Creation vs. Evolution

[deco_martini]

You have to know that the name of God is unspoken and cannot be spoken in any words uttered by man.

When I was a young fundamentalist, you could imagine my surprise that a Jewish friend told me that it is forbidden to say God's real name. (this goes back to an ancient hebrew belief that names had magical powers)

Curiously, I asked "well, what is this name?". I asked "Yawheh? Jehovah?" My friend went through a trial and error process with syllables where he kept telling me which syllable I got wrong and told me the Hebrew pronunciation.

Finally she said, that's it except for the first syllable. I asked "what's the first syllable?" She told me. Then I pronounced the unspeakable name of God. Her eyes bugged out in anticipation of imminent doom. Years later however I have yet to be struck by lightning for this offense. I am however much wealthier, happily married, a father of a beautiful 6 month old daughter, and no longer a fundamentalist after becoming well educated.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Which means literally that there was a large hole in the firmament. You have to remember, in hebrew mythology, half the waters were below the firmament and half were above. When the windows of heaven were opened, the water trapped above the hard shell of the sky came pouring through.

In other words, "it rained".

 

[MikeFerrara]

A flood in that particular region doesn't require belief. Its history. A world wide flood that Jehovah used as genocide however is pure belief.

If you take away the scale of the Noah flood, then its no longer special is it? If God really didn't destroy the world by flood, then the covenant that he would never do so again is either fiction or God lied to Noah since the world was not destroyed.

Once these things fall apart, they fall apart in bad ways.

Maybe. However if (and I say if) the more correct translation is "land" rather than "world" as some (including the Catholic church, I believe) contend, then it all still works and the fact that God gave Noah warning and instructions still makes the event rather special.

 

[deco_martini]

In other words, "it rained".

No. That would not be the translation.

Rain was from tiny, tiny holes in the firmament where water dripped from. If you really want to understand the Old Testament in context of the authors' beliefs and astronomic models. I recommend:
AReading the Old Testament: Lawrence Boadt

 

[deco_martini]

Maybe. However if (and I say if) the more correct translation is "land" rather than "world" as some (including the Catholic church, I believe) contend, then it all still works and the fact that God gave Noah warning and instructions still makes the event rather special.

In your version, God killed every man, woman, innocent child, and animal in the mideast. That's at least an improvement over a complete world genocide.

Here are other things you have to believe to believe the Noah story:
Giant men roamed the earth. There are no fossils of giant homo sapiens. Nor are there fossils of their hybrid children they had with normal homo sapiens.
Genesis 6:4

The Lord decided to kill all mankind because he was too wicked. Even if you reconcile the ancient hebrews believing the world was much smaller and thus a regional flood is truth, the intent of the flood was to kill _all_ men, women, innocent children, animals, and even plants. Thus God failed since the the flood did not do so.
Genesis 6:7

Noah was six hundred years old when it happened. So your regional flood thing still doesn't click. Longevity of people during the glacial floods was much shorter than 600 years.
Genesis 7:6

The flood was higher than the mountains. However, the regional flood was not this bad.
Genesis 7:19-20

God closed the windows of heaven, the fountains in the deep, and also the rain from heaven. We know today that there aren't windows in the sky or fountains of the deep. We also know that "rain from heaven" doesn't come out of tiny holes in the solid sky.
Genesis 8:2

God promised to never again destroy _all_ life. He didn't destroy all life in your interpretation where Noah is about a regional flood.
Genesis 9:11

Now, if you dump literalism in each case where you find it inconvenient to believe, what are you left with?

"There was a flood at some time in the Mediterranean region and God warned 1 guy"

The point of the Noah story however is to establish the covenant. However, if the flood wasn't world-wild genocide, then the covenant loses its meaning.

 

[MikeFerrara]

In your version, God killed every man, woman, innocent child, and animal in the mideast. That's at least an improvement over a complete world genocide.

Here are other things you have to believe to believe the Noah story:
Giant men roamed the earth. There are no fossils of giant homo sapiens. Nor are there fossils of their hybrid children they had with normal homo sapiens.
Genesis 6:4

There's lots of conjecture concerning who the giants were. You seem to be more certain than most though.

The Lord decided to kill all mankind because he was too wicked. Even if you reconcile the ancient hebrews believing the world was much smaller and thus a regional flood is truth, the intent of the flood was to kill _all_ men, women, innocent children, animals, and even plants. Thus God failed since the the flood did not do so.
Genesis 6:7

Noah was six hundred years old when it happened. So your regional flood thing still doesn't click. Longevity of people during the glacial floods was much shorter than 600 years.
Genesis 7:6

The longevity of "people" or of Noah?

The flood was higher than the mountains. However, the regional flood was not this bad.
Genesis 7:19-20

God closed the windows of heaven, the fountains in the deep, and also the rain from heaven. We know today that there aren't windows in the sky or fountains of the deep. We also know that "rain from heaven" doesn't come out of tiny holes in the solid sky.
Genesis 8:2

LOL, he made it stop raining.

God promised to never again destroy _all_ life. He didn't destroy all life in your interpretation where Noah is about a regional flood.
Genesis 9:11

Now, if you dump literalism in each case where you find it inconvenient to believe, what are you left with?

"There was a flood at some time in the Mediterranean region and God warned 1 guy"

The point of the Noah story however is to establish the covenant. However, if the flood wasn't world-wild genocide, then the covenant loses its meaning.

Who was the covenant with? Who were the other Old Testament covenants with?

 

[MikeFerrara]

Finally she said, that's it except for the first syllable. I asked "what's the first syllable?" She told me. Then I pronounced the unspeakable name of God. Her eyes bugged out in anticipation of imminent doom. Years later however I have yet to be struck by lightning for this offense. I am however much wealthier, happily married, a father of a beautiful 6 month old daughter, and no longer a fundamentalist after becoming well educated.

I don't know of any reason to believe that the name of God can't be spoken but it sounds like you're young enough to have plenty of lightning and education to look forward to.

 

[deco_martini]

There's lots of conjecture concerning who the giants were. You seem to be more certain than most though.

Well, seeing as how procreation is difficult between different species. We have to assume the giants were homo sapiens since they procreated with other homo sapiens. Unless you think modern genetics is some sort of secular humanist conspiracy to discredit the Biblical account of Noah.

The longevity of "people" or of Noah?

You may not be aware of this, but Genesis claims ridiculous longevity for many people. You should really try reading it sometime. Its full of all sorts of weird stuff. In the case of longevity, scholarly opinion thinks that these claims are made to represent the longevity of tribes themselves and not particular people. Also, modern scholarly opinion has found that the ancient Hebrews had a gift for exaggeration. Do any scholarly work on the Exodus and you'll see what I mean.

LOL, he made it stop raining.

No. He closed the windows or holes in the solid sky. He closed fountains in the deep that were pumping out water. God also stopped the solid sky from leaking. Rain to you is not what Rain was to the ancient hebrews. I have explained this repeatedly. You keep just saying "nuh uh".

Who was the covenant with? Who were the other Old Testament covenants with?

"Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations." Gen 9:12 from the KJV.

Which means you and I since we are all descendants of Noah according to the Bible. However, this viewpoint is difficult to reconcile in light of modern science. Hence, some theologians rationalize it as "well, the Hebrew though the world didn't expand beyond the world they lived in". However, even if you concede that the story still doesn't work.

 

[deco_martini]

I don't know of any reason to believe that the name of God can't be spoken but it sounds like you're young enough to have plenty of lightning and education to look forward to.

From Wikipedia:

For Jewish people YHWH is the most holy name of God, as written in the ancient Hebrew language. The language has no vowels, so the pronunciation is disputed, but most academics agree that "Yahweh" would be the equivalent in modern English.

Traditionally, religious Jews do not say this name aloud, as it is believed to be too sacred to be spoken, but often use substitutes when referring to the name of the their God, e.g., HaShem ("The Name") or Shem HaMeforash (“the unspeakable Name.”)

This is one of those pieces of Judaism that got lost as Christianity spread to the gentiles. Ezekial 20 forbids it to be misused. In the Old Testament times, only the high priest of the temple was allowed to use it. Anything else was misuse.

 

[nereas]

If you've ever actually pronounced YHWH in Hebrew, you would understand why even an English Y is a "closest match" and not a direct translation.
...

Don't worry yourself, I do know how to pronounce it.

And on a separate topic, here is the literal Hebrew-English transliteration of the Hebrew alef-bayt:

A
B
G
D
H
V
Z
CH
Tet
J
K
L
M
N
Sameh
AIN
P / F
TZ
Q
R
SH / Sin
Taf

And here it is for Greek:

A
B / V
G / GR
D / th
E
Z
EE
TH
I
K
L
M
N
KS
Omicron
P
R
S
T
Y <-- pay attention
F / PH
H = X
PS
Omegra


As I said, the "Y" was only invented 500 years in Greece after Moses wrote Genesis in Canaan. So you are still wrong about the proper transliteration. Too much internet reading, I suspect, for you.