Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,815 Year: 3,072/9,624 Month: 917/1,588 Week: 100/223 Day: 11/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Is belief in God or the Bible necessary to believe in a massive flood.
slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 16 of 110 (508888)
05-17-2009 2:54 AM


Any link where I could see that article ?
EDIT: The question I am asking myself right now is this one: how come there would have been such a major cultural influence on the tribes' respective flood myths-accounts (hawai, peru, fiji islands, aztecs, australia, papago, cherokee(US), Cree (Canada), etc.) but no influence on their respective myths of creation.
In all regards, if the flood myth would have been changed by influence, so would their myth of the beginning of the world ...
Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by dwise1, posted 05-17-2009 2:59 AM slevesque has not replied
 Message 56 by Peg, posted 05-21-2009 7:30 AM slevesque has not replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 17 of 110 (508889)
05-17-2009 2:55 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by slevesque
05-16-2009 3:13 AM


Since there's no physical evidence to support the kind of world-wide flood being believed in and the only evidence of such a flood is in the Bible and its source documents (eg, Gilgamesh), then obviously belief in the Bible's flood myth would indeed be the source for belief in that flood.
The closest thing to a world-wide flood would be changes in sea level. For example, the last major change happened about 11,000 years ago with the end of the last ice age, when the melting ice cap caused the level of the oceans to rise about 200 feet. Since the Persian Gulf is shallower than 200 feet, that would have meant that it was dry low-land until the Great Melt. Since human settlements tend to favor coastal low-lands, it would be surprising if those oral traditions did not mention how they had to move to higher ground. Have you also surveyed the oral traditions of long-established high-land settlements?
Actual prehistoric floods are discussed in the Wikipedia article at Outburst flood - Wikipedia -- sorry, the only other language it's in is Russian.
PS
I'll add a cautionary tale here about assuming too much about a people's oral tradition. I read this in a Science 80 article nearly 30 years ago, so bibliographic references are not available.
The article mentioned an isolated tribe in Afica with "no contact with the outside world". Their mythology involved the brighest star in the night sky, Sirius, AKA "Alpha Canis Majoris" ("Dog Star"). Ethnologists were astounded to find that that myth included a small companion star. We had only relatively recently discovered the presence of a white star orbitting Sirius, Sirius B, which is invisible to the naked eye and can only be seen by a large-enough telescope. It was a mystery how this primitive people could have known about the existence of that white star.
Until they researched back into earlier visits to that tribe and found that the myth as first recorded had made no mention whatsover to any companion to Sirius. That tribe was not so perfectly isolated as they had thought and when news of Sirius B had reached that tribe they immediately incorporated it into their mythology.
In my German studies (third and fourth year included literature classes), the Romantic era (which the French also had) was based nationalism and a fascination with the supernatural, the macabre, and folk history (yes, I know that's an oversimplification). The point is that one of the Romanticists' conceits was that folk stories were accurate records that went back countless generations. For example, the Brothers Grimm in the course of their linguistical research collected folk tales, which is what we know them from now (unless you were a linguistics major).
Well, that conceit was wrong. It turns out that those folk stories only go back a few generations at most.
Edited by dwise1, : PS

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by slevesque, posted 05-16-2009 3:13 AM slevesque has not replied

dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 18 of 110 (508890)
05-17-2009 2:59 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by slevesque
05-17-2009 2:54 AM


Sorry, most issues of Creation/Evolution are on-line at Creation/Evolution Journal | National Center for Science Education, but not that one. Hopefully you can find a university or college library with that has it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by slevesque, posted 05-17-2009 2:54 AM slevesque has not replied

slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 19 of 110 (508891)
05-17-2009 3:06 AM


I doubt my local french univeristy will have have that english article ...
Also, dwise1, don't worry with the links I can read well in english.
The Cree here are on high grounds, Quebec is on the Canadian Shield, which I believe is over 200fts of the sea level
(BTW I added an edit to my previous message)

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 20 of 110 (508892)
05-17-2009 3:06 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by slevesque
05-17-2009 12:36 AM


quote:
I didn't mean to present the OT as a single work, but since what we are talking refers almost solely on genesis and the other writings of Moses, than it is pretty much a single work.
Well there aren't any writings of Moses, and you won't find anything resembling real history before Judges (and even that is more legend than history).
quote:
And didn't he also use the same verbs tenses in genesis than in other historical acounts in the OT ? (I don't know **** about verbe tenses in hebrew though lol) I'll look that up, but I think that at least from the semantic aspect of it, genesis was written as historical.
Verb tenses can't distinguish between history and myth or legend. Almost all myths and legends are about the supposed past, and are written in the past tense.
quote:
Well from what I remember (that mars story is 2-3 years old, and so pretty far in my head) what they observed on mars to come to this conclusion is only landscapes and geomorphology not unlike the ones we see here on earth.
You mean the landscapes and geomorphology is like that produced by a flood. That's why they say that a flood caused it. So all you have to do is find similar features formed in Earth's recent past, on the scale for however big a flood you want.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by slevesque, posted 05-17-2009 12:36 AM slevesque has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by slevesque, posted 05-17-2009 3:27 AM PaulK has replied

slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 21 of 110 (508895)
05-17-2009 3:27 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by PaulK
05-17-2009 3:06 AM


quote:
Well there aren't any writings of Moses, and you won't find anything resembling real history before Judges (and even that is more legend than history).
Verb tenses can't distinguish between history and myth or legend. Almost all myths and legends are about the supposed past, and are written in the past tense
Maybe in english they can't, but in hebrew you can distinguish poetry/figurative from historical accounts. Obviously verb tenses can't prove if this is really history or just a myth. But it can tell you if, for the author who wrote it down, it was meant to be history or myth. I had seen a research o nthis in the past, and the % of genesis being written as historical narrative was something like 99,947% (I'll try to find that)
quote:
You mean the landscapes and geomorphology is like that produced by a flood. That's why they say that a flood caused it. So all you have to do is find similar features formed in Earth's recent past, on the scale for however big a flood you want.
Seems to be produced by a flood, so much that they compare it to the grand canyon! ? (Mars – Facts and Information about the Planet Mars)
I'll probably start a thread soon about landscapes on earth and their relevance to a flood, we will be able to discuss it there.
Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by PaulK, posted 05-17-2009 3:06 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by PaulK, posted 05-17-2009 3:48 AM slevesque has replied

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 22 of 110 (508896)
05-17-2009 3:48 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by slevesque
05-17-2009 3:27 AM


quote:
Maybe in english they can't, but in hebrew you can distinguish poetry/figurative from historical accounts.
In English it is certainly possible to distinguish poetry from prose. But that doesn't mean myths are written as poetry.
quote:
Obviously verb tenses can't prove if this is really history or just a myth. But it can tell you if, for the author who wrote it down, it was meant to be history or myth.
*If* you are right about there being a clear distinction in the syntax - and if the author even made a clear distinction between the two,
quote:
I had seen a research o nthis in the past, and the % of genesis being written as historical narrative was something like 99,947% (I'll try to find that)
If that figure is correct it pretty much disproves the assertion that there is a clear distinction. Because Genesis is much more than 0.53% myth.
quote:
Seems to be produced by a flood, so much that they compare it to the grand canyon! ? (Mars – Facts and Information about the Planet Mars)
Only because they are both big valleys. It's not as if there is any sort of detailed comparison between them.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by slevesque, posted 05-17-2009 3:27 AM slevesque has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by slevesque, posted 05-17-2009 4:03 AM PaulK has replied

slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 23 of 110 (508898)
05-17-2009 4:03 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by PaulK
05-17-2009 3:48 AM


quote:
Only because they are both big valleys. It's not as if there is any sort of detailed comparison between them
Yeah I know, it was more of a joke lol
quote:
*If* you are right about there being a clear distinction in the syntax - and if the author even made a clear distinction between the two
Hebrews use special grammatical forms for recording history. Genesis (even 1-11) has this same as Exodus, Joshua, Judges, etc. Which shows that the author who wrote it recorded it as history.
Allegory or myth would not have been written in the same grammatical form as historical records.
Its not just about the verb tenses. t involves pretty much every aspect of semantics
quote:
If that figure is correct it pretty much disproves the assertion that there is a clear distinction. Because Genesis is much more than 0.53% myth.
Maybe I misexpressed myself, but that % is not the % of historical text compared to figurative text. It is the % that the author would have written it down as if it was historical compared to thinking it was figurative.
Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 22 by PaulK, posted 05-17-2009 3:48 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by PaulK, posted 05-17-2009 4:16 AM slevesque has not replied

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 24 of 110 (508899)
05-17-2009 4:16 AM
Reply to: Message 23 by slevesque
05-17-2009 4:03 AM


quote:
Hebrews use special grammatical forms for recording history. Genesis (even 1-11) has this same as Exodus, Joshua, Judges, etc. Which shows that the author who wrote it recorded it as history.
Then that proves that this "special grammatical form" can be used for writing myths.
quote:
Allegory or myth would not have been written in the same grammatical form as historical records.
Since - if your assertions are true - myths obviously WERE written in this grammatical form your own evidence proves your claim to be false.
quote:
Its not just about the verb tenses. t involves pretty much every aspect of semantics
So you were wrong to point at the verb tenses as the key difference.
quote:
Maybe I misexpressed myself, but that % is not the % of historical text compared to figurative text. It is the % that the author would have written it down as if it was historical compared to thinking it was figurative.
As I said before you're still assuming that the author made a clear distinction between myth and history. That's not a safe assumption when dealing with ancient writers.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by slevesque, posted 05-17-2009 4:03 AM slevesque has not replied

slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 25 of 110 (508902)
05-17-2009 4:49 AM


I'm done for the night, last comment and then to sleep. Isn't your reasoning a bit circular ?
1. I know Genesis is a myth
2. We can recognize hebrew historical/figurative texts by its grammar. This is shown to be true throughout the hebrew manuscripts
3. Genesis is written with a historical grammar
4. Thus this type of grammar can be used to write a figurative/mythological text, since I know genesis is a myth
Notice that with this reasoning, Genesis becomes an exception opposed to the hebrew methodology. It also involves that since you know Genesis is a myth, than the author MUST have thought Genesis was a myth when he wrote it, but still used the historical grammar
.
. compare to this line of reasoning:
1. We can recognize hebrew historical/figurative texts by its grammar. This is shown to be true throughout the hebrew manuscripts
2. Genesis is written with a historical grammar
3. Thus, Genesis is viewed as a historical text by the author
Saying that it was viewed as history by the author doesn't make it more, or less, history. It simply means that he thought it was history when he wrote it. If 4000 years later we think that it was a myth, fair enough, but it doesn't affect what the original author thought of it.
As I said before you're still assuming that the author made a clear distinction between myth and history. That's not a safe assumption when dealing with ancient writers
Its not really an assumption, it more of a result of seeing the clear grammatical pattern of historical records
I don't even understand wy we are arguing on this, either way it doesn't affect anything in the debate.
EDIT:
So you were wrong to point at the verb tenses as the key difference.
Sorry if it was misleading, it was not my intention.
Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.
Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by PaulK, posted 05-17-2009 5:28 AM slevesque has replied

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 26 of 110 (508903)
05-17-2009 5:28 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by slevesque
05-17-2009 4:49 AM


quote:
I'm done for the night, last comment and then to sleep. Isn't your reasoning a bit circular ?
No. Your assertion is false to fact. There's no circularity involved.
quote:
1. I know Genesis is a myth
We know that PARTS of Genesis are myth. But this is a clear fact.
quote:
2. We can recognize hebrew historical/figurative texts by its grammar. This is shown to be true throughout the hebrew manuscripts
This is an assertion. And for it to be shown to be true we need a way of identifying myth independently of the grammar. But your whole argument is based on assuming that the grammar is the only way of telling the difference. So if there is any circularity it is in your argument.
quote:
3. Genesis is written with a historical grammar
This is your assertion. It may or may not be true.
quote:
4. Thus this type of grammar can be used to write a figurative/mythological text, since I know genesis is a myth
Assuming your assertion about the grammar used to write Genesis 1-11 is correct, that is a clear fact.
Now if you want an example of circular reasoning, look at this:
quote:
1. We can recognize hebrew historical/figurative texts by its grammar. This is shown to be true throughout the hebrew manuscripts
So how do we tell that none of Genesis 1-11 is myth ? According to you, through the grammar ! So it is not shown to be true "throughout the Hebrew manuscripts" without assuming it to be true.
quote:
Saying that it was viewed as history by the author doesn't make it more, or less, history. It simply means that he thought it was history when he wrote it.
Which suggests only that the author did NOT distinguish between myth and history.
quote:
Its not really an assumption, it more of a result of seeing the clear grammatical pattern of historical records
Yet if the author saw Genesis 1-11 as entirely historical it is clear that he did NOT distinguish history from myth.
quote:
I don't even understand wy we are arguing on this, either way it doesn't affect anything in the debate.
Because you want to insist that the Bible's flood story must be accepted as a purely historical account and not as the myth or legend it so clearly is.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by slevesque, posted 05-17-2009 4:49 AM slevesque has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by slevesque, posted 05-17-2009 6:45 AM PaulK has replied

slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 27 of 110 (508910)
05-17-2009 6:45 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by PaulK
05-17-2009 5:28 AM


Because you want to insist that the Bible's flood story must be accepted as a purely historical account and not as the myth or legend it so clearly is.
This is not the point I am trying to make lol ... I'm not saying that it must be accepted as historical. I'm saying the author thought it was historical, it does not prevent anyone from interpreting it as mythical.
This is an assertion. And for it to be shown to be true we need a way of identifying myth independently of the grammar. But your whole argument is based on assuming that the grammar is the only way of telling the difference. So if there is any circularity it is in your argument.
So how do we tell that none of Genesis 1-11 is myth ? According to you, through the grammar ! So it is not shown to be true "throughout the Hebrew manuscripts" without assuming it to be true
Indeed it would be circular reasoning if I had said that the grammar was the only way to identify a text as historical (always according to the author). However, I said no such thing. Other hebrew texts have been identified independently to be historical. Good examples are 1-2-3 Mccabees, which reports the jewish rebellion against the greek empire.
Yet if the author saw Genesis 1-11 as entirely historical it is clear that he did NOT distinguish history from myth
If I understand this correctly, you think he did not know what was a myth and what was history ? So he would have considered the egyptian myths he encountered as history also ? I would rather think that he would have identified egyptian myths as myths, and regarded his myths as historical(rightly or wrongly). Unless you believe that he would have lived with an extreme dichotomy in his head, thinking that all myths were history even though they are contradictory
The other way I can understand your comment is that you're saying he didn't know it was a myth as we do now, and so he wrote it as real history. Which is what I've been saying all along
Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by PaulK, posted 05-17-2009 5:28 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by PaulK, posted 05-17-2009 8:56 AM slevesque has not replied

slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 28 of 110 (508911)
05-17-2009 6:51 AM


In any case, you may disagree, but I am not inventing this, as shown by this quote by Oxford Hebrew scholar James Barr:
probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Gen. 1—11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that
1. creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience
2. the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story
3. Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.
Barr, J., Letter to David C.C. Watson, 23 April 1984
Note that Barr is not a creationist at all, he believes in evolution! Just like you, he does not believe in the historicity of Genesis, but he clearly understands what the author clearly intended to be understood.
Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 29 of 110 (508924)
05-17-2009 8:56 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by slevesque
05-17-2009 6:45 AM


quote:
This is not the point I am trying to make lol ... I'm not saying that it must be accepted as historical. I'm saying the author thought it was historical, it does not prevent anyone from interpreting it as mythical.
But you do use this assertion - which you have yet to support - to try to suggest that the flood was a historical event.
quote:
Indeed it would be circular reasoning if I had said that the grammar was the only way to identify a text as historical (always according to the author).
The problem is that you need to show that myths would not be written using this form. We have some pretty clear myths in Genesis 1-11. These are a valid counter-example - and your only argument to the contrary so far depends on the grammatical form. And that is circular.
quote:
However, I said no such thing. Other hebrew texts have been identified independently to be historical. Good examples are 1-2-3 Mccabees, which reports the jewish rebellion against the greek empire.
It is logically fallacious to point to basically historical texts written in this form as an argument that ONLY historical texts are written in this form.
quote:
If I understand this correctly, you think he did not know what was a myth and what was history ?
No, I'm saying that it is possible that he did not make a clear distinction between myth and history.
quote:
So he would have considered the egyptian myths he encountered as history also ?
If he believed them, then yes, he may have done so. If he did not believe them then he may well have seen them as fictions or superstitions.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by slevesque, posted 05-17-2009 6:45 AM slevesque has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by dwise1, posted 05-17-2009 1:19 PM PaulK has replied

bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4189 days)
Posts: 2347
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2007


Message 30 of 110 (508931)
05-17-2009 9:46 AM
Reply to: Message 15 by dwise1
05-17-2009 2:36 AM


quote:
An even more likely explanation is that oral traditions are very flexible and able to change very rapidly -- like, within a generation or two -- when exposed to new information.
Which is a logical scheme for virtually any group of people, particularly when spread by word of mouth.

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002
Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969
Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by dwise1, posted 05-17-2009 2:36 AM dwise1 has not replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024