Noah...that drunken boat builder?

by shotgun 37 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  shotgun

  I've learned a ton on this forum and elsewhere which pretty much disproves Noah's global flood to me personally?

  Long before this as a dub though one thing always bothered me about the account and how unreasonable it seemed even if you discount the animals.

  Noah had three sons in 600 yrs (Noah got it even less than me), his sons did not have any children before the flood. After the flood they all got busy and within 120 or so yrs the condition was so bad that god had to scatter the multitude of people because of their bad ways. By this time their were several nations mentioned and things seem back to pre-flood conditions population wise. How many people could 8 multiply to in 120 yrs? The math I used tells me a few hundred or so and that goes against the grain of the usual age also of when the first child was often born. The bible usually mentions men as having sons or daughters around 30 yrs of age.

  It don't add up.....just another part of the puzzle which always made me question and now confirms my disbelief.
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  jayhawk1

  A point I have never considered, but a good one. Women in those days would have had to give birth to triplets and more every year in order to have "nations" in about 120 years. Simply could not have happened even with modern fertility medicine.
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  peacefulpete

  Never mind that Egyptian history can be traced back largely unbroken for nearly 10,000 years and they have NO ancient flood legend in their mythology.
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  Phantom Stranger

  shotgun, you apostate! Noah built an "ark", not a "boat"! Boats have keels! Read your bible better!

  No, but seriously, good point, and if you go with a local flood having given rise to the story, then overpopulating a local area would make sense, and having surrounding nations would make sense too...

  Uhh..peaceful pete, I beleive that Egyptian mythology has a flood myth, but no "Noah" figure. See below for a summary.

  EGYPT -- FLOOD

  Ra was warned by the Watery Abyss that humans had grown too rebellious, so he took Hathor and ordered her to punish the people.

  Hathor went to earth and slew millions of humans. The streets of the town of Chetenuten began to run like a river with blood because of her horrific endeavour. So much blood drained into the Nile that it overflowed the riverbanks, and the bloody water flooded the land, destroying everything. This water eventually ran into the sea, which overflowed as well. Hathor began drinking this horrible mixture of blood and water.

  Ra was displeased with Hathor's work, as he had only wanted to punish, and not destroy, the human race. So he asked Thoth, the wisest God, for help. He then told the Goddess Sektet to mix together dada, fruit and barley to make beer. The beer was then to be mixed with human blood, in the hopes that it would attract Hathor.

  Ra's servents were then ordered to pour out the mixture on the remaining land near Hathor. The beer became a great sea, and Hathor was drawn to it by the smell of the blood. She drank the beer until she was so intoxicated that she staggered off to sleep, leaving the last few humans behind.

  From those humans, earth was repopulated.

  Ra left the upkeep of earth to Thoth from then on, and he went off to rest on the back of the great cow of heaven. Thoth taught humans how to be civilized.
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  hooberus

  http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v23n3_people.asp

  Of course, population growth has not been constant. There is reasonably good evidence that growth has been slow at times?such as in the Middle Ages in Europe. However, data from the Bible (Genesis 10,11) shows that the population grew quite quickly in the years immediately after the Flood. Shem had five sons, Ham had four, and Japheth had seven. If we assume that they had the same number of daughters, then they averaged 10.7 children per couple. In the next generation, Shem had 14 grandsons, Ham, 28 and Japheth, 23, or 130 children in total. That is an average of 8.1 per couple. These figures are consisent with God?s command to ?be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth? (Genesis 9:1).

  Let us take the average of all births in the first two post-Flood generations as 8.53 children per couple. The average age at which the first son was born in the seven post-Flood generations in Shem?s line ranged from 35 to 29 years (Genesis 11:10?24), with an average of 31 years,7 so a generation time of 40 years is reasonable. Hence, just four generations after the Flood would see a total population of over 3,000 people (remembering that the longevity of people was such that Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth, etc., were still alive at that time).8 This represents a population growth rate of 3.7% per year, or a doubling time of about 19 years.9

  If there were 300 million people in the world at the time of Christ?s Resurrection,2 this requires a population growth rate of only 0.75% since the Flood, or a doubling time of 92 years?much less than the documented population growth rate in the years following the Flood.

  http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4215cen_s1998.asp

  Secular history gives much evidence to show that the survivors of Noah?s Flood were real historical figures, whose names were indelibly carved on much of the ancient world ?
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  Phantom Stranger

  Infant mortality seems to have been absent in these records... due to being God's people, no doubt.
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  heathen

  There are alot of unknowns in these stories , for intstance we don't know how long it took for a pregnancy to term out it may have been 3 months . We know for certain that females are more likely to be born than males and males were allowed to have more than one wife .The creation book did make some interesting observations on the belief in the flood verses the belief in an ice age . Scientists always attribute alot of things as far as geological evidence to an ice age and glacieral movements of earth that took hundreds of thousands of years where as a flood would have performed those earth movements in alot less time . I try to keep an open mind on these things .
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  Phantom Stranger

  Wait a minute...3-month pregnancies? Am I understanding you?

  h, that sound like the arguments about how God placed the fossil record to test our faith...
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  rem

  We know for certain that females are more likely to be born than males

  We do?

  I try to keep an open mind on these things.

  Yeah, I like to keep an open mind on whether the earth is round or not and other things like these.

  rem
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  little witch

  For the first time in my entire life, I am speechless!