Flood: Global or Local

[kuboes1831]

You force scripture to make the flood global

[$cirisme]

I've always found the arguments for a local flood to be interesting, not paticularly persuasive but they are interesting. The whole "all flesh" that Solly brings up is an excellent point. Thanks

[bar Jonah]

You force scripture to make the flood global

After reading the devastating scriptural passage Solly just gave, how can you possibly say that?

You can't be serious?

[Socrates]

H.C. Leupold, Professor of Old Testament Theology at Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, in his 1942 commentary on Genesis, wrote:

[Genesis 7:19] A measure of the waters is now made by comparison with the only available standard for such waters—the mountains. They are said to have been "covered." Not a few merely but "all the high mountains under all the heavens." One of these expressions alone would almost necessitate the impression that the author intends to convey the idea of the absolute universality of the Flood, e. g., "all the high mountains." Yet since "all" is known to be used in a relative sense, the writer removes all possible ambiguity by adding the phrase "under all the heavens." A double "all" (kol) cannot allow for so relative a sense. It almost constitutes a Hebrew superlative. So we believe that the text disposes of the question of the universality of the Flood.

By way of objection to this interpretation those who believe in a limited flood, which extended perhaps as far as mankind may have penetrated at that time, urge the fact that kol is used in a relative sense, as is clearly the case in passages such as #Ge 41:57; Ex 9:25; 10:15; De 2:25; 1Ki 10:24. However, we still insist that this fact could overthrow a single kol, never a double kol, as our verse has it.

....

But still it is maintained that when the Scriptures refer to the Flood they speak only of the universal destruction of mankind and not of its universal extent. The passages employed are #Isa 54:9; Mt 24:39; 2Pe 2:5; 3:6 and the apocryphal passage #/APC Wis 10:4. However, if these passages be scanned closely, it will be seen that in none of them is there occasion to refer to other than the human beings as objects of destruction. But silence on the subject of the destruction of the rest of the physical world is by no means proof that the physical world was not included as a whole. Besides, no one actually knows to what extent men had spread abroad upon the face of the earth. The general assumption still seems to be that in seventeen centuries men had gotten but little beyond the region of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and this when the known longevity of at least some men gave the human race opportunity for more rapid expansion. Men may have colonized the Western Hemisphere before the Flood, for all we know.

[Socrates]

After reading the devastating scriptural passage Solly just gave, how can you possibly say that?

You can't be serious?

Quite so. Another reason to vote for Solly!

[Socrates]

Yea, but the text is also clear that the animals that had been effected by humanity is what had to die.

Romans 8:20-22 makes it clear that the Fall had cosmic repercussions.

If humanity at the time of the flood hadn't spread to where polar bears existed,

Polar bears are a post-flood variety of bears. They can hybridize with other varieties of bears, showing they are the same created kind. All you need to produce them is natural selection of existing information plus information losses of skin pigmentation and the dividing of digits (producing webbed paws).

there was no need to wipe them out and start again. When I say universal I agree with you that 'all humanity of that time' had to go, but the question is: where was all humanity?

And you claim it was only in Mesopotamia? Even though dating methods you and Ross (wrongly) accept place the Aborigines in Australia before the Flood?

And as Solly said for the rest.

[Socrates]

The likes of Hugh Ross have regurgitated Mesopotamian flood nonsense by 19th century compromisers like Hugh Miller and John Pye Smith. But the same exegetical and scientific problems remain:

• Ross claims that his local Flood left no evidence. But if so, then why are the scoffers morally culpable (2 Peter 3 says they are willingly ignorant of the previous cataclysmic destruction by water)?
• Any proposed Mesopotamian flood would be far more catastrophic than the Spokane Flood (you can tell from the land gradients) where the Ice Age Lake Missoula burst through a barrier and carved out the Channeled Scablands. So since this lesser flood left such graphic evidence, how could the Mesopotamian flood leave no trace?
• Mesopotamia is a half-bowl. And the gradient would make the waters pour down towards the south. So how did the Ark land in the opposite direction, and how was it levitated several hundred feet above the level of the proposed Mesopotamian flood? Local flood advocates do not generally argue that walls of water were held up supernaturally (but the attached cartoon shows the logical consequence of this compromise). The anticreationist Glenn Morton made these points in a review of Ross's book The Genesis Question, although they're nothing new -- Whitcomb and Morris made the same sort of points over 40 years ago in The Genesis Flood.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Moderator Notice

"Comprimisers" just isn't necessary Soc so often as a descriptive of those who hold different views, even if true, it is serving to inflame rather than educate and inform. If the subject of the post is exactly how someone is comprimising then the adjective may well be appropriate but to throw it in as a blanket adjecitve in a basically unrelated post is not necessary. I would ask that you ease up on that please.

***If you wish to take issue with this notice DO NOT do so in this thread.***
Contact the forum moderator or an administrator in Private Message or email instead. If you feel you must publically complain or whine, please take it to the Psychotherapy Room unless told otherwise.

[A Beautiful Truth]

For those of you willing to hear another view on the Flood, I posted in the "Apologetics" Forum concerning the Flood. I believe the Flood was local. I do not know how to do links to other threads, so I'll tell you that, if you are interested in hearing another view, it is post #64 in the Apologetics Forum in the thread entitled "When was the Sun Created." Mind you this is in a forum with many atheists so we can "show we are Christians by our love", no?



~Charleen

[bar Jonah]

For those of you willing to hear another view on the Flood, I posted in the "Apologetics" Forum concerning the Flood. I believe the Flood was local. I do not know how to do links to other threads, so I'll tell you that, if you are interested in hearing another view, it is post #64 in the Apologetics Forum in the thread entitled "When was the Sun Created." Mind you this is in a forum with many atheists so we can "show we are Christians by our love", no?



~Charleen

And show our love by the Truth.

[Socrates]

For those of you willing to hear another view on the Flood, I posted in the "Apologetics" Forum concerning the Flood. I believe the Flood was local.

Who doesn't know that. And I have shown how the Mesopotamian flood is not only anti-scriptural, but even fails to on its own raison d'être -- to fit in with secular geology.

I do not know how to do links to other threads,

Open another window, find the thread or post you want, then click on the aqua @ button in the reply window. Then insert first the title of the link then the URL.

Mind you this is in a forum with many atheists so we can "show we are Christians by our love", no?

As RI says. And see my post Compromising WFJs are ineffective witnesses, and misunderstand biblical agapè love And how 'loving' was it of your mentor Ross to portray the saintly scholar Ussher as someone counting on his toes and advocating Amway? I don't care that it was a comic.

[A Beautiful Truth]

Scripture Verse:

...Gen 6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
Gen 6:8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

Gen 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
Gen 6:12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
Gen 6:13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Gen 6:17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein [is] the breath of life, from under heaven; [and] every thing that [is] in the earth shall die.

Another expert at reading between the lines it seems. perhaps you could point out where your eisegesis is to be found? Seems categorical to me that God means all flesh, all that has the breath of life, including birds that could have flown away to the mountains - other than Kiwis and emu of course. Everything that is in the earth shall die.

Well, let's see. If a Bible skeptic came to you with the following verses, how would you respond?

"When the famine was spread over all the face of the earth...And the people of all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the earth." Gen. 41:56,57

But it does say, "all" the earth, does it not? Do you believe that at the time of Joseph that New Zealand and South America also suffered famine and the inhabitants actually made it to Egypt to buy grain? Well, it says "all" doesn't it? Context, context, context.

And what of Solomon? Yes, He was wise, but did men from all peoples really come? (I Kings 4:34) Do I doubt the Bible if I were to say, "no"? Or do I rightly recognize the importance of context?


Mankind did not spread out and fill the earth until after the Tower of Babel, therefore Noah's context was that area spoken of by geographical place names *in the scriptures*. Noah's world was Mesapotamia, and the ark did not rest on Mt. Ararat, but the "mountains of Ararat." BIG difference. Context, needs to be considered. A local flood would have wiped out ALL of mankind, because that is where ALL of mankind resided until after God dispersed people at the Tower of Babel. It is interesting that this area is called the "Cradle of Civilization". It is known that this area was indeed the first civilization and evidence of the first farming and domesticated animals.... (Keep in mind that unlike Socrates, I do not believe the primates that walked on two legs were human. I am talking of *humans*, not smart apes that used tools. So the fossil finds in Africa of primates do not count as humans spreading the globe before the Tower of Babel. I assume this was the evidence that was implied in one of his quotes about mankind spreading to the Western Hemisphere before the flood. What nonsense! I guess he got his information from more YE "science" journals...)

In addition, what would you say to the skeptic who asks also about Luke 2:1, "Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth."

Well, it does say of all the inhabited earth, does it not?

And what of Col.1:23? "...the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven..."

Does this mean the animals, too? It says "all" does it not?

And what of Romans 1:8? "First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. But it says the "whole world" so how can you deny that the Aborigines heard about the faith of the Romans? How can you deny that the Incas in Peru heard about the faith of the Romans, it says the "whole world" after all? Do you have to "read between the lines" to say that the "whole world" back then did not mean the "whole world" as today? Today's man has a different "take" on what the "whole world" means. Back then, it mean their world. Today we have modern travel and the internet so I can communicate with some guy in England without even getting out of my chair.

There is something going on here, and my guess is that you would have an apt answer to a skeptic who would inquire of you about these issues. Can you not also see the reason a Bible believer could also believe that the Flood was local, without having to "read between the lines"?

When considering this argument, please consider that mankind did not fill the earth until after the Tower of Babel. We do not have evidence that mankind filled the earth until after this time.

[Socrates]

Well, let's see. If a Bible skeptic came to you with the following verses, how would you respond?

By citing Leupold above. A single kol may not be universal, but a double kol rules out anything but a global perspective.

In addition, what would you say to the skeptic who asks also about Luke 2:1, "Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth."

Well, it does say of all the inhabited earth, does it not?

Nope, because here the Greek is [color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color]oikoumenh[color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color] (oikoumenè), which when used by a Roman means "the Roman empire". And indeed, Caesar Augustus decreed that all the [color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color]oikoumenh[color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color] / Roman Empire was to be taxed. Remember, it's the original language that counts!

[Socrates]

Oh, and welcome back, Steadele

[A Beautiful Truth]

By citing Leupold above. A single kol may not be universal, but a double kol rules out anything but a global perspective.

He is entitiled to his take on the matter....

Nope, because here the Greek is [color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color]oikoumenh[color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color] (oikoumenè), which when used by a Roman means "the Roman empire". And indeed, Caesar Augustus decreed that all the [color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color]oikoumenh[color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color] / Roman Empire was to be taxed. Remember, it's the original language that counts!

I knew you'd come through, Soc.