world-wide flood? Not!
April adorsey@netusa1.net
Sun, 26 Jul 1998 09:18:54 -0600 (00901484334, 199807261345.JAA17539@gatem02.netusa1.net)
I am taking this directly from the talk.origins web site.
Why is there no mention of the Flood in the records of Egyptian or Chinese
civilizations which existed at the time? Biblical dates (I Kings 6:1, Gal
3:17, various generation lengths given in Genesis) place the Flood 1300
years before Solomon began the first temple. We can construct reliable
chronologies for near Eastern history, particularly for Egypt, from many
kinds of records from the literate cultures in the near East. These records
are independent of, but supported by, dating methods such as
dendrochronology and carbon-14. The building of the first temple can be
dated to 950 B.C. +/- some small delta, placing the Flood around 2250 B.C.
Unfortunately, the Egyptians (among others) have written records dating
well back before 2250 B.C. (the Great Pyramid, for example dates to the
26th century B.C., 300 years before the Biblical date for the Flood). No
sign in Egyptian inscriptions of this global flood around 2250 B.C.
How did the human population rebound so fast? Genealogies in Genesis put
the Tower of Babel about 110 to 150 years after the Flood [Gen 10:25,
11:10-19]. How did the world population regrow so fast to make its
construction (and the city around it) possible? Similarly, there would have
been very few people around to build Stonehenge and the Pyramids, found the
Sumerian and Indus Valley civilizations, populate the Americas, etc.
Why do other flood myths vary so greatly from the Genesis account? Flood
myths are fairly common worldwide, and if they came from a common source,
we should expect similarities in most of them. Instead, the myths show
great diversity. [Bailey, 1989, pp. 5-10; Isaak, 1997] For example, people
survive on high land or trees in the myths about as often as on boats or
rafts, and no other flood myth includes a covenant not to destroy all life
again.