No doubt I’m not the first to remark on this but does anyone else find this AIG quote at odds with their mantra?
“The flood destroyed the world as Noah knew it”
That’s hardly the same as a “global” flood. Rather it demands a “local” flood. It also has implications for the animals that Noah would carry aboard the Ark.
“covering the original garden under thousands of feet of sediment.“
Really? “thousands of feet of sediment”. I dunno, I would have thought that even their tame, in-house geologist, Dr Andrew Snelling PhD, would struggle to affirm that statement; particularly in the context of a discussion about where exactly the original garden was located. I mean, if you can’t name the location of the original garden, how can you be sure that it was covered by thousands of feet of sediment. To say nothing of the subsequent changes that were caused by (rapid) plate tectonics.
You appear to be assuming that the Tempest Stele is a “report” of the Thera eruption, when this is by no means confirmed. It is even problematical, due to uncertainties of the dates of both, that the eruption even occurred during Ahmose I’s reign. Nor have I seen, as yet, any hard evidence that an eruption in Thera could have caused such extreme meteorological disturbances as the Stele suggests, as far away as Egypt (800km away).
Likewise, “repeated” episodes of lesser flooding is not the same as a single multi-generational Great Flood.
Rather than “convincing attempts”, these would seem rather strained and tenuous.
They may well be – but (i) it would be wrong to simply assume that their basis was the largest historical event from our perspective, rather than perhaps the historical event that had the most compelling storyteller(s) promoting it, and (ii) that its basis is a single historical event, rather than being an amalgam of multiple events.
The Thera eruption has variously been proposed as the basis for:
the Atlantis legend, the story of Deucalion and the flood, episodes in the tale of the Argonauts, the passages about the Phaicians’ fate in the Odyssey, and Egyptian and biblical lamentations.[1]
Well, they don’t mean that they are. And it seems to me that the more flood myths there are, the more coincidence we need in order to suppose that they’re each based on an individual real, colossal event. The fact that we can find such events here and there, provided we’re exceedingly flexible about locations and dates, does not go far to inspire confidence.
They don’t just describe the same flood. They’re the same story. They’re certainly not independent accounts of an event, as you imply.
It certainly is a double standard. But what value do you gain by supposing that the flood recounts a historical event? How much of the account could be considered truthful, and why would it matter?
You both make good points about the other flood myths. I concede that most of them were probably not based on only a single historical flooding event. Likewise, you’re right that the Atrahasis, Ziusudra, and Noah flood myths aren’t independent confirmation of the same event, since there’s clearly literary dependence between these myths.
Is it also a double standard that Christians accept their Bible but not any other holy text? Or that Muslims accept only the Quran and not other holy texts? Maybe you see these as double standards, but my religious commitments to the Christian Bible in particular lead me to see the Noah myth as a priori more reliable than other flood myths, though I could be convinced that it isn’t based on a historical event.
The Noah flood myth is valuable to me as a Christian because it’s prefigurative of Jesus and the salvation described in the New Testament (Matt. 24:37-39; 1 Pet 3:18-22; 2 Pet 2:5, 9). Other events described in the Old Testament (and the primeval history) have no apparent theological significance, so I don’t place any importance on their historicity, but this does, so I do.
But does that value, and the significance of the comparison (“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man”), change depending on whether the comparison is to a story or to something that is (partially) historical?
Is the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the truth embodied in the story, any less powerful because it is a parable, and thus, intentionally, “a fictitious narrative”?
Or does the search for literal truths at times blind us to other truths?
I’m open to the idea that the Flood wasn’t historical, and that Jesus and the authors of 1 and 2 Peter were simply drawing on a mythological theme to illustrate their point. I don’t take a historical Flood to be an axiom of my faith like YECs do.
But I think it’s worthwhile to look for a historical basis for the Noah flood myth. It’s not an ignorant question to ask whether the Flood account might be based on a historical event; many scholars, both religious and non-religious, have looked for a historical deluge that inspired the ancient Near Eastern flood myths.
What truths do you think I might be missing? It’s not like I dismiss a non-historical Flood out of hand, in which case I might be missing a truth (that the Flood isn’t based on a historical event). On the contrary, I think those who dismiss a historical Flood out of hand may be missing a truth (that the Flood is based on a historical event). I don’t think that honestly asking a question (whether the Flood might be historical) can cause someone to miss a truth, so long as they don’t presuppose an answer to the question.
Well, first off, Muslims do consider the bible to be a holy text. Mohammed is the seal of the prophets, not the sole prophet. But your point is not fatally injured.
Second, there are a few other events with theological importance in Genesis, so why the flood? Adam’s sin is the more commonly noted one, and Isaac’s near-sacrifice is the more commonly mentioned prefiguring of Christ. Further, if you take the flood seriously, it puts God in a very bad light. Is the echo of salvation worth the genocidal, ecocidal cost?
I do think it’s worthwhile to examine the possibility and historicity of all theologically important events in Genesis (and the rest of the OT), not just the Flood.
The second question seems to be a variation on the problem of evil which I admittedly have no answer to.
It’s a more direct problem of evil than most. It’s not just “Why does God permit such things”, it’s “Why does God actively do such things, and all for the apparent purpose of providing a prefiguration of a future event”. That seems more serious than “Why is there cancer”.
Well, the purpose of the flood according to the text was to prevent extreme violence from continuing in the land, and the ark was later seen as a prefiguration of Jesus. (I’m not saying that makes it less of a problem of evil, just that it’s not true that the only reason it is said to have happened is to prefigure Jesus.)
IMO the difference between God allowing and causing evil is slight, since He knew what would happen beforehand. Plus, libertarian free will doesn’t make logical sense to me, so it seems that the general course of history was determined when God created the universe. Maybe this makes the problem of evil even harder for me to answer, I don’t know, I’ll leave that to the professional theologians. I won’t pretend to have an answer to this difficult objection to theism.
Well, the purpose is to get rid of all the people because they’re such a disappointment that God regretted making them. This itself is a theological problem, since it denies omniscience. But let that go. More importantly, the expressed purpose is not to prefigure Christ. It that’s what’s important to you about the story, isn’t it just as good as a parable, not meant to be taken literally?
Like I said to @Tim, I’m open to the idea that the Flood is completely allegorical and not based on any historical event, but I also think it’s worthwhile to look for a historical basis of the Noah flood myth (and other ANE flood myths).
No, separating teaching from parenting is the sort of extreme anachronism I was trying to avoid. A young adult didn’t peruse the electives offered at the local community college to see how they could broaden their skill set. In a patriarchy, a son’s vocation was set by who his father was. Part of being a parent was teaching one’s children how to live. That includes how to make a living through work.
When a son moved away from his father’s trade, it was typically due to dire straits or the father’s initiative; for the child to turn their back on their family would insult the whole community. An adult could teach a child not born in their family, but doing so was practically an adoption. The child was joining a new house and committing to a new way of life, leaving behind whatever they had before. Aside from the exceptionally wealthy, you didn’t get to learn a trade to gain a new hobby.
Considering how almost all ancient cultures tightly connected vocation and family, it’s no surprise that Genesis records the growth of new vocations in genealogical form. It only looks strange if we refuse to enter their world.
It’s not “an ignorant question”, but I suspect it may be a problematical question historigraphically. Many regions were subject to repeated floods, many (most?) of which would have seemed catastrophic to those who endured them. Therefore any flood legend would likely have many candidates for the inspiring historical event. One might try to compare details of the legend with what is known about the historical event, but even that is highly problematical. Storytellers will (consciously or unconsciously) change the story with the retelling. Details may become omitted (especially if anomalous, because the teller doesn’t think they fit the story), or added (e.g. to enhance the impact), similar stories may become merged, and the setting of a story may change to fit its audience.
Because of this, I think it is likely to be difficult to narrow down a specific flood as inspiring any specific flood myth. But is that necessary? Is it not enough that floods were one of the most catastrophic and traumatic disasters of the Ancient World, and therefore legitimately a major theme in Ancient storytelling? This, I think, may be one of the more important truths underlying the ubiquity of flood myths.
The science (evidence) simply does not support a reading of the bible, literal, mythical or otherwise. Even the YEC community’s own RATE project, which wasn’t without it’s detractors, couldn’t resolve the heat and radiation issues that must arise for a literal reading.
We’re beating out heads against a brick wall trying to find an accommodation on this count. It’s just not worth the effort.
I don’t think this is right. Certainly science isn’t able to evaluate religious claims, but we can evaluate certain stories in the Bible using empirical evidence to determine if there is a historical basis for these stories. Just as we can do for other ancient myths and historical records. This doesn’t require giving the Bible some special status over other ancient religious texts (which I agree is outside the purview of science).
