What Jesus Said About the Flood

by Franklin Massey 44 Replies latest jw friends

  • Vidiot
    Vidiot

    snowbird - "You don't sound like a smartass..."

    Awww....

    snowbird - "I like skeptics!"

    How much?

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    I'm not sure which "Jashar" you are using but the only one of note (Sefer ha-Yashar) is a very late Rennaisance-era midrash.

  • snowbird
    snowbird

    snowbird - "I like skeptics!"
    How much?

    Enough.

    I'm not sure which "Jashar" you are using but the only one of note (Sefer ha-Yashar) is a very late Rennaisance-era midrash.

    http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/apo/jasher/index.htm

    Syl

  • miseryloveselders
    miseryloveselders

    Interesting, MLE, that the Book of Jasher, chapter two, states that the Lord God caused the River Gihon to overwhelm quite a portion of Earth's population prior to the Flood.

    To me its a simple as this. The entire population as population was known to thee population at that time experienced a flood. Whether that flood extended beyond that population is questionable. The only thing that gives any credibility to me that the flood was bigger in scope than common sense allows, was that almost every culture on this planet today has some story of a major flood. But even with that being said, the old saying holds true about there being nothing new under the sun, or the grass isn't greener on the other side. If I experienced a traumatic experience, rest assured somebody else on this planet has experienced likewise, and there's nothing unique about anybody's experiences. I still believe however that the flood account was written from the perspective of those in that area, and it was recorded strictly for an audience primarily made up of people from that area. Had the writers back then known that there were people in the Americas, or Honolulu, they wouldn't have said the whole globe experienced a deluge.

    Another thing, the Genesis account is kinda sketchy, and bounces from Adam & Eve, to Cain & Abel, to Noah and the flood. I find it difficult to believe that in that short amount of time, an ample amount of procreation was responsible for people being spread out throughout the earth to the point that God needed to flood the entire earth in order to exterminate that many peoples. It just seems far fetched to me.

    One last thing, and forgive me for coming off crude as I'm somewhat cranky today, but what difference does it f#$#% make? To me this debate is up there with whether or not Jesus died on upward pole or on an upward pole with a cross beam. These debates take away from more important questions, at least in my opinion anyways.

  • snowbird
    snowbird

    I tried, albeit feebly, to state my belief that a Supercontinent prevailed before the Flood.

    No need for anybody to get a nose out of joint.

    Sheesh!

    Syl

  • Vidiot
    Vidiot

    snowbird - "I tried, albeit feebly, to state my belief that a Supercontinent prevailed before the Flood."

    Well, a supercontinent DID exist prior to the era of the Noachian Deluge - whether the Deluge was history OR parable. The geological evidence for THAT is pretty compelling.

    So, you might have been preaching to the choir.

    Just sayin'.

  • Franklin Massey
    Franklin Massey

    Now everybody hug.

  • VoidEater
    VoidEater

    Franklin: Thank you for one of the most conise, insightful, entertaining, useful post in like forever.

  • ziddina
    ziddina
    "Someone educate me........why couldn't it be said that the flood was global in the sense of it affecting the known population in that area? The way I figure, if there were people in the Americas back then, the folks in the Middle East wouldn't have known about it. ..."

    Actually, Misery Loves Elders, that IS a likely explanation...

    There's a Babylonian myth about a GREAT flood - only that myth doesn't claim that the flood was GLOBAL...

    One of the most likely explanations is that the flooding of the Black Sea [around 8,000 B.C. if I remember correctly...] - which archaeological evidence has shown, drowned some villages - would most likely be the source of the "flood" myth pervasive throughout the Middle East... As many of the survivors probably would have spread out in that general area...

    For that matter, the swift end of the last great Ice Age probably produced some hellacious flooding - sufficient to mark many an ethnic group's mythology with the threat of a "global" - for their area at least - flood....

    And the idiotic tendency throughout most of humanity's history to build their villages/towns/cities on FLOOD PLAINS - "But - but - we don't like having to walk so far for a pail of water..." - probably ALSO influenced the prolific number of "flood" myths throughout the world...

    Zid

  • Vidiot
    Vidiot

    The term "global" did not exist in Biblical times...

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