by Bad_Wolf 15 Replies latest social current
How did the bible writers know the earth was, as the article suggests, covered in water first?
Luck? Their timing was a bit off and no mention by the bible writers of the asteroid bombardment that came after that either.
Quite interesting question none the less
The author of Genesis Ch one, believed that the earth was once covered with water because that was an ancient Egyptian myth, and he borrowed the idea from the Egyptian stories he had heard.
There were many ways people living in what we now call Palestine knew the Egyptian creation myths. The Palestine area was once part of the Egyptian Empire, so strongly influenced by Egyptian culture. There was also trading contact with Egypt.
Here's a statement from a web-site on ancient Egyptian beliefs:
The Creator God's Offspring
At a time the Egyptians called Zep Tepi (the First Time), Atum created two offspring. His son, Shu, represented dry air, and his daughter, Tefnut, represented corrosive moist air. The twins symbolize two universal principles of human existence: life and right (justice).
The twins separated the sky from the waters. They produced children named Geb, the dry land, and Nut, the sky. When the primeval waters receded, a mound of earth (Geb) appeared, providing the first solid dry land for the sun god, Re, to rest. During the dynastic period, Atum was also known as Re, meaning the sun at its first rising.
https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/egypt/egcr09e.shtml
The earth would have been a highly pressurized gas ball in its early formative days. It would still have had a rocky surface like it is today. The water would not be in liquid form. It would be water vapor mixed in with many other gaseous elements. It was probably like Jupiter but at a way smaller scale.
bad wolf: "--it was a much more quiet and dull place,”
with >100 meter tides it would not be.
I don't know who says the world was covered with water 4.4 billion years ago but that is unlikely since the world was in formation.. think cascading impacts and a molten mess. Also 4.2 billion years ago any dry land was obliterated when the moon was formed by collision ...
The author of Genesis 1 uses a Greco-Mesopotamian model which always starts with water
They may have believed the earth is flat...so it made sense that the whole surface of the earth would be covered by water...
