I´m losing my faith ...

BackFromTheDawn · Number of posts: 4617 Age: 23 Registration date: 2007-05-19

scourge39 wrote:

Don't sweat your understanding of the Flood narrative or other difficult passages of Scripture. There are many godly people out there who've done the best they can to understand the scope of the Flood and sincerely believe that it was localized and not global. I'm certainly in that camp.

At the end of the day, my faith is in Christ alone to save me. My views on who wrote what book of the Bible, how to interpret certain passages, will be meaningless at that point. It's Christ's blood that saves us, not how well or how correctly we understand and interpret Scripture.

Remember, while Scripture is important, we don't worship the Bible. Instead, we worship God who wrote it first and foremost. Throughout our lives, we can study Scripture, read every interpretation of it, and personally still remain undecided as to some of its meaning. That's okay. That doesn't make you a lesser Christian. Read the Psalms. They're filled with moments of doubt and uncertainty about life and God. They show us that those times will come and go hand in hand with living in a fallen world. I think your faith has been shaken up a bit, but it doesn't sound to me like you've lost it completely.

very well put. that basically is my response. the apex of our faith should be in the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ.

_________________
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Sabbath Steve · Number of posts: 544 Registration date: 2007-07-18

I think one thing important to remember is that if you are asking the question then you are not losing your faith,you are questioning it.I think it was C.S. Lewis that said to the effect that never is evil's cause more dire than when a person who is losing faith or thinks they are , still cries out to God,which logically speaking means that you haven't.To put it in simpler terms and I'm sure many of us have been in this position,have you ever prayed for God to give you more faith.We as flawed humans sometimes forget how illogical this is,if you asked God in the first place,then you have faith,maybe only that "mustard seed" but it is there.

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Zze · Number of posts: 91 Registration date: 2007-06-01

my problem is, I have no problem with other passages of the bible except this. I even have my own interpretation of Gen 1, I don´t believe it literally by any means , but the Flood involves something really not to be ignored by someone who believes in science as well ( Im studying Pharmac BTW) the destruction and reestructurarion of the whole human race , the story of the flood is the only one that make me feel uncomfortable with the bible or at least not believeing it wholeheartedly. All the stories of violence people criticize on the bible are acceptable to me, as noone should mess up with the God who created the universe. but this flood would be impossible as a whole world flood, it would sound exactly like a fairitale , for that matter, I believe it was not a whole world flood despite of fact that the bible seemingly claim there was. because Ive read on internet that there are evidences that that was some kind of "flood" on the region of the Middle East and many sites claim that the "ark of Noah" was found on the Ararat mountains on Turkey. and the I mean, I think there are "levels" of belief and I can assort that my belief in the existence of YAWHW is not always 100 % but its there. anyways thanks for sharing responses. Do anyone here believe in a whoile world flood ? how could the whole human kind be created from a single family and be differentiated in so many races in so few time if this flood happened some 5000 years ago ?

dOOm&gLOOm · Number of posts: 1477 Age: 23 Registration date: 2007-06-04

Maybe I'm dense, but I have never heard about Noah's ark being "discovered". Does anyone have any links or resources they could point me to for information on that?

EDIT: Sorry it's off topic.

_________________
... a chill rises from the soil ...
... and contaminates the air ...
... suddenly ...
... life has new meaning ...

Guest

Are you saying you believe in a young earth (5,000 years old)? If so, most true Evangelicals abandoned that notion decades ago. It's largely just a Fundamentalist assumption now.

Here's the definitive book on the old earth position (published by Zondervan, of all publishers. Sometimes, they never cease to amaze me). It was one of my seminary textbooks:

Davis A. Young Christianity and the Age of the Earth (Click on the title)

It certainly convinced me that the young earth theory is nothing more than Fundamentalist rhetoric that doesn't adequately handle the Biblical or geological evidence we have available to us. It's cheap and it should put some of your worries to rest.

The most important point to be learned about the Flood is not its scope, but rather the reason why God sent it to begin with:

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them." (Genesis 6:5-7, NIV)

God does not tolerate sin and his very nature demands that he judge those who continue in it. The Flood was a judgment on humanity, not on all of creation. So whether God flooded the whole earth of just that portion of earth where humans resided is irrelevant. The main thing God wants us to glean from the Flood narrative is that God eventually gives the wicked the punishment they deserve. One thing we do know is that, save for Noah and his family, the wicked people got what was coming to them.

If you're attending a Church that makes one's view of the Flood a test for orthodoxy, then I strongly suggest that you find another one that doesn't resort to that kind of hairsplitting.

dOOm&gLOOm · Number of posts: 1477 Age: 23 Registration date: 2007-06-04

I'm going to check that book out myself. Personally I've always been more of an old-earther, and I don't understand the attitude from both the Crhistian and non-Christian camps that Christianity and science don't go together. In my opinion, science should reinforce spirituality. In the case of Christianity, it certainly does.

_________________
... a chill rises from the soil ...
... and contaminates the air ...
... suddenly ...
... life has new meaning ...

Guest

dOOm&gLOOm wrote:

I'm going to check that book out myself. Personally I've always been more of an old-earther, and I don't understand the attitude from both the Crhistian and non-Christian camps that Christianity and science don't go together. In my opinion, science should reinforce spirituality. In the case of Christianity, it certainly does.

Here's the other textbook we used, which I almost forgot about:

Henri Blocher In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis

This should help you think through your understanding of the creation account. I loved it, I hope you do too. Blocher certainly offers a unique conservative perspective than the typical days vs epochs of time views.

VALEDICTION · Number of posts: 950 Registration date: 2007-04-13

Quote:

"'Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.'" --Genesis 7:2-3

"'Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.'" --Genesis 7:4

"Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark." --Genesis 7:21-23

Certainly sounds like a worldwide flood to me.

By the way, while the Scriptures tell us that it rained for forty days, we are also given some other, more curious data.

Above all, it's instructive to note that, prior to the Genesis flood, Scripture makes absolutely no mention of rain, except in Gen. 2:5-6, where it is mentioned that "the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth . . . but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground."

This curious hydration system appears to have remained in tact during the entire antediluvian age.

And, by the way, there is no mention of any boats during this age, and there is no mention of fishing.

And so, when Noah set about building his ark, I would suggest that the people around him had no concept of rain, nor would they have conceived any use for a boat, for there existed no major waterways (the only rivers known to have existed in the Antediluvian world flowed from Eden, and these are believed to have actually been underground channels that kept the land watered), and incidentally, so far as we know, the people of this age were vegeterians, and therefore would not have eaten fish (cf. Gen. 9:2-3).

Then in Gen. 7:11, we are told that "all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of heaven were opened."

And in similar fashion, in Gen. 8:2, we are told that "the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed."

By the way, if you're wondering what is meant by "the floodgates of the heavens", the answer if furnished in Gen. 1:6, where we are told that "God made the expanse [the earth's atmosphere] and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it."

And we are told that, on the next day, God ordered that "the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear."

Did you catch all that?

If we were examining the antediluvian earth from a cross-section model, we would see that there existed a sea of water below the earth's surface, and also a sea of water that encapsulated the earth's atmosphere.

Neither of these unique features exist in our present world.

And so trying to understand the Genesis flood from any model based on our own scientific observations is both hopeless and pointless, because the hydration system of today has very little in common with the hydration system of the antediluvian age.

By the way, if you're read up on the supercontinent theory, Pangaea, or plate tectonics, some suggest that it was the Genesis flood that caused Pangaea to split, and which initially set the plates into motion. Genesis 1:9-10 seems to describe the earth's land as one great mass, a striking similarity to Mr. Wegener's mysterious supercontinent.

Joe

Guest

The Hebrew word eres, translated 'earth' is very general. It usually means 'place,' or in some instances, 'land'. There's no planetary, or global dimension to the meaning of the word found in any of its OT uses. This is the strongest indicator that the Flood was localized and was only inflicted on those parts of the earth that were inhabited by people at the time it occurred. Again, you simply can't rely solely on English translations to address this issue.

Even in the NT, Acts 11:28 speaks of a famine 'all over the world.' No one debates whether this was a worldwide famine, since the Greek word, kosmos translated 'world,' frequently refers to a large, populated area and not the globe, no one gets unsettled by the fact that Luke was most likely referring to Rome rather than the whole world. In fact, the NIV translators help readers out by rendering the verse, "a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world." I believe it's possible, if not more likely, that Moses may have been referring to a specific area that was flooded, namely those places populated by humans, not the entire globe. We can't impose our modern understanding of what the word 'world' means in our day and age upon the Hebrew text.

This is the same arbitrary imposition that gets laypeople into trouble when they try to identify Behemoth and Leviathan in Job as dinosaurs, crocodiles, and hippos. Behemoth is simply a generic word used countless times in Scripture to denote unspecified beasts or animals and translated as such in all other Biblical occurrences (frequently in reference to animals that were sacrificed as offerings), nothing more.
Leviathan was a mythological creature and ruler of the underworld within the Ancient Near Eastern culture that surrounded Israel. You might say, he was the secular version of Satan. God was simply saying that even secular religion, like all other aspects of creation, is subservient to him. The writer of Job wasn't trying to show anybody dinosaurs. Plenty of capable, Godly men and women have bent over backwards to demonstrate this as the case. There's plenty of textual evidence within Ancient Near Eastern religious writings outside the OT to corroborate it. Yet, laypeople still insist in their unfounded 'folk' interpretations and pastors continue to pass them off as gospel. It boggles my mind!

The Flood was intended to punish humans, not all of creation. If we believe that we all came from Adam, then there was nowhere near the number of people on earth at the time of the Flood as there are today. While a global flood is possible because God is omnipotent, the Hebrew language is too general to suggest anything of global proportions. I believe that the Flood was a very specific display of God's wrath intended for specific people. The Hebrew doesn't indicate that a general punishment was poured out for what was clearly a very specific sin.

The interesting thing about Scripture, in both OT & NT, is that God inspired it to be written using some very nonspecific words. The words for 'world,' 'day,' hour,' 'word' and 'place' are some primary examples. None of them, when used in Scripture, carry the exact same meanings that we commonly ascribe to them in our day and age.

Some Christians assume that to take anything other than 'day' as a reference to 24 hrs or the Flood as global robs God of his power. All one can do is be as faithful as possible to interpret the Hebrew and Greek words that God inspired the Biblical writers to use. If it can be shown that the meaning of those words is limited, then, whether we like it or lump it, God himself put those linguistic limitations there so that we might better, not fully, understand Scripture.

A good rule of thumb when reading and studying Scripture is to avoid getting bogged down in all the minute details and focus on the big picture that God is conveying through a given book or chapter. This makes the seemingly difficult passages more manageable.

**Orion Crystal Ice** · Subject: Re: I´m losing my faith ... Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:21 pm

I enjoy the sanity you take the time to bring, sir, please keep it up. Cool

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I dream in shades of you.

VALEDICTION · Number of posts: 950 Registration date: 2007-04-13

Quote:

The Hebrew doesn't indicate that a general punishment was poured out for what was clearly a very specific sin.

If the Genesis flood was merely God's way of punishing sin, then we'd all better get buckled into our life preservers and prepare ourselves for the coming deluge.

Certainly, there was an element of judgment that took place here, but more instructively, Genesis 6 alludes to a gene pool problem that plagued the land.

And of Noah, not only is it said that he found favor in the eyes of the Lord, but the implication is that his ancestry was one that had not been affected by the Nephilim epidemic.

It goes to show just how bad off things had become during this era.

-- --

Genesis 6:5-10

"The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, 'I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.' But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

"This is the account of Noah.

"Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God."

-- --

Literally, this passage implies that Noah was unspoiled in his genealogy.

Believe it or not, this key attribute, plus the fact that he was a godly man, set him apart from the entire antediluvian world.

If your contention is that Noah could not possibly have been the only godly man on the entire face of the earth, I beg to differ, and really don't know what to say, except that I am reminded of the account of father Abraham, when he hopelessly pleaded for Sodom in Gen. 18:16-33.

Joe

**Orion Crystal Ice** · Subject: Re: I´m losing my faith ... Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:41 pm

Quote:

And of Noah, not only is it said that he found
favor in the eyes of the Lord, but the implication is that his ancestry
was one that had not been affected by the Nephilim epidemic.

I always read it this way as well. Of course, I have my ideas about that entire reference in the first place, so...

_________________
Dark motions, black eyes, and mournful lust, the wings of solitude
...I'm the hateful raven

I dream in shades of you.

Guest

VALEDICTION wrote:

Quote:

The Hebrew doesn't indicate that a general punishment was poured out for what was clearly a very specific sin.

If the Genesis flood was merely God's way of punishing sin, then we'd all better get buckled into our life preservers and prepare ourselves for the coming deluge.

Certainly, there was an element of judgment that took place here, but more instructively, Genesis 6 alludes to a gene pool problem that plagued the land.

And of Noah, not only is it said that he found favor in the eyes of the Lord, but the implication is that his ancestry was one that had not been affected by the Nephilim epidemic.

It goes to show just how bad off things had become during this era.

-- --

Genesis 6:5-10

"The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, 'I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.' But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

"This is the account of Noah.

"Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God."

-- --

Literally, this passage implies that Noah was unspoiled in his genealogy.

Believe it or not, this key attribute, plus the fact that he was a godly man, set him apart from the entire antediluvian world.

If your contention is that Noah could not possibly have been the only godly man on the entire face of the earth, I beg to differ, and really don't know what to say, except that I am reminded of the account of father Abraham, when he hopelessly pleaded for Sodom in Gen. 18:16-33.

Joe

I would say that Noah and his family were the only people who really pleased God at that time.

As for 'buckling up' for future judgement, Peter indicates that we'll need to do just that:

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. (2 Peter 3:3-7, NIV)

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. (2 Peter 3:10-12, NIV)

VALEDICTION · Number of posts: 950 Registration date: 2007-04-13

"They [the waters] rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet."

I just love the bandwidth of Scripture. As in military communications, where there is a potential for hostile jamming, the same is true in Scripture. If you've ever wondered why the same points are repeated over and over throughout Scripture, it's for such a time as this. So that if part of the message gets lost or corrupted, the essential meaning remains preserved.

So now, riddle me this:

Does the Hebrew word for "the entire heavens" also refer to a locality, and if it does, what is the Hebrew word for "high mountains"... or better yet, can you provide the Latin Vulgate or perhaps the Aramaic word for "the waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet"??

cyclops

Joe

Guest

VALEDICTION wrote:

"They [the waters] rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet."

I just love the bandwidth of Scripture. As in military communications, where there is a potential for hostile jamming, the same is true in Scripture. If you've ever wondered why the same points are repeated over and over throughout Scripture, it's for such a time as this. So that if part of the message gets lost or corrupted, the essential meaning remains preserved.

So now, riddle me this:

Does the Hebrew word for "the entire heavens" also refer to a locality, and if it does, what is the Hebrew word for "high mountains"... or better yet, can you provide the Latin Vulgate or perhaps the Aramaic word for "the waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet"??

cyclops

Joe

The Hebrew word for 'sky', shamayim, can refer to those parts of the heavens that one is able to see with the naked eye. It doesn't demand that one interpret it as meaning the entire blue sky. It certainly has the more limited meaning in 1 Kings 18:45. The Hebrew word for 'mountain,' har most commonly denotes a hill, not a mountain in the sense of Mt. Everest. The Hebrew literally says that the water rose 15 cubits, which is about 22 feet. There's no reason to totally dismiss the possibility that the waters rose to that depths only in populated areas.

I'm curious to know why you're interested in knowing the Aramaic translations for these words. The only portions of the OT written exclusively in Aramaic are Ezra 4:8-6:18 and Daniel 2:4-7:28. While Aramaic, which I never studied personally, gives some insight into Hebrew word meanings, it is not nearly as helpful as the Septuagint (LXX), or Greek translation of the OT, which is older than the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible commonly used in English translation.

As for the Latin Vulgate, it was used only as a secondary source by the KJV translators. They primarily used the Masoretic text and the Textus Receptus edition of the Greek New Testament as their source material. The Vulgate and LXX translations were primarily favored only when addressing passages that had previously been allegorized by Church tradition, such as Jerome's insistence that Isaiah 14:12 speaks of Lucifer, which the Hebrew doesn't suggest. This particular allegory was soundly rejected by the Reformers. In addition, the Latin Vulgate was more frequently used to translate the NT and much less for the OT of the 1611 KJV.

Devon Hill · Number of posts: 41 Registration date: 2007-04-13

[i]

Quote:

Behemoth[/i] is simply a generic word used countless times in Scripture to denote unspecified beasts or animals and translated as such in all other Biblical occurrences (frequently in reference to animals that were sacrificed as offerings), nothing more.

I'm not quite sure about that. The word Behemoth only occurs once in the Bible according to blueletterbible.org and that is in the passage in Job:

http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H0930&Version=kjv

Quote:

Leviathan was a mythological creature and ruler of the underworld within the Ancient Near Eastern culture that surrounded Israel. You might say, he was the secular version of Satan. God was simply saying that even secular religion, like all other aspects of creation, is subservient to him. The writer of Job wasn't trying to show anybody dinosaurs. Plenty of capable, Godly men and women have bent over backwards to demonstrate this as the case. There's plenty of textual evidence within Ancient Near Eastern religious writings outside the OT to corroborate it. Yet, laypeople still insist in their unfounded 'folk' interpretations and pastors continue to pass them off as gospel. It boggles my mind!

While I do agree that Leviathan can be and is used as a description of Satan, I don't think that the word is simply limited to that in the Bible. i.e. just like a serpent is an actual animal and also a name/description of Satan, the same thing I believe applies to the word Leviathan.

For example, Psalm 104:26 seems to definitely indicate that the Leviathan is a creature that lives in the sea that God Himself feeds, and it plays in the sea etc.

"So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou (God) hast made to play therein. These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season." (Psalm 104:25-27)

Here are other examples of Leviathan in the Bible as well - it seems to indicate that it is used in the context of a creature in the sea that probably was a dinosaur, and also in the context of Satan (which I would say Isaiah 27:1 is talking about).

http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H03882&Version=kjv

Guest

Behemoth is plural. 'OTH ' is a feminine plural ending in Hebrew. The singular form, behemah, appears 189 times in the OT. It refers to a beast 136 times and cows 53 times.

Leviathan can also be rendered 'whale', as it is in modern Hebrew. The Jobic and Isaianic are clearly mythological. Some see them as personifications of the world's governmental and political systems. Some interpreters see the Leviathan reference in Psalm 74 as a symbol of Egypt and in Isaiah 27:1 as a symbol of Babylon. In short, Leviathan can refer to any political power that is presently reigning, hence the name of Thomas Hobbes' book on the ideal state, Leviathan.

It's uncertain whether the reference to Leviathan in Psalm104:26 is metaphorical, mythological or actual. Seeing that all the other references are either metaphorical or mythological, it seems odd to suddenly shift to an actual creaturely reference in Psalm 104:26.

Here's more info:
Leviathan

VALEDICTION · Number of posts: 950 Registration date: 2007-04-13

Quote:

I'm curious to know why you're interested in knowing the Aramaic translations for these words. The only portions of the OT written exclusively in Aramaic are Ezra 4:8-6:18 and Daniel 2:4-7:28. While Aramaic, which I never studied personally, gives some insight into Hebrew word meanings, it is not nearly as helpful as the Septuagint (LXX), or Greek translation of the OT, which is older than the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible commonly used in English translation.

As for the Latin Vulgate, it was used only as a secondary source by the KJV translators. They primarily used the Masoretic text and the Textus Receptus edition of the Greek New Testament as their source material. The Vulgate and LXX translations were primarily favored only when addressing passages that had previously been allegorized by Church tradition, such as Jerome's insistence that Isaiah 14:12 speaks of Lucifer, which the Hebrew doesn't suggest. This particular allegory was soundly rejected by the Reformers. In addition, the Latin Vulgate was more frequently used to translate the NT and much less for the OT of the 1611 KJV.

:hockey:

Returning to the subject at hand, the Scripture states that "all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered".

Your interepretation overlooks the two key words, which I have underscored.

The floodwater did not simply cover the mountains [or "hills", if you prefer], but it covered the high mountains.

And this was not simply under the heavens [or "the sky as seen from a certain vantage point"], but it is said to have been under the entire heavens.

You're interpretation of these passages, while being quite scholastic, seems somewhat tortured, and more importantly, it seems to miss the simple truths and meanings.

If you want to convince me on the Hebrew, you'll have to do more than just quote the abstract definitions of Hebrew words. You'll instead have to show me examples of where the ancient Hebrew sages held this view. Take Nachmanides, for instance. I can assure you that Nachmanides believed in a worldwide flood, and he was certainly better acquainted with the Hebrew than anyone alive today.

The following data is taken from the introduction to the Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament, by John R. Kohlenberger III:

Quote:

What It Cannot Do

. . . it cannot be used by itself to "correct" or criticize a real translation. By "real translation" I mean one that was made for English-speaking people to read in normal English idiom, such as the NIV . . .

Mr. Kohlenberger was here speaking of his own publication, but his commentary rings true in our present discussion.

You cannot reinvent a Bible translation by criticizing random words that are taken out of context. And when I speak of context, I am not only referring to the grammatical context, but more importantly, the context in which the passage has been consistantly interepreted for hundreds upon hundreds of years, by people who would certainly have known the language better than you or me.

This business about a localized flood is one that is not found in the simple reading of the passage, nor is it to be found among any of the ancient commentators. And I seriously doubt that the early church fathers would have ever held such a view.

So where did it come from?

Well, dare I say, the theory must certainly be a product of what they call "cognative dissonance"... a psychological term which describes the uncomfortable tension that results from having two conflicting thougts at the same time. The contradicting cognitions serve as a driving force that compels the mind to acquire or invent new thoughts or beliefs, or to modify existing beliefs, so as to reduce the amount of dissonance (conflict) between cognitions.

The idea of a localized flood must have been put forward by those pedagogues who simply could not rationalize the idea of a worldwide flood, and therefore presented this theory as an alternative to the traditional, fundamentalist view.

Until yesterday, or perhaps the day before, I had never even heard of the view, and I can assure you that my library has no shortage of literature on the subject of creation.

Joe

xxxCainxxx · Number of posts: 30 Registration date: 2007-07-24

Orion Crystal Ice wrote:

Quote:

so let´s say "my" Christianity is too unorthodox ...

Welcome to the club. Cool

All 'religions' take elements of different things which are universally true, claim exclusitivity, and throw out the rest like it doesn't belong. Modern "Christianity" included. My current study of a lot of European Setian cults just confirms this sort of thing more. But let's be clear here and not throw the baby Jesus out with the bathwater, you see? I have a lot of thoughts about the Bible as a book, as a collection. Different interpretations of different books within it. Caution and sturm und drang to the max. Et al, et al. When you strip it down, it really depends on your thoughts of Jesus. Legalistic people and religion(s) shouldn't stop you from trying to broaden your faith-view within your existing belief in Christ - most Christians never do this at all and look where they stay and stagnate - but it *starts* with this foundation. You can prove A LOT of things that even Christians would deny, even though it helps our cause. You can find A LOT of things, in science, in life, in other religions, which when you track them down and study well, all go back to glorifying much of what Scripture has to say. BUT, He/YHWH is more or less the measuring stick and even if you do find overwhelming earthly evidence for everything, which you will, it still won't help your faith if you don't have any there in the first place. This is why it's written we start as spiritual *children*, and then through a *walk*, grow. The measuring pattern must be changed around and honest prayer will help that. Your confusion is just part of the big plan. Truth can be frightening to search out. WISE AS SERPENTS. WISE. Wisdom, prayer. From a fellow heretic, just try to start from there when you feel led to. Cool

I haven't been around long enough to know if you are..for lack of a better term..a "christian"...but this post was awesome. It appears(to me anywayz) that life is a giant series of patterns...circles even...and much of the time the patterns are too big to see...the forest for the tress kind of thing...and even when I've questioned certain things about YHWH, or the Word, even when I've totally turned my attention the other way in regarding the subject I've questioned...it always brings me full circle back to the Scripture. I usually end up finding another passage that makes the one I questioned all too clear.
And you're right..most "christians" do not question...anything...they follow their church like lambs. We should strive to be lambs...but HIS lambs...not a mans. Ironically, it is primarily christians themselves that push the lost away from salvation..

xxxCainxxx · Number of posts: 30 Registration date: 2007-07-24

I don't have time to go researching right this second, but perhaps someone else here knows off-hand....isn't the Flood documented in many different religions and historical documents? I could understand someone having doubts if the flood were only noted in the Bible...and I could even understand someone having doubts about other, more abstract portions of Scripture.....but I think I'm right about the Flood...so...

..if I'm mistaken please let me know..

Epic of Gilgamesh is one..