RE: Ramm's flood

Sweitzer, Dennis (SWEITD01@imsusa4.imsint.com)
Thu, 11 Apr 96 12:16:00 EST

Terry wrote,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There is NO evidence that any sort of civilization such as that described
in Genesis 4-9 existed more than 10-20,000 years ago. This is the key
problem. I would agree that if it were just a matter of time that the
Genesis geneologies could hand it, but it's not a matter of time. You
stress the evidence a great deal, but you have conveniently buried all the
evidence in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea and, on your view, in my
opinion you could even claim that because of the destruction of the flood
and the small size of the human population at the time that such evidence
might never be found. Your view with respect to the anthropological issues
is empirically verifiable only in some imaginary way.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

But, many primitive people do have their own version of the flood story in
their mythologies. These could be taken to be garbled version of the Genesis
flood, which has a number of key advantages of the others, among them:
there is not the fantastic-mythologic elements of the others, and the ark
as described sounds seaworthy (unlike the Mesopatanian ark, which was square
and would have sunk!). Not to mention the story of Atlantis, which is
consistent with Glenn's hypothesis.

The YEC crowd also make the arguement that primitive fossil remains can be
interpreted as degenerated homo sapiens as well. Prehaps they have
something there, in that primitive man was culturally degenerated from a
rich and vibrant sub-Mediteranean culture (rather than physically
degenerated!)

Also, it would not be the first time that major civilizations couldn't be
found until after centuries of looking. Weren't the Hittites (or lack
thereof) used as evidence against the Bible until recently when evidence was
found? It would certainly be harder to find evidence of a major
civilization underwater than on dry land!

I certainly wish the Mediteranean was dry only 100,000 years ago! 5.5 Myr
is a long time.

Dennis Sweitzer
sweitd01@imsint.com