The Bible, a fraud? I don't think so?

Question

If the Bible is not real, then why is it that ALL ancient cultures have a story of a great flood and that at least one man,and sometimes his wife, were saved? Even the Romans had a Great Flood in their history that resembles this

Umm..... Jason, I would read the Gospels b/c Jesus said in at least one of the accounts "Before Abraham was, I AM". Which means He was saying He was God. Check out Exodus with Moses and the burning bush.

Answer 1

I wouldn't say a fraud, but it's quite a stretch to presume that it's divinely inspired. My Bible certainly is not; it was published in Michigan. Clearly, it was written by man.

Your reasoning is flawed, though. Let's examine what you said:
"then why is it that ALL ancient cultures have a story of a great flood and that at least one man,and sometimes his wife, were saved"

Okay, so if the Bible is true, then the only survivors were Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives. Everyone else was wiped out.

So, how can there be other accounts of the flood? There are only eight witnesses to the whole affair.

It's true that other cultures have stories about floods. But those stories are about THEIR mythology, not the Christian mythology.

It's rather hard for people to talk about how Noah survived the flood when they drowned, isn't it? So, if the Romans had a Great Flood in their history, then it clearly wasn't about Noah, and it therefore does not support the Bible's account.

Answer 2

The bible is real. That doesn't make it authoritive. Resemblance to other stories does not make it conclusive truth. Monkeys resemble man, but is that proof of evolution? Why conclude that the bible, and not the other texts, is truth? If there is some resemblance, perhaps it is the other cultures that have the truth, and the bible is borrowing stories from others? This is, in fact, what happened. Even the story of Moses receiving the instructions of God from a mountaintop was existing before the Israelites. Other cultures had this story long before Moses even existed. Biblical research has shown that there were many writers of the Old Testament, and that there are similarities between the stories to far more ancient cultures and traditions, including the commandments and laws of the old testament, the heroes of the bible, and the prophets of the bible.

You can choose to believe the veracity of the bible, but there is indisputable evidence in the form of documentation, hyroglyphics, cultural artifacts, and oral traditions that dispute that the bible is original in its content.

Answer 3

Dear Friend: The answer to your question is extremely complex so it would be difficult to answer without writing a one million word essay and then some. But in short: All ancient cultures came out of the seed of Noah, preceding Abraham the Father of Israel alone, which is the main contributor of the Bible.

Consider it this way, historically: In the time of Noah, his seed replenished the earth (Genesis 10) and it was in that age the population of the earth began to rapidly grow, bringing us up to the time of 'The Tower of Babel' (Genesis 11) It was in this period of human history, that mankind began to scatter throughout the earth. Hence: various peoples.

Now it is only the most truthful of all logic that the story of the flood would have been carried throughout the whole earth. The account you read in the Bible concerning this was written by Moses, who followed Abraham. If you research this dilligently enough, you will find that the 'cultural accounts' will have a lot of mythical linguistic symbols, which makes the Bible a 'record' predating any known cultural notion.

If you want to reasearch this further: I would sugest reading the Bible, you also might want to research Josephues.

T.A.

Answer 4

If the Noah story is true then doesn't that mean we are all related, and descendents of in-breeding? Biology tells us, with hard proof and evidence, that if close family members breed, the children are frequently mentally disabled. Now this may explain a lot of world leaders(religious and political), but if it were true then humanity wouldn't have survived much after the flood. I think the bible is a compilation of myth, truth, and intentional propaganda. The important thing is the type of person you are whether you believe in the bible, the teachings of Buddah, the Quaran, or Darwin's Origin of the Species.(by the way I have not read any of these completely thru, although I am working on it.

Answer 5

Why are you surprised that a great flood has occurred in nearly every place in the world throughout the history of man? There is nothing spectacular or phenomenal about this.

Even if this was undoubtedly miraculous, who is to say that this one record of a great flood is closest to truth? Other flood stories could be true, and this one could be only partially true or completely untrue.

On top of that, the story of the great flood in Genesis is impossible to be true. I find myself repeating this over and over because people don't seem to learn. Some fish can only survive and freshwater while others can only survive in saltwater. A global flood would have mixed the waters and killed off the sea life. In addition, people who believe in the story of Noah's Ark seem to not completely understand the quantity of animals we are talking about when we consider two of each species to carry on. There are over 350,000 species of beetle alone. Also, how many people does it take to run a zoo? Try increasing the animal count to two of each currently existing species (though there should have been more during that time due to new extinctions and the supposed lack of evolution) and decreasing the staff down to eight. That's no where near enough manpower to feed and care for all of the animals.

It is intellectually dishonest to pick and choose which passages of the bible are literal and which are not. Especially when the picking and choosing is done to suport a predetermined belief.

Please reconsider your thinking style -not only for this subject but for all subjects in general. Can you think of a guy who has ever been rebellious as child? If so, he should not still be alive according to Deuteronomy 21:21 because his parents should have brought him to the city gates for the men of the town to stone him to death. If you can think of any reason or excuse why a guy should not be stoned to death for being rebellious, consider also that similarities do not dictate fact nor do they dictate what is right. You might want to reread a few of these sentences before they completely sink in. Take your time. Learning is fun!

Answer 6

So that would mean that they all have to be real. So you are following Jupiter and Zeus and Odin and all them right?

The thing is a world wide flood would have left a uniform layer in the geological record. There is no such layer and absolutely no other evidence for it. Just because there are some similar stories in different mythologies only points out that they are often copied from other sources and that story got traded around a little. We could not built a ship with our modern technology that could carry two of every animal and enough food to make it that long. The goat herders that wrote the story had no idea how man different animals there were, or how big some of them were.

Answer 7

Please read Joseph Campbell's work. He spent his life collecting the myths of humankind from the days of the hunter-gatherers up to today. All myths are created to explain something in nature that is not understood or embellishments of accounts of some actual occurance.

If you look at world myths, you find the same stories of floods, the transmission of fire, creation, afterlife, etc. in many traditions indicating that they may have communicated with other or that common archetypes sprang up independently around the world.

The Bible, Koran, Talmud, Bagavadgita, Tao, etc. etc. are not frauds, they are wonderous collections of tales that were collected to help people to understand that which can never be understood. And to provide models for behavior. The sacrifice, whether an animal, a Druidic Year-King, or Jesus is always for the benefit of the tribe.

Answer 8

Currently, there are almost three hundred known flood stories around the world.

(Most of them were influenced by Catholic and other missionaries.)

The interesting ones are the ones that existed before there were missionaries to teach the Bible's flood story, such as the one in the Shih King (Chinese flood story in a writing dating to 2400 BC).

Answer 9

MOST cultures have developed bows and arrows.

MOST cultures have developed stairs and ladders.

MOST cultures have developed languages and writing systems.

MOST cultures have learned to cook thier food.

MOST cultures have worshipped deities.

It is called CONVERGENCE.

Now, that thing you're quoting, the Bible, is a compilation of Assyrian, babilonian and even Greco-Roman myths.

The Abrahamaic Religions are but pirated bootleg versions of other myths.

Answer 10

It is mans first attempt to understand the world around them. That was the way people communicated back them- through story. The bible, or any religion is a good thing in general. It teaches tolerance, respect, and a whole bunch of other things. But people always misinterpret the bible, and take phrases from it that match their own prejudices.
The book of revelations is evil..