Discovery Channel show on Noah's Ark

[decoski]

Just wanted to know what everyone thought about the recent show on the Discovery Channel regarding the Flood. For those who missed it, their conclusion was that the flood was only a regional event, the ark was much smaller, and that a handful of the local animals were taken aboard. I'd especially like the opinions of fellow Christians.

[Gilgaron]

This is the atheist board here, so your fellow Christians won't be able to respond.

The moderators can move it for you if you ask.

The conclusion appears to be similar to that of nonYEC Christians I've talked with.

[decoski]

My apologies. MODERATOR: please move this post to another forum, thank you.

[C. D. Ward]

I had seen the show advertised, but unfortunately had to be out of town and away from a TV when it aired. The conclusion of a local flood is not unwarranted (from what I've read) and certainly much better supported than the notion of a global flood.

I would have liked to see what support, if any, there was for the given conception of an "ark" and the part it played. How do they know any such construction existed? How do they know any animals at all were on board? Not that it seems a priori unbelievable (at least, not Discovery's theory), but it would have been nice to know just what support they drew for their theory.

Could anyone recap?

[BeHereNow]

Could anyone recap?

The only thing I could find on the Internet was this link:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20020909/noah.html#

It features a photograph of an "anomaly" jutting out of the side of Mount Ararat, but I couldn't enlarge the photograph. It just kept linking back to the page instead of a larger picture.

[EvoUK]

Yeah, i caught that program- was actually impressed because I thought it was going to be Discovery channels usual biased mess, but it actually showed why the flood story was bull... which is refreshing.

[bhukkadakota]

iv read that the flood stories all the ancient cultures have were the results of the ending of the ice age when all the ice melted.
can anyone confirm or deny this for me as i would be interested to know?

[C. D. Ward]

iv read that the flood stories all the ancient cultures have were the results of the ending of the ice age when all the ice melted.
can anyone confirm or deny this for me as i would be interested to know?
While nearly all cultures do have flood myths, I would think that proposing this (end of ice age) as the universal foundation would be rather difficult (if not downright impossible) to prove.

At any rate, talk.origins has a good summary of flood myths from cultures around the world, in case you're interested.

[SteveF]

iv read that the flood stories all the ancient cultures have were the results of the ending of the ice age when all the ice melted.
The last ice age ended around 10000 years ago. There were some pretty big meltwater releases around 11000 years ago. Not sure how these fit with flood myths - maybe they are too early, plus most major meltwater incidents would have been in the northern hemisphere where most of the ice sheets. Southern Hemisphere events would have been very local indeed.

[Kulindrichnus]

The last ice age ended around 10000 years ago. There were some pretty big meltwater releases around 11000 years ago. Not sure how these fit with flood myths - maybe they are too early, plus most major meltwater incidents would have been in the northern hemisphere where most of the ice sheets. Southern Hemisphere events would have been very local indeed.

Didn't the North American Ice Cap go somtime in the early Holocene? (5-8Ka)? I could be totally wrong as it's not my field but I recall hearing it a while back.

K

[Kulindrichnus]

Just wanted to know what everyone thought about the recent show on the Discovery Channel regarding the Flood. For those who missed it, their conclusion was that the flood was only a regional event, the ark was much smaller, and that a handful of the local animals were taken aboard. I'd especially like the opinions of fellow Christians.

Like YECs, I have a great interest in finding ways to lock science and the bible into a loop of circular reasoning for those ad-hoc bits of scripture for which I desire a firm scientific proof in order to prop up my personal prejudices. However, in my case these ad-hoc elements are less about a literal six-day creation or raising the dead and more about tales of drunkeness and cruelty.

Thus, when I hear that the latest scientific thinking says that Noah was a Beer Hauler, I have only to turn to my Bible to corroborate it because he was posessed of a massive boat called The Ark. So the Bible proves that Noah was a Beer Hauler, because he had a massive boat for doing it, and that Science agrees with God's Revealed Word tells us that we can be sure the Bible is literal truth in all other matters of sex, violence, and the use and abuse of alcohol. I can now use this knowledge as a platform in my campaign for equal time legislation for milk and Jack Daniels' in all school cafeteria.

Join my bible-backed plan, unless you are going to hell, tee-totallers.

K

Note: This post was prepared in a factory which handles humour, and it may contain traces of sarcasm. Please see our online allergy advice (http://www.deliaonline.com/cookeryschool/a_0000001003.asp).

[SteveF]

Didn't the North American Ice Cap go somtime in the early Holocene? (5-8Ka)? I could be totally wrong as it's not my field but I recall hearing it a while back.

K
Well kind of. The mid holocene (6ka) is taken as the point when the cryosphere reached modern day status. There were drips and drabs of ice hanging around in North America in the early holocene (including a small ice cap in the very north of Canada I think) but nothing too major.

I guess there could still have been some very local flooding as a result of these little blobs and this maybe helped the development of some regional flood myths. Certainly nothing too large though and nothing that should make us even consider the nonsense of a global flood.