Stuff Michael Meeks is doing
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- Up early, N. still sick (can't hold down water), J. not
feeling good either. Off to Church with Hannah. Tony speaking on
Jesus in the bible.
- Back, lunch, sunned ourselves in the garden, played with
babes as N. / J. slept. Watched some of The Slipper and the Rose
with babes in evening.
- Great talk by Gordon
What the World forgets on the Genesis flood:
- wrt. dating of the flood: only 1 piece of biblical
evidence: genealogy - Gen 11
Noah to Abraham: 10 generations. Abraham generally agreed ~2000BC. Add
Gen 11: ~2400BC - a possibility: assuming the genealogy is exhaustive
& complete.
- Digs at Ur in S. Mesopotamia, initially excited Christian
world: found siltation layer: right at spot - 2400BC: little/thin layer.
Doesn't correspond with adjacent cities. 1000 years before - big siltation
layer: 20feet thick.
- Leads one to suspect - genealogies highly compressed
Matthew 1:1
Jesus, son of David, son of Abraham - covers 2000 years.
Can't impose our cultural preference for exhaustiveness on the text.
Several other examples Luke 3
has Cainan before Shela cf.
Gen 11:12
'became the father of' etc.
- In conclusion, cannot safely deduce much except, can't possibly
be later than 2400BC. Perhaps much earlier, vast amounts of time ? time of
last ice-age 50kBC perhaps ?
- Sir
Leonard Woolley - dug at other cities - no corresponded floods at other
cities at same dates; even for the 20foot strata: big flood-plain of
Tigris / Euphrates.
- Other issues:
Jericho - archeologists: uninterrupted occupation there, back to 7000BC,
no evidence of a flood at any point. Bible-believeing, sincere, careful
archaeologists - pay attention, say flood at least 7000BC. Gordon's guess:
50k BC, it's a free country, anyone can guess. Time before anyone migrated
to Australia, or to the Americas, Brazil ~30k BC.
- How extensive - less dogmatic: more honest, what bible
actually says. One thing non-negotiable: everyone killed, all mankind
wiped out - for sure. Does that mean - the flood-waters innundated
Antartica ? necessary to conclude, entire sphere - if people not living
there yet.
- Text calls - covering the 'earth' - hebrew word: 'land' /
'region'. Similar passage, later in Gen 41
And all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph,
because the famine was severe in all the world. No bible-believers
postulate the Eskimos or Australians showing up: context matters.
"World War II" eg. : tons of nations not involved; can't be sure from
the text.
- Also, practical problems: worth acknowledging, becuase
Christians know an enemy that is a deciever so cultivate a critical mind:
examine the facts. Difficulties.
- Could every animal fit in the ark plus food for a year ?
How did they get there ? did the Marsupials swim the Indian ocean (if
so, why bother with an ark ?), and did they all swim back only to
Australia afterwards ? What about the fresh-water fish ? was there an
acquarium on-board ?
- Evidence of the whole Bible: another biblial text -
a parallel description of creation talking of the
primeval waters says of creation You set a boundary they cannot
cross; never again will they cover the earth.
- God was angry at people, not Pandas. Further evidence: it
seems to be an eye-witness account: Noah sent out dove, it could not
find a place to set it's feet. Did Noah's Dove circumnavigate the
globe ? checked Antartica / Everest ? seems unlikely.
- On the other hand - clearly, a vast, unprecedented,
universal flood. Geological evidence - inconclusive, nothing more
recent than 7000BC, possibly earlier. Some interest: a Columbia University
study on the
Black Sea sees a 60k square mile area innundated in a matter of months
for example.
- Was there a flood ? you bet there was, let God be true &
every man a liar. Not only the testimony of scripture but external corroboration
too. No legend more universally attested than the legend of a flood
that wiped out all of mankind before the birth of history: 300 narritives,
Persians, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, American Indians, Australians, Greeks,
Egyptians, Babylonians, Sumerians. etc. vast literature. Some of them -
hallmarks of 2ndary invention: missionaries got there before the anthropologists
Earliest accounts: written in ancient times: remarkably parallel to biblical
account.
- Commonality - all other accounts, blame God: it's his fault:
capricious, or annoyed - the human vermin make too much noise etc. Not so
the Bible, Gen 6:2 - biggest foretaste of final judgement yet to come.
- Why ? man was destroying the value of life, and trashing the
value of marriage: Lamech does both. Luke 17: "Just as it was in the days
of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating,
drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the
ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all."
- Gensis 6 - people corrupt, violence: people imposing their will
on one another, explotation - it's divorcing your wife, because she is
inconveient: provokes God. Rampant sexual immorality - offends God.
- There were many in Noah's day this is it, grab all we
can get or What I sow, I don't necessarily have to reap. Did I
live my life 'without regrets ?' The only reason so many have a clear concience
is that they have a lousy memory; forgotten grevious harm done to fellow man.
A personal God, takes personally our offences.
- Ironic twist - men become their own 'sons of God', and God does
the repenting: repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth
His heart was filled with pain Gen 6:6. It grieves God, he repents -
and takes back the gift of life.
- God's patience is no evidence of indifference: waters of baptism
an echo of the flood:
1 Peter. Jesus' baptism similarities: God echoed what he said of Naoh
with whom I'm well pleased, the Holy Spirit as a dove - returning to
the ark: place of safety in the flood - hide in Christ.
- The Ark - not a boat: no bow, stern, rudder, no oars, no sail.
A box, a temple - tripartite structure: same shape, virtually same dimensions:
a temple - clean & unclean separated. Jesus' body also a temple of the
Holy Spirit etc.
- Building an ark 100 years before the flood looks like a waste
of time
2 Peter 3 they deliberately forget ... the world of that time was
deluged & destroyed do not forget the Lord is patient not wanting
anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance.
My content in this blog and associated images / data under
images/ and data/ directories are (usually)
created by me and (unless obviously labelled otherwise) are licensed under
the public domain, and/or if that doesn't float your boat a CC0
license. I encourage linking back (of course) to help people decide for
themselves, in context, in the battle for ideas, and I love fixes /
improvements / corrections by private mail.
In case it's not painfully obvious: the reflections reflected here are my
own; mine, all mine ! and don't reflect the views of Collabora, SUSE,
Novell, The Document Foundation, Spaghetti Hurlers (International),
or anyone else.
It's also important to realise that I'm not in on the Swedish Conspiracy.
Occasionally people ask for formal photos for conferences
or fun.
Michael Meeks (michael.meeks@collabora.com)
