aChristian wrote,
BALONEY! As I just clearly showed, Psalm 104: 5-9 is describing events which ALL took place at the time God "set the earth on its foundations." This passage of scripture makes no reference whatsoever to Noah's flood.
Calm down, aChristian. Psalm 104 doesn’t mention the flood, specifically, that’s true, but neither does it mention the creation, specifically. Let me explain again, more completely this time, why I think Psalm refers to both the creation, and the flood.
I think few things in the Bible are clearer than the fact that the writers viewed the flood as a rebirth of the earth and its people, a kind of second creation. In the first creation story, God created an earth covered with water, then had the waters recede from the earth to expose the land, on which his people would multiply. Later, God was dissatisfied with what the earth and its people had become, so he essentially created anew the earth. He once again returned the earth to state in which it had existed before--a world completely covered with water.
He removed the waters, saving only Noah and his family, from whom a new civilization would come. Noah and his family were to be the ones from whom civilization would spring, just as God had intended for Adam and Eve.
This parallel between these two creations could not have escaped the attention of the Psalm writer, so when he wrote his Psalm passage, he seems to have blended together the two creation stories, taking elements of the first, such as “setting the earth on its foundations,” and elements of the second, such as water “above the mountains,” and the promise never to cover the earth again with water, to create his Psalm verses.
Let’s look closely at the parallels between flood story’s description of the mountains, and compare it to the Psalm description:
Mountains Covered with Water
From the flood story we have
“They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered” (Genesis 7:19)
and from the Psalm verse we have the parallel description:
“..the waters stood above the mountains.” (Psalm 104:6)
There is no similar description in the creation story. This doesn’t mean, of course, that the Psalm writer did not have the creation story in mind when he created Psalm 104; it is obvious that he did, but he seems also to have had the flood story in mind, too. If not, then where in the creation story did he learn about mountains? There’s no mention of mountains. Where did he learn about mountains covered with water, if not from the flood story?
Can you show, aChristian, where one can find “mountains” in the creation story?
Can you further find a description of them being covered with water?
If so, then I will admit my argument is weaker than I’m claiming; if not, then we should accept the simpler explanation, which is that the Psalm author blended information from both the creation and the flood stories to create his description of the mountains covered with water.
Promise Never to Flood Again
The other parallel between Psalm 104 and the flood story which exists, and which does not exist between Psalm 104 and the creation story, is the one which describes waters which are never again to cover the earth.
From the flood story we have
...never again will they [the waters] cover the earth.” (Psalm 104:9)
and from the Psalm verse we have the parallel description:
Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. (Genesis 9:15b)
There is no similar declaration in the creation story. Can you show, aChristian, where one can find in the creation story a declaration that the waters would never again cover the earth?
If not, then we should accept as sensible that the Psalm writer also had in mind the flood story, and God’s promise never again to flood the earth, when he wrote Psalm 104.
Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
