For another back-slidden atheist?
Naw. 
What?! You guys donāt believe that Noahās Ark actually HAPPENED, do you?!
Many do.
I canāt read the ancient texts, but if this was really just a local flood that covered a few very small local hills, I nominate it for the Worldās Lousiest Translation into English.
Fifty years from now we will be arguing over whether Jesus and Peter really walked on water, and apologetics will have some tricky way of claiming that if you understood the times, youād know that they actually just walked BY water. And Jesus didnāt actually change water into wine, but he exchanged a glass of water for a glass of wine.
People complain about dogs being mistreated in Taiwan. Did this flood wipe out any innocent animals or were they all bad, just like the people?
And does Santa Claus fly using reindeer, or is this just a trick of the light?
Perhaps the answer is to be found by scrutinizing the language of the original records.
:bravo:
Correct. But you have forgotten the original point; the narrative doesnāt say that the āfamous peopleā who were the sons of God and the daughters of men survived the flood. It says that the Nephilim survived the flood.
It is not my idea of what society was like, itās a matter of verifiable fact. I know youāre not going to try and verify it, because it would destroy your argument, but Iāve already cited one scholarly work which will help you in this regard.
Heās dead. Thatās why I spoke of him in the past tense.
Iām sorry thatās completely untrue. Youāre not even familiar with the established scholarship, you refuse to use it, and when I have cited it you have either ignored it or claimed (without evidence), that it is wrong. You have the same mindset as fred smith and other anthropogenic global warming deniers. You have the same mindset as Ken Ham and other evolution deniers. You are simply not being intellectually honest, and the more you continue this, the more you approach outright moral dishonesty. Once you start claiming that scholarship is on your side when it actually contradicts you, then youāre only one step away from lying.
The rest of your post consisted of unsubstantiated claims or questions which arenāt intellectually honest. If you were serious about having a conversation on this topic I would be more than willing to have one with you. However, it would take me considerable time to educate you to the point at which you were even able to be involved in the conversation at a coherent level, and I donāt believe youāre serious about this conversation in any case.
[quote=āFortigurnā]Correct. But you have forgotten the original point; the narrative doesnāt say that the āfamous peopleā who were the sons of God and the daughters of men survived the flood. It says that the Nephilim survived the flood.[/quote]Nephilim being the people who produced famous people. You said they could have been on the ark. If you misspoke, please share why they cannot have been on the ark.
[quote]It is not my idea of what society was like, itās a matter of verifiable fact.[/quote]A distinction utterly irrelevant to my point.
[quote]Heās dead. Thatās why I spoke of him in the past tense.[/quote]Right. When you die, you stop being an atheist.
[quote]Iām sorry thatās completely untrue. Youāre not even familiar with the established scholarship, you refuse to use it, and when I have cited it you have either ignored it or claimed (without evidence), that it is wrong. You have the same mindset as fred smith and other anthropogenic global warming deniers. You have the same mindset as Ken Ham and other evolution deniers. You are simply not being intellectually honest, and the more you continue this, the more you approach outright moral dishonesty. Once you start claiming that scholarship is on your side when it actually contradicts you, then youāre only one step away from lying.[/quote]My, but you do go on. 
So you donāt know of any scholars who believe the bible teaches a global flood. I know plenty. 
[quote]The rest of your post consisted of unsubstantiated claims or questions which arenāt intellectually honest. If you were serious about having a conversation on this topic I would be more than willing to have one with you. However, it would take me considerable time to educate you to the point at which you were even able to be involved in the conversation at a coherent level, and I donāt believe youāre serious about this conversation in any case.[/quote]
Have it your way. But you know what I think? I think you donāt want it known just how much of the bible you must consider untrue in order to believe a local flood.
No the Nephilim were no the people who produced famous people; as I have told you several times, and as the text says, the āfamous peopleā were descended from the sons of God and the daughters of men, not from the Nephilim. You have completely forgotten the original discussion, and you are not reading the text, still less my posts.
I never said the Nephilim could have been on the Ark. You are not reading my posts.
Itās directly relevant to your point. You made a claim which was the opposite of the truth, not for the first time either.
When youāre dead, youāre spoken of in the past tense. I never said he was an atheist and then stopped being an atheist. Did you just not actually know who Christopher Hitchens was, and that he is now dead? That seems to be the problem here.
Certainly I do.
Understanding the flood narrative in the Bible is referring to a local flood doesnāt require me to consider any part of the Bible to be untrue.
I thought this guy had given up. [quote=āFortigurnā]No the Nephilim were no the people who produced famous people; as I have told you several times, and as the text says, the āfamous peopleā were descended from the sons of God and the daughters of men, not from the Nephilim. You have completely forgotten the original discussion, and you are not reading the text, still less my posts.[/quote]So you divide Genesis 6:4 into two and the people groups mentioned in the two parts have nothing to do with each other?
Anyway, whatever your scenario is, you have a people group living before and after the flood. My question is, why can this group not have been represented on the ark?
[quote]I never said the Nephilim could have been on the Ark.[/quote]Why not?
[quote]Itās directly relevant to your point.[/quote]Utterly irrelevant. The ideas of a society bear no necessary influence on the ideas of a written work.
[quote]When youāre dead, youāre spoken of in the past tense. I never said he was an atheist and then stopped being an atheist. Did you just not actually know who Christopher Hitchens was, and that he is now dead? That seems to be the problem here.[/quote]No problem at all.
[quote]Certainly I do.[/quote]Great! So now you know there is scholarly support for my ideas. Can we have the discussion now?
[quote]Understanding the flood narrative in the Bible is referring to a local flood doesnāt require me to consider any part of the Bible to be untrue.[/quote]No? The bible says a lot of things that you think never happened.
A global flood is impossible. There is not enough water on earth to cover all of the land: thatās why we actually have oceans and dry land.
Local floods, well maybe. But then so what? Whatās the big deal? we have floods all the time.
Apologists will ont to the fact that itās not about the flood, itās about Noah heeding the voice of God, but he was probably just a canny old\ man whoād seen a flood or two and ad a handy disaster plan to fall back on. Being prepared is not definitive proof ofthe existence of Gad or anything, just evidence that he built a boat large enough to hold his family and his farm animals while others drowned. IOh, and once you went over the hill, there were other people there. fancy that!
There were people living beyond the garden of Eden too. Maybe they even intermarried with Adamās incestuous brood! Shock horror!
All good material for a whole raft of fiction writers to include in their compendium of apocryphal tales.
Not at all. Iām not hurling insults, or repeatedly using deliberately offensive language as youāve used against me. I made a single charge of intellectual dishonesty, and explained why I believed it was justified.
I apologize gladly for misunderstanding you. Are you saying that you agree with me that the phrases in Ezekiel were used in the description of the flood? If so, then what are you going to do about that fact?
Youāre begging the question; you havenāt proved that they āwithout a doubt refer to a global rather than local eventā. And are you aware that āface of the earthā actually does appear in Ezekiel 38:20, as well as in Genesis 7:19 which you cited? I even highlighted it.
[/quote]
If you did not notice, that verse did not include the phrases I originally quoted; instead of answering my challenge you sidestepped and brought something else.
You have yet to address the language of Genesis that I quoted, I will deal with yours once you have done so.
Instead of addressing the language I quotedā¦you clouded the issue and quoted OTHER language (talk about intellectual dishonesty), then demand I address that language even though you never addressed my quotes.
I am beginning to imagine it is because you cannot, but lack the intellectual honesty to admit it.
Our whole back and forth went off track when you failed to address the language of the quoted I provided. If you man up, we can probably get it back on track.
Address the language and phrases I quoted (as, is how discussion and tit for tat back and forth is done) as my quotes were brought fist (are you scared of them or something? dont worry! they dont bite!) Once you either admit to being unable to do so, or actually do so, then we can continue where we left off before you chose to dodge my challenge and began hurling false accusations.
Nice little tactic I must say, I actually even let it slide.
[quote=āFortigurnā][quote=āStripeā]
So you donāt know of any scholars who believe the bible teaches a global flood.[/quote]
Certainly I do.
[/quote]
But you ommited such references! You did not bring those that contradict your point.
Intellectual dishonesty? Well, at least how YOU define itā¦
[quote=āurodacusā]A global flood is impossible. There is not enough water on earth to cover all of the land: thatās why we actually have oceans and dry land.[/quote]The average depth of the water on Earth is about 2kmā¦
Gravityās a bitch, though. 
No I donāt divide Genesis 6:4 in two. But yes, the groups mentioned in Genesis 6:4 have nothing to do with each other.
Because of the eight people on the Ark, none of them were Nephilim.
Because the narrative excludes them from the ark; none of the people in the Ark were Nephilim.
Iām sorry that statement is not only untrue it is completely ignorant. Any written work is the product of its society. You donāt know what youāre talking about, and you present no evidence for your claims.
Yes, minimal scholarship, typically not mainstream, and typically Fundamentalists like Ken Ham. I have already made it clear that I confine myself to mainstream secular critical scholarship. In any case, I have already addressed all the arguments raised by those other commentators.
You can have the discussion when youāre sufficiently informed, not before.
No, you think the Bible says a lot of things that I think never happened.
I didnāt need to; you were already making all the same arguments, and I acknowledged they were arguments which needed to be addressed. It would have been intellectually dishonest of me to deny or ignore that there were any arguments that the flood was global, but I didnāt; I even made it clear that within the Christian tradition the global flood was dominant, and that it was the majority view within the Jewish tradition also. You havenāt made a single argument for a global reading of the flood which hasnāt already been made by others, and I have addressed all those arguments. I canāt be said to be omitting reference to arguments Iām actually discussing.
Additionally, as I have already pointed out previously, the overwhelming number of scholarly commentaries holds that the Genesis flood narrative is referring in ANE cosmological terms to the same local Mesopotamian mega-flood as the Sumerian King List, the Atrahasis Epic, and the Enuma Elish. The scholars arguing for a reference to a global flood are overwhelmingly Fundamentalists who do not follow standard secular methods of critical scholarship, and I have already made it clear I donāt cite such scholarship. It isnāt taken seriously by mainstream scholars.
No thatās not how I define it. It would be dishonest to quote fringe scholarship and represent it as meaningful. I donāt do that. It isnāt dishonest to ignore fringe scholarship, or to represent a scholarly majority.
If you notice, it actually included at least one of the phrases you originally quoted. If you like, we can look at the other phrases you originally quoted. But you still have to address the other phrases, and you still have to address the ANE milieu, and you still have to address the Nephilim. Clinging to Fundamentalist scholarship isnāt going to help you.
True, but thatās only if all the land is flat. Itās not: there are trenches 7000 m deep, there are mountains 8000 m and above. Sure, three could have been a 2 km deep food across the whole earth IF the continents spontaneously flattened themselves all out, but they didnāt.
Thatās provable, and your Ark myth isnāt.
With dog all things are possible.
[quote=āFortigurnā]
If you notice, it actually included at least one of the phrases you originally quoted. [/quote]
No you did not, the Hebrew is not the same.
Usually thats how it works isnt it? I guess I need to explain to you how this whole discussion thing works. If so, just ask/
ANE miieu: addrssed (you offered no refutation)
Nephilim: on hold till you can figure out how to address my verses with your lexicon.
And I do not use fundamentalist scholarship, nor promote fringe xian beliefs (you do one of these) so Iām good thereā¦
[quote=āFortigurnā]Because of the eight people on the Ark, none of them were Nephilim.Because the narrative excludes them from the ark; none of the people in the Ark were Nephilim.[/quote]What narrative?
[quote]Iām sorry that statement is not only untrue it is completely ignorant. Any written work is the product of its society. You donāt know what youāre talking about, and you present no evidence for your claims.[/quote]My, but you are a feisty one.
[quote]Yes, minimal scholarship, typically not mainstream, and typically Fundamentalists like Ken Ham. I have already made it clear that I confine myself to mainstream secular critical scholarship. In any case, I have already addressed all the arguments raised by those other commentators.[/quote] :roflmao:
[quote]You can have the discussion when youāre sufficiently informed, not before.[/quote]And how will you determine that I qualify for a discussion with you? When I limit myself to the same narrow understanding? When I accept the popular press as gospel?
In Genesis 7:4 (which you quoted), we see ×¤× × ××××, āface of the earthā. In Ezekiel 39:20 (which I quoted), we see ×¤× × ××××, āface of the earthā. Can you explain to me why you think these arenāt the same Hebrew words in both verses?
Where did you address it?
No thatās not how it works. You have to address all the evidence contrary to your view: the ANE milieu, the Nephilim, and the phrases indicating a cosmological rather than a geographical referent for the flood. You havenāt addressed any of this. There are three lines of evidence contradicting your interpretation of certain phrases as having a geographically global referent. This means you have to address all three in order to sustain your argument that these other phrases have a geographically global referent. You canāt claim that your points are legitimate unless falsified, you have to actually take the time to verify them.
But youāre using the same Fundamentalist arguments, supporting the same fringe Christian beliefs, and claiming like Fundamentalists that your arguments are legitimate until falsified. Why? Now letās look at your verses.
[quote=āConfuziusā]Gensis ch. 6:
×× ×Ö·×Ö²× Ö“×, ×Ö“× Ö°× Ö“× ×Öµ×Ö“×× ×Ö¶×Ŗ-×Ö·×Ö·Ö¼×Ö¼×Ö¼× ×Ö·×Ö“× ×¢Ö·×-×Öø×Öø×Øֶׄ, ×ְשַ××Öµ×Ŗ ×ÖøÖ¼×-×ÖøּשÖø××Ø ×ֲשֶ××Ø-×Ö¼×Ö¹ ×Ø×Ö¼×Ö· ×Ö·×Ö“Ö¼××, ×Ö“×ŖÖ·Ö¼×Ö·×Ŗ ×ַשÖøÖ¼××Öø×Ö“×: ×Ö¹Ö¼× ×ֲשֶ××Ø-×ÖøÖ¼×Öø×Øֶׄ, ×Ö“×Ö°×Öø×¢. 17 And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; every thing that is in the earth shall perish.[/quote]
I see you didnāt highlight āupon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of lifeā, or āeverything that is in the earthā, indicating that you donāt believe these to be unambiguously global in their referent, which is good. If thatās the case, then thereās no point in highlighting āfrom under heavenā, the meaning of which is qualified by context. But letās look at where else this is used.
Deuteronomy 2:
24 Get up, make your way across Wadi Arnon. Look! I have already delivered over to you Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Go ahead! Take it! Engage him in war!
25 This very day I will begin to fill all the people under heaven [×ÖøÖ¼×-×ַשÖøÖ¼××Öø×Ö“×] with dread and to terrify them when they hear about you. They will shiver and shake in anticipation of your approach.
So āall the people under heavenā here means all the nations in the land of Canaan, not āall the people on the planetā.
[quote]Genesis ch. 7
× ×Ö“Ö¼× ×Ö°×Öø×Ö“×× ×¢×Ö¹× ×©Ö“××Ö°×¢Öø×, ×Öø× Ö¹×Ö“× ×Ö·×Ö°×Ö“××Ø ×¢Ö·×-×Öø×Öø×Øֶׄ, ×Ö·×ØÖ°×ÖøÖ¼×¢Ö“×× ××Ö¹×, ×Ö°×Ö·×ØÖ°×ÖøÖ¼×¢Ö“×× ×Öø×Ö°×Öø×; ×Ö¼×Öø×Ö“××ŖÖ“×, ×Ö¶×Ŗ-×ÖøÖ¼×-×Ö·×ְק×Ö¼× ×ֲשֶ××Ø ×¢Öøש֓×××ŖÖ“×, ×Öµ×¢Ö·×, ×¤Ö°Ö¼× Öµ× ×Öø×Ö²×Öø×Öø×. 4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I blot out from off the face of the earth.'[/quote]
The word ××, āeveryā, used here for āevery living substanceā is the same word used in Ezekiel 38:20 for āall creeping thingsā and āall the people who are on the face of the earthā, neither of which has a global referent. Youāre doing it again, pointing to a word which has to be read in context, and making a claim for it without actually demonstrating from the context that the word is being used with the meaning you assert.
Same phrase used in Deuteronomy 2:24 to refer to the people of Canaan.