In a message dated 07/05/2002 10:34:47 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
MikeSatterlee@cs.com writes:
<< (At the
time of Noah "Ararat" referred to all land areas to the north of Noah's
land.) The waters which had flooded the land areas furthest to the north then
drained southward into a newly enlarged Persian Gulf. The land in which Noah
once lived never regained its previous elevation. It now remains buried
beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf. "The hills of Ararat" in which Noah's
ark came to rest are now located not too far north of the present shoreline
of the Persian Gulf, or may even have since been claimed by the Gulf. >>
In addition to making up your own meaning for the phrase, "fountains of the
great deep," you are making up your own meaning for the word Ararat. There is
plenty of evidence that Ararat (Urartu) was in Armenia. There is no evidence
that the word was applied to lands "not too far north of the present
shoreline of the Persian Gulf."
In addition, there is a scholarly consensus that the Babylonian flood account
is describing the same flood as the biblical account. You have appealed to it
yourself as providing evidence that meteors caused the flood. But that
account like the Sumerian revolves around Shurrupak being flooded, which is
well to the north of the Persian Gulf. Nor does the biblical account restrict
the flood to such a small southerly area as you do. The "earth" of Gen 9:11
that was flooded is seamlessly linked via Gen 9:19 to the "earth" that was
populated by the sons of Noah, and the "earth" that was populated by the sons
of Noah is shown in Gen 10 to be the entire earth as it was then conceived,
namely, the greater Near East. It is the consensus of biblical scholars
including evangelicals that the flood is described in the Bible as causing
the earth to return virtually to the state it was in in Gen 1:2. No flood
covering less than the entire Near East matches the biblical account of the
extent of the flood.
Paul
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