BBC Report: Noah's Ark "...more credible version based on Babylonian sources."

BBC On Line ^ | Friday, 19 March, 2004 | Jeremy Bowen

[dartuser]

Good point ... perhaps he should not have said "infants" ... but rather "not adults."

[Dog Gone]

No, but I think Christians who are not open to the suggestion that Noah's Flood is an allegory have a challenge in defending it as a literal account. Christians believe in many other things in the bible as being symbolic or allegorical, but quite a few insist that the story of Noah must be entirely fact.

I try never to attack anyone for their personal religious beliefs, unless you happen to be a moslem who thinks Allah wants you to kill me. And to the extent I've done that on this thread, I apologize. I should have restricted my comments more to the fact that I used to believe the literal account of Noah's Flood, but no longer do. Nor do I think which side you come down on the issue is particularly important to God. It's an irrelevant side issue to the important things.

[aShepard]

..."your son would tell you he doesn't think the Bible discusses how animals got to Australia."....

Probably not, but I'll betcha that he'll say, "because God wanted them there."

[Jaded]

There's the rub huh? Everyone know there's always been a Julian calendar. Even before there was a "Julian"./so

[dartuser]

"No, but I think Christians who are not open to the suggestion that Noah's Flood is an allegory have a challenge in defending it as a literal account."

The creation science movement has been quite successful defending this since the time of Darwin.

"Christians believe in many other things in the bible as being symbolic or allegorical, but quite a few insist that the story of Noah must be entirely fact."

Very true, but only where the text is obviously meant to be taken symbolically ... we can read parts of Revelation and we see the imagery, language, and genre as one that obviously requires applying a different eye. But the account in Genesis uses plain language that doesn't require allegorical interpretation. It describes simple events that are understood plainly. If it reads plainly, why try to make it say something that is not plain.

Im curious, what evidence did you come across to make you give up your literal interpretation of the flood?

[dartuser]

lol ... OK, then I would disagree with him ...

[SengirV]

"there are about 30 million species of animals in the world. For so many creatures, a fleet of enormous arks would have been needed."

How many species were there at the time of Noah? THAT is the question ... not how many there are today. And how many species can be generated from an example of each animal? We would need some kind of canine to make wolves, cocker spaniels, german shepards ...

Bad move. You don't argue FOR the bible by arguing FOR evolution. Well you could, but many here will not appreciate it =)

[Dinsdale]

The creation science movement has been quite successful defending this since the time of Darwin.

You tell funny joke!

Creation science continues to twist and turn in order to avoid the data outside the bible.

[Dog Gone]

Geology, with emphasis on depositional environments. The fossil record just doesn't support a mass burial of all land animals outside of the ark in a single event. If we had a fossil bed containing dinosaurs, dogs, monkeys, and humans all mixed together, then we'd know they all died in one event. But we don't.

Then there are the common sense problems with letting out all the animals at Ararat I mentioned earlier. Or the water volume problem. Or the what the heck would people and animals eat except each other when they disembarked problem.

Rather than straining to come up with bizarre explanations for all these problems, I came to the conclusion that it was an allegory.

[dartuser]

"Reproducing according to its kind" IS Bible ...

There is no problem with a Christian differentiating between micro (vertical) and macro (horizontal) evolution ... I see no problem with species adapting, growing thicker hair over time to better combat harsh climate ... but I aint never seen a horse evolve from a whale.

[dartuser]

You should read a little more. Actually, it's Darwinism that continues to perpetrate disproven theories to the masses and slap the quaint "science" label on it. Evolution is mathematically impossible ... it takes much more faith to believe the astronomical numerics of random chance ... than it does to believe in an intelligence creator.

Perhaphs "Darwins Black Box" by Behe will assist you.

[SengirV]

How many different KINDS of living things are there then?

[Junior]

Greek Flood Myth

Then comes the Greek story of the flood. Bereft of Prometheus' guidance, men and women grew so wicked that Jupiter sent a great flood which destroyed them all, except one good man, Deucalion, a son of Prometheus, and one good woman, Pyrrha, a daughter of Epimetheus. These two were preserved as being fit to live. The flood submerged all earth except Mount Olympus, where the gods lived, and Mount Parnassus, where Deucalion and Pyrrha found shelter. Then the waters withdrew, and from the oracle of Apollo on Parnassus came a voice commanding the two survivors to people the world anew with more worthy inhabitants. They were told to begin by casting behind them "the bones of their mother." Deucalion shrewdly interpreted this strange oracle as referring to the stones, the bones of Mother Earth. So as he and Pyrrha left the oracle, they tossed stones over their shoulders. All that Deucalion threw took form as men, those of Pyrrha became women. She was slighter than Deucalion, and threw smaller stones, so women have ever since been less of stature than men. 

The son of Deucalion was that Hellen from whom all the later Greeks claimed descent. Yet it is notable that even in their legends they retain the traces of their divided race. On Hellen's family tree there is a distinct place assigned for each Achaean hero. But the heroes of the older Aegean people are never traced from Hellen. Each one is given independent origin as the child or grandchild of some god. Thus we have a fairly positive way for deciding of each hero in the stories that follow whether he was in truth Achaean or whether the memory of him had been preserved from older non-Achaean days.

Now, what part of this flood myth matches the story in the Bible?

[night reader]

No, but what he did take on the ark were infant animals, which included dinosaurs.

I've often wondered if many of the great extinctions occurred when certain species either didn't board the ark or were not invited to do so.

[Old Professer]

You're missing the point; it is a matter of definition as to what a species is, the broader the definition the more there are to account for.

[Jaded]

No not at all. People look at dating of archeology finds as a way to disprove the Bible. The point was that people want to stuff an infinite God and His creation in to the finite world in which we live and our measures of time.

[dubyagee]

IYHO, of course.

[Henchman]

You mean God told Noah to bring two of each kind of BEER! Go, Noah.

[ASA Vet]

What is a species?

Second time that's come up today.
Here's the best answer I was able to google up.

Click here

[Modernman]

No, but what he did take on the ark were infant animals, which included dinosaurs.

How many animal species were onboard the Ark?