Noah's Ark: Fact or Fantasy?

Chris OConnor · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 7:15 am Post subject: Noah's Ark: Fact or Fantasy?

Noah's Ark: Fact or Fantasy?

What is your opinion on the Biblical story of Noah's Ark? Did it happen exactly as told in the Bible? Is the account partially correct or only slightly embellished? Or do you think the whole story has its basis in myth? :cow

Dissident Heart · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 10:01 am Post subject: Re: Noah's Ark: Fact or Fantasy?

I think the interesting thing about Noah and the Ark of the Covenant is it tells us a story about a God who regrets having created humanity. A God who laments over a series of dreadful mistakes: both the botched creation of humanity and the pathological punitivity to drown it. We get a chance to see the sting of conscience and remorse of God, as well as the terrific wrath of nature.

Life on earth is a wretched struggle with deadly consequences...and there is the Rainbow.

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 11:30 am Post subject: Re: Noah's Ark: Fact or Fantasy?

You know my answer! Obviously it is a story meant to teach a lesson.

I mean lets look at it this way...if things were so bad with humanity way back THEN...where the hell is the flood to cleanse things NOW!

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

Once you perceive the irrevocable truth, you can no longer justify the irrational denial. - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Chris OConnor · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 3:02 pm Post subject: Re: Noah's Ark: Fact or Fantasy?

Dissident

Yep, very cool story. Now how about actually answering my questions?

Quote:
Did it happen exactly as told in the Bible? Is the account partially correct or only slightly embellished? Or do you think the whole story has its basis in myth?

Chris OConnor · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 3:04 pm Post subject: Re: Noah's Ark: Fact or Fantasy?

In case you think I'm asking whether or not you "care" if it actually happened I'll right now tell you that I'm clearly not asking that question. Let's make no mistakes about what I am asking. I am asking if you believe that the Bible story of Noah's ark is fact or fiction. Elaborate as much as you like, but please answer this question.

Dissident Heart · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 3:42 pm Post subject: The Truth about Noah

Genesis, from which we find the story about Noah and the Ark, is Myth. It is also tells us a great deal about how humans have struggled, and still do, to make sense of life's joys and tragedies and everydayness.

The story about Noah, of which there are two in Genesis, theoretically belonging to two authors: the J (Jahwist)author and the P (Priestly) author. Both authors revised this ancient tale to meet the theological and social needs of their respective communities.

The stories, within the larger context of Genesis, attempt to explain some of life's more destructive components: lawlessness, grief, sadness, remorse, regret, anger, rage...and it says something about hope too. A new future, no matter how dark the past, is possible. This is a story about a moral God who expects moral behavior from Humans, and will hold them accountable...but must face the consequences of these terrifying demands.

I think they reflect real and true human experiences with the awesome strength of nature, its seemingly amoral wrath, and how to rebuild families and communities after severe devastation.

So, these catastrophies and the resulting struggle to survive and replenish lives are true: the narrative that conveys this truth is Myth.

I don't think the Ark described in Genesis existed. Noah and his family may have been an actual community representing an actual survivor of a terrible catastrophe, expanded upon and elaborated into Mythic proportions.

Following Katrina and recent Tsunamis I think it extremely plausible that these kinds of events destroyed what would seem to ancient minds to be the entire world. The story of Noah in Genesis is one way to tell that universal story.

Chris OConnor · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 4:34 pm Post subject: Re: The Truth about Noah

Thank you for answering quickly and directly. I agree with just about everything you said, but I only skimmed it as I'm preparing for dinner. I'll reply later. Good post.

Niall001 · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 4:35 pm Post subject: Re: The Truth about Noah

Well I don't believe it happened, in a literal sense anyway. I mean, two of every animal in the world, on one boat, made by one chap with a little help from his son's! Who could honestly take that literally?

Full of Porn*

http://plainofpillars.blogspot.com

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 1:43 pm Post subject: Re: The Truth about Noah

There are some who do indeed take it literally!

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

Once you perceive the irrevocable truth, you can no longer justify the irrational denial. - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

MadArchitect · Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 1:44 pm Post subject: Re: The Truth about Noah

Given the number of variants in other traditions, it seems at least possible to me that there could have been widespread flooding in the Cradle of Civilization, widespread destruction and loss of life therefrom, and possibly even group of survivors who weathered the flooding on a boat of some kind. I wouldn't say it's particularly likely, but possible. The alternate explanation is that the story itself was so popular that it cropped up in various cultures, or that something in the story makes it likely to appear independently in the cultures of the region. As for the Noah story specifically, I'm inclined to believe that it was written as literature, not history, although it may have been adapted from earlier myths.

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:31 am Post subject: Re: The Truth about Noah

I do believe there was a flood myth (Gilgamesh?) from Babylonian times as well. As Mad says, the fertile cresent was/is prone to flooding, and even if it did NOT cause widespread destruction and death, the fact that such fertile land would flood would cause much havoc with growing crops that it may have caused a flood myth of massive scope due to the impact on daily life even a small flooding could cause.

I am not sure who is credited with the FIRST flood myth, but it may just be from the 'Cradle' civilizations.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

Once you perceive the irrevocable truth, you can no longer justify the irrational denial. - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Edited by: misterpessimistic at: 4/24/06 9:36 am

Vasilius Konstantinos · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 12:53 am Post subject: Re: Noah's Ark: Fact or Fantasy?

I tend to give the Flood of Noah credibility.

One thing which really gives credence to it- the Ancient Chinese Petroglyphic writing, still used and translated into the mid 1800's. The word for Flood in the language was the combination of the words for "eight people" and "boat". This was used long before Judaism reared its head that far East. Also many ancient accounts among the native people of China also relate stories to a Great Flood.

Of course, The Epic of Gilgamesh with the tale of Uta-Napishtum telling Gilgamesh the tale. The Hindustani folktale of the Creation Waters and the forming of the Indus river from the Great Flood waters. The Native Petroglyphs of New Mexico among the Anasazi ruins showing the waters encompassing a large field of mountains and engulfing the highest peak (The boat on top should be ignored.)

On another note, it is interesting to see how many floods there were when almost every fossil record is found in a ditch from a flood(local, of course). I once saw a map of the fossils uncovered worldwide at UCLA's Archaeology department one year and I was laughing. Every one of the records for that year alone were considered in a flood ditch. Tens of thousands of fossils from prehistoric to early homosapien was found in a flood ditch. A bit of more research since then tells us also that close to 100% of the fossil record is discovered in some sort of disarray due to water levels or floods. So what does this tell me? No one has to agree with me, LOL

VK

Chris OConnor · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 1:21 am Post subject: Re: Noah's Ark: Fact or Fantasy?

It's late and I am not going to spend the time to post links that refute your idea about where and when fossils are found. But your information is just plain wrong.

Think about this for a moment. After the waters subsided and the ark landed on Mt. Ararat in Turkey where did all the animals go? How did the marsupials get back to their continent? How did penguins get to theirs?

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:58 am Post subject: Re: Noah, Revisited

Just my two cents on this small semantic matter:

Quote:
The term "primitive" is derogatory.

No, it is not necessarily derogatory. It CAN be used that way...but it is not a derogatory word. It just means that something is less developed than it is today.

When I use it...I know I simply mean it as Chris described...it can sound derogatory when juxtaposed with my rants against religion, but I do not mean to belittle people who lived many hundreds or thousands of years ago...just to say, agains as Chris said, that they were not as capable in certain areas of thought and practice as we are today.

I do not hold any derogatory views on Homo Habilis, but I do think they are primitive forms of Homo Sapiens.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

Once you perceive the irrevocable truth, you can no longer justify the irrational denial. - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

MadArchitect · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 12:54 pm Post subject: Re: Noah, Revisited

misterpessimistic: No, it is not necessarily derogatory. It CAN be used that way...but it is not a derogatory word. It just means that something is less developed than it is today.

"Primitive" doesn't even necessarily have to mean that. The root of the word is the same as that of the word primary or prime -- it just means first. To understand the situation that DH and I are talking about, you have to know a little bit about the history of anthropology. The methodology of late 19th and early 20th century anthropologists was to examine currently existing cultures that were still hunter-gatherer or agrarian rather than industrial. The supposition was that these cultures had changed very little over a period of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years, and that they were therefore the most sure indicator of how pre-historic tribes lived. And the term applied to these tribes was "primitive", indicating that they somehow represented the unchanged initial state of humanity.

So far, so good. But certain connotations began to arise around the use of a seemingly innocuous word, and those connotations were due in large part to the biases of early anthropologists. There were connotations of stagnation -- these were "unfit" tribes in some sense, unable to expand beyond their geographically limited home regions.

Later anthropologists challenged the label of primitive, and it seems like the term has lost official sanction, despite the fact that it's anthropological use has continued among laymen. One objection is that there is no clear evidence that these contemporary tribes represent continuous traditions -- it's entirely likely that they've actually developed and changed a great deal since the tribes initial inception, and that the illusion of stagnation is due entirely to our own biases about how a culture should progress from hunter-gathering to agrarianism to industrialization.

So, no, the word primitive in itself has not been, traditionally, derogatory, but it's specific application to describing cultures carries with it a number of connotations that are inapt and, in some cases, insulting.

just to say, agains as Chris said, that they were not as capable in certain areas of thought and practice as we are today.

They didn't have a systematic science, no. But on an individual level, I would say that there's little to no evidence in favor of the view that they were any less capable of rational thought than we are to do. Most of the intellectual leaps that we've made in the last several hundreds of years are do primarily to our forms of social organization, particularly to the ways in which that organization has allowed us to share and test information. There were specific instances in which societies fell into place in such a way that a certain degree of scientific endeavor was possible -- the Medians had astronomy, the Incas invented a form of freeze drying, the Assyrians apparantly created a form of dry-cell battery. So the ancient Greeks may not have had the sort of society necessary to shoot humans into space and confirm that God was not there (as the Russian cosmonauts apparantly did), but I doubt that's due to any particularly naive credulity on the part of individual Greeks.


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