Flooding the World with Creationism

Faith & Science Conversation
25

@Jonathan_Burke

You seem intent on eating your cake and still having it.

And at the very same time we can say it would have been easy enough to remove the indicators that the flood was Global… but they weren’t.

  1. A regional flood doesn’t take a year.
  2. A regional flood doesn’t even require a boat! Moving up- land is the usual course of action.
  3. Sending birds to find dry land is not logical because they would find it well within their endurance.
  4. A regional flood would not require saving mating pairs of animals

No matter which scenario was the original… the story is flawed enough factually to reject the story as literal history.

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Tragically true – and I think the work of Biologos is badly needed to help give people a truer perception of what Christianity has been historically and still is now for those not caught up in this narrow (but understandable) perception. To be a bit more charitable (but not much, actually!) than perhaps your wording seems to allow, I would nuance that to say that those criticized here do allow for other forms of knowing but demand that all such gained knowledge must first pass their bar for their particular understanding of Genesis. And passing that bar they gladly embrace it --indeed cling to it-- as confirmation of their approach.

My claim is that for the Christian there is nothing that does not lie under the sovereign domain of Christ, including all that science touches or claims as its subject – and including science itself. You are right that the non-Christian has no general compulsion to accept this. And were I evangelizing to such a person that would not be so much a starting point as an eventual conclusion for those who have already responded to Christ on other grounds. Here I just intended it as a reason (among Christians --sorry if I’m presumptuous in this) that a changing and growing [i.e. healthy] science is within the Christian purview both historically and now. So that alone, if accepted, means that Christianity is not resistant to all change. EDIT – I’ll strengthen that last conclusion slightly to: Christianity embraces at least some change and (I propose) in more areas than just in the sciences.

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Yes.

I don’t believe Old Testament scribes “updated” the text in the ways that Smith and White did. I don’t believe they “updated” the text in the sense that they just wrote whatever they felt like. I believe the text was curated within an inspired community.

But it’s a pathetic argument given that the earliest Christian documents (which predate Mark considerably), include reference to the resurrection.

I don’t think there are indicators that the flood was global.

The flood didn’t last a year.

Yeah, that’s why no one dies from floods.

How is it not logical to release a bird to find land which is within its endurance? It’s totally logical. You send out a bird because you can’t see land, not because the bird can’t see land.

Yeah it would, because you’re landing in an ecologically impoverished environment, as the narrative states explicitly.

But we still know there was a Mesopotamian mega-flood around this time. So if it isn’t literal history, it’s describing a literal historical event. Call it what you will, the flood happened. I don’t see the need to try and make every effort to devalue the text and throw away the narrative.

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You really seem to be a better debater than mentally organized to arrive at the facts.

If the scribes were not faced with co-opting a widely known pagan story into their Yahwist world view… there wouldn’t have even been an ark anywhere in the story. If Noah’s advance warning of a flood gave him time to build an ark, he certainly had time to move his home to a mountain or ridge.

Your automatic assumption that a specific historical great flood MUST have left a historically valid Biblical narrative is pure wishful thinking. In fact, Any historical flood which occurred after the Sumerian settlement could have inspired the story… even inspiring versions that were global, even if the original wasn’t global.

Your bit about the birds isn’t logical because the first bird would have seen land on the very first flight over a regional flood plain… and Not Returned! …rather than having to duplicate the flight another time.

As for the mating pairs… the narrative introduces the miracle of the animals pairing up … by God’s will or on their own… creating the impression that these are not domesticated animals. We don’t need 2 elephants on the ark for a regional flood.

And if the unnamed animals were simply domesticated farm animals… we don’t need God to pair them up. Humans perform that farming miracle all the time.

Finally, when you say the flood was not a year long, I have to wonder if you are playing fast and loose with terminology. If the flood was regional… nobody spends a year in a boat within a bird’s flight of land.

And if you are going to claim the ark had been washed out past the straits of the Persian Gulf for much of that time… if and when the ark drifted back up through the strait and past the dry land of either Arabia or Persia… there would have been any number of points of disembarking… rather than float passively all the way to the bottom of some mountain range… which wouldn’t have been possible if the crest of the flood had long passed.

Days or months later… with waters no longer cresting if not actually subsiding… the inland mountain ranges wouldn’t have been within reach of any floating craft.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This is why your careful analysis of the indicators of a regional flood don’t do much to change my view. All you are doing is showing that the story was probably about a regional flood (which is factually reasonable compared to a global flood) … AND that indicators for a global flood were later Added to the story … in order to give the heirs of Noah legal title to the whole world - - making the entire story historically untenable no matter which version you prefer or which one you think came first.

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It’s not an automatic assumption. There’s physical evidence for a flood, and a Biblical narrative for a flood dating to the time of the flood for which there is physical evidence. Conclusion? The flood described in the Bible is the flood which actually happened.

Yeah, could have. But we have to go with the evidence.

What? Where? Show me all the elephants.

If you read the text you’ll find that Noah stayed in the Ark long after it had run aground. This has nothing to do with the flood being global or local. The flood had already run aground.

I am not attempting to change your view. It is important for your worldview, that the Bible be flawed and unreliable, a great big mess of silliness and human folly. A large part of your theology appears to depend on this. I don’t see how anyone is going to change your view.

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@Jonathan_Burke,

There is physical evidence for SEVERAL floods!

Your quote above reminds me of the woman on another site that keeps talking about Egyptian chariot wheels found in the Red sea; Proof of Exodus? Or proof that a boat with chariot wheel cargo either sunk or lost a shipment?

The text being silent doesn’t tell us whether the animals include elephants or not . … but the implication is that they were not domesticated… in order to support the illusion of a miracle when they pair up to get on the ark.

Nobody loads undomesticated animals into a boat to save them from a regional flood. And if only SOME animals were brought in as 7 pairs as food stock… why would there be a second category of animals of JUST one pair?

The regional and global indicators have been completely jumbled throughout the text.

For example, staying in a cramped boat for months or even weeks after a regional flood makes no sense at all. It doesn’t take that long for a regional flood to dry out. Using it as a home base does make sense… . But that isn’t what’s described.

You think the flood story is history … I think it is obviously etymological… which is why the story is so inconsistent with other parts of the Bible plot structure:

  1. Cain’s Kennites can only survive if the flood is regional;

  2. all the sinners can’t have perished if it was just a regional flood;

  3. The famous story from Sumerian times was a global flood… which was an older composition … did need to be co- opted by a Yahwist version. Why would anyone write about a regional flood and ignore the more famous global flood?

  4. there were no rainbows … Anywhere?.. until there was a Mesopotamian regional flood?

  5. Genesis was almost certainly written after Exodus… even though the contents are about events prior to Exodus. It’s your typical “back story” prequel that even the Greeks frequently wrote - - to extend a myth cycle.

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This isn’t analogous. There aren’t any Egyptian chariot wheels which have been found in the Red Sea, still less any found in circumstances providing any credence for the Exodus. In the case of the flood, the physical evidence is very clear.

Er, that’s precisely what happened in the Akkadian and Sumerian flood narratives. They didn’t import exotic animals from Africa.

I agree with that. I have argued this repeatedly.

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@Jonathan_Burke… you are the A- 1 champ for obfuscation. Virtually all of non-biblical versions are Global Floods… not regional. The God’s wanted to wipe out all humanity… not some of humanity.

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That’s my point George. You claimed that a global flood would require the collection and preservation of animals from all over the globe. But the Sumerians and Akkadians describe a global flood hero who only collected local animals. And you can’t find any passages in Genesis which say that animals were collected from all over the globe either.

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Your assertion doesn’t appear to have any contact with my objection.

Step 1:
I said that the description of animals pairing up on their own to enter the Ark appears to present wild animals. Traditionally, this is usually interpreted in the context of a global flood - - so if there are Elephants living today, then Elephants must be one of the pairs that walked into the Ark.

Step 2:
You say the ark story was and is and will always be about a regional flood.

Step 3:
So I complain that why would anyone appear to be loading wild animals into a confined boat in anticipation of a Regional Flood. There will almost certainly always be surviving wild animals so preventing extinction is not the point in a regional flood.

Step 4:
Then you counter by saying wild animals were collected in the pagan versions of the flood story.

Step 5:
I counter-counter by pointing out that the pagan versions are Global events - - so preventing extinction of well known animals was obviously a part of the context of these other versions.

Step 6 (Last):
You completely change the dynamic by saying that in these versions only local wild animals are collected.

My response: So what?

Attempting to save local (i.e. known) wild animals would be consistent with the logic of these versions. If the writer left out some other animals, this would be in the nature of imperfect mythologies.

If the Genesis Flood was, is and will always be a Regional Flood, there is no logic for taking any non-domesticated animals onto the Ark. And so instead of having multiple examples of one pair of animals Noah doesn’t usually work with, all the animals should have fallen into the necessary-for-survival animals that are domesticated, and thus fall into the “7 pairs” category.

Compare:
Gen 6:20 - "Pairs of every kind of bird, and every kind of animal, and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground, will come to you to be kept alive. "

Versus -

Gen 7:2-3 - “Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others. Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood.”

The Flood Story appears to have indicators for a Regional and for a Global flood built into its plot structure - - but I think the Global One is the more over-riding one, otherwise, Evangelicals today would be arguing for a Regional Flood.

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Do you have this reference to Philo and Josephus flood viewpoint? Any others?

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I didn’t just say wild animals, I said animals from all over the globe. There is no indication in either Genesis or the other ANE flood narratives that animals from all over the world were collected.

I have already explained this.

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@Jonathan_Burke

You aren’t explaining it very well. You are stubbornly holding on to the idea that Genesis is “the perfect description” of a regional flood, when anyone reading it can see that it is not the “perfect description”. At best, it is quite muddled. If it were as good as you think it is… nobody would be talking about a Global Flood of ridiculous proportions… they would be reasonable people, and talking about Regional Catastrophes and so on.

I think I’ve done my due diligence here. I don’t want to repeat the usual cycle of torture where the moderators have to step in and separate us. You go ahead and believe what you like… and all the rest of us who recognize a few grays and such, we’ll just keep on keeping on.

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  1. Philo.

‘Since the deluge of that time was no trifling infliction of water, but an immense and boundless overflow, extending almost beyond the pillars of Hercules and the great Mediterranean Sea, since the whole earth and all the spaces of the mountains were covered with water; and it is scarcely likely that such a vast space could have been cleared by a wind, but rather, as I have said, it must have been done by some invisible and divine virtue.’, Philo, ‘Questions and Answers on Genesis’, II.29, in Yonge, ‘The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged’, p. 824 (1996);

Philo however seems to have believed that the flood was anthropologically universal, though not geographically universal.

  1. Josephus.

‘Hieronymus the Egyptian, also, who wrote the Phoenician Antiquities, and Mnaseas, and a great many more, make mention of the same. Nay, Nicolaus of Damascus, in his ninety-sixth book, hath a particular relation about them, where he speaks thus:— (95)“There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that many who fled at the time of the Deluge were saved; and that one who was carried in an ark came on shore upon the top of it; and that the remains of the timber were a great while preserved. This might be the man about whom Moses, the legislator of the Jews wrote.”’, Josephus, ‘Antiquities’, 1.94-95, in Whiston, ‘The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged’ (updated ed. 1987).

‘However, in the light of Noah’s remark in the prayer, I think Josephus takes it that there were more survivors of the Flood, namely, honest people besides Noah, who were also judged fit to survive.’, Jonquière, ‘Prayer in Josephus’, p. 59 (2007).

‘Similarly, Josephus tells us that Noah asks God in his prayer that the people who were rescued may found cities and build up new lives.’, p. 60.

  1. Rabbinic literature and the Syrian fathers.

‘Debates over whether the flood reached as high as the garden of Eden are found in rabbinic literature: Gen. R. 33. 6; Lev. R. 31. 10; Cant. R. 1. 15. § 4; 4.1, § 2; cf. PRE. 23. Of the Syrian fathers, Mar Ephrem said it only reached the outer confines of Paradise; see A. Levene, op cit., p. 84.’, Lewis, ‘A Study of the Interpretation of Noah and the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature’, p. 39 (1968).

‘Resh Lakish (PA. 2) and R. Johanan (PA. 2) differ over whether the land of Israel was included, for JR. Johanan insisted that it was not.1) R. Levi (PA. 3) agreed appealing to Ez. 22:23, “a land… not rained upon in the day of indignation.”2) Some authorities insisted that the flood did not reach as high as the Garden of Eden.3)’, pp. 142-143; the footnotes 1, 2, and 3 say ‘1) T.B. Zeb. 113b. 2) Gen. R. 33. 6; PRE. 23. 3) Gen. R. 33. 6; Lev. R. 31.10; Cant R. 1.15. § 4; 4.1. § 2; cf. PRE. 23 and Nachmonides, Gen. 8:11. Some Syrian fathers shared this view, among whom was Mar Ephrem who said it only reached the outer confines of Paradise.’, ibid., p. 143.

In these footnotes, PA is the Palestinian Amora, PRE is Pirke de R. Eliezer, TB is the Talmud Babylon, and R after a book name refers to a Midrash; Genesis Rabbah, Leviticus Rabbah, and Canticles/Song of Solomon Rabbah are all cited.

‘The source from whence the dove obtained the olive branch brought controversy. R. Abba bar Kahana (PA. 4) insisted she brought it from the young shoots of the land of Israel. R. Levi (PA. 3) contended for the Mt. of Olives which had not been submerged.’, ibid., p. 146.

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Thanks Jon, if you have other info from church fathers, I would appreciate if you could post it.

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That’s all I have. Most of the early fathers who commented on the flood assumed it was global. But the early Jewish and Christian witness to a local flood is significant.

41

Thanks for the scholarly citations, Jon!

1 Like
42

Thanks, I appreciate it. I am just curious, do people at this site just assume that the chronological ages in Genesis are mythical? What if the chronological ages, as calculated in the Septuagint placed Noah’s flood at the same time as the largest flood in Mesopotamian history? Would that matter to anyone?

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@Jonathan_Burke

I’m not sure how significant they are. In every case, the flood waters make a “sacred” exception:

Rabbinbic literature and the Syrian fathers:
“Mar Ephrem said it only reached the outer confines of Paradise…” - in other words, Eden was not flooded.

Lakish and Johanan “differ over whether the land of Israel was included…” and for “2) Some authorities insisted that the flood did not reach as high as the Garden of Eden…”

And R. Abba bar Kahana “… insisted that she [the dove] brought it from the young shoots of the land of Israel.” R. Levi “… contended for the Mt. of Olives which had not been submerged.'”

In the case of Eden, there wouldn’t be any humans living there, right?

But in the case of Judah, this could be the rabbinical explanation for how there were those who survived, even though they weren’t occupants of the Ark.

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This is interesting because I assume that the Garden of Eden was in southern Mesopotamia, which is about as low as one can get. Does this mean that they thought that the garden of eden was in Armenia or a similar location?