Dos anyone have conclusive educated answers concerning the "Noahic" Flood?

Question

I have already collected a lot of information on the web, but would like some input.

I am doing research on Christians claims for the flood. I want to compile prima facie evidence against the Noahic account that will put the controversy to an end.

Answer 1

~Why pick on poor old Noah. Check into the "Flood" legends of most civilizations and religions from the Middle East, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Americas. Were there devastating floods throughout history? Of course, there still are. Were any of them sufficient to destroy the entire population of the planet? Obviously not. Were any of them divinely inspired by a sadistic, wrathful god? Only if you buy into the bull.

Clearly if you had any inclination to prove the story, you wouldn't be on this site. You'd be studying geography, meteorology, tectonic mechanics, geology, archeology, physics, maritime engineering and a few other things, then you'd head out into the field and find your proof in the fossil and like records. Not to worry. Others before you have tried and failed.

Common sense will tell you that the Noah story is myth and legend. Simply calculate the interior space of the Ark, then compute the space necessary to house two each of all known animal species and their feed for a few months (remember, everything is underwater for a couple weeks - all plant and animal life would have died off and there would be no forage for the critters when they got off the boat). (Disregard that Noah had no concept of snow leopards, polar bears and penguins, but no matter - they'd have died in the post-flood climate in any case. ) Is the barge big enough? Then check the hydro-dynamics and see if it such a structure, built with the materials and technology of the day (whenever that was) would float.

We'll forget about the lunacy of the sheer volume of water and rain that would have been necessary. But, bearing in mind that all water on earth today has been here since the formation of the planet, simply do the math. If the polar ice caps melted completely, how high would rise the earth's oceans? Are Denver or Nepal really going to be threatened? That doesn't matter, either. Folks in the days of Noah didn't know they even existed.

Calculate the sheer magnitude of the storm that would have been necessary to dump all that water over the period of 40 days, and check your boat again - was it sufficiently seaworthy to withstand such weather? Could such a storm have sustained itself for such a length of time?

Remember what the Bible is. Don't cloak it in some divine mystique, but think of it as any other book of parable, myth, folklore and legend. Then consider some poor superstitious shepherd a few thousand years ago who found fossils of fish or seashells at some ridiculously high elevation on a mountainside. Since he didn't know about Pangaea, continental drift and tectonic plates, how else could he explain how sea life could have survived on the slopes of an arid mountain. Bingo: flood legend is born. That the mountainsides of the Himalayas, Alps, Andes and Rockies were once at or near sea level is easily explained, but with science not by mythology.

The Noah story, taken literally, disproves itself.

Answer 2

Archeologists are just now finding that the flood did happen. They believe that the black sea flooded when an earth quake happened, opening up a strait near Istanbul. Back in those days the world would have been very small, the people would have believed that the world consisted of the region they lived in, nowhere beyond the limits of their travel. So this could have been the "Great" worldly flood written about in the bible.
It is interesting though that throughout history, several historians have written about a great flood that had happened. You can find mention of a Great Flood in Hindu writings. You can also find mention of floods in several classical works written by Irish, Danish, and Greek writings. Some say that the story of Atlantis came from a story of the great flood. In the book Gilgamesh they mention a great flood.
The thing you have to realize, many of the writings of the great flood in our history would have come from word of mouth as well. It was written later. So just like the old game we used to play as children called telephone, where you whisper in one ear, and have it go around the room, there is a slight, or major change in what was said when the last person speaks and says what he was told the first person stated. So really we have no evidence that the flood was a worldly disaster, we only have myths, and the archeological evidence found around the black sea.

Answer 3

Several years ago an excellent book titled "Noah's Flood" was published. It is the story of how the Black Sea "flooded" about 8,000 years ago. It is complete with evidence proving that this indeed happened. In the course of about one year the water level in the Black Sea rose 500 feet. At this time there were large populations of humans living mostly on the north shore of the Black Sea amongst the various deltas of the "D" rivers (Danube, et al). The flood came via the Bosporus on the south side as sea levels rose following the end of the last ice age. While the authors state no conclusions that this was the source of the story of Noah it is the best evidence that a flood actually occurred that could have engendered such a story that was later incorporated into the Bible.

Answer 4

1. the old testament is an oral history written down hundreds of years after the events occurred.
2. stories get embellished or exaggerated to make them more intersting around the campfire etc
3. facts get changed or moved within the story to make them more interesting (like the events involving Moses which seem very similar to volcanic eruptions)
4. Check out the Epic of Gilgamesh as it contains similar events and happened even earlier!!!
5. The erosion markings on the Sphinx have been proven to be water erosion not wind/sand erosion meaning that LOCALISED FLOODING may have occurred in the middle east and the gulf in the past during a time when most of history was orally transmitted not written down, expect by the ancient egyptians who knew of the rise and fall of the nile 'tides' so somewhere there may be reference to an 'unusual nile flood' mentioned on the wall of a pharoah! When this pharaoh died indicates the time of the NOAH flood, just an idea.
6 sorry it a long answer but these are factors i've read up on
7 i can't remember any of the book titles :)
8 Genesis 7,10 quotes ...'the waters of the flood were over the earth...'(Christian Community Bible, Cathlic Pastoral Edition). doesn't this sound more interseting round the campfire than '...god created localised flooding...'
9 The first five books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deutoronomy are widely considered to be the early history of the Hyskos/early Jews. Good luck in trying to disprove some sort of flood/localised flooding ;)

Answer 5

I believe you should look at some research evidence on the following topics:

The Ark on Mt. Arayat in Turkey
Evidence of the flood in geological considerations
There also exists evidence of the flood in mythic historic accounts
Also on this topic one must be aware that there is not a written account by an actual witness, but in the later period the story was told as passed down by generations of people.
There is also some evidence in the fact that the waters above the earth were let loose (Genesis) and thus created the damning of the wicked [a constant topic of reference]. The relationship of Light to the earth must have been altered [firmament] for a rainbow to be created [the question of a constant condition like a greenhouse]. And finally, the predecessors of today's animals were not as numerous in species as they are now. [These points also bear on the research and are based on reason from the data presented.]
A lot of very interesting observations come from this research. Many people have looked into these ideas. Happy Hunting!

Answer 6

I was watching a show the other day that offered an explanation for the arc story. I'll try to find it and let you know. The basic story was that there was a major flood a farmer in what is modern day Iran packed up all of his livestock on a boat and floated to his safety.

Answer 7

i the only way anyone could get a conclusive educated answer regarding the Noahic Flood would be to be there, if only one could invent a time machine then and only then could that question end, but as of now that question could not be concluded.

Answer 8

the bible said that water covered the earth. Find the bit in the bible that says this and quote it. Then use maths to work out the volume of water required to cover mount everest taking into consideration that water would be evenly spread over the earth. Then ask, where did all the water go?. case closed.

Answer 9

If you want to do extensive research, a site like this cannot really help you. Anyway can one person's answers be conclusive?

Answer 10

There is a whole group of historians and archeologist's, geologists that are working on this. I would imagine your studies would put you in contact with these scientists.