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Author | Topic: Is belief in God or the Bible necessary to believe in a massive flood. | |||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: That is not entirely true. It is a mistake to speak of the Bible as a single work and even if some parts are histories, others are not. Genesis is more myth and legend.
quote: It depends on what sort of flood you're talking about. The flooding of the Black Sea was talked about as a possible origin of the story, although work done since then indicates that the flooding was slower and less catastrophic than originally thought. An exceptionally severe local flood is possible, of course.
quote: Assuming that your interpretation of the Mars data is correct (and that may well not be the case) I'll tell you the difference in one word. Evidence. There wouldn't be any suggestion that such an event had happened on Mars unless evidence had been found. That evidence is NOT present on Earth.
quote: Without leaving physical evidence that it had happened ? No.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
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).
quote: 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: 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.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: In English it is certainly possible to distinguish poetry from prose. But that doesn't mean myths are written as poetry.
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,
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.
quote: Only because they are both big valleys. It's not as if there is any sort of detailed comparison between them.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Then that proves that this "special grammatical form" can be used for writing myths.
quote: Since - if your assertions are true - myths obviously WERE written in this grammatical form your own evidence proves your claim to be false.
quote: So you were wrong to point at the verb tenses as the key difference.
quote: 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.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: No. Your assertion is false to fact. There's no circularity involved.
quote: We know that PARTS of Genesis are myth. But this is a clear fact.
quote: 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: This is your assertion. It may or may not be true.
quote: 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: 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: Which suggests only that the author did NOT distinguish between myth and history.
quote: Yet if the author saw Genesis 1-11 as entirely historical it is clear that he did NOT distinguish history from myth.
quote: 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.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: But you do use this assertion - which you have yet to support - to try to suggest that the flood was a historical event.
quote: 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: 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: No, I'm saying that it is possible that he did not make a clear distinction between myth and history.
quote: 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.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
The real question here is whether the grammatical constructs denote something at least resembling history in the modern sense or whether they are also used for folk tales, myths and legends. On the evidence so far it seems clear that the latter is the case. If so, we can give no weight to the grammatical constructs when trying to ascertain the nature of the account.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: And if so, they clearly did not differentiate between myth and history.
quote: That makes no sense. The point is that the argument is logically fallacious. You can't show that "All A are B" just by producing a few examples of "A" that are "B".
quote: No, I don't. Remember your argument is that we should believe that the flood story is basically historical, rather than a myth. If the author (who wasn't Moses) did not distinguish between myth and history and wrote clearly mythical accounts using the grammatical form supposedly diagnostic of history then we simply cannot make that assumption. You claim that all of Genesis 1-11 is written in this form and thus myth is written as "history". Therefore we cannot conclude that the flood is not a myth based on the grammatical form.
quote: I don't say that. I say that you have failed to produce a valid argument to support your assertion. I don't have to assume that your assertion is true just because I don't know enough about the subject to refute it. Here's an example of a myth - which, according to you, is written as history : Genesis 2:4 - 3:24. Which is sufficient to prove the point I am actually making.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Which means that I was correct from the start. The Flood story appears in a book that is more myth and legend and therefore cannot be assumed to have any but the most remote historical foundation.
quote: No, that is wrong. It was about whether we should consider it to be likely to be history and not myth. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Because that was never really the point at issue. In my reply to the OP I pointed out that Genesis was a book of myth and legend rather than a historical account. Whether the author believed the myths and legends in Genesis doesn't change that point. Indeed, when I pointed out that the author may not make a distinction between myths and history you argued against it. Now your position implicitly assumes that the author did NOT make that distinction ! You have been changing your position in the course of this argument and your new position concedes that my original point was correct.
quote: That isn't true. You made no mention of the author's opinions at all. You said:
What got me thinking is this: even if you do not believe in the innerancy of the Bible, you still have to consider that before it was a religious book, it was a historical manuscript, and that it talks about a major flooding-water event in the recent past.
And it isn't true that Genesis was a "historical manuscript" before it was religious. It was always more religious than it was a history in the modern sense. It's a book of myth and legend even if the author happened to believe them.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: You're assuming that he made that distinction, but you've only produced evidence against that assumption. And, of course, you've provided no reason to think that the "historical grammar" was not used for myths.
quote: It certainly has. My essential point is that Genesis is a collection of myths and legends - that in itself is enough to refute your argument in the OP. And you're not addressing that point at all, so it seems that you have - at the least - accepted that you cannot argue against it..
quote: Then please provide some evidence that the "vast majority" of scholars do agree with your argument in the OP. So far you've provided zero evidence for that. (You do know that the Barr quote only deals with the interpretation of Genesis 1 ? It certainly doesn't provide any support for the idea that the author of Genesis made a distinction between history and myth or for the argument in the OP). Here's one opinion from bible.org - a Christian site.
Although issues of science, biography and history are a part of Genesis, it is primarily a book of theology
Did they consult the same "experts" that you did ?
quote: So far you've provided no evidence of this. Even if it were true the fact that it is in fact a collection of myths and legends still invalidates the points in the OP.
quote: Alternatively he did not make a clear distinction between myth and history. The mere fact that he included clearly mythical - and legendary - material in his "history" argues for this.
quote: Then my refutation stands. Because the author's intent is not enough to support your argument. And in answer to your latest post it is generally accepted among Bible scholars that Genesis was assembled by a Jewish priest, likely around the time of the Babylonian Exile. However there is quite a lot of disagreement over when.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: I completely disagree with that. In this case there appears to be no good reason to privilege the author's assessment over anyone elses. As I have already pointed out, by your own claims, the author treats mythical and legendary material as equally "historical". Equally you believe that my assessment of the story as a myth or legend is likely wrong. But if I wrote a book describing it as such you wouldn't take that as any less reason to take it seriously.(Although the creation of the rainbow is clearly a mythic element, so I don't see how anyone could regard the story as at all likely to be completely historical). quote: That wasn't the point I was making. Your assertion in the OP was that Genesis was NOT written as a religious book. If it is primarily theology that assertion is completely false.
quote: Which doesn't show either that they agree with your initial point or that the author distinguished history from myth.
quote: Which tells us only that Dr. Clifford Wilson is highly biased. The mainstream of archaeologists working in the region have a far different view of the accuracy of the Bible.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Actually we don't have to take a specific point and say "all books written after here are history" or "all books dealing with this period or later are history". Each book should be taken on its own merits. We can be pretty sure that the Exodus never happened as described. Nor did Joshua's conquest. We can be reasonably sure that at the least the achievements of David and Solomon have been exaggerated to a significant degree, and their existence is not certain. Instead of simply looking at the Bible, the historical and archaeological evidence has to be considered.
quote: There's a huge difference between the date of the oldest surviving manuscript and the date of original composition. The Gallic Wars is a first-hand account - the flood story isn't. There's a huge difference in the evidence surrounding the Gallic Wars and that surrounding Noah's Flood. If you care about the truth, you can't ignore those facts.
quote: Because number and age of manuscripts is NOT the most important factor. Christian apologists like to emphasise it because it's one where the Bible scores well. And in doing so they reveal their bias.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: But for the purposes of this discussion we don't particularly want to know the views of Jews living at the time of Jesus. They are even less relevant than the views of the author. (And Jesus is only one Jew so looking at his views - even assuming that the Gospels accurately convey them - is even less useful). So, your objection is a complete irrelevance.
quote: If they didn't recognise it as a myth or legend then that says more about them than it does about the story.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Despite the fact that it was supposedly a huge event - to the point of implausibility - it is invisible to history and archaeology. It simply doesn't fit.
quote: That isn't significant evidence. Celebrations change, and so do the stories behind them.
quote: There was a similar story about a proposed lawsuit posted here a few years ago. The guy pushing the story claimed that there was evidence form Egyptian records - but it wasn't true. The only source was the Torah. If there was real evidence it wouldn't be obscure.
quote: Ni-Maat-Re is better known as Amenemhat III. I don't know how you get the idea that rebels against his rule would be denied a tomb and their bodies dumped in the river is any support from the Exodus. Especially as under every chronology and dating I know of (even David Rohl's) Amenemhat III lived well BEFORE the supposed date of the Exodus.
quote: Given that you have helped demonstrate the LACK of evidence I'd say that you've helped prove my point.
quote: On the contrary - what I need is a LACK of good evidence for their existence. And we've got that ! Your references to archaeology all deal with later events or things that have little bearing on the accuracy of the Bible.
quote: You're not making any sense here. Your point (which as written is complete nonsense) doesn't even try to deal with the facts I pointed out.
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