RE: [asa] Noah's local flood?

I had suggested recently, as I'm sure others have in the past, that one
purpose for having Noah stay in the area may have been his prophetic witness
and preaching of repentance to those around. Sure he could have left the
area like Lot left Sodom, but so could Jeremiah have left rather than being
cast into prison for his testimony, or Moses could have sneaked out of Egypt
with a handful of believers, leaving the rest to experience the judgment of
God in a Noahic fashion. That God chose various means for his covenant
people to act and testify shouldn't cause us to speculate on why he did it
that way. Not to mention the prophetic witness of Christ or of the end of
the world, which the New Testament writers make use of.

I have a little difficulty with the suggestion of being washed into the
Persian Gulf and blown back inland against the current of the delta of a
river. Seems more likely that the outflow wasn't very fast, as suggested in
Carol Hill's article, and a decent wind could have pushed him overland in a
flooded region so that he ended up in a backwater that eventually drained,
particularly if the horrendous rain was part of a regional hurricane with
high winds. It's not unreasonable, although Glenn's comment about the 6000
foot drop over a large area would have to be dealt with. Maybe he is
raising too high a hurdle to discredit a Mesopotamian flood in favor of his
own model, but it's something that should be considered whether it has
merit.

Jon Tandy

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of William Hamilton
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 9:26 AM
To: philtill@aol.com
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Noah's local flood?

I like Phil's summary. The part about the ark being washed into the Persian
Gulf and being blown eastward makes a lot of sense. One minor sticking point
of course is that if God knew that the flood was going to be local, why did
He have Noah load all the animals onboard the ark? Or as Bernie said, why
didn't he just tell Noah to walk out of the path of the flood (he had time
-- all the time he and his sons were building the ark)

-- 
William E (Bill) Hamilton Jr.
Rochester, MI/Austin, TX
248 821 8156
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