Summations Only

Dinosaurs "walking out on an unlivable place" isn't a straw man? It's a SILLY straw man.

As I said, I just learned about this view of it, and I may not accept it.ABE: The more I read the Biblical account the more clear it seems that the timing of the events isn't relevant to the writer, except for the one point that it lasted about a year, and that is even subject to some variation. (It's this fact that jar interprets as more than one account. You might even be able to get three or four out of it if you followed jar's way of cutting things).The point in the text at which an event in the Flood is reported is likely not to be much of a clue to when it actually occurred during the Flood year itself.The way it is written it is almost impossible to tell whether the Flood reached its height after forty days or continued to increase afterward, or exactly when the rain and the fountains were completely stopped, or whether the Flood had abated or was just starting to abate at the end of 150 days, and different commentators take different positions on these questions. This is an impression I'm getting from reading through it a number of times but it needs careful study. It may be in the end that it's simply impossible to be sure about when things happened.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Why, if the whole world was being inundated would they have had any livable space to "come out of?" If the Flood was still rising there might have been some remaining unflooded land they were running toward, but that's the only possiblity that occurs to me.

OK, but as I recall beach sands now are known to have a source out to sea somewhere, though their original source was the land; and it seems pretty unlikely to me that the limestones and coccoliths could have a source on the land. Mud, silt, yes, and I'll give you sand too, but the others?

My explanation?First, the timing within the Flood year was not important to the writer, or to God.Second, it's an ancient text no doubt based on even more ancient oral accounts or possibly written ones; we shouldn't compare its style to today's principles of writing.Third, a word or two may have been miscopied or mistranslated. Inerrancy doesn't apply to copies or translations, only to the original writing. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Only with respect to timing. Not if there are no extant copies with a plausible alternative wording. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Whatever was still left of the unflooded land then. But by the time they left the tracks it would seem they were already overtaken by the Flood and just trying to stay ahead of its next wave.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

We do have to stay within the scanty hints of scripture, and we do try to be reasonable about it.

Dinosaurs living peaceably on their turf, munching whatever they munch, or sitting on their nests.Other dinosaurs come running toward them, pass them, keep running. They are curious but only a couple join with the running ones. Soon after comes the front edge of a wave of water; it stops some distance before reaching them. They are curious but not panicked. they go on munching and sitting.The next wave is higher but still some distance away. They stand up, a couple more start running but the rest go on munching.The next wave laps the toes of some of them. They now move in the direction of higher drier ground, many running. Some stop to munch whatever is munchable in their path.The next wave overtakes their first munching ground. They are now running and not munching. Nests are now floating on the water.The next wave overtakes them running. When it recedes, they are now running on wet fresh sediment. They run faster.They run and run but the next wave is up to their knees, and the next up to their bellies and so on. Soon there is no more higher drier land to run to. The Flood drowns them all.That is: They didn't need to STEP into the flood sediments; the Flood sediments caught up to them.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

If this was in fact a shoreline advancing then how about the idea that it eventually advanced to cover all that emergent land.Of course there is always A landscape because there is always the original world being overtaken by the water in the case of the worldwide Flood. In fact I think I will take this as my cue to resume that topic.

I want to resume the topic of the imaginary landscapes that are based on the Geological Timescale that I say couldn't have existed, that all that existed was the rocks on which geologists build the idea of the time periods and such former landscapes.So I want to be clear about what I mean since it seems people are getting the wrong idea, as if I'm denying that the world was ever decorated with landscapes. My original cartoon shows today's surface with the hills and trees and river and other forms of life that we see today. I'm certainly not denying that there are landscapes. And before the Flood of course the surface of the world also contained hills and trees and rivers and so on (in fact ALL the life forms found in all the strata of the Geological Column.)The landscapes I'm denying are those that are supposed to have existed during each particular time period, populated by only the life forms peculiar to that time period as determined by the fossils in the rock layers identified with that time period. This means the landscapes would have to have been built from the strata themselves with their fossil contents:You've got a sedimentary deposit with a certain array of contents that are now fossilized, that you interpret from today's perspective as indicating a whole world in which the fossilized life lived, a "depositional environment." It would have to have existed where the sedimentary rock now exists, wouldn't it? The usual idea is that what you find in the rock represents a world that existed on that very site, yes?Say it's a Devonian deposit. There are strata already there (The Tapeats Sandstone of the Cambrian Period for instance) that the Devonian sedimentary deposit now covers, complete with dead things inside. Lists are made of its characteristics and its fossil contents. Some artist constructs an illustration from that information of what the supposed world looked like in which the once-living-things then lived. It is a landscape.Here's one such illustration: It looks like any landscape that could exist on the earth today except that it's limited to the life forms found in the Devonian rock.Here's one for the Carboniferous: same situation: Except for its distinctively sooty look, which I've found characterizes many illustrations of this period, it also could be a landscape somewhere on the planet today. You have to know that it too is limited to the particular life forms found in the Carboniferous rocks: Here's a Permian imaginary landscape: Now-extinct land creatures are starting to appear: Triassic: Jurassic: Cretaceous: And so on and so forth. The point is that THESE are the imaginary landscapes I'm saying never existed as Geology supposes them to have existed, landscapes limited to the particular life forms found within a particular layer or layers of rock and supposed to have existed on the site where the rock is now found.

But I very carefully didn't say "on the rock," I said "on the site where the rock is now found" which should fit with what you said. They "became the rock."abe: in an attempt to be clearer: Somehow you read "site" as on top of the rock. What I meant was "where the rock is now sitting" or in the place where the rock is now sitting. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sorry, I misspoke. I merely meant to identify the landscape I recognize as the real landscape, not suggest that it wasn't completely overtaken by the Flood, which I realize it sounds like I said. I just meant that the one and only landscape in relation to the strata got overtaken by the Flood.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well but is there really a consistent progression of differentness through time? How consistent is it? Are those in the lowest strata really much odder than those in the Jurassic or in some cases those today? In any case aren't most of the fossilized creatures at least obviously related to today's? And there are some pretty odd creatures in the most recent time period too, most now extinct. Come to think of it there are some very odd creatures in other parts of the world from the point of view of an American. Is there really some sort of progression of differentness?My impression is no, the oddness in the fossil record compared to living things today is evidence of the different world before the Flood.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It's possible, if all the strata weren't laid down yet, that there was some unflooded land left; but at the level of the Cretaceous it wouldn't have stayed a livable surface for long; it would very soon have been covered by the Flood waters. If it took five months for the water to submerge everything, according to my earlier assumption, they might have had a few weeks left, but certainly if it was all submerged in only forty days, at best it would have been a few hours.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.