Posted on 06/17/2002 3:10:50 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
My God is infinitely greater (and exquisitely more subtle) than the one described in the Bible. My God created a universe perfect from the instant of creation for His inscrutable purposes, with no need for seams or thumbprints or incessant interference to keep it on the correct path. The God described in the Bible was unable to do that. Why?
There, you see? The fact that we still have them proves that they couldn't be ancestral to anything. ;^)
All antique nations retained stories of the flood. Greeks, Romans, Chinese and others spoke of handfulls of people and animals surviving on mountaintops and high places as well as on whatever could float for eight or ten months, and I assume the story of Noah is basically factual as well.
It is a dogma of establishment science that the tale of the biblical flood is a fairytale or, at most, an aggrandized tale of some local or regional flood. That, however, does not jibe with the facts of the historical record. The flood turns out to hae been part and parcel of some larger, solar-system-wide calamity.
In particular, the seven days just prior to the flood are mentioned twice within a short space:
Gen. 7:4 "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights;...These were seven days of intense light, generated by some major cosmic event within our system. The Old Testament contains one other reference to these seven days, i.e. Isaiah 30:26:Gen. 7:10 "And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth."
"...Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days..."
Most interpret this as meaning cramming seven days worth of light into one day. That is wrong; the reference is to the seven days prior to the flood. The reference apparently got translated out of a language which doesn't use articles. It should read "as the light of THE seven days".
It turns out, that the bible claims that Methuselah died in the year of the flood. It may not say so directly (if it does, I don't know where), but the ages given in Genesis 5 along with the note that the flood began in the 600'th year of Noah's life (Genesis 7:11) add up that way:
Gen. 5:25 ->Thus we have Methusaleh dying in the year of the flood; actually seven days prior to the flood..."And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years and begat Lamech. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years.
<i.e. he lived 969 - 187 = 782 years after Lamech's birth>
And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years and begat a son. And he called his name Noah...
<182 + 600 = 782 also...>
Louis Ginzburg's seven-volume "Legends of the Jews", the largest body of Midrashim ever translated into German and English to my knowledge, expands upon the laconic tales of the OT. Midrashim amounts to the full body of rabbinical literature, and often can flesh out the laconic stories of the OT.
From Ginzburg's Legends of the Jews, Vol V, page 175:
...however, Lekah, Gen. 7.4) BR 3.6 (in the week of mourning for Methuselah, God caused the primordial light to shine).... God did not wish Methuselah to die at the same time as the sinners...The reference is, again, to Gen. 7.4, which reads:
"For yet seven days, and I shall cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights..."The week of "God causing the primordial lights to shine" was the week of intense light before the flood.
What the old books are actually telling us is that there was a stellar blowout of some sort either close to or within our own system at the time of the flood. The blowout was followed by seven days of intense light and radiation, and then the flood itself. Moreover, the signs of the impending disaster were obvious enough for at least one guy, Noah, to take extraordinary precautions.
The ancient (but historical) world knew a number of seven-day light festivals, Hanukkah, the Roman Saturnalia etc. Velikovsky claimed that all were ultimately derived from the memory of the seven days prior to the flood.
If this entire deal is a made-up story, then here is a case of the storyteller (isaiah) making extra work for himself with no possible benefit, the detail of the seven days of light being supposedly known amongst the population, and never included in the OT story directly.
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I've been in many of these threads, and it seems to me that a lot of the "scientist" types are already either atheist or outright anti-Christian anyway. Why would anyone worry about driving away those who were never on our side to begin with?
And before you say, "Isn't it your 'Christian duty' to convert those heathens?" just let me remind you that it is not our duty to argue or convert anyone into our faith. We are merely tasked to present the Word of God and then pray that He works in your life. That's it.
It is only human ignorance that demands everything be wrapped up in a nice little box by their god and their bible or else it is invalid.
Because there is more to life than math and physics. God was not unable, He was unwilling.
As to your post, I would agree with you insofar as God must have a strong and deep mathematical aspect. Where we distinctly part ways is in the inference that that is as far as it goes.
What keeps me from going farther is that that is as far as it needs to go, to be in consonance with the universe as I observe it.
Tell me which day you're going to stand before ALLAH and shake your fist at him. I want to see that!
Tell me which day you're going to be reincarnated as a lowly roach and then shake your fist at BUDDHA! I want to see that!
God said it, I believe it, That settles it!
Persuade f.Christian of that, and I'll be truly impressed ;)
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