RE: [asa] Noah's Ark- the debate over floods... and biblical interpretation

Hi Bernie, you wrote:

" . to allow the water level to rise thousands of feet ."

Thousands of feet? Where's your chapter and verse on that? The Hebrew word
for mountains and hills is the same. So the hills were covered by "fifteen
cubits," that would be roughly twenty-three feet of water probably a little
out of reach of their punting poles which is likely where they estimated the
depth.

Dick Fischer, GPA president

Genesis Proclaimed Association

"Finding Harmony in Bible, Science and History"

www.genesisproclaimed.org

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Dehler, Bernie
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 11:58 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: RE: [asa] Noah's Ark- the debate over floods... and biblical
interpretation

Phil said:
""The water would run out too fast." This is a dead argument. The Hills
showed using standard hydrology equations (in PSCF) that continual rainfall
in the mountains around the basin can overcome this problem. "

Isn't the area nicely drained by rivers? How could those rivers be
dammed-up? They'd have to be dammed-up good to allow the water level to
rise thousands of feet and stay that high for many months. So you are
suggesting heavy rains for 24 hours non-stop? I don't see how even a river
could fail to drain that. and would this heavy rain be just over the local
area or across the whole world? If it is raining that much locally, may as
well rain that much all over the world making a global flood as well.

.Bernie

  _____

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of philtill@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 2:42 PM
To: wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Noah's Ark- the debate over floods... and biblical
interpretation

Arguments against an historical, local flood, and my responses:

1. "The water would run out too fast." This is a dead argument. The Hills
showed using standard hydrology equations (in PSCF) that continual rainfall
in the mountains around the basin can overcome this problem. Also, a wind
blowing off the Persian Gulf could keep the water in place indefinitely.

2. "Inadequate sediment layer." But that's only a problem if you are
looking for a basin-wide flood. There were many riverine floods, and the
account could be talking about one of those, and they did leave sediment
layers commensurate with their scale. Plus,if a basin-wide flood was
maintained by mountain rainfall (as the Hill's conjectured), then there
would be continual downhill flow and there would not be such a big sediment
layer due to the continual erosion as there would have been had the water
been stagnant for that many months. Wind would have a similar effect, since
on the surface water would be flowing uphill due to the wind's shear stress
and the waves, and deeper down the water would be continually flowing
downhill under gravity, preventing accumulation of sediments.

3. "The account is a combination of multiple sources, and so may have
incorporated the memory of more than one flood." But it also may have
incorporated multiple sources that had been inspired by the same riverine
flood, and so it still may be describing a single, historical event.
Multiple sources is no reason to reject an historical event.

4. "The account describes a global flood, not a local one, and that can't
be historical." But the account we have now was not originally written in
the same Hebrew we find it in today, and its language may have been inflated
as a result of the long transmission. Indeed, cultural pressure would tend
to inflate it. Famous stories like the Flood have the propensity to make
the language and not just v.v.. If the text came originally from
Mesopotamia from a real flood dating some 2900 BC, then it was handed down
and redacted for thousands of years. Even if Moses was one such redactor
and inspired, yet he was not the last redactor, and the text was translated
into more modern Hebrew over a period of some 1200 years since his time
before we get to the first extant manuscript.

I don't think any of these are the real reason to question if it was an
historical event. I think the real reason is that we may feel it just isn't
feasible to have occurred; that it's more likely to have been a fabrication
than real. That is a personal judgement or a literary one, and IMO not
subject to verification or falsification.

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Wallace <wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com>
To: Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>
Cc: ASA <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 8:59 am
Subject: Re: [asa] Noah's Ark- the debate over floods... and biblical
interpretation

Dick
 
As best I recall Glenn raised two issues against a Mesopotamian flood, when
we discussed this a few years ago:
 
1. The land slopes into the Persian Gulf, so that water would drain off the
land fairly quickly
 
2. The lack of a sedimentation layer that should result from a flood a year
long, especially with all the debris from a civilization, animals, plants
etc.
 
Now I would like there to be a historical basis underlying the story in
Genesis and would be willing to grant that God might have performed a
miracle to dam up the waters. Such an act would be part of a sign to the
people. However, the lack of a sedimentation layer seems fatal as having a
miracle to prevent sedimentation would be somewhat like an appearance of age
scenario in creation, in that God would not appear to be trustworthy and
that is something I would be unwilling to posit. Also having a sedimentation
layer would appear desirable from the point of view of providing an
indication of the truth of the story down through the ages.
 
Dave W
 
 
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.

  _____

New
<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1219939010x1201342897/aol?redir=htt
p:%2F%2Fad.doubleclick.net%2Fclk%3B213771626%3B35379597%3Bw> Deals on Dell
Netbooks - Now starting at $299

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Thu Apr 9 15:05:41 2009