Flood story questions

[Delon]

I have 10 questions (actually more but ten will do until they can be answered)No one seems to be able to answer them affectively. Maybe you can give it a shot! They are in regard to the Biblical Flood account.


1)How did insects of short life spans such as Mayflies survive since they only live for a few days? There Larvae require fresh running water as well.

2) How did ALL the fish survive since some fish require fresh water, some salty, some ocean, brackish, some lake water, ect?

3)How did diseases such as typhus, syphilus and others survive since they require a host?

4) Why don't all the mountains show erosion equally since they were all flooded at the same time?

5) The Egyptians have records of there dynasty that go back over 300 years before the flood. Why do they not mention the Flood account in any of there records?

6) How did all the different animals get to the different continents and islands so fast?

7) Why do the great sequoua tree rings show no sign of a great flood?

8) How did man and his civilizations repopulate so fast after the flood? (Remember at this same time, stone henge, Tower of l, great Indus valley and sumerian populations, the Great Pyrimids, ect)Where did all these people come from in order to build these things in such diverse places?

9) How did sensitive marine life like coral survive?

10) The bible says all the animals gathered male and female of each kind (Genesis 7:15-16) What about asexual species and parthenogenic creatures who have only females and others such as earthworms who are hermaphrodites? What about social animals like ants and termites who need the whole nest to survive?

[Amanda]

"Posted by Unregistered User Delon at 13:14, 18th Dec

Flood story questions"

it's a *story*! it's not true.

(edited because i messed up the bold font. err.)

[hr][s]"don't frown...you never know who might be falling in love with your smile..."[/s]

[Al]

Apart from reiterating Amanda's point about it being a story (And, by the way, a story not unique to the Bible. The Ancient Greeks had a similar myth.), I must point out that some of your questions do not make sense either within the confines of the story or in factual terms.

"3)How did diseases such as typhus, syphilus and others survive since they require a host?"

Both could have had a host. Conditions on the Ark would have been far from pretty. Typhus could have thrived in such a confined place. As for the syphilis, with all that repopulating going on, it would only take one person to have been infected.....

"4) Why don't all the mountains show erosion equally since they were all flooded at the same time?"

For the same reason they don't now. Different rocks erode at different rates. Mountains are made of rock. For mountains to all erode at the same rate, they would have to be made of the same rock.

"5) The Egyptians have records of there dynasty that go back over 300 years before the flood. Why do they not mention the Flood account in any of there records?"

I thought we had established that the story of the Flood, as told in the Bible, was allegorical. How can you put such an accurate date on something like that? Besides, there was more than one Egyptian dynasty. Which one are you talking about?

There may have been a "Flood". Other Mediterranean cultures have similar stories, and the whole area is prone to seismic activity. Such a flood might have affected a large area of the region. It could have wiped out settlements and destroyed much of their "world". When the story came to be written up (many hundreds of years later) it had grown in the telling. Now the story had to reflect God's power and purpose. Although many of the OT stories seem to have some historical truth behind them, they were not written as history. They were written as an attempt to understand their world.

[hr]"Life is a horizontal fall"

[Pinky the Gem]

AND I have a question as well:

WHAT ABOUT THE BIRDS COZ THEY CAN FLY.......
and they could perch on the ark when they wanted a break....

maybe Noah had a shot gun and took out any that did this........????????

[splittter]

Besides all that ... if you're going to buy into the whole God thing why not just believe that He sorted the whole thing out, and decided the cover the Flood thing up to piss off idiots like Delon ... actually, if I was going to turn my life over to religion I'd demand it had clauses in like that ... you'd have to get your entertainment in somehow.

BTW, Delon did get me thinking ... you know there might be something fishy about that Santa bloke ... thats a shit load of presents

[Scunthorpe]

Fo some reason flood stories are present in most of the ancientn civilisations. It seems that humanity have some sort of morbid love of stries that involve the (almost) utter annihalation of the human race. Of course they (including the Bible) are allegories. Have to leave now in case there are any literal Christians about who might hunt us down.

[hr]The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and three hundred sixty-two admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision.

[Bonnie]

I've always believed, and this was reiterated in my Catholic school religion courses, that the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden was a story. It is supposed to show that all humans are fallible, what can happen if you don't follow God's demands, etc. But, a former friend of mine told me taht scientists can prove that Adam, Eve, Cain, Able, and their next descendants really could have lived like described in the Bible-- living for hundreds of years, having many children, etc.
Apparently, according to this theory, at one time, the Earth was covered by a "shell" of some chemical (my friend was a chemist, I'm an art student, don't expect me to remember) through which the sun's light would have shown pinkish. Humans heal faster when in pink light so thus all the references to living 768 years or so could have happened. Furthermore, the Bible does not mention rain until several books on, which supports the notion that Adam and Eve's atmosphere was not what it is today. I think he said there's even a layer of this chemical in the soil, which suggests that "the sky fell down" (I forget where that exact quote is).

Separately, I resent all those who try to say that Eve's role in the fall of man proves that all women are inherently more culpable and weaker (mentally) than men. Look at the story this way. Eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge serves as a symbol for when mankind evolved from just another animal to more familiarly a creature with knowledge, awareness, morals, and ethics. The other parts of the story also suggest this-- wearing clothing, etc. The curse put on Eve is the curse of rearing humans-- larger heads means more painful childberth, more difficult societal pressures. Out of sheer need to survive, women had to devote time and effort to the family, depending on men to "bring home the bacon". Unfortunately, over time, this has been interpreted as sanction to consider women to be of the weaker sex. God didn't put a curse on Eve and all women because they are more easily tempted, but rather an explanation of why humans have a more complex brain lifestyle.

So, there's a completely tangential answer to your questions about Noah's Ark. The early books of the Bible were not all written at once (even the literalists would recognise that the stories themselves were handed down for generations orally). Just like how we tell stories today, people insert morals and alterations into a legend to fit their purpose. The story of the Great Flood and Adam and Eve are the same way.
I still think it is possible to fully belive in the writings of the Bible and in modern scientific thought.

[Al]

"...mankind evolved from just another animal to more familiarly a creature with knowledge, awareness, morals, and ethics."

And this happened when?

[hr]"Life is a horizontal fall"

[Thackary]

I think it was whilst Joseph and Mary were travelling to Bethlehem.

Little donkey, little donkey,
On the dusty road,
Got to keep on plodding onwards
With your heavy load...

[Imp]

The flood story goes back to the babylonian and sumerian tales like the Epic of Gilgamesh, and carry through many things like Christianity. There are also common elements to flood mythology over the world. There is also the point that even if a catastrophic flood happened it may have been more localised than is told in myths. For someone who can only see water on the horizon, the entire world may well seem flooded. There is also the fact that a small flodd doesn`t have nearly as much dramatic impact as a universal one and perhaps these stories have been developed over the years like this for greater impact. After all the re-occuring theme in many of these myths are the punishment of the human race for their sins, or in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the clamour the humans create that keep Enlil (i think) awake. It wouldn`t exactly count as divine retribution if it just rained a bit would it?