The Case for the Global Flood

[Fortigurn]

Kurieuo, good point.

[Banky]

Banky, just curious, what is your source for 2 million species that was supposed to go on the ark?

I'm not positive, but I believe I recently read it in The Third Chimpanzee by J.M. Diamond. I quick google search and you'll get an idea that, though we can only make predictions as many still have yet to be discovered (except for Noah, I'm guessing) but that the number is very, very large.

So for the proponents of the global flood, is it then believed that Noah was actually able to find two of EVERY animal on the planet and fit them onto his ark? I can certainly understand why a shepard 4,000 years ago could believe this to be so (I'd expect them to believe that there are, perhaps, 50-100 animals on the planet), but knowing what we know now, it's a liitle hard to imagine that Noah could pull off such a daunting feat all by himself.

[August]

Banky, I understand, but I will be a bit careful. There are currently around 4300 species of mammals, just over 6000 reptile species and just under 10,000 species of birds. It is still a big number, but a long way from being in the millions. If you include the ~million species of insects, that gets close, but then again, they don't take much space.

Also, you should be aware that global flood proponents speak about "kinds", not species. That has spawned a whole new way of thinking about classification called "baraminology", based on the phylogenetic discontinuities of biological diversity. The concept comes not only from the flood, but from creation, where, it is argued, these "baramins" were created, and not the species we rather arbitrarily classify today. That would also be what was present on the ark, and not all species.

[Banky]

Banky, I understand, but I will be a bit careful. There are currently around 4300 species of mammals, just over 6000 reptile species and just under 10,000 species of birds. It is still a big number, but a long way from being in the millions. If you include the ~million species of insects, that gets close, but then again, they don't take much space.

Also, you should be aware that global flood proponents speak about "kinds", not species. That has spawned a whole new way of thinking about classification called "baraminology", based on the phylogenetic discontinuities of biological diversity. The concept comes not only from the flood, but from creation, where, it is argued, these "baramins" were created, and not the species we rather arbitrarily classify today. That would also be what was present on the ark, and not all species.

I understand, as well as the fact that ~20% of those are sea creatures.

Even if you were to say that the number was just 4300.....he found 2x4300 mammals and put them on a boat....by himself....and kept them there, fed them, cleaned up their poop, kept them from eating each other for 40 days?

That, in and of itself is absurd. Then add on top 6000 reptiles and 10,000 birds. That is so out there that one not even need to consider the millions of insects (including the ones we have yet to discover).

Putting 8600 humans on a boat would be a Hurculean feat by itself, but forty THOUSAND mammals, reptiles, and birds plus over a million insects?.....by himself? How big was this boat again? How long did it take him to build it?

And lets say it was really "kinds" of animals. What number does that get you down to? Then how do you explain these "kinds" of animals propagating into separate "arbitrary" species? Evolution? Okay, that would be a reasonable answer except that 4-6,000 years really isn;t a whole lot of time for that kind of change to take place.


I'm going to stick with option three: The story is mythical, potentially inspired by true events (a guy builds himself a big boat, puts his farm animals on it, and escapes a flood....maybe), and then spun into an alegroy as the years go by, passing it down from generation to generation until contains more fiction than fact.

[Fortigurn]

Banky, you make some good points there. The number of animals required is certainly one of the largest difficulties with the global flood interpretation. When you look at their reconstructions of the Ark, you'll find those who support the global flood interpretation have most of the room in the Ark taken up by animals, which is inevitable when you have to rescue animals on a global scale. The major problem with this is that the duration of the flood required the ratio of storage space to be completely the opposite - more room would be required to store animal fodder and refuse than would be required to store the animals, no matter how many animals are taken on board.

[Banky]

Of course, the logistics are only a problem until you accept the fact that God is omnipotent. He could have made the animals easy to find. He could have divnely inspired Noah to know what to feed them. A loaf of bread and a fish could have been used to feed the entire ark for all 40 days. The animals could have just fit on the boat because God willed them to.

But then again, if he could do all of that, what was the point of Noah and his ark to begin with (not to mention the moral implications of drowning people for His mistake......which he's not supposed to make in the first place). If God can just wriggle his nose and *poof* start all over again, then why an ark and a flood?

The simplest answer is that there were great floods in the area that inspired stories to be written about them. Kind of like when an islander says "don't be friendly to the white man or the strom Gods will b eangry," then, when the next hurricane hits, "see.....I told you so!"

A story about an ark, all the animals, and a huge flood would be very plausible at the time when you consider that many believed Apollo would stash the Sun in his chariot and fly it across the sky every day. How many animals did people know about back then??? I'd guess that even a good farmer or sheapard would have a hard time naming more than 40 or so.

At some point a fallible man diecided that this story belonged in the Bible.

[Fortigurn]

The simplest answer is that there were great floods in the area that inspired stories to be written about them. Kind of like when an islander says "don't be friendly to the white man or the strom Gods will b eangry," then, when the next hurricane hits, "see.....I told you so!"

I don't think that's the simplest answer. The simplest answer given the evidence is that such an event actually took place. The 'Don't be friendly to the white man or the storm Gods will be angry' argument fails completely to account for the Genesis narrative, in which God assures man that such a flood would never take place again.

A story about an ark, all the animals, and a huge flood would be very plausible at the time when you consider that many believed Apollo would stash the Sun in his chariot and fly it across the sky every day.

Unlike the unenlightened heathen around them, the Hebrews did not believe that the sun was pulled by a chariot, or was a living being. Nor did they believe the planets were pushed around by little elves, as the late, allegedly great, Aristotle did (so much for Greek learning, and ok I'm parodying Aristotle here a little).

The Hebrews were unique in the ANE in their understanding of the universe. They believed that the planets were inanimate objects which had been created by God, that they moved according to strict and unchangeable laws established by the creator, and they had been impelled to move at the moment of their creation and thus did not require a 'mover' to push them along (as Aristotle mistakenly believed).

It took Western science around 1,600 years to catch up with the Hebrew cosmology, largely as a result of being misled by Aristotle. Following Aristotle was a complete deadend to science as we know it. That's why Greek science had completely collapsed by the Seleucid era, and never recovered. It was a failure. The Romans were great engineers, but not wonderful thinkers, so they didn't get any further than the Greeks. Thankfully Christians used the Bible to get things right, and so we came to a correct understanding of the universe.