TheDiddleyMan

It seems to me that the bible teaches a worldwide flood. How do local flooders justify their beliefs biblically?

Kevin

Boshko

Something along the lines of "by all the world, the people who wrote genesis meant all the world that was known by them at the time" or something along those lines.

Grumpy

I thought it had something to do with translating "all the land" as meaning "the whole countryside" or something like that.

Amos

There should not be any local "flooders" but all Christians should be "floaters" of their ark. Here's a poem that should confirm this:

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

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

[Unstructured space is when there is lots of unresolved data floating around in your mind].

You have to make a distinction between the planet we call earth and the world we live in. In this context my world is my world and yours is yours.

To survive the flood an ark is needed in which "one of each" is boarded to ensure that reason prevails when dry land appears again.

The flood is when things go wrong in your life and you find that gutters are not deep enough. In this sense your "entire world" must be drowned and saved only what you will need on the other side, which is "one of each" so reason will prevail.

So the building of the ark now becomes the faith we acquire to prior to the flood to be tested during the flood. The flood is concept of myth.

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

hinduwoman

However it is possible that there were widespread floods once that caused great devastation. Babylon has the story, from where the Jews got theirs; Hinduism has the story as well and perhaps other myths.

Amos

It is a popular myth (very clever concept) and therefore perhaps more believable but even less true as historic fact.

Vorkosigan

There was a recent article on the wire services about a geomorphologist who has worked with flood-deposited boulders, and has discovered cycles of earthquakes and mudslides that periodically cause tidal waves. Many indigenous flood legends are most likely based on tidal waves that have happened in historical times, such as the large one that inundated Australia 500 years ago.

Michael

Marduk

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Black Sea Project. This was once a freshwater lake, at the end of the last ice age the Mediterranean sea rose over the Strait of Brosporus (?) and turned the lake into a saltwater sea, the water came down at a rate of 1000 times Niagara Falls, circa 7000 years ago. The people who lived their migrated south to Sumer and brought their flood story with them (Epic of Gilgamesh).

Kosh

I've brought it up several times, but it always seems
to get ignored, even though the evidence is
overwhelming. Of course, the Xians will never
accept that, because it means admitting that
Noah's Flood is borrowed from another culture,
and therefore Genesis couldn't have been
dictated by God... and then they're on the
teflon slope....

Jayhawker Soule

The Ryan/Pitman book is a fun read -- especially the chapter on "The Diaspora", and I'd be interested in knowing the current status of the work. At the same time, given that early settlements were tied to fresh water sources, an absence of flood stories would be surprising -- just talk to the folks who lived along the Mississipp in 1993.