Re: 12 Questions... please answer.

David L Burkhead (r3dlb1@dax.cc.uakron.edu)
3 Aug 1995 22:29:52 GMT

In article <513@crane.ukc.ac.uk> N.R.Harrison@ukc.ac.uk (nrh) writes:
>In article <3vot48$1go@kira.cc.uakron.edu> r3dlb1@dax.cc.uakron.edu (David L Burkhead ) writes:
>>In article <1995Aug2.194539.17559@bradford.ac.uk> D.Morgan@bradford.ac.uk (Dewi Morgan) writes:
>
>
>[deletia - good answers to silly questions]
[ 8< Great flood evidence? >8 ]
>>
>> No. Not a shread of such evicence. However, note that the
>>ancient Mesopotamians, particularly Sumer and Akkad (Akkadian, BTW, is
>>a Semitic language--linguistically related to Hebrew--thus suggesting
>>considerable cross contact), had "flood myths." Since that region was
>>subject to periodic catastrophic floods this is no surprise. In fact,
>>the story of Utnapishtim is almost identical with the Hebrew story of
>>Noah (since adopted by Christianity), and predates the existance of
>>any identifiable Hebrew peoples by two thousand years at least.
>>
>
>Have to disagree with this one, I'm afraid. There is a plethora of evidence
>for the Great Flood (or more specifically, a flood) at around 10kbp. This
>was the end of the last ice age, and geological evidence (based on isotopes
>of oxygen in deep-sea cores) shows a massive surge in the *area* of the oceans
>which would suggest a rise in sea-level of around 500 ft. Couple this with
>the universality of 'flood myths' from areas as distant as the Middle East,
>China, North America, Hawaii and Scandinavia, the mass mammal extinctions
>and various other pieces of evidence, and you have incontravertable proof
>of a massive flood; sadly, too long ago for creationists!

Here, you're making a mistake. I wasn't saying that there wasn't
evidence of large floods--even floods that would cause a rise in sea
level of 500 feet from where they were before--which was considerably
lower than where they are now. But I was answering the question of
whether there was evidence for a _specific_ "great flood"--the one in
the bible which would have happened about 4000 years ago, inundated
areas to an extent such that only the top of a major mountain (Ararat
by tradition) extended above it _after_ the flood began to recede, and
wiped all human life, except for those in the ark off the face of the
Earth.

One thing to note is that both Mesopotamian and Egyption written
history go back to well before this mythical flood. ("How long can you
tread water"--Bill Cosby)

While there have been floods, sometimes major ones, there is no
evidence that _this_ particular flood ever happened. And even the
"flood" from the end of the glacial period is dubious. It would not
have happened over a few days, a few months, even a few years, but
over several centuries (_very_ short by geologic standards, but very
long by human standards).

David L. Burkhead
r3dlb1@dax.cc.uakron.edu
d.burkhead@genie.geis.com
76435.1332@compuserve.com

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