Summations Only

This is a solid argument. It leads me to conclude that the Great Flood story was designed as a parable...and is not literal.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Do you mean by that that before this evidence arose you believed the story as written?

In a certain sense, it is both.From the bible perspective, the story is meant to be a parable, showcasing god's might when it comes to punishing the wicked and redeeming the virtuous.
At the same time, the story itself has some factual origins, most likely from the time of the Sumerians. From what I heard, the original story involved the flooding of the Tigris or Euphrates river and a merchant using his ship to protect his family and stores of animals and supplies from the rising waters. I think some versions reference Gilgamesh himself as well in a similar way.Flood stories themselves exist in virtually every ancient culture, as it was a common event that could be quite catastrophic. One only needs to see the carnage from the Tsunami in the South Pacific to see that.

Hi Phat,I know this is off-topic, but I just want to briefly address this, because it's a problem that I have with many Christians, Old and Young Earth alike. That's really shoddy logic.The science can only tell us whether or not the Flood story is true; it can't tell us how the Bible authors intended the tale to be read.Your thinking seems to run something like this;1) The Bible is, in some way or other, true.2) The science tells us that it's not literally true, so;3) It is symbolically/spiritually true.This is a mistake, based as it is on the presupposition that the Bible is in some way true or valuable. You are arbitrarily ignoring the possibility that the Bible authors intended the story to be literally true, but were simply wrong.We should not interpret the Flood as myth because it never happened, we should interpret it as myth because it reads like myth. Only the text itself can tell us how the story should be interpreted. The science can only tell us if it's an accurate representation of reality. It can't tell us whether its authors intended for it to be literally true or not.Mutate and Survive

I think your own logic contains an error. Phat may conclude as he does because he makes other assumptions that you don't make and holds beliefs that you do not hold. That does not make his conclusion process process faulty. It just means that if you want to convince him, you are going to have to visit those other beliefs and assumptions.ABE: Well no, that is simply incorrect. There are lots of non textual possibilities to allow us to conclude that a given story is factual. Do we rely on the text to tell us that Moby Dick is fiction? Do we really use only textual reasons to conclude that Aesop's fables are pure fiction.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Not in this case. He said that his interpretation of the text followed from the science. Just look; If his belief in a symbolic Flood really does flow from that, he's making an error. The fact that the Flood did not happen cannot tell us whether or not the authors thought it happened. You can't draw that conclusion from the science alone because that information simply isn't there to be had.The possibility remains that the Bible authors really did believe in a true and literal Flood and that the record they made was primarily intended as a factual history, devoid of parable. I don't think that is the case, I think that the tale is intended as a mixture of true history and parable, both at once, in a way that is unfamiliar to a modern reader. But no matter what me or you or Phat thinks, we you can't rule these possibilities in or out by reference to the science alone. With all due respect, you completely miss the point. We are not discussing whether the story is fiction or not; we know it's fiction. A child could see that. What is in dispute is how the authors intended it to be read. Just because the story is fiction does not mean that it was not intended to be read as factual at some level.Mutate and Survive

Not quite. He said that the argument convinced him that the story was myth rather than real. Yes that is right.However you are arguing that the argument should have convinced him not only that the flood never happened, but also that the story in the Bible had no value. I don't believe that to be a necessary conclusion. Phat's impression that the Bible almost certainly has bases not discussed in this thread.I think it is silly to assume that Phat has no previous belief that the stories in the Bible are valid regardless of how you parse out his sentence in his post. That is the mistake that you are making here. You cannot be serious. I know the story is fiction, but it ought to be obvious that some people believe otherwise. Phat may well have been one of those people.Yes it is possible to read his statement as you say, but I'm 100% sure you are parsing out a meaning that was not intended.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Possibility 1 - The Flood never happened. The Text is a parable, primarily written for its allegorical value.Possibility 2 - The Flood never happened. The story is a failed attempt at factual history, any allegorical content is secondary.You can't distinguish between those two possibilities by looking at a population bottleneck or the geological record. The information simply isn't there to be had.Now you can choose to read the text as parable based only on the knowledge that the Flood never happened, but to really say "The Bible is parable" or not, you need to examine the intents of the authors.We don't know whether they believed these tales as fact or not, but we certainly can't tell from looking at gene sequences.Mutate and Survive

While your position is totally irrelevant to the topic or thread it does deserve at least a passing response.From the stories themselves it is pretty easy to see that at least by the time the flood parts of Genesis were codified the redactors did not consider the stories to be factual but rather myth. The support for that position is that they included two (or more) mutually exclusive versions and made no attempt to hide, smooth, consolidate those separate stories into one single coherent account.The evidence is found in Genesis 6 and Genesis 7 where two different traditions are found.There can be lots of discussion of why the editors and redactors didn't try to fix the narrative; maybe political considerations, a Judaic and Israeli tradition, maybe historical, maybe regional versions; but the fact remains that they did just mush the two different versions together without trying to hide their mutual exclusivity.That's not how one reports history or fact but it is how myths, fables, teaching tales are often done.

Possibility 327 - I think the flood actually happened and I also think the story in the Bible tell us of the value of faithfulness in the face of ridicule by his neighbors.If you hold the belief expressed in possibility three, then learning that the flood did not actually happen does not require changing your mind about the value of the story.Edited by NoNukes, : change number from 3 to 326 for effect.

I would also state there is a Possibility 3: 'A' flood of some sort occurred in the ancient past that was the original origin story of the Flood Myth, which was then borrowed and exaggerated to parable status in the bible.

A general reply to all; From that, you can only suppose that the later source, P, took that attitude, and I'm not sure that even that is quite so certain as you portray it.J could easily have been doing history. I didn't mention the two sources before, as it complicated what I was trying to say, but you are quite right in noting the divided nature of the narrative . The two authors could easily have had very different intents. As I said before, the way we can tell that this is myth is by reading the text, not by looking to the science. No, but it still leaves the conclusion that the story is parable without justification and it still leaves the possibility that the Flood was intended as history unexamined. You can't base that conclusion upon the science alone, it simply doesn't follow. It's shoddy logic. Sure. But you can't get that from looking at a population bottleneck.This is a side issue though. If people want to pursue this, it needs to go to a new thread.Mutate and Survive

I agree with the latter half of your statement it leaves the possibility that the Flood was intended as history unexamined leaving Phat to his own devices on that point. And surely the idea that the Bible does contain parables is not so difficult to come by.We can reach the conclusion that the story is a parable by a combination of 1) The argument that the story could not have actually happened, where such argument is as provided by jar, and 2) a pre-existing belief or premise that all of the stories in the Bible have value regardless of whether they are true.You are arguing that Phat cannot derive (2) from jar's argument. I agree with that, but that's no big deal. It is sufficient that Phat not find himself dissuaded from premise 2 by jar's argument.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Yeah, pretty much. I would say that your premise two is at the root of a great many aspects of theistic belief, especially when it comes to interpreting texts.It seems though that we have more or less reached agreement. How often does that happen here? Mutate and Survive

It is rare, but is it supposed to happen at all?I thought we were supposed to stick to our positions, no matter how silly, until someone started calling names, then the other poster complains to Moose who puts the thread into summary mode. Then we take a couple more swipes at each other in the summary.But actually agreeing, even when I see I'm wrong? Nope, that's weak .