>You wrote:
>>
>>The necessity of semi-modern tools to accomplish such a feat of
>>construction places a limit as to how far back into history the flood
>>could have taken place. The deluge had to have happened in relatively
>>recent times when copper or bronze was in use.
>>
>
>This assumes that there could not have been an earlier time long ago, when
>boat building technology was known and then lost. Besides this there is
>lots of evidence for boats prior to the advent of copper use. The
>Encylopedia Britannica says
>
>"Reddish copper is found in the free metallic state in nature; this native
>copper was first used (c.8000 BC) as a substitute for stone by Neolithic
>man. Metalurgy dawned in Egypt as copper was annealed (c.4000 BC), was
>reduced to metal from ores with fire and charcoal, and was intentionally
>alloyed with tin as bronze (c.3500 BC)."~"Copper", Encyclopedia
>Britannica, III, (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica,1982) p. 134
>
>But boats were a necessity long before this time. Speaking of the
>colonization of New Guinea and Australia
You are speaking of times that are ten's of thousands of years ago,
not 5 million, Glenn.
>I would like to add that you are probably missing some information on how
>useful a stone ax could be. The Bushmen of the Kalihari use stone adzes
>for woodworking.
Woodworking is not ark building.
>we have forgotten how
>incredibly ingenious our "primitive" ancestors were.
Chimpanzees can catch termites on a twig. An anthropologist, who
observed for many hours, never could figure out how to do it.
>Dick wrote:
>>It matters little whether the flood was of short duration, or whether it
>>was a protracted year long odyssey. The task for which the boat was
>>constructed requires an ability to produce it, which puts the flood event
>>somewhere into fairly recent history, if we can call around 5,000 years
>>ago "recent." Since modern man was already racially divided and had
>>covered the globe sparsely by this late date, the flood must have been
>>narrowly confined.
>
>I disagree about it not mattering whether the Flood was of short or long
>duration. The Scripture supposedly inspired by God, leading to our
>Salvation, says a year. If it can't get the duration of an event correct,
>how can I be sure it can get the path to salvation correct? If the human
>authors are so sloppy is small things, how can we trust them in large
>things?
Thank you for pointing out that there may be times when what I am thinking
when I am writing may not be apparent to someone else. What I should have
said is that it matters little whether the flood physically was of short
duration, etc. The point I was making was that a boat that can float for
a week can probably float a year. Of course it matters how the Scriptures
report an event.
Further on that very point, I believe the genealogies in Genesis 11:10-26
and Luke 3:23-38 are prohibitive to positing a 5.5 million year-old flood.
You would have normal father and son relationships from Abraham to Christ
and maybe from Adam to Noah. But from Shem to Abraham, all of a sudden,
you would have not only tens of thousands intermediate generations, they
would even SPECIATE from Australopithicine to Homo erectus to Homo sapiens.
Glenn, I don't think you're going to find a lot of supporters.
Your friend in Christ,
Dick Fischer
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* An Answer in the Creation - Evolution Debate *
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