I have some questions about the "Local Flood" of Noah

Nowhere in the ancient near east that I know of would topographically permit a flood that covers all the highest mountains and which would allow the Ark to come to rest upon a mountain. This would require some kind of basin or massive valley with smaller mountains in the middle.

Didn’t answer this one in my first reply post. The fact that the Australian Aboriginal people did not even notice it in their 60,000 years on that continent strongly suggests that it did not kill everyone on the whole globe with the exception of those on the Ark.

The Bible unequivocally states that the Flood killed everything and everyone that were not aboard the ark.

“And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” Gen 6:13

" Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark." Gen 7:22-23

“…if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly…” 2 Peter 2:5

As a matter of fact, the aborigines do have a memory of this event:

I’m not sure the dating is a point of difference between local and global interpretations of the Deluge story.

That entirely depends on whom you ask.

For me at least, the answer is not all the people on Earth.

See above. The Bible begs to differ.

Saying it’s “not inconsistent” is just an assertion on your part, and in fact is not an answer to the questions I asked.

So, fair enough, there were two related questions in your OP which I did not explicitly answer in my response.

Incorrect. Two of the most important questions were ignored with an assertion that didn’t actually answer them.

Now that I have explicitly answered each of your questions (or demonstrated that I already had), it is incumbent on you to engage seriously with those answers.

I am doing so presently.

The flooding of the Mediterranean Sea basins has persisted for many many thousands of years.

Is there a Society of Wiccan Geologists? (Now you’ve got me curious.)

I would guess that you are encountering a bit of “PRATT fatigue” with your list of very familiar questions—my point being that in the 2+ years I’ve been participating on Peaceful Science, we’ve covered every one of them countless times. [Reruns have their place certainly, considering that new members join PS day by day. But PRATT fatigue does arise. You should expect it.] More specifically, I’ve replied to virtually every one of those listed questions during your past visits to PS. So I’m not so sure that yet another replay will be productive. Perhaps it would be more interesting if instead of asking the same questions again and again, you explained and critiqued why you didn’t find our previous answers compelling.

Exactly!

Staring us all in the face? Who is the “all” you are talking about? Perhaps you mean all of those who have signed the CMI faith statement pledging allegiance to a global flood no matter what the evidence indicates.

Here at CMI?

How do you know it was “a local flood in Mesopotamia”? The Genesis text does not identify the location of the flood nor even Noah’s home country.

We’ve covered this before. The Hebrew word in the original text covers a wide range of elevations from modest hills on up.

Hardly. It derives naturally from the Hebrew text. See ERETZ in any standard lexicon.

Wow, Paul. Many centuries of theologians could have benefitted from your quick resolution of profound theological questions. You could have saved me a lot of time and effort in seminary.

Not according to 1 Peter 3:18-22. We covered this one during your last visit.

I don’t know of anyone but God who could bring all animals to the ark as CMI teaches based on Genesis 6:20. (I find your question very surprising for someone who works for CMI. Shocking, actually.)

So you are replaying your argument that God is always pragmatic in a labor-saving sort of way rather than commanding various unexpected requirements for his own symbolic and didactic reasons. This is probably the most disappointing of your PRATTs. (And a little disturbing, actually.)

. . . and running in a continuous loop, regardless of how many times each point is addressed.

I can’t speak for @cwhenderson but in my case it is a matter of PRATT fatigue—and the fact that covering every one of your repetitive points would require a much longer post than I’m already generating in response.

I love it when you debunk your own argument.

Where does the Bible claim that Noah lived in Mesopotamia? The ancients migrated and so did their oral traditions.

Considering that nobody knows the location of “the mountains of Ararat”, that makes your question moot. Besides, I recall at least six ancient traditions concerning the geographical location of “the hill country of Ararat” being discussed when I was in graduate school and the vast majority were NOT in Mesopotamia at all. (Obviously, I’m not saying that the flood couldn’t have involved Mesopotamia. I’m simply reminding you that the Biblical text doesn’t provide much geographical information.)

Does CMI officially claim that Ararat must have been in what we call Turkey today despite the lack of Biblical evidence for that view?

It depends on how you define “small pile of dirt”. The Hebrew word in the text certainly qualifies for what my friend in Colorado would deride with, “That ain’t no mountain. That’s nothing but a puny hill!” Remember: one can’t assume identical semantic domains when comparing a source text and a translated text.

Yep. I’m the guilty party on that one!

Oh… my.

Ironically, Paul, you have just summarized why I eventually left my YEC background. I grew weary of Drs. Gish, Morris, and Whitcomb—much like their mega-ministry successors today—remaking the Biblical text to whatever they wanted it to say. (One of my last conversations with John Whitcomb was concerning his claims about mountain building and one great ice age.)

Before the word-count of this post requires scientific notation, I’m terminating my response to @PDPrice despite the likelihood that I will yet again be accused of failing to address all of his points. There are limits to human endurance.

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No, incorrect. Like I said, this kind of study requires a deep dive. But the books listed also cover some archaeology. For example, Schmidt’s book:

To support this thesis of early monotheism, Schmidt looks at the ideas present in primitive cultures, such as the North American Indians, the Australian Aborigines, and many African tribes. He clearly explains his methods of historical research and gives evidence of the single Most High God’s having attributes identical to characteristics of God as described in the Bible. The Most High God is described as eternal, omniscient, compassionate, just and omnipotent. In most cultures he is the great Creator. It is worth noting that in some tribes his name is simply ‘eternal’

I know for certain of archaeological digs in the Mesopotamian area where layers have been reached which indicate polytheism, then lower layers beneath indicate monotheism. All I have is a memory of watching a documentary recently, but after some internet searching, still have not found it.

Quran Surah 11:44
And the word was spoken: “O earth, swallow up thy waters! And, O sky, cease [thy rain]!” And the waters sank into the earth, and the will [of God] was done, and the ark came to rest on Mount Judi.66 And the word was spoken: “Away with these evildoing folk!”

66 This mountain, known in ancient Syriac as Qardu, is situated n the region of Lake Van, almost twenty-five miles north-east of the town Jazirat Ibn 'Umar, capital of the modern Syrian district of Al-Jazirah. It “owes its fame to the Mesopotamian tradition which identifies it, and not Mount Ararat, with the mountain on which Noah’s ark rested… This localization of the ark’s resting place… is certainly based on Babylonian tradition” (Encyclopaedia of Islam I, 1059). We should, however, remember that the designation Ararat (the Assyrian Prartu) at one time included the whole area to the south of Lake Van, in which Jabal Rid! is situated: this might explain the Biblical statement that “the ark rested… upon the mountains of Ararat” (Genesis viii, 4).

350 km from Sanliurfa City (near Gobeklitepe) to Cizre City (near Mount Judi)


Early Christian mysticism and monastic life established itself on the higher slopes of Mount Judi. Of great importance was the monastery Deir Kemol, high on Mount Judi, where according to Old Syriac ecclesiastical tradition the famous Syriac mystic Mar Beh-Isho (Mar Bishoi) lived before he settled down in the Egyptian desert and founded there a still existing Coptic monastery. Contemporary Hasnaye have almost completely forgotten this glorious past. They know however of a desolate and mysterious spot with caves, high on Mount Judi; they call it Ukmel - obviously reminiscent of the historical place Deir Kemol - and they remember quite well that Kurdish PKK-fighters used the caves as a hiding-place and a mountain base.

  1. J C J Sanders, Assyro-Chaldese Christenen in Oost-Turkije en Iran (Brediusstichting, 1997), 56-57. English translation: Assyro-Chaldean Christians in East Turkey and Iran .

I think you will have trouble demonstrating a local flood caused the Mediterranean. However, for a global flooding event, not only the Mediterranean, but also the oceans, might very well be indicative of the residual reservoirs of Noah’s deluge around the surface of the planet.

Talk about PRATTs. But let’s go into it. What’s the smallest elevation that would fit the Hebrew word in question? Would context matter? Does context allow translation as “little piles of dirt”? Are the “mountains of Ararat” properly to be considered low hills? Are “the high mountains” one word, or is there an adjective attached as in the translation?

Please explain to me how these verses have anything to do with the fact that Noah and the animals could have simply walked away from any local flood when given 120 years’ advance notice.

Where does the Bible claim that Noah lived in Mesopotamia? The ancients migrated and so did their oral traditions.

As far as I know, you’re the only one here who denies that Noah’s Flood would have been located in Mesopotamia.

Considering that nobody knows the location of “the mountains of Ararat”, that makes your question moot.

That’s not correct, and has already been addressed. I linked to a research paper by Humphries indicating the most likely location of the resting place.

Millions. But It doesn’t go away like Noah’s flood did. There’s really no scenario in the world that can fit that flood. You would need a large basis, like the Med, but you also need that basin to drain, like a regular flood. Massive instant uplift would do it, but that would bring its own problems, such as physical impossibility. There really is no possible scenario for Noah’s flood.

Well, except for the hyperbole defense. What really happened is that Noah put his kids, his dog, and some chickens into a rowboat and left town until the water went down.

I certainly would. But geologists would not. They call it the Zanclean megaflood. Look it up.

(To clarify, I did NOT say that a flood “caused the Mediterranean.” I said that a flooding of that basin has persisted for many many thousands of years.)

Indeed. But @r_speir denies millions of years. So I expressed the persistence of those waters in his own YECist terms.

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The more important point is that the Mediterranean isn’t a possible model for Noah’s flood, so you bringing it up is a distraction. Price is right about that, if nothing else.

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This sort of “evidence” seems to be the result of surveying these people regarding their current beliefs. That has nothing to do with “archaeology.” And it tells us nothing about what older peoples might have believed.

How does a layer of artifacts indicate one or the other? Do the statues of God look different? Or are there, perhaps, no statues of God at all in the lower layers? And if the latter, how does that prove monotheism, as opposed to some sort of pantheism, or atheism, or agnosticism? How does it even exclude polytheism? Maybe the particular buildings excavated are not buildings where one would expect to find statues or images of gods. Maybe they are latrines, or rooms where bureaucrats tallied up the corn taxes, or the like. How could one reason from the absence of obvious signs of polytheism, to monotheism? The inference would not be sound.

Well, then, you can’t provide the evidence for your claim. Let us know when you find the documentary, and then you can tell us who produced it, and where we can look at it.

Again, I am not arguing that monotheism wasn’t the first religion. I’m merely saying that you have not demonstrated that archaeology has proved this. You’ve given an assertion, and instead of evidence, you’ve cited the opinions of others (apparently of others who share your religious orientation) as if those opinions are data. But you need data. You need to show us where we can find pictures and discussions of the artifacts that archaeology has discovered.

Just to be clear, I don’t assume an “evolution” of religion from polytheism to monotheism. I think the empirical data is too scanty for us to talk about what the “original” religion of man looked like. But you seem to be claiming that the empirical data is strong. So you need to provide the data.

I’m not trying to undermine your religious belief that monotheism was the original religion. I am not in the business of trying to disprove religious belief. I’m merely asking you to provide evidence when you report the results of a science or academic discipline.

And more generally, I’m suspicious of all attempts to show that various modern sciences prove this or that statement in the Bible. I don’t think that’s a very useful Christian apologetic. You don’t see C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, or G. K. Chesterton arguing in that way. I think that if one is going to use modern science, a better approach is not to try to match up particular Biblical statements with particular (temporary) claims of modern science, but to show that the general thrust of modern science over the past century produces a picture of the world that is “consonant with” theistic religion. That is, the argument that “science disproves theism” is a poor argument. Science can be used to show that theism can’t be ruled out, and even that theism may be very reasonable in light of the facts of nature. But the arguments for Christian belief in particular, as opposed to theism in general, should come from somewhere other than science: from the consonance of Christian belief with what we know of human religious, moral, poetical, etc. experience, from the literary qualities of the Bible, from the lives of Christians (and Jews), etc. Archaeological theories will come and go; science is always changing. If tomorrow new evidence comes up, from still older layers dug up by archaeologists, that polytheism preceded monotheism, are you going to change your view? I doubt it. In the end, people with robust Christian faith (or any faith) don’t rest their faith upon alleged particular discoveries in archaeology or any other science. Faith involves a holistic interpretation of all aspects of reality, and therefore it isn’t easily shaken by some alleged fact produced from one corner of human experience.

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That’s good. Because we both know it had to be. Genesis bears that out.

I think you are mistaken here thinking I have not done that. Have you read Schmidt’s book? I haven’t which is why I must rely on the word of a book reviewer. When he mentions North American Indians, the Australian Aborigines, and many African tribes, I see “artifacts”.

I disagree wholly and you know why. Faith placed in any other but the Bible is faith misplaced. We simply will not agree here. And I think you must admit I have very good reason to disagree with you.

I would direct you to the work of Winfried Corduan on Original Monotheism.

But if you’re appealing to what “archaeology” has shown, you can’t appeal to Genesis. And in any case, I don’t read Genesis in your historical-literal manner, so I wouldn’t construct any history of religious belief based on it.

But you shouldn’t rely on the word of a book reviewer. That’s the point. You asserted something as fact, not as the opinion of a book reviewer. That means you were claiming that the opinion of the book reviewer, or the opinion related by the book review, was a correct opinion. And by your own admission, you did not check out the basis of that opinion in Schmidt’s book, before accepting it as true. I’m complaining about your faulty intellectual procedure, not your conclusion. What you are doing is unscholarly, and very unreliable, as a way of getting at the truth.

People aren’t “artifacts.” People make artifacts. And people’s opinions about the God or the gods aren’t artifacts, either. Archaeology deals with artifacts. You have provided no discussion of artifacts. So your claim is without any support.

The question is not whether the Bible is reliable, but how one’s understanding of the Bible is integrated with one’s understanding of everything else, including one’s experience of moral conscience, guilt, joy, curiosity about nature, the information provided by history, the special phenomena often called “religious experiences”, literature, art, music, etc. The mature Christian will integrate his study of the Bible with all these other things. Thus, we can see that, say, Hal Lindsey is a much less mature Christian than, say, Thomas Aquinas or Thomas More or Newton or Bach or Lewis or Chesterton, or for that matter than many of the wise and well-balanced elders in the churches I have attended.

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Reading comprehension is important. Here’s what I said, one more time:

So rather than spinning in circles yet again, Paul, go ahead and provide the scripture references where the Bible states that Noah lived in Mesopotamia and that the hill country of Ararat was in modern day Turkey.

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Might it have been simpler, in the OP, to be more direct, and simply state “My interpretation of the Biblical text leads me to accept that a global Flood occurred and to reject interpretations that suggest it was a more local Flood”?

An honest approach that could have saved us all quite a lot of time and energy. Because I’m not going to debate your personal understanding of Scripture.

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Just think about this for a moment. It really shouldn’t take very long: if they were all annihilated by the Flood, who passed on the memory?

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Bazinga!

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The pat answer is that the Australian indigenous people arrived within the last 4000 years - clearly after the flood killed all but 8 humans on the planet. And the marsupials made a beeline for the Australian continent, with virtually no placental mammals invited to join them. There is no argument because that’s what a “plain reading” of the Bible must require.

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Most of my YEC friends would answer: “All aborigines are descendants of Noah and his sons. So the story of the Great Flood was passed down by each generation.”

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