Noah's Flood

[Sebastian Toe]

We have done this some time ago,try to keep up Floo.

  ~TW~

She does, ~TW~; she usually starts the threads related to the Flood.   

Hey, Hope.
Did you forget to directly remind ~TW~ that the flood wasn't literally real?

[Dicky Underpants]

Not really, given that some people who accept the validity of the work make that claim. I don't doubt that it isn't true, I've no idea if the authors originally believed it was, believed it was a reworking of an older true story rejigged for their time or if they knew it was nonsense in their own time but thought it added something to the book they were writing.

O.

Like a number of passages in the Pentateuch, it's a combination of two accounts which contradict each other in a number of particulars. These probably came from disparate oral traditions, which were then combined by a redactor, who wanted to preserve as much as he could from both. However, since the said redactor knew that the biblical account would go on to tell of Noah performing an animal sacrifice after the Flood, I wonder whether he didn't introduce the material about the extra 'clean animals' in order to make provision for such anomalies as the otherwise inevitable extinction of goats and sheep in particular

[OH MY WORLD!]

And some call those people "primitives". Sound like they were all hip enough to consider the future. Of course don't get the idea that I think there is any evidence supporting the scribblings of Mr. Dick.

[OH MY WORLD!]

 Treeless ippy and floo,
What's this literally true stuff? neither one of you godless have ever asked me, nobody has. Ya, ya, don't you all jump to ask the question now. You had years that you could have done so, but you godless are too consumed with God everyday.

[Hope]

Hey, Hope.
Did you forget to directly remind ~TW~ that the flood wasn't literally real?

No, I forgot to directly remind ~TW~ that Floo isn't literally true   

[Hope]

Like a number of passages in the Pentateuch, it's a combination of two accounts which contradict each other in a number of particulars. These probably came from disparate oral traditions, which were then combined by a redactor, who wanted to preserve as much as he could from both. However, since the said redactor knew that the biblical account would go on to tell of Noah performing an animal sacrifice after the Flood, I wonder whether he didn't introduce the material about the extra 'clean animals' in order to make provision for such anomalies as the otherwise inevitable extinction of goats and sheep in particular

Is there actually any evidence to support your initial claim, DU; and is there then any evidence that the author(s) inserted anything - after all, if it wasn't written until the 6th/5th century and was a theological treatise why would he/they need to insert anything?

[Brownie]

Not directly regarding Noah's Flood but may be of interest to those who debate Creationism, there is a film on BBC4 tonight at 10pm, a biopic about Darwin called 'Creation'.  Stars Paul Bettany, made 2009.

[Shaker]

Paul Bettany is a good actor, but I hope that Emma Darwin wasn't the vinegar-faced joyless misery in real life that Jennifer Connelly (Mrs Bettany in real life) portrays her as, since Darwin would have been well within his rights to have buried the miserable baggage under the patio.

[Brownie]

I'm not familiar with her, had to look her up.  I'll reserve judgement until I have watched the film.  Someone mentioned a programme about mammoths, must have been on the evolution thread.

[Dicky Underpants]

And some call those people "primitives". Sound like they were all hip enough to consider the future. Of course don't get the idea that I think there is any evidence supporting the scribblings of Mr. Dick.

I said nothing about 'primitives'. However, the composite nature of the Pentateuch has been suspected since the early 18th C (see Henning Witter). It had to wait till 1780 before Johann Gottfried Eichhorn was brave enough to make his findings public.
I believe I was wrong about saying the details about the 'clean animals' were added. They belonged to an earlier account which related that sacrifices had begun with Cain and Abel and continued with Noah onwards  (the J or Jahvist narrative). The later account, interpolated in the story, is known as the Priestly narrative (P) and in this writer's perspective there would be no sacrifices till the consecration of Aaron, so only two animals of each kind were needed (see the last chapter of Exodus).

So far from these being entirely my own speculations, they relate to a tradition of scholarship going back a long way. If you're interested, you'll find an excellent guide in "Who wrote the Bible?" by Richard Elliott Friedman (and American -unfortunately not Canadian-, forsooth!). If you're feeling very intellectually curious, you could try the work of Julius Wellhausen. I won't be holding my breath on that one.

P.S. These scholars argue that there were five hands at work in the Pentateuch - four original sources and one redactor.

[Dicky Underpants]

Is there actually any evidence to support your initial claim, DU; and is there then any evidence that the author(s) inserted anything - after all, if it wasn't written until the 6th/5th century and was a theological treatise why would he/they need to insert anything?

I was wrong about the insertion of detail about the clean animals by a redactor. The 'clean animals' belong to the early Jahvist source. The Priestly narrative follows the early narratives of J and E, but writes his own parallel text. This author was intent on establishing the legitimacy of the Aaronic priesthood (see above), and wished to point out that sacrifices did not begin until the consecration of Aaron - therefore only two animals of each needed.
The evidence for the 'Documentary Hypothesis' is in the text itself, which is how the scholars I mentioned in the previous post came to their conclusions.

The final redactor was most likely Ezra (about the time you mentioned).

[ippy]

Treeless ippy and floo,
What's this literally true stuff? neither one of you godless have ever asked me, nobody has. Ya, ya, don't you all jump to ask the question now. You had years that you could have done so, but you godless are too consumed with God everyday.

It's the quirkiness of religiosos that fascinates me woody, not a single shred of evidence that would support any of the magical, mystic or the superstitional parts of these beliefs and you people still wont dump them? 

ippy

[Jack Knave]

Floo,

Before the flood,

1. How high were the mountains?
2. How many kinds of animal were there?
3. Where did kangaroos live?
4. What was different about the animals Noah sacrificed and how many pairs of them had he taken on the ark?
5. When was incest first prohibited?

When did Noah live, 6000 years ago? If so then 1 to 3 is as now, though I object to your term 'kind'.

[Spud]

When did Noah live, 6000 years ago? If so then 1 to 3 is as now, though I object to your term 'kind'.

Was reading about erosion yesterday. This might be of interest regarding mountains before and after the flood:
By noting the rates at which the surfaces of the continents are eroded and carried away by rivers to the oceans (see section 2 for specific values), one can calculate the length of time required to remove a given thickness of the continents. Judson and Ritter (1964) have estimated that for the United States the rate of erosion averages 6.1 cm/1000 years. At this rate of denudation the continents, which average 623 m above sea level, would be eroded to sea level in a mere 10.2 Ma. In other words, at this rate the present continents would be eroded over 340 times in the 3500 Ma assumed for the age of the continents.

www.grisda.org/origins/13064.htm

[floo]

Was reading about erosion yesterday. This might be of interest regarding mountains before and after the flood:
By noting the rates at which the surfaces of the continents are eroded and carried away by rivers to the oceans (see section 2 for specific values), one can calculate the length of time required to remove a given thickness of the continents. Judson and Ritter (1964) have estimated that for the United States the rate of erosion averages 6.1 cm/1000 years. At this rate of denudation the continents, which average 623 m above sea level, would be eroded to sea level in a mere 10.2 Ma. In other words, at this rate the present continents would be eroded over 340 times in the 3500 Ma assumed for the age of the continents.

www.grisda.org/origins/13064.htm

There is no evidence of any global flood!

[Maeght]

Was reading about erosion yesterday. This might be of interest regarding mountains before and after the flood:
By noting the rates at which the surfaces of the continents are eroded and carried away by rivers to the oceans (see section 2 for specific values), one can calculate the length of time required to remove a given thickness of the continents. Judson and Ritter (1964) have estimated that for the United States the rate of erosion averages 6.1 cm/1000 years. At this rate of denudation the continents, which average 623 m above sea level, would be eroded to sea level in a mere 10.2 Ma. In other words, at this rate the present continents would be eroded over 340 times in the 3500 Ma assumed for the age of the continents.

www.grisda.org/origins/13064.htm

When do you believe the flood happened Spud? Are you aware that any such calculations ignore the processes which lift up the continents, such as uplift due to continental shelf collisions and volcanic activity - processes which are much more fully understood now than it was in the days of Judson and Ritter (1964)? I'm sure you are aware that the website you copied this from sets out to look for anything which would support the biblical account?

[Jack Knave]

Was reading about erosion yesterday. This might be of interest regarding mountains before and after the flood:
By noting the rates at which the surfaces of the continents are eroded and carried away by rivers to the oceans (see section 2 for specific values), one can calculate the length of time required to remove a given thickness of the continents. Judson and Ritter (1964) have estimated that for the United States the rate of erosion averages 6.1 cm/1000 years. At this rate of denudation the continents, which average 623 m above sea level, would be eroded to sea level in a mere 10.2 Ma. In other words, at this rate the present continents would be eroded over 340 times in the 3500 Ma assumed for the age of the continents.

www.grisda.org/origins/13064.htm

You do know what Ma means? Because your post doesn't make sense.

[Spud]

When do you believe the flood happened Spud? Are you aware that any such calculations ignore the processes which lift up the continents, such as uplift due to continental shelf collisions and volcanic activity - processes which are much more fully understood now than it was in the days of Judson and Ritter (1964)? I'm sure you are aware that the website you copied this from sets out to look for anything which would support the biblical account?

Look at the theory of how India drifted across the ocean for about 30 million years then crashed into Asia, creating the Himalayas. India would actually have been eroded entirely in the time it took to get there after splitting from Gondwanaland, given these rates of erosion. When you look at the pictures, India stays the same shape and size for all that time.
Read on a bit in the link I gave. Roth says,
 "It has been suggested that mountains still exist because they are constantly being renewed by uplift from below. However, this process of uplift could not go through even one complete cycle of erosion and uplift without eradicating the layers of the geologic column found in them. Present erosion rates would tend to rapidly eradicate evidence of older sediments; yet these sediments are still very well-represented, both in mountains and elsewhere."

[Gordon]

Spud

Your earlier link is to a creationist website masquerading as a scientific one: its mission statement says;

The Geoscience Research Institute is sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church with a mission to discover and share an understanding of nature and its relationship with the Biblical revelation of the Creator God.

So we can ignore that one: perhaps it would be better to link to genuine science resources instead of creationist charlatans.

[Maeght]

Look at the theory of how India drifted across the ocean for about 30 million years then crashed into Asia, creating the Himalayas. India would actually have been eroded entirely in the time it took to get there after splitting from Gondwanaland, given these rates of erosion. When you look at the pictures, India stays the same shape and size for all that time.

Based on your comment about India drifting across the ocean I think you need to do a bit more reading about plate tectonics. But as a general question Spud, when you make an observation such as this do you really think you (or the creationist websites you probably get it from) have spotted something which all the thousands and thousands of highly qualified scientists who work in the relevant fields have not spotted?

[Spud]

Based on your comment about India drifting across the ocean I think you need to do a bit more reading about plate tectonics. But as a general question Spud, when you make an observation such as this do you really think you (or the creationist websites you probably get it from) have spotted something which all the thousands and thousands of highly qualified scientists who work in the relevant fields have not spotted?

To be honest, they don't seem to have spotted it. If they have, they haven't acknowledged that existing layers of sedimentary rock cannot be more than a few tens of millions of years old, based on current erosion rates. Someone did once say that eroded material gets re-deposited on continental shelves, but that doesn't help.

[Shaker]

To be honest, they don't seem to have spotted it.

Now why do you think that might be?

[Maeght]

To be honest, they don't seem to have spotted it, they haven't acknowledged that existing layers of sedimentary rock cannot be more than a few tens of millions of years old, based on current erosion rates.

Is that really credible? That all the qualified people working in the field over the years have missed this?

... Someone did once say that eroded material gets re-deposited on continental shelves, but that doesn't help.

Someone did once say ... what down the pub? I think, as ever, you need to go to some decent scientific sources rather than relying on what creationist websites say that scientists say.

[floo]

A creationist 'scientist' is not credible, imo.

[Shaker]

A creationist 'scientist' is not credible, imo.

It's an oxymoron for starters.