rlogan

Hi Magus. I do have a question, and I realize that you are contending with many.

I think you are a literalist. Is that so? (I'm relatively new here).

If so, I'm wondering - why is it important to be a literalist?

There are a couple of different levels here. One involves translation variations, cultural context of words and such. That is, taking KJV (for example) as "literal" runs a few risks for these reasons.

But at another level even Jesus spoke in parables and could it not also be so that prophets did this?

I don't mean this out of an unkind spirit, Magus - and I'm not going to argue about it. I just want to know.

Tod

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Magus55
What translation are you using? KJV doesn't say what you just posted.

Did I claim I quoted the KJV? My original quote was from the New Jerusalem. What makes you think I'd cite an inferior piece of manure like the King James translation? It may be popular among the fundamentalists, but scholars don't think it is in the top picks of most accurate translations.

KJV:


Psa 104:7 At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away.

Psa 104:8 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.

Psa 104:9 Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.

Thanks, I already provided the KJV translation in the list I provided earlier.

Other translations however, refer to 104:8 meaning the mountains rose and the valleys sank. The meaning depends on what translation you are referring to.

Well pray tell, which is the "inspired" version?

I see it has went from "No where in Psalms 104:8-9 does it say the waters flowed over the mountains" to "the meaning depends on what translation you are referring to" in just two posts.

NLT:

Mountains rose and valleys sank

to the levels you decreed.

NASB:

The mountains rose; the valleys sank down To the place which You established for them.

RSV:

The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place which thou didst appoint for them.

ASV:

(The mountains rose, the valleys sank down) Unto the place which thou hadst founded for them.

HNV:

The mountains rose, The valleys sank down, To the place which you had assigned to them.

Well I provided eight translations that support the notion of water traveling over mountains and you provide five that claim the mountains were raised and the valleys sank. First of all, I have to again ask, since obviously both interpretations can't be correct, which translation is the "inerrant" interpretation, and which is the errant one?

I must admit I'm not sure what three of these versions are. I'm not familiar with the HNV, ASV, or NLT at a glance.

However, it seems that the majority of translations, and certainly the more popular translations, translate this verse to mean that water is moving across mountains. Don't you think it is a bit disingenious at best and deceptive at worst on your part to act as if the verse says no such thing based on the fact that a little searching turns up an alternate translation? Are you just going to act as if the majority of translations a person is likely to have at his/her disposal will translate it to speak of water moving on mountains and not of mountains raising?

So to the fact of what seems more likely. First of all, by vote among those that translate the various versions of the Bible, your interpretation is not the correct one. Most disagree...

Secondly, this majority opinion that opposes you dates back to an awful long time ago. The Septuagint speaks of water moving on mountains, NOT mountains raising, and it was written, what, almost 2 centuries before Jesus?

Thirdly, a literal translation of the Hebrew, as pointed out from the Hebrew-English Interlinear, speaks of water flowing over mountains.

Lastly, and most importantly, the context indicates that the more common translation is correct.

...you covered it with the deep like a garment, the waters overtopping the mountains. At your reproof the waters fled, at the voice of your thunder they sped away, [...], to the place you had fixed for them; you made a limit they were not to cross, they were not to return and cover the earth.

Fill in [...] with either alternate interpretation. The verse immediately prior to it says "the waters fled...they sped away," which clearly indicates movement by the water. Immediately after the verse in question it says "to the place," indicating a destination had been reached. Moving water reached its destination. A verse that says "flowing over mountains, down valleys," right there in between fits perfectly. The speeding water flows over mountains and down valleys on its way "to the place," its destination. To stick "mountains rose, valleys sunk down" in the middle interrupts the flow of the context. It doesn't fit well.

If we stick "mountains rose, valleys sunk down" in the narrative, the "to the place you had fixed for them" suddenly becomes a reference to the mountains and the valleys, and not the "waters." It becomes: "...mountains rose, valleys sunk down to the place you had fixed for them." These changes the antecedent from the "waters" to the "mountains" and "valleys." The final verse says: "you made a limit they were not to cross, they were not to return and cover the earth." So what does "they" refer to? The last antecedent was "mountains" and "valleys," but clearly "they" refers to the "waters" since it says "they were not to return and cover the earth." It appears to be speaking of the "waters" when it says "they."

Again, this makes sense if the common translation is used. If that is the case, then the water is always the main subject, always the antecedent, and everything flows together. This alternate interpretation you use muddies the waters a bit.

At any rate, it seems that you base your entire case for the Bible even claiming that YHWH raised the mountains and lowered the valleys to account for descrepancies between the flood story and modern mountain heights on this ONE verse. Considering that most translations don't word it the way you need it, it seems your case is a very, very weak one to begin with. Basing your entire case for this point on a verse that has been translated in two ways that give it two utterly different meanings (and your interpretation is the minority one!) doesn't give you much of a case.

Also, as pointed out, it is a bit misleading to act as if it is just a given that this verse says what you claim it does, and to outright deny that it says what many, including the most popular, translations say that it says.

Biff the unclean

Horrendous Nonsense Version
Absolute Shite Version
and the Not Likely True version

Worldtraveller

I love saying that when I'm defending silly myths taken literally.

But to try to do the unthinkable, and get this thread back on topic...

The original premise was built on the mathematical number crunching of figuring out how much food the animals that were suposedly put on the ark would eat over the course of a year.

So, I have a hypothesis: (Note the use of the scientific method here)
Noah was much smarter than we all give him credit for. If even some of the time frames told of in the bible are taken literally, (i.e., he really did have ~100 years to build/prepare the ark) then maybe he built a large floating biosphere? Eh...it could happen!! It wasn't that he had to build an ark big enough to carry all the animals PLUS thier food. He made a functioning mini ecosystem (ever been to Biosphere two, just outside Tucson, AZ?). This eliminates the problem with of waste too....it's all recycled. The predators could eat some of the smaller animals as they bread...well...like rabbits. And the rabbits/mice, etc. would eat all of the grass/trees/whatnot.

Hey, it could happen!

Ok, now remember, this is a hypothesis....the next step is to tear it apart via peer review...so have at it guys!

Cheers,
Lane

rlogan

It was nice of you to suggest bringing it back on point. But too, I have really enjoyed the ancillary discussions that developed from there. The water. The structural engineering. The plants. Ventilation. The waste and other husbandry questions. The absurdity has been delicious entertainment and it is so overwhelming that it has brought some questions to mind that I didn't anticipate before.

- Such as why it would be told in the first place.

So I haven't minded the hijacks, as it were, if the moderators feel we're being reasonable. I don't have any special claim as thread starter. Just don't get us bounced into elsewhere...

Oolon Colluphid

Magus? Any chance of you answering my question, echoed by others:

Why does Genesis have to be literal?

Also, perhaps you could define ‘kind’ please? There are a number of reasons, but the crucial one -- directly related to the original topic -- is that, in order to see whether all the critters could fit on the ark (you think they could, with whatever miracles required; we have doubts on it, yeah?), we need to know how many pairs of animals there were, and hence, how many pairs of kinds.

Pending your answer, here’s something else to think about. Please follow this through with me.

1. There are at least two million species on earth now, with estimates of up to 20 million.

2. We know that many are the same kind, so the number of kinds on the ark was smaller than that. So, what number?

3. There are around 4,000 mammal species alone. Now, that’s a lot less than the minimum 2 million (1,996,000 less, in fact; it’s just 0.2%). Should we be including extinct kinds too? How about we use that number, just as a starting point?

4. Suppose that each kind, on average, requires just five minutes of care a day. That’s for everything, as required: feeding, watering, mucking out, exercise (remember good ol’ deep vein thrombosis?), changing bedding, whatever. Many might require a lot less... but many would require heaps more. Five minutes a reasonable average?

5. Now, there was Noah, wife, three sons and their wives. Eight people. Call it ten to make the maths easier and to be more generous (God could miracle a couple of extra workers... or maybe the Australopithecines helped out).

6. 4,000 species @ 5 minutes a day = 20,000 minutes care a day; divided by 10 people gives 2,000 person-minutes a day. That is, each person needed to look after the animals for 2,000 minutes a day.

7. Remember that that’s just 35 minutes, or just over half an hour, for each kind, per week. Now, in my experience with hamsters -- not the biggest nor most difficult to care for animals -- you’d be pushed to do a week’s worth of care in half an hour. It’s not just ‘run past the cage and throw food at them’; you’ve got to collect the food from storage and discard the old leftovers -- actually take them away somewhere -- for a start as well, not to mention preparing the food. Fresh water each day -- they’re messy buggers, and will get food in their water bowls (assuming Noah lacked plastic bottles with metal ballbearing spouts!). And you need to clean them out thoroughly a minimum of once a week, lest they get ‘wet tail’ -- they’ll have been weeing in one corner, remember, and there’s no disinfectant sprays nor plastic cage bottoms to rinse out, so it’ll be a scrubbing brush and water. And don’t forget your simple travelling time back and forth between enclosures in a vast, rock-n-rolling ark.

And that’s hamsters. Not giraffes, nor hippos, nor fossas, lions, buffalo nor wolves; nor, presumably, baluchitheriums, sauropods, mesonychids, velociraptors and Australopithecines.

Surely half an hour a week is borderline ludicrous, no matter if many of the kinds are hibernating. Unless the entire lot went into magical sleep, the somnambulant several hundred would merely offset the hour or two hours needed for the others. Or did the elephants and eagles hibernate?

8. So, how long is 2,000 minutes? Divide it by 60 to get the nunmber of hours.

9. The answer is 33 hours. A day. Non-stop. Not including maintaining the ark itself, nor organising rotas nor simple communication, nor eating, sleeping, weeing and pooing -- you know, living.

Can you see a way around this, Magus?

No, don’t tell me, God just miracled the lot. Funny how the Babble doesn’t mention these wondrous miracles though, isn’t it? It makes the whole thing -- building a ship, its dimensions, the gathering of the animals and so forth -- sound like Noah himself did it. If that’s not the case, why didn’t God just miracle the ark for them?

Please, please, PLEASE: tell us why it has to be literally true?!

TTFN, Oolon

premjan

I think the literal truth of the bible is one of the few selling points of christianity in modern times. hence to sacrifice that is for christianity to lose importance entirely.

Oolon Colluphid

Or let's come at it the other way...

Suppose Noah and crew could work 16 hour days non-stop on just animal care. An hour a day for all food and every other thing they’d need to do, leaves them a half-decent night’s sleep, which they’d need for a sixteen hour work day.

Suppose that a kind requires just a single minute a day of care. Seven minutes a week, all in, for everything.

16 hours x 10 people x 60 minutes per hour = 9,600 minutes.

So 9,600 kinds as the maximum number of ‘kinds’ on the ark.

Now, we presently have about 2,000,000 (at least) species on earth.

How much subsequent 'microevolution' is that?

It roughly means that on average, each kind on the ark has since diversified into 200 separate species. In, what...? Oh, you've not said when the flood was. Well, let's stick to biblical literality then, and call it 4,500 years.

Do you accept this, Magus? Why is this microevolution so much faster and more potent than any we can see today?

TTFN, Oolon

rmadison

[fundie prolepsis]

Time was different back then.

This is due to the close nature of the creation event, and is interpreted by most biblical scholars as leftover effects from the "length of a day" phenomena. Most people are familiar with the effects of this in regards to the six "Days" of creation. Although it was six "Days" back then, during that intense time/space warp in which everything was created, it doesn't correspond to six "days" by current standards. The Biblical Scholars (B.S.) group has estimated that a "day" back then would correspond to anywhere from 750,000,000 years, to 24 hours by todays standards.

This "length of a day" (L.O.A.D) phenomena; think of it as your "background radiation", which your so called "science" has so much faith in, is what allowed men to reach such extreme ages. That's why it was possible for Noah to start construction of the ark at 600 years old.

It is also what allowed entire mountain ranges to spring up, seas to dry up, and sediment to pile up, giving the appearance, by todays standards, that these events took a great amount of time.

Evilutionists/Atheists continually ignore the L.O.A.D phenomena, despite the fact that their 2nd most worshipped scientist, Albert Einstein (A decent, god fearing man by the way), has conclusively proven, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that time is not, indeed, cannot be, constant.

The Creationist Research And Proselytizing (C.R.A.P) organization has done extensive thought experiments into these matters.

I suggest you look for more information on the L.O.A.D (of C.R.A.P and B.S.) phenomena which is pretty easy to find.

[/fundie prolepsis]

HerodionRomulus

Only because these trivial issues have been blown out of proportion. It is sooooo much easier to get the flock to excited and hyped up over this and other non-essentials than it is to get believers to actually do the things they are supposed to do: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners, care for the elderly, defend the powerless, support the marginalized, help the hopeless, helpless and hapless etc etc

When's the last time you heard Falwell, Phelps, Dobson and Co. preach on the evils of poverty, oppression, on the need to create a society of justice and good, to DO something about the 1 billion+ humans who are without reliable source of potable water and shelter and adequate nutrition?