cajela

I think you've misheard 60 as 16...

The usual date for our Aboriginal prehistory is 40,000 years; but there have been some more recent discoveries that tentatively date that back as far as 60,000. Certainly no-one would go as recent as 16,000.

BTW, a snippet on the flood - I read recently that the word used for covering "all the land" is the same word - eretz - that is used to describe a single country. So, for instance, when god tells Abraham to leave the country, he just goes to Egypt, not to outer space... In other words, a local flood is perfectly reconcilable with even quite strong literalism. I'm not sure how accurate this is; I'm no biblical scholar, but lots of people here are, so they will correct me if I'm wrong

John Kesler

This is a favorite argument of the local-flood proponents, but context, as usual, is key. The same word is used in Genesis 1:1 which speaks of the creation of "the heaven and the earth." See this thread for evidence that the Genesis author(s) wrote about a global flood.

Tristan Scott

I think it's pretty clear that the Adam and Eve story was an allegory written to demonstrate the relationship between man and God.

I think the flood story is simply a retelling of the flood story in the Babylonian epic The Gilgamesh.

GrandpaMithras

Good luck! Science is much more capable of explaining the world than ancient mythology. Question everything and have no assumptions about the past or how the world works, that's my advice to you.

John Kesler

It appears, though, that early biblical and extrabiblical authors intrepreted the A & E story literally:
Genesis 5, 1 Chronicles 1, and Luke 3 give genealogies which include Adam, with no indication that he is anything but an actual, historical person. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul calls Adam "the first man." Genesis 3 refers to Eve as "the mother of all living." Romans 5 claims that because of Adam, "sin entered the world." 1 Timothy 2's justification for the subjective role of women seems to take for granted the historicity of the A & E story. The apocryphal book of Tobit, chapter 8, and Josephus likewise believed A & E to be historical, as did other early Jewish authors.

Asha'man

Hiya Malfunc, and welcome to II :wave:
Your views are just a few years out of date. It was once assumed that the OT did have a great deal of historical value, but that value has been shrinking continuously for quite some time.

You might be interested in reading the book The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein and Silberman. They are professional archaeologists who have done extensive work in Israel.

Essentially, huge portions of the OT may have been written to appear historical, but are actually purely mythological. We already know, scientifically, that the creation and flood stories from Genesis are pure fiction.

But the archaeological evidence also shows that Abraham's migration, the Egyptian captivity, the 10 plagues of Moses, the Exodus across the desert, and the subsequent conquest of Canaan simply never happened. The time of the Judges is also likely fictional, and the vast unified Kingdoms of David and Solomon never existed (though it's possible that David existed as a hilltop chieftain).

Only once you get into the divided kingdom period of history, where the bible traces the line of kings for Israel and Judah separately, does real history begin to appear in the stories. The Assyrian conquest of Judah and the Babylonian conquest of Israel are quite historical, and are probably the actual context in which most of the OT was composed or codified.

Roger Pearse

Speaking as the local fundamentalist, such statements indicate only a certain lack of education by those who said such a thing (I can be ignorant, and I certainly notice no lack of that ability in others). Most Christians know that they have to work out what their religion is and how it is true, since they get to listen to doubt being poured on it every time they turn on the TV.

I would have thought that, for anyone who belongs to any ideological group, it's either think for yourself, stop thinking, or let those who set the media agenda of our times think for you. The latter is always a popular choice, it seems, although it gets awkward when times change and suddenly what you believed all your life is no longer fashionable (I remember this happening). Those who grow up in the movement may find that when they are young they conform to the movement; when they learn of a world beyond the movement, they conform to that. This seems to be exceedingly common.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

lpetrich

Asha'man is right about all that. And furthermore, Noah's Flood and the long-lived early patriarchs are offshoots of a long Mesopotamian tradition.

Noah's Flood is paralleled by Mesopotamian flood legends: the floods experienced by Ziusudra, Atrahasis, Utnapishtim, and Xisuthrus.

And the long lives of such early gentlemen as Methuselah is paralleled by the long lives of early kings in the Sumerian king list and its successors, like Berossus's history of Babylon.

Loomis

Do you believe Yahweh flew of the backs of cherubs and blew smoke out his nostrils?

anthrosciguy

Aside from the inaccuracy of your claim (pointed out by someone else already) how does walking between what is now an island and a peninsula lend credence to a worldwide flood, much less a worldwide flood which then receded?