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Author Topic:   Commonalities Of Accounts Of A Universal Flood?
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 18 of 92 (353742)
10-02-2006 8:37 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Faith
10-02-2006 7:35 PM


Faith writes:
The universality of flood stories, were they all merely local events, should be matched by a universality of all kinds of disaster stories, it seems to me. Where are the universal earthquake stories, the universal forest fire stories?
There are many myths about both these things, if one is inclined to look. Here is a long list of myths about quakes.
Faith writes:
If the area is flood-prone, yearly subjected to flooding as the Nile area is, the people wouldn't single out just one event of flooding to make a big deal out of it -- or if there was an unusually big flood they'd still mention it in the context of the yearly pattern -- they lived by it after all.
You mean, like this?
Egyptian scribe writes:
"Yeah, it flooded every year, and one year it covered up the whole world but the next year it didn't--no big deal."
The annual flooding of the Nile, with its deposits of rich silt and renewal of ground water, meant continued life and fertility to the Egyptians. The emergence of land from the flood and the first sprout from it were part of their iconography and ritual: part of the Pharoah's job was to command/entreat the cycle of renewal. A flood that destroyed rather than nourished would have been remarked upon.
The fact that such stories exist in such numbers is very likely an indication of a universal memory. The fact that many of them are distorted and embellished with local gods just reflects the imperfection of memory and reason, plus a dollop of local pride.
Then the fact of even more numerous creation myths with nothing whatsoever in common is very likely an indication that different gods made different lands and peoples. The similarities, where they are found, are regional: those similarities exist because of shared histories and traditions. Other flood stories in the Middle East reflect the commonality of region, not event.
Faith writes:
The Bible account is remarkable for its LACK of embellishment. In fact this is true of the entire Bible, which adds to its credibility in my mind. It's a straightforward account of facts and pertinent details. There's no fat on it, no fairy tale or myth or legend feeling at all. In my humble opinion of course.
I can tell my wife's account of our wedding is not embellished, because I was there, and because I have photographs. What personal experience and objective record are you comparing the Bible to in order to reach your assessment?

God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, ”Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’
--Ann Coulter, Fox-TV: Hannity & Colmes, 20 Jun 01
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Faith, posted 10-02-2006 7:35 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by Faith, posted 10-02-2006 9:03 PM Omnivorous has replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 32 of 92 (353765)
10-02-2006 9:34 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by Faith
10-02-2006 9:03 PM


Faith writes:
Excellent support for my position, thank you. These are myths devised to explain the periodic recurrence of the phenomenon of earthquakes -- earthquakes, plural. In other words they are not about one huge worldwide earthquake. This demonstrates that primitive people know the difference between a recurring event and a worldwide one-time event. The flood stories, by contrast, do not describe periodic floods, recurrent floods, but a worldwide event that everyone here is trying to rationalize away in terms of their limitations of viewpoint.
Wrong on all counts. Many of those earthquake myths explain great quakes that shook the entire world. Further, earthquakes do not regularly inundate and destroy an entire region, as do 1000 year and 10,000 year floods.
You are simply trying to have it both ways, as has already been noted. And are you trying to suggest there were no floods before the Flood? Otherwise your distinction makes no sense on its face.
Omni writes:
I can tell my wife's account of our wedding is not embellished, because I was there, and because I have photographs. What personal experience and objective record are you comparing the Bible to in order to reach your assessment?
Faith writes:
Well, your link to the myths about the origin of earthquakes is a case in point. Typical myths, imaginative rationalizations.
Yes, and the Biblical account is every bit as typical. You continue to make hand-waving assertions of Biblical exceptionalism without substantiation. In what way is the Flood account less "embellished" and less typical? It is merely another myth from another ancient tribal people, built upon over the millennia like coral and enshrined by a refusal to examine it as critically as any other text. All of your insistences on Biblical exceptionalism are inescapably circular.
I repeat my question: What objective record gives you the ability to judge the Bible as less embellished?

God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, ”Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’
--Ann Coulter, Fox-TV: Hannity & Colmes, 20 Jun 01
Save lives! Click here!
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC!
---------------------------------------

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by Faith, posted 10-02-2006 9:03 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by Faith, posted 10-02-2006 9:37 PM Omnivorous has replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 36 of 92 (353773)
10-02-2006 9:50 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by Faith
10-02-2006 9:37 PM


Faith writes:
Omni writes:
Wrong on all counts. Many of those earthquake myths explain great quakes that shook the entire world. Further, earthquakes do not regularly inundate and destroy an entire region, as do 1000 year and 10,000 year floods.
None of the myths discussed, at least as far as I read, mentions a world-wide quake. If one or two do, so what, that would not parallel the similarities in the accounts of world-wide floods.
Floods can readily stretch from horizon to horizon. How else would primitive peoples define the world? When ancient stories say the earth shook, why do you suppose that doesn't mean the whole earth?
Faith writes:
The rest of what you said is not making any sense.
I'm taking a break from this thread as it's deteriorating into nonsense.
And you are collapsing into insult.
Even if I were deteriorating into nonsense, I'd prefer that to your offensive cop-out.
For the third time, in more detail to avoid appearing nonsensical: One measures embellishment by comparing the objective record with the account. What objective measure allows you to label Biblical accounts as less embellished?
Edited by Omnivorous, : embellished embellisment with an h

God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, ”Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’
--Ann Coulter, Fox-TV: Hannity & Colmes, 20 Jun 01
Save lives! Click here!
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC!
---------------------------------------

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by Faith, posted 10-02-2006 9:37 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by Faith, posted 10-02-2006 10:47 PM Omnivorous has replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 39 of 92 (353784)
10-02-2006 11:21 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Faith
10-02-2006 10:47 PM


Okay, let's pick it up tomorrow.
I'd suggest you look at some photographs of Mississippi and Ohio river floods. The horizon is not so far.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Faith, posted 10-02-2006 10:47 PM Faith has not replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 64 of 92 (354292)
10-04-2006 10:25 PM
Reply to: Message 62 by ReverendDG
10-04-2006 9:08 PM


RevDG writes:
most people who live near the sea have more water based myths, because they live near water and they live by fishing
I think that is an important point when considering the universal flood myths, as well as when considering why they are so, well, universal. Also, most human settlements are coastal, along a river, or, like New Orleans, both. In the U.S., 53% of the population lives in a coastal county; the percentage that lives within a short drive of the coast is even higher. No other natural catastrophe has ever been more likely in human history than a flood.
Further, one must consider the relatively smaller "size" of the ancient world. This was a world without any conception of the earth as a sphere. There was the land. There was the sky. There was the water.
For example (chosen since I have known these flood waters), the flood plain of the region about the conflux of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers is 81 miles across. According to the superduper formula for distance to the horizon:
1.17 times the square root of your height of eye
=
distance to the horizon in nautical miles
A person clinging to a tree on that fully flooded plain, say 9 feet above the water, would see nothing but water, water everywhere, since the distance to the horizon would be approximately 3.5 nautical miles, or approximately 4 landlubber miles. Even a 100' perch would only let him see 11 nautical miles across the vast flood plain.
So our survivor could float across the flood plain of a great river for many hours or days and never see anything but water in all directions. I don't know what the tribal mind would consider universal, but I suspect that would do. Also, since the feeding tributaries in great floods also themselves flood, the reports from afar would concur that the flood was everywhere.
The universality of the flood myth springs from the universality of floods in the areas where humans choose to settle. Our size, and the size of those floods, would make the floods--especially the great 1000 year or 10,000 year floods--seem to have swallowed the world entire. Only the gods could explain events of this scale.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by ReverendDG, posted 10-04-2006 9:08 PM ReverendDG has not replied

  
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