NOAH'S ARK WAS NO MYTH

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from JoeUser Forums
Most skeptics believe that the ark was simply too big for a mere mortal like Noah to build. Building an ark about two-thirds the size of Titanic would have been impossible, most assert. Surely the Noah story was all made up. It does not even seem rational, does it? Maybe the Jews invented it to evoke an all-powerful and vengeful God.

Even the Apostle Peter got swept up in evoking the story to depict a vengeful God. He not only referred to the worldwide destruction brought about by the Flood in 2 Peter 2, but also the region-wide destruction God caused by raining fire from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jesus even embellished the yarn. He said in Matthew 24:37-39, But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Christ not only confirmed the events of Noah’s day, He said the same worldwide destruction would come about in our day--only this time in the form of nuclear world war!

The Apostle Paul wrote, By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. God gave Noah absolutely no physical evidence to suggest that a flood would come. And yet he built the ark--believing and acting on what God SAID would happen.

If all of this is nothing more than a fabricated story, then it also casts doubt on statements made by Peter, Paul and Jesus. More important still, it makes God out to be a liar.
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Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top

The size of the ark is not really the issue. There are all kinds of problems with that story from a scientific point of view.

Ultimately, there's no evidence to indicate that story is true. It has nothing to do with whether God was a liar or not. The story was an aural tradition for thousands of years before it was written down. The person who wrote it down finally assumed it was true.

The only real evidence in the ark is that it's in the bible and not all of us consider the bible a particularly good source for literal history.

Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
I second that. Well, most of it. I don't really rely on the Old Testament for a completely accurate depiction of history. Its more of a collection of stories with lessons and a history of the Jewish/Christian religion before Jesus came.
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Sorry for the double post, but I remembered something else. I remember reading an article once (although I don't remember who wrote it) about how there may have been a flood in the area. It was a smaller flood than in the Bible (it didn't cover the whole world) and I think maybe at a different time in history of something, I can't really remember, but perhaps this is where the story came from. Just some food for thought. Yum.

~Molly
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
"God gave Noah absolutely no physical evidence to suggest that a flood would come"

Not to belittle Marvin's knowledge on this subject but if you do your study and look into the root meanings of some names you will realize that God did indeed give Noah a way to mark the beginning of the flood and that it did not come as a surprise to the people of that time. Primarily because Enoch had already prophesied the coming of the flood (Jude 1:14) before it happened. This being the oldest prophecy in the Bible. Additionally, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah were preachers themselves and all would have preached this same message. That means it had been preached about for four generations before the flood. Enoch, Methuselah son of Enoch, Lamech son of Methuselah and Noah son of Lamech.

God had forewarned Enoch that the flood would be held off as long as his son Methuselah lived. This is clear if you go to the hebrew root meaning of the name Methuselah which is derived from the hebrew muth meaning death (used 125 times in the Old Testament) and shalach meaning to bring or send forth. So Methuselah's name literally means "His death shall bring".
If you study the genealogy in Genesis even further and add up the years each one lived you realize that the year that Mehuselah died was when the flood actually began. Thus it was prophesied.

This also goes to show God's grace in the reason that Methuselah lived so long. God didn't want to send the flood but it was necessary, so He held back as long as He could to give all the people a chance to repent and only allowed Methuselah to die and release the waters when there was no repentance at all, save for that of Noah's family.

So there it is. Do your own study into this if you want to know further.

I won't even get into stating all the evidence from all the different parts of the world that give credence to a world-wide flood actually having occured at that given time.
If you doubt, without seeking a solid ground on which to base your doubt then you are merely a lemming following the bunch to your own demise.

You can chew on that for a while.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Not to mention the fact that there was this guy, out in the desert, building this boat.  I recommend Bill Cosby's sketch on Noah to everyone interested in what "really happened".
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
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Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Molly, I believe what you are speaking of may be the subject of a documentary I saw on the Discovery Channel a number of years ago. They hypothisized that a sea (I believe the Black, but my memory is not perfect) did not yet exist, because the waters that would form it were held back further inland by a large natural earth-dam. There were a large number of peoples who lived in the floodplain below the earth-dam, many of whom were forebarers of a number of the major ethnic (and thus religious) groups that would later form. Anyway, at one point, this earth-dam broke, flooding the plain, and thus the known world for these people, giving rise to the flood myth that exists across many cultures. If my memory is correct, the Native Americans have no stories of a worldwide flood (which you would think they would, if it had actually occured), which lends credance to the aforementioned theory of the flood.

Of course, this is only a hypothosis in scientific terms, so it is by no means to be taken as fact. There is just as likely a chance that the story was nothing but a legend passed down through the generations through aural recitation.