Hi Marque,
Thanks for your comments. However, looking at your first paragraph I
observe you
use "probably" twice, "probable" once, and "I doubt" once. Let me therefore
proceed in the same vein: possibly the antediluvian olive possessed
qualities of
survival unknown in trees of today. Clearly, of course, we can never
know and it
would be idle to speculate further.
What we do know is that Noah - a preacher of righteousness, and
confidant of the
Lord - interpreted the olive leaf in the mouth of the dove as a sure sign that
the waters had receded sufficiently to allow land to reappear. As intimated
above, I think it unlikely that we can profitably pursue this matter further;
however, I hope we can agree that, on this particular, the biblical record is
now less incredible than we might hitherto have supposed.
Sincerely,
Vernon
Victorian Wife wrote:
> Hi Vernon,
>
> I think your tree data below may be a bit skewed. Deep flooding probably
> means that the tree's bottom half was flooded with water but not that the
> ENTIRE tree (the crown) was under water for that period of time. There is a
> big difference in these two things. If a tree was submerged to several feet
> or more above its top, I doubt that it could survive very long at all.
> First, it would not be able to photosynthesize much like you would not be
> able to breath, thus, death. Second, if it was that submerged and taking
> into account probable currents under the water the whole thing would
> probably be uprooted, thus, death.
>
> I quote the following from your below reported web site:
>
> "Tree injury increases in proportion to the percent of crown covered by
> water. Species that can survive standing in several feet of water for months
> may die in less than one month when their foliage is completely covered. Few
> species can tolerate more than one month of complete submersion during the
> growing season"
>
> We should all be careful not to take information out of context for our
> arguments.
>
> Marque
> >
> >You may be interested to know the result of my internet search on the
> >topic "trees
> >tolerance to flooding". Here is an extract from Table 1 of
> >http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/n_resource/flood/toler.htm. It deals with
> >the
> >relative tolerance of trees and shrubs to flooding during the growing
> >season, Lower
> >Mississippi Valley and Missouri River Divisions. (source: Whitlow and
> >Harris 1979):
> >
> >Fraximus pennsylvanica (a variety of ash) - very tolerant: able to
> >survive deep,
> >prolonged flooding for more than 1 year.
> >
> >We further read at http:/www.alphazee.com/olive-leaf/olea.html that
> >the olive tree
> >is a member of a plant family that includes the ash...
> >
> >A little simple arithmetic reveals that Noah's second sending out of the
> >dove
> >occurred some 271 days after the rains began. Clearly, therefore, we
> >have no problem
> >with the olive leaf!
> >
>
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