Clivedurdle

Where did the writers of Genesis get their story from? Nicked it from the Greeks?

WishboneDawn

I'm thinking they both evolved from a common older myth?

GilgameshEnkidu

Probably the Sumerians, hence my name

GilgameshEnkidu

I'd like to know how the story of Babel is 100% accurate. (Off topic from the flood myths, I know)

Steviepinhead

So you think there was a local/regional (somewhere in the mid-east) flood ~30K years ago, that was extensive enough to wipe out all humans then living (because they hadn't spread enough). But we have no evidence of a genetic bottleneck for humanity limiting the number of ancestors to three-four couples at anything like that time (there is evidence of a bottleneck ~70K-90K, but the suggestion is that humans were reduced to a total population of ~10K people, not six-eight individuals).

I doubt there is any geological evidence of even a locally-extensive flood in the mid-east ~30K years ago (beyond annual flooding restricted to relatively-small portions of river drainages, like the Nile or the Euphrates). Since the events in the early Bible play out at least from Ur (in the Tigris-Euphrates drainage) to Egypt (in the Nile drainage), you're already talking about a wide and topographically-unlikly/impossible flood.

If the entire earth weren't covered, what was the need for Noah to board pairs of "all" the animals (even ones local to the Mid-East)? Several breeding pairs of the key domesticated species, along with seed/cuttings for the key plant species, might make some sense. But a local catastrophe will not cause a global extinction, and there would be no need to "Ark" the biosphere--as St. Helens has demonstrated, the biota will fill back in within a relatively few years from the surrounding, surviving plants, animals, etc. (And the Western American biota has survived far larger-scale eruptions, such as the Mazama event that left the Crater Lake hole in the ground and ash spread thickly across thousands of miles.) St. Helens isn't, of course, a workable scenario for a global disaster, but--since it does work for a regional one--why the need for the Ark at all?

And, of course, there are plenty of archaeological/paleontological finds indicating that modern humans were widely spread across the globe prior to ~30K years ago: Australia already by ~45K to 65K, for example; much of Africa as long ago as ~190-200K ago; much of Southern Europe by >30K ago, etc.

Your broader reading of the Biblical text certainly produces a superficially less-ridiculous flood scenario than the fundamentalist/literalist account. But unless and until you deal with all the above observational data--and probably a good many other things that haven't occurred to me--your account still fails to approach anything like a consilient explanation.

improvius

And why exactly is this thread in evo/creo?

TheBear

Look at this one!

Brand new member, under 10 posts, and comes out swinging, right out of the gate.

This has to do with the flood story of the bible, n00b. This story is a major component of the creationist model, (in case you didn't know).

ericmurphy

Actually, if you would read Improvius's devastating criticism's of AFDave's posts on rd.net and at AtBC, you would know that he is well aware of the deficiencies in the creationist model. But it really does seem like this thread would belong better in the Biblical Criticism forum. After all, it's really special creation that is at odds with the theory of evolution more than biblical literalism.

Calvin's Catarrh

Dust off your history of science text and you will find that western science began and florished under a return to Biblical principles ("Test all things and hold fast to that which is true.") brought about the reformation, as scientists sought to investigate God's book of general revelation, the record of nature. The scientific method is actually originally modelled after Genesis 1.

But the crux of your argument falls apart when you contrast the Bible against other "holy" texts which never have room to be consistent with what is true. The Bible by contrast is always originally true, depiste ways in which it might have been distorted by readers and translators. For example, the dimensions of the ark are completely tennable (and possibly optimal) under the basic engineering principles, if gopher wood has a tensile strength equivalent or greater to oak. By contrast the Sumerian flood myth features an ark with physically impossible dimensions.

Occam's Aftershave

Complete and utter hogwash. The largest wooden vessel ever built, the U.S.S. Wyoming at 329’, was over 100’ shorter than claimed for the Ark. Wood is such a (relatively) weak building material that it had to be reinforced with iron strapping to prevent hogging and sagging (warping of the hull due to wave/water forces) and collapsing under its own weight. Even then, the ship leaked like a sieve and was so unstable as to be unseaworthy in all but the calmest weather. Biblical literalists claim that a wooden boat even bigger with no bracing could withstand 1/2 mile high waves in the biggest storm ever seen.

Another problem is in the Ark's basic design. A large, flat-bottomed hull is probably the most unstable and unseaworthy one you could come up with. With no keel, no steering mechanism, and no propulsion source, in heavy seas such a ship would turn broadside to the waves and founder or capsize almost immediately.

If you were to put the Ark in seas as rough as described, the only question would be how many seconds it took to sink.