Mental flatliner wrote:Yes, your memory betrays you. My only comments along these lines were that I take all historical texts, whether Biblical or not, to be authoritative until proven otherwise. I might also have stated that the Bible contains no errors (this because I find all alleged errors claimed to be in the Bible to be sophomoric fabrications that are rather easy to dispell).
The belief that the Bible doesn't contain any errors is known as [biblical] inerrancy. So you are an inerrantist.
It's my habit to only read responses until I arrive at the first deliberate error.
I know you want me to fit your label, but you're lying about what I said.
(The theory you're referring to is theological in nature, mine is academic, which should have been obvious by the "all historical texts" reference. As an auditor, I judge quality of evidence before reading it. I usually reject all evidence of low or questionable quality. This is a discipline used by many historians, as well, and it is distinctively non-theological.)
If you want to be a part of this conversation, you're going to have to raise your standards.
Mental flatliner wrote:Yes, your memory betrays you. My only comments along these lines were that I take all historical texts, whether Biblical or not, to be authoritative until proven otherwise. I might also have stated that the Bible contains no errors (this because I find all alleged errors claimed to be in the Bible to be sophomoric fabrications that are rather easy to dispell).
The belief that the Bible doesn't contain any errors is known as [biblical] inerrancy. So you are an inerrantist.
It's my habit to only read responses until I arrive at the first deliberate error.
That's a deliberate error... unless, of course, you don't read your own posts.
Mental flatliner wrote:I know you want me to fit your label, but you're lying about what I said.
(The theory you're referring to is theological in nature, mine is academic, which should have been obvious by the "all historical texts" reference. As an auditor, I judge quality of evidence before reading it. I usually reject all evidence of low or questionable quality. This is a discipline used by many historians, as well, and it is distinctively non-theological.)
If you want to be a part of this conversation, you're going to have to raise your standards.
Dysexlia lures • ⅔ of what we see is behind our eyes
hjalti wrote: Mental, the narrative is told from the point of view of an omniscient third person narrator. It isn't narrated from Noah's point of view (e.g. "When I, Noah, saw the waters rise, they covered all the mountains.") and it doesn't say that the statement "The waters covered all the mountains." is to be understood as from the point of view of Noah (e.g. "And Noah looked out from the Ark and to him it seemed as if the waters had covered the mountains.").
I've got one additional question for you: Why did Noah have to take animals on the ark to begin with if this was only a local flood? If it was so local, then surely there was no need for him to take e.g. birds on the ark to preserve those species.
Okay, I'll respond to these, as well.
In the first paragraph, you're committing a fatal error. You're pretending that you can use a superficial reading of the text (for tense and writer perspective) while disregarding the material in the text. The data given in the text could only have come from one of the 8 people on the ark, and the style of the story is in diary form (a day-by-day account with events in chronological order). The fact that the writer uses the third person is irrelavent and might actually be a function of the language's limitations ("tense" as a literary devise didn't exist until centuries after the time of the flood event). You're also avoiding the possibility that a later redactor took Noah's original account and rewrote it from his own third-person point of view. This does not have the result of disqualifying the event as from an eye-witness until the redactor changes the details enough to render the original no longer existent.
In the second paragraph, your question is devoid of reason. From the perspective of the writer, in a discussion with God, he was told to put animals on the ark, and he obeyed. The instructions turned out to be prudent since the family of Noah would have starved during the flood (a 1-year event) and afterword if they had no supplies with them. The area where they landed was not exactly a paradise. I see no reason for your question.
