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Author
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Topic: Not The Planet
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member
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Message 94 of 306 (582941)
09-23-2010 11:34 PM
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Reply to: Message 92 by doctrbill
09-22-2010 11:24 PM
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Bigger Picture
Makes sense to me that their first impression would have been like that, yes. But when the clouds cleared and they could see the mountains they would realize it was just another, albeit extra devastating, river flood. Later, when they talked to the mountain people, who had not gotten wet and to the desert people, who had not gotten wet, they would have realized that it wasn't "worldwide" after all. But then the story being about God wiping out life except for the dude that builds a big boat with animals to repopulate the world wouldn't make any sense at all. If it was only a part of the world then that whole thing would have been pointless. No?
My point is, that they did not record it as if the "whole world" had been drowned. And my point is that they did. If it was only a portion of the world then everything Noah did would be for nought. Your other points make great sense, but my point has nothing to do with the particular word usage that is there, nor what they would have realized a priori. I'm looking at the purpose or message of the story. There's no need to "rescue" everything if it wasn't being lost in the first place. Ya dig?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 92 by doctrbill, posted 09-22-2010 11:24 PM | | doctrbill has replied |
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member
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Message 96 of 306 (582961)
09-24-2010 1:39 AM
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Reply to: Message 95 by ringo
09-24-2010 1:24 AM
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Re: Bigger Picture
Catholic Scientist writes: But then the story being about God wiping out life except for the dude that builds a big boat with animals to repopulate the world wouldn't make any sense at all. If it was only a part of the world then that whole thing would have been pointless.
If the plan was to rid the world of sin, then the plan did fail, didn't it? We still have sin in the world today, don't we? Sin must have been perpetuated by somebody on the boat or somebody outside the flood area. Are you saying that the existence of sin today means that The Flud must have been understood to be a portion of the world instead of the whole thing? Is there anything in the myth that says that the decendants of Noah couldn't have sinned afterwards?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 95 by ringo, posted 09-24-2010 1:24 AM | | ringo has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 97 by ringo, posted 09-24-2010 2:05 AM | | New Cat's Eye has replied |
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member
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Message 98 of 306 (582972)
09-24-2010 2:18 AM
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Reply to: Message 97 by ringo
09-24-2010 2:05 AM
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Re: Bigger Picture
Catholic Scientist writes: Is there anything in the myth that says that the decendants of Noah couldn't have sinned afterwards?
No, but what was the point of murdering most of the people in the world if it was the same after as it was before? Are you saying that the existence of sin today the world becomming the same means that The Flud must have been understood to be a portion of the world instead of the whole thing? Does both the pre and post Flud states both containing sin mean that they must be the "same"? Is this relevant to my point?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 97 by ringo, posted 09-24-2010 2:05 AM | | ringo has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 99 by ringo, posted 09-24-2010 2:31 AM | | New Cat's Eye has not replied |
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member
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Re: Local Story
Thanks for the reply, PD. That does make sense. But...  there's always a but
God's were more provincial than universal. ... Notice that Yahweh says he will wipe out the living creatures he has made from the surface of the ground. This fits very well with a more local view of gods. That doesn't really makes sense with the Lord being upset with man and wiping him out. Also, it implies that there were other men that the Lord did not make that were not wiped out. Too, other animals that the Lord did not make. Does that really fit?
quote:
Gen 6 6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth;... ... 12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. 13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Even reading earth as 'ground' or land, I don't see the point of wiping out all the flesh because you regretted making it, but then only wiping out a small portion of it. Unless the Lord didn't make all the other flesh that wasn't included in the flood, but that doesn't fit, does it? Or did they think there wasn't any other flesh outside of their land? One other thing too: They were stuck on the ark for 150 days, isn't that a bit long for a local flood?
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member
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Message 103 of 306 (583023)
09-24-2010 10:37 AM
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Reply to: Message 101 by doctrbill
09-24-2010 10:33 AM
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Re: Bigger Picture
The story is NOT about destruction of the world, it is about the destruction of a world; a world which existed on "the dry [land]"; the world in which they lived who recorded the story. Honest questions: Did they think that the Lord made the men and creatures that existed outside of their local world? Or did they think that there were not other men and creatures outside of their local world?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 101 by doctrbill, posted 09-24-2010 10:33 AM | | doctrbill has not replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 104 by jar, posted 09-24-2010 10:41 AM | | New Cat's Eye has replied |
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member
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Message 105 of 306 (583027)
09-24-2010 10:48 AM
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Reply to: Message 104 by jar
09-24-2010 10:41 AM
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Re: Bigger Picture
Hrm, I thought they were mutually exclusive. Did they think that other peoples' gods made the other people but that thier god made them?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 104 by jar, posted 09-24-2010 10:41 AM | | jar has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 106 by jar, posted 09-24-2010 10:57 AM | | New Cat's Eye has not replied |
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member
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Re: Local Story
quote:
That doesn't really makes sense with the Lord being upset with man and wiping him out. Also, it implies that there were other men that the Lord did not make that were not wiped out. Too, other animals that the Lord did not make. Does that really fit?
I think jar answered that one, but yes it does fit with the attitudes of the time. So our god made us, but not the people over there (nor their animals?). And when all the land was flooded, god had Noah build an ark with 2 of all of our animals so that our people were not wiped out by this flood that covered all of our land. But it didn't kill all those people over there nor any of their animals.
That's how you think the audience understood it!?
You're trying to fit the story to your needs and understanding. No, not really. I'm not forcing any conclusion here, I trying to find the support for the best one. I can see how a local flood could fit with the story, but I don't think that it must be a local one and I still think it possible that they understood it to be a worldwide flood. All in all, its pretty damn vague.
Gods could take the people they created to task. It's what gods do and people expected. People associated natural disasters with being punished by their god(s). Yeah, yeah... but the story just doesn't make sense with it just being a small portion of the whole land being flooded. All that rain and that huge-ass boat with all those animals, and all that time, just for some little flood that only killed a fraction of the world's populations. Seems dubious.
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member
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Re: Local Story
The J tribal story, the audience wouldn't be thinking of "other people". They are listening to a story that tells them how the various Semitic groups came to be. This isn't a planetary myth. It is a local myth. They had their own god and others had their own god. I'm still left wondering if the audience thought the story only pertained to their group of people and if it excluded the other people that they knew of. If we look at the precursor, the flood story from the Epic of Gilgamesh, we see that the purpose of the flood was to destroy mankind. I brought this up in Message 26, holy cow that was 1.5 years ago!, with emphasis now:
quote:
Sumerian
The earliest extant flood myth is contained in the fragmentary Sumerian Eridu Genesis, datable by its script to the 17th century BC.
The story tells how the god Enki warns Ziusudra (meaning "he saw life," in reference to the gift of immortality given him by the gods), of the gods' decision to destroy mankind in a floodthe passage describing why the gods have decided this is lost. Enki instructs Ziusudra (also known as Atrahasis) to build a large boatthe text describing the instructions is also lost. After which he is left to repopulate the earth, as in many other flood myths.
They could have been referring to just themselves as "mankind", I suppose, but they were also aware of other people that were not "them". I wonder if they thought these other people were part of the mankind that the flood was suppose to destroy. If they included these other people, then that would imply that the flood in their story was larger than a local one that just destroyed their own people.
You have a wider view. They could not understand it as a planetary flood since they didn't know they were on a planet I know, that's irrelevant to the point I'm making now.
The Babylonian map of 2500 BCE. Flat disk encircled by water. Okay, so lets say they thought that everthing on that map was flooded, i.e. their whole world. All of mankind in the world was suppose to have been destroyed save the guy who builds the boat. To them, this would have been a worldwide flood. I've been saying the same thing since Message 24:
quote:
The idea behind the story is that god wiped the entire slate clean, but the people at the time thought the entire slate was limited to their corner. Now that we know that their corner was not the entire slate, I don't think we should be limiting the wiping to just their corner. The point of the story was that it was the enitre slate, regardless of what the people at the time thought that emcompassed.
I think the point of the story implies a worldwide flood.
A story doesn't take long to create. Much easier than building a boat. A natural disaster inspires a story. Not unusual. Exaggeration was a normal part of story telling. I still wonder what the audience thought: whether it was their own group by itself or them and all the other people in the world who were destroyed by the flood.
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member
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Re: Local Story
Did the story tellers use the word adamah for other races if they knew of them or did they refer to them differently. I don't know. Did they?
They didn't necessarily use that name when referring to other tribes. I don't find it difficult to believe that the ancient Hebrew tribes were the same. It was their story about their people. Okay but then it doesn't make sense to be talking about destroying mankind and restarting everything and having Noah repopulate the land. That's what I don't get.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 124 by purpledawn, posted 10-04-2010 1:57 PM | | purpledawn has seen this message but not replied |
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member
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Re: Muddy Waters
I agree that the word earth is not referring to a planet. But from the story as a whole, it doesn't make sense for the flood to be just a local one that didn't really flood everything. Back from Message 24:
quote:
The idea behind the story is that god wiped the entire slate clean, but the people at the time thought the entire slate was limited to their corner. Now that we know that their corner was not the entire slate, I don't think we should be limiting the wiping to just their corner. The point of the story was that it was the enitre slate, regardless of what the people at the time thought that emcompassed. ... That they were unaware that their corner of the world was not the entire world doesn't necessitate that the flood was limited to their corner, especially when the idea behind the story is that everything was destroyed.
From Message 30:
quote:
That's why we look to the rest of the story. That god was punishing all of mankind by destroying them and then repopulating the world tells us that the flood was not supposed to be limited to just a portion of the world. ... If the point of the story was that all of mankind was wiped out and then the world was repopulated, then we could conclude that the story was meant to describe a flood that covered the entire planet world. That the writers didn't know that thier island was not the entire planet doesn't mean that they must have not been talking about the entire planet world. I'm not saying that the Genesis flood account is evidence of a global flood. I'm saying that the writers thought the whole world was flooded, not just their corner of it.
If we look at the Epic of Gilgamesh that the Flood story stemmed from, it too was about wiping out all of mankind and starting over. Now, your way around this was that the story was just talking about their people and their land, and that other people and other lands were not included in the flood. We ended with my Message 132:
quote:
They didn't necessarily use that name when referring to other tribes. I don't find it difficult to believe that the ancient Hebrew tribes were the same. It was their story about their people. Okay but then it doesn't make sense to be talking about destroying mankind and restarting everything and having Noah repopulate the land. That's what I don't get.
And I still don't get how the stroy could make sense if it was just a small local flood that just covered some of the land and only killed some of the people when the whole point of it is god destroying everything, wiping the slate clean, and then starting over again.
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 284 by Panda, posted 11-28-2011 7:48 PM | | New Cat's Eye has not replied | | | Message 285 by purpledawn, posted 11-28-2011 8:13 PM | | New Cat's Eye has not replied |
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member
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Message 301 of 306 (642863)
12-02-2011 10:23 AM
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This thread did a good job of showing that where the word "earth" is used in the Flood Story, it is not referring to the planet Earth. This point was hardly disputed, if at all. But then when I, and others, argued that the story still implied that the flood was all-encompassing, as opposed to a small local flood (even though the planet wasn't referred to), there were still opponents that argued that it wasn't all-emcompasing and should be considered local. I don't feel that that position was adequately supported. It got down to the flood being for just a particular part of the land, for only some of the men and animals and not others. I didn't see where that interpretation was well supported from the scripture itself and I still think the author/audience would have considered the flood to be all-emcompasing. Even the earler flood myths that this one stemmed from have the same sentiment.
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