₦airaland Forum

Lending credence to the biblical account is the sudden appearance of civilizations after the flood.
They did not grow gradually but appeared to have been fully formed.
I am talking about the Egyptians, Indus, Mayans, Sumerian and the Megalith builders of North-West Europe who appeared around 3000BC.
Where did they get their knowledge?
Could it be that they got it from the survivors of the Ark who had this knowledge before the flood?
Here are some further excerpts from Dead Men's Secrets by Jonathan Gray:
About 3000 B.C., Egypt sprang into existence suddenly, fully developed—that is, without transition from a primitive state, with a fantastic ready-made high society.
“Great cities, enormous temples,” he continued. “Pyramids of overwhelming size. Colossal statues with tremendous expressive power. Luxurious tunnels and tombs. Splendid streets flanked by magnificent sculptures. Perfect drainage systems. A decimal system at the very start. A ready-made writing, already perfected. A well-established naming system (in which each Pharaoh had as many as five names). Society already divided into specialist classes. An army, civil service and hierarchy minutely organized. A court exhibiting all the indications of well-defined precedence and form.”
“Take a look at Sumeria. The appearance around 3000 B.C. of Sumerian civilization was likewise sudden, unexpected and out of nowhere.
“H. Frankfort (Tell Uqair) called it ‘astonishing.’ Pierre Amiet (Elam) termed it ‘extraordinary.’ A. Parrot (Sumer) described it as ‘a flame which blazed up so suddenly.’ Leo Oppenheim (Ancient Mesopotamia) stressed ‘the astonishingly short perio the civilization had arisen. Joseph Campbell (The Masks of God) summed it up this way: ‘With stunning abruptness...there appears in this little Sumerian mud garden...the whole cultural syndrome that has since constituted the germinal unit of all the high civilizations of the world.’”

Sarassin: I think you missed the boat...no pun intended. Most of the other traditions about the great flood precedes biblical accounts in most cases by a millennium.

Can you quote the sources that precede the bible by a millennium? Kindly substantiate.

The bible account is not the only account of Noah's flood.

An analysis of some 600 individual Flood traditions reveals a widespread concurrence on essential points:
the prior corruption of mankind,
a Flood warning unheeded by the masses,
A flood warning by the masses
a survival vessel,
the preservation of up to eight people with representative animal life,
the sending forth of a bird to determine the suitability of reemerging land,
significance in the rainbow,
descent from a mountain, and the repopulation of the whole earth from a single group of survivors.
Especially remarkable is the persistence of that biblical name Noah. And this is particularly so when you consider the ultimate language differences between peoples, and the extreme local distortions which developed in Flood legends.
Yet the name survived virtually unchanged in such isolated places as Hawaii (where he was called Nu-u), the Sudan (Nuh), China (Nu-Wah), the Amazon region (Noa), Phrygia (Noe) and among the Hottentots (Noh and Hiagnoh).
Think about this. Did each of these nations independently concoct the same name for its flood-surviving ancestor? Or did these widely separated peoples refer back to the same family of survivors?

Not only were the antedeluvian people buried, but their technological achievements were destroyed, including all form of machinery and construction.
It is quite possible that areas which were most densely populated were submerged by the sea or buried under thousands of feet of debris. It has been scientifically estimated that over 75 percent of the earth’s surface is sedimentary in nature, extending, as in India, to 60,000 feet deep.
Indeed, the earth, torn and twisted and shaking, was not to quiet down for centuries. With no less than three thousand volcanoes in eruption, a dense cloud of dust enshrouded the earth, blocking out the sun and distorting the climate for hundreds of years. Thus began the Ice Age.

Culled from the book, Dead Men's Secrets by Jonathan Gray

THE DELUGE
A world war was raging at the time.
In the thirty-fourth century B.C., a catastrophe of incredible magnitude intervened, causing the world to wobble and ripping the crust of the earth to shreds. A great Flood swept the whole planet.
November 17, 3398 B.C.7 That day was probably like most others: temperate, balmy.
In one longitude, millions were dining...entertaining...relaxing. Precisely at 8 P.M. the earth gave an enormous shudder.
Prodded by an outside force, the planet tilted on its axis, and amidst lightning and the worst thunder ever heard by man, the pristine vapour canopy began to disintegrate. A floodgate of rain was released upon the earth.
There could be no gentle rising of water. Cosmic forces of horrific violence came unleashed.
With a dreadful shock, large land masses with their populations slipped into the sea. The surface of the entire globe became as a giant maelstrom, in which continents and seas were churned up together.
Attended by a screaming hurricane, tidal waves of 6,000 feet swept toward the poles. A blanket of lava and asphyxiating gases extinguished all life.
This cataclysm wiped the Mother Civilization from the face of the earth and consigned its products to a watery grave forever.

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
Gen 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

We can see from verse 2 that the the entire earth was flooded initially before God separated the waters above from the one below and had to gather the one below to one place before land could appear.
The question is, could the person who separated the waters initially not flood it again?

A servant can't be above his master. Jesus obviously believed these "incredible" stories and made reference to some of them (for example, the story of Jonah being swallowed by the fish). If he did believe them, and I have seen the effect of his work in my life, then I do certainly believe them.

phuck_NL: A lot of people do not dispute GOD. Most just BELIEVE that the PEOPLE who wrote RELIGIOUS books LIED/Spiced up things to get people to believe them. The flood probably happened and the ark was probably built. It was probably localized to a certain region and he probably saved a handful of domesticated animals which the writers than exaggerated to include the entire world.

With regards, to carbon dating, trust me its at least 95% accurate. You only need a 50% accuracy to realize that the dates stated by those who wrote religious books is wrong. They simply wrote what they taught was right at the time without evidence to back it up. Same thing with the RAINBOW story. Most of these things were basically what they taught at the time and they then coined it into religious books. I believe in my GOD but I do not believe the lies in all religious books. I believe if I am good to myself and my fellow man I will make heaven regardless of what anyone thinks. I do not have to pray through anyone and I do not have to go to any institution or read any book to know that being GOOD is the right thing.

The problem with carbon dating is that it is based on the premise that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is constant. However, because of the flood, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere changed. That is why it is unreliable in this case.

Evil Brain: How did Noah fit 2 million insects (1 million species x 2) into the ark? And how did be manage to fit 12,000 amphibians, 20,000 birds, 11,000 mammals, 16,000 reptiles and god knows how many crustaceans, arachnids and mollusks into a boat that must have already been overflowing with insects? Where did he find space to keep a years worth of food for all those animals? How did he keep the meat for the Lions, tigers and other carnivores fresh for a whole year? Why did he take mosquitoes, tapeworms, guinea worms and the HIV virus aboard the ark? Did he infect himself with all those parasites, or did he force his wife and children to carry them? How come all the animals didn't freeze to death at 9,000 metres altitude (the height of Mount Everest which must have been underwater) Where did they find oxygen to breathe at that height? What did all the animals eat after getting off the ark? All the plants must have died after a year underwater, and all the animals would have drowned so no food for herbivores or carnivores. How come all the fish in the ocean survived? Saltwater fish can't survive in freshwater and the ocean would have been massively diluted with all that rain. Or did the ark also have a salty fish tank with space for 60,000 fish (30,000 species x 2)? And how did he feed all those fish?

Not that I'm doubting this ark story mind you. Its in the Bible after all, so it must be true. I'm just curious about a few technicalities. I'm sure you have good explanations for all of them.

Remember that the earth then was not as it is now. Notice the gradual shortening of the human lifespan after the flood. Remember also that it was after this flood that men started eating other animals Gen. (9:3). Before then mankind were eating plants. Also note that it was not just the rainfall that caused the flood but multiple tsunamis Gen. (8:2). Some scientists believe that the water above the firmament that God separated in Gen. 1 shielded man from the effect of harmful radiation- hence the shortening of lifespan after the flood. There is so much we don't know, but don't let us use current understanding or phenomena to judge what happened then.

Allta: I'm a Nigerian, but I will prefer to trust a Ghanian with my money anyday anytime

I love Ghanians!!!!

My dear friend. Never trust anyone with your money unless you have good reasons for doing so. I know of one case in which a Ghanaian brought an entire company to ruins by absconding to Ghana with their money. They so much trusted him. Some Nigerians can be trusted and some Ghanaians can. We should not generalize. Thanks.

Good write-up. I always support Ghana. The only time I don't do so is when they are playing Nigeria.