#38824: — 09/05  at  11:05 AM
CLARIFICATION...not sure what book you're reading from. Some of the following is from HEBREW TEXT:, and translated...
The Genesis Flood was so distinct from all others that nothing equals it in immensity or sheer violence. For this reason, only one Hebrew word was ever used to name it.

2 - BROKEN UP

Massive amounts of water burst out of the ground.

When the Flood began, something was "broken up."

"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep [tehom] broken up [baqa] and the windows of heaven were opened."

What had happened?

Inside the earth were multiplied thousands of interconnected channels and springs of waters. These provided a vast watering system for the entire earth. As the first rains of the Flood began falling,—this vast system was "broken up," or baqa. These channels and underground pools were torn open and ripped apart violently! Baqa means a "violent cleavage." We have not here a gurgling forth of an artesian spring, but rather the most violent bursting forth of hundreds of thousands of subterranean water sources! One example of this would be Eccl 10:9, in which a man cleaves a block of wood with an axe: a powerful, quick thrust followed by a bursting apart. The presence of baqa also helps to graphically explain two other historical events: As the Israelites approached the Red Sea, the waters burst aside to make room for their passage ("divides" Ex 14:16). As Korah and his associates stood defiantly, the ground beneath their feet exploded sideways, and they and their possessions fell into the chasm which had opened.

Proverbs 3:19 speaks of Creation; Proverbs 3:20 of the Flood, "when the depths are broken up."

Isaiah 35:6 and Psalm 78:15 mention the mighty miracle which occurred when Moses hit the face of a rock monolith with a stick—and a powerful cleavage ripped apart, out of which pure water poured.

The Hebrew word, baqa, is used to describe the breaking up of the immense fountains of the great deep (tehom). Pictured here is a gigantic cleavage of the crust of the earth, with oceans of water exploding outward from those fissures in continual commotion.

3 - FOUNTAINS OF THE GREAT DEEP

Water in violent commotion.

Psalm 78:15, mentioned above, includes both the words, baqa and tehom,—just as we find in Genesis: "In the sixth hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep [tehom] broken up [baqa] and the windows of heaven were opened" (Gen 7:11). One would expect to find, in Hebrew, "fountains of waters" (mayim), but instead we are presented with "fountains of the great deep" (tehom). "Tehom" specifically means "water in violent commotion, making a great noise."

An understanding of these Hebrew words is enabling us to obtain a better understanding of what the Flood was like!

In Psalm 23:2, we are told about the "still waters," the mayim. But in Genesis 7:11, we are told about the tehom, not the mayim. Those of you who have lived near the ocean, as the present writer has, can understand something of the violence of large, rapidly moving waters. An entire earlier section of this chapter describes the destruction that storm waves can produce. Psalm 42:7 uses tehom to describe the turbid violence of those waves. Exodus 15 speaks of the intense destructive capacity of turbulent waters restrained by the hand of God (15:8), and afterward when they covered the enemies of God's people (15:5).

So, in tehom, we have a description of massive quantities of water in violent, turbid commotion!

4 - RAIN

A massive outpouring of rain.

And then it rained. And did it rain! Yet we have already learned that massive amounts of water came from the ground—even as the rains from above were barely beginning! The sheer massive violence of that upthrust water hurled immense boulders into the air. As mentioned earlier, this was the most awesome event—between Creation and the Second Advent of Christ—which ever occurred in our world!

The rains came! And when they came, they only added to the fury of the cataclysm. "And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights" (Genesis 7:12).

What kind of rain was this? There are two different Hebrew words for "rain." The first of these is matar rain. In Exodus 9:18 it is used of a very heavy rain; in Deuteronomy 28:12, of a light rain; and, in Genesis 7:4, of the Genesis Flood rain.

But the primary word for "rain" in the Genesis Flood is gesem, not matar. A gesem rain is the most violent rain of all! "And the rain [gesem] was upon the earth forty days and forty nights" (Genesis 7:12).

At the end of the three-and-a-half year drought of 1 Kings 17, Elijah prayed for rain, and a gesem rain came (18:45). So powerful was it that Ahab's chariot bogged down, and Elijah, on foot, ran past him. In Ezekiel 13:11 and 13, a similar torrent violently destroyed mortared walls. This passage in Ezekiel also helps describe what a gesem rain can be like: In both verses 11 and 13, we are told that such an immense downpour is accompanied by violent winds and great hailstones.

The rainfall during the Flood was no gentle shower. Instead it was a gesem, the most powerful of all rains, accompanied by a windstorm of immense ferocity. It was the most terrible rain describable in the Hebrew language.

#38825: — 09/05  at  11:14 AM
2nd Clarification Matthew 24:36-39 (NIV) "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Sorry, sometimes I type so fast...and make mistakes, and take things out of context for the sake of time. My bad... the above should quailfy my reference to "drinking merrily..." sometimes I butcher the scriptures...my bad....

Now, the details given in this passage concerning the specifications of the ark, as well as all of the details given in the entire episode of the flood in chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Genesis, testify that the flood really occurred as written. This episode is not communicated as a vague legend, but as a history, giving the exact dimensions of the ark, the exact days that the flood began and ended, the extent and depth of the floodwaters, etc. Moreover, throughout the Bible, the flood is represented as a literal event (see Isa. 54:9; Ps. 29:10; Matt. 24:37; I Peter 3:20; II Peter 3:6). Most significantly, Jesus Himself treated the flood as an actual event in history: "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" (Luke 17:26-27).

There are also external evidences of the flood. There are many places on earth that carry traces of a large catastrophe, such as the flood would have brought. Moreover, the memory of the flood seems to have been ingrained in the mind of the human race. The history of the flood is part of the folklore of cultures all over the world. The Babylonians, the ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Chinese, the Hindus, the Aztecs, the Incans, the American Indians, the Scandinavians, the Druids, the Polynesians etc. all have legends concerning the flood.[Footnote #1] Though these stories have diverged from the true Biblical account, they resemble each other in that the flood is viewed as the judgment of God because of the wickedness of man.

As we see in this passage, God gave Noah the exact specifications for the ark, the way of salvation for Noah and his family. Interestingly, the description of the ark revealed to Noah the extent of the coming judgment. For instance, since the ark was a barge and not merely a shelter, Noah knew that the floodwaters would be deep; since the ark was large and was to hold all of the animals, Noah knew that the floodwaters would be widespread; since the ark was to be coated with pitch, Noah could infer that the floodwaters would last a relatively long time. In the same way, what we know about our way of salvation, Jesus Christ, reveals the extent of the judgment upon those who do not enter His salvation.

God sent His one and only Son to become a sin offering for us. Christ was mocked, scourged and crucified to bear the punishment that we deserve. "[H]e was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed" (Isa. 53:5).

If we do not enter our ark of salvation, we will have to bear the full extent of the punishment that we, as sinners, deserve. As the writer of Hebrews points out: "How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?" (Heb. 2:3) and again: "Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?" (Heb. 10:28-29).

#38828: Zeno — 09/05  at  11:33 AM

God Bless and have mercy on the non-believers... a miravle is coming, to show the world that God exists, how many will shut the door in His face?

Oh, goodie. I've never seen a miravle before.

I know there are so many who will focus on my typos etc...and miss the message

A bad typist and a prophet, all rolled into one! Hey, do you think the old-timey prophets had a similar problem and today's major religions are based on misspelled prophecies? Horrors!

#38829: Zed Pobre — 09/05  at  11:35 AM

Looks like a lot of college related, dare-I-say secularly associated churches of a largely conservative (old-fashioned, i.e., fundamental, i.e., true-to-the-teachings-of-Christ Protestant churches).

I assure you that they'd take exception to being described this way. Some of these are the same people that sponsor abortion protest groups. As I said, they do a lot of things that I dislike, but in this case, they're doing better than the purely secular groups.

#38830: Zeno — 09/05  at  11:39 AM

since the ark was to be coated with pitch, Noah could infer that the floodwaters would last a relatively long time

We must bow before the nautical wisdom of the Bible! God told Noah he needed to caulk his boat because the flood was going to last more than a few minutes. Otherwise Noah would not have needed to seal the seams. Glug, glug.

#38832: Zed Pobre — 09/05  at  11:43 AM

And secularists are outnumbered in the American population by what, nine to one? Looks like we're overrepresented by a factor of three. Those religions, which purport to love their neighbor, need to get cracking.

Secular groups on LSU aren't outnumbered three to one by churches. It's closer to twenty to one in the other direction, though in those secular groups the majority of the members may be religious. Your argument is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst, and is the example of the kind of thinking that some of these churches spend time breaking through. It's not someone else's job to 'get cracking'. It's yours. Everyone has to pitch in and do what they can.

#38833: Zed Pobre — 09/05  at  11:57 AM

Zed, God-botherers herd together in order to give each other the feeling that everyone thinks like they do, and so their meager efforts can look large an imposing. Most of the atheists I know are non-"joiners." Here in Houston, there are many, many individuals wearing themselves out doing individual things for our unfortunate impromptu neighbors. Sorry we don't show up on the Internet. I guess maybe we're too busy to toot our own horn like those God groups do.

Where the hell did that come from? I point out that religious groups are actually getting work done, point out the numbers from a *secular-run (university) page organizing relief efforts*, and you accuse them of just tooting their own horn? One of them is using that page to announce that donations should no longer be brought there (incidentally because they ran out of space), not that they're so glorious. This is called *organizing*. Good grief.

Yes, there are a lot of people who pitch in and do something, whether or not someone organizes them. There are also a lot of people who, without someone else urging, will stay home and hide, or won't know what to do. If you're trying to say that having religious groups actually get them to participate is bad, or get them moving in a useful direction, just because they happen to be religious, I'm immensely grateful that you aren't down here harassing people actually getting something done. We've got enough stress as it is. The sheer organizational value isn't to be discounted, earlier. A bunch of volunteers were milling around outside the assembly center last weekend because they had no idea what to do next. Just having someone extra with a plan for what to do with the bodies is immensely valuable down here at the moment.

You know, while PZ may have shown the ugly side of religion in the main entry, this comment thread is successfully showing the ugly side of atheism. I'm about as disgusted with this sort of mindless hostility among people who ought to know better as I am with the hatred coming from the other side. They at least have the excuse of being brainwashed or incredibly stupid.

Just because people are superstitious doesn't mean that they aren't good people otherwise. Some of the superstitious bumpkins are doing better than FEMA.

#38834: ekzept — 09/05  at  12:00 PM

Now, the details given in this passage concerning the specifications of the ark, as well as all of the details given in the entire episode of the flood in chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Genesis, testify that the flood really occurred as written. This episode is not communicated as a vague legend, but as a history, giving the exact dimensions of the ark, the exact days that the flood began and ended, the extent and depth of the floodwaters, etc.

ah but the question is which history to believe? do you go with Genesis 7, apparently insufficient because someone who was obviously there, Matthew has to clarify it.

(incidently, Matthew cannot possibly be right in his inference because this chapter is written with a mood of regret for the lives lost, a mood, incidently, also shown for the lives of pharoah and his army drowned in the Sea of Reeds later in Exodus. moreover, Noah is not righteous, he's merely pretty good compared to everyone else. this is additional evidence that the writer of the text is having a tough time justifying wholesale destruction by this supposedly all-good God.)

do you go with Gilgamesh, also an authoritative account of a world-wide flood, itself complete with "historical" details?

do you go with the Epic of Etramhasis. copied in 1692 BCE from a still earlier text?

also, whatever scholar you borrow that long thing above glossing on Genesis 7 (without acknowledgement, BTW), has the name of the Flood wrong. it is not at all baqa but rather, per 6:17, hah-mabbul.

#38835: Alon Levy — 09/05  at  12:02 PM
Raven, I understand... but still, if I find that B and C are strongly correlated, there is a mechanism by which B causes C, and there is no variable A that can cause both, can I conclude that B indeed causes C?

#38837: ekzept — 09/05  at  12:08 PM
Alon, i don't fully understand your post, particularly the there is a mechanism by which B causes C part, but all strong correlation between B and C means is that they co-occur. this is like the joint events "people wearing bathing suits" and "being at the beach".

#38838: — 09/05  at  12:15 PM
What is tonyb? Fochush onn typooz ande tghe lignorance two not "rreead beethween hthe legtters" egven whgen theg meagning isg obgvisou, sghows thed lowger-ingtelleigengce enn yooew TONYB, or is it "Tone-Ib" or perhaps TOE-NIB If I can figure out your first name is Tony and your last name begins with B, then you can figure out what "miravle" is... couldnt you argue the meeseage better other than foguszzzing onnn thee messengers stile asnd beeeleeeefs...which are hardly his own?

#38839: — 09/05  at  12:21 PM

also, whatever scholar you borrow that long thing above glossing on Genesis 7 (without acknowledgement, BTW), has the name of the Flood wrong. it is not at all baqa but rather, per 6:17, hah-mabbul.

Hebrew: biq`ah, bik-aw'

from 'baqa`' properly, a split, i.e. a wide level valley between mountains:--plain, valley.

oh...from Hebrew dictionary

#38840: — 09/05  at  12:23 PM
Hi Dana:
Thought you ld like to elaborate on the following statements, for the benefit of us unsaved wretches...

Scientists have now proven that great springs expolded from the middle of the earth casuing the split in the continents..

A scientific reference would be nice

it is now proven fact there was a great flood caused by torrential rains, and burst-open springs

A scientific reference would be nice

Any comments on the statements of Brown, Swank, Marcavage and Phelps would be illuminating. So would the absence of comments...

Bruce

#38841: Alon Levy — 09/05  at  12:25 PM
"There is a mechanism by which B causes C" = we know a way for B to cause C.

For instance, we know that the basic laws of supply and demand mean that increasing the minimum wage causes more unemployment. Therefore, if we find that increases in the minimum wage are always followed by increases in unemployment and find no other mechanism that causes both the minimum wage and unemployment to increase, then we conclude that indeed, increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment.

Note that actually finding a correlation is crucial for causation to have an empirical basis, as opposed to just a theoretical basis.

Also note that I'm not making any comment about whether there is in fact empirical validation for the theory that the minimum wage increases unemployment.

#38842: ekzept — 09/05  at  12:27 PM

For this reason, only one Hebrew word was ever used to name it.

2 - BROKEN UP

nope. either the scholar has it wrong in the name for the Flood, or the scholar is wrong in their claim there was "only one Hebrew word was ever used to name it". which mistake do you prefer?

#38843: Alon Levy — 09/05  at  12:30 PM
Now, Dana, while biq'a does in fact mean a split between mountains, the great flood is not called biq'a but mabul, which at least in modern Hebrew means torrential rain.

#38844: — 09/05  at  12:30 PM
Yet we have already learned that massive amounts of water came from the ground—even as the rains from above were barely beginning! The sheer massive violence of that upthrust water hurled immense boulders into the air.
Bullshit. We've learned nothing of the sort, and "scientists" have no knowledge or evidence for your Waltbrownian silliness.

#38845: — 09/05  at  12:39 PM
Professor, do you not see the parallel between the religious falsely placing blame on sinners and your own hysterical post falsely blaming Bush for the flooding of New Orleans?

Atheists as well as believers have their demons, it seems.

Much as I detest Christianity in general and evangelical sanctimony in particular, I have to say that I have very rarely encountered this sort of viciousness among evangelicals I know.

Either they think it but don't say it; or, more likely, there is self-selection for mental cases who spend their energies putting up Web sites and starting churches to vent such vile hatred.

You could look at Instapundit for hundreds of links calling for an outpouring of money, and that audience better represents typical Christian reaction. In other words, MReap has a lot on his side.

However, MReap gets associated with this vileness because tamer Christians so seldom speak out against the hatemongers.

Dana: Yeah, I'm slamming the door.

#38848: Raven — 09/05  at  12:41 PM

Raven, I understand... but still, if I find that B and C are strongly correlated, there is a mechanism by which B causes C, and there is no variable A that can cause both, can I conclude that B indeed causes C?

Yes--if you have such a mechanism, and if you validate that mechanism, you can tentatively conclude that B causes C. By "tentatively", I mean that the conclusion is by its nature subject to being set aside by further evidence that may emerge, disproving the causation. Until such evidence emerges, though, you are justified in concluding the causation in that case.

As ekzept said, and I'm using in a talk in Albuquerque end of this month, "until tomorrow".

"There is a mechanism by which B causes C" = we know a way for B to cause C.

I would agree, except I would add "and have validated" to "know". And that's an extremely complicated subject I glossed over in just 3 words, by the way.

For instance, we know that the basic laws of supply and demand mean that increasing the minimum wage causes more unemployment. Therefore, if we find that increases in the minimum wage are always followed by increases in unemployment and find no other mechanism that causes both the minimum wage and unemployment to increase, then we conclude that indeed, increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment.

That is a good application of the principle, and it shows that you are applying the point. I would just add the caveat that in the social sciences, of which economics is one, the difficulty in controlling conditions leads to a lot more tentativeness in the validation of mechanisms than, say, in a pharmaceutical randomized controlled trial or in a lab experiment. So when you say "find no other mechanism", that is a non-trivial task to rule everything else out. Modulo that, though, I would agree with your example.

#38849: Zeno — 09/05  at  12:41 PM
I turn Dana into a true prophet, yet he is ungrateful. Quite unchristian of him. (Or her? I cannot tell.) Dana might have thought that Pharyngula is a mission field ripe for proselytizing. Wrong again.

Also, Zed, I concede your point. You were talking just about LSU-based groups, which I quite missed, so you're right. By the divinity in which neither of us believe, I apologize.

#38850: Ken Cope — 09/05  at  12:46 PM
Dana, you wonder why your deathless prose warrants nothing more than spelling flames?

There's little to be said about the output of a graphomaniac than to comment on the handwriting and kerning.

If you expect us to take anything you have to say about the actual historicity of your god flooding the earth any more seriously than somebody who thinks we should believe that Hogwarts, Narnia, The Emerald City, Middle Earth or Ankh-Morpork really and truly exist, then you are operating in an impenetrable fantasy world that I hope is working out for you.

Other than that, if you think anybody in NOLA deserved what happened to them because they don't worship the same monster you do, then you are clearly a danger to yourself and others. Stay away from me and mine.

#38851: Alon Levy — 09/05  at  12:48 PM
I see, Raven... you're completely right about "tentatively," of course, a word I should have included and stressed in my posts about the subject.

#38852: ekzept — 09/05  at  12:52 PM

Also note that I'm not making any comment about whether there is in fact empirical validation for the theory that the minimum wage increases unemployment.

well, all other things being constant, it does. judging that to be a bad thing implies imposing some kind of valuation or utility function. that's possible, but it wasn't specified.

we're not talkin' here about things at this level of abstraction. how do you demonstrate there is "no other mechanism that causes both the minimum wage and unemployment to increase" except as part of a theoretical exercise? even if the claimed relationship were overwhelmingly true in a particular economic context, how do you know that 1% of the increase in unemployment, say, isn't due to some exogenous reason? in fact, when verifying economics in the field, just as in any other heavily observational discipline, you don't, just like you cannot hold things constant.

there are ways to "control for" various variations. that's possible with sufficiently large statistical samples, good knowledge of the populations, and the techniques of experimental design, e.g., effects of various fertilizers at various concentrations for plots in fields otherwise seeming to be the same.

IMO while "cause and effect" is an important concept for theorizing and communication, in realistic science it's less useful. correlations and data suggest models and mechanisms. if someone constructs a mechanism which can be used to generate predictions and those predictions are experimentally verified, that's considered a good thing.

#38854: ekzept — 09/05  at  01:03 PM
well, Harry, while surely i agree the religious folks are doing good work in this catastrophe, the elsewhere cited articles from the Independent Weekly (part one and part two) lay out pretty clearly how FEMA was downgraded during BushCo's tenure.

incidently, while i applaud the work of the religious folks, i personally refuse  to contribute monies through them, whether Salvation Army or United Jewish Appeal. we give and gave directly to the Red Cross. and we did so only after  it was clear massive amounts of federal aid were beginning to flow. this is, at root, a problem for the federal government, noone else.

#38855: — 09/05  at  01:12 PM
In my experience, the image of god that religious people have, serves as the ultimate psychological projection. People who conceive of a kindly, loving and merciful god, are generally sweet and well-meaning people themselves. Those who imagine god as the kind of vicious, old-testament tyrant who kills thousands with tempests and floods, well, you get the idea.

The most profound thing in all the scriptures that I ever came across, was: "By their fruits shall ye know them."

-jcr