Julian

I see. Thank you for answering.

If you are interested, I suggest that you start a thread down in Evolution/Creationism regarding the views you just posted here. That forum is teeming with PhDs who know a great deal about this issue and might be able to clarify the available evidence.

Julian

John Kesler

The author of Hebrews believed that the flood was a real event. After mentioning Abel and Enoch as examples of men of great faith, he said this in verse 7:

Likewise the author of 2 Peter believed the flood to be historical. In chapter 2, sandwiched between the stories of the rebellious angels and Sodom and Gomorrah, both clearly believed to be actual events, the author stated in verse five that, "[God] did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly."

The most important issue, though, is what Jesus believed, and Matthew 24:37-38 (and Luke 17:26-27) give no indication that Jesus thought the flood was anything but an actual event.

Chili

I never thought that there ever was a Catholic alive who believed what they teach.

The flood is a beatiful metaphor to describe prevailing mood that surrounds metamorphosis that only an ark builder can survive.

If he had known
unstructured space is a deluge
and stocked his life house-boat
with all of the animals . . . even the wolves
he might have floated.

But obstinate he stated:
the land is solid and stamped
wathing his foot sink down
through stone
up to his knee.

Knife

Thanks John. I will check out the links.

Clivedurdle

Well this early xian definitely believed in the flood!

(Is Jesus a Christian?)

Jesus said it - must be true - flood happened!

Clivedurdle

May I recommend The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius Who Discovered a New History of the Earth (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Alan Cutler

Amazon US has a link to a major review by a catholic.

It is about Steno.

judge

Hmm..I had actually seen the author of 2 peter as not beleiving in a literal deluge.

He writes the that world was formed out of water. With Joseph Campbell I would agree that this indicates the author saw it in mythological terms rather than literal terms.

According to Campbell the idea of a world being formed out of water and returning to water has a deep mythological association and meaning.

Literally it makes no sense.

The author understands that this story is a MYTH, with a mythological meaning and use, rather than a literal story.

It is only because we live in an era obsessed with literalism that we see this to indicate literalism.

A person steeped in mythology might not see this the same.

Anat

Spitfire, one reason a worldwide flood couldn't have happened was that there isn't enough water in the world to cover the mountains. Even if all glaciers and icecaps melt the rise in sea level won't submerge much of the land area. But if you believe in a God that can turn rocks into water as in Psalm 114 that won't be a hindrance to you.

OTOH I don't see why you should take accounts of wide flooding from many different cultures to mean the whole land area of earth was submerged at one time. These stories come from cultures that were not aware of the geography of the whole earth. If all the important areas of one's cultural world are flooded then a person living there would consider it a worldwide flood. If events like the Tsunami of December 2004 or Hurricane Katrina had happened in a place without modern communications and whole villages (often located in low lying areas) were flooded the survivors, having had to flee into unsettled areas in hills, would have considered it a worldwide flood (or almost so, and the story would get exaggerated over generations of oral transmission). And I don't think there is positive evidence that dates the various stories to the same time.

The Bible itself contains the story of Lot and his daughters - they were fleeing a local event, but hiding in their cave they came to think they were the only surviving humans. Why do you think this cannot be what had happened during various local floods and other disasters over the world?

judge

But Jesus does not necessarily see this a literal.

If Jesus saw this as mythological, and I think he did, then he would say the same things that he said here.

Ben C Smith

Interesting bit of trivia. It appears to me that Josephus thought of the flood as local, not global. Antiquities 1.3.6:

Now all the writers of barbarian histories make mention of this flood, and of this ark, among whom is Berosus the Chaldean. For when he is describing the circumstances of the flood he goes on thus: It is said there is still some part of this ship in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans, and that some people carry off pieces of the bitumen, which they take away, and use chiefly as amulets for the averting of mischiefs. Hieronymus the Egyptian also, who wrote the Phoenician Antiquities, and Mnaseas, and a great many more, make mention of the same. Nicolaus of Damascus, in his ninety-sixth book, has a particular relation about them where he speaks thus: There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that many who fled at the time of the deluge were saved, and that one who was carried in an ark came on shore upon the top of it, and that the remains of the timber were a great while preserved. This might be the man about whom Moses the legislator of the Jews wrote.

Antiquities 1.4.1:

Now the sons of Noah were three, Shem, Japhet, and Ham, born one hundred years before the deluge. These first of all descended from the mountains into the plains and fixed their habitation there, and they persuaded others who were greatly afraid of the lower grounds on account of the flood, and so were very loath to come down from the higher places, to venture to follow their examples.

From these passages it appears that Josephus imagined, in accordance with the (now lost) work of Nicolaus of Damascus, that the flood left survivors (besides the arkriders) on high ground.

Ben.