Posted on 08/22/2008 9:59:31 AM PDT by Fennie
read later
You must have very broad definition for the word “Fact.’
Several years ago National Geographic had a picture of what could possibly be the ark. The shape of a boat, mostly rotted away, was found high on a mountain, not Ararat but a different mountain in the same range. There was also evidence in the area of people having lived there.
Of course, being a well-mannered future Freeper, you never mentioned this to him again, did you :-)
Where’s the beef? No physical evidence, no case.
Many biblical tales are based, at least in part, of some factual event, but at least so far there hasn’t been any solid evidence that Noah’s ark has been found. If it happens, and can be proven, great. Until then...
Of course by the lunar calendar that may have been a year of 354 days.
Wow, I’m impressed. Did you uncover that discrepency recently and by yourself? Or did somebody else point it out to you? The fact is that particular alleged historical discrepency of the Bible - in addition at a minimum 900 others - has been floating around the internet since at least 1874 (they already in extensive circulation at that time). If that’s the best that you can do, I suggest that you acquire a century old (or older) treatise on higher criticism. At least those arguments against the inspiration of Scripture had some depth.
First off, if seven of *some* are taken, than two of *each* kind ARE taken. There is no contradiction stated. A manifest contradiction would require a statement that two of some kind NOT be taken! Secondly, there is a gap of about 120 years between the two injunctions. The first injunction was for animals to be taken in pairs. The second being a stipulation for the number of pairs.
The New Oxford Annotated Bible (as well as other commentators) states that the priestly tradition of the Flood story mentions two animals of every sort whereas the early tradition differentiates between clean (7 pairs) and unclean animals (2 pairs), as well as birds (7 pairs). The priestly tradition is allegedly reflected in Gen 7:9 (where two by two is mentioned), whereas the verses from Gen 8 are otherwise a continuation of the early tradition.
Ancient historians study ancient texts and their transmission. Intellectually honest ancient historians know that there simply is no way for anyone to know that the “priestly tradition” did not mention the seven pairs, since we do not have the full priestly story (if such even existed), only the excerpts that were included in the transmitted text. It would not appear appropriate to claim that an absurdity that “may” be in a lost “priestly story” is the same thing as an actual absurdity in the Bible. This is all the more so when one considers the ambiguity of the language. 7:9 says simply that all the animals “were brought two and two” into the ark - which grammatically (in the Greek and Hebrew) can mean two each or two at a time. To assume that “two each” is meant requires making assumptions about the context of the priestly story that no longer exists, and that is never an accepted practice by ancient historians unless there are genuinely good reasons to do so.
Greek and Hebrew texts, in conjunction with the appropriate lexical aids, shows the wording of the verse, literally translated, is “take seven, seven, male, female” (it is literally that terse). There is no sound reason to suppose that the repetition of “seven” followed by a reference to a natural pairing means anything other than seven pairs (seven males, seven females), unless the seventh animal was a slug or something.
Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies says that “seven” represents “either a definite number, or sometimes indefinite, to denote abundance or sufficiency” so that “’By sevens’ stands in the original ‘seven seven.’” Thus, “seven seven” can or does mean “by sevens.” Therefore, there is (or may be some) ambiguity, an ambiguity that would explain why it is that some commentators say that it was seven animals, not seven pairs, that was meant by “seven seven.”
On the other hand, verse 7:9 states “they went two, two, male, female” and that is ambiguous enough to allow three interpretations: the “two, two” may simply describe how they were loaded (two at a time), or that they went in male-female pairs (the second” two” merely being emphatic), or that there were four each, two males and two females. Verses 6:19-20 both repeat “bring pairs, male, female,” which can just as easily be a description of procedure (”two at a time”) as of number (”two and no more”). The Hebrew is as ambiguous as the English word “fly” (which can be a verb or a noun, and sometimes with no way to tell except through interpretive guessing, e.g. “fruit flies like a banana”). The point is that we are obligated to grant the author that he tried to establish extra clean animals when these same animals turn up again in the story, and we are left to wonder why these animals were loaded in excess, if not for the fact that they were for ritual use.
My point is that when I read a novel and find a similar confusion, I automatically look for what makes the most sense of what is written, not what creates the clearest contradiction. Why should we be less charitable with the Bible?
A. Getting a Brontosaurus pregnant in the ark!
(Noah! Make them stop. I'm getting seasick!)
He keeps gettin’ chased away by Freemasons. :-P
Perhaps Noah was a good animal trainer and made the wee animools poop over the side or he had a sliding floor section at the back — the poop deck? :)
well, the unicorns were too girly.....
Can Noah’s ark be spotted on satellite ? Google Earth ?
It's not a contradiction, it's a paradox.
... Remember, all of this had been frozen in glacier ice for thousands of years. They took Ed on a three day journey up the mountain, where late one afternoon they arrived at a large terrain formation where the ice and snow had almost completely melted off.
Down in the bottom of the formation was a large, long box shaped object with a sort of superstructure built on top, which was about one third the width of the roof of the main structure. They walked Ed around the rim of the formation so he could view it from one end and two sides.
They dropped down inside the formation by ropes for viewing into the broken south end. There he could see three distinct floor levels, just as Moses described, and many partitions and what appeared to be huge stalls or pens. Also many broken and displaced timbers.
They said they and their ancestors had been in it many times when the ice melted enough, which was very seldom. They said the superstructure on top was the living quarters for Noah and family and there was still some evidence of living there like lamps and such. They gave detailed descriptions of some of the animal pens and cages and said waste was collected in the bottom section of the structure ...
That’s all well and good, but where is the actual physical evidence?
Higher criticism????? Hmmmm...what's that? Do you mean that body of work by Schleiermacher, Strauss, and Feuerbach?
Nah...never heard of it.
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