Noah's Ark and the flood

by confusedandalone 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  BluesBrother

  I used to enjoy delivering the public talk about The Flood and how reasonable it was to believe the literal account in Genesis.. Now , it is not my place to rubbish the scripture but I think that the Society's reasoning on things is fair game for criticism, where due.

  They have long told us that The Ark was about 133 meters long (one and a half football pitches ) My updated reading has made this look unreasonable for a wooden box that lasted about a year in a deluge. Interestingly, I was today skimming the September 2013 Awake p15. That article has nothing to do with Noah but discusses a Chinese explorer of 15th Cent. AD , by the name of Zheng He (yes really!) . I noted this.

  "Historical records from the Ming dynasty say that Zheng He's treasure ships were amazingly large, 136 meters long and 56 meters wide. Scholars find these figures problematical and hard to verify, in that wooden sailing ships in excess of 90 meters in lengh are structurally unsound.

  All indications are that exaggeration has been at work in the accounts that mention the ships enormous size - says one article on the subject. A ship of about 60 - 75 meters would make much more sense.........................."

  So, it is not credible to believe one account due to the inherent instability of such a vessell, but we should believe literally the calculated-up size of The Ark, from an estimate of the ancient cubit....

  Their reasoning on the matter is as unsound as that enormous Ark would have been. iMHO of course!
• 

  Finkelstein

  Noah's Ark and the flood

  Sorry dude it never happened, such as the many of the mythological stories of the bible, what did happen

  though is the ancient Hebrews created embellished stories about their particular god to whom they worshiped.

  There were many other stories told of gods such as Allah, Buddha, Marduk etc. etc.

  This isn't exclusive to the ancient Hebrews and Yahweh alone.

  Now does it not feel good to know the truth.
• 

  St George of England

  The idea of a wooden vessel of 133 metres in length is just fiction.

  In the early 1900's a 100m wooden vessel, the Wyoming, was built, being the largest wooden ship ever. It was a disaster. All wooden vessels leak and this one leaked so badly they had to have pumps running continuously. It sank a few years later with the loss of all hands.

  Another problem with building something this size is the amount of timber that would be needed. If I want to build something, I take a trip to Travis Perkins and buy any amount of ready prepared timber I need. Noah would have to chop down all the trees and then split these down and convert into suitable sized planks and spars. This is the Bronze Age! He did not have steel axes, saws and chisels. Cutting timber was a difficult process. To think that four men could produce enough timber, even over 50 years or so is unrealistic.

  Once he had the timber how did he assemble the thing? I think the WTS think he went along with his compressed air nail gun and just banged in nail after nail. How many copper or bronze nails did he need? Thousands upon thousands no doubt. Who produced all these?

  Sad to say I used to believe all this twaddle before I woke up.................

  George
• 

  adamah

  Confused and alone said-

  1. God destroyed the entire earth because man was evil - yet right after he destroyed them for being evil he said that he will never destroy all of manking again BECAUSE THE ARE EVIL...

  Yeah, the reason given by God as indicating the need to carry out the Flood in Genesis 6:5 is the same sentiment that God finally accepts AFTER carrying out the Flood, so Genesis 8:21 is God's "mea culpa", admission of throwing in the towel as if saying, "Oh, well, they just seem to be made with a tendency for sin. Huh, what do you know?"

  That's part of the premise featured in this parody video on YouTube, where a few class-action product liability lawyers create an infomercial to round up clients to sue God for making a flawed defective "product": mankind.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGQvQv9o-Mg

  I've written a blog article about the three-part solution depicted in the Bible account of Noah's Ark, where most readers miss the last TWO steps of the solution:

  http://awgue.weebly.com/genesis-vs-2nd-peter-noah-didnt-preach-bupkis.html

  and the conclusion:

  http://awgue.weebly.com/does-jehovahs-witnesses-blood-policy-reflect-they-understand-noahs-flood.html

  BTW, I generally find it to be pointless to argue on the basis of the sheer scientific impossibility of the Flood, since it's going to be dismissed with three words, "God Dun It!". People believe in miracles, or they don't.

  Hence I prefer to base the arguments on the Genesis Flood account itself, since it's so illogical by carefully examining what it DOES say. Once a believer sees the sheer illogic and fundamental unfairness depicted in the account, they're on the rocks. Thereafter, they're more likely to see (and accept) the scientific evidence.

  But doing it in reverse direction (arguing from the scientific impossibility) is largely just a waste of time, and good only if you you're looking for excuses to feel smug by knowing you're right rather than presenting evidence that actually works to change minds (the former paradoxically shows a form of the old JW persecution complex lingering, as if being tortured while KNOWING you are right, except transferred to a new belief system).

  Adamah
• 

  FadeToBlack

  @adamah: but what about from a historical perspective? If the WTS published an article stating that after much research it appears the American Civil War actually ended in 1925, would the average JW still be able to go out and defend the idea with a straight face? How would you like to offer that mag? I ask, because my wife seems to agree that there could not possibly have been a global flood in 2370BC. But she still goes to meetings. She was very suprised to find that date published in the WT. I had to show it to her. Thankfully, I kept all the recent issues (last 20 years) regarding the flood in my personal file. I was always hoping they would see some new light on the topic.
• 

  5go

  LOST----- Read your bible please Lot got drunk and had sex with his daughters and it wasn't exactly condemed. In fact it was blamed on them.
• 

  cofty

  Cofty - can you list those species. and your source for the data. - Lost

  No I can't as you are asking me to type the names of millions and millions of species.

  google "mass extinction events".

  More than 99% of all species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct. The vast majority (over 95%) died out because they couldn’t compete successfully for food or other resources. Or they failed to adapt to changes in their local environment over tens or even hundreds of millions of years.

  For the rest, something more dramatic happened. They perished during relatively short-term mass extinction events that killed off large numbers of species worldwide.

  Find out about the big five extinction events that each eliminated over half of all species on the planet. Sometimes in less than a million years.
• 

  tootired2care

  I guess we should either be thankful that god in his superlative mercy didn't send Velocoraptors and T-Rex's on the ark, or angry that man is to blame for their extinction.
• 

  Laika

  Cofty - can you list those species.

  Ha ha, that is hilarious.
• 

  kurtbethel

  I have been thinking about Jack and his beanstalk.

  1. The mass of the beanstalk would have to come from nutrients drawn from the ground. How could such a massive beanstalk grow in one place without depleting nutrients from the soil and making a crater, or otherwise altering the topography where it grew.

  2. How is it that in the duration of one night a giant took residence at the top of the beanstalk? When you consider the logistics of hauling building materials aloft, crews of construction workers, and support material such as food and water, how was this possible in such a small span of time without being noticed by anyone?

  3. Isn't it likely that the beanstalk story was merely a dream, or even that the beans were toxic and had hallucinogenic properties that caused Jack to imagine the events after acquiring the beans?

  4. Could it be that Jack's beans actually were mutated and the beanstalk grew unusually large? Perhaps a large bird of prey nested in it and that the current version of the story was the result of later people who embellished the original account?