All the things on Noah's boat

[Rhea]

While reading another thread about evidence that survived the flood, I wondered about how the first 5.5 chapters of the bible survived it. Did they come to the ark strapped to the backs of clean animals? Or did Noah write the whole thing (or even someone after him trying to write a history)?

What's the Christians and Jew's claims on this?

- - - Updated - - -

And for that matter, I guess, who were the "sons of god"? Jesus' brothers?

Genesis 5 and 6

 

[outhouse]

While reading another thread about evidence that survived the flood, I wondered about how the first 5.5 chapters of the bible survived it. Did they come to the ark strapped to the backs of clean animals? Or did Noah write the whole thing (or even someone after him trying to write a history)?

What's the Christians and Jew's claims on this?

- - - Updated - - -

And for that matter, I guess, who were the "sons of god"? Jesus' brothers?

Genesis 5 and 6

Looking for YEC to toy with?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Generally, it's the tradition that Moses wrote Genesis ,and anything he didn't already know, God whispered in his ear.
Which would have been a lot, Moses having had an Egyptian education that probably ignored quite a bit of the ancient Hebrew traditions.

Gotta figure if Noah had written it, he'd come off better in the whole 'sloppy drunk, cursed his grandkids to slavery' passages.

 

[James Brown]

All I've ever seen put forth is the Wiseman Hypothesis, indicating that all the patriarchs as far back as Adam himself wrote down their life stories on tablets and handed them down father to son, until Moses finally compiled everything and called it Genesis.

There was a poster on the old forum that took it pretty seriously, although not so much as to care to defend it.

 

[Keith&Co.]

all the patriarchs as far back as Adam himself wrote down their life stories on tablets

But then everything written before the Tower of Babel would have been illegible...?

 

[James Brown]

Nuh-uh! Not if Adam spoke Old Hebrew, and then God saw to it that the descendents tasked with keeping track of this massive family history retained their knowledge of Old Hebrew, while everyone else got some made-up dialect beamed into their brain's language center.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Not if Adam spoke Old Hebrew, and then God saw to it that the descendents tasked with keeping track of this massive family history retained their knowledge of Old Hebrew, while everyone else got some made-up dialect beamed into their brain's language center.

Except that the language seems to be rather absolutist.

9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

No mention of anyone not being confounded...

I hadn't thought rhutchin was a Latter Day Saint....

Except in The Book of Mormon. Jared and his clan were excepted and scurried off with the original tongue. But that would require facts not in evidence in the OT or NT, but the BOM.

 

[James Brown]

Except that the language seems to be rather absolutist.

9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

No mention of anyone not being confounded...

I hadn't thought rhutchin was a Latter Day Saint....

Except in The Book of Mormon. Jared and his clan were excepted and scurried off with the original tongue. But that would require facts not in evidence in the OT or NT, but the BOM.

Pretty sure rhutchin is a Calvinist. But then the mind reels at the mental gymnastics one has to go through to ensure that Genesis is inerrant.

I'll have to dig up the old thread I went through with him regarding Joshua commanding the sun to stand still. He never admitted that he was a geocentrist, but he certainly argued like one.

 

[dockeen]

rhutchin is a Calvinist. It is interesting the strong patrallels between many things he says and what Ed says.

 

[Bronzeage]

All I've ever seen put forth is the Wiseman Hypothesis, indicating that all the patriarchs as far back as Adam himself wrote down their life stories on tablets and handed them down father to son, until Moses finally compiled everything and called it Genesis.

There was a poster on the old forum that took it pretty seriously, although not so much as to care to defend it.

The law of the nomad is simple. If you can't carry it with you, you can't have it. A tribe of shepherds is not going to carry clay tablets when it's time to move to greener pastures.

 

[steve_bnk]

And if you doubt divine inspirations Bill O'Reilly claims he was woken up in the middle of the night by the Holy Spirit who inspired him to write his book Killing Jesus.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Well, Golly, then that puts it right up there with golden tablets.

 

[dockeen]

All I've ever seen put forth is the Wiseman Hypothesis, indicating that all the patriarchs as far back as Adam himself wrote down their life stories on tablets and handed them down father to son, until Moses finally compiled everything and called it Genesis.

There was a poster on the old forum that took it pretty seriously, although not so much as to care to defend it.

The law of the nomad is simple. If you can't carry it with you, you can't have it. A tribe of shepherds is not going to carry clay tablets when it's time to move to greener pastures.

But doesn't the fact that it would have made no sense for them to do it mean that they must have had a powerful reason TO do it, i. e. a REAL god?

See how easy this is?

 

[Bronzeage]

All I've ever seen put forth is the Wiseman Hypothesis, indicating that all the patriarchs as far back as Adam himself wrote down their life stories on tablets and handed them down father to son, until Moses finally compiled everything and called it Genesis.

There was a poster on the old forum that took it pretty seriously, although not so much as to care to defend it.

The law of the nomad is simple. If you can't carry it with you, you can't have it. A tribe of shepherds is not going to carry clay tablets when it's time to move to greener pastures.

But doesn't the fact that it would have made no sense for them to do it mean that they must have had a powerful reason TO do it, i. e. a REAL god?

See how easy this is?

Let me put it another way, would a nomad be more likely to carry a ton of clay tiles, or a backpack stuffed with sheepskin documents? If I were to argue the Hebrew children carried their archives across the pasture lands of the Middle East, I would look for the most plausible medium. After that, I would wonder when a nomadic tribe had time to develop and create an written language. The whole idea is silly and the only reason it's ever a matter of discussion is because modern people no longer exercise memory in the way all illiterate peoples must. We don't need to memorize large amounts of information because we believe it can be retrieved as needed. We make a big deal out of it when a bunch of fifth graders memorize the Gettysburg Address. There was a time when men could recite the entire Illiad. There is nothing remarkable about the Pentateuch being preserved through oral tradition until some literate person had time on his hands and a stable home life, which enabled him to write it all down.

The clay tiles story is silly, but we love to cast people with whom we disagree as silly.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Find a good, Bible-believin' Christian who knows the holy word (er...Word.) They'll set you straight: 1) The Ark was real; it transpired literally, as GOD told us. 2) No Christians have ever taken Adam & Eve or the Ark as literal; you're setting up a straw man, you smug atheist. What I want to know: if god is so freakin smart, why didn't he (and again, I love that he has a gender!!) mandate that one pregnant female bearing twins be substituted for a pair of each species? It would have saved space and allowed for a game room on the ark. (Also, note that god mandated animal incest for all the surviving species. I'm shocked, and you should be, too.)

 

[Rhea]

There was a time when men could recite the entire Illiad. There is nothing remarkable about the Pentateuch being preserved through oral tradition until some literate person had time on his hands and a stable home life, which enabled him to write it all down.

Thank you .This makes sense as the most likely explanation to be given by believers. I had asked because I wasn't sure if there was a claim that Noah had records. It does still present the problem of claiming outstanding memories for more than a thousand years. Even an excellent oral tradition would be hard pressed to stay accurate for that many generations.

(I do enjoy the humorous answers, too. )



Now onto what is the christian or Jewish description of "the sons of god" and their family relationship to jesus?

 

[Keith&Co.]

It does still present the problem of claiming outstanding memories for more than a thousand years. Even an excellent oral tradition would be hard pressed to stay accurate for that many generations.

I forget which tribe had the practice, but in one that transmitted oral traditions, the teller wore a blindfold when reciting.
So they wouldn't be motivated to amplify the popular parts or soften the scary/sad bits based on the audience's reactions.

And you have to think that the first geeks were the older members of any tribe listening to the young, whippersnapper history keepers, and correcting them when they drift off canon. I can't even tell the story of The Fishing Trip at a reunion without four to six family members just WAITING for the chance to dope-slap me and shout 'tell it right!'

 

[juststeve1]

If you read a good Hebrew to English translation done by a reputable Jewish Publishing house like JPS you won't find any "sons of God". The actual Hebrew is about sons of powerful men abusing the daughters of men. The teaching when I was a practicing Jew was that it was it was the powerful oppressing the weak that to offended God that he destroyed the world. Now its just a fable.

Steve

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Well, Golly, then that puts it right up there with golden tablets.

Where does O'Reilly's golden electric dildo fit into God's kingdom? For some reason, I just can't take O'Reilly very seriously as a moral leader.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It's all about embarrassment. When you read translations in which the stupidity makes you cringe, know it must be true or would never have been included in the text.

Or you can assume the authors and redactors really were that illiterate and ignorant. Embarrassment of that type certainly makes for Truth.

Did someone mention O'Reilly?