say both atheist and theist are too quick to proclaim somethings fact if it fits their beleif system.
To be honest and not prejudicial in examining these things is very hard for both sides, which makes it important not to be too quick in drawing our conclusions.
If someone lived a trillion X longer than you, and had a billion X more reasoning ability would he come to the same conclusions as you?
I think it is interesting but I don't feel that enough evidence has been uncovered yet to proclaim it as fact.
I think Achristian's post was interesting. I remember him from last year over at H20. I do think he's reaching a little...just a little. I find his interpretation of the bible's flood story very strained. My natural reading of it, is that it's talking of a huge flood and not some local event. I think think thats a more natural reading of the text.
