There are Serious Problems With the Flood Stories in Genesis!

That's right. Plus, there is no archaeological evidence for such an event. Let's just admit the Flood stories are myths, okay? Then let's look at other Biblical stories with that same critical eye. Christian, when you do you'll see many of them falling down one after another like dominoes.



Cheers.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sadly, for most Christians the "problems" are overcome by their "faith", which is sadly little more than just trusting that God is the almighty problem solver who will set this all straight.

I'm curious, have you heard of the theory that suggests the worldwide flood stories all stem from a massive tsunami in the past? I overheard a gentleman saying that there is archaeological evidence that a massive tsunami did take place in the past from which the flood "myths" could have all developed. This would explain why the myths have so many similarities and exist all across the globe.

Aspergers.life said...
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ahswan said...

No archeological evidence? I think you need to do a bit more study. There is a great deal of evidence for a "great flood" in the Middle East, as well as other places, such as in the Great Lakes area.

Also, consider how many civilizations have a great flood story - which is exactly what we would expect if it were true.

Jeffrey Amos said...

I love AiG's rebuttal to the local flood. Not because they are bad arguments, but because it shows that young-earth creationists know how to think skeptically.

"If the Flood was local, why would birds have been sent on board? These could simply have winged across to a nearby mountain range." Not "why did God create Satan?" Not "why did God create an evil tree in plain sight?" Not "why did God demand a blood sacrifice for sin when doing so would mean he would have to eventually kill himself?" No, this, this, is so utterly ridiculous that it couldn't possibly be true.

Rocky Rodent said...

Also, consider how many civilizations have a great flood story - which is exactly what we would expect if it were true.

Doesn't it tend to be civilisations that lived near seas and river banks and so on that have them, whereas those civilisations that developed in higher, mountainous regions don't?

Aspergers.life said...
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strangebrew said...

There have been several vast floods in the ancient past...this one was a cracker apparently...

'Two senior scientists from Columbia University have proposed a theory that a massive transfer of water occurred about 5600 BCE - over seven and a half millennia ago. They wrote: "Ten cubic miles of water poured through each day, two hundred times what flows over Niagara Falls." "The Bosporus flume roared and surged at full spate for at least three hundred days." 60,000 square miles of land were inundated. The Black Sea shoreline significantly expanded to the north and east. The lake's its water level was raised many hundreds of feet. It changed from a fresh-water landlocked lake into a salt water lake connected to the world's oceans.'

A drenching like so would stick in the collective memory methinks...but even so it was still only a fairly local event...

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_noah.htm

They are part and parcel of water flow...which on a planet where 70% surface is wet...is not unusual!

Certainly not biblical...since that story was nicked from an earlier flood myth/story/racial memory...that probably recounted the one described!

Anonymous said...

ashwan:

No archeological evidence? I think you need to do a bit more study. There is a great deal of evidence for a "great flood" in the Middle East, as well as other places, such as in the Great Lakes area.

You're talking about geology not archaeology.

You're also talking about localized flooding; at more or less water level.

Carry on until you're blue in the face with "evidence of floods" but did you ever stop to wonder about all of the plants submerged under water for about a year?

How do you think the ecosystem was restored after so many of those plants rotted away? Did Noah travel the world with his blue ox Babe planting seeds, oh everywhere that he went?

It's foolishness.

Harry H. McCall said...
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Harry H. McCall said...

The main problem of the Bible Flood Story is the logistics.

Lets say Noah built the ark in the Middle East near the location of Ur near Babylonia.

If the Flood was to kill every living creature on earth except what was loaded on to the ark, how long would it have taken for two penguins to waddle up from the South Pole over the emerging Sahara Desert? Plus, how do these pair of flightless birds evade many predators on their way to the ark?

Or how did the Polar Bear lumbar down from the North Pole over hundreds of miles of open Arctic Ocean and then into the heat of the Middle East?

How did the marsupials get from Australia to the ark at Ur?

What about the slugs and snails from the Americas?

How many years would it taken them to float on a piece of drift wood 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean (assuming the wind was right) and then creep over a 1,000 miles to the ark at Ur? I thought salt (as in salt water) killed land slugs and snails?

If all land mammals were to die, did not God know he had also created whales, dolphins and porpoises? Did God not know mammals had fins? Why were these not killed too?
(Maybe it was because God forgot he created them!)

What about the fish? Did they not sin since they were not killed?

And exactly how do salt water fish and shell fish live in fresh water?

I want to believe! Oh Lord help thou my unbelief.

Gandolf said...

Yes Harry is correct "The main problem of the Bible Flood Story is the logistics"

Today we know exactly just how much food an elephant eats per day,for instance.So we can calculate just how much would be needed to keep a pair.

And animals can die so more than one pair would always be needed.

The size of the boat given ,could never be large enough.Something the writer of this scripture never counted on us ever knowing enough about !,proving this book carries deception.

We also know some animals will often only eat fresh food they have caught for themselves.A trait that still exists today.

Brad Haggard said...

Is this news? Christians and Jews have long looked on this as myth. I think you are only attacking the YEC crowd again.

I'm reading through Nahum Sarna's treatment of Genesis now and it is illuminating on the religious function of Noah's story.

Gandolf said...

Brad Haggard said..."Is this news? Christians and Jews have long looked on this as myth. I think you are only attacking the YEC crowd again."

Speaking for myself im not out to attack anyone!.

But if things are accepted by so many to be myths,then it really begs for some good questioning of how much can then be considered as actual truths.

After all this book is often suggested to be divine word of God.

Should we believe that God would really wish myths to be included in his word.

Harry H. McCall said...

All Christians MUST believe the Genesis Flood Story if their Savior andd Master Jesus did!

Jesus said:
26 “And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27 they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Luke 17: 26 -27
So now Brad, do you (as only a mortal man), think you know more than Jesus Himself???!

strangebrew said...

'So now Brad, do you (as only a mortal man), think you know more than Jesus Himself???!'

A version of axiom pik 'n' mix methinks!

How dissociated is the premise that on one hand the bible is totally infallible and the word of god but on the other certain points are ignored or 'rationalized'...via xian apologetics!

Jeffrey Amos said...

>Christians and Jews have long looked on this as myth. I think you are only attacking the YEC crowd again.

During most my time as a theistic evolutionist, this would have been news to me. Granted, my views were in transition out of YEC and not always consistent, but still, I accepted evolution a couple years before this.

This takes away the Mosaic authorship from the flood story, which is problematic beyond viewing the flood as a myth.

Brad Haggard said...

I'm glad to know that now athiests can tell me what I need to believe to be a Christian.

Anonymous said...

I think Ross has it right. The text of Genesis itself seems to indicate a huge local flood that nevertheless had universal effects.

The fact that a "strong wind" was used in the evaporation process indicates a regional flood. Fat lot of good a strong wind would be in a global flood!

K

Host said...

Brad,

Congratulations! You are making progress, you are already rejecting portions of your god-breathed text, now all you need to do is reject the rest of it. As Harry pointed out there is no room to doubt the literal Noah and Adam & Eve stories and still believe the bible. Jesus endorsed the literal understanding of them.

Mat 19:4 He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,

Mat 24:37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Mat 24:38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,

It is amusing to see just how much of the bible christians reject as absurd, and yet still consider themselves christians. The bible endorses a young earth, 6 day creation, and worldwide flood. To deny that is the equivalent to deny Jesus lived and still claim to be a christian.

No of course Noah didn't live over 900 years, no of course the earth wasn't created in 6 days 6,000 years ago that is totally rediculous. But Jesus walking on water, raising the dead, fishing money out of the mouth of a fish, feeding multitudes with a few loaves, healing leprosy, and turning water into wine....sure no problem there.

Brad Haggard said...

DD,

See, I think this is part of the misunderstanding. Just because I might look at one part of the Bible as "myth" in the literary sense doesn't mean that I "reject" it. I think years of wrong-headed apologetics has equated historicity with veracity, but we aren't letting the book speak for itself.

Just because I put Genesis 1-3 in the literary category of "creation myth" doesn't mean I don't consider it authoritative. That's why I think this post (and almost all of the posts on this site) are passe. It's preaching to the choir, against a caricature of orthodox Christian belief (e.g. YEC). Notice that it has nothing to do with the resurrection.