Kosh

Is it not funny how the knowledge limit of YHWH seems to match that of the Ignorant Bronze Age Goat Herder (tm) who created the story? :devil3:

Eldarion Lathria

The mountains of Ararat (that's what it says) are not even close to being the highest or second highest mountains on Earth. The Himalayas are the highest range, the Andes are the second highest. The mountains of Ararat were the highest known to the Sumerians and Babylonians. Just like an Akkadian IIRC king who ruled most of the Fertile Crescent called himself "King of the World" until the Egyptians kicked his ass.

The Hebrews and Canaanites (same people really) called the Jordan a 'great river' yet compared to say, the Ganges, Danube or Amazon, it's just a little desert stream.. A lot of things in the OT are played up, made to seem greater than they were. Jerusalem was not a 'great city', it was a little country town about the size of a Celtic Oppidum. 'Kings' are revealed by archeology to be shabby little shaykhs. 'Cities' turn out to be peasant villages. Mighty tribes turn out to be a few wandering goatherds.

Because it is written from a restricted point of view, and contains much wish fulfillment, (the post Exilic Jews wanted to remember Judah and Israel as mighty empires, not tributary states to Egypt, Tyre, and Assyria) the OT cannot be taken seriously as history.

Eldarion Lathria

Sensei Meela

You misspelled Joseph Campbell's name 5 times in the same paragraph.

And your 'every culture has flood mythology' excuse is pap; it doesn't escape that this culture had a mistaken conception of world geography, nor is it safe from cweb's inquiry -- where does the line of demarcation between myth and non-myth lie?

Yellum Notnef

Not only that but Campbell clearly states that Jesus' resurrection was mythology.

Apparently Metacrock only reads the parts he agrees with. What a surprise. :wave:

Dharma

:notworthy

now everyone repeat after me...Mt. Ararat in the middle east is the tallest mountain in the world because the Bible says so and the "one God of Israel" can never get his geography wrong!... :Cheeky:

say it a thousand times and you will BELIEVE...ye, non-believers!

:rolling: :rolling:

Dharma

Are you implying the unthinkable? That the Israelites are as chosen as Mt. Ararat is the highest mountain on earth?

leccy

Far be it for me to support the story of the Noachian flood but if you are going to be intellectually rigorous in your examination of the story then you have to recognise that it isn;t actually claimed that Mt Ararat is the highest mountain.

The chronology given in the story is that, after the rains abated, on the 17th day of the 7th month Noah's Ark came to rest on the Mountains of Ararat and from that time the waters receded, with the mountain tops eventually becoming emergent at a later date. This suggests that the boat had run aground at some stage before the local mountain tops were visible. Given the flight and return range of a raven then it would be unreasonable to expect it to find an olive branch located in either the Himalayas or Andes and have the homing instinct to return to the Ark with it.

Later on, when the story claims the mountain tops emerged, presumably that means only those mountain tops that would have been within the two-way operating range of the available ravens and doves. That tale is internally consistent with the Ark either having not traversed the globe or not having intersected higher mountains in the meantime. It's not proof that the story is true but it makes you wonder why we still have ravens though- since Noah apparently sent at least one of the pair to it's watery death.

Of course the whole thing is made up and debating which parts are more true than others is akin to arguing whether Ewoks are better fighters than Gungans, but it's "a bit off" to make assertions about claims that aren't actually in the story.

Dharma

Incorrect. The bible states the entire earth was submerged. Then it goes on to say that 1) Ark landed on Ararat
2) mountain tops of Ararat became visible
3) sent a dove and BECAUSE THE ENTIRE EARTH WAS STILL SUBMERGED, this dove returned.

The Bible states quite explicitly that the dove did return because THE ENTIRE EARTH WAS STILL SUBMERGED IN WATER, thus implying that Ararat was the highest mountain range.

Chili

My interest here is to prove the mythical interpretation in a rational way. Here I show that if the flood is myth Mt. Ararat becomes real in the myth as the highest mountain where dry land was found first, at last.

It is obvious from geography that the literal interpretaion of the flood is wrong so I am offering a different perspective that holds water.

Looking for converts is a protestant ideal but if bandwith costs too much to have me here I'll be happy to leave.

Dharma

oh Ho! A converter! I love evangelists...I convert evangelists ... now you say that it is a myth...but then the only reason Europe was converted to this stuff was because they said, the jewish stories are not myth, but true...that is why pagans were called pagan, because they believed in "myths"...

so are you saying that this conversion was a mistake, because then if the Bible is a myth, that makes Jews pagan, and if Jews are pagan, how is this better than the religion you had before the bible came along? In other words, did you strike fools gold by abandoning your own ancestors?