Support for belief in Noah's flood, not evidence.

You'd have to ask the OP. But first you'd have to find them. They were last seen here pre-Covid.

Have you reviewed the progress of the thread, or are you just jumping in at the end?

 

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Well, no. No one is supporting the Noah's Ark story by using Noah's Ark. Nor is anyone saying that literally everyone went extinct except Noah and his animals. What this discussion has been about is what the basis of the Noah's Ark story is. Like most such stories there is probably a grain of truth in there somewhere.

 

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So we have established that in the past there was a flood named the Black Sea Deluge, which is assumed to have been the basis for a biblical myth where everything dies, except for oceandwellers. Can't drown aquatic life in water.
A small oversight.

Why is this of any interest to anybody but religious folk?

 

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As I have explained, to understand how this legend may have arisen. You know, history, anthropology, that kind of stuff. Just as the legend of Scylla and Charybdis may have been inspired by the tides rushing through the Straits of Messina, or Vulcan's foundry may have been based on one of the volcanoes at the edge of the African plate.

 

Because some people are interested in the origins of major cultures.

By the way, as I have already explained, the Black Sea inundation is but one of several hypotheses for the origin of the Middle Eastern flood myth, which is not unique to the Old Testament of the bible. So it's not "assumed" to be the origin of it: it's just one candidate.

 

I understand how legends may arise, but all natural events are natural events and all religious myths are interpretations of natural events.
But I'll withdraw from this thread. I'm sorry if I interfered with serious inquiry.

 

Thanks, appreciated.

 

I'm with the Epic of Gilgamesh theory. The ancient Jews lived in mesopotamia at one point where the Tigris and Euphrates river regularly flooded. Their mythologies were borrowed from several ancient sources, it was like a compilation of contemporary thinking about the world. Natural disasters would have been thought of as God's punishment for wrongdoing, so the moral of the story is don't do wrong or God will punish everyone. Of course, the continued existence of animals had to be explained... But a global flood would have left a layer of flood debris everywhere even on the bottom of the oceans, and this cannot be found. Ancient storytellers would never let truth get in the way of a good story.

 

Valid observations, but in fairness I should point out Write4U did eventually realise he was missing the point of the thread and agreed to stay out of it, in post 146.

 

In looking around for whichever flood event, it helps to bear in mind the generally acknowledged point that the Hebrew Scriptures include borrowed and adapted legends. It is most likely that the flood event in question is not one the Hebrews remember, but came to them through whichever legend they borrowed.

In this sense, it is also important that the flood story might have been a late addition, possibly third century BCE.

Analogously, the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah is set at 1713 BCE, while the Book of Joshua is itself of little historical value, it contains the story of Jericho. It turns out that sometime around 1650 BCE, a major bolide event occurred at Tel el-Hammam, one of the potential sites of Sodom and Gommorah. And that blast appears to have also knocked down part of Jericho, all of thirteen and a half miles away. What records we have suggest Joshua was composed in the seventh century BCE, and revised significantly in the sixth.

Applied comparatively, the implication is that there are more potential floods than we can ever identify that might form the basis for the Biblical version. If it was so borrowed, we will probably never understand the relationship between the legend they learned and the event it told of. Unless there happens to be a particular scroll, buried somewhere that we haven't found, that happens to tell us that explicit detail. And I really don't recall that the Hebrew Scriptures work that way.

 

The sequel was better: Sodom and Gamera Friend of Children

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Thank you for recycling.

 

The Biblical flood story is a myth, a second hand myth. I refer you to Gilgamesh

 

There's been plenty of flooding in the world, and it wouldn't surprise me if an entire territory and population of people were subject to at least one of them. The entire earth type flood might be a stretch, but entire territories being flooded isn't even remotely a subject worth a disagreement. I'm uncertain how far humans had spread across the globe in Noah's day, but I don't doubt a flood happened, responsible for an entire civilization being wiped out. It's just not uncommon enough to deny with much validity. Hurricanes, tsunami's, etc. are far from being uncommon. The same is true for human incompetence to shield ourselves successfully from their effects.

We learn as we go, eh?

 

Flooding yes of course, all over the planet at different times in different places. However, a Biblical flood, Noah a boat all the animals and all but 8 people left to populate the earth? No.

As I said the story is taken from the Epic of Gilgamesh which predates the Bible.

It has just been adapted and absorbed.

 

The epic of Gilgamesh...cool. I won't attempt to argue the point. It's cool how the stories from varying cultures have such similarities. To me, it suggests some common understanding of history, but that's my perspective. It does follow to some extent, the theory of evolution. At least as water coming first and then life under the sun. One type of lake to another, if you will.

Call me crazy, but it likewise seems relevant in terms of child birth and the concept of baptism of water, spirit and fire.

I was doing some research on earth ages recently. It's almost as if the earth has solar seasons that coincide with our annuals.

 

It is no co-incidence that the OT was written exilic/post exilic 6th Century Israel so there would have been Babylonian influence.

Stories were passed on via oral tradition but luckily some ancient near east civilizations wrote them down.

The Gilgamesh stories were written in one of the oldest languages, Cuneiform and we still have the originals because they were written in clay which last a long time, much longer than papyrus.

 

Digging up history is a lot like detective work, only more fun than I would think. Every little truth attached to other truths that are attached to even more truths ... It all makes for an interesting academic or even hobby and for some a real cool adventurous career.

Thanks for the contributions. I was unaware.

 

It could be easily be a life times study. Not just one area. For me it was all bout unpicking my own religion and the foundations that it stood on and Noah was an important patriarch.
There is a text book used in US University courses called "The Bible" by Bart D Ehrman, I recommend it.