Noah's Ark?

[thestonesfan]

I watched a show about it last night on the Discovery Channel. They pretty much "sunk" (witty, huh?) any literal interpretations of it.

Does anyone here believe it should be taken literally? That the earth was actually covered in water for 40 days, that Noah built a boat the size of the Titanic, and that he managed to get 2 of every species of animal on the planet?

As for myself, I believe that the story actually did spring from an actual event, probably a massive river flooding in Mesopotamia. But that the biblical story is just a retelling of the earlier Mesopotamian stories.

[cgannon64]

I don't think its literal.

I do think its based on fact. There WAS a catastrophic flood somwhere near Asia Minor, I think, that buried alot of settlements. I can see a man building a boat and taking all the animals he could find and surviving that, and then it getting later exagerrate to a huge flood that covered the earth.

[Turner]

A lot of seperate groups have flood myths. I tend to think there was some sort of event that caused most of the planet to be covered in water at one time or another. At the same time? Seems unlikely to me. But I suppose it could happen.

As for Noah going around, getting the animals two by two, well, that's somewhat improbable, I think. Makes for a nice story tho, doesn't it?

[Marla_Singer]

According to what I've read, the Black Sea used to not be connected to the Mediterranean Sea. Bosphorus and Dardanels detroits were closed. Because of global warming*, the level of seas has raised and we consider that approximately in 6,000 BC, the bassin that used to be between the bosphorus and the dardanels became a sea (today's sea of Marmara).

We've found traces of civilization in the bed of the sea of Marmara actually. Scientists consider the flooding of the valley should have been very sudden... and some people are considering today the story of the Flood could possibly be a tale based on a distortion of that actual historical fact.



*Global Warming exists for a long time. The stories of global warming we hear now are about an acceleration of global warming due to greenhouse gases.

[carlosMM]

Marla: last I read (I can look that up tonight) this theory was sunk by new research, finding the delta of the water rush the OTHER way....


@ thstonesfan: you will be surprised to find CFC teeming with people who belive in the literal bible story.

[thestonesfan]

Originally posted by carlosMM
Marla: last I read (I can look that up tonight) this theory was sunk by new research, finding the delta of the water rush the OTHER way....

Yes, I've read this too. As far as I know, the seas have receeded considerably in the Middle East over the last 6000 years - they havd found remains of ancient ports miles inland.

@ thstonesfan: you will be surprised to find CFC teeming with people who belive in the literal bible story.

I didn't know if anyone took it literally or not - and if they did, I was curious to know if they had any 'rationale' other than "God made it that way."

[Knight-Dragon]

Moderator Action: Moved to History.

As I remembered it, we'd an extensive Flood debate here some time ago...

[philippe]

I saw when the investigated the black sea they found remaints of a civ over 4-5000 years old...makes you wonder...

[privatehudson]

The flood as the bible describes it is little more than a vast exaggeration of what happened IMO.

[Xen]

Originally posted by Turner_727
A lot of seperate groups have flood myths. I tend to think there was some sort of event that caused most of the planet to be covered in water at one time or another. At the same time? Seems unlikely to me. But I suppose it could happen.

IIRC, just about all of these groupes are of a direct descent, or had close contact to the indo Europeans, the people who, in a sea of marma/ Anatolian/balck sea flood would have been affected- consider the fact that the name of the greeks in the Illiad (or a rather a name for them) is also the same name the ancient british called the first setlers of the of the british isles- this shows a common cultural heritage- its likelly that they(the flood myths) are descended from the same flood event/ myth (BTW, that Homeric greek, and ancient british name would be "Danaan", or a spelling similer to, its been a while since I last looked at a spelling)

[Vrylakas]

This is one of those threads that revives every once in a while. An increasingly popular theory says that an extremely violent geological event, the flash-flooding of the Black Sea basin at the end of the last Ice Age (c. 16-12,000 years ago) whereby a natural wall separating the Mediterranean and the then-much-smaller and fresh water Black Sea gave way, filling in a single crushing event the whole modern Black Sea Basin with salt water in a massive flood, may have produced a catastrophic memory among the sparse paleolithic populations who survived. This memory may have then filtered down as civilization developed in Sumeria either through trade routes or conquest. We do know that the Sumerians had this flood myth long before the Jews, and the Jewish "Babylonian Captivity" gave ample opportunity for exposure to a whole host of ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Persian, Babylonian, etc. mythology.

[thestonesfan]

Originally posted by FearlessLeader2

So all you can come up with is:

"Miracles can't happen because they are miraculous." Ooo-kaaay.

(This is from the other thread)

Ooo-kaaay. It COULD have been a miracle, or the Jewish scholars COULD have read the old Mesopotamian stories, which were exagerrated themselves, and thought "Hey, I like this one. It'll get 'em to fear God!"

So what's the point? How can I argue against the statement "It was a miracle."??

Okay, fine. God miraculously made water and then took it away, and took away all evidence of sediment deposits that would inevitably be left behind. Then he personally took the two kangaroos off the ark and put them on Australia. He almost put them in South America, but decided Llamas were better suited to the Andes.

If you want to believe that, go ahead. While you're at it, believe tomorrow is Saturday, and believe the Cubs won the world series.

[col]

A global flood capable of destroying animal life on the Earth would leave sedimentary evidence in the strata. That evidence isnt there. Therefore the flood didnt happen.

[Aphex_Twin]

Most civilisation have developed around rivers.
Most of those rivers, at one time or another, have overflowed their banks.

There.

[Vietcong]

Originally posted by cgannon64
I don't think its literal.

I do think its based on fact. There WAS a catastrophic flood somwhere near Asia Minor, I think, that buried alot of settlements. I can see a man building a boat and taking all the animals he could find and surviving that, and then it getting later exagerrate to a huge flood that covered the earth.

this is waht i belve

i do know the persian gulf was much biger during the times of summer and babylon

[aaminion00]

The flood story isn't hard to figure out. There was a great flood somewhere in the Middle East about, say, 5000 years ago. It covered up a very large area of land where people had up until then lived. The legend spread throughout the Middle East, to the Sumerians, Babylonians, Israelites, whatever. Noah probably existed somehow, in some way, and the ark might have as well, but the whole thing about 2 of each species was probably an exaggaration made by later tellers of the story.

[Steph]

The explanation is simple, and is developped by Umberto Eco in his novel " The Island of the Day Before" (I'm not sure of the title, I have translated it from French)
The book is about an expedition at the end of 17th century, with a ship which tries to find the date changing line (the meridian opposite greenwich). There's a monk in the ship with a very good theory. He knows that to flood the whole planet, you need a damned huge amount of water, where did it come from and where to put it after 40 days? Simple : God was standing on this date change lime, and took water from YESTERDAY, put it today. Then after 40 days, he took water from today, and put it back yesterday.

Nice theory, isn't it?

[Marla_Singer]

Originally posted by thestonesfan
Yes, I've read this too. As far as I know, the seas have receeded considerably in the Middle East over the last 6000 years - they havd found remains of ancient ports miles inland.

It depends Stonesfan. Because of Global Warming, Polar Icecaps are melting increasing the size of the oceans. A good example would be Great Britain that used to be connected to mainland Europe in 10,000 BC. Actually, we know that the Thames river used to drop into the Rhine river.

However, inland seas are getting smaller and smaller. Mainly because deserts are increasing which has as consequence more evaporation, less sea in rivers and then smaller closed seas. It's a known fact deserts are increasing worldwide and that's not new. Actually, Egyptian pyramids had been built in the middle of a green vegetation and not in the middle of the Desert. It doesn't change a thing about the story I've talked about with the Sea of Marmara.

[Vrylakas]

I should have read the full thread before responding:

Marla: last I read (I can look that up tonight) this theory was sunk by new research, finding the delta of the water rush the OTHER way....

Carlos, can you post a link to a credible source for this? I have to say, that makes no sense. Do you think that the Black Sea, an isolated sea, filld up the Mediterranean or the Mediterranean Sea filled the Atlantic Ocean? That would be the implication of "the water flowing the other way".

[Knight-Dragon]

IIRC there're two currents flowing thru the Bosporus Straits. One was probably the ancient lake flow into the Med and atop it (or below it) was the current in the opposite direction, the one still flowing into the Black Sea to flood it.

Boatmen have been manipulating these two currents atop each other to cross the Bosporus for centuries...