Local flood, not all humanity killed?

[hughfarey]

That's all well and good, but rather implies that none of the Old Testament, and by implication much of the New Testament, has anything to do with all those people who were not affected by the flood, the covenant being a rather exclusive agreement between God and, as we see later, the Jews. This may actually have been the view of 1st century Jews, but why should the flood - or, for that matter, the sin of Adam - have any significance to anybody not associated with this little local arrangement?

[DBowling]

That's all well and good, but rather implies that none of the Old Testament, and by implication much of the New Testament, has anything to do with all those people who were not affected by the flood, the covenant being a rather exclusive agreement between God and, as we see later, the Jews. This may actually have been the view of 1st century Jews, but why should the flood - or, for that matter, the sin of Adam - have any significance to anybody not associated with this little local arrangement?

First the purpose of God's covenant people has always been to bring the truth of God to those who don't know him.
In Genesis 6:1-5 God's covenant people had a chance to spread the truth of God to the inhabitants of the land where they lived. But instead of being salt and light in Mesopotamia, God's covenant people were corrupted themselves which is the reason for the judgement of the flood.

God's covenant people is not just limited to the Jews. Through the work of Jesus, anyone who puts their trust in Jesus the Messiah is grafted into God's covenant people and becomes an heir to the covenant promises of God.

The work of Jesus was the climax of God's covenant people as Jesus provides redemption for all humanity. The purpose of God's covenant people is to spread God's truth to all humanity.

In Christ

[Audie]

That's all well and good, but rather implies that none of the Old Testament, and by implication much of the New Testament, has anything to do with all those people who were not affected by the flood, the covenant being a rather exclusive agreement between God and, as we see later, the Jews. This may actually have been the view of 1st century Jews, but why should the flood - or, for that matter, the sin of Adam - have any significance to anybody not associated with this little local arrangement?

First the purpose of God's covenant people has always been to bring the truth of God to those who don't know him.
In Genesis 6:1-5 God's covenant people had a chance to spread the truth of God to the inhabitants of the land where they lived. But instead of being salt and light in Mesopotamia, God's covenant people were corrupted themselves which is the reason for the judgement of the flood.

God's covenant people is not just limited to the Jews. Through the work of Jesus, anyone who puts their trust in Jesus the Messiah is grafted into God's covenant people and becomes an heir to the covenant promises of God.

The work of Jesus was the climax of God's covenant people as Jesus provides redemption for all humanity. The purpose of God's covenant people is to spread God's truth to all humanity.

In Christ

You wish to spread the word to all?
If then the perspective of one who is not convinced (far from it) any of this narrative is of interest-

There may be a "God's truth" but putting forth such primitive superstition and blatantly false stories as "Noah's ark"-the falsity of which we see page after page devoted to explaining that away by
contortions of date, area, what or who are "humanity".etc-that is such a deal killer.

How can any of you posdibly expect to be taken seriously?

If you all are in fact charged with a responsibility such as you suggest,
what I see is gross misfeasance.

[RickD]

Audie,

Just curious...

If you see the flood story as rediculous, what do you think of the story about God who took on human form, was born of a virgin, died for the sins of the world, and was resurrected on the third day?

Does that seem in any way, believable to you? Or is it just logically and scientifically rediculous?

[Audie]

Audie,

Just curious...

If you see the flood story as rediculous, what do you think of the story about God who took on human form, was born of a virgin, died for the sins of the world, and was resurrected on the third day?

Does that seem in any way, believable to you? Or is it just logically and scientifically rediculous?

I see it that the Jesus story cannot be tested, so is in no way subject to falsification.

Any version of the flood story can be put to the test. It always fails.


Whatever explanation one gives for that failure, and there are a great many
mutually incompatible ones, it just comes out making the explainers
and their religion look foolish.

[RickD]

Audie,

Just curious...

If you see the flood story as rediculous, what do you think of the story about God who took on human form, was born of a virgin, died for the sins of the world, and was resurrected on the third day?

Does that seem in any way, believable to you? Or is it just logically and scientifically rediculous?

I see it that the Jesus story cannot be tested, so is in no way subject to falsification.

Any version of the flood story can be put to the test. It always fails.


Whatever explanation one gives for that failure, and there are a great many
mutually incompatible ones, it just comes out making the explainers
and their religion look foolish.

So,

You've studied the idea of a local flood in let's say, the Mesopotamia region? And you've found that there was never any floods in that area?

[Audie]

Audie,

Just curious...

If you see the flood story as rediculous, what do you think of the story about God who took on human form, was born of a virgin, died for the sins of the world, and was resurrected on the third day?

Does that seem in any way, believable to you? Or is it just logically and scientifically rediculous?

I see it that the Jesus story cannot be tested, so is in no way subject to falsification.

Any version of the flood story can be put to the test. It always fails.


Whatever explanation one gives for that failure, and there are a great many
mutually incompatible ones, it just comes out making the explainers
and their religion look foolish.

So,

You've studied the idea of a local flood in let's say, the Mesopotamia region? And you've found that there was never any floods in that area?

So, are you ever tiresome? Every flood plain the world has been flooded, over and over. That is why they are calked flood plains.

The "local flood" thing is one of the many contortions employed to try to salvage credibility.

Shall we list others?

[RickD]

Audie,

Just curious...

If you see the flood story as rediculous, what do you think of the story about God who took on human form, was born of a virgin, died for the sins of the world, and was resurrected on the third day?

Does that seem in any way, believable to you? Or is it just logically and scientifically rediculous?

I see it that the Jesus story cannot be tested, so is in no way subject to falsification.

Any version of the flood story can be put to the test. It always fails.


Whatever explanation one gives for that failure, and there are a great many
mutually incompatible ones, it just comes out making the explainers
and their religion look foolish.

So,

You've studied the idea of a local flood in let's say, the Mesopotamia region? And you've found that there was never any floods in that area?

So, are you ever tiresome? Every flood plain the world has been flooded, over and over. That is why they are calked flood plains.

The "local flood" thing is one of the many contortions employed to try to salvage credibility.

Shall we list others?

Audie,

You said:

I see it that the Jesus story cannot be tested, so is in no way subject to falsification.

Any version of the flood story can be put to the test. It always fails.

How does a local flood at Noah's time, fail the scientific test? I'm not following you.

Unless you're talking theologically. In that case, I'm still not following you. There's plenty of info, on the home site of this website alone, that shows that the biblical text allows for a local flood.

So really, what's your point?

[RickD]

Didn't God tell Israel not to intermarry with other people?

Why couldn't God have punished them for intermarrying with the heathens, and following their evil lifestyle? Why must it be some wacky story about fallen angels mating with women?

[hughfarey]

Fair enough, DBowling, but the theology of the Christian Churches is that the early chapters of Genesis are explorations into God's relationships with all mankind, not just a few individuals among the mass of humanity. As such, both the Adam and Eve and the Noah's ark stories are taken to apply to all mankind, whatever their literal historicity. That is, for example, precisely why a Hebrew word which might be interpreted to allow for a purely local flood, is almost unanimously translated in the Christian Bible to mean the whole world, not just an isolated area of land.

[B. W.]

Just for the record, Katabole's post has several inaccuracies wrt Hebrew grammar. First, eth is not the Hebrew article, nor is ha a particle sometimes associated with words or the article. Rather, ha is the article. So ish by itself is called an anarthrous noun (a noun without the article) and so has a different meaning that ha-ish (which would usually be translated "the man"). Eth is actually a particle used in Hebrew grammar to designate the direct object of a verb.

Second, ish and ishah does not refer to gender. The words that do refer to gender are zakar and nĕqebah. You can see those words used in Gen 1:28. Ish can be properly translated "mankind" (or "humankind" if you really want to be gender-neutral)--that verse says that God created ish in His image; zakar and nĕqebah He created them in His image.

Third, enosh does not designate men according to some moral character, as if it is always used in a bad sense. See Psalm 8:5 for just one example. If we are to find a special semantic flavor, the idea relates to man's mortality and thus frailty.

The word geber is not some special word for "man." It is used to emphasize strength, and so David's mighty men are called geber, so you can't make a connection here to being "renowned for their moral depravity." Those words just don't and can't carry that meaning.

I could address a lot more issues, but I'll limit it to one more problem since by Katabole's own admission, "If the word "men" used in Gen 6:1, did not use the article and the particle, it would change the entire context of the story." Now, as it happens, Katabole is incorrect. The word "men" here does not "use the article and the particle." Here is the actual Hebrew text:

וַֽיְהִי כִּֽי־הֵחֵל הָֽאָדָם לָרֹב עַל־פְּנֵי הָֽאֲדָמָה וּבָנֹות יֻלְּדוּ לָהֶֽם׃

The word in bold is ha-adam -- literally, "the man." Now, one of the main = functions of the article is to designate what is called a "class noun," such that the word refers to the general class. Thus, ish refers to a man; ha-ish refers to the particular man (one of the functions of the article--to make the word definite) or it might refer to mankind generally, as it does in Gen 6:1. Now, as Katabole states, this changes the meaning quite a bit and the entire exegesis provided simply doesn't follow.

For those interested in a discussion on the article, see Waltke's An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (and skip to page 144). You may also want to skip to page 299 for a full discussion of general use of the article to mark out class nouns. That is part of the entire chapter on definiteness in Hebrew, which begins on page 289. This chapter really is worth a read even if you've never taken a day of Hebrew (although, of course, you're understanding of the material is enhanced if you can read the Hebrew examples he provides rather than just the English translations).

That is all.

Agree with Jac...

Ha'adam can refer and mean all the mankind or all of man as per context of Gen 6.

Question for Jac:

The Hebrew Ha (basic meaning: the) when used as our English prefix denotes a plural, as in all of the or all the in the meaning of the word attached too per context/grammar such as in Exodus 18:11 - האלהים - all the gods.

So would you say again that its use in Gen 6 be used in a plural form denoting all of humanity?
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[DBowling]

Fair enough, DBowling, but the theology of the Christian Churches is that the early chapters of Genesis are explorations into God's relationships with all mankind, not just a few individuals among the mass of humanity. As such, both the Adam and Eve and the Noah's ark stories are taken to apply to all mankind, whatever their literal historicity.

I would say that the the first chapter of Genesis is indeed an exploration of God's relationship with all mankind and the role mankind in general plays within all of creation.

However, in Genesis 2 God begins to establish personal relationships with his image bearers through two specific people, Adam and Eve. And that is where I think the scope of the Scriptural narrative narrows to focus in on God's covenant people (the sons of God) who find their origins in Adam and Eve. The rest of Scripture then is the story of how God uses his covenant people in his plan to redeem and establish relationship with all of humanity.

That is, for example, precisely why a Hebrew word which might be interpreted to allow for a purely local flood, is almost unanimously translated in the Christian Bible to mean the whole world, not just an isolated area of land.

For this I will defer to Rich Deem's excellent article which was referred to earlier in this thread.

The Genesis Flood Why the Bible Says It Must be Local
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... flood.html

Here is just one example from Rich's article that shows that 'erets' within the context of the Flood narrative cannot be referring to the whole globe.

Another problem for the global flood interpretation is what happened to the "earth" after the flood. Read the following verses and see if you can see why the word "earth" does not refer to the entire planet:

Then it came about at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made; and he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth. (Genesis 8:6-7, NASB)
After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. (Genesis 8:6-7, NIV)

Now it came about in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth. (Genesis 8:13a, NASB)
By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. (Genesis 8:13a, NIV)

and in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. (Genesis 8:14, NASB)
By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry. (Genesis 8:14, NIV)

If one were to interpret these verses from a global perspective, one would have to conclude that the entire earth became a desert after the flood. Obviously this interpretation is false, so the translations must be bad. In these verses, the dryness of the earth is obviously referring to the local land area of the flood and not the entire planet earth.

In Christ

[hughfarey]

If one were to interpret these verses from a global perspective, one would have to conclude that the entire earth became a desert after the flood. Obviously this interpretation is false, so the translations must be bad.

I think the intention of the writers was indeed that the entire earth was waste after the flood, and that Noah and his family (and all his animals), were a completely new start. The translation - common to almost every English bible at biblegateway, was carefully considered and entirely accurate.

[RickD]

If one were to interpret these verses from a global perspective, one would have to conclude that the entire earth became a desert after the flood. Obviously this interpretation is false, so the translations must be bad.

I think the intention of the writers was indeed that the entire earth was waste after the flood, and that Noah and his family (and all his animals), were a completely new start. The translation - common to almost every English bible at biblegateway, was carefully considered and entirely accurate.

I don't think so Tim.

There'd be no water on the surface of the earth. Think about the ramifications of that.

[DBowling]

The translation - common to almost every English bible at biblegateway, was carefully considered and entirely accurate.

I personally have no problem with translating 'erets' as either 'earth' or 'land'. I consider them to both be accurate translations, so I have no real issue with the English translations that use earth or land.

I think the problem arises when, driven by tradition, people go beyond the scriptural 'earth' and 'land' to the extrascriptural 'globe' and 'planet'.

In Christ