I have started this thread here and I suppose it could go in other places... Religion or Earth Science... However because my question is somewhat general I thought to present it here. Firstly I have been reading about Noahs flood and wondered if there could be a real event that prompted the story. I feel the bible story may not be a genuine presentation of history. It seems that Noahs flood was probably only 3000 years ago, I am not sure as that number came from a creationist web site and frankly I was not really taking in the numbers because their methodology to determine a date left me cold. I think Noah was 600 years old so maybe years had different time spans. So is there an event history tells us may be the bibles story of Noahs flood. Next the bible suggests a world wide flood, and to those ancient folk the world may have been the particular valley in which they lived. Could a flood have submerged every land mass at any time in history? Now for the future and the current concerns around climate change. If all the ice caps etc melted and the temp increased causing an overall expansion of the oceans could all land be submerged and if not is there any estimate of a worst case senerio. Alex
We know that most of the details of biblical stories are bs. Of course the entire world didn't flood up to the mountaintops. There isn't enough water for that and it would still be here. There is no where for it to go. There would be no survivors and two of every animal wouldn't be enough to keep populations from going extinct. Penguins would also have to walk from the Middle East to Antarctica. Almost all of the dramatic stories in the Bible existed in other forms prior to the writing of the Bible including virgin birth, son of God, floods, etc. so whether a river flooded or not in some local area is really incidental.
I only heard this yesterday on QI.. There were two of each of un clean animals but seven of each clean animal. I wonder if elephants are clean or unclean. Alex
I think it stayed laying around for some time after the rain stopped but, which lasted forty days and forty nights, but you must remember its just a biblical story so you can make up any explanation you like to get rid of all the water. I think all the animals were so very thirsty after spending so long on board they probably drank most of it and what was left drained into the ocean. Alex
I corrected my post by the way. I meant to type that the oceans couldn't hold that much. But you are correct, God works in mysterious ways. Very mysterious. He's calmed down a bit in the last 2,000 years however. He's not nearly as mysterious these days it seems (or as miraculous). Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But, back in the day.....
I worked out what you intended to type. It was rather worrying to read about Noah on the creationist web site I visited cant recall who they were but they believe the flood was real. I should see what they said about the excess water... I might just goggle and see what turns up. Alex
I copied this from.... http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-floodwater.html There are a number of Scripture passages that identify the Flood waters with the present-day seas (Amos 9:6 and Job 38:8-11 note “waves”). If the waters are still here, why are the highest mountains not still covered with water, as they were in Noah's day? Psalm 104 suggests an answer. After the waters covered the mountains (verse 6), God rebuked them and they fled (verse 7); the mountains rose, the valleys sank down (verse 8) and God set a boundary so that they will never again cover the Earth (verse 9)[1]. They are the same waters More made up stuff. It really is extrodinary... unbelieveable... They go on to explain how plate tectonics did Gods work. No wonder the christians I have personaly met were so good at justifying wharever they seized upon to suit their position. I wonder how Jan views this mob? Alex
From the same site........ Did Noah take dinosaurs on the Ark? The Bible does not list the names of every creature on the Ark. It does say that one set of every kind of air-breathing animal was on board (Genesis 6:19-20, 7:15-16). So, dinosaurs must have been included. There is evidence that dinosaurs lived after the Flood. For instance, Job saw “behemoth” after the Flood. I wonder if dinosaurs were clean or unclean. So how many animals all up I wonder? And folk believe this story. Alex
So humans were around the same time as dinasours. But the giant rock from space killed them off... Wait there is no giant rock from space in the bible so where did they go? Dare I go back to the site and find out where they went... Alex
The bible story was taken from the Epic of Gilgamesh, a much older book. 'Noah' was originally Utnapishtim. Book 11 of the Epic tells the story of the 'flood'. The rise of the waters was actually incidental to the real event if you do a close read of the story. An immense cloud the covers the horizon then rises to completely blot out the sun. Fire and lightening in the cloud, the rumble of thunder, then a wave of fire and high winds. Next, debris tsunamis roar down the valleys, the land "cracked like a clay pot", rain so thick you could not see your hands before your face. Then comes the flood that raises his ship. It reads to me like a pretty good description of either a huge undersea volcanic eruption or a meteor/comet strike in the ocean. The moment of dead calm described makes me think it more likely an asteroid strike in open ocean as that would pull atmosphere into its wake when it hit. The flood then, was most likely a tsunami.
Several melt pulses rose sea levels at the beginning of the holocene. At that time, there were also many severe storms. Most people live, and have lived near the shore(mostly in river deltas). Add these together, and you get floods and storms and seeing your land submerged beneath the waves. viola "the flood"
Or the by now leading hypothesis: http://www.romanianhistoryandculture.com/theblackseaflood.htm This does not rule out a meteor strike - something touched off the breach of the sill in the Bosporus.
Haven't read through the thread, so maybe this answer has already been posted. I've read that some speculate it is based on some historical fact from an earlier event. However, the flood was probably much smaller and probably involved a more local flood. Some speculate the story originated from Babylonian myth. But I'm assuming you already know this. So many epic tales have been told so many times that they resurface even today (Star Wars).
