From: PASAlist@aol.com
Date: Sun May 18 2003 - 19:52:37 EDT
Hello Dick,
I gather from your last post that you see yourself collecting all the data,
biblical and extra-biblical, and then putting them together in the direction
that the preponderance of evidence demands. I see science and Gen 1-11
painting two relatively different pictures, so that you cannot take the
puzzle pieces out of one box and use them to make a composite picture using
the pieces out of the other box.
You say,
"No. The weight of biblical, scientific and historical evidence is on a
local flood, period. There is a ton of contrary evidence against a global
mankind, animalkind, and insectkind obliterating flood anytime during human
history."ame flood. Please avoid typical, theological double speak in your
answer.
I agree that the scientific and historical evidence does not support, indeed
falsifies, a global flood. But, the Biblical data does not agree.
You said, "Please define what you mean by "the flood of 2900 BC is the basis
of the biblical account," yet you don't believe that all flood accounts
concern the same flood. Please avoid typical, theological double speak in
your answer."
So, I think this is a good place to draw out what I am saying.
There is a common consensus across the theological spectrum that both the
Mesopotamian and biblical accounts of the Flood go back to the same flood.
And archaeology strongly suggests that this flood was a local reverine Flood
c. 2900 BC. The biblical description, however, does not match the flood of
2900. So you cannot simply merge the two acccounts and say the Bible is
describing a local Flood.
1. The flood, according to all Mesopotamian sources, lasted 1 to 3 weeks.
This is very different from the year-long duration of the biblical Flood.
2. If you say "all flesh died" including the birds (Gen 7:21); and you say
this is about a Mesopotamian Flood, then you must be saying all the birds in
Mesopotamia died. This is contrary to everything we know about birds: they
would certainly fly away. A few might perish; but the great majority would
fly to dry land and survive, thus contradicting the biblical text.
3. Even in the Mesopotamian accounts, all mankind dies; and one of the things
that bothered early concordists is that the Bible is so clear that all
mankind died (still the consensus across the scholarly spectrum). They sought
to solve this problem by keeping all of mankind in Mesopotamia until the
Flood. This is of course, impossible to believe any longer. You seek to make
the Flood just kill off the Adamites, but, your distinction does not hold up
in Scripture. It is as idiosycratic as YEC interpretations of scientific
data.
4. In spite of the YEC's imaginary science, they are quite correct that Gen
9:11 "neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth" logically
implies that the Flood of Noah was not a local flood because there have been
many local floods since then.
5. The "whole earth" that was flooded in Gen Gen 8:9 is linked contextually
to the "whole earth" which the three sons of Noah later populated (Gen 9:19);
and that "whole earth" is delineated in Gen 10 as extending across the entire
Near East, an area much greater than Mesopotamia.
6. As I said, the flood of 2900 BC cannot get an ark into the mountains of
Ararat because it did not extend that far, and was not that deep. Your
answer, "It is possible that Noah punted up the Tigris and washed out into
the foothills of Armenia. The yearlong flood could have stretched out over
two rainy seasons so that the flood had two or more stages." is so weak you
must wince when you say it. The ark is described as being 450 feet long, 150
feet wide, and 45 feet high; and you want two women and two men on each side
of the ark to put punting poles more than 60 feet long out the window in the
attic of the ark and punt this monster ship loaded with cargo up the Tigris
during a Flood with the water flowing against them!!!!! You've got to be
kidding. This is not to mention that the picture of the inhabitants of the
ark punting their way into Ararat is completely different from the
description given in the Bible of how the ark got there: rising with rising
water, and falling with falling water until it grounded. The biblical
description on this point does not at all match the phenomena of the flood of
2900 BC.
7. In spite of these radical differences, you want to make the flood of the
Bible a local flood by pointing out little problems like how the olive tree
was found by the dove or that there are Nephilim after the Flood. You ask,
"And the reason the olive tree survived a yearlong submersion was what again?
I missed your explanation for that."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sun May 18 2003 - 19:55:55 EDT