Best explanation of the Noah story

They weren’t on the ark?! :grin: (I want to see Ken Ham ride one. ; - )

1 Like

Well, given that Varanus is an extant genus and Procoptodon is close to living kangaroos, they probably weren’t around until after the hyperevolution after the super brief ice age after the plasma ball-earth cooled back down and recoalesced after fundamental constants arrived at their modern values.

4 Likes

Thanks – that makes a lot of sense. :grin:

1 Like

I appreciate all the replies. I want to get some thoughts on other parts of the story.

1 God regretted making man.

2 God gave a rainbow as a sign of a new covenant.

Sorry I did not do the exact scriptures.

These just sound plain goofy to me and fictitious. I know we often focus on regional flood versus global but even separate from the math and science I cannot get past some of the basics of the story.

I just drowned everything so here is a rainbow and I promise not to do it again. Seriously?

1 Like

They need to be read from the perspective of the author who wrote the story down and chose to emphasize the depth of the water. Because as you say

If you’ve seen anything here about God’s omnitemporality, you may recall that any tensed verbs we use (the only kind we have) have to have qualifiers attached. So ‘regretted’ is past tense and does not strictly apply. Maybe what should be more potent is the regret we cause him who is the eternal Now. And I routinely fail to be as sensitive to that as I should be.

Others may differ as to what the image of God in us means, but personhood I think is an attribute that is implicit – that includes feelings. So God can feel pain (and we’re told that in Ephesians 4:30).

Others can speak to the literary types and their associations with the cultures of the time where I certainly cannot, and to the historicity of the text, and it is certainly more than unlikely it was the first rainbow ever. But God may just have given Noah such a providential gift as assurance of his continued faithfulness to mankind.

I remember when I was at a low point several decades ago (about four ; - ), the timing and placing of a rainbow where I happened to be able to see a small arc of it against blue sky was astonishing. It is difficult to describe, but it was early morning through a small window partly covered on the inside and partly blocked on the outside by a wall perpendicular to the one the small window was in. There was also a large and fairly bushy pine obscuring even more of the sky. So the view of the sky was particularly limited. My confirmation bias1 let me be comforted and encouraged by it, inferring it to be a providential gift from my faithful and sovereign Father. :slightly_smiling_face:
 


1 As noted just yesterday,

No, it merely points to the fact that the vast majority of the world’s cultures were for most of history and pre-history centered in river valleys.

An example from geology is that the natives in the U.S. west coast region had accounts of Mount Mazama blowing its top and leaving Crater Lake, and those accounts match very nicely with what geology tells us about the event. That’s only 7700 years ago (hey – they missed the Flood!).

1 Like

Thinking this is goofy tells me that you have boxed God into a very narrow picture of Him as incapable of things which any human being can do. Because it doesn’t look goofy to me at all. If I created people who became totally evil then I would very much regret making them. That this seems goofy to you, means… either you aren’t remotely what I would call human, or the God you have imagined is so far from what I would call good that if such a thing (god) existed then it would have only my contempt.

That is goofy only if you take to mean God created rainbows apart from everything else just for such a purpose. But we make monuments of natural things all the time and have them represent other things. For an example, each state in the United States has a state bird (and a state flower). Of course the birds (flowers) themselves were not created for the state. That is indeed a rather silly to suggest.

1 Like

You have given me two things to consider. Either I am not human or I am boxing God into preconceived ideas.

I think I am human. I am not an alien as far as I know.

I am sure I have preconceived notions about God but who doesn’t?

However, I am not sure I made my point clear. I am suggesting the two references I made are not really about God but were simply added by the writer(s) of the story.

BTW. Is it appropriate on this forum to suggest a person is not human if they don’t meet your expectations?

good question…

Is it appropriate for me to suggest that people who like torturing little children are lacking in humanity?

…but then if you create a group of people who decides they like torturing little children, then would you remain proud of the group you created? And if someone remains proud of creating such a group then doesn’t this say something about their own lack of humanity?

I very much believe in tolerance. But there are logical limits to tolerance. Our liberties must end at the same liberties of other people. And toleration logically does not include a toleration of intolerance.

And yes… I very much think our humanity consists of more than just a biological species.

This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.