At 10:40 AM 7/30/98 +0100, Matthew Bell wrote:
>M.BELL
>I read through the Flood account, replacing 'earth', with 'land' and could
>agree that doing so would allow for a local rather than a global flood.
>However, how does one account for Genesis 7:19:
>
>'And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth/land; and *all* the
>high hills, that were under the *whole* heaven, were covered'.
The only way to understand what a phrase means is to compare it with other
uses of that phrase. Consider this:
Jobe 37:3 He directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto
the ends of the earth.
4 After it a voice roareth: he thundereth with the voice of his
excellency; and he will not stay them when his voice is heard.
Now, what does the phrase under the whole heaven mean? God can unleash his
lightning in Chicago, but I can't hear it down here in Dallas. So the
phrase 'under the whole heaven' can't mean, under the whole heaven around
the earth. It must mean from horizon to horizon (which for a standing man
is about 5-10 miles depending on topology) and you can then hear the
lightning which was unleashed under the whole heavens.
Sometimes the use of a universal phrase doesn't really mean a universal
meaning.
Genesis 41:56 And the famine was over all the face of the earth: And
Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the
famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt.
41: 57 And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn;
because that the famine was so sore in all lands.
Australian Aborigines the Native Americans DID NOT go to Egypt to buy
grain, so is this verse wrong? No. All countries known to the author did
buy from Egypt.
>
>This verse was brought to my attention from another list where the
>following 'difficulty' was also posited.
>
>'. If ALL the high mountains under the WHOLE heaven were covered, then we
>can reasonably conclude that at least several HIGH mountains were covered,
>can't we? So how can this be harmonized with the fact that water will seek
>its own level? In other words, how could water cover just some "high
>mountains" without first leveling off, as it sought its own level, so that
>NO high mountains could have been covered until the water had fallen to a
>level that was higher than the "HIGH" mountain? To imagine the local-flood
>scenario that Matt hinted at, one would have to visualize a "mound" of
>water standing suspended over the mountains of Ararat in defiance of the
>scientific law that says water will seek its own level.'
>
>Isn't this a legitimate argument against a local flood?
It would be IF one couldn't envision a site where high mountains could be
covered in a local region. I solve this by means of my suggested flood
locality. I put the flood in desiccated Mediterranean ocean. Geology
tells us that the Mediterranean basin was once a dry desert which was
rapidly filled when the Gibraltar dam broke (see K.Hsu, When the
Mediterranean was a Desert, Princeton Univ. Press, 1983). Within the basin
there were mountains which rose as much as 12,000 feet above the plain
which were then covered with water. The entire basin was surrounded by
15,000 foot 'mountains', which were the continents of Africa, Asia and
Europe. So, one can find a place on earth, where Geology says was flooded,
which fits the Biblical description.
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm