beachbum

I read someplace that the flood waters (Noah, the Ark and all that jazz) came from something other than rain. That god opened heaven and some other water, a shit load of it actually, came down. Unfortunately, the only water that god created in Genesis 1 was that that seperate from the land and was called seas. Which is right?

cloudyphiz

god created a firmament (dome). the waters were separated later into those below the dome (the sea) and those above it. to cause the flood, god opened doors in the firmament to let in the water that had been suspended above.

this is of course biblical cosmology, which is entirely different from revisionist cosmology, which is again entirely different from scientific cosmology.

there are a lot of sites that detail the genesis version of creation, but devnet's is one of the best.

emotional

Damn, I can't post anything here now! Everything I wanted to say has been taken

freemonkey

beachbum, this has always been my favorite explanation: "a fountain of water jetted supersonically into and far above the atmosphere", from this site.

Surf's up, dude!

Boshko

I think some also fountained from the depths supposedly...

ThomasA

Wouldn't any water "in the depths" be turned to steam due to the extreme heat in the lower crust and upper mantle?

copernicus

Beachbum, the flood waters appear to have come from the Mediterranean Sea, when it spilled over the Bosphorus. That would seem to account for the widespread stories of the great flood that predate biblical accounts. For example, fragmentary records of the flood myth from Sumerian accounts mentioned that the gods communicated with Ziusudra about the coming flood. Presumably, he built a boat. Anyway, Ziusudra was saved by the sun god Utu after 7 days and 7 nights. After sacrificing some animals on his boat, Ziusudra was granted immortality and transported to the island of "Dilmun".

The flood story, as told in the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, was elaborated on in more detail. Gilgamesh went in search of immortality, which he learned had been granted to the human Utnapishtim. It turns out that Utnapishtim had earned immortality from the gods because he had preserved all of those animals in his ark. It seems that Mr. Upanishtim had been informed by the earth god, Ea, that a flood was coming. Ea suggested that Mr. U build a boat to "take aboard the seed of all living things." Mr. U's boat was actually larger than Noah's--maybe because the Babylonians had a bigger concept of things than their Hebrew captives. The Gilgamesh record shows that Mr. U's ark had 226,000 square feet and was built in the shape of a cube. It had seven floors divided into nine compartments. The Babylonian tale had the ark coming to rest on Mount Nisir.

The biblical account of the flood was hardly unique, but neither were many other things in the Bible, which mercilously plagiarized from other religions. For example, did you know that it was quite common for every city and nation to have laws that were handed down from a deity to the local ruler? Where do you think Hammurabi got his laws from? A burning bush? Nah. He got them from Shamash, the local sun god. Shamash was actually hotter than a burning bush.

Here's another one. The first Semitic king in Mesopotamia was Sargon of Agade (2371-2316 BCE). (The Sumerians were conquered by the Semitic Arkkadians.) There is a wondrous birth-legend surrounding Sargon. It seems that his mother constructed a basket made of rushes and set him in it afloat in the Euphrates river. The infant Sargon was subsequently rescued and raised by the water carrier Akki. The goddess Ishtar then granted Sargon her love and promoted him to king. Sound familiar? Moses hadn't been born yet. There was a whole cottage industry of rush baskets for infants destined to become leaders back in ancient times.

[ October 31, 2001: Message edited by: copernicus ]

Megatron

I know this board is for more serious discussion but I can't help myself!

<grabs up some baskets, spray-paints the word "RUSH" on the side, grabs some buddies from the bar, and takes off for a vacation in the middle east>

I always wanted to be a king! I never knew it could be this easy!!

Stop the insanity

Don`t forget the hydroplate theory!
This nonsense theorizes that the Earths tectonic plates are floating on a layer of water. The plates put alot of pressure on this water and one day the water burst through the plates and flooded the planet.
The water was under so much pressure that it shot miles into the sky and rained down on the Earth.

The outer diameter of the Earth is now smaller than it used to be since all the water got squeezed out. And all that water that landed on the Earth (that should of course still be here now) was dried up by supernatural forces! WOW!!!
This theory has been around for a long time and makes occasional appearances on "Search for Noahs Ark" TV shows.

I suspect that this is what crazy old Ken Hamm (The world leader of the fundaMENTAList movement) is talking about when he says "Fountains of the deep opened up".
This kind of psuedo science is right up his alley.

This is just one of the many beautiful Mesopotamian myths that was ripped off and ruined by the writers and compilers of the OT.
(There are of course over 300 different flood myths around the globe,but the Sumerian account is without a doubt where the biblical account was taken.)

[ November 05, 2001: Message edited by: Stop the insanity ]

Echo

It's interesting to speculate on the subject of where the flood water came from, but to a creationist it is, of course, completely irrelevant.

The flood water could've rained out of Yahweh's ass for all they care.

And gone right back afterword.