Why the Fossil Record Can't Be Due To Noah's Flood

[TB2]

There would be no river or country identifiable after the global flood! This is cloud cuckoo land.

Agreed, one wouldn't expect so (based on our understanding of modern geology today), but that still doesn't change what Gen 2.14 says. The Flood was also entirely supernaturally caused and controlled. I am not claiming to have the answers, but it's pretty clear what Gen 2.14 says, so we can't simply try to force it to say what we want it to say to align with our understanding. That's changing Scripture.

 

[TB2]

But all the catastrophists I know of speak of 4-500 years of activity (the \ in the \____ graph). Which would include puncturing the Cascades. This is not complicated. The wholeness is being constantly splintered by 'established' dates with 50% error allowances. When people throw around 50% error margins, why is it unthinkable that we are talking about the same thing, and that, being about as far as you can get from the ANE, the same event, and even much of the same narrative--considering the Sequalish narrative about creation, evil, restriction against evil experimentation, fixing of species--is presented? Why do Psalms and Quileyute indians speak of the Creator defeating a monster, last associated with the sea? Why do the Payute have evidence of actually dealing with hostile giants near Lovelock NV? Keep in mind the account was heard by a tribe princess from the grandfather actually in the raid, and was apologetic, not victory-smitten, about it?

Have you read Mayor's geo-mythology?

Have a great day,

Marcus

You are combining a lot of ideas. Let's take one at a time. The Missoula Floods did not crash through the Cascades but followed the way of the Columbia River Valley canyon which the floods carved into a gorge

 

[David1701]

Agreed, one wouldn't expect so (based on our understanding of modern geology today), but that still doesn't change what Gen 2.14 says. The Flood was also entirely supernaturally caused and controlled. I am not claiming to have the answers, but it's pretty clear what Gen 2.14 says, so we can't simply try to force it to say what we want it to say to align with our understanding. That's changing Scripture.

1) There was a large river that branched into four rivers. Where has it gone?

Your view: it's a mystery (i.e. not a clue). My view - the flood wiped it away, along with all other previous geography.

2) There were two other rivers that came from the source river, apart from the Tigris and Euphrates. Where have they gone?

Your view: it's a mystery. My view - the flood wiped them away.

3) The global flood would have removed the Tigris and Euphrates. Why, in your view, are they still there (minus their source and companions)?

Your view: it's a mystery. My view - they are different rivers, named after the originals.

Regarding your insult that I'm "changing Scripture": I'm obviously not changing it, but interpreting it, in the light of the evidence. You, on the other hand, are also interpreting it, contrary to the available evidence, whilst appealing to mystery, as a rescue mechanism.

 

[TB2]

Regarding your insult that I'm "changing Scripture":

I didn't say you were changing Scripture. I said "we" including myself (as in a general "we" believers) would be changing the clear meaning of Scripture if we did that. I'm not attacking or disparaging you. From my perspective, we're just having a conversation.

My view - they are different rivers, named after the originals

1. And why, if that is true, would God not make that expressly clear instead of letting Jews and Christians "falsely" believe for thousands of years what Scripture clearly seemed to say?

2. Since in Post-Flood times (up to today) there were two *very* prominent, Fertile Crescent defining rivers in Mesopotamia called the Tigris and Euphrates, and they would easily mistake these rivers for what was being referred to, then why did God not make it expressly clear that He was referring to two entirely different rivers by the same name?

3. Since in Post-Flood times there actually was an ancient city Ashur that a prominent well known river named the Tigris did flow East of, why would God say the Pre-Flood Tigris River flowed east of Ashur without clarifying that He was speaking of a completely different river and city that just so happened to have the same names and geographic relationship to each other, knowing how easily this would be confused, and knowing that they would naturally think the Tigris and Ashur they knew was being referred to?

4. Same questions for the Euphrates River?

5. Why would God identify the second river in relation to "the whole land of Cush," which in ancient times was identified with the son of Ham and area of Ethiopia without clarifying He was referring to a different land of Cush (not recorded in the Bible), knowing they would naturally assume God was referring to the land of Cush that they knew and associated with the son of Ham?

6. Why would God identify the first river in relation to the "whole land of Havilah, where there is gold," which was identified with Havilah the son of Cush, the son of Ham (Gen 10.7), whose land was identified with the area of Arabia (Gen 10.29, Gen 25.18, 1 Sam 15.7, 1 Chron 1.9, 23)---and Arabia was certainly known for its gold in ancient times---without clarifying that He just so happened to be referring to a Havilah land with gold by the same name (not recorded in Scripture), knowing that they would naturally assume God was referring to the land of Havilah that they knew in their time?

The "mystery" I'm faced with has been the same mystery for a thousand years that other people have tried to figure out the garden of Eden's location, too (it's hardly a new mystery; it's not like "my view" is leaving something new unsolved that hasn't already been a mystery for millennia; nor is it fair play to require me to solve what you know others haven't; and isn’t it better to acknowledge we don’t know than to dogmatically assert we have it all figured out?).

but interpreting it, in the light of the evidence

And what evidence would that be? There are biblical as well as *scientific* reasons to question the modern YEC assumption that the fossil record is due to Noah's Flood. Like, for example, the fact that we find slow growing stromatolites and reefs globally distributed throughout the fossil record with the most massive enormous reefs in the middle to upper fossil record and the small at the bottom in contradiction and reverse order of what hydrological sorting and ecological zonation predicts.

You, on the other hand, are also interpreting it,

Not really, I'm simply reading what it says.

*Do you deny that Gen 2.14 says "The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."?

*Do you deny that in ancient Bible times the most natural understanding of Gen 2.14 would be that it was referring to the well known Tigris and Euphrates Rivers of Mesopotamia and the well-known ancient Assyrian capital city of Ashur?

*Do you at least acknowledge that this at least seems to be the most straightforward understanding of Gen 2.14?

 

[EarlyActs]

I will look for your comments on:
*the suppression of Pellegrini
*an integration of 'the fountains of the great deep burst open' and the AK museum statement
*a review of Lewis' 'Science and Religion' essay (conversation style) in GOD IN THE DOCK

"particulars without general principles is chaos; generalities without particulars are platitudes." --Prager

 

[EarlyActs]

Agreed, one wouldn't expect so (based on our understanding of modern geology today), but that still doesn't change what Gen 2.14 says. The Flood was also entirely supernaturally caused and controlled. I am not claiming to have the answers, but it's pretty clear what Gen 2.14 says, so we can't simply try to force it to say what we want it to say to align with our understanding. That's changing Scripture.

I find that TB's treatment of Gen 2:14 is crass and trite. I would prefer that he qualify the latency issue and the flattening each time, but he does not. To me, this undermines what he is saying each time.

The oral transmission of Israel's early history (as practiced from Abraham to Joseph in Gen 39) was looking backward on many layers of history. Some early places were marked/located by reference to things in their present. These are 'latency' and 'flattening' features. Nimrod did not build Caleh (modern Qalat) AKA Asshur until after the cataclysm, Gen 10.

Apparently TB does not appear to realize the name Assyria/Asshur was after the flood and seems to be very happy to find a problem with the flood narrative and the Bible, and thinks he has championed 'literal' reading of the Bible and others have not.

You can see other similar things in the text in the Gen 6 narrative. The 'Nephilim were there and also afterward' shows that the material is written (spoken!) at some later point.

 

[TB2]

I find that TB's treatment of Gen 2:14 is crass and trite.

I find that it is the plain meaning of Scripture.

*Do you deny that Gen 2.14 says "The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."?

*Do you deny that in ancient Bible times the most natural understanding of Gen 2.14 would be that it was referring to the well known Tigris and Euphrates Rivers of Mesopotamia and the well-known ancient Assyrian capital city of Ashur?

*Do you at least acknowledge that on the face of it this at least seems to be the most straightforward understanding of Gen 2.14?

 

[TB2]

What common hydrological features do ‘ the bursting fountains of the great deep’ and the museum sign ‘mega-flora was suddenly encased in mile-deep ice’ have? 5th request.

*an integration of 'the fountains of the great deep burst open' and the AK museum statement

You realize I've answered this question several times now, right?

I will be even more direct: "What common hydrological features do 'the bursting fountains of the great deep' and the museum sign 'mega-flora was suddenly encased in mile-deep ice' have?"

Answer: Nothing

 

[EarlyActs]

You realize I've answered this question several times now, right?

I will be even more direct: "What common hydrological features do 'the bursting fountains of the great deep' and the museum sign 'mega-flora was suddenly encased in mile-deep ice' have?"

Answer: Nothing

Yes I heard your denial. I don't know why you think that is an answer. To do that at this point is "religious." I do not accept 'declarations' from anyone, only reasons. Your entire system and MO is one of splintering and fragmenting. Seemingly for splintering and fragmenting's sake.

 

[EarlyActs]

I find that it is the plain meaning of Scripture.

*Do you deny that Gen 2.14 says "The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."?

*Do you deny that in ancient Bible times the most natural understanding of Gen 2.14 would be that it was referring to the well known Tigris and Euphrates Rivers of Mesopotamia and the well-known ancient Assyrian capital city of Ashur?

*Do you at least acknowledge that on the face of it this at least seems to be the most straightforward understanding of Gen 2.14?

Yes, on the face, and that is the problem. You have almost no idea what the method of collecting the narratives amounts to.

Perhaps this will give you a new start: no one in the Abrahamic tribe could have spoken directly about chs 1-11. Reason: the massive cataclysm. So all narrative about prior events is that which was handed down through Noah and Shem. That makes its way to Abraham's tribe. It stays verbal for 4 more generations, until Joseph.

That's why all 1-11 must be read as though hearing a person that late was clarifying names and places and dates and tables to people in the Abrahamic. Markers from the Abrahamic period are used to identify pre-cataclysm places, etc. No one writing directly about the Nephilim/giants in ch 6 would say "and also after"; the material is from after.

 

[TB2]

Yes I heard your denial. I don't know why you think that is an answer. To do that at this point is "religious." I do not accept 'declarations' from anyone, only reasons. Your entire system and MO is one of splintering and fragmenting. Seemingly for splintering and fragmenting's sake.

No, it's simply logic and evidence (even by YEC flood models). The "bursting of the fountains of the deep" happened at the beginning of the Flood. The mega flora encased in mile-deep ice that you cite is believed to be Post-Flood by most YECs. Ergo, even by YEC flood models, there is no relationship between the two.

 

[TB2]

Yes, on the face, and that is the problem. You have almost no idea what the method of collecting the narratives amounts to.

Perhaps this will give you a new start: no one in the Abrahamic tribe could have spoken directly about chs 1-11. Reason: the massive cataclysm. So all narrative about prior events is that which was handed down through Noah and Shem. That makes its way to Abraham's tribe. It stays verbal for 4 more generations, until Joseph.

That's why all 1-11 must be read as though hearing a person that late was clarifying names and places and dates and tables to people in the Abrahamic. Markers from the Abrahamic period are used to identify pre-cataclysm places, etc. No one writing directly about the Nephilim/giants in ch 6 would say "and also after"; the material is from after.

You didn't answer my questions:

1. Do you deny that Gen 2.14 says "The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."?

2. Do you deny that in ancient Bible times the most natural understanding of Gen 2.14 would be that it was referring to the well known Tigris and Euphrates Rivers of Mesopotamia and the well-known ancient Assyrian capital city of Ashur?

3. Do you at least acknowledge that on the face of it this at least seems to be the most straightforward understanding of Gen 2.14?

 

[EarlyActs]

No, it's simply logic and evidence (even by YEC flood models). The "bursting of the fountains of the deep" happened at the beginning of the Flood. The mega flora encased in mile-deep ice that you cite is believed to be Post-Flood by most YECs. Ergo, even by YEC flood models, there is no relationship between the two.

Sorry I know longer trust your YEC references. I worked in the material for 2 years and do not share your conclusion.

I'd like to give you an intellectual map of the 1800s. In England, the 'age of reason' assaulted the Bible, even from people like Paine who politically had the most valid points. I mean he insulted it; expressions like 'throwing this mountain into the sea' or talking animals were the top of the list of their derision. You prob know what Jefferson did.

At the same time a little known pastor Holford was researching the destruction of Jerusalem 70 AD and produced his treatise. Just an unknown circuiting speaker, but one day Crown Prosecutor Erskine sat in. It completely changed what Erskine pursued and what connections he made, and when dealing with the undercover publisher Charles Williams, the case was a blasphemy case. Please don't let that distract you, because Erskine defended Scripture on historical grounds; actually defending the divinity of Christ on the same, for a few decades there. The cynics pretty much dropped that attack on Christianity, stopping the undercurrent of the French humanists.

But by the late 1800s, Genesis was the new target. Actually two things happened. Genesis became the new object of derision, but attention to a re-established modern Israel snowed the attention Holford and Erskine had put on the overwhelming historical basis of the NT. So now cynics were attacking a new way, both of which avoided the dreaded NT declarations about the historically obvious truth of the NT, not just in 'theology' claims by Christ but the history of that generation after Jesus.

Now comes the irrational split of Lyell and others. He did not want the morality of Genesis or the 10 Commands to be dropped. But how to do that if the historical narrative was falling apart? This split is documented by Schaeffer and Lewis. It is multidisciplinary. Schaeffer named it the neo-orthodoxy. That means they dropped the history but kept the 'meaning.'

This has created an entire way of seeing that is not what the apostles had, and as I said 2 paragraphs above evaded the powerful stance of the NT on history (what point is serious warning to that generation, based on Noah, about what is going to happen, if it never actually happened? What case does 2 Peter 3 have about the coming wrath, or the grace of delay, if it never actually happened?) It is hooey.

At the same time comes the opportunity for media (publishers) to exercise control over what people think. In order to flood the world with Darwin's racist naturalistic theory, they (for ex., the Huxleys) had to bury Pellegrini. And they did seek to flood: in 10 years Harvard Law school was inserting evolutionary terminology everywhere that created or divine reference had been in law process and documents. They suppressed Bretz for decades and as you know, it sounds like he was only talking about one lake. Not. I appreciate books affirming there was a major event in the past few thousand that 'totally changed the surface of the earth' as I have mentioned; I do not appreciate reading it in detail and seeing the allowed error of margin used to dismiss a coalescence of understanding as you routinely do.

So I find that you are in that neo-orthodox stream. Prove otherwise. It is every bit as destructive as Schaeffer said it would be. His material on it is in THE GOD WHO IS THERE and HE IS THERE AND HE IS NOT SILENT.

On the Holford-Erskine overlap and impacts see my short doc BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR at Youtube.

 

[EarlyActs]

I don't believe for a minute that the USGS would have to suppress Bretz for 40 years if all it was was one lake. Nonsense. They knew it represented a much bigger connection at that time.

And there are other suppressions by the orthodoxy of scientists--the Smithsonian.

 

[TB2]

Sorry I know longer trust your YEC references. I worked in the material for 2 years and do not share your conclusion.

I've worked in it for over 40 years. I'm not steering you wrong. I've posted YEC articles that you apparently haven't looked at yourself to see the problems I'm talking about with flood geology. Problems that come from the mouths of YECs themselves. What I said is a matter of fact. The fountains bursting at the beginning of the Flood, while the mega flora encased in mile-deep ice (I assume you're referring to the Greenland discovery) are considered Post-Flood by most YECs (only a million years old by old earth scale; Post-Flood by YEC standards). You have a tendency to conflate different articles, points that don't always relate to each other. Just trying to help, make a friendly observation. But it's your choice.

 

[TB2]

I don't believe for a minute that the USGS would have to suppress Bretz for 40 years if all it was was one lake. Nonsense. They knew it represented a much bigger connection at that time.

And there are other suppressions by the orthodoxy of scientists--the Smithsonian.

It's one lake and an ice dam that failed several times. I posted maps. You can go to Missoula Montana today and still see the strand lines carved up in the surrounding hills from where the water level in ancient Lake Missoula stood.

 

[TB2]

"Missoula Floods video"

Strand lines carved into hillside show height of ancient shoreline at various times of glacial Lake Missoula

 

[EarlyActs]

It's one lake and an ice dam that failed several times. I posted maps. You can go to Missoula Montana today and still see the strand lines carved up in the surrounding hills from where the water level in ancient Lake Missoula stood.

But the whole Cordilleron broke up! This massive field that was as far south as Olympia, where you can still see moguls, was still in the retreating process in 1760 at the mouth of Glacier Bay. Are we going to bust each individual major break (like Taku in 1800) into "isolated" or "fragmented" events that have nothing to do with each other?

I know the concept of "insensitivity." I put in an letter to the Seattle Times the first time I saw Hole In the Wall. That is the 'thumb' finger of Taku here in SE AK. Since 1930 it has appeared and grown, because the original photos of the Taku historic lodge show that it is not there then. So 'experts' wrote back right away to Seattle Times that glaciers can be "insensitive" to global warming.

Now apply that to Bretz and the Cordilleron. Yes, they are so big that they have "insensitivity" and yet based the metric of Olympia's moguls and the mouth of Glacier Bay, this ice field has withdrawn north at about 0.4 miles per year.

But that is an average. There is no reason, with Morse, Elwha, Minnesota, Niagara and other southern edge events out there, to dismiss a \____ event.

Why would Bretz have to be censored for 40 years? Why would Pellegrini have to totally censored? To fit a 'religious' construct.

 

[EarlyActs]

Here are some other Biblical exs of 'delayed' references about objects, places:

*the mountains were covered X cubits with water. We don't know if he meant before or after. It is likely in reference to before, because of the lines in Job and Psalms that refer to the mountains being pushed up and draining off water.

*the references in Luke from about 60 that speak of Zealot activity or rejection of Christ that matter in the 60s but recorded as Jesus' sayings in the 30s. For ex., 'a den of thieves' in the temple ('leistes' is actually people who steal to build a warchest; it is not a common shoplifter, etc). Many references in Luke (transcribing Paul) are directed at the failures of the Judaizing zealots and what ruin they will bring; they are the 'rebellion that desolates' of Dan 8:13. But we don't have Luke in the picture until about 60 (Acts 18). So he writes in terms of relevancy even though Jesus is saying these things, from other records (accounts Luke recognizes as earlier), in the 30s.

Peter on baptism
In it[ai] he went and preached to the spirits in prison,[aj]
20 after they were disobedient long ago[ak] when God patiently waited[al] in the days of Noah as an ark was being constructed. In the ark[am] a few, that is eight souls, were delivered through water. 21 And this prefigured baptism, which now saves you[an]—not the washing off of physical dirt[ao] but the pledge[ap] of a good conscience to God
--I Peter 3

The analogy is that the whole earth had to be swept clean. All but 8 sounds fairly thorough, yes?

 

[TB2]

But the whole Cordilleron broke up! This massive field that was as far south as Olympia, where you can still see moguls, was still in the retreating process in 1760 at the mouth of Glacier Bay. Are we going to bust each individual major break (like Taku in 1800) into "isolated" or "fragmented" events that have nothing to do with each other?

I know the concept of "insensitivity." I put in an letter to the Seattle Times the first time I saw Hole In the Wall. That is the 'thumb' finger of Taku here in SE AK. Since 1930 it has appeared and grown, because the original photos of the Taku historic lodge show that it is not there then. So 'experts' wrote back right away to Seattle Times that glaciers can be "insensitive" to global warming.

Now apply that to Bretz and the Cordilleron. Yes, they are so big that they have "insensitivity" and yet based the metric of Olympia's moguls and the mouth of Glacier Bay, this ice field has withdrawn north at about 0.4 miles per year.

But that is an average. There is no reason, with Morse, Elwha, Minnesota, Niagara and other southern edge events out there, to dismiss a \____ event.

Why would Bretz have to be censored for 40 years? Why would Pellegrini have to totally censored? To fit a 'religious' construct.

You can't use Bretz work as an argument for a global flood when Bretz himself does not argue for a global flood