I'm doubtful you would be able to help me TrueCreation, I understand the creation views very well, I already have read a lot of those pages from the creation sites and I've got probably about 50 of those creation ex nihilo mags. I still don't think it was a global flood. It just doesn't seem right. The Bible is written by men inspired by God, so you have to expect to get a lot of there views in it as well, that doesn't mean it's wrong, it just means you have to put it in its correct context so you don't go coming up with such conclusions as a global flood. The main message is there, so that's all that matters for the christian faith. However, when it comes to history as such on the Bible, I think it should be a lot more open for discusion, sites like answersingenesis are just putting across there interpretations of the scriptures and completely blocking out anyone elses views. I think this is very discrediting to the Bible.
The whole point of the flood was to wipe out men kind, I'm doubtful they would have spread across the entire globe, in fact I'm certain they wouldn't of. Saying how big the population is will do little, look at China, there all in one space. Also, everyone spoke the same language back then so they hadn't needed to really spread out yet, it wasn't until the tower of babylon that caused such division. But if you want to look at the blatently obvious, the people in Noah's Ark were the only ones that survived, so no one as of yet was doing sailing expeditions to explore the unknown. They were all still in that same spot otherwise there would of been others that owned ships who survived. So saying it had to go across the whole globe just seems like a waste. The animals weren't sinning.
Obviously you didn't try what I said. I think your giving the sheppard that wrote this book way to much credit. You seem to be making out he knew astrology just like we do today. Your looking at earth and heaven in the wrong context. Here's an example:
earth: 1. the third planet from the sun. 2. the dry surface of this planet; land; ground.
There are others in the dictionary but I think these are the only two that apply hear. Now try think about it and get a bit of a feel for this time when it was written. We can instantly dismiss the first one since, even though they had limited astrology back then, it wasn't at this level. They would of considered earth to be of the latter. Simply the dry ground by which they were living on. Nor would of they probably known of places such as Australia and the U.S.A. So what they considered everything was still at a very limited understanding. So when they talk of it covering everything it would of been what they saw from one horizon to the other. That's why, even though earth isn't technically wrong, try putting land in there to read it in the more proper context. As for mt. Ararat. Well that simply means sacred land or high land. It doesn't necessarily mean the mountain in Turkey (I think that's where it is). It covered the mountains of that area where the people had lived. Try looking at things more from mens perspective and not God. As God wasn't the literal writer of the books in the Bible, but rather the inspirer.
Please don't just dismiss this because it contradicts the views of christiananswers.net. If one really wants to read the flood as it really should be read from the time it was written, then it doesn't sound like a global flood at all. It was just there to wipe out men, plain and simple. Noah built an ark to save his family and the animals of that land. Why is it so hard to take it like that? I'm planning on trying to start getting an understanding of the literal hebrew so I can then understand it in its true context, without all this english with one word meaning a billion things. It can be very misleading and I personally don't think people think first to read it like it should be read.
[This message has been edited by RetroCrono, 01-02-2002]
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