For Christians. Was the flood real or just a myth?

[Deeje]

"Who said that humans were created naive or gullible? "

You pretty much answer that in your second paragraph when you wrote: "A rebel spirit made claims and accusations about the Creator and his motives to the woman and she believed him." Only someone very naive and gullible would take the word of someone they'd never met before over that of their creator.

And you know this for a fact, do you?

And of course this was all BEFORE they even had knowledge of good and evil. They didn't even know the concept of right and wrong, so how can you claim that they willingly sinned?

If this is what you think, then you have no idea what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented.

If you don't comprehend good and evil then you wouldn't have any concept of truth and deception. So God took a couple that had never been lied to and didn't even understand the concept of deception and put them in a garden with a lying deceptive snake. Is anyone surprised that such naive and gullible people were easily tricked? It's obvious to me that this would be the result, and I'm just a mere fallible mortal. Surely an all-knowing God wasn't surprised when the inevitable occurred.

Do you really want to know? If all you want to do is ridicule the Bible and its narrative, without understanding the reasons for anything, then obviously you have no need to ask questions if you don't really want the answers. Everything you just said tells me that you haven't got a clue what happened in Eden. You have already judged it all by your own interpretation, which is so far off base that it's actually quite funny.

Believe whatever you wish. It makes no difference to me.

 

[SkepticThinker]

And you know this for a fact, do you?



If this is what you think, then you have no idea what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented.



Do you really want to know? If all you want to do is ridicule the Bible and its narrative, without understanding the reasons for anything, then obviously you have no need to ask questions if you don't really want the answers. Everything you just said tells me that you haven't got a clue what happened in Eden. You have already judged it all by your own interpretation, which is so far off base that it's actually quite funny.

Believe whatever you wish. It makes no difference to me.

Do you not do the same? Doesn't everybody?

 

[QuestioningMind]

And you know this for a fact, do you?



If this is what you think, then you have no idea what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented.



Do you really want to know? If all you want to do is ridicule the Bible and its narrative, without understanding the reasons for anything, then obviously you have no need to ask questions if you don't really want the answers. Everything you just said tells me that you haven't got a clue what happened in Eden. You have already judged it all by your own interpretation, which is so far off base that it's actually quite funny.

Believe whatever you wish. It makes no difference to me.

"And you know this for a fact, do you?"

Well, I know for a fact that someone trusting the word of a complete stranger over their creator is the very definition of gullible and naive. I suppose that you could claim that A&E were PERFECTLY gullible and naive... but I'd still consider that to be a flaw and not the attribute of a perfectly created being.

"If this is what you think, then you have no idea what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented."

I can only go by what you and other Christians tell me that the tree of knowledge represents. Perhaps I'm wrongly assuming that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented the KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. If so, maybe you can enlighten me as to what it REALLY represented.

"Everything you just said tells me that you haven't got a clue what happened in Eden. You have already judged it all by your own interpretation, which is so far off base that it's actually quite funny."

What I find funny is when people make claims about the bible and instead of defending those claims, they state that my pointing out the obvious flaws in their claim is nothing but ridicule. Stop making the ridiculous claim that a couple so naive and gullible as to be tricked by a complete stranger was somehow perfect and I will stop pointing out how ridiculous your claim is.

After all, what IS being naive and gullible if it isn't blindly accepting the word of someone you don't even know over that of someone you've known all of your life? Wouldn't you consider anyone who would do such a thing to be naive and gullible?

 

[Hawkins]

Where does omniscience, ever imply “knowing the future actions of people who have free will”?

Knowing everything past and present, yes....but future actions?

Maneuvering circumstances to achieve desired future results is one thing. But He rarely does that, allowing humans to rule themselves, for the time being. (It’s about to end, thank goodness. In these times we live, especially in underdeveloped countries, Ecclesiastes 8:9 is accurate commentary.)

If God knew the future, how could He say He “was hurt” by the actions of His people? Or regretted how situations turned out? He’d be a sado-masochist!

Foreknowledge, Foreordination — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

So apparently, your view of God is faulty, not His behavior.

He was hurt and regret is an expression speaking from humans' perspective such that humans can understand.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

There is something called trust....and that is what they should have displayed towards their Creator.

Trust should be earned by not withholding the actual reason You don't want them to eat the fruit. The serpent is the only honest one in the story.

They, as beings without defect, "made in God's image", knew what they were doing and chose to disobey a direct command, the only one with the death penalty attached to it.

And yet they didn't die. Their punishment was essentially growing up and not getting everything handed to them. Boohoo.

The devil is a master deceiver and chose the less experienced of the two. She believed him when he said they wouldn't die. But why?

Because it was the truth. God said they'd die that day. He lied. Or, He likes to pretend He's Obi Wan Kenobi with His "What I told you was true ... from a certain POV."

A rebel spirit made claims and accusations about the Creator and his motives to the woman and she believed him.

Because it was TRUE. God verifies this with almost the same, verbatim, speech mere paragraphs later.

It's more like you had a teacher try to teach sex ed when the parents don't want their kid to know what's in their underwear.

The devil's claims basically made God out to be a liar and keeping something from his children that they had a right to know and experience.

Because God was ... convenient ... with His rationale. If He's not lying, He's bending the truth to the breaking point.

Was the Creator the rightful Sovereign over all his intelligent creation both here on earth and in heaven? Does he have the right to set reasonable limits to the freedom that he granted them?

Is it reasonable to abuse children by not teaching them anything?

Does he have the right to keep something to himself if it means protection?

No, if He's going to blame us for our ignorance.

God stepped out of the picture and allowed the rebellious humans and the angels to learn the hard lessons of independent thinking in opposition to their Maker. God only intervened when his purpose was threatened in some way. His intervention was only to keep his purpose on track. Man would be allowed to try and rule himself without God intervening and see if the devil's claims turned out to be true.

Genesis' God is a horrible, petulant, Child who made some toys and tried to break them when they didn't do exactly what He wanted.

If God were to lessen the impact of their actions

Their actions stem from neglect. He is so "meh" about us He can't even keep tabs on where the only two members of the species are in a limited area.

There is a prophet much later who laughs that Baal must be off to go take a leak or something, yet Yahweh can be just as disinterested. Just look how long it took for Him to get the memo the Hebrews were upset over the Egyptians.

And you know this for a fact, do you?

Yep. Unless you have a relationship with God, you likely have a relationship with the authorities behind your denomination. There would be no need for religion if people listened just to God.

 

[gnostic]

Whereas Gilgamesh goes back 4,000 years where its knowledge comes from a cuneiform text in ancient Nineveh.
Gilgamesh finds someone who tells him the story about the deluge or flood.
Like other legends that story is somewhat similar, but he was instructed to tear down a house and build a ship.
To give up possessions and seek life and take the seed of all living things.
That man however could Not give or teach Gilgamesh about immortality which Gilgamesh wanted. So, like the rest of us they died.
The Noah story is Not about the teaching about immortality.
I think the Sumerian story about King Ziusudra ( Noah's counterpart ) is earlier than Gilgamesh.
So, to me, the Babylonian story came later on, being influenced by the earlier Sumerian story.

The version and the tablets found at Nineveh, the Library of Ashurbanipal, in the 7th century BCE, is known as the “Standard Version” (SV), because it has 12 tablets, covering Gilgamesh’s life, from the creation of Enkidu to Gilgamesh returning home after meeting Utnapishtim.

But the SV of the Epic, is not the original version, nor the oldest.

As you have said, URAVIP2ME, the story of Gilgamesh from the Nineveh’s SV did originate with the story of Ziusudra, from tablets of the 3rd millennium BCE.

But the Akkadian versions (which include Babylonian and Assyrian versions) began appearing as early as early 18th century BCE, in Old Babylonian versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The Old Babylonian Version (OBV) can be found in several different ancient cities in Babylonia, such as Nippur, Ishchali, Sippar and Shaduppûm (now Tell Harmal, just outside of Baghdad).

That the older version of the Epic of Gilgamesh can be found in a number of different cities, just showed how popular it was. They were frequently copied. And in Nippur, this Epic was copied by scribes as method of learning exercise to write cuneiform, in a school.

Thousands of tablets were discovered at this scribe school, which archaeologists called “Tablet Hill”.

The Epic of Gilgamesh continued to be copied during the Middle Babylonian phase (c 1500 - c 1000 BCE), and MBV (Middle Babylonian Version) spread outside of Babylonia.

For examples, east in Elam, but more importantly in the west, like at Megiddo (Canaan, 14th century BCE), Ugarit (12th century BCE) and Emar (13th century BCE) in Syria, the Hittite capital Hattusa (now Boğazkale, Turkey, 13th century BCE), and in 14th century Amarna, Egypt.

As you can see, the Assyrian SV at Nineveh is not the oldest Epic of Gilgamesh.

And you are wrong about Ziusudra predating Gilgamesh, because there are older version of the Gilgamesh myth, written in Sumerian too, but they are not called “Epic”.

There are 5 different poems, written in Sumerian, about Bilgames (Gilgamesh), and in the last tablet, The Death of Bilgames (or Gilgames), the story mentioned Bilgames meeting Ziusudra, but only alluded to the flood that Ziusudra survived; but the poem has no detailed narrative of the flood, like SV’s 11th tablet or the Sumerian Eridu Genesis or the Akkadian Epic of Atrahasis.

The 21st or 20th century Eridu Genesis is a Sumerian story of Ziusudra and the Flood, but much of the tablet is badly fragmented, but we can tell that Ziusudra is the same character as the 18th century Akkadian Atrahasis and the Babylonian-Assyrian Utnapishtim.

Both Ziusudra and Bilgames are based on Sumerian oral traditions, so it is impossible to say if the story of Ziusudra is truly older than the story of Bilgames/Gilgamesh.

 

[gnostic]

I would recommend the following books, if anyone is interested in the Epic of Gilgamesh:

• George, Andrew, The Epic Of Gilgamesh: A New Translation, Penguin, 2000
• Dalley, Stephanie, Myths From Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others, Oxford World's Classics, rev 2000.

Both George and Dalley have translation of the Standard Version (SV) of the Epic of Gilgamesh, plus some Old Babylonian versions from different cities, but George's have some Middle Babylonian versions, and more importantly 5 Sumerian poems of Bilgames.

Dalley have translations of other Babylonian myths, including the Epic of Atrahasis and "The Epic of Creation" (more commonly known to scholars as the Enûma Eliš).

If you are interested in translations of Sumerian texts, then I would recommend...

• Jacobsen, Thorkild, Harps That Once...: Sumerian Poetry in Translation, Yale University Press, 1997

However, it is expensive, and it is not available in local bookshop, so you would need to order it online.

If you don't want to pay, then go this website: The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL). Everything you would need would be in this page. Here you will find:

• the Flood Story (Ziusudra) under Other Deities
  
• and The Death of Gilgames under Gilgames.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

"And you know this for a fact, do you?"

Well, I know for a fact that someone trusting the word of a complete stranger over their creator is the very definition of gullible and naive. I suppose that you could claim that A&E were PERFECTLY gullible and naive... but I'd still consider that to be a flaw and not the attribute of a perfectly created being.

"If this is what you think, then you have no idea what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented."

I can only go by what you and other Christians tell me that the tree of knowledge represents. Perhaps I'm wrongly assuming that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented the KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. If so, maybe you can enlighten me as to what it REALLY represented.

"Everything you just said tells me that you haven't got a clue what happened in Eden. You have already judged it all by your own interpretation, which is so far off base that it's actually quite funny."

What I find funny is when people make claims about the bible and instead of defending those claims, they state that my pointing out the obvious flaws in their claim is nothing but ridicule. Stop making the ridiculous claim that a couple so naive and gullible as to be tricked by a complete stranger was somehow perfect and I will stop pointing out how ridiculous your claim is.

After all, what IS being naive and gullible if it isn't blindly accepting the word of someone you don't even know over that of someone you've known all of your life? Wouldn't you consider anyone who would do such a thing to be naive and gullible?

First of all, Eve was the one approached by the Serpent, i.e., the Devil (John 8:44; Revelation 12:9). Apparently, she was told by Adam, her husband and head, about not eating from the tree. By not being told personally by Jehovah God Himself, God was respectful of Adam's position as head of the family -- Jehovah trusted Adam to relate the punishment for eating from it. (Adam told her, "don't even touch it"....that was from Adam, not God.)

So we have someone -- Eve, who never saw God, and maybe never even heard God speaking -- being approached by an entity she can both see and hear.

On top of that, there had never been deception anywhere in the Universe. It was a first...hence Jesus referring to Satan as 'the father of the lie' (John 8:44) Why wouldn't she be trusting?

At any rate, that's why the Devil approached Eve.....being the love of Adam's life, Satan rightly assumed that Eve could easily influence Adam.

It worked...and as their offspring, we've inherited genetic deficiencies, and live in a corrupt world under the Devil's control. -- John 12:31; John 14:30; 1 John 5:19.

And deception is his game. Revelation 12:9.

 

[gnostic]

It matters little whether atheists believe that Noah's ark was real. This vessel was not a ship...it had neither bow nor stern and no rudder. It was not designed to navigate, but only to float. The space on board could well have accommodated all the species God brought to Noah for preservation. The majority were quite small in size.

See also....Noah’s Ark and Naval Architecture — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

It was incredibly sea worthy and according to ship-builders, this ratio represents an advanced knowledge of ship-building since it is the optimum design for stability in rough seas. The Ark, as designed by God, was virtually impossible to capsize! It would have to have been tilted over 90 degrees in order to capsize.

That video is absurd and far too simplistic.

I don't you really understand the concept of flood in the real world, Deeje.

Vessels don't simply float when it rain, especially with a vessel (eg the Ark) of that size.

In order understand my view on the matters, I'd need to get some of the points straight on what Genesis "actually" says:

1. In Genesis 6, we get the dimension of the ship (300 cubits long, 50 wide, 30 wide, which translated to (approximately) 150 metres long, by 25 m wide, by 15 m high.
2. Genesis 7, there are 8 (adult) humans, animals by pair, that boarded the Ark.
   
3. This is followed by rain for 40 days and nights, floodgate opened, water rising as high that it covered the highest mountains.
4. Genesis 8, it came to rest on mountains of Ararat...
5. and after a whole year, they disembarked from the Ark.

Now there are many problems with the whole narrative. Like we don't have precise number of animals that boarded the Ark, so we don't know how much tonnes of food were required to keep both human and animals alive.

And what did carnivore beasts eat (eg lions, tigers, leopards, dogs, cats, crocodiles), if not other animals?

I mean there would be tonnes of animals aboard the Ark, so you will need to store tonnes of food for them to eat. And you would also need tonnes of drinkable water.

Milton Platt have already made the points of the Ark being too long. But I see other problems. So I will not rehash what Milton about the Ark collapsing under enormous pressures from the flood water. I would believe that to be true, IF the Ark would float at all.

And I see how the Ark can possibly "float" with all that weight.

The Genesis is not clear about a lot of thing, but I don't think it would float at all, and not with all the animals boarding the Ark, and not with all the food they have to carry for ONE WHOLE YEAR!

Now, the assumption here, since the Genesis is not clear on this, Noah, family and animals boarded the Ark, and he shut the doors, just before the water came.

So we can safely assume that Noah built the Ark on "dry land". And when he shut door to the Ark, it was still on "dry land", when the water and rain came, right, Deeje?

Well, in the real world, when dealing with flood water, it isn't "just water". Not only there are debris, but when water saturate the earth, eg soil, silt, clay, etc, what you get is "mud".

And that would be tonnes of mud, in any flood.

If the water and mud don't smash the huge Ark in half, the water coming to the Ark, will soak and saturate the ground which the Ark is resting on, turning the ground underneath into mud.

And since the Ark would weigh so many tonnes, the Ark wouldn't float, it would just sink deeper into the mud.

The Ark would be marooned in mud, sinking deeper, because the Ark would weigh too much, and the water would just keep rising, eventually covering the Ark and drowning all life confined inside.

Your video is simplistic, and unrealistic. The Genesis itself, Ark is unrealistic.

In the real world, when people build their ship, they would build it near water. When the construction is completed, they would move the vessels into the water.

What they don't do - is they don't wait for it rain or the floodwater to come.

 

[QuestioningMind]

First of all, Eve was the one approached by the Serpent, i.e., the Devil (John 8:44; Revelation 12:9). Apparently, she was told by Adam, her husband and head, about not eating from the tree. By not being told personally by Jehovah God Himself, God was respectful of Adam's position as head of the family -- Jehovah trusted Adam to relate the punishment for eating from it. (Adam told her, "don't even touch it"....that was from Adam, not God.)

So we have someone -- Eve, who never saw God, and maybe never even heard God speaking -- being approached by an entity she can both see and hear.

On top of that, there had never been deception anywhere in the Universe. It was a first...hence Jesus referring to Satan as 'the father of the lie' (John 8:44) Why wouldn't she be trusting?

At any rate, that's why the Devil approached Eve.....being the love of Adam's life, Satan rightly assumed that Eve could easily influence Adam.

It worked...and as their offspring, we've inherited genetic deficiencies, and live in a corrupt world under the Devil's control. -- John 12:31; John 14:30; 1 John 5:19.

And deception is his game. Revelation 12:9.

"On top of that, there had never been deception anywhere in the Universe. It was a first...hence Jesus referring to Satan as 'the father of the lie' (John 8:44) Why wouldn't she be trusting? "

EXACTLY! So a being that was not even aware of the concept of deception and easily duped by the first being willing to tell a lie is hardly a perfectly created being. In fact, considering the fact that it got them kicked out of paradise, it sounds like a very serious flaw. It's amazing that anyone could try and claim otherwise.

 

[Subduction Zone]

That video is absurd and far too simplistic.

I don't you really understand the concept of flood in the real world, Deeje.

Vessels don't simply float when it rain, especially with a vessel (eg the Ark) of that size.

In order understand my view on the matters, I'd need to get some of the points straight on what Genesis "actually" says:

1. In Genesis 6, we get the dimension of the ship (300 cubits long, 50 wide, 30 wide, which translated to (approximately) 150 metres long, by 25 m wide, by 15 m high.
2. Genesis 7, there are 8 (adult) humans, animals by pair, that boarded the Ark.
   
3. This is followed by rain for 40 days and nights, floodgate opened, water rising as high that it covered the highest mountains.
4. Genesis 8, it came to rest on mountains of Ararat...
5. and after a whole year, they disembarked from the Ark.

Now there are many problems with the whole narrative. Like we don't have precise number of animals that boarded the Ark, so we don't know how much tonnes of food were required to keep both human and animals alive.

And what did carnivore beasts eat (eg lions, tigers, leopards, dogs, cats, crocodiles), if not other animals?

I mean there would be tonnes of animals aboard the Ark, so you will need to store tonnes of food for them to eat. And you would also need tonnes of drinkable water.

Milton Platt have already made the points of the Ark being too long. But I see other problems. So I will not rehash what Milton about the Ark collapsing under enormous pressures from the flood water. I would believe that to be true, IF the Ark would float at all.

And I see how the Ark can possibly "float" with all that weight.

The Genesis is not clear about a lot of thing, but I don't think it would float at all, and not with all the animals boarding the Ark, and not with all the food they have to carry for ONE WHOLE YEAR!

Now, the assumption here, since the Genesis is not clear on this, Noah, family and animals boarded the Ark, and he shut the doors, just before the water came.

So we can safely assume that Noah built the Ark on "dry land". And when he shut door to the Ark, it was still on "dry land", when the water and rain came, right, Deeje?

Well, in the real world, when dealing with flood water, it isn't "just water". Not only there are debris, but when water saturate the earth, eg soil, silt, clay, etc, what you get is "mud".

And that would be tonnes of mud, in any flood.

If the water and mud don't smash the huge Ark in half, the water coming to the Ark, will soak and saturate the ground which the Ark is resting on, turning the ground underneath into mud.

And since the Ark would weigh so many tonnes, the Ark wouldn't float, it would just sink deeper into the mud.

The Ark would be marooned in mud, sinking deeper, because the Ark would weigh too much, and the water would just keep rising, eventually covering the Ark and drowning all life confined inside.

Your video is simplistic, and unrealistic. The Genesis itself, Ark is unrealistic.

In the real world, when people build their ship, they would build it near water. When the construction is completed, they would move the vessels into the water.

What they don't do - is they don't wait for it rain or the floodwater to come.

And that is just the beginning of the Ark story's problems. It fails in all aspects, geologically we know that it did not happen because floods leave evidence. Massive floods leave massive evidence and yet here we have the largest flood in the history of the world and there is not one iota for its evidence. At best one can badly, and I mean badly misinterpret the evidence that tells us that there was no flood.

Biologically it fails since one has to embrace hyper-evolution while denying real evolution, in other words one has to massively contradict ones own beliefs to explain how species evolved extremely quickly yet somehow we are not the relatives of our fellow apes. Worse yet the flood myth predicts a universal population bottleneck that would make the much smaller near extinction event that affected cheetahs look like a walk in the park.

It fails with the population growth curves that certain creationists love to use. There would not have been enough Egyptians to build the pyramids and definitely not enough Jews for the Exodus.

It fails on a historical level since no matter when it was by analyzing the birth records in the Bible, some civilization went on existing right through the period of the flood.

There are more, but I am going to use on last example. It fails biblically since to cover up all of the other failures God would have had to hide his evil deed so that we do not see evidence of it today. Hiding evidence is a form of lying. People that claim the flood is true are also claiming that there God is dishonest and that contradicts other parts of the Bible.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

"On top of that, there had never been deception anywhere in the Universe. It was a first...hence Jesus referring to Satan as 'the father of the lie' (John 8:44) Why wouldn't she be trusting? "
EXACTLY! So a being that was not even aware of the concept of deception and easily duped by the first being willing to tell a lie is hardly a perfectly created being. In fact, considering the fact that it got them kicked out of paradise, it sounds like a very serious flaw. It's amazing that anyone could try and claim otherwise.

I find at Genesis 3:3 that Eve's answer to the serpent was she was aware or had knowledge about the forbidden fruit.
So, Eve knew what was good according to God, but apparently Eve wanted to experience the bad.
Adam and Eve were created with a sin-less nature meaning they could Not sin by mistake but only on purpose.
That forbidden fruit stood for the Law. Turning aside from Divine Law then they imitated the opposition: Satan.

Because Eve was deceived is why the blame rests on Adam who was Not deceived - 1 Timothy 2:14.
We all have the freedom to act responsibly toward our Creator and Heavenly Father.
We are on a temporary detour from Eden, but God's purpose is that 'righteous' mankind will see the return on Earth of the Genesis ' tree of life' and according to Revelation 22:2 the tree's leaves will be for the healing of earth's nations.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I find at Genesis 3:3 that Eve's answer to the serpent was she was aware or had knowledge about the forbidden fruit.
So, Eve knew what was good according to God, but apparently Eve wanted to experience the bad.
Adam and Eve were created with a sin-less nature meaning they could Not sin by mistake but only on purpose.
That forbidden fruit stood for the Law. Turning aside from Divine Law then they imitated the opposition: Satan.

Because Eve was deceived is why the blame rests on Adam who was Not deceived - 1 Timothy 2:14.
We all have the freedom to act responsibly toward our Creator and Heavenly Father.
We are on a temporary detour from Eden, but God's purpose is that 'righteous' mankind will see the return on Earth of the Genesis ' tree of life' and according to Revelation 22:2 the tree's leaves will be for the healing of earth's nations.

Sorry, but that is a non sequitur. There is no reason to conclude that a person with a "sinless nature" had to want to sin. Of course since it never happened in the first place you are just debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin at this time.

 

[Deeje]

That video is absurd and far too simplistic.

In your opinion, with no knowledge whatsoever about very much of what actually took place, that may seem to be so. Does everything have to have your seal of approval I wonder? If you don't believe it...then don't.

I don't you really understand the concept of flood in the real world, Deeje.

What is this "real world" of which you speak gnostic? The world of which Genesis speaks in those times was hardly what we could envision. The reasons for the flood make it very unreal indeed.

Vessels don't simply float when it rain, especially with a vessel (eg the Ark) of that size.

Says who? If God was the one who provided the specifications, then I trust that he could bless the outcome of Noah's obedience in its construction. The Bible says he followed the plans to the letter.

You seem to want to leave God out of everything you assume. I include him in everything.....see the difference? Faith requires no proof. Proof makes faith unnecessary. I have faith and you do not.....never the twain shall meet apparently. This event will never be "proven" to those without faith.

Now there are many problems with the whole narrative. Like we don't have precise number of animals that boarded the Ark, so we don't know how much tonnes of food were required to keep both human and animals alive.

Since it was God who brought the animals to Noah, then it was he who chose the specimens and the numbers. It was God who made provision for all these animals, not Noah.
Noah just followed orders.

And what did carnivore beasts eat (eg lions, tigers, leopards, dogs, cats, crocodiles), if not other animals?

Carnivores can eat vegetation. They proved this in wartime Europe when zoo animals like lions ate vegetation because meat could not be provided for them. As it says in Isaiah....“‘The wolf and the lamb themselves will feed as one, and the lion will eat straw just like the bull; and as for the serpent, his food will be dust. They will do no harm nor cause any ruin in all my holy mountain,’ Jehovah has said.” (Isaiah 65:25)

My dog is a carnivore but loves vegetables. The strongest animals on earth are mostly herbivores. I don't believe that most animals were designed to be meat eaters originally, just as humans were not. Permission to consume flesh was given only to Noah and his descendants. Were animals given sanction to kill and eat flesh at that time too? Perhaps. I believe that only carrion animals were flesh eaters at first. This was not killing to eat, but eating what was already dead.....a clean up crew, if you like....a very necessary part of nature's perfect recycling.

The prophesy in Isaiah also says that no animals will "do harm or cause ruin" in the new world to come, so that is what I envision for the future.

I mean there would be tonnes of animals aboard the Ark, so you will need to store tonnes of food for them to eat. And you would also need tonnes of drinkable water.

And it was done. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, food and water can be provided by God if there is a need. I see no problems there. God was in control of the whole event....you keep forgetting.

The Genesis is not clear about a lot of thing, but I don't think it would float at all, and not with all the animals boarding the Ark, and not with all the food they have to carry for ONE WHOLE YEAR!

Again, you leave God completely out of the picture. You cannot assume to know what happened if you leave God out of his own event. What you "think" can be dead wrong.

Your video is simplistic, and unrealistic. The Genesis itself, Ark is unrealistic.

Only unrealistic for an atheist, or someone who has little knowledge of God and his abilities.

In the real world, when people build their ship, they would build it near water. When the construction is completed, they would move the vessels into the water.

What they don't do - is they don't wait for it rain or the floodwater to come.

The ark wasn't a ship.....an ark in the Bible is a box....a container. That is all the ark needed to be...a container vessel. It had no navigation equipment, it was simply designed to float and to withstand the conditions...which, according to scripture, it did.

Have you seen fully loaded container ships?

Do they look like they can handles rough seas? Most of them do. But because the containers are sitting relatively unsecured on the deck, there is nothing to stop them from toppling overboard.

The ark had all occupants and provisions inside the vessel.

Without God this whole scenario "seems to be" impossible, but we don't have those problems to deal with.
You see, "With God, all things are possible".

 

[Hockeycowboy]

"On top of that, there had never been deception anywhere in the Universe. It was a first...hence Jesus referring to Satan as 'the father of the lie' (John 8:44) Why wouldn't she be trusting? "

EXACTLY! So a being that was not even aware of the concept of deception and easily duped by the first being willing to tell a lie is hardly a perfectly created being. In fact, considering the fact that it got them kicked out of paradise, it sounds like a very serious flaw. It's amazing that anyone could try and claim otherwise.

What?! You cannot be aware of something, that didn’t exist! There had been nothing to ever cause her to worry or fear, not even a talking snake! Her ease and willingness to approach it, verifies this. It was Paradise, for crying out loud!

Grief.

If anything, it reveals her curiosity, nothing else.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

In order understand my view on the matters, I'd need to get some of the points straight on what Genesis "actually" says:

1. In Genesis 6, we get the dimension of the ship (300 cubits long, 50 wide, 30 wide, which translated to (approximately) 150 metres long, by 25 m wide, by 15 m high.
2. Genesis 7, there are 8 (adult) humans, animals by pair, that boarded the Ark.
   
3. This is followed by rain for 40 days and nights, floodgate opened, water rising as high that it covered the highest mountains.
4. Genesis 8, it came to rest on mountains of Ararat...
5. and after a whole year, they disembarked from the Ark.

Now there are many problems with the whole narrative. Like we don't have precise number of animals that boarded the Ark, so we don't know how much tonnes of food were required to keep both human and animals alive.

Side point: Along with #3, you need to add the water that came from below, “the springs of the vast watery deep.”

Regarding the number of species, this article discusses it....

“To answer this question, we must first ask how many animals were actually on the ark. Critics have fantasized the presence of millions of animals overloading the ark. In actuality, the Bible makes it clear that the cargo was limited to land-dwelling, air-breathing vertebrate animals—corresponding to modern birds, mammals, and reptiles, as well as their extinct counterparts.

Was every species on the ark? No! From chapters such as Leviticus 11, it is obvious that the created kind (min in Hebrew, in Genesis 1:11–12, 21, 24–25) was a much broader category than the modern term of classification, species. Current baraminological2research suggests that the created kind most closely corresponded to the family level in current taxonomy. However, to be conservative in this study, the genus was set as equivalent to the original created kind. As for the clean animals that entered the ark in seven pairs, this added a modest number of additional animals, notably bovids (cow-like mammals) and cervids (deer-like mammals). Under these conservative assumptions, there were no more than 16,000 land animals and birds on the ark.

According to the Bible, the ark had three decks (floors). It is not difficult to show that there was plenty of room for 16,000 animals, assuming they required approximately the same floor space as animals in typical farm enclosures and laboratories today. The vast majority of the creatures (birds, reptiles, and mammals) are small. The largest animals were probably only a few hundred pounds of body weight.

It is still necessary to take account of the floor spaces required by large animals, such as elephants, giraffes, rhinos, and [such]. But even these, collectively, do not require a large area. God would likely have sent to Noah young (and therefore small, but not newborn) representatives of these kinds so that they would have a full reproductive potential for life after the Flood to repopulate the earth (Genesis 7:1–3). Even the largest dinosaurs were relatively small when only a few years old.”

Another excerpt: “While it is possible that God made miraculous provisions for the daily care of these animals, it is not necessary—or required by Scripture—to appeal to miracles.“

(Scientific information provide by John Woodmorappe, MA, Geology, BA, Geology, BA, Biology)

Obviously, there were no dinosaurs on the Ark...there are none today. And no need to protect animals already living in water. As regards diluted salinity, remember, much of the water came from underground, which met the needs of saline-environment creatures.

Furthermore, the ratios given for the Ark — length to depth = 10/1, and length to width = 6/1 — have been found by modern shipbuilding architects to be ideally seaworthy for a non-powered, unguided ship, whose only purpose was to float!

How did Moses know?

 

[sayak83]

I would recommend the following books, if anyone is interested in the Epic of Gilgamesh:

• George, Andrew, The Epic Of Gilgamesh: A New Translation, Penguin, 2000
• Dalley, Stephanie, Myths From Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others, Oxford World's Classics, rev 2000.

Both George and Dalley have translation of the Standard Version (SV) of the Epic of Gilgamesh, plus some Old Babylonian versions from different cities, but George's have some Middle Babylonian versions, and more importantly 5 Sumerian poems of Bilgames.

Dalley have translations of other Babylonian myths, including the Epic of Atrahasis and "The Epic of Creation" (more commonly known to scholars as the Enûma Eliš).

If you are interested in translations of Sumerian texts, then I would recommend...

• Jacobsen, Thorkild, Harps That Once...: Sumerian Poetry in Translation, Yale University Press, 1997

However, it is expensive, and it is not available in local bookshop, so you would need to order it online.

If you don't want to pay, then go this website: The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL). Everything you would need would be in this page. Here you will find:

• the Flood Story (Ziusudra) under Other Deities
  
• and The Death of Gilgames under Gilgames.

Can you put this in Resources section?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Side point: Along with #3, you need to add the water that came from below, “the springs of the vast watery deep.”

Regarding the number of species, this article discusses it....

“To answer this question, we must first ask how many animals were actually on the ark. Critics have fantasized the presence of millions of animals overloading the ark. In actuality, the Bible makes it clear that the cargo was limited to land-dwelling, air-breathing vertebrate animals—corresponding to modern birds, mammals, and reptiles, as well as their extinct counterparts.

Was every species on the ark? No! From chapters such as Leviticus 11, it is obvious that the created kind (min in Hebrew, in Genesis 1:11–12, 21, 24–25) was a much broader category than the modern term of classification, species. Current baraminological2research suggests that the created kind most closely corresponded to the family level in current taxonomy. However, to be conservative in this study, the genus was set as equivalent to the original created kind. As for the clean animals that entered the ark in seven pairs, this added a modest number of additional animals, notably bovids (cow-like mammals) and cervids (deer-like mammals). Under these conservative assumptions, there were no more than 16,000 land animals and birds on the ark.

According to the Bible, the ark had three decks (floors). It is not difficult to show that there was plenty of room for 16,000 animals, assuming they required approximately the same floor space as animals in typical farm enclosures and laboratories today. The vast majority of the creatures (birds, reptiles, and mammals) are small. The largest animals were probably only a few hundred pounds of body weight.

It is still necessary to take account of the floor spaces required by large animals, such as elephants, giraffes, rhinos, and [such]. But even these, collectively, do not require a large area. God would likely have sent to Noah young (and therefore small, but not newborn) representatives of these kinds so that they would have a full reproductive potential for life after the Flood to repopulate the earth (Genesis 7:1–3). Even the largest dinosaurs were relatively small when only a few years old.”

Another excerpt: “While it is possible that God made miraculous provisions for the daily care of these animals, it is not necessary—or required by Scripture—to appeal to miracles.“

(Scientific information provide by John Woodmorappe, MA, Geology, BA, Geology, BA, Biology)

Obviously, there were no dinosaurs on the Ark...there are none today. And no need to protect animals already living in water. As regards diluted salinity, remember, much of the water came from underground, which met the needs of saline-environment creatures.

Furthermore, the ratios given for the Ark — length to depth = 10/1, and length to width = 6/1 — have been found by modern shipbuilding architects to be ideally seaworthy for a non-powered, unguided ship, whose only purpose was to float!

How did Moses know?

Why use such embarrassing sources for your claims? It is generally not a good idea to use a site that requires its workers not to use the scientific method for science "facts".

 

[QuestioningMind]

What?! You cannot be aware of something, that didn’t exist! There had been nothing to ever cause her to worry or fear, not even a talking snake! Her ease and willingness to approach it, verifies this. It was Paradise, for crying out loud!

Grief.

If anything, it reveals her curiosity, nothing else.

Sounds like someone who was completely naive and gullible. Someone who had never experienced fear or worry and was completely trusting of everyone she encountered. Someone who would be a perfect target for the first person or talking snake that might come along and decide to deceive her. Now, if you knew for certain that she would never encounter such a person or talking snake, the you could consider her to have been created perfectly. However, if you know that there's a good chance that she will encounter such a person or talking snake - like if you created a deceptive talking snake and allowed it into PARADISE - then creating Eve so completely naive and gullible seems like an obvious flaw... IF your intention is for her to not be deceived.

 

[gnostic]

What is this "real world" of which you speak gnostic? The world of which Genesis speaks in those times was hardly what we could envision. The reasons for the flood make it very unreal indeed.

Fact: For something of the size of the Ark to float on water, it would require lot of water to float the Ark. You do remember the Ark was supposedly 30 cubits high, which is roughly about 15 metres. So the water would have to be at least half that deep. But that's only true, if you are ignoring the weight of the Ark, the people, animals and food inside the 3-deck vessel.

The water need to be at least 20 metres deep before the Ark would float.

But, before you even reach that depth, the water would have soaked and saturated the ground it was built on. Meaning it would turn to mud long before there is even 2 metres of water. 2 metres (comparable to height of very tall man, eg 6 feet 7 inches) of water is not enough to float the Ark, but enough to turn soil, silt and clay into mud. By 3 metres, the heavy Ark would sink deeper into mud. By 10 metres, the Ark would be marooned so far and so deep into the ground, that it will not float.

I may not know marine or maritime engineering or ship building, but I was a civil engineer, I have studied foundation, which required knowledge of both geology and understanding different types of soil, and you have to consider weight of any buildings and construction.

Now I don't know where Noah lived and what he did for a living. Was he a farmer growing and harvesting crops or raising livestock, or shepherd, or carpenter or shipwright?

Like I said, I don't know where he lived and where he build his Ark, but I can hazard some guesses with common sense.

But since God supposedly only want to save Noah and his family, so pretty much it is a secret. Noah wouldn't be able to keep it a secret, if he build his Ark near urban areas, like villages, towns or cities. So the place has to be secluded.

So not only he must ensure they eat and food supply, I am guessing that he would live on farm, where he grow his own food, but at the same time, he need a place to build his Ark.

So his Ark project would have to be near his home and farm, perhaps in the closest clearing within the forest.

If Noah and his sons spent decades building the Ark, then he would need to build it as near as possible to lot of tall trees for timbers. So, the clearing where he is building his Ark, like his farm, would be on soil, not on rocky surface.

All the above is logical, if Noah need a place secluded enough to build his Ark, and grow his food. All that to me, tell me the surface would be soil, of either clay or silt.

Have you ever being in a situation where you have experience of flash flood in rural areas?

The churning waters are often brown because of the (rural) area are covered in soil and dirt. The ground the Ark was built upon, would turn into mud, and due to the weight of the Ark, it would sink into that mud. And the more water there are, the deeper the saturation in the soil.

I simply don't see the Ark floating in the first few days of rain.