What happened to the plants during Noah’s flood?

[LeMaverick]

Thanks Sandy, if I think of any more questions that need that kind of answer I will ask you personally.

Do dead plants "grow back"? Is that similar dead people coming back to life or living after they die? I guess if one is inclined to believe fairy tales they can believe all sorts of things come back to life.

Maybe that is why fairytales never appealed to me.

 

[des]

It is only infallible (the word is inerrant) and literal to certain more fundamentalist type Christians. To many of us, the Bible is-- every word of it-- written by people who lived during a certain time, had a certain POV, even had an agenda, in some cases. It is ALL human.

Ok, it is, in most cases, a history, but it is a peculiar sort of history that is not and never was meant to be literal. I think the people who take it literally end up making very big moral statements that they perhaps don't even know they are making. But MOST people do not read it literally.

The statement about the plants all dying (which would happen if this happened as a real world event, such as would be on CNN), are trying to view this in the most limited literalist sort of way. This is NOT CNN.
I think the idea of people trying to make coherent sense of the world without any of the kinds of tools we have today, makes the most sense of how to view this story. It is certainly NOT a moral tale, unless you were to say "why is it that bad things happen" and you come up with this answer. I wouldn't agree wiht this answer, but it is a way of looking at these events.

Job goes much further in dealing with "why do bad things happen" because they obviously happen to a good person. But that also cannot be considered a literal tale.

I don't know that I would ever say that the Bible is "divinely inspired" except in the most general sort of way-- in that some people were apparently motivated to write these stories down to make sense of their history. Why were they so motivated? Some might have been motivated by not such good reasons, but others were motivated for positive reasons.

But if you have read enough of my posts you'd know that I wasn't a literalist in any respect. I have read Biblical scholarship and respect it (or that which should be respected that is). Bible scholarship will tell you a lot about what was written when, why it was written, some possible motivations, POVs, and that sort of thing.

--des

Isn't the bible credited with being "divinely inspired" and "the word of god" and "infallible"? If any of those is true, one cannot excuse its errors by citing it human origins.

It is not ethical to say one time that the bible is divinely inspired and say another time that it must be interpreted as the work of men of the times. Which is it?

I would say something close to what you have said. My statement would be, "Scripture does not make a very good basis for faith".

 

[des]

Know of anywhere I can do that? Aside from a church of course

Another thing might be some of Marcus Borg's books (he is not Orthodox), it is a different view, but it is a view that is quite different than the ones you are familar with. For instance, "Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but not Literally". And the "Heart of Christianity".

These are more a progressive Christian view. But it is certainly one you aren't familar with, apparently.


--des

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Do dead plants "grow back"?

It is something called a seed or a spore. Water them and plants emerge from them. It's kinda like "Chia Pet" only different.

 

[Papersock]

Ok, it is, in most cases, a history, but it is a peculiar sort of history that is not and never was meant to be literal. I think the people who take it literally end up making very big moral statements that they perhaps don't even know they are making. But MOST people do not read it literally.

Most people probably do not read it literally, but the literalists seem to be the loudest group.

 

[Papersock]

It is something called a seed or a spore. Water them and plants emerge from them. It's kinda like "Chia Pet" only different.

Some seeds can lie dormant for years. Depending on the species, I think.

 

[gnostic]

But LeMaverick does have a good point.

The flood of this magnitude would have destroyed most plant life. Much of the earth remained underwater for almost a whole year (less than 11 months).

Things just would grow immediately after the water receded. It would be more months before anything can grow, let alone planting and harvesting. There would have been widespread crop fail. With the entire world devastated, there should have been a long break in fauna. Beside, what would the animals eat, since there are no plants for the herbivore animals eat? And since there are pair of each animal, what did the carnivorous animals eat?

Also, as I have repeated in the timing of the Noah's flood is wrong. It is set in very late 22nd century (2104 BCE to precise). There is no break in population and civilisation at this period. Even if Noah's sons began having kids after the flood, it would centuries for it to refill Mesopotamia, let alone the rest of the world. Cities still stood. The Sumerian civilisation (3rd dynasty of Ur) was undergoing a Renaissance at that time. Though, they do mention flood in their tablets before their time, this catastrophic deluge didn't happened in their time. Other Sumerian cities (contemporaries to the Ur) also didn't record such a flood in their time. Before the Ur's Renaissance, Akkadians were prominent in Mesopotamia, and the generations of Akkadians didn't record any such flood in their times too.

Egypt was undergoing 1st Intermediate period at that time, but their civilisation didn't stop for almost a year. The Minoan civilisation were building palaces around that time, which contemporary to Cycladic civilisation in the Aegean Sea, and archaeological evidences showed that none of them were destroyed by flood around that time.

There are no flood of any such magnitude in the entire 2nd half of 3rd millennium. If the Noah's flood did happened in this period, then when? It can't happened earlier or later, because then it would be out of sync with the reign of Saul, David and Solomon, and it would also throw the falls of Samaria (722 BCE) and Jerusalem (587 or 586 BCE) right off the chart.

You also got to consider the Biblical timing. If we are to use the Jewish calendar, the flood began on the 17th day of the 2nd month, and when Noah left it, it was on 1st day of the 1st month (which is in Sept-Oct on the Gregorian calendar) of the following year. Nothing would grow at this period, because this is usually harvest time in the Middle East. More flooding would happen, between March and May, particularly the Tigris-Euphrates river.

 

[Mister_T]

Plants don't grow in dried up lake beds?

Go to your local mountains (usually are covered with plants) and start digging. You'll find sea shells and remains of other aquatic forms of life imbedded in the dirt and rocks. And this is because (drum roll please).........those very mountains were covered with water at one point in time.

Now that doesn't necessarily prove the story of Noah's Ark, but it does prove that plants can grow in places where water once covered for a long period of time.

 

[gnostic]

Go to your local mountains (usually are covered with plants) and start digging. You'll find sea shells and remains of other aquatic forms of life imbedded in the dirt and rocks. And this is because (drum roll please).........those very mountains were covered with water at one point in time.

I don't doubt it that such fossils can be found on the mountains, but that's because they weren't always mountains. Billions or tens of millions of years ago, some underwater floors had shifted, possibly due to volcanic activities, until they became mountains, but that didn't happened in Noah's time.

 

[uumckk16]

Most people probably do not read it literally, but the literalists seem to be the loudest group.

Naturally.

 

[Runlikethewind]

I don't doubt it that such fossils can be found on the mountains, but that's because they weren't always mountains. Billions or tens of millions of years ago, some underwater floors had shifted, possibly due to volcanic activities, until they became mountains, but that didn't happened in Noah's time.

Mountain building of the type that brings past sea floors to be mountains the heights of say ,the Rockie Mountains, is generally caused by uplift due to tectonic activity and/or regional compression rather than volcanic activity. I agree with the general assessment of your post gnostic, but the geologist in me just had to point that out.

 

[gnostic]

Well, any upheaval of the lands, could have cause the mountain to rise. Volcanic activity could be just one of possibilities, not the sole factor of mountain-making.

Frubals to you.

 

[Runlikethewind]

Don't get me wrong I am not trying to ridicule or talk down to anyone or anything, the geologist in me just likes to talk about this stuff. Of course volcanoes are involved in mountain building the point I was trying to make was that shell and fossils are found in sedimentary rocks and volcanoes generate igneous rocks, one would be hard pressed to find any fossils in a volcanic landscape.

But anyway this is unimportant to the general point at hand which is to say that finding sea shells on a mountain does prove that the mountain was underwater at some time but not that it was underwater when it was a mountain. It could have been underwater on the bottom of the ocean and then lifted up by whatever process (and volcanoes could be involved in the uplift of sedimentary beds...as long as the lava doesn't bury them) to the height of mountains, which is how modern geology understands it. In my studies of geology I have found the evidence of uplift of ocean floors to mountains pretty convincing and when I find a shell on a mountain I do not think that it got there because the mountain was underwater during a great flood.

 

[LeMaverick]

[FONT=&quot]As a person trained in geology, I second the geologic information presented by Runlikethewind.

I do not necessarily agree with religious information presented by Runlikethewind.

There need be no conflict between science and religion. Science should rightfully deal with the natural world and religion should deal with the spiritual world. Both should, IMO, acknowledge their limitations (i.e., science should not impose its ideas on religion and religion should not impose its ideas on science). [/FONT]

 

[Runlikethewind]

[FONT=&quot]As a person trained in geology, I second the geologic information presented by Runlikethewind.

I do not necessarily agree with religious information presented by Runlikethewind.

There need be no conflict between science and religion. Science should rightfully deal with the natural world and religion should deal with the spiritual world. Both should, IMO, acknowledge their limitations (i.e., science should not impose its ideas on religion and religion should not impose its ideas on science). [/FONT]

Agree 100%

 

[gnostic]

I have only done one semester on geology, when I was doing a course on civil engineering years ago, so it coming back to me about sedimentary rocks and igneous rocks. I recall that there were a third type of rocks, but I don't remember it now. Geology was not my specialty, and I have now gone in different direction, career-wise.

 

[Mister_T]

I don't doubt it that such fossils can be found on the mountains, but that's because they weren't always mountains. Billions or tens of millions of years ago, some underwater floors had shifted, possibly due to volcanic activities, until they became mountains, but that didn't happened in Noah's time.

No, that didn't happen in Noah's time. But regardless, the earth those mountains are composed of were covered with water for a long period of time and have plants growing on them. It seemed as though some people thought that this was not possible.

 

[LeMaverick]

Gnostic,

That third rock type is Metamorphic -- rock that has been altered by heat and pressure

 

[gnostic]

That third rock type is Metamorphic -- rock that has been altered by heat and pressure

That's right. I think marble and slate are metamorphic rocks; they are the only ones that come to my mind.

Marble are originally sedimentary rocks, like limestones or dolomites(? not sure about this ones), until they are hardened as you said "by heat and pressure", especially when it absorb some chemical elements of the igneous rocks. If I remember it correctly, it has something do with this exchange of chemical or elementary properties and the heat-and-pressure process, forming new crystalline shapes.

Is that right, LeMaverick and Runlikethewind?

 

[LeMaverick]

Gnostic,

You are remembering correctly from those early geology courses. Metamorphic processes can include chemical, structural and crystalline changes -- due to heat and pressure at depth. There is no re-melting in the process or the resultant would be igneous (rock solidified from a molten condition). The other major rock type, as you mentioned previously, is sedimentary (formed from fragments of pre-existing rock)