Is there anyone here who actually believed that the great flood was an actual event. Just wondering, of all the claims Christianity and Mormonism makes this must be the most stupid one.

I believe that at one time in the remote past, someone's basement was flooded! I am sincere in this belief and will brook no discussion that it did not happen! Blessed be the name of any good plumber.

after a horrible flood in 1982. Fortunately, I relocated before Katrina.

It was a horrible experience and I pity anybody who has gone through one.

What was so great about it? ;-)

Yeah, as a kid, I believed the story.
That went out the window when I was about 12, though.
'Cause school and stuff.

YOu probably believed in Santa too, but now you are grown up. In Mormondumb you never get to grow up.

Well here I go again. Re: flood

There are ancient Sumarian cuneiform tablets that clearly describe the deluge and the cause thereof. Not,by the way, 40 days and 40 nights of rain. Even so, by this record, all humanity was not destroyed. This story was clearly later interpolated into the Hebrew bible (old testament)
It is graphically described in "The Epic of Gilgamesh" and the ninth tablet of "The Book of Enki".

Believe or disbelieve this; it is of no importance to me. I am not on a crusade. However I feel that it is worthy of consideration.

Well, yeah, but...
Those ancient Sumerian tablets relate a story no more plausible than the bible flood myth. Which very likely makes that story just as much myth as the one in the bible.

What's pretty clear: the bible myth had its origin in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Did the Epic of Gilgamesh have its origin in another myth? As embellishment on a minor little local flood? Who knows.

What we do know: there was never a global flood. Ever.

"What's pretty clear: the bible myth had its origin in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Did the Epic of Gilgamesh have its origin in another myth? As embellishment on a minor little local flood?"

The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and took many Israelites captive circa 600 B.C. Some scholars theorize that the Babylonian Gilgamesh story was interpolated into Hebrew myths by those captive Hebrews. There is, of course, some archaelogical evidence of ancient floods in Mesopotamia:

https://ncse.com/cej/8/2/flood-mesopotamian-archaeological-evidence

"Similarities between the account of Noah's Flood in the Hebrew scriptures and the Mesopotamian flood tales are great and obvious. Despite some lesser differences, there is no reasoned body of opinion that claims they are unrelated. The accepted view is that the archetypal account originated in Mesopotamia. The earliest extant Mesopotamian version is far older than the biblical account, and the Flood story bears specifically Mesopotamian details that cannot reasonably be supposed to derive from a Hebrew original. Near Eastern scholars have consequently turned to the cuneiform sources."

ificouldhietokolob

I tend to disagree with you in part. However, even if you downgrade the flood by 50%, that is still one hell of a lot of water!

desertman Wrote:
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> ificouldhietokolob
>
> I tend to disagree with you in part. However, even
> if you downgrade the flood by 50%, that is still
> one hell of a lot of water!

By 50% of what? Enough water to cover the entire earth to the tops of the largest mountains like the bible story says?

Not possible. There isn't enough water on the planet, and there's no evidence any such thing has ever occurred.

Look at it this way: we're concerned now about the possible melting of the polar ice caps, and the rise in sea level that would cause. If all the ice at the poles, and on the mountains, and in the glaciers, and everywhere in the world melted, how much would sea levels rise?

About 230 feet. Enough to cover all the coastal regions of the world, no doubt. But even my house, about 28 miles from the ocean but at 2,000 feet elevation, would be high and dry. Heck, the fairly large city closest to me, at an elevation of 400 feet (above sea level) would remain high and dry.

There wasn't any "Noah's flood." The one mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the Noah story came from, wasn't anything more than what happens somewhere along the Mississippi valley every year (if it was based on a real event at all).

Places flood all over the planet every year. To the people in them, these are devastating. They're not "of biblical proportions." That's a made-up story with no basis in reality. :)

There used to be more water on earth. But Admiral Kirk hijacked a Klingon Bird of Prey, traveled through time via a slingshot around the sun, and took a couple of humpback whales - plus the water - back to the future with them.

Oh, of course -- I forgot! :)

It goes with being a great early civilization.

The places where agriculture took off first were fertile river valleys: the Tigris and Euphrates, riparian China, the Nile, etc. Why were those places so fertile? Because the rivers periodically flooded, dumping rich soil everywhere. Those were the places that grew rich enough, due to agriculture, to develop a priestly class, writing systems, and sophisticated religions.

Is that evidence of a global flood? Nope. It is just what you would expect given that after the last ice age the most sophisticated early economies and civilizations arose from farming.

Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon? :/

Yes. How is the grand Canyon relevant?

The ark floated over it while on its way to drop off the kangaroo at mt ararat. :/ https://youtu.be/SYoYVCScRNQ

My TBM parents would point to the Grand Canyon as evidence of the global flood because, they claimed, it was formed from the run off....

"My TBM parents would point to the Grand Canyon as evidence of the global flood because, they claimed, it was formed from the run off...."

Gee, I woulda thought that the Grand Canyon was formed by runoff from the melting snow from the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, which cascaded down the Colorado River.

Exactly like it still does today.

enjoy :)

https://youtu.be/C1XAJf5YtmY

Thanks, I did!

One of the missionaries I knew on my mission said that the Grand Canyon was where the City of Enoch was yanked from the ground (roots and all, I guess) as it was "translated" into heaven. But even in my relative ignorance at the time, I couldn't swallow that.

My parents testified to the reality of Noah's flood, which is proof that it ain't true.

Doesn't the word "global" in ancient times [Sumerian times, in this instance] mean something along the lines of...

...all of the world that you...plus your family and your community...plus everyone that anyone else known, or purported to have ever existed, knows/knew/heard of?

There could easily have been one massive flood which flooded all of the "known" world in a particular area...but would have ACTUALLY involved maybe two or three hundred thousand people at most.

There weren't that many people back then, and no one knew that they were living on a ball-shaped planet that was far bigger than any of them could have ever possibly imagined.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2016 02:38AM by Tevai.

"There could easily have been one massive flood which flooded all of the "known" world in a particular area...but would have ACTUALLY involved maybe two or three hundred thousand people at most."

As pointed out above in this thread, the flood myth most likely originated from ancient floods in the Tigris/Euphrates delta in Babylon. It's not surprising that a local civilization of 4000-5000 years ago might believe that such a flood covered the entire world---at least, the entire world of which they were aware.

I would imagine that some prehistoric native Americans living in the Mississippi River delta experienced some ancient floods which they thought covered their whole world, too.

Sure, but...
Even a flood of their entire known "world" (which, in their minds, was a flat disc a few hundred miles across, with domes of "heavens" over it) didn't kill even all the local humans and animals, and there wasn't some guy who built a big boat to save his family and "seed" animals.

So, sure -- there could have been an actual big local flood behind the story. But there doesn't have to be, humans are quite good at making up "just so" stories without any factual basis whatsoever.

Not all Christian denominations take the story of the flood, and many of the old testament stories, literally.

Many see it as allegorical.

That's silly! Al Gore has nothing to do the flood.

"Not all Christian denominations take the story of the flood, and many of the old testament stories, literally.

"Many see it as allegorical."

The problem with that stance is, where do you draw the line between literal and allegorical Bible stories? Such as Jesus's resurrection from the dead, for instance?

randyj Wrote:
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> The problem with that stance is, where do you draw
> the line between literal and allegorical Bible
> stories? Such as Jesus's resurrection from the
> dead, for instance?

Precisely...and, of course, the same goes for other OT and NT "accounts" as well.

I am thinking here of the Passover story in particular, because it is memorialized in one of the most important Jewish holidays every year, and it comes with a set "script" (the Haggadah) that Jews read very seriously, out loud, word-by-word...

...yet at least many, and often most (depends on the group, their Jewish self-affiliations, and the specific area this is taking place in) do not believe that the events in the story ever occurred.

The fact that "historical" events are being very seriously and sincerely commemorated does not conflict with the at least probable, and often scientifically undisputed, fact that they never happened.

The same thing occurs within Native American cultures, where founding stories, explanatory "historical" accounts, etc. are recounted, used as wisdom sources, and very carefully taught to each new generation, yet at least large segments of the tribal community do not believe they ever happened.

This phenomenon is characteristic of human beings around the world, and it absolutely applies to at least many of the OT and NT texts.

From the TSCC's own website regarding Noah:

"Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives were the only people on the whole earth saved from the flood".

That is stated as a fact, not a parable or some sort of symbolism.

That alone is a good enough reason for any rational thinking person to reject TSCC as an organization worth belonging to.

You don't even need to get into the divinity of JC or the polygamy of JS.

Once TSCC admits that perhaps the story of the flood could be something other than literal, then we can move onto the next question - were Adam and Eve really the first humans on earth, or perhaps is that too meant to be symbolic in some way?

Thanks Randy -

No - I had not read those threads before now.
Very good stuff indeed.

I found the responses from the apologists quite interesting (exasperating ?) about what is and what is not 'official church doctrine' regarding the flood.

TSCC has their own website which they use to communicate to the entire world what their beliefs are. Any reader of said website is bound to assume that what is written is 'official'. Its not just opinion.

Its really quite bizarre that TSCC has a prophet and 12 apostles that should easily settle a debate like this and yet apologists are allowed to muddy the waters with their own arguments.

I would love someone to ask one of the current 13 chiefs the direct question - was the flood a literal global flood that killed everyone except Noah's family or could it be something else?

If they answer that it was a literal global flood just as the myriad of scriptural quotations attest, then the apologists should have to accept it and stop debating it as they have been trumped by a higher authority.

I enjoy your threads. You have more patience with this stuff then I will ever have.

Another lie from Tony the Tiger: "Noah's Flood: it's GREEEAAATTT!!!"


(Sorry, I'm not really on my game today...)