The things that Christians say - episode 3

 

Chad, at Truth Bomb Apologetics Blog has a recent post, which is a re-post from a Stand To Reason website article by Greg Koukl.  Chad links to the article so if interested, visit the Truth Bomb post.

Below are the pertinent parts:

Sunday, January 22, 202

In a debate on the existence of God, well-known skeptic Michael Shermer attempted to discredit the biblical account of the flood . . .

A link of the debate sure would be helpful here.  If there is anything that I have learned over the years it is to be distrustful of Christians claims concerning the motives of skeptics, and claims of what a skeptic has said.

. . . by citing a similar Sumerian account written much earlier than Moses’ record. Many other cultures have flood stories in their mythologies, Shermer pointed out. Therefore, he reasoned, all are myths.

Again, a link would be helpful.  But yes, many cultures do have flood stories, and the scholarly consensus seems to be that the vast majority of these stories are retelling's of older stories that were local or regional floods.  Since there was absolutely no world-wide flood (like the one mentioned in the bible) it only makes sense that the stories that these ancients told were likely based on the more ancient legends, the earliest known being the Sumerian flood account.

Note - There are cultures that existed before, during, and after the purported dating of the Genesis world-wide flood story - Egypt for instance.  See my blog post on the Genesis Flood story.  Egypt, China, Akkadian Empire, all these very early cultures were in existence:

~Before the supposed Genesis world-wide flood

~During the supposed Genesis world-wide flood

~After the supposed Genesis world-wide flood 

But wouldn't every culture have been wiped out if the Genesis flood was "world-wide"?  

It’s curious, isn’t it, that there aren’t any worldwide fire myths or global hailstone tales mixed in.

Fires spread ONLY as far as there is something combustible to feed it - forests and fields for instance - unless it is a volcanic eruption and "fire" is actually flowing lava.  And since most of the planet is water, there really can't be a "world-wide fire", can there?

Flood waters don't have any such preconditions or restrictions though - floods can last for days, weeks, months covering all the low lying land for hundreds and hundreds of miles. 

 

Hailstorms are produced by a local storm system and are usually over in a matter of minutes. 

What a silly observation - so no, it's not "curious".

Everybody talks about the flood, though. Maybe the best explanation is that there really was a flood of such magnitude that it kept people talking for thousands of years, even though some of the details got mixed up in the retelling.

Well yes, there could have been a massive flood that wiped out entire cities and beyond.  Maybe that is a "the best explanation" - we are in agreement, I guess.  But according to what Greg Koukl and Chad believe, everyone except the 8 on the ark were wiped out. So the only "Everybody talking" who were left to "talk about" the flood were the direct descendants of those 8 who personally experienced the flood. Everyone else died in the flood. The story of the flood was then passed down from Noah's family to their grand children and beyond.  

So all the flood stories in all the cultures around the world were first told by Noah and family, then spread by the descendants of Noah, who did not experience the world-wide flood themselves, but were retelling the story that they were told by their earlier ancestors, Noah, his wife, their sons, and their wives - that's it!

These people below . . .

(actual photographs)

. . . recounted the flood story to these people . . .

. . . all of whom are obviously directly descended from Noah.

. . . they all retold the story of the world-wide flood, and the reason they retold it is because it obviously actually happened?  Not a local or regional flood, as any reasonable person would conclude, but an actual world-wide flood, because, well, because it's in the bible.

According to Greg and Chad - the only way that all these ancient cultures had a world-wide flood story is because the world-wide story was spread by the migration of the descendants of the survivors of the actual world-wide flood - those who were in the ark (in which case, these descendants would have no idea if the story was true or not because they did not experience it themselves, but were merely repeating what was handed down by their distant ancestors, Noah Ark, Mrs. Ark, and the three Ark sons and their wives). 

No one else in any early culture around the world would have any reason to recount a "world-wide" flood story unless they were the actual descendants of the Ark family, which they were, because we all are descendants of the Ark family, right?

  

This is what Koukl and Chad have to conclude - but - none of this matters because Christians don't concern themselves with world-wide flood stories in distant cultures, because, - they have the bible - which is all they need to begin with, so this entire exercise was futile.

I think we owe thanks to Michael Shermer for pointing out all the corroborating evidence for a worldwide flood.

Ha, Ha, Ha, that is funny.  I always enjoy a good laugh.

bob

r.u.reasonab;e@gmail.com