I figured the same thing, and there are enough holes in the flood story to drain a mountain of water!That much water evaporating would alone drown the people in the ark; imagine the days of heavy humidity, and where could a palm tree grow if it was under 29,000 feet of water? Mt. Everest is 29,000 feet high, Mt. Ararat is 15,000 feet and if the ark rested on top of that, it would mean another 15,000 feet had to evaporate.
I believe the most compelling evidence for the flood story is the fact that almost every ancient culture has a flood story with many details matching the account in the Bible. Yeah, it wouldn’t be remarkable if the culture just mentioned a great flood, but the stories also contain elements like humans and animals spared in a vessel. That’s just too much of a concidence.
Here’s a better explanation: civilizations get started near rivers because people need water to drink and keep their crops alive. Rivers flood and people die. People create myths around the events.
The chart is pretty ridiculous: these points of similarity are very obvious. Who’s writing the story if humans weren’t spared? There aren’t too many ways to survive a flood, so I’m not impressed by “preserved in a vessel” either. Most of them say “animals spared” … how else do you explain animals? The chart says half the myths don’t have a divine cause.
Your “points” that the chart is ridiculous does nothing to take away from the fact that the similarities to the Holy Bible are striking. Here’s one example:
Masai (East Africa):
God resolved to destroy mankind, except Tumbainot found grace in His eyes. God commanded Tumbainot to build an ark of wood and enter it with his two wives, six sons and their wives, and some of animals of every sort. When they were all aboard and provisioned, God caused a great long rain which caused a flood, and all other men and beasts drowned. The ark drifted for a long time, and provisions began to run low. The rain finally stopped, and Tumbainot let loose a dove to ascertain the state of the flood. The dove returned tired, so Tumbainot knew it had found no place to rest. Several days later, he loosed a vulture, but first he attached an arrow to one of its tail feathers so that, if the bird landed, the arrow would hook on something and be lost. The vulture returned that evening without the arrow, so Tumbainot reasoned that it must have landed on carrion, and that the flood was receding. When the water ran away, the ark grounded on the steppe, and its occupants disembarked. Tumbainot saw four rainbows, one in each quarter of the sky, signifying that God’s wrath was over.
Obviously, several accounts show that a righteous family was spared so that nulls your question on who was left to tell the story.
Here we have other specific similiarities such as the dove and the ark of wood.
They’re not striking, though. Once you start from the fact that most ancient civilizations were near water, it’s pretty basic. There’s reason to suspect the Biblical story is inspired by real flooding, but the story elements you’re talking about aren’t remarkable at all, and the idea of a global flood is geologically and physically absurd.
You missed the point. I’m saying the “humans spared” thing is not remarkable. Of course humans were spared in the stories. They’re the ones telling the story.
The use of the dove is different in this story (Noah’s dove returns with an olive branch, this one never comes back). And what the hell else were they going to build a boat out of? Stone?
The fact is out of all the many species of birds, these two cultures both used doves in their stories. You gonna call that concidence? And I can post more examples that have incredible detailed story elements shared by God’s Holy Word.
Your argument is weak, but expected since atheists must always convince themselves that pro-Bible evidence is invalid.
No, it’s not a coincidence that they both used a domesticated species of bird. That would be common sense. However it looks like only three out of the 35 stories have a dove. If that really happened, wouldn’t you expect them all to include it? It’s in the Babylonian myth, the Aztec myth, and the Bible. And a lot of people believe the Babylonian flood story inspired the story of Noah in the first place.
Are we going to do this again? I’ve said the flood story is false because it didn’t really happen and it’s preposterous to treat it as a real story rather than a myth or an allegory, but I’m doing it without gratuitous and sarcastic comments about your position. Do you think you can do that?
Alterrnatively, (and, perhaps, with more likelihood of reality), the Maasai borrowed the story from the neighboring Lemba who may have brought that story with them from the Middle East.
Beyond that, doves are a species of birds that have been domesticated in a great many societies, making them a natural choice for such a story, and all large ships were built of wood in all societies until the nineteenth century. (As to it being an “ark,” that is probably a translation choice. What is the Maasai word that occurs in the story and how is it used in other contexts in their language?)
And, of course, this is without even going into all the issues that the bible cannot agree with itself as to how many animals were brought into the ark, the bible relies on a cosmology in which there is water above the “vault” of heaven, and that there is water stored beneath the surface of the land sufficient to cover the Earth, but in vaults large enough to allow that water to run off leaving mountains behind–no such vaults having been found either above the Earth or below it since that time.
To say nothing of the impossibility of housing two of each insect species in such limited space, to say nothing of higher vertebrates. Plus, absent geological evidence, flood myths do not prove an actual event, and certainly not a God. Occam’s Razor might, instead, suggest an ur-myth or a myth-template that humanity naturally uses.
That is merely your opinion. You don’t have concrete evidence that the flood never happened. If that was the case, the topic would not be debatable.
OTOH, I produced evidence. And I don’t expect this particular element (the dove) to be in every story. It is realistic that the stories will change as they are handed down from generation to generation. But they do retain enough similaries to the Bible that you can’t just dismiss it as common story elements for cultures living near a body of water. Ever played the telephone game?
Besides, you are wrong that the dove only appears in three stories. It is part of numerous Central America stories and Asia as well. Another example:
Altaic (central Asia):
Tengys (Sea) was once lord over the earth. Nama, a good man, lived during his rule with three sons, Sozun-uul, Sar-uul, and Balyks. Ülgen commanded Nama to build an ark (kerep), but Nama’s sight was failing, so he left the building to his sons. The ark was built on a mountain, and from it were hung eight 80-fathom cables with which to gauge water depth. Nama entered the ark with his family and the various animals and birds which had been driven there by the rising waters. Seven days later, the cables gave way from the earth, showing that the flood had risen 80 fathoms. Seven days later, Nama told his eldest son to open the window and look around, and the son saw only the summits of mountains. His father ordered him to look again later, and he saw only water and sky. At last the ark stopped in a group of eight mountains. On successive days, Nama released a raven, a crow, and a rook, none of which returned. On the fourth day, he sent out a dove, which returned with a birch twig and told why the other birds hadn’t returned; they had found carcasses of a deer, dog, and horse respectively, and had stayed to feed on them. In anger, Nama cursed them to behave thus to the end of the world. When Nama became very old, his wife exhorted him to kill all the men and animals he had saved so that they, transferred to the other world, would be under his power. Nama didn’t know what to do. Sozun-uul, who didn’t dare to oppose his mother openly, told his father a story about seeing a blue-black cow devouring a human so only the legs were visible. Nama understood the fable and cleft his wife in two with his sword. Finally, Nama went to heaven, taking with him Sozun-uul and changing him into a constellation of five stars. [Holmberg, pp. 364-365]
We do, in fact, have irrefutable scientific evidence that the Great Flood as described in the bible did not happen. You can choose to ignore that evidence, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
Anything is debatable, but not all debates are based in reality. There are debates as to whether Han Solo shot first.
The stratification of fossil layers around the world is proof there was never a global flood. If that’s not good enough, there’s the impossibility of all that water.
Again, yes, I can. These elements are not as remarkable as you are saying. People live near rivers, rivers flood and people die. They create myths around it. The fact that a few of these stories (a small minority) all mention a domesticated bird is not proof they’re true.
I would’ve referred to it if it was in the list you linked to earlier, but it wasn’t. I see I accidentally omitted the Tanzian story, which does mention a dove. That’s five stories with doves and 31 without. What does this prove about doves again? And why is this commonality more important than the fact that these stories - including the Altaic one - also have a ton of differences from the Biblical myth?
So, let’s say we all agree that the stories are too similar to have different origins and that they all arise from one particular story. So what? How is that evidence that the original story actually happened?
Y’know, if it’s commonalities in stories we’re trying to match up(instead of the facts themselves), then we have to make the conclusion there is a pantheon of gods and/or goddesses up there, instead of just one all-supreme deity.
How do you explain it besides the weak definite defense that is merely “concidential”
Forget about it being coincidental; I just said let’s say we all agree that it’s not. Now how about answering my question?
If it is irrefutable, why are scientists still debating it? One side must either be dishonest, or not accepting of reality.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Real scientists are not debating it. Religiously motivated people are trying to force a debate.
As tomndebb said, the East African story almost certainly came from the Middle Eastern one - and remember that the Noachian flood came from Gillgamesh. Do demonstrate that this is not true you would have to demonstrate that the East African story could be dated to the same time as the Biblical one. There was certainly plenty of opportunity for the myth to spread - Queen of Sheba, anyone?
It is interesting that the Greek flood story is totally different, and has the survivors climbing a mountain. Now that one probably does come from a different source.
I’ve seen a collection of flood stories which are all very interesting. In many the last survivors get out of their boat only to find the neighbors coming over the surrounding mountains (an Australian myth, IIRC) which shows the flood was pretty local.
Floods do leave traces. There was a gigantic flood in the Western US - but at nowhere near the time of the other floods - and by no where near I mean millions of years off.
The one origin theory would give credibility to the Towel of Babel story which gives more credibility to the Bible as a historical record, not a group of myths.
The real question is why would all these cultures take great care to remember an event if it was just fiction? A grand conspiracy spawning every major continent? I don’t think so.