Haven't you read the new edition?
Posted on 11/18/2007 8:58:45 AM PST by anymouse
An ancient flood some say could be the origin of the story of Noah's Ark may have helped the spread of agriculture in Europe 8,300 years ago by scattering the continent's earliest farmers, researchers said on Sunday.
Using radiocarbon dating and archaeological evidence, a British team showed the collapse of the North American ice sheet, which raised global sea levels by as much as 1.4 meters, displaced tens of thousands of people in southeastern Europe who carried farming skills to their new homes.
The researchers said in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews their study provides direct evidence linking the flood that breached a ridge keeping the Mediterranean apart from the Black Sea to the rise of farming in Europe.
"The flooding of the Black Sea was not well dated but we got it down to about 50 years," said Chris Turney, a geologist at the University of Exeter, who led the study. "As soon as the flooding is done, farming goes crazy across Europe."
The researchers created reconstructions of the Mediterranean and Black Sea shoreline before and after the rise in sea levels. They estimated the flood covered some 73,000 square kilometers over a 34-year period, causing mass displacement of people.
Previous archaeological evidence has shown communities in the region were already farming when the flood hit. The Exeter team suggests the mass migration caused a sudden expansion of farming and pottery production across the continent.
"We looked at all the earliest data on farming in Europe and we found a little bit of farming in Greece and the Balkans just before the flood," Turney said in a telephone interview. "When the flood happened, farming seemed to stop but it was re-established a generation later across Europe."
The researchers believe these people took their skills to new areas previously populated by hunters and gatherers where there had been no evidence of farming, Turney said.
The study also underscores the potential impact rising sea levels may have in the future, the researchers said. An expected one meter rise by the end of the century due to climate change would displace some 145 million people, Turney added.
It also paints a picture of the kind of mass disruption that has prompted some scientists to link the ancient flood to the origins of the biblical story of Noah's Ark, Turney said.
"When the Black Sea flooded at end of last ice age some people have suggested it was the origins of the Noah's Ark myth," he said. "If you lived in that basin it would have seemed like the whole world had flooded."
Isn’t how the Evos will try to explain what happened every which way so long as the explanation can’t be contrued as supporting the Biblical account of the flood.
Take fresh water fish and sea creatures and dump them into salt water and you get dead fish and sea creatures.
...so are some forrests when they haven’t been submerged for long, or very deeply!
According to Genesis the flood waters were on the earth for 150 days. Submerge fertile soil in salt water for 6 months and you pollute the ground water and destroy the lands ability to grow anything.
The Black Sea scenario is the more likely as the origin for the great flood story that can be ascribed to virtually all religions. For ancient peoples their entire world was the small area with which they were familiar and had travelled. Most people spent their entire lives within a 25-50 mile area. When their part of the world flooded then to them indeed the entire world was flooded.
Here we go again!
Haven't you read the new edition?
Big difference between melting ice glaciers and rain. (But the evolutionists need their story to fit in nicely).
There are a lot of numbers for mere storytelling - or is God creating a time line of events and history?
- "upon the earth an hundred and fifty days"
- "Fifteen cubits upwards"
- "forty days and forty nights"
- "six hundredth year...second month...seventeenth day..."
- "in the tenth month , on the first day"
- "and in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month"
- "in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month , the first day of the month" - "thou shall take to thee by sevens...not clean by two"
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interesting article
A little early, isn't it?
Short answer: Because stories about a ‘pretty big flood’ don’t make for compelling campfire tales.
Long answer: One has to take into account the size of the ‘world’ to small groups of primitive humans, not to mention our predilection for settling close to large bodies of water when you start talking about the prevalence of flood myths.
Taking a quick glance down your charts does show some similarities between the various flood myths. The most common being 1) Destruction by water and 2) Humans surviving. Both of these occur in all flood myths. Of course, this is not at all surprising. Indeed it would be far more surprising to find a flood myth where either the destruction was not caused by water or one where no one survived (who would create the myth?). The other two most common elements are 3) that animals survive and 4) that there is a vessel involved in the survival of either the humans or the animals or both. Again, that these common threads exist is not evidence of a common starting myth because they are such blatant, obvious, necessary elements of the story. Of course the animals have to have survived somehow, because they are still here. If the flood is a global or ‘world’ flood, then a vessel of some kind has to be involved as there is no where else for survival to take place. Anyone who set out to make up a flood story would certainly make sure that it contained all four of these elements.
What is more interesting is that the source of the flood being divine is recounted in slightly less than half of the listed cultures. No source is named for those who do not attribute it to God. Is not the most important aspect of that story the involvement of God? The destruction of the world at the hands of its creator and the survival of the one righteous family? And yet that aspect of the story falls away more than half the time. Indeed, in the smaller chart only 6 of 20 flood legends have the element of those saved worshiping in thanks of their deliverance, and only 5 indicate that the legend claims those who survived were particularly blessed! Isn't this exactly what you would expect to find coming from cultures who would all have experienced catastrophic flooding events regularly through their formative history (such as the one that has extant data supporting it’s having happened that is discussed in this article).
I could go on about obstacles that the Noah myth has to overcome, such as the lack of geological evidence, or genetic evidence, the lack of time necessary for the population of the Americas, and the age-old question of exactly how the kangaroos got to Australia; but I know that there is just no point because you made up your mind however long ago and, for whatever reason, the possibility that you are wrong terrifies you past the point of being able to consider it. So I will spare us all the bother.
Really, I just like typing.
I could go on about obstacles that the Noah myth has to overcome, such as..." Yes, you could go on about the obstacles YOU face in believing in the truth of the Bible, "but I know that there is just no point because you made up your mind however long ago and, for whatever reason, the possibility that you are wrong terrifies you past the point of being able to consider it. So I will spare us all the bother."
IMO, trying to use science to disprove someone else's beliefs makes you look petty.
"Really, I just like typing."
Actually, I think you like to 'see/hear' yourself type. Otherwise, you would not bother hitting POST if it was truly just about 'typing'.
;)
“IMO, trying to use science to disprove someone else’s beliefs makes you look petty.”
Why should belief be sacrosanct? Just because someone believes something doesn’t mean that everyone else should respect that belief. Some people believe Hillary Clinton will make a great president, should we not try to convince them otherwise? Some people believe that Socialism will cure the world’s ills, should we respect that belief because to try to convince them otherwise would be petty? I feel that biblical literalism is as dangerous an idea as any other in American society and more dangerous than most. Therefore I strive against it.
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