JayW

I didn't ignore. You just didn't see it,or ignored what I wrote. I'll do it again. The Hebrews who wrote the Bible did not invent a flood story. They borrowed the story from more ancient Sumerian flood stories. Regardless of whether or not the Hebrews were familiar with the world,the writers of the original flood stories were not. The flood story has nothing to do with what the Bible writers knew. Maybe that's confusing to some,but the Bible writers did not write about flood that took place after they got to canaan. They wrote about a flood they knew about from oral tradition. It did not cover the world. It did not cover the Fayum. It did not cover Anatolia. It did not cover Canaan. It did not cover Canada. Localized means local not global. The world to the people who originally wrote the flood story was Mesopotamia. The flood took place there, not in Mexico. There are at least three tales of the flood other than the Bible and all of them are older than the Bible. I don't understand why you would think that a flood in mesopotamia would have anything to do with hebrews that had been to Egypt. There is no evidence of a major flood in Egypt simply because there was no flood there. There's no evidence of a major flood in Anatolia simply because it didn't flood there. You keep going back to Egypt trying to trace the Hebrews roots.Their not there.There in Mesopotamia where the flood took place.

Withered

Incorrect. The bible does make the claim that the flood was global. The text is clear about that.

It is only your interpretation of that text that would seem to indicate that flood was not global.

I agree with you one hundred percent. It is likely there was a flood. But this thread is about what the bible claims, not what you think it claims.

You plainly stated, as quoted in my opening post, that there has never been anything to prove the bible wrong.

You did not say that there has never been anything that proves your interpretation of the bible wrong.
Again, you are confusing your interpretation of the bible with the actual text.
The point is to discuss which claims in the bible are directly and clearly contradicted by evidence.
This is in direct contradiction to what the bible actually says. If you feel that there is some textual support in the bible that indicates the flood was not global, could you please provide it? Otherwise you continue to perform the same act over and over again expecting different results.
I for one do not dispute this concept.
It is reasonable to think that a flood could take place that could wipe out all but a few folks in some small community.
But that is not what the bible claims. So it is pretty pointless in this discussion.
If you would like, we can start a thread, you and i. Something along the lines of: There has never been any evidence that discounts JayW's interpretation of the things JayW read in the bible.
So, you are saying that since people at the time had no idea what the earth was really like, they created stories and descriptions to help them explain things beyond their understanding?

Excellent! That means that when we run into something in the bible that contradicts what we know about reality or science, or history, or the like, it is a good bet that the ancient authors were probably filling in gaps in their knowledge with creative, culturally relevant fables, myths, and outright lies.

Armed with that knowledge, let's look at the entire bible again, shall we?
Would you mind posting a citation for this sort of thing. It seems like the sort of thing i might like to read up on, for no other reason than to learn about hebrews.

Citations are good, and in fact, i think Reniaa is just about to post some to support claims she made earlier. For a really good example of how to really knock 'em dead, see post #75.

makerowner

JayW, I find your attitude very curious. I can understand the fundamentalist who "sticks to his guns" and insists that everything in the Bible is literally true and any evidence to the contrary is just planted by the devil to fool people. It's a stupid attitude, but I understand it. Your attitude, however, seems to be that the Bible is true, except where it isn't, in which case it means something different than what it says. I don't understand that attitude. Why not just admit that the Bible gets some stuff wrong?
The ridiculousness of the claim in the OP is perfectly illustrated by the Creation in Genesis. Geology, paleontology, and archeology all prove that the Earth is considerably older than even the most charitable interpretation of Genesis can account for. Ergo, your claim fails.

deadman_932

So WHEN did this flood occur in Mesopotamia, and why does the Bible claim it was global? We can argue the meaning of "ha-eretz" all day long, but the fact is that the Bible makes claims about ALL bad men being destroyed, not SOME...and that ALL the living things on the face of the lands God created were destroyed except Noah and his shipload. If this is not TRUE, then that makes the Bible claims false. You can't have it both ways.

Gullwind

Hey! You just answered the OP!

JayW, take the evidence that convinced you that the flood story predates the bible, and there you have what you claimed didn't exist - evidence that discounts a biblical event.

The bible plainly describes a global flood - the entire face of the earth, all the high mountains, killing every living creature. These are not terms used to describe a local flood. Since you do not accept a global flood, the evidence that convinced you of that is precisely what you claimed didn't exist.

JayW

Maybe you missed the part where i said that some of the details being exaggerated doesn't make the event false.

NIPPUR TABLET

...a flood will sweep over the cult centers;
To destroy the seed of mankind...
Is the decision, the word of the assembly of the gods.
By the word commanded by An and Enlil...

All the windstorms, exceedingly powerful, attacked as one,
At the same time, the flood sweeps over the cult centers.

After, for seven days and seven nights,
The flood had swept over the land,
And the huge boat had been tossed about by the windstorms on the great waters,
Utu came forth, who sheds light on heaven and earth,
Ziusudra opened a window on the huge boat,
The hero Utu brought his rays into the giant boat.

- Sumerian clay tablet, late 17th century BC



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE STORY OF ATRAHASIS

Enki made his voice heard...
Dismantle the house, build a boat
Reject possessions, and save living things.
The boat that you build...
Make upper and lower decks.
The tackle must be very strong,
The bitumen strong, to give it strength
I shall make rain fall on you here.

The Flood roared like a bull,
Like a wild ass screaming the winds
The darkness was total, there was no sun...
For seven days and seven nights
The torrent, storm and flood came on..

- Akkadian, ca. 1640 BC

EPIC OF GILGAMESH

For six days and seven nights
The wind blew, flood and tempest overwhelmed the land;
When the seventh day arrived the tempest, flood and onslaught
Which had struggled like a woman in labor, blew themselves out.
The sea became calm, the imhullu-wind grew quiet, the flood held back.
I looked at the weather; silence reigned,
For all mankind had returned to clay...

I opened a porthole and light fell upon my cheeks..
Areas of land were emerging everywhere
The boat had come to rest on Mount Nimush.

- Assyrian version, 7th century BC


Gilgamesh XI
Sumerian Flood story
http://www.theoldpath.com/sumerflood.htm

The flood happened. It did not happen exctly as the Bible says. It did not happen exactly as the Sumerians said. It did not happen exactly as the Assyrians said but it happened. There is archeological evidence that it happened. It did not flood Egypt, or Anotolia, or Russia. It did not flood Iran. It flooded the Tigres Euphrates valley in Mesopotamia. Archeologists agree that it did. None of them have ever said that it flooded
anything outside the valley. Your lack of evidence for a flood in Egypt is safe. The Biblical claims of how the flood happened is false. The Biblicl claim that a flood happened is not false. To recap my claims. There hs never been any evidence that any Biblical event is false. That's Biblical event, not Biblical details of an event.

Withered

Genesis says that god created heaven and earth, and everything in it, all life included. Genesis also claims that god destroyed everything living on earth (excepting Noah's crew of course). How can a christian reconcile on belief and excuse the other.

On what authority does a christian get to decide to accept one story as having been inspired by previously existing cultures, while remaining faithful to another that flies in the face of established fact.

Is it simply due to the fact that since science has absolutely disproven a global flood? That tale is forced to become an inspired tale, meant to be interpreted as an acount of a much smaller, less miraculous, local event.

However, cosmology and the origin of life are considered nebulous, thus providing a gap through which a christian can reach and pull out a justification for holding onto a seriously antiquated and unsupported mythology/paradigm.

Is that how it works? Because i am confused how to tell the difference.
Is this really going to devolve into a god of the gaps discussion, rather than an excellent chance for christian theists to show off their divinely inspired holy text?

Gullwind

JayW - did this happen the way the bible describes? Yes or no, please.

deadman_932

Wow...So...the "event" happened...but not as the Bible said it did...so the Bible is not wrong? But it is? How on Earth do you contort your brain to handle that kind of cognitive dissonance?

IF you claim it was local, why would anyone need an Ark in mesopotamia? The Zagros mountains are right nearby...you could WALK there in the alloted time.

If the Flood were local, why did God send the animals to the Ark to escape death? There would have been other animals to reproduce those local ones even if they had all died.

If the Flood were local, people who did not live in Mesopotamia it would not have been affected by it -- this contradicts the Bible, too, concerning God’s judgment on the sins of ALL Mankind .

If the Flood were local, how could the waters rise to 15 cubits above the mountains (Gen. 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. It could not rise to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world untouched. Hell, it would drain away following the Tigris-Euphrates outlets to the Sea. So...why not walk to the Zagros? Why an Ark?

You have some real problems here, JayW...and I don't care if you say you're referring to some earlier Myth...the Bible makes some very direct claims.
"Every living thing" (Heb. kol chai), is again used in the Flood account (Gen. 6:19, 8:1,17) Not "some living things."
"Upon the face of all the Earth" (Gen. 7:3, 8:9) is used...also
"Under the whole heaven"’ (Gen. 7:19)

makerowner

So how do we determine whether something in the Bible is an 'event' or a 'detail'? Cause so far it looks like your only criterion is whether science confirms it or not.