RE: Eternal punishment is pointless.
November 27, 2014 at 3:24 pm
(This post was last modified: November 27, 2014 at 3:31 pm by Lek.)
(November 27, 2014 at 3:18 pm)abaris Wrote:(November 27, 2014 at 3:03 pm)Lek Wrote: Although, overall the stories are totally different, portions such as the tree and the serpent corroborate one another as far as what knowledge had been passed down through generations concerning the earliest times. Often myths have a basis in reality. There are also many other "great flood" stories from around the world, which would lend credence to the belief in a worldwide flood.
Couldn't possibly be that the Israelites took their inspirations from much older myths? Like, say Yahweh originally being an Ugarit deity.
Maybe. Maybe not. I definitely wouldn't jump to that conclusion.
(November 27, 2014 at 3:07 pm)Esquilax Wrote: Except that the actual physical evidence, the geologic column and numerous other civilizations who apparently continued on without ever noticing that they had been destroyed in a flood, contradict the idea of a worldwide flood. Physical evidence doesn't lie, so what we're left with is a bunch of accounts of a "worldwide" flood that could not have happened.
A simpler explanation is that there have been a lot of floods in the world, and the idea that they're worldwide monster floods is just exaggeration or metaphor. When your entire world is basically a few miles around your village or town, then a lot of relatively small events can be worldwide.
You just explain those things away with a wave of the hand, but you hold firmly to the possibility that the Hebrews copied a Sumerian myth.