With David Palm, Mainly on Flood, Ark, Ararat

With David Palm, Mainly on Flood, Ark, Ararat · Continued Correspondence with Palm, Baraminology and introducing Carter, adding Carbon 14 and Lake Suigetsu

9 jan 2019 à 10:49

Me to David Palm

Hi, David ... someone took on the Flood and I answered:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Hemant Mehta took on the Flood ...
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2019/01/hemant-mehta-took-on-flood.html

11 jan 2019 à 18:52

David Palm to me

Hi Hans-Georg, thanks for sharing your posting. I've read a few reviews of Jan Peczkis's (aka "John Woodmorappe") "feasibility study" and I thought the rebuttals were cogent. Ultimately I agree with Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX (author, The Realist Guide to Religion and Science) that a global flood presents insuperable difficulties given what we know of the world and thus, per the direction of Sts. Augustine and Thomas, as made magisterial by Leo XIII and Pius XII, we should seek a different understanding of the biblical text. Perhaps something along these lines?

[reopening to check title inhibited]
http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Carol%201.pdf

12 jan 2019 à 11:14

Me to David Palm

"Ultimately I agree with Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX (author, The Realist Guide to Religion and Science) that a global flood presents insuperable difficulties given what we know of the world"

Sts Ausgustine, Thomas Aquinas, Steno (founder of geology) did not agree.

"and thus, per the direction of Sts. Augustine and Thomas, as made magisterial by Leo XIII and Pius XII, we should seek a different understanding of the biblical text."

Would you mind telling me what is "magisterial" since these popes as per what documents?

Esp. pertaining to a world wide flood?

"Perhaps something along these lines?"

Will have a look perhaps ...

sam (12.I.2019) 14:19

Me to David Palm

Here is my review on Carol, it is cut up in pieces to accomodate messaging:

"The scientific disciplines of geology, geography, archaeology, biology, and physics can also accurately be applied to the events of ancient times."

• 1) insofar as they have anything to say, since past events usually depend on history, not on them.
• 2) and obviously, under the Bible.

"One of the basic tenants of many biblical literalists (creation scientists) is that Noah's Flood was a universal phenomenon - that is, flood waters covered the entire planet Earth up to at least the height of Mount Ararat, which is ~17,000 feet (5000 m) in elevation."

Ararat can have risen, both at end of Flood and since Flood.

Indeed a rising of mountains and lowering of deep sea oceanic basins would be the ideal explanation of how Earth gave dry land after the Flood (adding an ice age which lowered the overall sea level for a crucial period of time).

"Corollary to this view is the position held by flood geologists that most of the Earth's sedimentary rocks and fossils were deposited during the deluge of Noah as described in Genesis 6-8."

Correct.

"To explain this universal flood, flood geologists usually invoke the canopy theory, which hypothesizes that water was held in an immense atmospheric canopy and subterranean deep between the time of Creation and Noah's Flood."

For waters of the deep, agreed. For flood gates of heaven, no, since I rather believe Oxygen was higher and Hydrogen of space lower down, and this opening of the Flood gates was a mixture and explosion of Brown's gas.

"Along with this catastrophic hydrologic activity, there was a major geologic change in the crust of the Earth: modern mountain ranges rose, sea bottoms split open, and continents drifted apart and canyons were cut with amazing speed."

The processes here described started to happen, but went on after the Flood, as per disposal of water (and as per Atlantic now isolating Old World from Americas, while Americas had to be populated human and animal wise from OW after Flood - though this could also involve a sinking of Atlantis at about the time of Babel).

"All animals and plants died and became encased in flood sediments, and then these fossil-bearing sediments became compacted into sedimentary rock."

Basically correct. However, very many of them were first crushed to no longer recognisable.

"Biblical context also makes it clear that "earth" does not necessarily mean the whole Earth. For example, the face of the ground, as used in Gen. 7:23 and Gen. 8:8 in place of earth, does not imply the planet Earth. "Land" is a better translation than "earth" for the Hebrew eretz because it extends to the "face of the ground" we can see around us; that is, what is within our horizon.10 It also can refer to a specific stretch of land in a local geographic or political sense. For example, when Zech. 5:6 says "all the earth," it is literally talking about Palestine, a tract of land or country, not the whole planet Earth. Similarly, in Mesopotamia, the concept of "the land" (kalam in Sumerian) seems to have included the entire alluvial plain.11 This is most likely the correct interpretation of the term "the earth," which is used over and over again in Gen. 6-8: the entire alluvial plain of Mesopotamia was inundated with water. The clincher to the word "earth" meaning ground or land (and not the planet Earth) is Gen. 1:10: God called the dry land earth (eretz). If God defined "earth" as "dry land," then so should we.12"

If all dry land was inundated, so were the seas.

As to Mesopotamian alluvial plain, it does not include Ararat.

"For example, Acts 2:5 states: "And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven." Does this passage mean every nation under the whole sky of the planet Earth or only the nations that Luke, the writer of Acts, knew about? Certainly it did not include North America, South America, or Australia, which were unknown in the first century AD"

If Jews from both Trier and India were present (arguable), that would imply both Trier and India were inundated during the Flood.

I don't think that is compatible with Americas or Australia not being inundated.

Unless of course both of these rose out of the seas only after the Flood.

"An excellent example of how a universal "Bible-speak" is used in Genesis to describe a non-universal, regional event is Gen. 41:46: "And the famine was over all the face of the earth." This is the exact same language as used in Gen. 6:7, 7:3, 7:4, 8:9 and elsewhere when describing the Genesis Flood. "All (kowl) the face of the earth" has the same meaning as the "face of the whole (also kowl) earth." So was Moses claiming that the whole planet Earth (North America, Australia, etc.) was experiencing famine? No, the universality of this verse applied only to the lands of the Near East (Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia), and perhaps even the Mediterranean area; i.e., the whole known world at that time."

Very well, suppose Mediterranean, Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia and also Syria and Elam were experiencing hunger, then all of them were inundated. Now, again, this is not physically compatible with a non-inundation of South Africa (where fossils at Karoo speak loudly of the Flood). Or Americas and Australia, of course.

"The "earth" was the land (ground) as Noah knew (tilled) it and saw it "under heaven" that is, the land under the sky in the visible horizon,13 "and all flesh" were those people and animals who had died or were perishing around the ark in the land of Mesopotamia."

There are several things wrong here.

• 1) Noah's geographic knowledge extended well beyond his tilling and the visible horizon
• 2) While a flooding of lower Mesopotamia (essentially Babylonia) might be compatible with a local or regional Flood, one of all Mesopotamia would not be so (Zagros mountains in Turkey are involved in Assyrian Mesopotamia).
• 3) Carol is trying to talk circles around the text and traditional understanding of the Bible, while blandly saying NOTHING about the common understanding of geology except a blank capitulation a few paragraphs earlier to what she terms "the principles and findings of modern geology" without even attempting to raise a little question.

"Woolley aptly described the situation this way: "It was not a universal deluge; it was a vast flood in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates which drowned the whole of the habitable land" for the people who lived there that was all the world (italics mine)."

Woolley is not a Church Father.

"A universal deluge and specifically the canopy theory is also based on Gen. 2:5-6:"

Parts of what she calls the canopy theory (the ones that she is calling it after) is from a certain reading of these verses, which I do not share and also from a reading fo "waters above the heavens" which I do not share either. To my mind, they are modern aberrations.

The universality (true global sense) of the deluge is not so based and this reading is only meant as a scientific help to this universality and one which I very obviously think dispensable.

"Another verse in the Genesis account that is key to whether the Noachian Flood should be interpreted as being universal or local is Gen. 7:20: "Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered." Flood geologists take this passage to mean that the floodwater rose at least fifteen cubits above Mount Ararat, their presumed landing place for the ark. But there are difficulties with this interpretation."

Here we come to an interesting question.

The context of the verses have mountains covered with fifteen cubits of water. It is also the normal translation. That Hebrew allows a fifteen cubits in total upward and mountains only being hills lower than fifteen cubits is already out of court by the height of the Ark. It's thirty cubits high, which Carold forgets.

"One difficulty involves the translation of the Hebrew word har for "mountain" in Gen. 7:20 of the King James Version. This word can also be translated as "a range of hills" or "hill country," implying with Gen. 7:19 that it was "all the high hills" (also har) that were covered rather than high mountains. To make matters more complicated, the Sumerians considered their temples (ziggurats) to be "mountains," calling them "É. kur," which in Sumerian means "house of the mountain" or "mountain house."20"

Sumerian only exists after Babel, 101 to 529 years after the Flood. So, Sumerian puns on ziggurats are out of court.

Carol mentions King James, which is not authorised, but we have:

τὰ ὄρη τὰ ὑψηλά.- hardly hills
montes - we can check Rome's topography for difference between collis and mons
the mountains - not hills (DR, not KJ)

"So, to which of these scenarios was the biblical writer referring in Gen. 7:20? Were the flood waters fifteen cubits above the highest mountains of planet Earth; were they fifteen cubits above the "hill country" of Mesopotamia (located in the northern, Assyrian part); were they fifteen cubits above the tops of ziggurat temple mounds ("mountains") in southern Mesopotamia, thus dooming all the people who ran to the high temples for safety; or were they only fifteen cubits above the Mesopotamian alluvial plain? Or, as suggested by Ramm, does the "fifteen cubits upward" refer to the draft (draught) of the ark; i.e., how deep its 30 cubit depth (Gen. 6:15) was submerged in the water when the ark was loaded?22"

Church Fathers certainly rule out it being only alluvial plain, or only hills in it or only even Assyria.

We do not have any indication Noah was even in Mesopotamia (or what is now so) prior to the Flood.

However, the draft of the Ark is a good point. How could Noah KNOW he was 15 cubits over the highest mountain and therefore 15 cubits or more over other very high mountains?

• 1) He built the Ark on the highest pre-Flood mountain
• 2) He knew the water was 15 cubits over it when the Ark took off.

"Another difficulty with Gen. 7:20 is: How did Noah measure the depth of the flood at fifteen cubits?"

By the draft of the Ark, as just mentioned.

"Upon a tempestuous global ocean, where mountains were supposedly rising and continents were rapidly moving apart, how could Noah have taken a pole measurement on top of a mountain like Ararat? The biblical account (Gen. 7:14) seems to suggest that the waters increased continuously until the ark was gently lifted up above the earth (land),"

• 1) A global ocean may be tempestuous, but God would have tempered the storm where Noah was and the Ark was specifically built for it
• 2) Waters rising gently with the Ark is uncontroversial therefore, even on a true universal flood view
• 3) Noah knowing the draft would imply he knew when water was 15 cubits above the mountain where he was and his knowing geography as in pre-Flood world would imply he knew what mountain was the highest.

And one more, Carol is trying to make this a gentle interruption in Mesopotamian culture, when Apostle Peter says that the world that was was destroyed.

Is she "a Jewish shill" alias (less conspiracy centred) someone who looks across to the synagogue's readings without consulting either NT or CF?

"No geologic evidence whatsoever exists for a universal flood, flood geology, or the canopy theory."

Except, canopy theory is irrelevant, and also nothing a geologist could have or lack evidence for, since outside his domain, and for flood geology, plenty of evidence does exist. When it comes to geologic evidence, suddenly she is not problematising anything at all, just accepting what is presented as a Fundie - whose Bible is not the Bible.

"Modern geologists, hydrologists, paleontologists, and geophysicists know exactly how the different types of sedimentary rock form, how fossils form and what they represent, and how fast the continents are moving apart (their rates can be measured by satellite). They also know how flood deposits form and the geomorphic consequences of flooding.24"

She's taking all of this on blind faith.

"Flood Geology. In addition to a lack of any real geological evidence for flood geology, there are also no biblical verses that support this hypothesis. The whole construct of flood geology is based on the original assumption that the Noachian Flood was universal and covered the whole Earth."

A Jew would perhaps limit the relevant Biblical verses to Genesis. We have NT too.

2 Peter 3:[5] For this they are wilfully ignorant of, that the heavens were before, and the earth out of water, and through water, consisting by the word of God.[6] Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

One of the reasons for a canopy theory is heavens that were before perishing. Was there a water canopy that perished? Has the "solar system" changed? Did God take advantage of the Flood to rearrange the Universe (even introducing globe earth then, as suggested by Akallabêth, if we take a hint from fiction)?

It does NOT mean that Mesopotamian alluvial plain perished momentarily before reemerging.

"Since the Flood was supposedly worldwide, then there must be evidence in the geologic record left by it."

Sure, and with 2 Peter 3, skip "supposedly".

"Since the only massive sediments on Earth are those tied up in sedimentary rocks, and because these rocks often contain fossils, this must be the "all flesh" (Gen. 7:21) record left by Noah's Flood."

Fairly correct, also the position of Nicolas Steno, founder of modern geology and also more or less martyred by ill reception as a bishop in North Germany and Denmark (some have asked for his beatification).

"And since sedimentary rock can be found on some of the highest peaks in the world (including Everest, the highest), then these mountains must have formed during and after the Flood."

Well, yes, the sediments forming during the Flood and their piling up into mountains after it.

"The "leaps of logic" build one on top of another until finally, as the result of this cataclysmic event, almost all of the geomorphic and tectonic features present on the planet Earth (e.g., canyons, caves, mountains, continents) are attributed by flood geologists to the Noachian Flood."

Well, it was the largest cataclysm.

"Does the Bible actually say anything about mountains rising during the Flood?"

This is an appeal to Sola Scriptura.

We cannot go "x is not in the Bible, without x the normal exegesis of y is impossible, therefore we must ditch the normal exegesis of y" but we must rather go, "the patristic exegesis of y is indispensable, so, if it cannot stand without x, x is indirectly proven by the Bible".

"No, but it does say that mountains and hills were in place before the Flood (Gen. 7:19, 8:4)."

Indeed it says so, but it doesn't say they were the same height as those afterwards (nor that they weren't).

"Does the Bible say anything about sedimentary rock, fossils, or drifting continents? Not one word."

I think I saw something in Psalms or Job, though .... here:

"Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters."
[Psalms 73:13]

• 1) sediments formed during the Flood are describable as "sea" and as "made firm".
• 2) some dino fossils, fairly many, are found without head.

"All of these things are read into the Bible from a centuries-past interpretation of it."

Supposing it were true, ignoring Bible outside Genesis, flood geologists would not be reading this into the actual text, but take this as corollaries of the text with later discovered evidence.

"Most important from a literalist perspective, it can be shown from the Bible (Gen. 2:10-14; Gen. 6:14) that the four rivers of Eden flowed over, and cut into, sedimentary rock strata;"

God can have well created rocks of same type as later sediment. This doesn't mean the four rivers were cutting through sediments with fossils with them.

More importantly, four rivers obviously were assembling waters from between water divides. The sediments forming above them would have left many divides and therefore approximate place of much of four river beds in place. The fact that in the pre-Flood world they were coming from a single river and now they are not shows there was a major geological disaster between these times.

"that the bitumen (pitch) used by Noah to caulk the ark was derived from hydrocarbon-rich sedimentary rock"

Pitch can also be derived from burning wood, it is then called tar.

"The Bible itself never claims that all of the sedimentary rock on Earth formed at the time of the Noachian Flood: only flood geologists make this claim."

The Bible itself never claims that the Flood was local to Mesopotamian plain, only Carol et al. make this claim. Again, this is an appeal to Sola Scriptura. Divorcing text from both patristic exegesis and from logical corollaries.

"Vapor Canopy. Why is a vapor canopy invoked by many biblical literalists (creation scientists) as the proper interpretation of Gen. 2:5-6? Because some kind of extra water source is needed to make the Noachian Flood universal (the original assumption). There simply is not enough water in Earth's atmosphere today to supply more than about 40 feet of water to the ground worldwide,26 nor is there any evidence of vast reservoirs of subterranean water (past or present) that could have supplied this water."

• 1) If Seas are lots deeper, we sea the water from the Flood in the seas.
• 2) Think I saw some recent news on subterranean water.
• 3) Does not take into account my idea Oxygen atmosphere reached much higher and Hydrogen over heavens much lower than now, so Brown's gas could have formed when God so wanted it.

"in order for Mount Ararat (17,000 feet high) to have been covered by the Flood."

Unless Ararat rose higher during Flood after its being covered and then rose higher after that. Some of it is volcanic formed under water.

"Also, how could the wind (Gen. 8:1) have evaporated water 3-6 miles deep in less than a year (Gen. 8:13)?"

How did the wind divide the Red Sea? A normal wind couldn't - a miraculous one could.

"Before this, both Islamic and Christian tradition held that the landing place of the ark was on Jabel Judi, a mountain located about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of the Tigris River near Cizre, Turkey (Fig. 1)."

Interesting ... that could leave all of Ararat a post-Flood mountain.

Cizre is 377 m above the sea. Count higher mountains than that as part of the post-Flood rearrangement of tectonics and you can see how the dry land before the flowing down of the waters from new topography needed a miraculous wind.

Cizre is also nearly due east from Sanliurfa and therefore Göbekli Tepe ... where I think Babel was.

"A universal model for the Noachian Flood hinges on Mount Ararat being the landing place of the ark, because if the ark had landed on this mountain, it would imply that the water level would have had to have been at an elevation of at least 17,000 feet;"

This is simply a strawman, CMI and AiG do not claim Ararat was as high and also have 2 Peter 3.

"Furthermore, it is not clear if in Noah's time (~2900 BC) the Mount Ararat region was even part of what was later to be called Urartu.40"

The relevant time is actually between Noah's Flood 2957 BC and Moses' lifetime (with Exodus in 1510). Noah could have used one name for the landing place and Moses another one, more comprehensible in his day.

"As shown on the geologic map of Turkey,55 the Ararat construct (including the two strato-volcanoes Great Ararat and Little Ararat) cuts across Devonian, Permo-Carboniferous, Cretaceous, Eocene, and Miocene sedimentary rock. The volcanoes have erupted along a southwest-northeast trending lineament, which became established at the beginning of the Miocene (~20 million years ago)."

She is just taking on faith that layers labelled as Devonian, Permian, Eocene or Miocene represent millions of years. She does not even begin to deal with the alternative theory that where fossils "representative" of these labels are actually found:

• either we deal with sea biotopes, where several can be on top of each other (trilobites under elasmosaur in Bonaparte Basin, several layers of marine invertebrates in Grand Canyon)
• or we deal with land biotopes where you have not anywhere on earth (does she even know this palaeontological fact?) two superposed levels (possibly excepting when one is clearly post-Flood, like Younger Dryas).

"The claim of flood geologists is that all (or almost all) of the sedimentary rock on Earth formed at the time of Noah's Flood, and this includes the sedimentary rock of the Ararat region. But Mount Ararat itself cuts across sedimentary rock, and so must be younger than this rock."

Fair enough when it comes to identifying Mt Ararat as the landing place, less so when it comes to deunking Flood geology as a whole.

That one line of logic (involving height of Ararat) does not lead to a global Flood but to an impasse does not mean no other line of logic leads to a global Flood.

"The flood-geology scenario that is implied, according to the actual stratigraphic relationships present in the Mount Ararat region, is thus: (1) sediments (and dead animals) were deposited out of the flood waters; (2) then these sediments were compacted into fossil-rich sedimentary rock; (3) next volcanic lava erupted, intruding into and flowing over this sedimentary rock; (4) then the entire huge volcanic Ararat construct cooled; so that (5) finally, Noah's ark could land on Mount Ararat all in the space of one year's time!"

Let's check if it is even all that impossible. Correcting some detail.

• 1) animals lived there and Flood waters brought about lots of mud making them into fossils within sediments
• 2) solid rock at this stage is not necessary, thick mud is enough
• 3) eruption flowing over thick mud (and drying out some)
• 4) Flood waters cooled the lava very quickly (both depth and streams running freely all over earth would contribute)
• 5) Ark landed where it was still somewhat warm (also, some of the drying out from the lava heat could visibly have shown as a drying out from wind).

"Not only does this scenario propose a series of physical impossibilities, furthermore the Bible claims none of this!"

To the second, 1) Flood geology does not rest on identification of landing place, 2) Carol appeals to Sola Scriptura, to the first, the "physical impossibilities" are not such.

"that is, on mountains that existed in the already-known (to the Sumerians of Noah's time) land of "Urartu," or what is now the area of southeastern Turkey (Fig. 1)."

Sumerian is a nation which only exists after Babel and on a LXX reading of when Peleg was born, this can definitely have been well after Noah died.

That said, Moses is the final redactor of the text (barring an ongoing redaction of linguistic updates by priests descended from his brother, which as to purely linguistic detail is possible, as with how vowels are represented), so we would want to know what "mountains of Ararat" meant up to the time of Moses. From Ezra to any later text up to LXX, we can depend on Pharisees not changing any wording, but Ezra's time is after Mt Ararat is already within Urartu.

Next, we have a reference to Mount Judi - unlike Cizre itself, it has an elevation of 2,089 m (6,854 ft) - at the highest point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Judi

And lo, "1 or 2 km higher than now" is one of the Flood year water figures Jonathan Sarfati is presenting ... it is not compatible with a purely local or regional flood.

"Jabel Judi (Cudi Dag) is a mountain range partly composed of the Cudi Limestone of Jurassic-Cretaceous age that rises above the Cizre Plain. This plain at about 500 m elevation is surrounded by low hills in the north, gently sloping ridges in the south, hilly land in the west, the Jabel Judi mountains in the east, and alluvial valleys that become shallow southward away from the foothills.60 All of the streams within the plain are tributaries to the Tigris River."

At "about 500 m" she misses the highest point. As to "of Jurassic-Cretaceous age" that usually would mean from the Flood.

"Vineyards. The wine grape of antiquity, Vitis vinifera, is what is referred to in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.61 Vitis vinifera has been cultivated for thousands of years, probably originating as a wild plant in the Transcaucus area, then being domesticated in the area between the Black and Caspian Seas, eastern Turkey, and the Zagros range, sometime before 4000 BC.62 It is certain that viti- culture was practiced and wine was made in (northern) Mesopotamia sometime before 3000 BC and exported to Egypt.63 Therefore, it is unlikely that Noah (~2900 BC) was the first person to ever drink wine and become drunk (Gen. 9:20-21), as is the view held by some Christians."

She has a problem in accepting the uniformitarian carbon dates as well calibrated. Carbon date 4000 BC is post-Flood, post-Babel, perhaps from Abraham's childhood or a little earlier.

She simply has no clue that Young Earth Creationists (me among us) have this idea of a carbon 14 level rising fairly abruptly after Flood to present levels.

Her table of Archaeological Periods in Mesopotamia is giving carbon years which we do not consider as real years.

[From]		[To]		[Name]
~5500		3800 BC		Ubaid
~3800		3100 BC		Uruk
~3100		2900 BC		Jemdet Nasr
~2900		2750 BC		Early Dynastic I
~2750		2600 BC		Early Dynastic II
~2600		2350 BC		Early Dynastic III
~2350		2150 BC		Dynasty of Akkad
~2150		2000 BC		3rd Dynasty of Ur
~2000		1600 BC		Old Babylonian

Genesis 14, due to a reference to Asason Tamar and more probably to its chalcolithic than to its neolithic clinches Abraham about 80 years around a carbon date around the limit Uruk and Jemdet Nasr.

If 1935 BC is carbon dated as 3100 BC, we had 1165 extra years, or an original carbon content of 86.855 pmc.

Even 5500 BC in carbon dates is after Peleg's birth, and putting Peleg in 2556 BC and end of Babel in carbon dated 8500 BC, we have a carbon date lag (or instant carbon age) of 6056 years, meaning 48.067 pmc.

So, in "5500 BC" the carbon level was between 48.067 and 86.855 pmc, let's just call it the middle (while this is dumb, it illustrates). At 67.461 pmc you have 3250 extra years meaning it was 2250 BC - between births of Peleg and Abraham.

So, there is no archaeological argument for Noah not being first person to be drunk. Indeed, Calvin uses such an case for accusing Noah of falling into the sin of drunkenness and Haydock duly censor him. Again, argument from Matt. 24:38 can be off, if the words used by Our Lord are euphemisms for cannibalism, vampyrism and gay marriage.

Normal eating and drinking of alcohol and heterosexual marriages open to life are hardly a sign of the last times.

However, geographic argument is acceptable.

"That the pigeon was already at least partially domesticated in Mesopotamia by Noah's time comes from al'Ubaid, where a row of sitting pigeons is pictured on the limestone frieze of a temple façade dating from ca 3000 BC."

That temple, as said, is more likely to be from Abraham's time than from Noah's.

Carol deploys a great ingenuity about the Bible text while showing a total naiveté about uniformitarian "science" (including its dating methods).

Discussion of Judi Dagh's advantages (p. 179) is acceptable in points 1 to 3, as far as I can tell, but here we go to points 4 and 5:

"The Cizre area was already known to the Sumerians by Jemdet Nasr time (Table 1), as many Uruk-age trading colonies and routes had been well established in this region by or before 3100 BC.85 It is possible that Noah, as the "king" of Shuruppak,86 would have known about the mountains of Urartu, and that he may even have headed toward this high ground to escape the flooding of the Mesopotamian lowlands."

• 1) Jemdet Nasr is too late for Flood.
• 2) While Noah may be reflected in later Sumerian legends, we cannot identify his real historic person straightoff with a Sumerian one.

"If the ark did land in the Cizre area, then it means that the Flood stayed within the (northern) boundary of the Mesopotamian hydrologic basin. This in turn implies a local flood because if the flood was universal, why would the ark not have floated to somewhere outside the boundaries of Mesopotamia some place like Europe or Asia?"

• 1) This presupposes that Noah started off from Mesopotamia. It cannot be established bc he is described as a Sumerian king in later Sumerian sources, anymore than he can be described as a non-human giant just bc Norse myth calls him Bergelmer and pretends the Flood came from the blood of his grandpa Ymer. It also cannot be established from any Biblical datum.
• 2) Also, Mesopotamia is within Asia, and
• 3) highest point of Mount Judi is too high for a purely regional Flood.

"It is now estimated that the number of animal species on Earth falls somewhere between 1.5-6 million,89 and if "all flesh" also includes extinct animals and insects, this is multiplied into many more millions."

Carol has not (had nt in 2002) heard of Baraminology? 16 species of hedgehog or 25 species of hedgehogs and moonrats can easily have descended from one couple on the Ark, as is also the case with ostriches, emus, elephant birds and kiwis, not forgetting moa birds.

And so on.

"How did animals migrate to the Old World from the New World and from places like Australia? Or, how did they get from Mount Ararat to places like Australia without crossing oceans and without leaving descendants in the Old World?"

Right after the Flood there was an ice age and sea levels were lots lower, sea Sahul Sunda for where and when animals came to Australia. This is btw how evolutionists account for it too, except they take Sahul Sunda as having been way earlier.

"How did the ark carry food for all of these animals for one year's duration (Gen. 6:21)?"

Fish did not need to be stored on the Ark ... it can have included a fish pond even if the text doesn't say.

C. 6 - 8000 kinds and two of most of them leaves plenty of room on the ark.

"How did only eight people - Noah, his wife, three sons, and three daughter-in-laws (Gen. 7:13) - care for at least two of all of the animal species on Earth?"

Animal kinds. Obviously, all hedgehogs were two back then, not 32. Or 50. Farming rationalisations may give clues.

Plus some animals can have hibernated.

"How did large animals like the dinosaurs fit on the ark, if "all flesh" included extinct animals as well as nonextinct ones?"

A newly hatched dinosaur doesn't weigh a ton. Noah had no reason to take fully adult ones.

"How could marine life have survived the Flood?"

Some marine life didn't, that is why we have so much chalk and so much marine fossils/

"Would it not have been crushed by tremendous water pressure"

As if it couldn't swim closer to top?

"and dilution of ocean water with fresh water?"

As we know oceans were salty prior to flood?

"How did all of the various kinds of animals descend the steep side of Mount Ararat, which is even difficult for humans to climb in modern times?"

Judi Dagh will do, and Mount Ararat would have risen since that day.

"Universal flood advocates counter these concerns by heaping up miracles."

Not quite, no.

"God miraculously caused the animals to migrate to (and from) the Middle East. Or, angels picked up all of the animals and carried them to the ark."

That kind of is implied by the actual text:

7:[9] Two and two went in to Noe into the ark, male and female, as the Lord had commanded Noe.

At least suggested.

"God miraculously caused the animals on the ark to hibernate for a whole year, thus limiting their need for food and care."

With a certain rolling period, hibernation may have come as automatic as with winter. For some of the animals.

"Only taxonomic families (not individual species) were taken on the ark, and present-day species have somehow descended from these families within the last 5,000 years or so."

That is not a miracle. It is called genetics, it is called mutations, it is called genetic drift, it is called reproductive isolation and it is called natural selection.

"No miracles regarding the animals are mentioned, and if the Bible is to be taken at face value, it must be assumed that Noah went out and gathered the animals himself. This factor alone limits the geographic region of the Flood to Mesopotamia, because it is hardly conceivable (nor logistically possible) to envision Noah collecting animals from places like New Zealand, Australia, North America, or South America."

Carol is thinking of archaeological Mesopotamia carbon dated 3000 BC. I disagree on first sentence, due to 7:9, "the animals went in" and Noah admitting them on the Ark and assigning them places would be sufficient obedience to God's command, but also, we have no way of knowing Noah started off in Mesopotamia AND the "3000 BC" carbon date of that region would be Abraham's time, not Noah's.

For NZ we don't have any clear evidence of pre-Flood zoology except dinosaurs.

"All told, the animals taken into the ark may have numbered in the hundreds, but probably did not exceed a few thousand."

Woodmorappe agrees on "not exceed a few thousand". Or at least, not exceed 15 000. All individuals counted.

"even a boat typical of ca 3000 BC"

Seriously? Carol means the type which were current in times carbon dated to then, right?

No, I don't think so. Ark as described in the Bible (which she is now forgetting to take at face value, despite her initial pro forma proclamation of the principle) was more like a tanker.

"There is also no archaeological evidence for a universal flood. No flood deposits correlative with those in Mesopotamia have been found in Egypt, Syria, or Palestine, let alone in other parts of the world more distant from the Middle East."

What Carol takes as "Flood deposit" of Mesopotamia is a post-Flood one.

The post-Flood (that is excluding Neanderthals) archaeology of these places begins after the Flood.

"That the Flood did not extend even to the land of Israel is alluded to in Ezek. 22:24: "a land [Israel] nor rained upon in the day of indignation [day of God's judgment by the Flood].""

Oh, that would be why some Rabbis believed Holy Land was spared the Flood. I think this exegesis of Hezechiel is wrong and it was the withholding of rain which was God's indignation (for instance on Achab).

"The Bible is not the only place where Noah's Flood is recorded. The story of the great deluge has also been found on cuneiform tablets collected from archaeological sites in Babylonia, Assyria, and lands surrounding Mesopotamia, the earliest of these being a Sumerian inscription found at Nippur and belonging to the close of the third millennium BC."

C. 2100 BC? As that is a carbon date, it is probably closer to Moses than to Noah, and it is after JOseph, if he is recalled as Imhotep, since that would imply the carbon date for his pharao's sarcophagus was 2600 BC or even somewhat older.

"While these nonbiblical texts have a definite mythological component to them, they still have a historical base that attests to an unusual environmental catastrophe that happened in the land of Mesopotamia at about the beginning of the third millennium."

• 1) "mythological" is a buzz word
• 2) they have a false theology to them - the maker of man sidestepping the king of gods to save man
• 3) historical value is true
• 4) but not limited to Mesopotamia.

In other words, while they also witness to the global Flood (as does the Altai Flood legend), they are less accurate history than the Bible.

BUT interpreting them as referring to Mesopotamia alone (or accepting that if that is part of their text) is making for even less accurate history in the modern researcher.

"There is both epigraphical and archaeological grounds for believing that Ziusudra (the Sumerian name for Noah) was a real prehistoric ruler of a well-known city, the site of which (Shuruppak, or the modern-day mound of Fara) has been archaeologically identified."

Here Carol prefers Sumeria or Babylon over Israel and the Church.

"Flood legends from around the world exist simply because flooding has occurred in most parts of the Earth at one time or another. All of these flood stories - except for those from within and surrounding Mesopotamia - are essentially different from the biblical narrative and have only a few indeterminate elements in common with it."

False. Altai Flood legend is from a region not very Flooded and definitely refers to a global Flood. A legend from new world about Sipapuni may reflect a memory of the existence aboard the Ark (where there certainly were ants, giving food to birds).

Greek legend combines elements from 3 Biblical events : Flood, Abraham and Sarah being barren, Lot and his daughters finding a world which the daughters believed they had to repeople, Sodom's sin involving (though in fact not limited to) inhospitality.

I nearly missed, Carol refers to Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis part 2, 4.

I just found out he was a Jew yesterday and commented on him. While I value Pearlman, I think he's wrong on detail, but Cassuto is not even from the haredim.

"I've read a few reviews of Jan Peczkis's (aka "John Woodmorappe") "feasibility study" and I thought the rebuttals were cogent."

Palm, when your source is listening to Cassuto and ignoring 2 Peter 3, it is not very interesting if John Woodmorappe's real name is Peczki, since at least he would be one of the Hebrew converts to Christianity, which is more than can be said for Cassuto. Wait, was the implication that he was an apostate Catholic?

Well, with the post-Vatican II chaos, I am if not mollified, at least not quite surprised.

sam (12.I.2019) 16:58

Me to David Palm

"Far from being a fundamentalist, John Woodmorappe had not been raised to believe in scriptural inerrancy in any way."

John Woodmorappe
https://answersingenesis.org/bios/john-woodmorappe/

If he had been raised a Catholic p r o p e r l y ...

While it is possible that God made miraculous provisions for the daily care of these animals, it is not necessary—or required by Scripture—to appeal to miracles.

I actually just read up on Carol ... Carol A. Hill is Presbyterian. This means, she has no qualms on flouting Church Fathers and also she has like a Dunning Kruger (as have Protestants in general) about her level in Scriptural knowledge.

lun (14.I.2019) 17:19

Me to Davd Palm

As you seem to have had a fabulous Sunday meal, you may be in a mood to continue ...

Were you thinking of maths such as this one:

The Math of the Great Flood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5svTzxVa-xQ

Bc, I actually changed the premisses slightly and corrected the maths, here:

Maths of Flood - Correcting Premisses
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2019/01/maths-of-flood-correcting-premisses.html

mar (15.I.2019) 18:43

David Palm to me

It sounds like you're arguing that all of the diversity that we observe now rapidly evolved from just a relative handful of "kinds" in just the past few thousand years, in spite of a gigantic genetic bottleneck? If this is overcome by reference to miracles, what is the point of calculations and other naturalistic arguments regarding dimensions, logistics, etc. of the ark? If we were to find that there are too many animals to fit on the ark, or too few people and hours in the day to care for them, why not simply invoke miracles to explain this as well?

With regard to the Fathers, Fr. Robinson has recently translated a passage from the biblical scholar Fr. Fulcran Vigoroux, first secretary of the PBC under St. Pius X (The Fathers' Understanding of Genesis 1
https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/the-fathers-understanding-of-genesis-1) The principle argument is that the Fathers had no problem incorporating information gleaned from scientific inquiry into their exegesis of Scripture, nor should we. Sts. Augustine and Thomas are quite explict in laying out these principles and these principles have been made magisterial by Leo XIII and Pius XII. So, the argument goes, Fr. Robinson and I and other do follow the Fathers in their principles, even if not in each of their conclusions.

God bless, David

mar (15.I.2019) 23:28

David Palm to me

Ah, here is the paragraph from Fr. Vigouroux I was looking for. I think this admirably captures our different approaches:

"The key issue in this present question is not the details, since the Fathers did not agree on them amongst themselves; the key question is the principles that they followed and which were common to all of them. These principles are that it is necessary to make use of reason, of science, in its certain facts, in order to interpret the Mosaic cosmogony … This principle of our masters in the faith is likewise our own. If we do not agree with them in the details, it is not because the principle has changed. It is rather because science has progressed. We are doing what they would have done in our place. They accepted what the scientists of their time taught; we accept what the scientists of our day teach."

mer (16.I.2019) 11:07

Me to David Palm

"It sounds like you're arguing that all of the diversity that we observe now rapidly evolved from just a relative handful of "kinds" in just the past few thousand years, in spite of a gigantic genetic bottleneck?"

With 25 species of hedgehogs and moonrats, this is not very difficult to trace to a hedghog kind.

And there are other families where we would very much not want to call the diverse species different kinds.

"If this is overcome by reference to miracles,"

I don't think 25 species of hedgehogs and moonrats are all that diverse from each other. They have different genetic "copy-mistakes" which stop them (unless it's mostly geography) from reproducing with each other.

I don't think you understand what "species" means in zoology.

Sure, there are kinds where the known species are fewer, like moose and elks might seem to be 2 species and cariboo maybe a third ... I'll look it up.

The family is Cervidae. It happens it also has 25 extant species.

Reeves's muntjac, Tufted deer, Fallow deer, Persian fallow deer, Rusa, Sambar, Red deer, Thorold's deer, Sika deer, Eld's deer, Père David's deer, Barasingha, Indian hog deer, Caribou, American red brocket, White-tailed deer, Mule deer, Marsh deer, Gray brocket, Southern pudu, Taruca, Roe deer, Water deer, and, counted as one species, apparently, Moose and Eurasian elk.

I don't think it takes a miracle for all of these 25 to descend from one pair of deer on the ark, or for that matter, since they are pure, seven pairs or seven individuals (or six of them, if the seventh was sacrificed after the Flood).

The problem with diversity after a bottleneck is, how quickly does speciation happen. Are Great Danes and Cihuahuas still "same species" or are they part of a band species, which can only interbreed indirectly, via other dog breeds?

Given Biblical chronology and given fewness of families, with many very closely related species per family ... wait, I said 25 on enumerating the end bits of the 2006 study in wiki ...

"The subfamily Capreolinae consists of 9 genera and 36 species, while Cervinae comprises 10 genera and 55 species"

Deer - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer

... I'd say someone has been misjudging how fast populations diverging geographically diverge into different species.

"If we were to find that there are too many animals to fit on the ark, or too few people and hours in the day to care for them,"

I don't think there were.

"The principle argument is that the Fathers had no problem incorporating information gleaned from scientific inquiry into their exegesis of Scripture, nor should we."

The problem here is, Fulcran missed that this was limited by what they considered compatible with ... what Scripture actually verbatim says.

For instance, St Augustine is NOT willing to accomodate the Biblical scenario of one Adam and one Eve to admit parallel humanities called "antipodes" (whether he said or wrote this in Milan or in Tunisia, there is in fact no land at antipodal coordinates, and if there are between Isidor's Sevilla and New Zealand, St Isidor did not voice this particular objection).

But the point is, there was a definite limit on what he could accept : he was not scientifically prepared to think some continent had been peopled from here by people who then did not know how to come back (he was no sailor and did not know about Equatorial currents), and he did not stand for accepting any parallel creation of humanity some other place than in Eden.

"Sts. Augustine and Thomas are quite explict in laying out these principles and these principles have been made magisterial by Leo XIII and Pius XII."

Would you mind quoting the precise words of the doctors instead of the resumé by Fr. Vigoroux?

"So, the argument goes, Fr. Robinson and I and other do follow the Fathers in their principles, even if not in each of their conclusions."

The last sentence is ambiguous. "Each of their conclusions" = a/b
a= each conclusion by each father?
b= each conclusion shared by all fathers?

If there is a "conclusion" shared by all fathers, it is obligatory.

And universal Flood is among these.

"They accepted what the scientists of their time taught; we accept what the scientists of our day teach"

THIS is where Fr. Vigoroux misrepresents the fathers. They had no class of people they could refer to as "scientists", the ones dealing with scientific matters being classed then as "philosophers" and they most definitely did NOT accept all that the philosophers taught, as is evident from Plato accepting reincarnation, and so, "us" accepting all that "scientists" teach is definitely NOT an agreement in principle with the Fathers.

Wonder how many years in Purgatory Fr Vigoroux got for that paragraph or if he was even saved ....

Now, if you don't mind, instead of citing Fr. Vigroux, who was a bad Patristician, at least on this account, would you mind citing the exact words of St. Augustine or St. Thomas? Or those by which Leo XIII or Pius XII "made the principle magisterial"?

If the words are not the same, the principle is perhaps not the same as the one Vigoroux voiced, unhappily.

Wait ... 1882 is the year in which Vigoroux wrote the words? You are aware that he wasn't called to Rome until 1903? 19 years in which two developments are possible:

• Vigoroux became more conservative than he had been in 1882
  OR
  
• Vigoroux wrote so much on other matters that it was forgotten what he had written in 1882.

"Well, even if these venerable writers had been unanimous in their scientific explanation of the origin of the world, we would in no way be obliged to conform ourselves to their opinions, because science is not a deposit that has been preserved by tradition, as revealed truth is. In matters of faith, we must believe quod semper, quod ubique. In matters of science, we must accept the certain progress that the accumulation of the observations of experimenters have brought us in the train of the centuries. We are no more bound by the scientific ideas of the Fathers than the scientists of today are bound by the ideas of the scientists of the past. We can reject those ideas, without lacking in respect to their authors, with the same liberty that today’s astronomers have rejected the system of Ptolemy."

The problems are two.

• 1) how long the days are is not a scientific question, but a historic one, and long epochs would change Biblical history, so "unanimous in their scientific explanation" is a red herring in terminology, he's introducing weasel words.
• 2) while "system of Ptolemy" can be changed without disrespect to the Bible, Geocentrism and updated system of Riccioli can't as easily.

jeu (17.I.2019) 17:12

Me to David Palm

I suppose you might have been praying for me getting into debate with a "real scientist" and one not sympathetic to the faith.

Here is what perhaps resulted from such a prayer, if I guessed right:

Dialogues on Maths of the Flood
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2019/01/scott-e-you-are-presuming-mt-everest.html

I think I already sent you part one of series ...

today (19.I.2019) 17:04

I sent David Palm the link to this post.

I also think David Palm is behind in the verbatim citation of four texts, at least, since concerning four different authors, Sts Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Pope Leo XIII, Pius XII.

Perhaps the principle of Father Fulcran Vigoroux is not in them, after all? I challenged David Palm twice.