There are over 300 flood epics, well written before the Noahnic epic. The Biblical flood is written about 1700 BCE or so, while the older Sumer flood is a Nippur cuneiform tablet that was found by Thorkild Jacobsen. Thorkild Jacobsen is also a historian on the Eridu Genesis.
The younger revised epic of Noah is interesting as the epic of Noah is a much younger epic than that of the Epic of Ziusudra, who is a pious man and is saved from a flood. We see this later on with Noah and his family. Cool fact about the time of Noah, the common method of making rafts was to inflate sheep bladders like balloons and lash those together. Planks of wood or more likely reed mats could be placed on top.
A little on the ark of Noah, we begin with a Bible verse
Genesis 6: 14-16
Make yourself an ark (tēv�h) of gopher wood [came the instruction]; make rooms
(qinnīm) in the ark, and cover it (k�par) inside and out with pitch (kopher). This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks.
The biblical word tēv�h, which is used for the arks of Noah and Moses, occurs
nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. The flood and baby episodes are thus deliberately associated and linked in Hebrew just as the Atrahasis and Sargon Arks are linked associatively in Babylonia.
Now for something extraordinary: no one knows what language tēv�h is or what it
means. The word for the wood, gopher, is likewise used nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible and no one knows what language or what kind of wood it is. This is a peculiar state of affairs for one of the most famous and influential paragraphs in all of the world’s writing
The associated words kopher, ‘bitumen’, and k�phar, ‘to smear on’, are also to be found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, but, significantly, they came from
Babylonia with the narrative itself, deriving from Akkadian kupru, ‘bitumen’, and kap�ru, ‘to smear on’. In view of this it is logical to expect that tēv�h and gopher are similarly loanwords from Babylonian Akkadian into Hebrew, but there has been no convincing candidate for either word. Suggestions have been made for gopher-wood, but the identification, or the non-Hebrew word that lies behind it, remains open.
Ideas have also been put forward over the centuries concerning the word tēv�h, some linking it – because Moses was in Egypt – with the ancient Egyptian word thebet, meaning ‘box’ or ‘coffin’, but these have ended nowhere. The most likely explanation is that tēv�h, like other ark words, reflects a Babylonian word.
A cuneiform tablet dealing with boats from around 500 BC, now in the British
Museum, mentions a kind of boat called a á¹ubbû which is found at a river crossing, apparently as part of a vessel swap among boatmen:
BM 32873: 2
… a boat (eleppu) which is six cubits wide at the beam, a á¹ubbû which is at the
crossing, and a boat (eleppu) five and a half (cubits) wide at the beam which is at the bridge, they exchanged for (?) one boat which is five cubits wide at the beam.
The consonants t (in tÄ“vÄ�h) and á¹ (in á¹ubbû) are distinct from one another, so it is impossible that á¹ubbû, a masculine noun of unknown etymology, and tÄ“vÄ�h, a feminine noun of unknown etymology, represent the same word etymologically. I think that the Judaeans encountered the Akkadian boat word á¹ubbû used for the Ark in the story along with the other Akkadian ark words and Hebraised it as tÄ“vÄ�h. In this case the original consonants are less important; the idea was to render the foreign word, for it was only to be used twice in the whole Bible, once for Noah, once for Moses. The relationship between the words is thus that they are neither cognate nor loaned: the Babylonian was given a Hebrew ‘shape’. It is much the same as the way in which Nebuchadnezzar’s eunuch Nabu-sharrussu-ukin became Nebusarsekim in the Book of Jeremiah. This would perforce mean that the word á¹ubbû must have occurred in place of eleppu, ‘boat’, for Utnapishti’s Ark, in some first millennium BC Babylonian source for the Flood Story that we do not have now.
(Irving Finkel- The flood before Noah)
Noah and the Flood
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Society and its morals evolve and will continue to evolve. The bible however remains the same and just requires more and more apologetics and claims of "metaphors" and "symbolism" to justify it.
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There is much about this world that is mind boggling and impressive, but I see no need whatsoever to put it down to magical super powered beings.
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Post #3
.
I am still reading through all of the posts here. I believe that the flood happened exactly as the Bible says.
I am still reading through all of the posts here. I believe that the flood happened exactly as the Bible says.
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Re: Noah and the Flood
Post #4INDEX: More bible based ANSWERS
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 81#p826681
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Re: Noah and the Flood
Post #5[Replying to post 1 by enki]
I choose to interpret the flood and the story of Noah and the Ark metaphorically as well.
There are reasons for this:
1. You can't make all animals come aboard the Ark like that, in addition you need all sorts of food, preferably fresh, most certainly for the meat to lions. This suggests that the story is a kind of fairy tale, i.e., a story of other intention than fact.
2. The science of such a flood suggests that the flood hasn't happened in that global scale. At most, one can identify a limited flood for a certain area. This has been discussed for many years.
So, what can the numbers suggest? What should the message be? I think a useful angle is to consider the whole issue a matter of new times for the human kind. That there's a flood to happen in order to kill all sinful people and to save just and rightful people in a really big boat that carries them to a new beginning or a promised land that's approved by God self.
I choose to interpret the flood and the story of Noah and the Ark metaphorically as well.
There are reasons for this:
1. You can't make all animals come aboard the Ark like that, in addition you need all sorts of food, preferably fresh, most certainly for the meat to lions. This suggests that the story is a kind of fairy tale, i.e., a story of other intention than fact.
2. The science of such a flood suggests that the flood hasn't happened in that global scale. At most, one can identify a limited flood for a certain area. This has been discussed for many years.
So, what can the numbers suggest? What should the message be? I think a useful angle is to consider the whole issue a matter of new times for the human kind. That there's a flood to happen in order to kill all sinful people and to save just and rightful people in a really big boat that carries them to a new beginning or a promised land that's approved by God self.
I'm cool! - Stronger Religion every day! Also by "mathematical Religion", the eternal forms, God closing the door on corrupt humanity, possibly!
Re: Noah and the Flood
Post #6I agree with this view - and especially for Bible study.Aetixintro wrote: I think a useful angle is to consider the whole issue a matter of new times for the human kind. That there's a flood to happen in order to kill all sinful people and to save just and rightful people in a really big boat that carries them to a new beginning or a promised land that's approved by God self.
It hardly matters or makes any difference whether it was a real flood or a localized flood or if it must be totally literally accurate as that helps nothing.
What does help is to view the flood story as a metaphor and as a prophesy for the end times:
Isaiah 46:
9 " Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: "
-
When we view the flood story as a metaphor and as an end time prophesy = "declaring the end [times] from the beginning" = then the Bible tells us that waters are a symbol of people, see Revelation 17:15, so a flood of the entire earth would be people all over the planet earth.
The Arc is far more complicated to decipher because even the type of wood is a metaphor as are the animals and the 7 persons.
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Re: Noah and the Flood
Post #7Have you done any research on the topic?Aetixintro wrote: [Replying to post 1 by enki]
I choose to interpret the flood and the story of Noah and the Ark metaphorically as well.
There are reasons for this:
1. You can't make all animals come aboard the Ark like that
INDEX: More bible based ANSWERS
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 81#p826681
"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" - Romans 14:8
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 81#p826681
"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" - Romans 14:8
Re: Noah and the Flood
Post #8At 67 I am still capable of learning something newenki wrote: There are over 300 flood epics, well written before the Noahnic epic. The Biblical flood is written about 1700 BCE or so, while the older Sumer flood is a Nippur cuneiform tablet that was found by Thorkild Jacobsen. Thorkild Jacobsen is also a historian on the Eridu Genesis.
The younger revised epic of Noah is interesting as the epic of Noah is a much younger epic than that of the Epic of Ziusudra, who is a pious man and is saved from a flood. We see this later on with Noah and his family. Cool fact about the time of Noah, the common method of making rafts was to inflate sheep bladders like balloons and lash those together. Planks of wood or more likely reed mats could be placed on top.
A little on the ark of Noah, we begin with a Bible verse
Genesis 6: 14-16
Make yourself an ark (tēv�h) of gopher wood [came the instruction]; make rooms
(qinnīm) in the ark, and cover it (k�par) inside and out with pitch (kopher). This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks.
The biblical word tēv�h, which is used for the arks of Noah and Moses, occurs
nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. The flood and baby episodes are thus deliberately associated and linked in Hebrew just as the Atrahasis and Sargon Arks are linked associatively in Babylonia.
Now for something extraordinary: no one knows what language tēv�h is or what it
means. The word for the wood, gopher, is likewise used nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible and no one knows what language or what kind of wood it is. This is a peculiar state of affairs for one of the most famous and influential paragraphs in all of the world’s writing
The associated words kopher, ‘bitumen’, and k�phar, ‘to smear on’, are also to be found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, but, significantly, they came from
Babylonia with the narrative itself, deriving from Akkadian kupru, ‘bitumen’, and kap�ru, ‘to smear on’. In view of this it is logical to expect that tēv�h and gopher are similarly loanwords from Babylonian Akkadian into Hebrew, but there has been no convincing candidate for either word. Suggestions have been made for gopher-wood, but the identification, or the non-Hebrew word that lies behind it, remains open.
Ideas have also been put forward over the centuries concerning the word tēv�h, some linking it – because Moses was in Egypt – with the ancient Egyptian word thebet, meaning ‘box’ or ‘coffin’, but these have ended nowhere. The most likely explanation is that tēv�h, like other ark words, reflects a Babylonian word.
A cuneiform tablet dealing with boats from around 500 BC, now in the British
Museum, mentions a kind of boat called a á¹ubbû which is found at a river crossing, apparently as part of a vessel swap among boatmen:
BM 32873: 2
… a boat (eleppu) which is six cubits wide at the beam, a á¹ubbû which is at the
crossing, and a boat (eleppu) five and a half (cubits) wide at the beam which is at the bridge, they exchanged for (?) one boat which is five cubits wide at the beam.
The consonants t (in tÄ“vÄ�h) and á¹ (in á¹ubbû) are distinct from one another, so it is impossible that á¹ubbû, a masculine noun of unknown etymology, and tÄ“vÄ�h, a feminine noun of unknown etymology, represent the same word etymologically. I think that the Judaeans encountered the Akkadian boat word á¹ubbû used for the Ark in the story along with the other Akkadian ark words and Hebraised it as tÄ“vÄ�h. In this case the original consonants are less important; the idea was to render the foreign word, for it was only to be used twice in the whole Bible, once for Noah, once for Moses. The relationship between the words is thus that they are neither cognate nor loaned: the Babylonian was given a Hebrew ‘shape’. It is much the same as the way in which Nebuchadnezzar’s eunuch Nabu-sharrussu-ukin became Nebusarsekim in the Book of Jeremiah. This would perforce mean that the word á¹ubbû must have occurred in place of eleppu, ‘boat’, for Utnapishti’s Ark, in some first millennium BC Babylonian source for the Flood Story that we do not have now.
(Irving Finkel- The flood before Noah)
Thank you Irving Finkel for sharing this
somethings need repeatring