Problems with a Global Flood
Marc Shapiro on the Flood, Here & Here
"Believing in the truth of the flood (and a 5000 year old world) is more extreme than denying the existence of George Washington. Someone asked me if it isn't the case that we have more evidence for George Washington than for denying the flood. The answer is obviously no. We know about Washington because of one type of evidence, historical, and we have a great deal of this. However, the entire received body of knowledge in just about every field of human study is dependant on the fact that the world is not 5000 years old and that there was not a flood. These facts are the fundamentals of biology, physics, astronomy, history, anthropology, geology, paleontology, zoology, linguistics etc. etc. etc. Belief in a 5000 year old world and a flood which destroyed the world 4000 years ago is a denial of all human knowledge as we know it. It is a retreat into a world of belief, rather than one based on any sort of fact, and one who believes can believe anything he want to. The fundamentalist is not able to prove that Washington lived, only to say that he believes that Washington lives....Pay attention to what I am saying, it is impossible to make sense of anything in this world, in any field of science and many of the social sciences by adopting fundamentalist position. If people wish to live this sort of existence, fine, but one can't pretend that there is any sort of compelling reason for anyone else to. They certainly shouldn't try to put forth all sorts of pseudo-science to convince people of the correctness of their view.............
People often say that they can hold the positions they do because they are ignorant of science and history. This is incorrect. It is not that they are ignorant of all these fields; it is rather that they reject them. There is a difference. The proper word to describe this is obscurantism. And I for one don't think it will last forever. One can only go against the obvious facts of our day for so long. Rabbis could declare that Copernicus's views were heretical for only so long before
the weight of evidence ran over them. That will happen with fundamentalism, because if they don’t change, no one with any education will still be listening to them."
Historical Summary:
Egyptian and Assyrian history has an unbroken chain of monarchies and civilizations from 3000 BCE to the present, with no room for a flood that supposedly destroyed all life in the Near East (or, at a minimum, in Mesopotamia) c. 2105 BCE, the date derived from the Torah chronology. There is no mention of the Flood in these records of Egyptian or Mesopotamian civilizations which existed at the time and the physical evidence (e.g., inscriptions, among many other items) is staggering. the entire period is accounted for in tremendous detail, supported by over one million artifacts and the evidence for continuous, large-scale civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt is "harder" evidence than our chain of tradition. There is no way that the descendents of Noach could have repopulated Egypt 200 years after a universally-fatal flood and restarted the culture, language, writing system, religion, etc. The very idea is absurd.There is no longer any room for doubt by any serious scholar. Rest assured that scholars in this area are "at each other's throats," and are quick to find flaws in, and attack, each other's theories. Nevertheless, there is universal consensus as to what was NOT happening c. 2105 BCE, -- "the Flood." In summary, the idea that there was a massive flood that destroyed civilization in Mesopotamia and/or Egypt c. 2105 BCE is universally considered absurd.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Historical and Scientific Scholarship & The imposibility of the Flood
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