(June 26, 2014 at 12:29 am)snowtracks Wrote:(June 25, 2014 at 11:37 pm)Jenny A Wrote: Really? Genesis appears to describe a world wide flood to me.here's are some thoughts: 1) the biblical Hebrew vocabulary has only about 3,000 words. consequently, the interpretation dependents on grammar, sentence structure, and context since there are multiple literal definitions of common usages. the frame of reference of ancient people is how words and phases such as 'the entire heavens', 'face of the earth' are correctly interpreted. using our modern day global perspective wouldn't give the correct meaning.
Genesis 7:11-23
2) then there are some nuttie Christian insisting on the word 'world' meaning entire surface of the earth, and 'day' always meaning 24 hours to confuse the issue.
Nutty meaning the world means the whole world? Or the face of the earth means all the earth? Nutty meaning a day means 24 hours? Sorry, I think that is exactly what the Hebrews meant. They thought there was a world wide flood. They didn't think it was local or a metaphor.
Obviously, the myth of the flood may have come out of a more local flood or floods. It probably did. And yes it's nutty to believe Genesis happened as written. But many, many Christian nuts do. And the writers of Genesis did. The story is nutty.
So, assuming you don't consider yourself nutty, why did god lead the Hebrews and Christians through the Middle Ages and some today to believe it was a literal flood covering the whole earth?
Well?
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.