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Questions about Noahs Flood (is it logical or just magic you have to believe)


Leyla

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18 hours ago, one.opinion said:

Did God truly destroy all life? Others have argued that most aquatic life survived. What about plant life and microbial life? It is difficult to see how life on the planet survived if we take the entire account literally.

You make a good point but one has to look at context to see exactly what was meant. What to us seem like living things, to another culture and language may seem like non-thinking biological robots that aren't truly living. 

Context seems to point to two major identifying factors of the life forms that were all killed off:

A) Terrestrial

B) Breath of life... An ambiguous term which could refer to lung breathing higher forms, like birds and mammals and reptiles and amphibians. The term "breath of life" could also mean having a soul. 

Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died

Do insects with their small brains and trachea count as having the "breath of life"? Do they have souls? 

I don't think one can confidently include insects, bacteria and plants, in the intended drowning victims. Although seeds of plants are definitely in the list of ark survivors, but not in groups of 2 or 8 like the so-called "living creatures" that came into the ark. 

The phrase "living creatures" was established in Genesis 1, but even there i'm not quite sure if what we have in mind is exactly what the writer of Genesis 1 had in mind. 

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14 minutes ago, ARGOSY said:

You make a good point but one has to look at context to see exactly what was meant. What to us seem like living things, to another culture and language may seem like non-thinking biological robots that aren't truly living.

This is exactly my point. We are not the original audience for the Scriptures, yet many behave as though the modern English translations supersede the original text and context. To fully understand Genesis 8:21, we need to think of the original language and the original audience. To the original audience of Genesis, "eretz" was not necessarily the entire planet.

21 minutes ago, ARGOSY said:

B) Breath of life... An ambiguous term which could refer to lung breathing higher forms, like birds and mammals and reptiles and amphibians. The term "breath of life" could also mean having a soul.

As with a LOT of ancient Hebrew, many of the terms and phrases are indeed ambiguous. This is one of the reasons it is puzzling to me that people select a single term from a range of possibilities and insist that the one definition is the correct one - and anyone that believes another definition may make more sense is obviously wrong and quite likely a heretic.

*Note: Argosy, your responses here have been well-considered and well-expressed. I am not pointing my finger at you, here.

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On 4/29/2019 at 12:03 AM, Leyla said:

1) How can a planet be habitable after global flood on such a big scale?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              2)How did all sea life survive?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  3) After the flood was over, what were animals supposed to eat? Carnivores would kill off all the saved animals and plant eating animals would have nothing to eat.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               4) Even if we assume that the animals survived and had enough oxygen, food etc... how did they find their way back home, to the different regions in all the other continents?                                                                                  5)  If we world was flooded on this big scale, why cant we find any evidence?? Do you think our scientists are really so incompetent, that they cant find even one evidence for it?                                                                               [Edit: Thanks for all the answer and sorry for the late replies. I will try my best to respond as soon as possible]

i am sure the carnivores would have eaten the dead from the flood, and when the waters receded, vegetation would have been exposed, and as for evidence, do u know scientists have found sea fossils in the himalayas.  and the animals would have spread out naturally, they do not spend time in the one place for long.    

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17 hours ago, one.opinion said:

This is exactly my point. We are not the original audience for the Scriptures, yet many behave as though the modern English translations supersede the original text and context. To fully understand Genesis 8:21, we need to think of the original language and the original audience. To the original audience of Genesis, "eretz" was not necessarily the entire planet.

As with a LOT of ancient Hebrew, many of the terms and phrases are indeed ambiguous. This is one of the reasons it is puzzling to me that people select a single term from a range of possibilities and insist that the one definition is the correct one - and anyone that believes another definition may make more sense is obviously wrong and quite likely a heretic.

*Note: Argosy, your responses here have been well-considered and well-expressed. I am not pointing my finger at you, here.

It's just our relationship with Jesus that counts, how we see Genesis is largely irrelevant to our faith. 

But generally I feel we are on safer ground doctrinally, the more we stay with the literal and the closer we get to the intentions of the original writer. This does take faith in the words as written. 

From a geological perspective, there was widespread flooding at the end Permian. It appears that all continents were previously marine, looking at the fossil record. Yet during the Carboniferous and Permian much of the world was covered in low lying swampland, probably indicating that the formation of large-scale glaciation and a huge ice cap in the south caused sea levels to drop. 

When these ice caps melted suddenly at the end-Permian, of course the sea levels rose and destroyed that swampy landscape across all continental interiors. 

 

When sea levels dropped again the world was devoid of animals and plants , and more suited to reptiles on the dry sandy landscapes of the early Triassic. 

 

This is all recorded in geology during the time the world transformed from wet swampland to dry desert landscapes at the Permian-Triassic boundary. I believe these facts all point to a literal biblical flood. 

Edited by ARGOSY
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1 hour ago, ARGOSY said:

It's just our relationship with Jesus that counts, how we see Genesis is largely irrelevant to our faith. 

This is a dangerous way to start thinking...

Some try to squeeze Genesis into the fallacies found in the modern evolutionary science textbook and come out the other side with a compromised faith. 

Even though there are many layers of interpretation within Genesis, it absolutely can be taken literally and is backed up scientifically, with plenty of indicative evidence.

Let's remember the "ages of the Earth" are not fact, but a theory.  There is no supporting evidence for arguing these ages of the earth, other than layers of rock and ageing fossils - both of which are dated with methods based upon assumptive parameters, set by mere men.

Of course, everyone is welcome to believe whatever theory they want!  But to start to look at a Genesis and think it's not literal or "largely irrelevant to our faith", is a slippery path...

Who is the Lord Jesus and what was His mission's purpose, without Genesis? 

How can we make sense of Exodus without Genesis? 

Should we therefore ignore Exodus to Deuteronomy? 

Should we then forget the history and  prophets because they were towards Israel and also "irrelevant" to our faith?  

There is no New Testament without the Old, neither will you ever truly understand the New without the Old.  Pretty much all of the Word can be taken allegorically, but it doesn't forfeit the literal interpretation whilst doing so.  Are some only saying otherwise because of their great faith in mankind's "flawless" scientific disciplines?

Again, you are welcome to believe anything you want.  As for me, I stand on the side of "Bible first, science after".

Love & Shalom

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9 hours ago, Tzephanyahu said:

 

This is a dangerous way to start thinking...

Some try to squeeze Genesis into the fallacies found in the modern evolutionary science textbook and come out the other side with a compromised faith. 

Even though there are many layers of interpretation within Genesis, it absolutely can be taken literally and is backed up scientifically, with plenty of indicative evidence.

Let's remember the "ages of the Earth" are not fact, but a theory.  There is no supporting evidence for arguing these ages of the earth, other than layers of rock and ageing fossils - both of which are dated with methods based upon assumptive parameters, set by mere men.

Of course, everyone is welcome to believe whatever theory they want!  But to start to look at a Genesis and think it's not literal or "largely irrelevant to our faith", is a slippery path...

Who is the Lord Jesus and what was His mission's purpose, without Genesis? 

How can we make sense of Exodus without Genesis? 

Should we therefore ignore Exodus to Deuteronomy? 

Should we then forget the history and  prophets because they were towards Israel and also "irrelevant" to our faith?  

There is no New Testament without the Old, neither will you ever truly understand the New without the Old.  Pretty much all of the Word can be taken allegorically, but it doesn't forfeit the literal interpretation whilst doing so.  Are some only saying otherwise because of their great faith in mankind's "flawless" scientific disciplines?

Again, you are welcome to believe anything you want.  As for me, I stand on the side of "Bible first, science after".

Love & Shalom

I completely agree with you. Yes Genesis should be taken literally, and does not contradict true science. I agree with "Bible first" if there appears to be some apparent current contradiction. 

 

It's just that Paul wanted us to focus on salvation issues, the gospel. If someone's faith isn't perfect in other areas of the Bible, it's not a big issue. Some people tend to see symbols where the Bible contradicts their world view, as long as they don't dilute core issues of faith in Jesus, I will debate my position with these evolutionists but I won't criticise their faith. A believer is a believer regardless of their position on evolution, even though I'm a unswerving believer in creationism. Some creationists get a little too critical sometimes, I think it's unnecessary. 

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all I really need to "see" is entropy.  It's such a well established principle, I simply  cannot imagine evolution could possibly run against every other process we know and add information/complexity successfully.

And when all the evidence we have of he effect of mutations (huge percentage of mutations are detrimental if not deadly  to any  organism).  There's a very  compelling evidence found in  the idea of irreducible complexity...plenty  of mind bogglingly impossible statistical studies modeling  the  impossibility of assembling  the proteins necessary for life by random  forces.

 

and that's a real short list....

 

Edited by Jostler
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2 hours ago, ARGOSY said:

It's just that Paul wanted us to focus on salvation issues, the gospel. If someone's faith isn't perfect in other areas of the Bible, it's not a big issue

Ah, I see what you mean now.  Thank you for clarifying Argosy. 

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On 4/28/2019 at 4:03 PM, Leyla said:

1) How can a planet be habitable after global flood on such a big scale?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              2)How did all sea life survive?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  3) After the flood was over, what were animals supposed to eat? Carnivores would kill off all the saved animals and plant eating animals would have nothing to eat.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               4) Even if we assume that the animals survived and had enough oxygen, food etc... how did they find their way back home, to the different regions in all the other continents?                                                                                  5)  If we world was flooded on this big scale, why cant we find any evidence?? Do you think our scientists are really so incompetent, that they cant find even one evidence for it?                                                                               [Edit: Thanks for all the answer and sorry for the late replies. I will try my best to respond as soon as possible]

1) plant life would quickly re-establish, especially via bird droppings of ark birds, and floating seeds. 

 

2) I doubt all life survived, rather there would be many extinctions

3) I doubt there were too many carnivores. Noah could have kept them isolated until herbivores were re established. There were probably just a few thousand herbivores compared to massive landscapes of fresh shoots and plants. 

4)they didn't go "back home", but they spread out from Turkey to wherever conditions were suitable. 

5) the world has often been through periods of marine transgression (marine flooding continents) and marine regression (dropping sea levels). No geologist would deny regular worldwide flooding, but they would deny the extent of the biblical description. It's impossible to prove the actual height of the flooding in the past, the mountaintops of the bigger mountain ranges have been washed away. 

Edited by ARGOSY
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1 hour ago, Jostler said:

all I really need to "see" is entropy.  It's such a well established principle, I simply  cannot imagine evolution could possibly run against every other process we know and add information/complexity successfully.

This is venturing a little from the OP, and it may be better to start another thread. I've already asked @Who me if they are interested in discussing evolution in a new thread, but I'll give them some time to decide.

In any case, the earth is not a closed system, it is constantly receiving energy from the sun. So it is entirely possible for living things to increase in complexity. This happens all the time during embryogenesis - what starts as a single cell becomes increasingly more complex as cells divide and differentiate until you have an organism ready for birth/hatching/etc that may consist of trillions of cells - pretty complex!

1 hour ago, Jostler said:

(huge percentage of mutations are detrimental if not deadly  to any  organism)

Yes, mutations are sometimes harmful, and some are even deadly. However, neutral mutations (with respect to fitness) are much more common (since mutations in protein-coding sequences make up a very small portion of many genomes) and produce the raw material required for adaptation through natural selection. The idea that natural selection is the ONLY process required for evolution was discarded decades ago (see neutral theory - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_theory_of_molecular_evolution).

 

1 hour ago, Jostler said:

There's a very  compelling evidence found in  the idea of irreducible complexity...plenty  of mind bogglingly impossible statistical studies modeling  the  impossibility of assembling  the proteins necessary for life by random  forces.

There are a couple of things I'd like to address in this statement. First, I agree that the molecular assembly (proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and others) required for the first cells is extremely difficult for me to imagine occurring WITHOUT a Creator. However, I believe that once those first cells were in place, naturalistic explanations for the development of life over time become much more feasible. While I don't think there is sufficient evidence to support a purely naturalistic origin of life, I believe the evidence is in favor of God creating through the process of evolution.

In the words of 19th century priest (and several other interests), Charles Kingsley:

Quote

Shall we quarrel with Science if she should show how those words (Darwin’s) are true? What, in one word, should we have to say but this?–We knew of old that God was so wise that He could make all things; but behold, He is so much wiser than even that, that He can make all things make themselves.

 

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