Poll - Noah’s Flood - Factual or Figurative?

[ken_sylvania]

1300 BC

Not that it will make much difference to you, but a literal Biblical chronology puts the flood closer to 2300 BC.

My mistake then. I'm not sure why I had 1300 BC in my brain. I must be mixing up Noah and Moses.

For sure. How many days was Moses in the ark?

[aussieandy]

I think when it comes to the flood:

1). God's motivation for doing so was because the world had become so corrupt and tainted, it was in need of fixing it to rights.

2). Whether this part was figurative, literal in a localised sense, or all the world, isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. What matters is the lessons learnt. I personally go for the literal in a localised sense but I'm guessing here. Fact is, none of us are really going to know. But we can learn the lessons of the great flood and acknowledge also, that as stewards of our Earth, we must respect and nourish it and not abuse it. God's creation is sacred. I think the poll is a red herring, because the message regardless of individual belief, is applicable to today still.

[Ernie]

1300 BC

Not that it will make much difference to you, but a literal Biblical chronology puts the flood closer to 2300 BC.

I assume you are referring to the Masoretic text? The Septuagint chronology places the flood around 3298 BC.

[Grace]

For What it's worth, while we are on the subject of Noah's Ark, I found this documentary interesting.

[video][/video]

[JimFoxvog]

For What it's worth, while we are on the subject of Noah's Ark, I found this documentary interesting.

Interesting video. Maybe it's hypothesis is correct. Unfortunately, comments were turned off, so we don't see the reasoning of the inevitable skeptical responses.

I suppose one reasonable alternative explanation was a full-size ark replica, such as is done in a theme park in Kentucky. This could have been used as a place of devotion.

[Joy]

I have no doubt that there have been massive floods over time. They happen to this day in some parts of the world.

But the "world" as understood by the ancient Israelites was tiny. The known world at the time of Noah was what? 500 or 1000 miles across? A flood covering most or all of those lands is conceivable.

But a flood that covered the entire world as we know it today with rain water in 40 days and 40 nights? The average elevation of the earth's continents is 2759 ft. So a flood that only covers half the earth's surface would require a layer of water covering the globe to a depth of 2759 ft. Without doing the math, that seems at least a doubling of the total volume of all the world's oceans. And that would still leave half the world's land mass dry. To fully cover the entire planet with water would require several more times the volume of all the world's oceans combined.

Rain water does not come from nowhere, it comes mostly from evaporation of the world's lakes and oceans. The total volume of water on earth is actually incredibly stable. Sea levels rise and fall over time as the world's ice caps and glaciers grow and shrink. But the total quantity of water is unchanging. I just don't believe in a tripling or quadrupling of the total volume of water on earth followed shortly by the disappearance of all of that water.

For that matter, scientists estimate there are over 8.7 million different species of plants and animals on earth. Most of them living in specific distinct ecosystems scattered around the planet. Did Noah actually gather this many different species, 99.9% of which exist nowhere near the middle east? Did he zip around the world like Santa Claus in a magic flying ark, collecting polar bears from the Arctic, penguins from the Antarctic, pandas from China, anacondas from the Amazon, bison from North America, African elephants from the Serengeti, thousands of species of rain forest animals from Africa, Asia, and South America, along with all the foods those animals all required for 40 days? And then did he zip around the planet putting them all back where they belong? Or did they all just wander back home on their own across a devastated foodless earth from Mt Ararat and swim across oceans to their homes?

In any event, nearly identical flood stories appear in the ancient texts of other people's around the world. It is in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The ancient Greek god Deucalion, son of Poseidon, also built an ark and staffed it with creatures after being warned by Zeus, rode out a flood, and then relied on the advice of the Gods to repopulate the earth. Hindus have a flood legend in their ancient texts.

Your presuppositions may not hold regarding the Flood. The mountains were nowhere as high then.
The mountains rose; the valleys sank down
To the place which You established for them. Psalm. 104:8

So that would explain the lesser volume of water God used to flood the whole earth. And the valleys sinking, perhaps including the ocean, would swallow a great deal of the water.

There would not be a need to gather every variation of animal that exists today. Those have come from the (few?) animals that God made at Creation. And remember, God was still doing miracles--why couldn't He have scattered the animals Himself?

[Ken]

I have no doubt that there have been massive floods over time. They happen to this day in some parts of the world.

But the "world" as understood by the ancient Israelites was tiny. The known world at the time of Noah was what? 500 or 1000 miles across? A flood covering most or all of those lands is conceivable.

But a flood that covered the entire world as we know it today with rain water in 40 days and 40 nights? The average elevation of the earth's continents is 2759 ft. So a flood that only covers half the earth's surface would require a layer of water covering the globe to a depth of 2759 ft. Without doing the math, that seems at least a doubling of the total volume of all the world's oceans. And that would still leave half the world's land mass dry. To fully cover the entire planet with water would require several more times the volume of all the world's oceans combined.

Rain water does not come from nowhere, it comes mostly from evaporation of the world's lakes and oceans. The total volume of water on earth is actually incredibly stable. Sea levels rise and fall over time as the world's ice caps and glaciers grow and shrink. But the total quantity of water is unchanging. I just don't believe in a tripling or quadrupling of the total volume of water on earth followed shortly by the disappearance of all of that water.

For that matter, scientists estimate there are over 8.7 million different species of plants and animals on earth. Most of them living in specific distinct ecosystems scattered around the planet. Did Noah actually gather this many different species, 99.9% of which exist nowhere near the middle east? Did he zip around the world like Santa Claus in a magic flying ark, collecting polar bears from the Arctic, penguins from the Antarctic, pandas from China, anacondas from the Amazon, bison from North America, African elephants from the Serengeti, thousands of species of rain forest animals from Africa, Asia, and South America, along with all the foods those animals all required for 40 days? And then did he zip around the planet putting them all back where they belong? Or did they all just wander back home on their own across a devastated foodless earth from Mt Ararat and swim across oceans to their homes?

In any event, nearly identical flood stories appear in the ancient texts of other people's around the world. It is in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The ancient Greek god Deucalion, son of Poseidon, also built an ark and staffed it with creatures after being warned by Zeus, rode out a flood, and then relied on the advice of the Gods to repopulate the earth. Hindus have a flood legend in their ancient texts.

Your presuppositions may not hold regarding the Flood. The mountains were nowhere as high then.
The mountains rose; the valleys sank down
To the place which You established for them. Psalm. 104:8

So that would explain the lesser volume of water God used to flood the whole earth. And the valleys sinking, perhaps including the ocean, would swallow a great deal of the water.

There would not be a need to gather every variation of animal that exists today. Those have come from the (few?) animals that God made at Creation. And remember, God was still doing miracles--why couldn't He have scattered the animals Himself?

Like I said. I have no interest in arguing this. We aren't going to convince each other of anything. But I would point out that citing a Psalm about creation isn't any kind of scientific evidence of a biblical flood covering the earth. Of course mountains rise up and valleys sink. They continue to do that today through ordinary geological processes.

[Neto]

I do sometimes read articles where intelligent design scientists make correlations between what has been found out about the earth, and what the Scripture records, but basically for me, faith comes before science. Science is a quest to understand the observable, and thus I find it of interest. But it "evolves" as time goes on, new theories replace older ones, new discoveries are made, etc. What is very interesting (at least to me) is where two teams each describe what they see, and their conclusions, from their differing (and sometimes completely opposite) points of view, w/o rancor. [Theology, or doctrine, can also be described as a quest to understand the unknown, but Biblical doctrine will have a solid starting point that is not up for grabs.]

[Ken]

I do sometimes read articles where intelligent design scientists make correlations between what has been found out about the earth, and what the Scripture records, but basically for me, faith comes before science. Science is a quest to understand the observable, and thus I find it of interest. But it "evolves" as time goes on, new theories replace older ones, new discoveries are made, etc. What is very interesting (at least to me) is where two teams each describe what they see, and their conclusions, from their differing (and sometimes completely opposite) points of view, w/o rancor. [Theology, or doctrine, can also be described as a quest to understand the unknown, but Biblical doctrine will have a solid starting point that is not up for grabs.]

That's the thing about science. In any scientific field from biology to physics there is nothing that will cement your scientific reputation faster and earn you a Nobel Prize than tearing down some well established theory and replacing it with something new. Science is all about the 'youngs' chipping away at or demolishing the doctrines of their elders. That's what scientists like Newton, Einstein, Hawking, Bohr, Watson, Pasteur, etc. all did. They demolished the old doctrines and presented new and better theories and models. And the people who followed them continued to do the same.

Religion is, of course, the exact opposite.

[ohio jones]

1300 BC

Not that it will make much difference to you, but a literal Biblical chronology puts the flood closer to 2300 BC.

I assume you are referring to the Masoretic text? The Septuagint chronology places the flood around 3298 BC.

For more detail than anyone ever wanted, download this. His bottom line is 2518 BC (MT) or 3168 BC (LXX).