Talk:Noah's Ark/Archive 5.3

← Archive 5.2

Archive 5.3

Archive 5.4 →

Prose of "The Ark under scrutiny" section

This section seems to be written like an essay opposed to an encyclopedic article. I've never read an encyclopedic article that asks questions and then answers them as an essay might do. For instance: "And might the Sirens, which by their nature lure sailors to their doom, have been permitted on board? (The answer was no; they swam outside.)" If this is some sort of middle age riddle then it should probably be said so, or if it's referencing someone else it should contain a citation. Who asked whether or not the Sirens were on the ark? Who said they swam outside? Does reference 10 contain this information? Does it reference the entire paragraph? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 13:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Beginning at the end: Yep, ref.10 is the source for the information in the entire paragraph. And yep, I write flowery prose. And who else asks questions and then answers them? Don Rumsfeld? Feel free to re-write the whole paragraph if you want, even the whole article, I won't stop you.PiCo 13:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Really big ships

Since I think the historical accuracy of big wooden floating things is the crux of part of Taiwan boi's arguments, I didn't see a link to a couple of good articles on this projects: List of world's largest wooden ships and Wyoming (Schooner). Both articles debunk the ability of large wooden ships to float, and that most historical big wood boats were more mythical than actual. I think everyone has more or less discussed ad nauseum the rest of your points. Orangemarlin 18:50, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Neither article debunks the ability of large wooden ships to float. Neither Caligula's giant ship, nor Hatshepsut's barge were mythical, and they floated just fine. What they do is demonstrate that certain designs of timber ship aren't very stable in the open sea when scaled to certain large proportions. Your comparison of ocean going 19th century multimasted Western designed ships with heavy rigging, and/or cannon, iron cladding/bracing and steam engines/pumps, with pre-modern inland use 'shell first' designed barges with hogging trusses, lateral and transverse strength beams, is like telling me that you can't build a yacht more than 200 feet long, because you can't build a canoe more than 200 feet long. But this is beside the point. As I have said twice previously, I want to include a reference to this information as an example of what some Christian apologists argue. You may disagree with what they argue, but I see no valid reason why the argument should not be presented. What I am seeing is resistance to any reference to Christian interpretations other than the 'literalist' interpretation, which is presented throughout the article, sometimes without any supporting references at all. We are told 'Literalists explain...', 'literalist websites seem to agree', 'literalist scholars who accept these objections believe that Noah must have...', and 'numerous literalist websites...', all without a single link or reference to prove that this is what 'literalists' actually say. If it's ok to do this, then I fail to see why it's not ok to present what some Christian 'non-literalists' say, providing actual evidence that they say it. --Taiwan boi 00:14, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

To be fair to Taiwanboi, what he's saying is that some believers in a literal Ark don't accept the length of the cubit most often accepted, with the result that their version of the Ark is about the same length as attested ancient ships/barges (which happens also to be the length of the Wyoming). So the crux of our argument shouldn't be whether such ships could float, but whether this is a viewpoint sufficiently important to merit inclusion.PiCo 00:30, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you PiCo, that is indeed what I am saying. I agree that the key here is whether or not this viewpoint is sufficiently important to merit inclusion. I believe it is. I find it amazing that the article implies that doubts concerning the 'literalist' interpretation of the Genesis flood narrative arose as a result of 'natural historians' being unable to reconcile it with increased scientific knowledge. No mention is made of Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Genesis flood narrative which understood it to refer to a local flood. As early as the 1st century Josephus referred to people who had survived the flood by gaining high ground, and you can be certain he wasn't interpreting the flood as local on the basis of scientific advancement. Rashi and Maimonides said the same, and they certainly didn't say so on the basis of a Renaissance paradigm. Sir Thomas Browne, quoted in the main article, made mention of the Christians who in his day believed the flood was local ('some conceiving it needlesse to be universal, have made the deluge particular, and about those parts where Noah built his Arke'). By the late 19th century, the local flood position was already common among Christians, and accepted as within orthodoxy by the majority. It just so happened that the Fundamentalists became the most vocal and their position the most well known. The article on the other hand gives the false impression that by the 19th century secular scientists no longer gave the global flood interpretation credence, but that this was still the standard view among Christians. --Taiwan boi 06:17, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The difficulty in this instance, as in many other topics such as creationism etc, is that the biblical literalists seem to garner the lion's share of the attention. Partly this is because they are vocal. Partly because this is because they claim that all other Christians believe as they do, which is patently false; the vast majority of Christians disagree with them in most instances. Partly this is because they often use subscription to biblical literalism as a litmus test for deciding if a given person is Christian or not. Partly this is because their extreme positions are more easy to dismiss, and most at odds with standard scientific thought. However, it is probably worthwhile on all of these articles which discuss literalist beliefs to make it clear how much of a minority position biblical literalism truly is. Even among Pentecostals and Southern Baptists, anonymous surveys demonstrate that only about half of the congregations subscribe to biblical literalism. Among mainstream Jews, Catholics, Protestants, etc, only about 10% claim to believe the bible is literally true (and even this might be an overestimate, depending on how the survey is done). This is like the story of the "Emperor who wasnt wearing any clothes". People are sometimes reluctant to state the obvious; any careful scholarship or understanding of the bible makes it very difficult to maintain a belief in biblical literalism. I do not know what the corresponding figures are for Koranic literalism, but I suspect they might not be too different, if done by anonymous surveys among literate, educated people.--Filll 13:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Fill, I quite agree. The very fact that the term 'literalists believe' is used throughout the article demonstrates that the contributors to the article are well aware that views exist among Christians which are different to the views of the 'literalists'. I see no reason why these other views should not be here. If people can just come out directly and say whether or not one Christian viewpoint is to be presented here, it will save us all a lot of time. --Taiwan boi 15:18, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see where in this article are there significant literal interpretations of the bible. Mostly, the article states what the story is. Other forks do the interpretation. Orangemarlin 15:54, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, the entire narrative section, which presents a 'literalist' interpretation of the text (it's not even a quote from the Biblical text, it's an interpretation of the text). Secondly, we are repeatedly presented with the 'literalist' interpretation of the Ark narrative, using such phrases as 'Biblical literalists today continue to take the Ark as test-case for their understanding of the Bible', 'literalists rely on interpretation', 'Literalists explain...', 'Literalists see nothing puzzling', 'literalists devote much attention', 'literalist websites seem to agree', 'literalist scholars who accept these objections believe that Noah must have...', 'a matter of much debate, even bitter dispute, between literalists and their opponents', 'While some literalists hold', and 'numerous literalist websites...'. The 'literalist' interpretation is presented throughout the entire article, and not contained in a fork. No other Christian interpretation is presented. The very fact that the term 'literalists believe' is used throughout the article demonstrates that the contributors to the article are well aware that views exist among Christians which are different to the views of the 'literalists'. I see no reason why these other views should not be here. --Taiwan boi 01:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The narrative section is a paraphrase of the text, not an "interpretation". We have to present the story, but quoting three chapters of the Bible verbatim is inappropriate. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:36, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The narrative is a paraphrase, and that's what makes it an interpretation. I am not suggesting three chapters of the Bible verbatim be quoted. I am suggesting an NPOV paraphrase. --Taiwan boi 00:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Here's a suggested rewrite of the narrative section:

The story of Noah's Ark in chapters 6 to 9 in the Book of Genesis[2] has been interpreted in a number of different ways within Abrahamic religions, with a range of interpretations being found within rabbinic, Christian, and Islamic traditions. In the narrative which follows the general outline of the story as found in standard English translations of the Book of Genesis is described (direct quotes are from the King James Version of the English Bible). Details of the story which are interpreted differently by different traditions have been placed in italics. They are represent what the text appears to say, but not what it necessarily means:

'The Genesis flood story begins with God observing man's evil behaviour and deciding to flood the earth and destroy all life. However, God found one good man, Noah, "a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time," and decided that he would carry forth the lineage of man. God told Noah to make an ark, and to bring with him his wife, and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. Additionally, he was told to bring examples of all animals and birds, male and female. In order to provide sustenance, he was told to bring and store food. Noah and his family and the animals entered the Ark, and "the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights." The flood covered even the highest mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet, and all creatures on Earth died; only Noah and those with him on the Ark were left alive. After 150 days, the Ark came to rest among the mountains of Ararat.' --Taiwan boi 02:48, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Make it more clearly a story please, especially when using quotes. Eg. Genesis says that the flood covered even the highest mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet, and all creatures on Earth died; only Noah and those with him on the Ark were left alive. --ZayZayEM 04:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Erm, all I've done is keep the existing narrative as it already stands in the article at present, add a short introduction, and placed some parts of the text in italics. The parts in italics are not intended to be quotes, they are intended to be details of the story which are interpreted differently by different traditions. They are not intended to be quotes ('examples of all animals and birds, male and female', for example is not a quote from anywhere in Genesis), and they are supposed to be identified as other than quotes. Direct quotes have already been placed - unsurprisingly - in quotation marks. It seems you have a problem with the narrative as it stands in the article at present, in which case I propose you suggest a rewrite of the narrative. I don't know how it could be more obviously 'a story', when it opens with 'The Genesis flood story begins with'. --Taiwan boi 05:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not clear from context what the italics mean; it's not a standard use for them. But I disagree, and strongly. There's no interpretation at all going on in that section, just a synopsis of the plot, if you will. That is what it is independent of any interpretive filters. Those come after the story is laid down. There's no getting around the actual content of the text, no matter how this group or that chooses to read it. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Since the use of the italics is introduced by the words 'Details of the story which are interpreted differently by different traditions have been placed in italics', I find it difficult to understand why you would think that it's not clear from context what the italics mean'. But I would be happy to use single inverted commas instead, as a recognised convention for this purpose. If you don't believe there's any interpretation going on in that section, then I suggest you're not familiar with the process of translation. The text in the narrative is most certainly not what the text is independent of any interpretative filters. It's not even a direct quote of the Biblical text. What is going on there is an interpretation. If the text consisted of a direct quote from an English translation, and it was presented as such, then I would have less of a problem. But when the Biblical text is paraphrased, it is interpreted in the process. The narrative purports to inform the reader of what the Biblical text actually means. That is interpretation. I agree there's no 'getting around the actual content of the text', but you misunderstand my objection. I am not suggesting trying to 'get around the actual content of the text'. I am suggesting an NPOV presentation of the text, whereas you are insisting on a POV interpretation of the text. I am suggesting a presentation of the text which takes into account the fact that it is possible to read in a variety of ways. You wish to convince the reader that there is only one possible way to read the text, and that the literal meaning of the English words in standard English translations accurately represents what the original Hebrew author meant by the Hebrew he used. I question your authority to determine so conclusively what the original Hebrew author meant. I'm sure you didn't know him. --Taiwan boi 12:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Your premise is just wrong. The section purports to inform of that the narrative says, not what it means, and I can detect no interpretation whatsoever going on. It's perfectly possible to summarize or make a synopsis of a story without interpreting the events in it. It's only possible to read the story in a number of ways once you start applying interpretive filters. Absent those, bare of any allegorical or symbolic analysis, the story is all there is, and it's perfectly NPOV to tell the reader about it. I just don't understand your objections to summarizing the story, and you haven't stated them in any cogent way. The actual text must be the ground from which any discussion of it must proceed, but it sounds as if you'd accept nothing but the literal Hebrew text for this. You denied it earlier, but that's exactly what you're saying here. Either that, or you're demanding that we start in the middle of the article rather than at the beginning, and start interpreting before we have even said anything about the contents of the text. That's a very poor way to present the subject.

The text presented here is a paraphrase of the KJV text. That text is a translation and an interpretation. If this narrative was introduced by a statement that it is a paraphrase of the KJV text, the text could stand as is. But it doesn't do that. It purports to tell us the Hebrew flood story, but does so without any reference to the actual Hebrew flood text. You think that when you're reading the English translation you're reading the original story - just as the Hebrews originally penned it (in English, of course!). You don't think that there's any interpretation involved, because you think that this paraphrase of the KJV English text represents exactly what the Hebrew text says, not only word for word but meaning for meaning. This demonstrates that you're not actually familiar with the field of translation, and you're not familiar with the difference between a translation and a paraphrase. --Taiwan boi 16:30, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, you're complaint here is practically incoherent. Even when I take the time to re-read it, it makes no sense. Whatever other meaning is in there, whatever allegory might be present, whatever symbols are employed or perceived by whatever religious groups, the narrative as it stands comprises a story. All this section is supposed to do -- what it "purports" to do, is to tell that story in its essential "plot points". That is all, and there's nothing wrong with doing that by any standard. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Clearly you have still not read my suggested edit, since you are still saying you think I want the literal Hebrew here. I am not saying that. I am suggesting we keep the narrative as it stands, and simply indicate that it is a paraphrase of one particular English translation, indicating the various phrases which are subject to a range of interpretations. This means that we indicate that these phrases are subject to a range of interpretations, but without actually suggesting any interpretations of them at all - thus NPOV. You think this paraphrase of an English translation of the Hebrew text actually tells the story of what the Hebrew text really says, because you think that a paraphrase of an English translation of a Hebrew text necessarily constitutes an accurate depiction of what the Hebrew text says. But even a cursory search of an English Bible reveals that phrases such as 'all flesh' and 'all the X under heaven' are not necessarily to be understood as literal. But you want them to be represented as literal in this paraphrase, without giving any explanation as to why. You think my complaint is incoherent because you still haven't read it. Nor have you read my suggested edit. It would be useful if you just came out and told me why you don't want this article edited. That would save us both a lot of time. You're not the only one here who doesn't want it changed in any way, after all. --Taiwan boi 16:28, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

First, stop with the personal attacks. I never said I didn't want the article changed in any way. In the other thread I started by saying I agreed with most of your complaints about the article.

Clearly I have read your suggested edit. I know very well that you aren't asking for the Hebrew; I'm saying that it appears the only version of this narrative that you think is NPOV is the Hebrew. I can't see how you could possibly disagree with that based on your apparent objection to the use of any single existing English translation.

The rest of what you're saying is frank nonsense. This is a valid paraphrase for any of the two dozen or so English translations of the text I have seen. Whether or not a particular translation chose to render certain Semitic idioms literally or according to their sense is utterly beside the point. Any acceptably accurate translation will do here; it doesn't matter which as long as (for consistency's sake) we pick one and stick with it. If we were to take your argument to its logical conclusion, every quotation on Wikipedia originating in any language other than English should be flagged like this for every word that differs among all existing English translations for any idiom of the original language. I cannot think of a more pointless exercise, even if we were to restrict it to Biblical quotations only. No one does that. You're the only person I've ever met who thinks it might even be necessary.

If I had trouble understanding what you were saying, it's because you hadn't bothered to explain your context. "Interpretation", when applied to a Biblical text, means exegesis, or a symbolic or allegorical analysis of it, not a decision about how to phrase a dynamically equivalent translation. A person whose approach it is "literal" or who is a "literalist" isn't someone favoring a word-for-word literal or formally equivalent translation, but someone who believes the sense of the story literally. In this case, it's someone who believes and that a man named Noah really did, on instructions from God he really received, build a large, watertight, wooden structure; really did load multiple specimens of every kind of animal there was into it to assure their survival of a worldwide flood he had been told would happen by God; and that this worldwide flood really happened. Most, but not all, of these people are Young Earth creationists. They have to provide entirely novel versions of a number of sciences in order to justify this view; see Flood geology. Many of them use the KJV. Many don't. They are a minority faction of Christians but an extremely vocal one, which is why the article devotes so many words to an explanation of how they understand the text.

So the problem isn't that I don't understand translation. It's that you don't understand the words you're using. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I've spent a few days away from here deliberately. Firstly I am not confusing interpretation with translation. Having spent a good several years on a professional Bible translation list, I'm aware of the difference. When referring to the KJV I distinguished between translation and interpretation, saying that the KJV rendering is both a translation and an interpretation. Secondly, translation certainly does involve interpretation (in the sense of 'exegesis'), at times, which is what makes it so difficult. Take the word SARX ('flesh'), for example. In numerous New Testament passages an exegesis of the text is necessary to determine whether the word should be translated 'flesh', or translated as an idiom, metaphor, or synonym, or metonym. In other cases the idiom is known to have one specific meaning, not a range of meanings. Thus when we are told God has a 'long nose', it is understood to mean 'patient' or 'longsuffering', and is rendered as such. In most cases there are contextual indicators which identify the meaning of the idiom. Thus when such terms as 'all flesh' are found in apocalyptic judgment oracles, it is most likely that they are to be understood in a non-literal sense, and ditto when Luke says that 'all the world' was taxed by Augustus it is understood that he uses OIKOUMENH in its restricted sense referring to the Roman empire (this, despite the fact that the KJV renders it 'world'). Now you wouldn't go over to the 'Census of Quirinius' article and insist that the article say that Luke claimed Augustus taxed the entire planet would you? And yet the KJV plainly says Augustus taxed 'the entire world'.

In cases where the term is ambiguous and there are no obvious contextual markers (such as in the case of 'all flesh' in the Genesis flood account), the usual practice of modern translations is to render it literally and let the reader interpret it. That is why I have no problem with the KJV (or any other translation), being quoted in the narrative section of the article, as long as the key phrases are placed in quotation marks. But paraphrasing the KJV (or any other translation), purports to represent the meaning of the text.

As I have said before, I have absolutely no problem with placing these terms in " " marks and identifying them as direct quotes from the KJV. It simply untrue that I view the Hebrew as the only non-POV account, since I have provided several examples of how the existing English paragraph in this section could be rendered non-POV, without even changing a single word and without changing it into another language. Thirdly, I understand that 'literalist' in this article does not refer to a 'word for word' translation of the Bible, but to someone who reads the English text in a literal sense. I don't know why you thought I had confused the two. Fourthly, whatever is done with this article has no necessary consequences for other articles, and certainly not the changes I'm suggesting. There's no need for the kind of changes you're claiming would be necessary. People manage to understand that Luke didn't claim Augustus taxed the entire planet, so when they paraphrase Luke they don't say that Luke claimed Augustus taxed the entire planet. If they did, they would be wrong. --Taiwan boi 06:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

(reducing indent and overwriting an earlier post) I've dealt with most of your {cite} tags - one of them already has all the references, grouped at the end of the section, for another I simply deleted the sentence as it wasn't essential, and a third refered to the totality of literalist websites and thus was/is inherently unreferenceable.

I still am not convinced that the summary does violence to the account in Genesis, or needs quote marks. Incidentally, it was based on the RSV, not the KJV: you can see my discussion with TCC on another thread about "Christian" vs. "English" translations, and I prefer English. "Christian" ones tend to do violence to the Hebrew, "correcting" the opening of Deuteronomy, for example, to put Moses on the wrong side of the Jordan - a change which isn't even specifically Christian; but I'm not aware of any such problems with the Ark story.

I'm sure you're not convinced that the summary does violence to the account in Genesis, because you're convinced that a loose paraphrase of the English RSV translation is an accurate depiction of the true meaning and POV of the original Hebrew text. I am disputing that you can be sure of that, especially without providing any evidence that it is true. Can you explain to me why you believe that this loose paraphras eof the English RSV tnraslation is an accurate depiction of the true meaning and POV of the original Hebrew text? --Taiwan boi 02:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I gather your core problem with the article is your feeling that it gives undue weight to the literalist position - global flood, huge Ark - and you'd like room for less extreme views - local flood, small Ark (and even no flood, Ark-stolen-from-Babylonian-myth?) I have no idea how many people do believe in a literal Ark, and I suspect most people get through the day without thinking about such things. I have no idea how many hold the other positions, either. PiCo 09:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

My core problem with the article is certainly that it provides extensive detail of the 'literalist' position. But not only that, it obscures the fact that alternative positions exist. Why does it not contain any details of alternative positions, especially when the 'non-literalist' positions are among the earliest expositions of the passage on record, starting with Josephus in the 1st century? Is there a a valid reason to exclude these from the article? If not, would you object to me including a description of them? --Taiwan boi 02:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

"Christian" ones tend to do violence to the Hebrew, "correcting" the opening of Deuteronomy, for example, to put Moses on the wrong side of the Jordan -- This is simply false. The verse that follows makes it plain which side of the Jordan Moses was on. All translation requires a decision in how to phrase a passage for clarity. In this case, we're obviously looking at something written from the point of view of someone west of the Jordan. But since the text had not earlier recorded the crossing into Canaan, it's confusing if you're anywhere else in the world. It hardly does "violence to the Hebrew" if, however phrased, the reader arrives at a correct understanding of what side of the Jordan Moses is said to be on. The fact is that all translations made from the Hebrew, Christian or not, have been made with every intention of an accurate rendering. If some have failed -- the state of Hebrew scholarship in the non-Jewish world was not as well developed in 1611 as it is now -- it's not because of deliberate mistranslation.

You never really acknowledged the basic point of what I meant by "Christian" translation, and if you're going to keep talking like this I really wish you would. That is -- Why should any translation obscure possible connections between the Old and New Testaments that would be readily apparent in either Hebrew (where "anointed one" is "mochiach" for both OT monarchs and Jesus) or Greek (where the word is "christos" in both cases)? To translate them differently in each section may not do violence to the original languages, but it most certainly does to the English. And don't you want an "English translation"? TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I want to add that your basic premise is wrong too. The only English translations that say "this side of the Jordan" are those based more or less directly on the KJV. Others say "beyond" or "across" Jordan. Most modern translations avoid any ambiguity in Moses' location at all and say "east of Jordan" -- which isn't what the Hebrew says of course, but it's the side of the river the Hebrew is trying to convey.

If anything, you more often find the NT mistranslated to support a particular denomination's POV. 2 Thess 2:15 is a notorious example. (Compare the Greek with the accurately rendered KJV and then the NIV, which is aimed at an Evangelical audience. The correct translation is relegated to a footnote -- but only partially, since the verb should be different too. The NLT doesn't even bother with a footnote. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

But to respond to Taiwan boi directly -- I would think that after all this time, since you insist that the narrative section violates NPOV, that you would have some specific example of how this is so. Why did I think you'd gotten the meaning of "literalist" wrong? Because your complaint about the narrative section is that it reflects a "literalist" POV, and when pressed as to how, you started talking about translations, and the parts you want highlighted are strictly those . So now please state the problem directly: In what way does the "Narrative" section misrepresent the tale as told in the Hebrew? How would the story be different if a Hebrew-speaker told it without reference to a literalist POV? (Absent any exegetical analysis, since that's explicitly not what that section is about.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I have been extremely specific about why I believe this narrative section violates NPOV. I have not said that it necessarily misreprsents the Hebrew. What I have said is that it claims to convey the correct meaning of the Hebrew. Remember, I am speaking here of the paraphrases, not the direct quotes. The parts of the narrative which paraphrase the English translation, and represent this parapharase as the true meaning of what the original Hebrew writer had in mind. How do you know what the original Hebrew writer had in mind? Just give me your reasons. As I have made clear, I have no problems with a reasonable translation being quoted as an indication of what the Hebrew says. What I object to is a loose paraphrase of the English translation being represented as what the Hebrew actually means. I am not arguing that the Hebrew writer intended it to be taken literally, and I am not arguing that the Hebrew writer intended it to be taken non-literally, so your question is irrelevant to me. I am arguing that the reader should be left to make up their own mind, since the Hebrew writer wrote the original narrative in such a way as leaves the interpretation up to the reader. What objection do you have to replacing the key phrases with direct quotes from an English translation, and placing them in quotation marks? --Taiwan boi 02:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I still don't understand what you see as questionable about the summary. Take just one verse: how does this passage, parts of which you've italicised as shown in your proposed edit:

• "The story of Noah's Ark, according to chapters 6 to 9 in the Book of Genesis, begins with God observing man's evil behaviour and deciding to flood the earth and destroy all life."

misrepresent this?:

• "God said, 'I will obliterate humanity that I have created from the face of the earth - man, livestock, land animals, and birds of the sky. I regret that I created them.'" (English with notes.)
• "And the LORD said: 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.'" (Hebrew/English.

PiCo 12:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I have explained this before. The translations you have provided are accurate renderings of what the Hebrew says. The reader can decide for themselves what these phrases mean. The paraphrase in the narrative which you have quoted is different. It purports to tell the reader what the text means. I have no objection to any particular Bible translation being quoted here, in quote marks, and the reader being left to decide the meaning for themselves (this is, after all, what the original Hebrew writer did). I do have an objection to a narrative paraphrase which purports to dictate what the original Hebrew writer meant, where the meaning of the text is debatable. Imposing one meaning on this text and representing it as the only meaning, is necessarily writing POV. --Taiwan boi 07:37, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

TB: The trouble is that you've been mixing levels of meaning, or at least it looks as if you are, which is why no one knows what you're talking about. On the one hand, there's interpretation on the level of semantics. A translation should be semantically equivalent to the original if it's any good, so a high-level paraphrase should come out to about the same whether it's made from the original language or a good (or even merely adequate) translation. If it's on this level you have a problem, you're going to have to say what it is because you haven't yet. You need to because it would be entirely novel: I have never heard of any claim, from a Jew or anyone else, that any of the standard English translations of the story seriously misrepresents it on this level.

The other level of meaning is the theological/symbolic/allegorical level, and it's here where controversy generally resides. If this is what you're complaining about -- as you would be if, for example, if you want to take "the earth" and "all life" to mean something other than what they convey semantically because one interpretation or another puts the phrases into some context where they're understood differently -- then this is something the narrative section is not intended to address.

So please give an example of an "interpretation" on the semantic level where something is amiss. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I've dealt with this above. As I have said repeatedly, I have no objection to any of the standard translations of the text. The translations render what the text says. The reader is left to determine what they mean. The phrase 'all flesh', for example, is overwhelmingly used in a non-literal sense in the Bible, yet the paraphrase in the narrative here informs the reader that it is to be taken literally in the flood account. I do not believe it is correct to interpret the text for the reader. The text can be quoted (and placed in quote marks), as I have suggested, and the reader can be informed that it is up to them to interpret the text. You talk about me wanting to take 'the earth' and 'all life' to mean 'something other than what they convey semantically', and that's just the problem - you think that the only semantic meaning they have is a literal meaning. That's simply not the case, not in Hebrew or in English. I am not saying that the narrative section should say that these phrases as used in the Genesis flood account refer literally in a global sense, or hyperbolically in a local sense. I am arguing that the narrative section should not represent the text as having either meaning. The text should be quoted, and the meaning interpreted by the reader. That eliminates the possibility of POV. --Taiwan boi 07:37, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Who says? Give a reference. I know very well the story is based on a local flood, but I have never seen this text read in such a way as to be talking on a small scale. The language is unambiguous in Hebrew, Greek, or English, and there is no significant body of exegesis anywhere that uses one of these alternate readings. So give a reliable source for it. I tend to think you don't have one, because you could have short-circuited this a long time ago if you'd just cited it, but it's never too late. If you have one, let's see it. (And please don't expect us to take some tiny group's idiosyncratic reading as a reliable source. It just isn't.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 09:05, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Who says what? That the various terms used to describe the flood can be understood in either a local or a global sense? I can provide you with examples of such language used in the Bible itself in a non-local sense, or would you prefer another source? If you are telling the truth when you say you have 'have never seen this text read in such a way as to be talking on a small scale', then I suggest you read this very Talk page, in which I mentioned local flood interpretations as early as the 1st century (Josephus). See my reply below. The language is not 'unambiguous in Hebrew, Greek, or English'. Let me ask you this. If you were paraphrasing Luke's account of the census in Luke 2:1, would you say that Luke records a decree by Augustus to tax the entire planet? Remember, the phrase under question is 'all the world should be taxed', and it is translated in this way by every English language Bible up to the 20th century (and in fact up to the first half of the 20th century if I'm not mistaken), and is still translated 'all the world' in a number of standard modern English translations. --Taiwan boi 01:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I would argue that because the language is so unambiguous that this is an exegetical issue anyway. So your source had better support the notion that a local flood is a possible reading of what the text is trying to express as written, not by some higher-level interpretive scheme. To be really reliable it needs to address the problem of why no one, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, has noticed this until now. (There is no traditional exegesis that reads the text that way.) Otherwise it stands a good chance of being someone's pet theory with no outside recognition. TCC (talk) (contribs) 09:10, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I am amazed that you think 'no one, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, has noticed this until now', and that there is 'no traditional exegesis that reads the text that way'. You clearly haven't read what I wrote earlier in this very Talk page. Let me quote my earlier words, written here over a week ago (bold added):

As early as the 1st century Josephus referred to people who had survived the flood by gaining high ground, and you can be certain he wasn't interpreting the flood as local on the basis of scientific advancement. Rashi and Maimonides said the same, and they certainly didn't say so on the basis of a Renaissance paradigm. Sir Thomas Browne, quoted in the main article, made mention of the Christians who in his day believed the flood was local ('some conceiving it needlesse to be universal, have made the deluge particular, and about those parts where Noah built his Arke'). By the late 19th century, the local flood position was already common among Christians, and accepted as within orthodoxy by the majority.

I'll add to Josephus the 1st century witness of Philo, who defines the flood as local, saying it 'almost flowed out beyond the Pillars of Heracles [the Straits of Gibraltar] and the Great Sea'. Josephus and Philo are two of the earliest extant commentaries on the flood, and they both speak of it as local. Both Rashi (11th century), and Maimonides (12th century), were firmly within Jewish orthodoxy, and even helped define it. Browne's witness is important becuase it shows that the local flood interpretation had become established within Christian orthodoxy by at least the 17th century (though he himself thought this interpretation was wrong). I fail to see how you could possibly defend your statment that 'no one, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, has noticed this until now'.

Writing in 1890, Aldous Huxley says 'I have been unable to discover that the universality of the Deluge has any defender left', and whilst the universal interpretation certainly did still have its defenders, his statement is nevertheless a pertinent comment on the extent to which the view had declined to become the minority position. Yet you say claim 'no one, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, has noticed this until now'. On what basis do you make this claim? Do you simply disbelieve that these other historical interpretations even exist, or were you just unaware of them? --Taiwan boi 01:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Disappointing. You insist over and over again that the story in text can be read as describing a local and not a global flood, but when you finally get down to cases you have less than nothing. None of these sources are talking about that at all. These are all clearly not direct readings, but exegetical (or scientific per Huxley) which is what I've been expecting all along. The Narrative section is not for exegesis. It's for relating the story as told. Period. If you want to include this kind of material, fine. Make a place in the article for it. I already said the literalist stuff takes up far more space proportionately than it should.

In any event, representing to us what sources say, and actually citing them are two different things. The latter allows for verification, which is the point of giving sources. So you need to say where you got these from. I suppose for Josephus you mean Antiquities of the Jews, and I did find the place you evidently have in mind in it. But here I find you have misrepresented him. He says not that the flood was local, but very unambiguously that it covered the whole earth and rose 15 cubits over the tops of the mountains. When he tells of people escaping to higher ground, he is quoting someone else, Nicolaus of Damascus, not stating it as his own opinion. Even then, Nicolaus describes people finding refuge only at the top of a single mountain, which that writer supposes is the same mountain the ark landed on. It does not say that this was done in more than one place, or that the flood was anything but global. [1].

I don't know which work of Philo you have in mind either. His second book of Questions and Answers on Genesis deals with the flood at considerable length. Although he gives an allegorical interpretation every step of the way, he also affirms belief in the literal truth of each passage before he launches into allegory on it. [2] He also states its literal truth in On Abraham [3]. "Every part of the earth was under water" doesn't agree with what you claim he said. I'm not the only one who reads Philo this way. [4] is a Creationist site and has all the usual disadvantages of that kind, but he does present a handy summary. But even if Philo said what you claim, that's still a global flood for him. As far as anyone knew at the time, there were no inhabited lands west of Gibraltar.

So I'm not going to trouble myself look up Rashi and Maimonides on the subject. You've misrepresented two sources, one outright and the other by at best carefully cherry-picking a quote. There is no reason to believe you about the other two. But that's beside the point I made earlier, that what you represent as a valid direct reading of the text is in fact exegesis. TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Was it just too much to admit that your statements 'no one, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, has noticed this until now', and that there is 'no traditional exegesis that reads the text that way' were simply wrong? No, you have not found the reference from Josephus to which I alluded. I was referring specifically to Josephus' own words in Antiquities 1:108-109, where Shem, Japhet, and Ham 'persuaded others who were greatly afraid of the lower grounds on account of the floods and so were very loth to come down from the higher place, to venture to follow their examples'. You would have found this if you had read Josephus for yourself. By the way, you completely misquoted Josephus. He did not say that the water 'rose 15 cubits over the tops of the mountains'. He says that the water 'became fifteen cubits higher than the earth' (Antiquities 1:89). Nothing whatever about 15 cubits 'over the tops of the mountains'. Just read the text for yourself instead of Googling frantically for 3 minutes and snatching at the first paraphrase you find.

Not only that, but you likewise failed to read Philo. In Questions and Answers on Genesis (2:28), he speaks of the flood 'extending almost beyond the pillars of Hercules and the great Mediterranean Sea', as I said. That is not allegory, and it is perfectly clear that Philo is saying that the floodwaters did not reach beyond a certain point. How could you possibly question wheher or not those words I cited were in Philo? Did you actually read Philo for yourself? The passage is right there. Even that very Creationist site to which you link makes specific mention of those words, and quotes the very phrase to which I referred. Did you even read that page? And while we're on the subject of that site, I note you failed to quote the part where the author says of Philo 'some of the phrases he uses are regarding the extent of the Flood are ambiguous', and 'Philo was emphatic that the Flood was anthropologically universal'. I have no problems with the idea that Philo believed the flood to have been anthropologically universal, but that is not the same as being geographically universal. So I did not misrepresent Josephus, and the words I attributed to Philo are indeed right there in the very text of his which you claimed to have read (but clearly didn't). Let me guess, you did a quick word search in Philo for 'Heracles', and didn't find it, not aware of the alternative spelling 'Hercules', which some translations use?

While we're on the subject of creationist sites, here's [5] one for you from a site which argues for a global flood, but acknowledges the ambiguity of the language used:

'In the original Hebrew, unlike English translations, the Genesis Flood account is ambiguous about whether the flood was universal. It states that "the land was covered" and "life died." But nowhere in the Hebrew is it explicitly stated that the flood covered the whole Earth, nor that all life died in the flood.'

I can provide quotes from standard Bible dictionaries which agree that the apparently universal language in the account is in fact ambiguous (Smith's, Tyndale's, . Examples of such language used in a non-universal sense include ‘all flesh’ (Psalm 145:21, Isaiah 40:5; 66:23, Jeremiah 45:5, Ezekiel 20:48; 21:4, Joel 2:28), ‘the face of the earth’ (Genesis 4:14; 41:56, Exodus 10:5, Numbers 11:31; 22:5, 11, Isaiah 23:17, Jeremiah 25:26, Ezekiel 34:5; 38:20), and ‘The fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the wild beasts, all the things that creep on the ground’ (Ezekiel 38:20).

Equivalent phrases also used in a non-literal sense include:

• Deuteronomy 2:25, ‘all people under heaven’

• 1 Kings 18:20, ‘every nation and kingdom’

• Ezekiel 38:20, ‘The fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the wild beasts, all the things that creep on the ground, and all people who live on the face of the earth’

• Daniel 4:1; 5:19; 6:24, ‘all peoples, nations, and language groups’

In fact in the LXX it appears that the translators attempted to clarify this by amplifying the language used so that the Greek presents a flood of greater proportions than the Hebrew. In Genesis 7:20 the LXX has 'high mountains' where the Hebrew has just 'hills', in Genesis 7:23 the LXX has 'upon all the earth' instead of upon the earth', and in Genesis 8:9 the LXX has 'upon all the face of all the earth', instead of 'upon the face of all the earth'. We also find 'all flesh' instead of the Hebrew 'from all flesh'. This is a tacit acknowledgment that the language of the Hebrew text was not unambiguously universal.

You completely ignored my direct quote from Browne, so here it is again. Sir Thomas Browne (17th century), quoted in the main article, made mention of the Christians who in his day believed the flood was local ('some conceiving it needlesse to be universal, have made the deluge particular, and about those parts where Noah built his Arke'). Are you still going to claim that 'no one, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, has noticed this until now', and that there is 'no traditional exegesis that reads the text that way'? You either didn't read, or completely misread, my use of Huxley. I did not refer to Huxley's interpretation of the flood at all. I specifically quoted him as saying, at the end of the 19th century, that 'I have been unable to discover that the universality of the Deluge has any defender left', supporting my point that contrary to your claim 'no one, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, has noticed this until now', this had in fact become the majority position by the end of the 19th century.

I am going to ask this yet again. If you were paraphrasing Luke's account of the census in Luke 2:1, would you say that Luke records a decree by Augustus to tax the entire planet? Remember, the phrase under question is 'all the world should be taxed', and it is translated in this way by every English language Bible up to the 20th century (and in fact up to the first half of the 20th century if I'm not mistaken), and is still translated 'all the world' in a number of standard modern English translations. Remember, that's the phrase 'all the world' we're talking about.

As I have said repeatedly, I have no problem at all with any modern Bible translation of these verses being quoted directly in the narrative section, and the exegesis being left up to the reader. What I object to is your refusal to allow the actual translated text in the narrative, in quote marks, with the exegesis left up to the reader. I object to you filling the narrative with an exegetical paraphrase from one POV. But I'm glad to see you're at least prepared to see interpretations of the text represented in the article other than the 'literalist view'. Unfortunately I'm not sure that others feel the same way. I suppose I'll have to try putting something in, and then waiting for the next atheist to delete it without warning or explanation. --Taiwan boi 18:10, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did read Philo, and Josephus. You cherry-picked quotes to give the wrong impression about the preponderance of what they say, and saying exactly where you cherry-picked the quotes from doesn't help. Yes, Josephus appears to accept Nicholaus' account that others were on the mountain where Noah landed. (I didn't misquote. I didn't say I was quoting at all. But that's what happens when you work from memory.) He records a number of traditions not drawn directly from the text. He does not say the flood was purely local. (3:2, "Now God loved this man for his righteousness: yet he not only condemned those [who had persecuted Noah] for their wickedness, but determined to destroy the whole race of mankind, and to make another race that should be pure from wickedness," 3:5, "...the water poured down forty entire days, till it became fifteen cubits higher than the earth; which was the reason why there was no greater number preserved, since they had no place to fly to..." As for Philo, I will admit to skimming the book quickly (I am well aware of the spelling variations for Heracles) but your out-of-context quote is still no help to you with a more representative quote: "Since the deluge of that time was no trifling infliction of water, but an immense and boundless overflow, extending almost beyond the pillars of Hercules and the great Mediterranean Sea, since the whole earth and all the spaces of the mountains were covered with water...." You're trying to call this a description of a local flood? Did you really expect to be taken seriously? That Philo believed that all human life but those on the ark was destroyed is readily apparent from the preceding paragraphs (which were the ones that had actually caught my eye earlier.)

The example from Luke is entirely different from the Ark account. No, I would not paraphrase Luke 2:1 as you say here, because that's not what οἰκουμένην means semantically and it never has. "All the world" is a straightforward (but poetic) mistranslation. In the Noah's Ark story, when it says the water covered the mountaintops to a depth of 15 cubits, that's exactly the sense the text intends to convey. Contra your triumphal assertions, I have not admitted that anyone has ever thought those words were trying to convey something else, and you haven't shown anything to prove they have. Of course the passage has been interpreted differently in exegesis; I have never said otherwise.

You're wrong about the LXX in two ways. Your thesis that it "amplified" the Hebrew may have been believable 50 years ago, but we now know that it represents a distinct textual tradition of the Hebrew that was not retained following the Jewish Diaspora. We don't have the entirety of the Hebrew tradition it represents, and AFAIK we don't know exactly what it said in Genesis 7. The LXX is furthermore the single most quoted version of the OT in the NT. Any Christian is obligated to lend it credence on that basis alone. In any event, assuming it translated a Hebrew text substantially the same as the modern, it actually shows the exact opposite of what you tried to make it. That the translators rendered it using universal language indicates that they understood it in that way, not that it's ambiguous.

But I do have to check you at every step, don't I? The Hebrew does not say "hills" because uses the same word for both "hill" and "mountain".[6] If it definitely says "hill" here, then we also have to conclude that Mt. Sinai is a hill. [7] Most translation, including Jewish ones, use "mountain" here. (e.g. [8], [9]) The LXX has "high mountains" (ὄρη τὰ ὑψηλά) to clarify possible ambiguity in the Greek,[10] not the Hebrew.

I didn't ignore any of your quotes. It was simply unnecessary to address those that plainly didn't have anything to say about the question. Browne was saying that no one believed the flood was universal any longer. That has no bearing whatsoever on what everyone of his time thought the text was saying, and it's not something he addresses. Similarly with Huxley -- He wasn't saying that the text was widely understood to mean the flood wasn't universal -- he was in fact not talking about the text itself at all -- just saying that most people no longer believed it was literally true.

Why, even now, when you give sources that may well directly support you, can you give nothing that does? Figurative language is indicated by context. It doesn't matter how universal terms are used elsewhere: are they figurative here, in this context? That's the question, and that's what you are still not able to support.

You don't have to be an atheist to question an edit that seems useless. I'm not, and I did. Clever shot though. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

You skim read Philo, missed the section I cited, and then falsely accused me of misrepresnting him. You skim read Josephus, missed the section I cited, claimed Josephus said something he never even said and then falsely accused me of misrepresenting him, when I had in fact given the facts of what he wrote and you were completely wrong. You Googled for a couple of minutes, found a Creationist site which agreed with you, quoted selectively from it and totally failed to realize that it not only quoted the very section of Philo you doubted even existed, but also made the very point I had about Philo's language being not geographically universal. And yet people like you are allowed to edit Wikipedia? I can't help wondering how many other articles you've 'contributed' to by simply Googling for a few minutes, skim reading, imagining yourself an expert on something, happily writing all sorts of nonsense, and then falsely accusing those who know better. I did not give the wrong impression of what either Josephus or Philo said. What they said is compatible only with a geographically local flood, and I'm not the only one to have observed this. As I have said, that Philo believed it was anthropologically universl does not mean that he believed it was geographically universal, and the very Website to which you linked previously made exactly that point (did you even read it?).

Your claims that 'no one, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, has noticed this until now', and that there is 'no traditional exegesis that reads the text that way' have been completely disproven, not only by my quotes from Philo and Josephus but also by my citations of Rashi and Maimonidies, as well as my quotes from Browne and Huxley. You're still not even reading them properly. Browne did not say that no one believed the flood was universal anymore. He simply said that now there were people who believed the flood to have been local. You had previously denied that such historical exegesis existed. You cannot possibly tell me that he's not saying anything about what people believed the text was saying. Of course he is, he's telling us that they believed the text was saying it was local not universal. Likewise, you're still completely misreading Huxley. You cannot tell me that 'He wasn't saying that the text was widely understood to mean the flood wasn't universal', when he explicitly states 'I have been unable to discover that THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE DELUGE has any defender left'. He is not saying that no one believes in the flood anymore, he is saying explicitly that they just don't believe it was universal anymore. If you had actually read Huxley's article (which clearly you have not), you would see that he goes on to list a number of Chrisitan expositors who believe in the flood but do not believe the language is universal. He cites the Anglican 'Speaker's Bible', Kitto's 'Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature', Herzog's 'Real-Encyclopädia', Riehm's 'Handwörterbuch', and Diestel's 'Die Sintflut'. In particular he quotes Diestel dealing specifically with the language:

'The narrative speaks of "the whole earth." But what is the meaning of this expression? Surely not the whole surface of [221] the earth according to the ideas of modern geographers, but, at most, according to the conceptions of the Biblical author.'

It's no surprise that this is what I have already said, what I have found in standard current Bible dictionaries, and what two Creationist Websites (one provided by you, one provided by me), have already acknowledged, despite the fact that both of them were written by people who believed in a univeral flood. I'm glad you understand the comparison with Luke. Now you just need to understand that the semantic range of the phrases under question in the Genesis narrative is broader than you thought. I have already given examples from Scripture, and cited two Bible dictionaries saying the same. It is wrong for you to impose one meaning on these phrases when their semantic range is broader. Let the reader do their own exegesis, it's not your job to interpret the text for them.

I'm sorry, but the Hebrew textual tradition of the LXX did survive the Diaspora, in the form of the Samarian Pentateuch and the Qumran texts. You seem to be confusing the Masoretic tradition with the older Hebrew tradition. I first read of the amplification of the flood texts by the LXX in a work actually published in 1997, certainly not 50 years ago, and a well recognised work at that. You're also offbase with the Hebrew word for 'hills'. The Hebrew word (as you may or may not have noticed), is translated both 'hills' and 'mountains', and did you miss the fact that the KJV in Genesis 7:19 says 'the high hills'? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan also says 'high hills' in Genesis 7:19, so don't imply I'm making things up. There is no need to interpret Mount Sinai as a hill on the basis of this fact.

You say 'when it says the water covered the mountaintops to a depth of 15 cubits, that's exactly the sense the text intends to convey', but I'm afraid that's simply your own personal interpretation. That's your exegesis, and it is not your position to impose your exegesis on this article. That is blatant POV. Yes, figurative language is sometimes indicated by context. At other times it is not. We have to turn to other sources of evidence, such as other passages of Scripture or the historical record itself. Certain judgment oracles use language which may be figurative or literal (sun and mooon darkened, etc). We have no way of determining from the immediate context whether or not the language is to be read literally or figuratively. But that is a judgment for the reader, not a judgment for you to make on the reader's behalf. I've already given you one Creationist 'universal flood' site which acknowledges the language is ambiguous, I've given you examples that the language used is not necessarily universal (which you've had to acknowledge), I've cited two standard Bible dictionaries saying the same, and now I am saying that what you have to do is leave the exegesis up to the reader, and not try and impose your exegesis on the text. Surely you can have no objection to the translated text itself being quoted (in quote marks), in the narrative, and its interpretation left up to the reader without anyone's POV being interpolated? And I wasn't referring to you when I spoke of atheists, especially since you weren't the one who deleted what I wrote without warning or explanation. I was referring to Ornis [11] who is an atheist with a track record of deleting without warning or explanation things he doesn't like (especially if they're religious), which is exactly what he did to me. He makes no apology for doing this either. --Taiwan boi 19:41, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[undent]The above is total crock. Despite your protests, you did misrepresent both Josephus and Philo by cherry-picking quotes that aren't representative of the overall sense of what they wrote; and to which your misleading description of "local" certainly cannot be applied. I understand that it angers you to have been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, but that doesn't make me trust you any more.

You still want to insert exegesis into the story. No traditional exegesis has ever been based on the reading of the text that you want to allow. People have said, "We don't believe that the flood was global". They have not said, "We believe that the text says the flood was not global". until the 20th century or a shade earlier even accepting your representations. Browne doesn't say that. Huxley doesn't say that in the bit you actually quoted, nor does the writer he quotes say that. ("According to modern geographers" isn't a throwaway phrase. The writer is acknowledging that the Biblical writer thought he was describing a universal flood, and is trying to salvage the accuracy of the story by citing the limited geographical knowledge of the time, since a modern geographical and geological understanding absolutely precludes it.) Since I have no particular reason to care about Huxley and haven't read him, I have no idea where you got this from and you haven't bothered to say, so no, I haven't consulted him. The rest of your complaints are nitpicky distinctions without differences; don't be so sophomoric. Despite all this logorrhea, you still have not given any sources to prove your point (I'll emphasize it again) about the text itself. Please, no more tomes like the above until you do.

No, the Hebrew of the LXX did not survive. If you're going to say it survived in the Samaritan Pentateuch -- well, where that disagrees with the Masoretic, it only agrees with the LXX 1/3 of the time, so at best this "survival" is only partial. To say that it survived in the Dead Sea Scrolls is ludicrous: fragments mostly, and they were lost for 1900 years. And no I have not confused the modern Masoretic with historical Hebrew scripture, but surely you're not trying to claim the Masoretic was an entirely new invention. The DSS actually show that the proto-Masoretic recension "was copied with remarkable accuracy" into the Medieval Masoretic (Edwin Yamauchi, The Stones and the Scriptures, p. 130)

I told you above that the Hebrew used the same word for "hill" and "mountain", so don't try to pretend that's news to me. The point is that a consensus of more recent Biblical translations -- including those made by Jewish authorities -- says "mountains" there. (You said 7:20 earlier but must have meant 7:19. Don't worry; I'm not the kind of person to hit someone over the head with a meaningless error like that.)

Well, enough of this crap. No more tomes. You can settle the argument in a few lines if you can just give a source that directly reads the Hebrew to say something other than what the words mean, without reference to exegesis or modern geography or anything like that. We know that Luke 2 was talking about the Roman Empire because we can look in the dictionary and find it as a valid sense of the word.[12] We are not speaking on the same level in Genesis 6-9 unless you can show the words had an idiomatic meaning other than their ordinary meaning. Anything else is above the level of semantics, which is not what the section is about. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

So briefly:

• You falsely accused me of misrepresenting Philo and Josephus, when in fact the problem was that you hadn't even read them properly - the words I cited which you claimed I was dishonestly fabricating actually did exist, and you had to admit you had only 'skimmed' Philo. This, despite the fact that the very words I quoted from Philo were in an article to which you yourself linked (but had clearly not read). You also made a claim that Josephus said the water extended 15 cubits above the mountains, when he said no such thing. When I provided Josephu's own words, you were forced to admit you had simply cited him 'from memory' - yet you had done so dogmatically, using your 'memory' to argue that I was being dishonest. This is a very clear indication of what you consider to be 'research' - a Google, a quick skim, and then false statements and false accusations. Yet you accuse me of dishonesty and inaccuracy? You shouldn't even be editing this article, with such 'standards' of research. You don't even stop to check your own work, whilst wrongly accusing others of falsehood. You go on 'memory' rather than check the source you're supposed to be citing accurately.

• I haven't misrepresented either Philo or Josephus, since both clearly believed in a localized flood. You accuse me of 'cherry-picking', but that would only be the case if I dismissed or ignored everything else they wrote, which I don't, or if the other things they wrote contradicted the statements I quoted, which they don't. I have said clearly that I acknowledge Philo believe the flood was anthropologically universal, though this does not mean he thought it was geographically universal - the very article to which you linked made exactly the same point, but you either overlooked it or chose not to mention it (talk about cherry picking). It's clear that these older exegetes did believe the language wasn't necessarily universal in the sense you claim, since they gave an interpretation of the text which restricted the extent of the flood. They didn't do so on the basis of geology, archaeology, or superior geographic knowledge. Whatever universality they attributed to the language of the text (anthropological, it appears in the case of Philo), they didn't interpret it as a flood covering the entire planet.

• You claimed 'the Hebrew does not say hills', when in fact as I pointed out the Hebrew here can mean hills, and the KJV itself translates 'hills' in the verse under question. This is yet another example of a case in which you make a dogmatic statement without even checking the facts.

• I have given you several sources which demonstrate that the phrases used here are not necessarily universal. I've given a string of passages from the Bible itself, and I've cited two standard Bible dictionaries. I also showed you a Creationist Website which argues for a global flood, but acknowledges that the language used is 'ambiguous'. Thus far you've ignored all this. I have made the point that just as we know the semantic range of OIKOUMENH does not necessarily mean 'the entire planet', so the phrases such as 'all... under heaven' do not necessarily refer to the entire planet. I have shown that these phrases had an idiomatic meaning other than the literal meaning. You're still not reading the quote from Huxley properly, as he makes the point that the very language was being understood as not necessarily universal.

• You've helpfully acknowledged that the Hebrew underlying the LXX did survive, though of course not in complete form any more than the Hebrew underlying the MT has survived in complete form. No, I am not trying to claim that the MT is a new invention.

• To date you have failed to give any reason why the text should not be quoted from a modern Bible translation as I have suggested, and the exegesis left up to the reader. I am not the one arguing that my personal POV should be represented in the narrative. I am happy for the text itself to be there and for the exegesis to be left up to the reader. But you refuse to have the text quoted, and you want a paraphrase which supports your interpretation of the text. That is POV.

That last point is the one you really have to answer. But I'll be checking your edits of this article carefully, because you clearly need to be watched. Your method of 'Google, skim read, guess and go from memory' is not what quality articles are made of. --Taiwan boi 03:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The entirety of the above inaccurate both in terms of what I actually said and the points I actually made, but since this is readily discernable from the preceding essays there's no need to restate everything yet again. Just to summarize: I have left nothing unanswered where you say I have.

You were being dishonest in your cites, and gave an entirely false impression of the general tenor what Philo and Josephus said in favor of singular quotes that seemed to support you. That I came away from this from only having skimmed Philo actually proves the point: you have to read very carefully indeed to find the bit you quoted. What he says overall -- that is, exactly what you'd get from skimming him -- is the exact opposite of what you tried to make him say. (If you think he was only speaking "anthropologically", you have utterly failed to appreciate the limited geographical knowledge of the time.) My error in Josephus was entirely meaningless as you similarly misrepresented him just as I said, as anyone who consults the text can tell.

Of course, the reason why I had to quickly skim a writer with whom I was relatively unfamiliar in order to verify your quote is that you didn't bother to say where you got it from. The reason we cite and not merely quote sources is so that others can [{WP:V|verify]] them. If you were so confident in what they had to say, why couldn't you do that?

If I am "still not reading the quote from Huxley properly" it's because you have not yet bothered to say where you got that from either. Of course I haven't read his article; I said that already. Unlike the other writers I have no interest in Huxley whatsoever, so I was less motivated than usual to look him up. (Nor do I regard unfamiliarity with Huxley as a gap of any kind in a theological education. In that area he's utterly insignificant.) Given your record here, I'm not about to take you at your word for the context. On its face it simply does not say what you claim.

The only authority you give for "hills" instead of "mountains" is the KJV, a very dubious source, contra the majority of modern translations made with far superior Hebrew scholarship. And "the point I really have to answer" I already have answered, repeatedly and at length. I'm not going to do so yet again.

With regard to your last bullet, I suggest you review WP:NPA. I never said the text should not be quoted, as anyone who feels like slogging through all the foregoing can discover for himself. I object to the peculiar emphases you want to make. I cannot quite call your assertion about my usual editorial methods a baldfaced lie, since you have the benefit of ignorance, and a lie must be a deliberate untruth. But you are making it up out of nothing, for no better reason than to make a personal attack. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You may remember this:

'Your contention that you were unable to find a major section of the article listed in the table of contents on a "quick skim" is disingenuous in the extreme. Please don't insult my intelligence. Either you're making this up, or you didn't find it because you didn't want to find it, neither of which is a fault in the article.'

Yes, that's right, those are your own words. You here chastise someone (and accuse them of being disingenuous), because they were unable to find a reference in an article after a 'quick skim'. It's ironic that you've been caught doing exactly this yourself, and not only that but falsely accusing me of being dishonest after I've presented the facts. I haven't made any personal attacks on you. I've identified your research methodology as inept and identified a number of errors you've made as a result, but I haven't once accused you of being dishonest, as you've accused me.

I am certainly not making up out of nothing the assertion that your research methodology relies on mere 'skimming' as opposed to careful reading. You've given several clear examples of it:

• Reading the very sections of both Philo and Josephus from which I provided quotes, and failing to find either quote because you didn't look properly, you merely 'skimmed' by your own admission.
• Reading the quote from Browne and claiming 'Browne was saying that NO ONE [my emphasis] believed the flood was universal any longer', when in fact he said the opposite ('SOME conceiving it needlesse to be universal, 'have made the deluge particular, and about those parts where Noah built his Arke'). This is a case of you completely misreading a quote you've been given.
• Reading the quote from Huxley and claiming he 'wasn't saying that the text was widely understood to mean the flood wasn't universal', when in fact he said cited several commentators who understood the Hebrew to be speaking locally rather than globally (one of whom he quoted specifically).
• Reading Josephus and claiming that he said the flood 'covered the whole earth and rose 15 cubits over the tops of the mountains', when in fact he said no such thing ('became fifteen cubits higher than the earth'). You later tried to claim that this misrepresentation of Josephus was 'insignificant' because you were working 'from memory', but this contradicts completely the fact that when you originally made this claim you stated explicitly that you had read it in the text ('I did find the place you evidently have in mind in it. But here I find you have misrepresented him', 'He says not that the flood was local, but very unambiguously that it covered the whole earth and rose 15 cubits over the tops of the mountains'), and even gave me a link to the very text you had read. So it wasn't that you were working from memory, it was that you had simply failed to read Josephus properly and had attributed to him something he never said. You even told me that Josephus said 'very unambiguously that it covered the whole earth', and yet this phrase appears nowhere in Josephus.
• Reading an article and failing to notice that it quoted directly the very passage from Philo which I had quoted, and which you had claimed wasn't there. Clearly you only 'skimmed' this article as well, you certainly didn't 'read very carefully indeed'.

But most telling of all, you have given the game away completely with this statement:

'That I came away from this from only having skimmed Philo actually proves the point: you have to read very carefully indeed to find the bit you quoted. What he says overall -- that is, exactly what you'd get from skimming him -- is the exact opposite of what you tried to make him say.'

Yes, that's right, you came away with your impression of Philo because you had only 'skimmed' him, and your impression is indeed 'exactly what you'd get from skimming him', that is to say, a completely false impression. Yes, that's right, 'you have to read very carefully indeed' to find the bit I quoted. That's exactly the point. When we do proper research, we have to read very carefully indeed. Thta's what proper research is about. Yet you try to represent my careful reading as a fault, and your 'skimming him' as a virtue, the correct way Philo should be read. You couldn't have been more clear that you believe 'skimming' is an appropriate way to do research, whilst reading 'very carefully indeed' is wrong.

Yes, I should have given the specific references to the quotes I provided from Philo and Josephus, but as it happened that wasn't necessary because you were able to find the very chapters from which I had quoted, so you were in a position to verify the quotes. But because you only 'skimmed' both Philo and Josephus, instead of reading carefully, you completely missed both the quotes I had provided from them. Having then failed to find them because of your poor research methodology ('skimming', as opposed to 'read very carefully'), you then claimed falsely that I had made them up, which was completely untrue. I never did receive an apology for your false accusation of dishonesty.

I haven't claimed that 'har' in the text should be read 'hills', only that it can be. You originally tried to claim it only meant 'mountains', which isn't true. I am not using the KJV as an authority to prove that it should mean 'hills', I was simply correcting your claim that it couldn't be read that way.

I haven't misrepresented either Philo or Josephus, becuase both made it clear that the flood was local. Philo identifies it as anthropologically universal, specifically not geographically universal, and the very article from which you quoted said exactly that. You failed to mention that the article you quoted said what I had said. Is this because you only 'skimmed' the article? By the way, people were well aware by Philo's day of the land west of the Straits of Gibraltar - Roman trade routes went through the Straits, up the coast of western Europe, and all the way to England and Ireland, the very land west of the Straits of Gibraltar which you claimed they didn't know even existed. Contrary to your false claim that Josephus said 'very unambiguously that it covered the whole earth and rose 15 cubits over the tops of the mountains', he said no such thing. He never says that it 'covered the whole earth', and he says that it 'became fifteen cubits higher than the earth'. He also said (as I quoted earlier), that some had 'survived the flood by gaining high ground'. You claimed this quote didn't exist, and accused me falsely of misrepresenting Josephus, but it does exist, you just didn't 'read very carefully'. That's what happens when you use a research methodology which relies on 'skimming'.

Now you tell me, when Josephus says that the water 'became fifteen cubits higher than the earth', what is he saying? If he said that a bird was flying 'fifteen cubits higher than the earth', what would you understand him to be saying? Can you find me any passage from Jopsephus in which he says that the flood 'covered the whole earth'? Can you explain to me why he says that some had survived the flood by gaining high ground if he believed that all the ground all over the earth was underwater?

On the subject of 'skimming', I'm going to provide an example of how bad a research methodology it is (though you've helpfully done this very well yourself) . When we read Antiquities 1.74, we find God 'determined to destroy the whole race of mankind'. So apparently every single human being was going to be destroyed. But wait, Josephus later clarifies that 'Noah alone was saved'. So now we have Josephus telling us that every single human being other than Noah was destroyed. Yet still later, Josephus tells us Noah 'entered into that ark, and his wife and sons, and their wives', and 'thus was Noah, with his family, preserved'. So now we have Josephus telling us that it wasn't just Noah who survived, but himself, his wife, his sons, and their wives.

We've already come a long way from the original apparently universal statement that God was going to 'destroy the whole race of mankind'. If we had only been 'skimming', we might have missed the reference to Noah, and believed that Josephus thought every single human being was killed in the flood, and that God simply made new humans afterwards. This certainly does seem indicated by a quick glance at Josephus' statement that God 'determined to destroy the whole race of mankind, and to make another race that should be pure from wickedness'. Yet we can see by reading more carefully that this was a false impression. Likwise, we could have come way with the impression that only Noah survived, if we hadn't read carefully and noted the reference to the salvation of his family. And again, unless we read right into the next chapter, we would miss completely the fact that Josephus refers to some who had survived the flood by gaining high ground, showing that he believed that there were even those outside the Ark who had survived the flood. This is what we find when we 'ready very carefully indeed'. That's what proper research is about, not 'skimming'.

I didn't provide the name of Huxley's article, but you could have found it very easily with Google (there are plenty of unique phrases in the section I quoted). But as we've seen, even when you do find the very articles from which I quoted directly (whereas you allegedly go 'from memory', though this is contradicted by your claim to have read the actual text), you don't even find the very quotes I've taken from them, because you only 'skim'. I am not quoting Huxley as a theological authority, so that objection is meaningless.

I have given you several sources which demonstrate that the phrases used here are not necessarily universal. I've given a string of passages from the Bible itself, and I've cited two standard Bible dictionaries. I also showed you a Creationist Website which argues for a global flood, but acknowledges that the language used is 'ambiguous'. Thus far you've ignored all this. I have made the point that just as we know the semantic range of OIKOUMENH does not necessarily mean 'the entire planet', so the phrases such as 'all... under heaven' do not necessarily refer to the entire planet. I have shown that these phrases had an idiomatic meaning other than the literal meaning. You have not answered this at all. You haven't dealt either with the Biblical texts I've provided, or the two Bible dictionaries, or the Creationist Website which makes the case for a global flood whilst acknowledging the language is 'ambiguous'.

I'm going to suggest a new edit to the narrative, and we'll see if you're actually prepared to have the text quoted there, as opposed to a paraphrase. --Taiwan boi 07:11, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

"That I came away from this from only having skimmed Philo actually proves the point: you have to read very carefully indeed to find the bit you quoted." Now this is rich: someone should really frame this quote and mount it on the wall; it singularly illustrates the attitude toward scholarship exhibited by the wolf pack that dominates this article. As for WP:NPA, Taiwan Boi, please remember, the rules here do not apply equally to you, because you're not part of the pack. That's why it is perfectly "polite" to write things to you like "The above is total crock. Despite your protests, you did misrepresent [...] I understand that it angers you to have been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, but that doesn't make me trust you any more... enough of this crap"... because your betters are allowed to speak to you this way, and therefore it's NOT a personal attack. But, do not even bat an eyelash when responding to them, because it will surely be considered an attack, and the wolf pack is looking for any excuse they possibly can to drive yet another scholarly editor away from this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.105.21.222 (talk)

"Now this is rich: someone should really frame this quote and mount it on the wall; it singularly illustrates the attitude toward scholarship exhibited by the wolf pack that dominates this article." No, it demonstrates the lack of scholarship on Taiwan boi's part. Otherwise he would have properly cited the source so that the quote he gave could be found without having to read through the whole thing. Sorry, but I don't have the time for that when all I'm trying to do is to verify a quote. And when a quick read conveys exactly the opposite impression of what I'm told a writer is trying to say, the conclusion is obvious. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

convenience break

This section seems to have a very high ratio of words to article improvements. At the risk of seeming impolite, please either propose some improvements, which can be verified by reliable sources, or take this elsewhere, perhaps to one of your User pages. Thanks! Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 02:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You think I want this nonsense on my user page? The entire conversation is about Taiwan boi's proposed edit, and me trying to get him to explain why he thinks they're necessary and to provide some sources for them. The sticking point is disagreement over exactly what the sources have been saying when they understood the text a certain way: Are they reading the story itself one way or another, or are they applying different interpretations to a story understood essentially the same way by all? Tb says the former, I say the latter. If you have an opinion, chime in. Another, possibly saner, voice would be welcome. TCC (talk) (contribs) 07:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I also disagree that it should be moved. As long as it's about an addition to the article, and doesn't become repetitious, I see no reason why the debate should be cut off. Frankly, I think the suggestion that we should have a low "ratio of words to article improvements" smacks of WP:Editcountitis. Last I checked, quantity is not the only goal here.

I'll also chime in on TCC's request for further comment: I'm in agreement with TCC on this one. Taiwan Boi's suggestions are vague, confuse text and exegesis, and frequently nonsensical. In addition, he has yet to demonstrate any source that would support his edits. Sxeptomaniac 20:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain to me why suggesting that the narrative section of the article contain direct quotes from a modern Bible translation, rather than a paraphrase, is 'vague', confuses 'text and exegesis' and is 'nonsensical'? Thus far, TCC has failed to provide a single argument as to why direct quotes should not be used in the way that I have suggested. He has, on the other hand, defended placing a paraphrase of the text in the narrative rather than the text itself. He has also resisted the idea that the text should be provided and the reader left to exegete it themselves. I see no reason for this, and to date he has not given any. --Taiwan boi 03:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

There are a lot of places that a person can read the text online, if they desire. That is not Wikipedia's purpose, and TCC was right to say that it would be inappropriate to quote large sections of the narrative. This is an encyclopedia, not a Bible study aid, and we are to explain the ways it has been exegeted, not help the reader do so. The purpose of the section is to give a quick summary of the story itself, and the following section is for working through the various ways that story has been interpreted. Sxeptomaniac 17:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I have made it clear several times that I am not intending to 'quote large sections of the narrative'. Look at my narrative proposal. It's about the same size as the original narrative. It simply replaces paraphrases with direct quotes. For some reason, this seems threatening to some people here. The narrative I have provided is nothing like a 'Bible study aid', and it gives 'a quick summary of the story itself'. It doesn't even refer to any specific interpretations of any of the phrases in quotes. Can you explain your objection to the new narrative proposal? --Taiwan boi 06:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Apologies if I gave the wrong impression. I really just wanted to encourage the contributors to focus in on the proposed changes and how wikipedia's principles and guidelines apply to their discussion. Asking for fewer words does not necessarily imply attention deficit disorder etc.; sometimes concise summaries are better thought out or more elegant than longer posts. This isn't meant as a criticism of any editor. Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 21:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You're not wrong. It was refreshing to restate the basic dispute in concise terms. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

My apologies for misunderstanding your meaning. I agree that content disputes can often get unnecessarily wordy, so a reminder to be concise is certainly a reasonable request. Sxeptomaniac 17:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

New Narrative Proposal

I propose the following edit to the narrative section:

The story of Noah's Ark in chapters 6 to 9 in the Book of Genesis has been interpreted in a number of different ways within Abrahamic religions, with a range of interpretations being found within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. In the narrative which follows the general outline of the story as found in standard English translations of the Book of Genesis is described. Details of the story which are interpreted differently by different traditions have been quoted directly from the text. These are details which have historically been interpreted in a range of ways within the Jewish and Christian traditions, including literally, non-literally, and allegorically.

'The Genesis flood story begins with God observing man's evil behaviour and deciding to "wipe humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth - everything from humankind to animals". However, God found one good man, Noah, "a godly man; he was blameless among his contemporaries," and decided that he would carry forth the lineage of man. God told Noah to make an ark, and to bring with him his wife, and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. Additionally, he was told to "bring into the ark two of every kind of living creature from all flesh, male and female". In order to provide sustenance, he was told to bring and store food. Noah and his family and the animals entered the Ark, and "on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And the rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights." The flood "completely inundated the earth so that even all the high mountains under the entire sky were covered", and "all living things that moved on the earth died", and "Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived". After 150 days, the Ark came to rest among the mountains of Ararat.'

If anyone is unhappy with that, please give reasons why. --Taiwan boi 07:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

My response:

• You haven't yet produced evidence that anyone interprets 6:13 (your "wipe humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth - everything from humankind to animals") as refering to anything other than a universal extinction of life. The three chapters making up the Ark story are peppered with phrases all saying the same thing - 7:4, "every living thing I will obliterate"; 7:21-22, "all flesh perished that moved upon the earth...and every man and all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, all died"; and more in chapter 8. If you have evidence that a considerable body of people read this other than literally, please show us.
• Are you sure that it's really the narrative section you want to change? I ask this because in past posts I got the understanding that you felt the article gave undue weight to the most extreme literalist interpretation, and wanted to include mention of the belief that the flood was local and the ark smaller than the literalists believe. If that's so, the proper place to address that concern is the Literalism section. But my research on literalist websites didn't turn up this belief, and I was left with the impression that the division is between those who believe in a world-wide flood and 450-foot ark, and those who believe in no flood or ark at all. So if this is your concern, then you need to show us some websites supporting a minimalist-literalist interpretation.

(I might add that you'd probably get a lot of support for a proposal to amend the Literalism section - it's a vestige of the Ur-text of the article, which was entirely literalist. My own position would be that it should be kept but drastically shortened, and all the details spun off into linked articles of their own). PiCo 09:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

• I have certainly produced evidence that some interpret the flood as 'anything but a universal extinction of life', starting with Josephus in Antiquities 1:108-109, where Shem, Japhet, and Ham 'persuaded others who were greatly afraid of the lower grounds on account of the floods and so were very loth to come down from the higher place, to venture to follow their examples'. I can certainly provide more, but I'll save that for the final point.
• Yes, I want to change the narrative section, for the reasons given. This does not mean I'm happy with the rest of the article. I'll certainly be providing some balance in the article to offset the literalist bias. What is important is that when the flood narrative is introduced, the reader does not receive the impression that what they read in the quoted text is necessarily the only way the text can be interpreted, or has been. Neither is true.
• It is greatly surprising to me that you have the impression that 'the division is between those who believe in a world-wide flood and 450-foot ark, and those who believe in no flood or ark at all'. It's not as if this is anything new. As early as the 17th century Sir Thomas Browne, quoted in the main article, made mention of the Christians who in his day believed the flood was local ('some conceiving it needlesse to be universal, have made the deluge particular, and about those parts where Noah built his Arke'). Huxley, in 'Lights Of The Church And Science' (1890), lists a number of Chrisitan expositors who believe in the flood but do not believe the language is universal. He cites the Anglican 'Speaker's Bible', Kitto's 'Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature', Herzog's 'Real-Encyclopädia', Riehm's 'Handwörterbuch', and Diestel's 'Die Sintflut'. In the late 19th century White wrote 'in vain did others, like Bishop Croft and Bishop Stillingfleet, and the nonconformist Matthew Poole, show that the Deluge might not have been and probably was not universal', and 'even so eminent a churchman and geologist as Dean Buckland, soon acknowledged that facts obliged them to give up the theory that the fossils of the coal measures were deposited at the Deluge of Noah, and to deny that the Deluge was universal'. He quotes also 'Dr. W. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible' and 'Dr. Samuel Turner' as both arguing for a historical flood which was not geographically universal.
• Importantly, he also says:

'two divines among the most eminent for piety and learning in the Methodist Episcopal Church inserted in the Biblical Cyclopaedia, published under their supervision, a candid summary of the proofs from geology, astronomy, and zoology that the Deluge of Noah was not universal, or even widely extended, and this without protest from any man of note in any branch of the American Church.'

Among those who believe the flood to have been a historical event, there is the 'literalist' view that it was both anthropologically universal and geographically universal (AUGU), there is the view that it was anthropologically universal but geographically local (AUGL), and there is the view that it was both anthropologically and geographically local (ALGL). You will find all three represented on the Internet. I'll add a few important links:

• This one is from a universal perspective, but acknowledges 'Many Christians today claim that the Flood of Noah’s time was only a local flood'
• This one is from an AUGL perspective, and says 'There is a significant opinion that insists that the flood was local, meaning it was limited to Mesopotamia', and 'First, it is important to note that the global flood viewpoint did not achieve its current popularity until the second half of the Twentieth Century'.
• This one is from an AUGU perspective, but notes 'Belief in the traditional biblical account of the flood changed radically during the period from 1800 to 1850', and By about mid-century, the flood had been reduced to a local event that affected only humans. By the end of the century, it was even doubted that the flood affected all of humanity, and was restricted to the Mesopotamian Valley'. Note that the historicity of the flood was not denied, its extent was simply interpreted differently. This, as early as the end of the 19th century.
• This is from the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913, and says:

'The Biblical account ascribes some kind of a universality to the Flood. But it may have been geographically universal, or it may have been only anthropologically universal. In other words, the Flood may have covered the whole earth, or it may have destroyed all men, covering only a certain part of the earth'

• Confining myself to those who hold the AUGL view (with perhaps a handful of ALGL), which you would describe as the 'minimalist-literalist interpretation', I quickly compiled the following list of links:

• One
• Two
• Three
• Four
• Five
• Six
• Seven
• Eight
• Nine
• Ten
• Eleven
• Twelve
• Thirteen
• Fourteen

Looking through my collection of theological journals, I find a number of references to Christians presenting an AUGL or even ALGL view in the reviews of Christian books and articles:

• 'Dr. Ramm is very definite in his belief that science demands the acceptance of a local flood and that it cannot be considered universal even in the sense that all of mankind except Noah and his family were destroyed'

Bibliotheca Sacra  : A quarterly published by Dallas Theological Seminary. 1996, c1955-1995 (458). Dallas TX: Dallas Theological Seminary.

• 'In contrast to the nihilists, the men who have espoused the local Flood view have been men who desired to harmonize or reconcile uniformitarian geology with the biblical account, found primarily in Genesis and Job'

Dallas Theological Seminary. (1971; 2002). Bibliotheca Sacra Volume 128 (128:39). Dallas Theological Seminary.

• 'In the most concise statement of his position, he writes, “Doesn’t the fact that the [biblical] text suggests that Mesopotamian geography was not rearranged by the flood nor the topsoil displaced suggest that it was not a globally catastrophic event?'

Dallas Theological Seminary. (1996; 2002). Bibliotheca Sacra Volume 153 (153:242). Dallas Theological Seminary.

• 'He understands the flood of Noah as one of the many local floods of antiquity'

Grace Seminary. (1972; 2002). Grace Journal Volume 13 (vnp.13.2.33). Grace Seminary.

• 'He chooses the human view of “sons of God” in Genesis 6 and opts for a local flood'

The Master's Seminary. (1993; 2002). Master's Seminary Journal Volume 4 (4:75). Master's Seminary.

• 'Young categorically rejects the notion of a “universal flood,” interpreting Genesis 6—9 instead as “language to describe an event that devastated or disrupted Mesopotamian civilization” (312), i.e., a local flood'.

The Master's Seminary. (1996; 2002). Master's Seminary Journal Volume 7 (7:145). Master's Seminary.

• Does that help? --Taiwan boi 14:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It helps to clarify your thoughts. To clarify mine, when I asked for evidence that people held this view I meant not Sir Thomas but the present day. But yes, you've clarified what you meant. And on that basis it seems to me that your concern is, indeed, with the literalism section, as I honestly believe, though I can't quantify, that very few people these days actually believe in a flodd of any description. Perhaps my own assumptions are at work here: I have no position either way on the question, not in the sense that I haven't made up my mind, but in the sense that I just don't care. Honest, I don't. Noah's Ark interests me as a cultural artefact, nothing more. It's an idea, not a thing. In other words, you and I just don't share the same mental universe - you care, I don't. For that matter, Filll and Orange Marlin care, though from a different vantage point to yours. That's why I wrote the article as an essay rather than as an encyclopedia article - I don't care about the belief, only about the people who believe in the belief. Anyway. I still think you should be looking at revising the Literalism section rather than the Summary. If it misrepresents the gamut of ark-blievers, it should be corrected. If it wanders off into detailed exAmination of the natuer of gopher wood instead the nature of beliefs, that should be corrected. But you need to be aware that you might strike opposition - Fill and Orange are at one end of the spectrum (the anti-literalist end), but we do have our resident literalists - and I'll be prepared to defend their right to be heard. PiCo 15:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I find that a rather bizarre response. I gave you plenty of evidence that people hold this view today. As I have demonstrated, three different views of the flood as a historical event are held within Christian orthodoxy, and they are held widely. Yes, plenty of Christians believe that the flood actually took place, and hold what you would call a 'minimalist-literalist interpretation' despite your skepticism that anyone holds this view. I've given you pages of evidence for this. I don't know how you managed to search the Internet and fail to find any. Whether or not you care about this is not the issue. The issue is that you challenged me to provide evidence for this, and provide it I did. I have given reasons why I want the summary revised, and I haven't seen any objections yet to my suggestion. I have also given reasons why I want the rest of the article balanced. I am not talking about revising the literalist section. I don't intend to revise 'the literalist section'. I intend to balance the article by providing information on what you would call the 'minimalist-literalist interpretation', as I said ('I'll certainly be providing some balance in the article to offset the literalist bias'). You know, start an entirely new section, as I've already said several times. I'm glad you defend the right of the literalists to be heard. So do I. I have no intention of infringing on their right to be heard. They've been heard a lot in the article so far, and I'm perfectly happy for that to be the case. What's your point? --Taiwan boi 15:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

"Plenty of Christians". Yes, but what about the vast majority of us, who are not Christian? All this has no more meaning for us than do the arguments of the local branch of Socialist International as to who's the best Marxist. Anyway, as I said, I'm not persuaded by your proposed redrafting of the Summary. I think you might have something valuable to contribute to the Literalist section, which you say is unbalanced - a contention I'm prepared to see you test with a new draft. Go ahead with that, but not with your idea on the new Summary. PiCo 16:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

What about the 'vast majority' who are not Christian? Your views aren't relevant to the issue under discussion. The issue under discussion was whether or not it was accurate to say that the flood narrative 'has been interpreted in a number of different ways within Abrahamic religions, with a range of interpretations being found within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions'. I was challenged to support this claim, and challenged to support the claim that there is significant contemporary support of what you called the 'minimalist-literalist interpretation'. I provided that support. That was the close of that particular objection to the narrative edit. If you want to start a section on 'The vast majority of us who are not Christians and don't believe in a flood of any description', go right ahead and make a proposal for it (though I would argue it isn't really necessary in the article). That's where your comments belong. But even after I answered your objection to the new summary, you're still saying you don't want it changed. But you haven't said why. May I ask why? You are also still saying that I am claiming the 'Literalist section' is unbalanced, when I have said absolutely no such thing. It is the article itself which I have said is unbalanced. I said very clearly 'I'll certainly be providing some balance in the article to offset the literalist bias'. You also still seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that I want to edit the 'Literalist section'. This, despite the fact that I have said very clearly I don't intend to revise 'the literalist section'. What I intend to do is include within the article a new section which addresses what you call the 'minimalist-literalist interpretation'. It would be useful also to introduce the different interpretations of the flood narrative earlier in the article. --Taiwan boi 10:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

"Your views aren't relevant to the issue under discussion." There could be no clearer illustration that what we are talking about here isn't the sense of the text, but exegesis, and that Taiwan boi knows it. If a text is ambiguous, it doesn't matter in the least what the religious background of the reader is. That's only important when you're interpreting a text within a religious framework, not trying to understand the story it's telling. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems you're not reading what I write. I haven't even mentioned the ambiguity of the text in my proposed narrative revision. I've simply mentioned the fact that it has been historically interpreted in a range of different ways within the Abrahamic traditions. Just read it and see. But of course, even if a text is ambiguous it does certainly matter what the background of the reader is (though that background need not be religious). Without a background understanding of the Greek use of OIKOUMENH, the average English reader would be fooled into thinking Luke recorded Augustus' sent out a decree to tax the entire planet. That's precisely why certain modern translations either render OIKOUMENH there as 'the Roman empire', or contain an explanatory footnote. I was perfectly correct to say that PiCo's views of the text aren't relevant to the issue under discussion, because the issue under discussion was whether or not the text has historically been interpreted in a range of different ways within the Abrahmic tradition, and whether or not it still is. I provided evidence that this is true. --Taiwan boi 03:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I re-read it several times. You don't have to be Greek Orthodox to understand "oikumene" properly; you don't have to be Christian of any kind to understand what this story says; and you certainly don't need to be any kind of religious person at all to understand references describing how a story has been understood. All the "interpretation" you're talking about here is exegetical. To claim that those who say otherwise are "literalist" is to use that word in a sense very different from it's normal meaning. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course you don't need to be Greek Orthodox to understand OIKOUMENH properly. But you do have to know that the Greek word is there, and what it means. If you show people the English word 'world', do you really think they'll understand you to be referring to the Roman empire? As I've already shown, standard modern translations either render OIKOUMENH there as 'the Roman empire', or contain an explanatory footnote, because the English word 'world' does not naturally convey to the modern English reader the meaning 'Roman empire'. Feel free to dispute this if you have any evidence otherwise.

No you don't have to be any kind of religious person at all to understand references describing how a story has been understood. I said that myself. No, the interpretation I am talking about here is not simply exegetical. It is textual. As I've shown (using many quotes from the Bible itself, as well as using two standard Bible dictionaries), the apparently 'universal' terms in the Bible are not necessarily universal in the sense of being utterly global. Reading them as speaking necessarily and in every case in an absolute universal sense encompassing the entire planet is most certainly a 'literalist' reading in the very sense that 'literalist' is being used in the article (someone who reads the text in a literal sense). --Taiwan boi 09:11, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

In that case, your remark to Pico was entirely out of line and you owe him an apology. And if you think you're using "literalist" in its usual sense then no, you don't properly understand it. And no, this isn't textual. At all. You've still, after all this crap, not provided one single reference that clearly says it is, and I've explained why. TCC (talk) (contribs) 12:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No my remark to PiCo was not out of line, and I do not owe him an apology. . The issue under discussion was whether or not it was accurate to say that the flood narrative 'has been interpreted in a number of different ways within Abrahamic religions, with a range of interpretations being found within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions'. I was challenged to support this claim, and challenged to support the claim that there is significant contemporary support of what you called the 'minimalist-literalist interpretation'. I provided that support. That was the close of that particular objection to the narrative edit. He then started talking about a completely different subject. I pointed out that this was a completely different subject, and suggested that if he wanted to talk about it he should start a new section. --Taiwan boi 06:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I see what Taiwan boi is getting at now, but it still makes no sense in the narrative summary. Another possibility is that it might belong in The Ark under scrutiny section. Sxeptomaniac 23:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Why doesn't it make sense in the narrative summary? To what specifically are you referring? The use of Biblical quotes, or the statement of fact that the text has been interpreted in a range of different ways within the Abrahamic traditions? --Taiwan boi 10:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I concur. The issue has never been whether or not this material belongs in the article. Of course it does; just not in the summary of the story. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The issue has certainly been whether or not this material belongs in the article. You argued vociferously that this material doesn't belong in the article, because you claimed this material wasn't even accurate. But I'm interested in why you don't want a mention in the narrative section of the fact that the text has been interpreted in a range of different ways within the Abrahamic traditions. --Taiwan boi 10:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It is becoming difficult for me to accept that you are arguing in good faith. Either you deliberately misrepresent what I've been saying, or there's some kind of language barrier (as suggested by your nick) and you do not properly understand either me or the sources. Considering the apparent breadth of your reading, the latter is difficult to accept; but on the other hand your misunderstanding of how simple words like "literalist" are used tends to support it.

What I said was inaccurate, which I believe I made perfectly clear, is the idea that certain writers read the text itself to say that the flood was not universal. That they may have believed the flood was not universal is a different question: obviously many people have, and for a long time. I also believed you to have misunderstood at least one writer to have described the flood as local, when according to the geographical knowledge of the time he was clearly saying it universal.

I really do think your AUGL/AUGU is a distinction without a difference. I cannot see how the writer of the story could have even had that distinction in mind if the people of his time had such limited geographical knowledge that the flood did cover the whole Earth as far as they knew. Biblical commentary per se from the Babylonian Talmud all the way to the 20th century never read it any differently even if it was not always literally believed, which you have amply illustrated. But that's not in question.

As a side issue, I do not believe that the Narrative section as it stands describes the flood unambiguously as global, except possibly for one place which I'll go fix now.

As for your references above, most of them are not to the point of what the story says, but argue that the flood was not universal based on the physical evidence. Some of them at least discuss the meaning of the text. But even then their approach is exegetical, approaching the question from usage elsewhere in the Bible (as if it were a single document composed at the same time and linguistically uniform) and not from Hebrew scholarship; and plainly inspired more from a need to reconcile the Biblical account in some way with modern science than a sudden realization that everyone has been reading the Hebrew wrong for the past 3,600 years. And they are, again, all 20th century or later, reflecting the views of only a very narrow group of Christians, not "Abrahamic tradition".

Not to mention those that are truly off the wall. There's that one guy who wants to relocate the flood to the Tarim Basin, as far as I can tell for no better reason than that it's a large area that really was under water fairly recently. I think we can safely discount all such fringe theories. It's moderately alarming, though, that one of your other sources seems to take the possibility seriously. For that matter I'm very surprised you chose to cite it. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Well that was predictable. Yes, English is my first language. Yes, I have understood perfectly your argument that the actual text (terms such as 'all flesh', etc), has never been read as referring to anything but a universal flood. I've provided evidence otherwise, from at least the 19th century (and that's me playing devil's advocate). I'm glad you finally agree that many 'have believed the flood was not universal', and have done so 'for a long time'. That is the point I have been establishing. That is the point I needed to establish in order to support the statement that the Genesis flood narrative has been historically interpreted in a wide range of ways within the Abrahamic tradition, including literally, non-literally, metaphorically, and allegorically, etc. This has included (as I have pointed out), what some here would call a 'minimalist-literalist interpretation'.

Liar. I never said anything contrary to what you claim I'm "finally admitting". You have never had a need to "establish" these points. This is entirely about how the story -- not how the story was interpreted theologically, but what it says as a story -- has been understood REGARDLESS OF WHAT WAS BELIEVED ABOUT IT. I have said this repeatedly, so I know you're lying, especially now that you've refuted the only possible excuse for your behavior.

Of course you have. Previously you claimed that 'no one, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, has noticed this until now', and that there is no traditional EXEGESIS that reads the text that way'. Later you changed this to the argument that the actual text itself has never been read in that way (which was also incorrect). --Taiwan boi 06:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, the "plot" of the story cannot take into account allegory, metaphor, or other non-literal hermeneutics because once you start with that you're no longer looking at it as a narrative but are applying exactly the kind of interpretive filters that are not what this section is about. TCC (talk) (contribs) 12:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain how, by simply quoting the text directly in the narrative section, I am 'applying exactly the kind of interpretive filters that are not what this section is about'? Thanks. --Taiwan boi 06:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I dealt with your claim that no one in Philo's day knew of any land west of the Straits of Gibraltar - the Romans had trade routes which not only went through the Straits, but further west, up the western coast of Europe, to Ireland and England. Remember, even the very Website you quoted made the point that Philo probably believed the flood was anthropologically universal, though not geographically universal. This is not something I made up, it's something identified by one of your own sources (which unfortunately you didn't read properly - more of that 'skimming' going on there).

If you think you successfully "dealt with" anything, you're gravely mistaken. One might almost think you'd never bothered to look into the subject. I am rather better informed than you are about Roman trading contacts. I am also better informed than you are on the state of various considerations such as the computation of latitude and the meaning the Straits of Gibraltar had to ancient geographers. TCC (talk) (contribs) 12:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

If you had been better informed than myself, you would never have claimed that no one in Philo's day believed there was any land west of the Straits of Gibraltar. Of course they did. They sailed west of the Straits of Gibraltar to get to Ireland and England. --Taiwan boi 06:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

This brings me to the next point, which is that the AUGU/AUGL/ALGL distinction is perfectly valid, and it has been made by far more people than just myself down through the centuries. Of course, the original Biblical author may not have been making any such distinction, and I'm certain he believed it was AUGU in the sense that he believed it covered the earth as then known, and the covenant community as identified geographically. But that isn't the issue under discussion. The issue under discussion is not what the original author had in mind but what later interpretations have been. I argued that later interpretations have been AUGU/AUGL/ALGL, and when I was invited to demonstrate this I gave evidence to demonstrate it.

I note that you want to change the narrative section so that it unambiguously describes the flood from the 'literalist' perspective. Thanks for making your intentional POV edit known.

Liar. I said exactly the opposite. TCC (talk) (contribs) 12:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I have re-read what you wrote, and I apologize. I was wrong and I stand corrected. I read your double negative incorrectly. --Taiwan boi 07:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

You object to the sources I cited above on the basis that most 'argue that the flood was not universal based on the physical evidence', that only some 'discuss the meaning of the text', and that 'their approach is exegetical'. Sorry, but my response to that is 'So what?'. You seem to have completely misunderstood why I provided those sources. They weren't provided in response to you. They weren't provided in an attempt to list sources interpreting the terms in the text such as 'all flesh' as non-universal. They were provided in response to the request made directly to me by PiCo, which was 'you need to show us some websites supporting a minimalist-literalist interpretation'. Did you get that? His request was 'show us some websites supporting a minimalist-literalist interpretation'. He asked me to 'show us some websites supporting a minimalist-literalist interpretation', and I did so. I showed you 'some websites supporting a minimalist-literalist interpretation'. Is that clear now?

Gee, why don't you find a way to say "minimalist-literalist interpretation" again? The point, which you seem determined to miss (don't think it's fooling anyone) is that none of these sources are people who just picked up the story one day and realized that the Hebrew had been entirely misunderstood and the story wasn't about a universal flood (anthropological or otherwise) at all. They all arrived at that via exegesis. Not even honest exegesis, because it's transparently an attempt to reconcile their literalist dogma with modern geology -- which they're at least honest enough to accept. When analyzing the Hebrew they didn't appeal to Hebrew scholarship but to other Bible verses. WHICH IS EXACTLY THE PROBLEM. Not that most of the sites that are literalist in any reasonable sense of the word were all that minimalist. Most of them plonked at least for a literal ark, and all mankind except for the ark dwellers drowning. That's pretty damn maximalist to me. TCC (talk) (contribs) 12:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No, the point which you are missing is that I did not cite them as examples of people who 'just picked up the story one day and realized that the Hebrew had been entirely misunderstood and the story wasn't about a universal flood'. I said no such thing, and that is not the reason why I cited them. Please read what I wrote. By the way, a number of them did in fact appeal to Hebrew scholarship. If you have a problem with the term 'minimalist-literalist', then take it to PiCo. It isn't my term, and I'm perfectly happy calling them 'maximalists'. --Taiwan boi 06:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

You also seem to misunderstand what 'Abrahamic tradition' means (you can go here to find out). It doesn't mean 'a lengthy tradition dating from the time of Abraham', or whatever you think it means. It is a term 'commonly used to designate the three prevalent monotheistic religions'. When I speak of certain interpretations existing within the Abrahamic tradition, I am speaking of interpretations which exist within either Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. The statement has absolutely no reference to the length of time in which those interpretations have existed.

I at no point said anything to even remotely indicate that this is what I thought "Abrahamic" meant. Only a very malicious misreading of my post could have possibly arrived at that. TCC (talk) (contribs) 12:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

And I will make the point - yet again - that most of the sources I provided are 21st century sources (not 20th), because the specific request made by PiCo was that I 'show us some websites supporting a minimalist-literalist interpretation', and clarified that 'when I asked for evidence that people held this view I meant not Sir Thomas but the present day'. The present day just happens to be within the 21st century. He asked for 'some websites supporting a minimalist-literalist interpretation' which are in 'the present day', and that's what I showed him. Did you even read the correspondence between us?

I NEVER SAID THAT THESE WERE ALL 20TH CENTURY QUOTES, YOU PINHEAD. I SAID THEY WERE FROM NO EARLIER THAN THE 20TH CENTURY. TCC (talk) (contribs) 12:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

It is absurd to claim that those Websites represent 'a very narrow group of Christians', since the sources I provide (14 Website in all, plus books reviewed in theological journals), encompass the 'official' Catholic position (insofar as anything is 'official' in their religion), as well as a broad range of Protestant denominations. This is anything but 'a very narrow group of Christians'. It's clear that you didn't even bother to read through all the links. Sure, some of the people might have 'fringe' ideas about how the flood took place, but that's not the point. The point is that I was asked for 'some websites supporting a minimalist-literalist interpretation' which are in 'the present day', and that's what I showed. It really does seem that you're not reading the correspondence.

Well, I must be dense, so you'll have to spell it out for me. Contrary to your lying assertion, I read every single one of those links and noticed nothing that said it was reflecting the official Roman Catholic tradition -- which is not vague as you seem to think for some demented reason, but is very clearly spelled out in most particulars. They consisted mostly of conservative Protestants -- yes, this is a very narrow selection of Christians. The majority of them accepted that the flood indeed wiped out all humanity except for those on the ark. Did you read them, or was this just a "Google and skim" approach? (Which, contrary to another one of your lying assertions, I have never done. I have skimmed a work I knew exactly where to find because I'm not very familiar with it and you didn't trouble yourself to say where you got a quote.)

If you didn't notice the one reflecting the 'official' Catholic position (insofar as anything in that religion can be called 'official', as I said - I did not say anything about the official Roman Catholic tradition being 'vague'), then you must not have realised that the Catholic Encyclopedia I quoted bears both the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat. It says very plainly that the flood could have been AUGU or ALGU. Catholics are at liberty to believe either view, according to the RCC. Likewise, if you think that the list I provided 'consisted mostly of conservative Protestants', you can't have read them. Neither Best nor Ross are 'conservative Protestants' (Best seems not even to be a Christian, and Ross is a liberal Christian who believes in an old earth, a local flood, and 'progressive creationism'), Cline is a non-Christian 'associate professor of ancient history and archaeology at George Washington University', Hochner is a Christian who is so liberal he believes that Christ isn't coming back, Custance was so liberal he didn't even believe the flood was geographically universal and believed in an old earth, Weisman believes the flood was neither geographically or anthropologically universal and also believes in evolution, Neyman believes in a flood which was both anthropologically and geographically local, an old earth, and says that Christians can believe in evolution without any difficulty, whilst the IBSS site promotes an old earth, evolution, and a flood which was both anthropologically and geographically local. None of these sites were written by 'conservative Protestants', and two of the men cited aren't even Christians. That's eight out of fourteen, a little over 50% of the total number in the list. Clearly the list does not consist 'mostly of conservative Protestants'. It is representative of a wide range of different Christian groups.

Yes I do know that 'The majority of them accepted that the flood indeed wiped out all humanity except for those on the ark'. Not only did I read this, I even said it myself when I introduced the list. I said very clearly 'Confining myself TO THOSE WHO HOLD THE AUGL VIEW (with perhaps a handful of ALGL)', making it explicit that the list which followed consisted almost entirely of those who accept that the flood indeed wiped out all humanity except for those on the ark. It appears you didn't read what I wrote. More of that 'skimming' of yours, I see. --Taiwan boi 06:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course you did cite a Catholic source. It wasn't among the 14 -- anyone reading your critique here might be mislead into thinking it was, and that you weren't lying when you said I didn't read them all -- and it's a reference to an obsolete edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia. Way to go. Try reading something more recent the Catholics have written. TCC (talk) (contribs) 12:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

This is very strange. You appear to have completely misread what I wrote. The reason why the Catholic source wasn't in the list of 14 Websites was that in the list of Websites I confined myself to 'those who hold the AUGL view (with perhaps a handful of ALGL)', whereas the Catholic site said the flood could be AUGU or AUGL, and didn't specify either. I had it in a separate list of sites which I said demonstrated that the AUGU, AUGL and ALGL views were all represented on the Internet ('You will find all three represented on the Internet. I'll add a few important links').

Secondly, do you have any evidence at all that the Catholic Encyclopedia is 'obsolete'? It bears the Imprimatur and the Nihil Obstat, neither of which have been revoked from the 1997 Internet edition I used, which is actually used currently by a range of Catholic priests, seminarians, scholars, and laypersons. Until you have any evidence that the Catholic Encyclopedia has had either its Imprimatur or its Nihil Obstat revoked, or has been dismissed as 'obsolete', I can hardly take this objection seriously. --Taiwan boi 06:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

So after all that, do you have any actual valid objection to my latest suggestion for the introduction and narrative section? --Taiwan boi 09:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No. I already have, but you can't or won't listen to what you're being told. And I've had enough of your shit, so I'm bowing out of this one. TCC (talk) (contribs) 12:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I haven't seen any reason from you as to why the narrative shouldn't include more direct quotes than it does. --Taiwan boi 06:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Because of that word: "interpreted". We've already explained why interpretation doesn't belong in the narrative section. There is abundant room in the article for explaining various types of interpretations, but you're trying to force it into the wrong section. Sxeptomaniac 15:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The new narrative proposal contains absolutely no interpretation at all. It simply states that the narrative has been interpreted in a range of different ways within Abrahamic religions, with a range of interpretations being found within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions It does not provide any details of these interpretations. If people still object to the new narrative proposal (without specific reasons), might I suggest this new narrative proposal:

'The Genesis flood story begins with God observing man's evil behaviour and deciding to "wipe humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth - everything from humankind to animals". However, God found one good man, Noah, "a godly man; he was blameless among his contemporaries," and decided that he would carry forth the lineage of man. God told Noah to make an ark, and to bring with him his wife, and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. Additionally, he was told to "bring into the ark two of every kind of living creature from all flesh, male and female". In order to provide sustenance, he was told to bring and store food. Noah and his family and the animals entered the Ark, and "on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And the rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights." The flood "completely inundated the earth so that even all the high mountains under the entire sky were covered", and "all living things that moved on the earth died", and "Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived". After 150 days, the Ark came to rest among the mountains of Ararat.'

I would then precede the narrative section with the following, at the end of the current introduction section:

The story of Noah's Ark in chapters 6 to 9 in the Book of Genesis has been interpreted in a number of different ways within Abrahamic religions, with a range of interpretations being found within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. In the narrative which follows the general outline of the story as found in standard English translations of the Book of Genesis is described. Details of the story which are interpreted differently by different traditions have been quoted directly from the text. These are details which have historically been interpreted in a range of ways within the Jewish and Christian traditions, including literally, non-literally, and allegorically.

Surely this should satisfy those of you who want the narrative section to be biased in favour of the 'literalist' POV. --Taiwan boi 02:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Bump. --Taiwan boi 09:11, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Bumping is pretty meaningless outside a BBS that moves threads with recent posts to the top of the list. And no one's replying because 1) no, they're not satisfied that you'd rather dick with the narrative section indirectly instead of being upfront about it, and 2) If they're anything like me they deeply resent being called "literalist" when they're not and have no interest pushing that POV anywhere. But they're more restrained than I am because they haven't been interacting with you as much.

As I said, I'm bowing out of this discussion and am taking this article off my watchlist. As I have finally lost my temper, I apologize to the other participants in this discussion. TCC (talk) (contribs) 12:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide any evidence that including more direct quotes in the narrative section is 'dicking with the narrative section indirectly instead of being upfront about it'? Previously you assured me that you had no objection to direct quotes being in the narrative section. Now it appears you do. --Taiwan boi 07:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

(Undent)Why would adding that stuff to the Narrative section satisfy anything? It's exactly the kind of edit we've been telling you is completely unnecessary, and has nothing to do with literalism, if you'd been paying attention. It's about knowing the difference between the text and its interpretation. The lead already explains that the story has been interpreted in various ways:

The story told in Genesis has been subject to extensive elaborations in the various Abrahamic traditions, mingling theoretical solutions to practical problems (e.g. how Noah might have disposed of animal waste) with allegorical interpretations (e.g. the Ark as a precursor of the Church, offering salvation to mankind).

I think TCC has the right idea at this point. I'm not unwatching this page, but I am done telling you what's been said numerous times already. When you're ready to start talking about adding edits to the correct sections, let us know. (also, don't bump. It's unnecessary, and will probably end up getting you in trouble for adding trivial edits.) Sxeptomaniac 17:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Why add it? As I've said, because a direct quote is preferable to a paraphrase. The original narrative already includes direct quotes, so I fail to underestand the objection to including direct quotes in the narrative. The lead says that the story ahs been 'subject to extensive elaborations in the various Abrahamic traditions', but elaborations are extra-Biblical additions to the story, not interpretations. If you're happy with the lead being explicit about the narrative being interpreted in a range of different ways within the various Abrahamic traditions, then I'll put it in. I find it interesting that I can get into trouble for bumping, but TCC can't get into trouble for comments such as 'all this crap', 'Liar', 'you're lying', 'Liar', and 'YOU PINHEAD'. Right now you are objecting to replacing paraphrase with more direct quotes in the narrative section, without actually explaining why. Why do you object to replacing paraphrase with more direct quotes in the narrative section? --Taiwan boi 05:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

TCC has already admitted wrongdoing and left, so I'm not beating a dead horse. The intro also says that there "theoretical solutions to practical problems" were developed (the next paragraph brings up non-literal interpretations as well), which I believe includes the local flood theory. However, if you want to start a new talk page section about changing some wording in the lead, I'm willing to discuss it. Sxeptomaniac 16:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

TCC has apologized to you for losing his temper. He has not admitted to anything else. He hasn't admitted to abusing me, and he hasn't apologized for it either. Of course I realize it's unnecessary for him to apologize for that, since no one expressed the slightest objection to his abusing me (including you), and since this is Wikipedia rather than a moderated forum with enforced standards of behaviour, that's pretty much what I expected. I've already suggested some new text for the lead (please read it). I still want to know what the objection is to including more Bible quotes in the narrative. --Taiwan boi 01:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I've seen enough of TCC's consistently good work to be willing to cut him/her a bit of slack. On the other hand, your insistence on messing with narrative section after being repeatedly told what you're proposing is inappropriate is a sign of tendentious editing.

I guess some people are special enough to break the rules. I have had this narrative edit suggestion up for days, and not one person raised any objection to my placing more Biblical quotes in the text. I asked repeatedly if anyone objected, and no one said anything. At least putting it in the narrative meant someone actually started paying attention. I also want an explanation for how adding more Bible quotes to the narrative section constitutes POV, bias, or skewing. The same goes for the narrative edit. How does that constitute 'tendentious editing'? --Taiwan boi 01:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

TCC is not "special." However, they have proven themselves a good editor over time. The way you focus exclusively on a small section of the article and argue endlessly about it is a bad sign.

On your recent edits, I saw a few different problems. One is that you quoted only Genesis 6:19-21, ignoring 7:2-3. Another is the duplicate addition of where the original text is found in the lead. Once is plenty. Sxeptomaniac 18:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the edit, you'll see that I restricted myself to passages of the text which were already being cited by the existing narrative. The intention was to change as little as possible. So if you have a problem with 'only Genesis 6:19-21' being quoted, 'ignoring 7:2-3', then you have a problem with the original narrative, not with my edit. The same goes for the duplicate addition of original text found in the lead. --Taiwan boi 01:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

That's false. The current wording is that he brought "examples of all animals and birds", allowing for the two different verses in Genesis 6:19-21 and 7:2-3 on the subject. Your version removed that and only quoted 6:19. So, you removed an unspecific summary and replaced it with an incomplete quote. The goal here is to summarize, not cover every detail of the story. Sxeptomaniac 18:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not false, because as you've just acknowledged the original narrative section did not quote Genesis 7:2-3. The vague phrase 'examples of all animals and birds' doesn't cover either passage, because it doesn't address the difference between the two passages (Genesis 7:2-3 is more precise than Genesis 6:19-21).

(undent)The difference between the two passages is addressed, just not in the narrative section. Have you even read the rest of the article? Allow me to repeat: The goal here is to summarize, not cover every detail of the story. Sxeptomaniac 16:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Overall, it added a bunch of words and not much information. I haven't even attempted to cover 'every detail of the story', I've simply restricted myself to quoting representative passages of certain paraphrased sections in the original narrative. But if this is a matter of life and death to you, then I'm happy to keep the vague 'examples of all animals and birds'. Now are there any other objections? --Taiwan boi 00:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

It didn't add 'a bunch of words', it replaced paraphrases of the text with direct quotes of the very verses they were paraphrasing. What is wrong with that? --Taiwan boi 01:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Quotes should be used sparingly. Paraphrasing is preferable whenever possible, in order to make efficient use of space in the article and make it easily readable. The narrative itself is supposed to be one of the least important parts of the article. It's only there to give someone a quick rundown of the story, so that the article can use more space to discuss its importance and the ways it has been interpreted and elaborated on. Sxeptomaniac 18:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's what I'm willing to recommend (with the possible changes italicized):

The story told in Genesis has been subject to extensive interpretations and elaborations in the various Abrahamic traditions, mingling theoretical solutions to practical problems (e.g. if the flood only covered a local area or how Noah might have disposed of animal waste) with allegorical interpretations (e.g. the Ark as a precursor of the Church, offering salvation to mankind).

I'd like to see what others have to say about this before we attempt to insert anything in the lead, though. Sxeptomaniac 20:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Can I ask what objections you have to the lead edit I wrote? --Taiwan boi 01:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It's extremely redundant, the location the narrative is found in the Bible is already stated in the narrative section, then it repeats that it's interpreted multiple ways. The lead of an article should be short and to the point, not waste the reader's time by stating what was just said two paragraphs back. Sxeptomaniac 18:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

So when you say 'It's extremely redundant', you really mean 'it contains one redundant phrase' (ok, so lose it). It does not 'repeat that it's interpreted multiple ways'. As I pointed out, the lead did not originally say this. You have acknowledged that by suggesting that this information be inserted into the lead yourself. So again, what is the real problem? Or isn't there one? --Taiwan boi 00:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

(undent)I guess the "real problem" is that you are utterly oblivious to what you are writing, then. Your version of the lead repeated that the text is interpreted in different ways three times. That is extremely redundant in my book. Sxeptomaniac 16:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm late to this discussion, but... "direct quotes" of what? The Bible? Sure, it already includes those... what's the argument here? "Direct quotes" of apologetic "local flood" re-interpretations... of course not! That's not what the Bible says. The story is about a worldwide flood. Period. That is why (for instance) Noah had to build a vast Ark and fill it with specimens of all the animals, rather than simply walking out of the region with just his own livestock. I will revert any attempt to mix apologetics into the Biblical narrative itself (I have no aversion to them being covered elsewhere in the article). --Robert Stevens 10:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Direct quotes of the Bible. Yes it already includes some. The suggestion being made is that it include more. Some people here are against any more Bible quotes in the narrative section. No reasons have been given yet as to why. No one has suggested direct quotes of 'apologetic "local flood" re-interpretations'. You may have come late to the discussion, but you could at least have tried to read it before asking these questions, which the discussion already answers. You didn't even have to read any more than the actual proposal being made, which is a single paragraph. No, the story is not necessarily about 'a worldwide flood'. That is simply one of a number of interpretations which have been given of the text from the 1st century to the present day. No one is attempting to 'mix apologetics into the Biblical narrative itself'. You, like at least three others here, are not actually reading what is being proposed. --Taiwan boi 01:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

re: Durupinar - Who disagrees that this is correct?

"the nearby heights have also been claimed to be Mount Cudi (or Judi), however there is no record of this tradition existing before ca. 1985"

As I understand it, PiCo does not deny that this is correct - he himself has stated several times the same thing in his edit summaries, if you've been paying attention. There has been no valid objection yet to the inclusion of this fact. This is quickly turning into yet another mindless partisan revert battle, and I am just sick of this. If it is a fact and everyone agrees, why do you go to such extreme lengths to prevent anyone from accessing these facts, that are easily accessible elsewhere? This is the reputation Wikipedia has in a nutshell. Some people here unfortunately think it's all about information control, and it's all being done in an isolated box, outside of which the truth is still getting out. Kind of like the old Soviet Union. There ends up being a major gap between the information easily available elsewhere, and the strictly controlled information people are "allowed" to see here. Hence Wikipedia's reputation. Til Eulenspiegel 23:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

We're like the Soviet Union because we don't want some stupid factoid in an article? What an asinine thing to say.

No, we don't want it in the article because information on searches for the Ark is found in detail in Searches for Noah's Ark, including this little tidbit. Inserting a claim that no one takes seriously (not even the locals do; they made it up just to attract tourist trade) gives it a lot more attention than it deserves. The other claimants to "Mt. Judi" are much more worthwhile -- but only one of them is mentioned in the article, as its apparently a majority opinion in Islam. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, how I enjoy Noah's Wiki for a good laugh once in awhile. With all these alleged scientist that are guarding the fort, I would have expected at least one of them to point out that "Searches for Noah's Ark" is not a propper title, seeing that they are in fact "claims of discovery", which of course happen as a result of searches. But I suppose to treat them scientifically as the hype that they are would be too dangerous. It would be problematic to use science to evaluate quack claims of discovery since a testable notice of discovery actually exists. Be more circumspect than OrangeMarlin (by the way I like his new dramatic colors)Katherin 22:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This seems more like a subjective opinion that is disputed by other editors. Unfortunately disputes are not "allowed" on this article either, under penalty of blocking -- unless of course they originate from someone in the "approved" clique that asserts "special authority" over this article. But, I shudder to think what would happen to me if I dared describe one of your statements with the word "asinine". We all know that you will be held to a much lower standard than you hold others to. Til Eulenspiegel 12:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I know that when no one agrees with you that you feel like there's some cabal exercising absolute control over everything you want to touch. But you need to allow for the possibility that people might instead disagree with you because you're wrong.

No need to shudder. I've been called far worse things. "Soviet", for example. It's particularly offensive for someone in my position. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Saying other editors don't agree with me would be utterly false, because some other editors DO agree with me... like the editor who originally added this factual information, for instance... but in your contempt for everyone who does not agree with your views, you consider us all collectively to be "no one". In order to be "someone" here, we basically have to agree with you, or else we can be labeled "asinine" and it's all "neutral". And therein lies the whole problem with this travesty. Til Eulenspiegel 22:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

So I'm the gatekeeper now? Thanks for the promotion. Point is, I'm not the only one who has reverted this change; many others have as well, and you're still missing the point. Why mention this one newly-minted tourist trap here, and not the other places that have been called "Mt. Judi" for centuries? The reason we don't mention the others is that it would lengthen the article beyond its scope, covering a subject that's already addressed in another article -- including this tourist trap.

It was your "Soviet Union" comparison that was asinine, not anything directly to do with article content. I know people who were dissenters there, who circulated samizdat, who had their citizenships stripped from them and became stateless persons -- Not to mention those I never met who were imprisoned and made to suffer many hardships there for their political views. Yes, comparing anything that goes on here to something like that is asinine. In spades. If you don't want to be called that, then stop behaving in a way that merits it. It's deeply, morally offensive. TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The similarity I see is that only one POV seems to be tolerated in this discussion page, any editors not sharing that POV are routinely bullied, belittled and attacked, and I have seen many others who disagreed and have been driven away, some even banned or blocked just for dissenting or even disputing the lack of neutrality of the article. Til Eulenspiegel 23:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Well of course that is true. But when I was a kid with my hand in the cooky jar I was in no position to admit the obvious. I am not bothered by such behavior. The truth is always self-evident. Frankly I appreciate that PiCo and others have demonstrated that Islam's book is proved in error by the Ark being shown to reside on Arrarat. It would be far too far away to be in accord with Mt. Judi, Cudi, hootchy. But I remain amused that the scientists are so averse to actually applying science, yet keep pretending they do---I've even included some very well soucred science edits that prove Naoh's Ark never happened, and they get deleted--- LOL. But what do you expect from a mob? And what do suits, silk ties, and lamb skins have to do with it? LOL. Katherin 00:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The question isn't whether or not the Islamic tradition is a valid one. Of course it is, as a tradition per se; no one ever said it wasn't. It's not about whether or not the Ark actually existed either. The question is whether this newly devised "tradition" about the location of Mt. Judi deserves a prominent mention in one article, where a different article would be more suitable for it, and where it is in fact already discussed. The genuine Islamic tradition on the location of Mt. Judi is covered (surprise!) in the section on Islamic tradition.

To Til: So what you're really saying is that there's no similarity whatsoever. It's not possible to "bully" someone where there's no power. You can try to grab the moral high ground when you don't get your way by labeling everyone else, but you do exactly the opposite when you end up belittling those with genuine courage who faced genuine consequences for fighting an unjust system. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

That is what is called an "unjustified reproach", because I have done no such thing, and I certainly don't need you to reproach me. I have my own conscience, don't need yours, thanks, not today, not ever. Why don't you spend less of your editing time on these fruitless personal attacks against anyone (not just me) who disagrees with you on what "deserves" mention"??? At the end of the day, what "deserves" mention is a subjective question, and you have not only asserted complete, uncompromising primacy for your own POV on this question, but also, belittling, attacking and attempting to drive away editors with any dissenting views is the order of the day here. It is very saddening indeed to recognise that this is the way your project works. Til Eulenspiegel 12:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

(undent) When you compare this to the Soviet Union and cast yourself as the victim, then yes -- you'd better make damn sure you do it in such a way that you're not putting yourself in the place of those genuine heroes, not just when you're around me, but when you're in front of anyone else who knows any of them. They are, each of them, remarkably unconcerned about the minor annoyances of life in a free society -- such as, for example, when a Wikipedia article isn't being edited quite as one might like.

But no, this is nowhere near as subjective as you'd like to make out. I've done nothing more than to make use of the cited source, and drew a reasonable conclusion (as one may do in a talk page, after all.) Traditions don't just appear out of thin air 1300 years (post-Mohammed) or 3200+ years (post-Moses) after the fact. When they do, there's always something else going on, and it's not belittling you to say so. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I totally and utterly *reject* every bit of the pretended authority which you falsely claim to have over me, informing me what I'd "better make damn sure" I do... I don't answer to you, TCC, and never will... I'm not your slave, I am a free man, so please -- do not address me as if I were a slave, sir... Just so you know... Til Eulenspiegel 11:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The question isn't whether or not the Islamic tradition is a valid one. I fully appreciate the question at hand. Wiki never concerns itself with what is true. A point I find humorous since every inclination of the human conscience is to evaluate every proposition for its truth (Your own reaction to reading my last proposition is case in point enough. LOL) And I have no problem with wherever and whoever wants to record the Islamic proposition regarding the residence of Noah's Ark. You make some fine points about where the Islamic proposition should be recorded in Wiki, and also point out well the NPOV and sources that are within wiki standards. I just appreciated that PiCo eloquently demonstrated that the Moses I account (which proposes Noah's Ark resides at least within the bounds of "the mountains of Urartu" is entirely at odds to the Islamic account, a small detail that we scientists notice and remember for any evaluation of notices of discovery. Cheers. Katherin 03:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

(undent) No doubt. The only thing I had in mind on the subject was that the tradition, whatever it might be, ought to be represented fairly. One notes, however, that even the traditional Mt. Judi of Islam is still in Urartu, if only just, so I'm not sure I agree with "entirely at odds". For Islam, the Koran trumps any other scripture anyway. Not at all my POV, but my POV isn't really my focus here. (I fully appreciate how ironic that may sound.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

For Islam, the Koran trumps any other scripture anyway. Absolutely agree, they subscribe to the idea that their book is correct, as any religion worth its salt does. Yet, none can dispute that the Koran doesn’t identify the same location as Moses I. They can both be wrong, but they cannot both be correct. One could also say that Mainstream Science is a bit “religious” (in similar manner to the faithful of Islam?) in their view of Noah’s Ark and their science books trump all other “scriptures”. LOL. And once again, National Geographic and Moses I logically can both be wrong, but they can’t both be correct. Cheers! Katherin 05:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Og on the Ark?

What's this edit supposed to be about?

'The giant Og, king of Bashan, was among those saved—as he must have been, as his descendants are mentioned in later books of the Torah—but owing to his size had to remain outside, Noah passing him food through a hole cut into the wall of the Ark.[4][5][6]'

Whoever inserted 'as he must have been, as his descendants are mentioned in later books of the Torah', clearly isn't familiar with the Torah. Og is not mentioned at all in the entire book of Genesis. He isn't recorded as living until centuries after Noah's Ark. It's not even possible that he could have been in or on the Ark. I have no objection to the article citing or quoting bizarre rabbinical interpretations which place Og in or on the Ark, but adding a comment claiming that they were correct is simply ludicrous. Insert non-formatted text here

This sentence is in the "rabbinic interpretations" section. In other words, it's reporting the opinions of the Talmudic rabbis: the "as he must have been" phrase explains the reasoning given there. The material is referenced via a footnote. PiCo 01:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see 'as he clearly must have been, as his descendants are mentioned in later books of the Torah' identified there as a view of the rabbis. If that was the intention, then it is very badly phrased. Not only that, but it is entirely unreferenced. I checked all three links. The first two go to the same information about Og in two articles in the Jewish Encyclopedia. Neither article says absolutely nothing about the rabbis saying that Og must have been on board the Ark because 'his descendants are mentioned in later books of the Torah'. The third link goes to another article in the Jewish Encyclopedia, which says absolutely zero about Og, let alone his descendants. --Taiwan boi 12:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

So do we just leave it there, is that the idea? We're not allowed to edit it? --Taiwan boi 01:51, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's the information about Og from the first link:

'Noah had also to feed Og, who, being unable to enter the ark, sat upon it, taking hold of one of its timbers. Noah made a hole in the side of the ark through which he passed food to Og; the latter thereupon swore to be Noah's servant eternally (Pirḳe R. El. l.c.).'

Nothing there about the rabbis saying anything concerning Og's descendants. Here's the information about Og from the second link:

'Besides the regular occupants, the Ark supported Og, king of Bashan, and the immense animal "Reëm," neither of whom, owing to their enormous size, could get into the Ark, but held fast to it, remaining alongside (Pirḳe R. El. xxiii.; Gen. R. xxxi. 13).'

Nothing there about the rabbis saying anything concerning Og's descendants. Here's the information about Og from the third link:

'...'

Yes, that's right, there's nothing at all about Og in the third link. There is in the third link a link to yet another page (the article 'Giants'), in which Og is mentioned, but that article says nothing about the rabbis believing Og must have been saved from the flood because his descendants were 'mentioned in later books of the Torah'. --Taiwan boi 04:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

So while there are untold volumes of well sourced, credible, and authoritative evidence and research enumerating the emphatic positions of the scientific tradition, the article seems (to a significant measure) exclude them in any meaningful way, in preference to.. a novel, fringe, and perhaps suspect anecdotal narrative postulation? And with a straight face too!Katherin 03:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Novel? The Talmud is novel? Fringe? The rabbis, fringe? Suspect? The Jewish Encyclopedia, suspect? Tsk tsk. PiCo 14:30, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Tsk. Tsk. LOL.. Your assertion that I somehow disparaged your long list of notable and refined people and ancient texts is without merit. It is uncharacteristic for you to make such a simple error.

It is obvious that my characterization was on the "anecdotal narrative postulation," not on the honor of those who made it or on the text that they may have allegedly based their hypothesis upon. Is this representative of your normal reading observations? I don't think so! I have much more regard for you.

Alas, these mentions of Og hitching a ride by hanging onto the gunwales, the kangaroo crossing sign, and the single phoenix paradox (the bird who legend has it emerges from fire but somehow needs a ride during a flood. LOL).. these anecdotal mentions are nothing more than an amusing distraction from the real issue of the Arc.

Its location and dimensions is the real issue. Nothing is determinative apart from the prescribed location and dimensions as described in an ancient text that is by its own argument, historical. (It is amusing that scientists, who ostensibly are so skilled at unbiased reason, seem so eager to discuss everything but the heart of the issue.) Even the conscience of our good friend Orangemarlin concurs. But he is in such a quandry as to how he can assist.

He would do well to contemplate the story of a widower in the news not too long ago. His wife was murdered a number of years back. The husband was suspected in his wife's murder but the police couldn't quite seem to get enough evidence so he remained free--not even accused. However the years passed and technology improved. The husband became nervous that the police were closing in on him so he traveled from his home town to Las Vegas in order to send in a "confession letter" from the "real killer" (who of course exonerated the husband). Trouble is, the police determined that the "confession letter" was written by the husband and that he was in Vegas when it was mailed. So much for his obfuscation. His every effort actually tended to accomplish the opposite of his intentions. Tsk. Tsk? Congratulations? Ah.. My deepest sympathies.. especially to Orangemarlin. Katherin 22:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I noted my name being bandied about herein, and I can't for the life of me figure out why? I'm in a quandary? Huh? And what does the story have to with...anything? I'm really confused. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:58, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Orange, always a pleasure. Love your new colors.Katherin 01:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Katherin, I guess my humour doesn't come across well in Wiki - the tsk tsk was meant to amuse you. But that aside, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you when you say the location and dimensions of the Ark are the real issue. Today maybe, but not always. The rabbis and the early Church fathers simply took that for granted - the Bible said it was 300 cubits long and on Mt Ararat, and they didn't discuss the matter. What they did discuss were theological and practical issues - for the rabbis, the question of how the offspring of the unions of the "sons of God" and "daughters of men" managed to exist after the Flood (hence their decision that Og was their father and had been saved by Noah), or matters such as Noah's righteousness or, for the Christians, the prefiguration of Christ as the Ark sailed in the sign of the cross (and almost identically for the Muslims, as it sailed to Mecca and back). Then in the Enlightenment, similar concerns, but with a scientific slant - what about the Bird of Paradise, what about Classical beasties like the Siren? And so we come to our own age, when, as you say, the dimensions and location of the Ark are the thing discussed. In short, the article takes a long-term view of the Ark, from earliest times to the present. If you want to change the orientation and make it entirely about the present, go ahead, but at least be aware of what it is you're changing. PiCo 10:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I don’t understand why you deny I am amused (or the reason for my amusement) seeing I plainly stated both.

Ever since the ancient text postulated the location and the dimensions of Noah’s Ark, all subsequent hypothesis, anecdotal adaptations, evaluations, extrapolations, and propositions are by the nature of postulations, evaluated in the light of it (regardless if they necessarily accept, explicitly deny, or simply omit the details of it.) Cheers Katherin 05:08, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

Deleted vandalism, 'noah said i love you god', added to the 'Mesopotamian Flood Stories' section. --Taiwan boi 00:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Josephus

I strongly belive that the people of Nuah did not believe him about the truth taht Allah was the one and only god in this universe so Allah Made a flood that then the earth swollowed and killed everyone

I gather Josephus supposedly wrote about Noah's Ark. Should we include this? Do we have good enough sources for this?--Filll 14:13, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Joe wrote Antiquities of the Jews, in which he rehearsed the bible as history. What specifically do you want to mention?PiCo 15:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Josephus gave an interpretation of the flood narrative as a local flood. This is worthy of note in the history of interpretations of the Genesis flood narrative. But beware, any mention of local flood interpretations of the Genesis flood narrative have been systematically excluded from this article. I have objected to this as providing only one POV. --Taiwan boi 01:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

This idea of a local flood comes from reading the bible as history - "the bible is literally true, a worldwide flood is clearly impossible, therefore it must have been a local flood." But Genesis 1-11 is a combination of theology and cosmogeny: God creates the universe out of the waters of chaos, "tehom", the universe being a flat disk of land surrounded and supported by a circular world-ocean (chaos has been banished to the fringe but not eliminated altogether); God then becomes dissatisfied with the moral progress of his world and destroys it, allowing the waters of chaos to return (the "fountains of the deep", the "deep" being tehom again); the waters of chaos then subside (back to the primeval world-ocean, which continues to exist, but far from the world of men), and a new creation begins. Or, to put this enother way, Genesis 1-11 has a lesson to deliver, and it's not a geography lesson. PiCo 03:31, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll leave aside the fact that you wrongly imply that a local flood interpretation is only the result of a perceived tension between lack of evidence for a global flood and a belief that the Bible is 'literally true'. That's certainly not how Philo and Josephus arrived at the local flood interpretation, or certain of the later Jewish rabbis. That leaves me wondering exactly what your point was. --Taiwan boi 04:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

My point is that there's no point looking for a local flood. The flood has to be cosmic for the story to make sense. PiCo 05:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Whether or not you believe there's any point in looking for a local flood is both irrelevant to this article and to the point I was making. --Taiwan boi 05:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

(Undent) I think we're in danger of wandering off into biblical exegesis again, which is a constant temptation with this and other OT articles. The purpose of these pages is to discuss improvements to the article. Filll thinks we should perhaps include a reference to Josephus. I don't object in principle, but I wonder what exactly we should reference. PiCo 05:11, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I think we should include a reference to Josephus in a section in which historical interpretations of the flood are reviewed (as in the paper by Hugh Davies which is in the bibliography of this article). But at present the article is restricted to a description of global flood interpretations, and suggestions that it should be enlarged to contain other interpretations have been systematically opposed. --Taiwan boi 05:23, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

This article is about the Ark rather than the Flood. I know it's hard to keep them separate, but we should try. (Surely there's a Flood article out there somewhere?) If we do go down that road, the appropriate place would be in the Literalism section, since belief in any flood at all, local or universal, supposes taking the flood narrative as history rather than theology. PiCo 05:28, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually 'Noah's Flood' redirects to a single tiny paragraph in the larger article 'Deluge', which in turn redirects to this article, 'Noah's Ark' (it actually says 'See also: Noah's Ark'). It's clear from the entire article here that the flood and its interpretation is being included in the discussion of the Ark. I would add that it is a serious error to define Literalism as the acceptance of the Bible as a book which contains records of genuine historical events. That is not the definition of Literalism by any stretch of the imagination. There are plenty of secular archaeologists and historians who believe that the Bible contains records of genuine historical events, but they certainly could not be described as Literalists. --Taiwan boi 08:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

That paragraph in the Deluge article seems like the most appropriate place - bearing in mind that it doesn't have to stay a single paragraph. You can expand it. From the point of view of the Ark, it doesn't much matter whether the flood on which it floated was local of universal. PiCo 08:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

From the point of view of the Ark, it makes a huge difference whether the flood was local or global. As has already been pointed out many times over the centuries, and is pointed out extensively in the Wiki article, it makes a difference to the number of animals carried, the amount of food carried, and the weather conditions and survivability of the Ark. That is precisely why all these issues are addressed in the article. --Taiwan boi 03:35, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Then it would belong in the Literalism section. Go ahead and draft something. PiCo 04:28, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Why would it belong in the Literalism section, when Josephus wasn't a literalist? --Taiwan boi 09:09, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

If this article is only about the Ark then why is the following section included: Noah's_Ark#Mesopotamian_flood_stories? This would seem to be an ideal place for the local flood. Alternatively the flood stories could be moved to deluge (mythology) or Noah's flood (which redirects to Deluge (mythology)). Noah's flood would seem to make more sense. David D. (Talk) 09:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Any primary source for "Sirens" as part of the Noah's Ark story?

I looked up the source (Cohn, 1996) that claims Mediaeval scholars were confounded over the question of whether or not the mythological "sirens" were included on the Ark. It does indeed assert this on p. 41, claiming that the sirens of ancient Greek myth were still believed by Christian scholars to have existed. No primary source or citation is given for this assertion, although the front cover illustration of Cohn's book does show a mediaeval painting of the Ark with bodies in the water around it, identified as "The ark with sirens alongside, From the Quentell Bible, Cologne, c. 1478". The Wikipedia article on Sirens isn't much help, since it makes no mention of a belief in sirens from the Middle Ages, though it does link to a 10th century Suda entry on Sirens, which squarely declares them to be fanciful pagan myth of centuries gone by. It would be good to know the original source of this elaboration, can anyone help? Thanks, Til Eulenspiegel 17:53, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Is Cohen referring to medieval beliefs, or post-medieval? It seems to me that a belief in the sirens smacks of someone who's been reading the Classics instead of the Fathers. PiCo 18:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Cohen refers only to a belief allegedly current at one time that "sirens" had somehow survived Noah's flood, being based upon an unnamed "commentator" who claimed to have "actually possessed the skeleton of a siren", to supposedly prove this. Regrettably, Cohn does not give any clues as to where or when this enigmatic "commentator" lived, let alone who he may have been, so it all seems suspiciously anecdotal. I have been searching long and hard, and so far can't find any shred of evidence of this skeleton, or of a later belief in the "sirens" (of Ancient Greek lore) seriously existing, whether in medieval or post-medieval scholarship, outside of Cohn's rather bald assertion that they did believe this. Til Eulenspiegel 22:09, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

After some more research, I am finding out that Jerome in the 4th century, when he translated the Bible into Latin, did translate Hebrew tenim (jackals or foxes) in Is. 13:22 as "sirens", and another word meaning "owls" in Jer. 50:39, however Ambrose, in writing Christian doctrines later that same century (4th), explicitly used a whole chapter to declare that these were purely allegorical uses, since sirens are clearly mythical. Other monastic writers between then and about 1200 similarly interpreted "sirens" as merely symbolic for everything monks were supposed to stay away from in the world. Ironically, it is only in the 17th century when a handful of Jesuit authors seem to seriously assert that such creatures as sirens might exist, such as Cornelius a Lapide who evidently wrote that one had been captured off the coast of Frisia, but this fantasy couldn't have been taken seriously for too long. Til Eulenspiegel 00:49, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Apparently Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit in the late 17th century, discussed the existence of sirens in connection with Noah's Ark; he scoffs at the naturalist Oleaster's suggestion that they had survived outside of it, and insists that rooms must have been built to accomodate them. Finally got to the bottom of that one, plus some good additions for the siren article! Wonder why the official line on sirens from 300 to 1600 was that they were mythical, and then suddenly Jesuits began to assert their existence, think they were possibly trying to discourage sea travel? Til Eulenspiegel 01:20, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for this fascinating research. Your last question (about the Jesuits) is probably worth an in-depth study in its own right - it could make a good article or even book. PiCo 02:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Added a summary to the lead

I've added a summary to the lead, since it's not an absolute given that a reader would know what we're talking about. Might need tweaked a bit - it's a little awkward to know how to deal with descriptions of Bible stories - it needs to be clear that the account given is according to the Bible, of course, but belabouring that point could well amount to an attack on Christianity. Adam Cuerden ^talk 05:40, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the summary, I think it's a good addition. I've modified it quite a bit, however - I wanted to make it shorter, as the lead should provide a bare summary of the most important points, and I've tried to bring out what those most important points are. I understand them to be the following:

• God's decision to destroy all life is not unmotivated - the God of the Bible is a moral God, and his anger was aroused by the wickedness of mankind (rather than by the noise they made, which was the motive in the Mesopotamian stories).
• The phrase "God remembered Noah" lies at the centre of an elaborate palistrophe, marking this verse as containing the meaning of the entire story. Unfortunately, our article almost completely ignores the structure and meaning of the ark episode in Genesis, but I'd like to add an article on the theology of the Ark at a later stage.

I've also made a few minor edits elsewhere which I'll explain if anyone wants to question them. PiCo (talk) 05:17, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I've made some changes to mthe first para of the lead which might be controversial. I've removed the first few words which said that the the story was "according to Abrahamic religion": personally I don't think this qualifier is necessary, as the story is quite obviously a religious one (it's in the bible, which is by definition Abrahamic religion). Secondly, I've changed the last few words to make clear that the Koranic and other stories are subsequent to and based on the Genesis story. Please discuss here is you object, rather than simply reverting. Thank you PiCo (talk) 03:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I reinstated that the story is according to Abrahamic religion. Otherwise it would appear as if the story is factual, which of course is controversial. Terjen (talk) 03:24, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Revisions to documentary hypothesis section

I've made some major re-arrangements of the material in this section, plus some less major edits to the contents. Frankly I'm not entirely happy with the section as it stands - it concen trates too much on Wellhausen, when Wellhausen hardly represents the latest word in source criticism (he's been dead a century, after all). So I've tried to update things a little, and also to reduce some unnecessary details. PiCo (talk) 04:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Noah? Joan of Arc? Huh?

I was rather puzzled by this statement: "12% of Americans think Noah was married to Joan of Arc.[29]" This makes no sense with the surrounding context; if the point of this statement is to argue that Americans often hold ridiculous views than this should be made more clear. I don't think it is necessary at all. standonbible^(Talk)_{Assume good faith and stay neutral!} 18:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

That entire paragraph on polling and biblical literalism needs cleaning. The information on what-biblical-literalists should believe should come first. This should be followed by better references to appropriate polls on Ameriacn (and preferrably some international) belief in Noah's Ark/generic deluge.

The Joan of Arc result is from an entirely unrelated poll and should not be included. It's off-topic and does not provide context. It provides incorrect context, as it is from a different poll. The ABC and Barna polls both reach as similar 60% figure (just under 2/3) but it should be referenced that two independent polls reached this result. The text following is not referenced to the polling questions, but instead reflects serious literalist theological literature, and should be placed in a seperate context from the polls.--ZayZayEM (talk) 00:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The Joan of Arc comment is entirely inappropriate in this article. Who cares what strange ideas someone who is uneducated on such matters holds? Consensus appears to be 3:0 for removing it; so I have done so.^rossnixon 01:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Numbers of animals

How can you have an article on Noah's Ark and ignore this?--Dougweller (talk) 13:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

We don't ignore it - see the first paragraph of the section Secular Biblical Scholarship.PiCo (talk) 13:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I was confused by your Edit summary and didn't check further.--Dougweller (talk) 13:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Flood was 40 days upon the earth-at that time.

There is no contradiction here. The flood was 40 days upon the earth at the time that the waters picked the ark up, but the water stayed on the earth for 150 days. It is obvious if you read the scripture referenced.Ronar (talk) 15:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Which version?

The Priestlyh (P) story -- which consistently uses the name 'god' for the deity refers to "male and female", has one pair of each kind of animal, has a raven, etc. Or the Yahweh (J) story - 'Yahweh', 'man and his woman' as well as male and famale, 'died', seven pairs of clean animals, a dove, etc. P: Genesis 6:9-22, 7:6,8,9,11,13-16, 21,24 8:1-5, 7, 13-10 J: Genesis 6:188, 7:1-5,7,10,12,17-20,22,23 8:6,8-12, 20-22 There are quite a few of these pairs of stories in the OT. P says "and the waters grew strong on the earth a hundred fifty days". J, 8:6, suddenly brings in the 40 days when Noah opens the window. If you read at as the two stories they almost certainly are (drawing separately from earlier sources), each story makes sense on its own. This isn't OR, it's Richare Elliott Friedman, "Who wrote the Bible". And clearly needs to be included in the main article in some form.--Doug Weller (talk) 15:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC) Too hasty again! It is there, why the discussion here? There are two stories, that's why there is confusion.--Doug Weller (talk) 15:54, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Can we refrain from using terms such as 'P', and 'J' given that there's no scholarly consensus on what constitutes either 'P' or 'J', or whether either even existed? I don't see how this is useful. The article itself notes that this 19th century theory has received little support in recent years. But the article starts off by introducing this as a theory, and then quickly asserts it to be fact, interpreting the entire flood narrative accordingly. --Taiwan boi (talk) 00:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Those terms ares shorthand of course. The lack of scholarly consensus should certainly not stop us from referring to them -- we'd have to cut out a lot of Wikipedia if we followed a policy like that! I think you need to read the article on the documentary hypothesis again, by the way. It doesn't diss Friedman. But thank you for your 'fact' claim, that's led me to note one little thing that is asserted as a fact (not the above) which I need to check out.--Doug Weller (talk) 06:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

These terms are shorthand for a disputed theory, and they are increasingly less used as a result of that theory losing support among modern scholarship. I don't mind reference to them being included, as long as they aren't presented as fact. A proper treatment of the 'two narratives' theory would not only make reference to antiquated theories, but to modern theories, and would also provide examples of alternative views (briefly cited in the text), which argue for a single source, using analogous ancient texts. I'm not actually saying anything about Friedman, one way or another, but I note that the article on the Documentary Hypothesis still says what I remember it saying months ago, which is that the Documentary Hypothesis no longer enjoys consensus support. --Taiwan boi (talk) 07:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting lost here. All current theories are disputed, and there has never been a real consensus. The article makes it clear that there are more recent models which dispute the DH and that the DH has much less support than it used to have. It did suggest what Wenham's view was fact, and I've changed that. But I don't understand what you mean by shorthand, the article doesn't use 'P' and 'J'.

What seems to be the case though is that undue weight is given to the DH and that should probably be changed. What do you think? I also am not convinced that George Athas is the best person to describe the Copenhagen School.--Doug Weller (talk) 09:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean literally the single letters 'P' and 'J', but the terms 'Priestly' and 'Jahwist/Yahwist' which they represent (terms used in the article). I agree the DH has too much weight in the article, especially since the hypothesis as quoted in the article has little support now. As for the Copenhagen School, Athas isn't an authority as far as I'm aware, but his article is balanced, well reasoned, and well referenced. If you would prefer a different assessment, then I suggest you look at the Copenhagen School article for other descriptions. --Taiwan boi (talk) 10:08, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The Documentary Hypothesis isn't "losing ground" to any belief in a single source: rather, the newer approach involves even more sources and editing. In this particular case, the interweaving of two distinct versions of the story is still the main scholarly view IIRC. I think we need to briefly mention the uncertainty regarding the Flood's duration in the "Narrative" paragraph, which currently asserts that it lasted 150 days (which is only one view). I'll copy the sentence that mentions this issue in the Flood geology article. --Robert Stevens (talk) 10:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone here is arguing that the DH is losing ground to any belief in a single source. --Taiwan boi (talk) 10:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Whatever, the article mentions apparent uncertainty about the duration of the flood, and Ross Nixon deleted it which I have now reverted. “The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.” (NIV) seems enough to prove apparent uncertainty, isn't it? Opinions as to whether this can be reconciled to end up with a definite 40 days aren't enough to remove the sentence I've restored--Doug Weller (talk) 06:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

...Indeed. And it's directly contradicted by Genesis 7:17, which specifically states that "the flood was forty days upon the earth" (i.e. this was not just the duration of the rainfall, as earlier verses indicate). And Noah later sends out a raven after 40 days (Genesis 8:6-7), even though this comes after the "waters abated" after "150 days". Apologists sometimes assume that this was on day 190 (150+40), but the story gives no indication of why Noah would wait this long. There is confusion here, just as there is with the "number of animals" issue: the two-source hypothesis neatly explains why. --Robert Stevens (talk) 09:35, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

As long as there is no consensus on which parts of the story belong to different sources (whether two, six, eight, or however many other theories want to ascribe), the 'two-source hypothesis' explains nothing 'neatly'. The older multiple source theories (and modern source theories based on them), typically pay no attention to Ancient Near East analogues (comparable ANE narratives or texts which are indisputably the result of a single source but which contain doublets, redundancies, and repetition), which is understandable given the ignorance of Wellhausen's era, but less excusable today. Some mention of this would help to contribute to the quality of this article, which is still well below par. It doesn't help that all Christians who believe in the flood narrative are inaccurately lumped together as 'Biblical literalists'. There's no mention whatever of the centuries old 'local flood' interpretation, which is found at least as early as the 1st century AD (Josephus and Philo of Alexandria). Then there's the incomplete representation (if not misrepresentation), of some sources. Thomas Browne is quoted as questioning how animals could have reached the Americas, as if he was a skeptic challenging the truth of the flood narrative, when in actual fact he was a Christian who not only believed the flood narrative was completely true, but actually defended the global interpretation of the flood narrative (despite recognizing its problems). In the first five editions of 'Vulgar Errors' he acknowledged that in his own day there were Christians who believed in the local interpretation of the flood, but dismissed their arguments out of hand and concluded they were completely wrong ('so that some conceiving it needlesse to be universal, have made the deluge particular, and about those parts where Noah built his Arke; which opinion because it is not only injurious to the Text, humane history, and common reason, but also derogatory unto that great worke of God, the universall inundation'). --Taiwan boi (talk) 00:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

How come suddenly "NIV is enough" now, when every other time, secondary sources making the arguments are required to be attributed? As for favoritism to the "NIV" English language (mis)-wording, we do have access to the original Hebrew from which all the other translations were made, you know.... SOME scholars may interpret it the way you do, OTHERS do not, regardless of which school of thought you may wish to champion, we still have to follow the normal procedure of neutrality, and explain exactly WHO feels WHAT about it, and WHY. In other words, the article should state WHO interprets this as a "contradiction" and WHO does not, WHAT language interpretation was used to arrive at each conclusion, etc. rather than push any one school of thought while attempting to attack or weaken the opposing schools of thought. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 11:29, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Who said 'NIV is enough@? I didn't,it was just an example. There is just no possible way you can say there is no uncertainty. so how do you justify removing that bit? There is no possible way of resolving the uncertainty or making it go away, so you are just going to have to live with it.--Doug Weller (talk) 11:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we do have the original Hebrew, and the translation is not disputed: all translations agree that the verses do indeed say "40 days" and "150 days" respectively. And all translations agree that Genesis 7:17 gives 40 days as the duration of the Flood (Hebrew mabbuwl, a flood: from the root yabal, to be borne along or carried away: check a concordance). As for secodary sources: the flood-duration issue is part of any discussion regarding the scholarly interpretation of this section of Genesis, and one such source has already been provided as a reference. --Robert Stevens (talk) 11:54, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The translation certainly isn't disputed. Modern translations I've looked at rightly identify two completely different words in Genesis 7:17 and 7:24, rendering them with their different respective meanings. Modern translations render mabbuwl (verse 17), as 'flood', and mayim (verse 24), as 'waters'. These two words do not have the same meaning, and are therefore translated differently (as they have been since at least 1611). This is why many people see no contradiction between these verses. Others do, but the grounds on which they do are not lexical. --Taiwan boi (talk) 00:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Someone else quoted the NIV translation just a little while ago above here, and then stated "that seems enough to prove uncertainty". But that is not so; secondary sources that interpret this as an uncertainty are what would truly be "enough", and the secondary sources that do not interpret it so, can and should also be found for the opposing viewpoint. Indeed, as you have said "the flood-duration issue is part of any discussion regarding the scholarly interpretation of this section of Genesis"; although actually there is no single interpretation of a controversy, and the opposing viewpoints should not be artificially forced to be reconciled as if there were no controversy, but rather each should be detailed and explained without taking sides. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's turn this around. Is there uncertainty or is there certainty?--Doug Weller (talk) 12:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Depends what you mean. If you mean "Is there disagreement among sources about the interpretation", then clearly, yes there is. If you mean "does the primary source by itself establish or indicate uncertainty", that is more like what the disagreement in the interpretive sources is about. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

So you're now agreeing that your earlier action, in deleting mention of the uncertainty and thereby "artificially reconciling" it "as if there were no controversy", was inappropriate? --Robert Stevens (talk) 13:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I won't do it again; but as long as we are discussing this, I would like to see the controversy explained more fully with more sources. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:39, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

A flood timeline is carefully worked out here [13] for those who are interested. ^rossnixon 05:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Genuine Biblical scholars are not in the business of "resolving" Biblical contradictions. The Bible is errant: this has already been established. It contains stuff that is true, stuff that is false, and stuff that is uncertain. Each apparent contradiction should be looked at on a case-by-case basis, with the most plausible explanation being regarded as the most likely "correct" one (based on context, usage etc), with no prior committment to either an "inerrant" or "errant" explanation. In this case, the interweaving of two accounts has already been established by other evidence (such as the number-of-animals issue, with its anachronistic allusion to the yet-to-be-invented dietary codes). Given this, the most plausible explanation for the Flood-duration contradiction is that this is part of the same issue: there's no need to attempt to distort Genesis 7:17 to say anything other than what it DOES actually say. The Flood was upon the Earth for 40 days, according to that author: this is what the scholars say. If there was a contrary scholarly view (NOT one based on an ideological committment to "inerrancy"), and that view was based on evidence, then it would become the new scholarly consensus if a good enough case could be made for it. Meanwhile we report what they are saying now. --Robert Stevens (talk) 12:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The current reference is to an anonymous, undated, university webpage that does not even look at the difference in the Hebrew words used. No discussion or evalution is done whatsoever. That is not how "scholars" publish their views. ^rossnixon 01:28, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'd like to see something more than an 'anonymous, undated, university webpage that does not even look at the difference in the Hebrew words used'. It's good to see people checking the links others add to this article. Links such as that don't do much for the FA status of the article (which at present it certainly does not deserve yet, with anonymous, undated self-published references such as that). In this case an evaluation of the apparent contradiction needs to draw on proper scholarly research which takes into account analogous ancient literature, assessing ncient Near East analogues (comparable ANE narratives or texts which are indisputably the result of a single source but which contain doublets, redundancies, and repetition), none of which are mentioned in the article at present. The Wellhausen hypothesis is given undue weight for a theory written by a non-specialist in ignorance of ANE literature, and is at least 100 years out of date. It does need to be replaced with a modern assessment, and that does not mean simply citing modern repeats of the original hypothesis, which was based on such unfortunate mistakes as the theory that writing didn't exist before about the 10th century BC. --Taiwan boi (talk) 05:56, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Multiple strawman arguments. Use of multiple sources is still the dominant scholarly view, as you have admitted: "I don't think anyone here is arguing that the DH is losing ground to any belief in a single source". And the DH (and its later derivatives) is in no way dependent on any belief that writing didn't exist before the 10th century BC (even though this is what Wellhausen believed). NO scholarly reference of ANY sort has been provided for the claim that there is no actual contradiction here. And if other similar ANE texts contain similar doublets, redundancies and repetition: how would you go about demonstrating that they "are indisputably the result of a single source"? Nor would the existence of mere repetition be analogous to the apparent contradictions within the Biblical account. No quibbling about the use of "different words" for the Flood itself (actually by different authors, according to the two-source view) would change the meaning of Genesis 7:17, or change the account of Noah releasing a raven after 40 days (Genesis 8:6-7). If you don't think a university is a reliable source, then provide a better one. And, in any case, none of this would justify the deletion of the views of those who say that there is a contradiction here: which is what prompted this discussion. --Robert Stevens (talk) 10:26, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

You're making a lot of assumptions and not actually reading what I write. I am not contesting the use of multiple sources in the flood narrative. For what it's worth I personally believe the entire Pentateuch is the product of multiple sources, but my personal views are not relevant here, and you need to understand that yours aren't either (this article is not supposed to be a showcase for people's personal opinions). I am not claiming that this is not longer the dominant scholarly view. I have not claimed that the Documentary Hypothesis is dependent on the belief that writing didn't exist before the 10th century BC. I am not suggesting the deletion of those who say that there is a contradiction here. You seem to be extremely sensitive to any suggestion that this part of the article be edited in any way. You seem particularly scared that this article is going to be hijacked by 'religious people'.

I could point out that 'NO scholarly reference of ANY sort has been provided for the claim that there IS an actual contradiction here', but of course that would be redundant. Scholarly opinions are ranged on both sides, and the article should reflect this,. Your complete dismissal of the point that two different words are used for the 'waters' in Genesis 7 suggests strongly that you were completely unaware of this, and the fact that professional Bible translators recognize a distinction between the two (and have rendered them differently for the last 400 odd years of English Bible translation), demonstrates to me that the distinction is valid and your objection to this fact both spurious and motivated by a personal agenda. Some scholars see this as evidence of two sources, some do not. The article should reflect both views.

Whilst it is my responsibility (and the responsibility of others), to point out inadequate references in the article it is not my responsibility to go hunting down better references (that's the responsibility of the person who included the reference in the first place). The very fact that such a reference was included in this article and left for so long without being examined demonstrates that some of us are going to have to watch this article with care to keep it honest. It's incredible that such a poor reference was even included (and you complain about lack of scholarly references?).

Your question regarding analogous ANE texts further demonstrates ignorance of the relevant literature on the subject (and no I am not talking merely about repetition, I'm talking also about apparent contradictions, redundancies, and stylistic differences). Such texts are demonstrably the product of a single source when they are found in contexts such as monumental architecture, law stela, among other examples. For example, no one argues that the Code of Hammurabi was the product of different scribes who all edited the stele at different times, despite the redundancies, repetitions, stylistic differences, and apparent contradictions throughout the text. I'll quote here from Kenneth Kitchen ('The Old Testament in its Context: 1 From the Origins to the Eve of the Exodus', Theological Students' Fellowship Bulletin 59, Spring 1971), whom I'm convinced knows a great deal more about the subject than you or I:

'Genesis 7: 17-20 with its four-times repeated increase and prevailing of the flood waters (each with a fresh complement)28 is a good example. This kind of feature (plus general repetition on a grand scale) can be observed readily in Sumerian and Babylonian epics, e.g. as in Lugal-banda (Sumerian)29 or Atrakhasis (Babylonian).30

Such a style may well have marked the original versions of the matter now found in Genesis 1-11 as brought by an Abraham from Mesopotamia, where Western Semites came to share in a cultural heritage. And these phenomena of style, both the use of couplets (single or multiple) generally in the Near East and the repetitious style in Genesis and Mesopotamian literature, are an inherent part of Near Eastern and biblical literary usage; to scissor-up their elements among imaginary 'source-documents' is a pointless waste of effort,31 producing tatters that have no relation to attested usage in the biblical world.'

--Taiwan boi (talk) 05:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It is a simple fact that the article WAS edited, and relevant material WAS deleted: My "fears" are evidently entirely justified. Furthermore, I was well aware of the use of different words for the Flood itself, and I am also aware of the fact that the two-source hypothesis assigns the differing "duration passages" to different authors writing at different times in different styles: therefore this in no way refutes the two-source interpretation, and hence does not appear to be especially relevant here. As for the reference: it's material provided by the faculty of the Religious Studies department of the University of Pennsylvania (the faculty members aren't "anonymous", even though the article unfortunately is: they endorsed it, they released it). As such, it meets all the necessary criteria of a Wikipedia reference (it's not an open wiki or personal website, it's material provided by a notable and reputable educational institution). There may well be better references out there, but this in no way justifies the deletion of a reference that is already adequate, leaving this section without a reference at all: see WP:RS (and note "items that are signed are preferable to unsigned articles", and that organizations can be considered reliable sources). Meanwhile I will restore the reference. There are thousands of articles throughout Wikipedia with references that are far less substantial than this one. I will keep your tag, however: as a request for an additional or substitute reference. --Robert Stevens (talk) 10:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

...Actually, WP:SOURCES seems to address the reference issue more directly. "In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is." Educational materials presented on a university's website, while not explicitly mentioned here, are clearly equivalent to "university-level textbooks" from that university. --Robert Stevens (talk) 13:20, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The 'simple fact' that the article was edited and material deleted does not justify your fears, since the edit was not made on religious grounds but on the entirely valid grounds of verifiability. If you're aware that the two words used in the passage under question do not have the same meaning, then why do you consider them evidence for the 'two-source' theory'? If they were two different words which both meant 'flood' (and you clearly believed they both meant 'flood', since that was your original point), you could have an argument, but as it happens they don't. One is a specific word, one is a general word. They are consistently translated completely differently by Bible translators, and have been for 400 years. If there was any evidence that these two words are used synonymously throughout the flood narrative, this could well be evidence for the 'two-source' hypothesis, but as it stands the difference in meaning between the two words renders extremely tenuous the argument that they are differing stylistic devices of two individual authors. You've provided no evidence that they are evidence of 'stylistic differences' between two separate authors. That is precisely why it is relevant, since it is not necessarily evidence for the 'two-source' hypothesis. Surely you can find better evidence than this? And what are you going to do about the quote from Kitchen? In addition, I note that you still haven't presented the contrary view, despite the fact that the contrary view is extremely well attested among various authorities such as Kitchen.

Arguing that there are thousands of Wiki articles which contain even less adequate references is not a valid justification for including invalid references. This is the kind of sloppy thinking which degrades the entire resource. The reference provided may be technically acceptable on certain grounds (despite the fact that it's anonymous and undated and isn't even a 'textbook', so I dispute your claim that it's analogous to a 'university-level textbook'), but is this really a superior reference on the subject to a direct quote from an authority such as Kitchen? --Taiwan boi (talk) 10:42, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

No, the deletion was made on the basis that there was (allegedly) no contradiction regarding the duration of the Flood. This is clear from what was actually deleted, and from the edit summaries: "no uncertainty - duration of rain and duration of flood are two different things"... "It rained for 40 days. The flooding didn't abate for 150 days. Get it yet?" One side was arguing for inclusion, the other for deletion: not just deletion of the reference, but deletion of the two-source view regarding the Flood duration. There was a "pro-inclusion" faction and a "pro-deletion" faction in this editorial dispute: you seem to have chosen to support the "pro-deletion" faction (apparently without checking what was actually going on, judging from your "I am not suggesting the deletion of those who say that there is a contradiction here" comment). And the reference is still valid, and Kitchen's opposing view doesn't make the whole controversy disappear (and are you aware of Kitchen's religious views?). And your argument regarding the Hebrew words translated as "Flood" and "waters" are still not relevant to any point I was actually making, nor do they address the independent evidence for contradiction (the entirely separate issue of the release of the raven after 40 days). If you want to add material relating to Kitchen's opposing view (even though he is arguably unsuitable as an "extremist source", and is notable primarily as an Egyptologist), I won't stop you: I'm "pro-inclusion", remember? --Robert Stevens (talk) 11:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

The deletion was made because you hadn't made a plausible case for a contradiction, and the point was (well), made that the two words you claimed had the same meaning actually have two different meanings.

I find it incredible that you quote my explicit statement SUPPORTING non-deletion ('I AM NOT suggesting the deletion of those who say that there is a contradiction here'), and then claim I am in the 'pro-deletion faction', when I said the complete opposite. Someone is not reading something here, but it's not me.

I haven't argued that Kitchen's view has 'made the whole controversy disappear'. I've simply pointed out that a citation from someone like Kitchen is superior in value to the citation you gave. Not only does it fully identify the author, work, and date (unlike yours), it's from an authority in Ancient Near East languages, inscriptions and literary forms. Was the article you cited written by an authority in Ancient Near East languages, inscriptions and literary forms? Well you don't know, do you, because you don't even know the author's name. What rationale does the author of the article you cited give for their interpretation of the text? Well you don't know that either, because they simply don't explain themselves. You know that they used the Documentary Hypothesis, but you don't know how they decided on which parts of the flood narrative to attribute to one author and which to attribute to another. But even worse, the article you cited DOES NOT attribute Genesis 7:17 and Genesis 7:24 to different sources. It doesn't even make the point you've attempted to argue here. I wonder if you have even read the article fully?

Kitchen is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an 'extremist source'. He is a well recognized archaeologist who isn't remotely a conservative Christian, though he is a Christian. If you had ever read any of his works (as I have), you would know that he never makes any attempt to argue for miraculous events, and has in fact suggested natural causes of certain events described in the Bible as supernatural. He is so far from the conservative Christian perspective that his works have been repeatedly CRITICIZED in standard theological journals because they do not make any attempt to support the supernatural elements of the Bible (as much as his archaeological research might be praised). Kitchen doesn't support the Documentary Hypothesis, but does state explicitly that the Pentateuch was revised and edited by different hands over time. Though Kitchen is by specialization an Egyptologist, he is still an authority on related fields, and one of them happens to be ANE languages, inscriptions, and literary forms. Even so, in the quote I supplied from Kitchen he did NOT appeal to his own authority, but cited archaeological evidence. I note that you didn't even attempt to address this fact. Nor does the article you cite.

So on one hand we have an undated article by an unnamed author of unknown qualifications who doesn't even make the argument you do regarding Genesis 7:17 and 7:24, yet you want to claim that this constitutes a valid argument for your case. On the other hand we have a quote from a completely identified work written by a recognized archaeologist who is also an authority in Ancient Near East languages, inscriptions, and literary forms. Yet you claim the quote I provide is 'unsuitable'? Your agenda is utterly transparent.

The point I made concerning the two words in Genesis 7 is completely relevant, since your entire argument was that the two words had the same meaning and were indicative of the two literary styles of two distinct authors. Now you want to abandon that and talk about other 'contradictions'. Well go right ahead, but what do you think you're proving? --Taiwan boi (talk) 09:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's see what Wikipedia says about Mr. Kitchen. "Professor Kitchen is an Evangelical Christian with regard to his religious beliefs. He is frequently cited by conservative Christians in relation to writings rejecting the Documentary Hypothesis," "Archer and Kitchen are devout conservative Christians" "a number of conservative scholars, notably Kenneth Kitchen, continue to work within the Albrightian framework." Ok, he isn't a strict traditionalist or a fundamentalist, but he is definitely attractive to conservative Christians, and has been called an inerrantist. Doug Weller (talk) 10:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Dougweller, there's a reason why Wikipedia articles aren't permitted to cite each other as authorities. I have already stated very clearly that Kitchen is a Christian. But he is NOT a 'conservative Christian' by any stretch of the imagination. His works are regularly criticized in conservative theological journals (and I have around 20 of them), specifically because he is not a conservative. It's irrelevant that he has been 'called an inerrantist'. What does that have to do with anything? William G. Dever has been called a 'Zionist', do you think he's a Zionist? If you are objecting to the scholarly assessment of Kitchen's which I have cited, then you need to do it on scholarly terms. You can't just say 'Well he's a Christian, so he must be wrong', or 'Well he's a Christian, so of course he's going to fabricate evidence or make a contrived but inaccurate argument to support his personal faith'. What you're doing is called 'well poisoning', claiming that a given argument is necessarily wrong or suspect simply because of its source. Kitchen cites archaeological evidence. You have cited none. You haven't even addressed the evidence he provided. Now if you do object to the inclusion of the quote from Kitchen, then please give logical and rational reasons for doing so. Not this agenda driven nonsense. --Taiwan boi (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Taiwan Boi, Why are you continuing this discussion?

Because of your misrepresentations not only of me, but of the facts concerning the subject included in the article which we're discussing. --Taiwan boi (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

This page is supposed to be for discussing modifications to the article.

That is what I am discussing. Did you note my reference to Kitchen? Did you note my inclusion of Kitchen in the article? Did you notice my SUPPORT for the inclusion of the argument that the Genesis flood narrative is not a literary unity and contains contradictions? --Taiwan boi (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

But you're still sounding-off on some personal tangent of your own. Consensus has long since been reached: the mention of the contradiction stays.

How many times do I have to point out that I have NEVER objected to the mention of the conclusion being included? What I have objected to is your providing a particularly poor citation in support of this argument. --Taiwan boi (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

And yet: you continue to either misrepresent or misunderstand me. The Hebrew mabbuwl, used in Genesis 7:17, has consistently been translated as "flood": the fact that a different word, mayim, used in other verses, has consistently been translated as "waters" is entirely irrelevant to the point I was making (especially as the etymology of both words indicates that the respective English translations are appropriate).

It's clearly not irrelevant to your point, since you claimed the two words were both referring to the same subject and were necessarily stylistic indicators of two different authors. --Taiwan boi (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

My actual point was to address the apologetic claim that the 40 days referred only to the rainfall duration rather than the flood duration (though I can see where you may have become confused, as another user had mentioned a verse that used mayim). Genesis 7:17 indicates that 40 days was the duration of the Flood (mabbuwl), not just the rain, as earlier verses had implied. THAT is the comparison I was making (though perhaps I didn't make that clear enough). But the "waters" are nevertheless the waters of the Flood: the same actual floodwater is being referred to.

It's clear that you 'didn't make that clear enough', because it's clear that you made a completely different point. Your claim that the waters being referred to are in fact the flood is simply your opinion I'm afraid (but do please give me your academic qualifications for your translation and interpretation of the words in question). --Taiwan boi (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

As for Kitchen: he rejects the Documentary Hypothesis (in all its forms). As per WP:UNDUE, Wikipedia gives priority to mainstream scholarly views: and Kitchen isn't maistream on this. The mainstream scholarly view IS the Documentary Hypotheis, or variants thereof: "Most contemporary Bible experts accept some form of the documentary hypothesis", according to Stephen L Harris (Professor and Chair, Department of Humanities and Religious Studies at California State University, Sacramento, fellow at the Westar Institute etc etc).

This part of what you wrote is particularly bizarre. I already stated specifically that Kitchen rejects the Documentary Hypothesis. Why do you state this fact as if it's something I didn't know? And what relevance does all of this have to the article and what I wrote? The topic under discussion is not the Documentary Hypothesis, but the literary unity of the flood narrative. On that very point please note that several scholars are cited as holding to the literary unit of the flood narrative (Cassuto, Nielsen, Anderson, Wenham), so why shouldn't Kitchen also be mentioned? --Taiwan boi (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Are university educational materials reflecting the mainstream view superior to a signed article that does not? Yes, as per WP:UNDUE.

What 'mainstream view' does Kitchen's comment contradict? The comment I provided from Kitchen is specific to the flood narrative, it's not discussing the entire Documentary Hypothesis. I haven't once attempted to challenge the Documentary Hypothesis with anything from Kitchen. The issue I raised was whether or a completely identified work written by a recognized archaeologist who is also an authority in Ancient Near East languages, inscriptions, and literary forms. You say 'Yes'. I say 'No', but I'm prepared to have your citation included in the article regardless because I understand that Wikipedia is a populist rather than a scholarly source. I'm not aware that there's any consensus among Ancient Near East scholars that the flood narrative is the product of two contradictory sources, which is the specific point Kitchen is addressing. There isn't even a consensus on its relationship to the other Ancient Near East flood narratives. --Taiwan boi (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

And the article does clearly identify the Flood duration issue as being part of the pattern.

I didn't dispute that. What it doesn't do is make the claim you made, that Genesis 7:17 and 7:24 are attributed to two different sources. Not only that, but it doesn't make any reference to any contradictions in the flood narrative, yet that's the specific argument for which you cited it in support. --Taiwan boi (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Even though it doesn't specifically mention Genesis 7:17, it DOES clearly list "Duration of flood" in both columns, with 40 days in the left column and 150 days in the right. The breakdown isn't as clear as some I've seen, but it is entirely sufficient to support the point being made in the article: that there is an apparent contradiction regarding the duration of the flood. --Robert Stevens (talk) 10:50, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Er, the article said nothing about this being a contradiction. Did you miss that? It simply attributed the verses to two different sources. This attribution is typically made on the basis that this is a 'doublet' (a case of the same thing being said twice, in different ways), not a contradiction, and that is exactly what this article does. So it doesn't attribute Genesis 7:17 and 7:24 to two different sources (as you did), it doesn't claim that Genesis 6:12 and 7:24 are contradictory (as you did), and does not in fact mention any contradictions in the record at all. Completely contrary to your argument, the article identifies the two different sources not by identifying contradictions, but by identifying 'when each source is used to retell the same part of the story' (doublets, as I said earlier). That is why I asked you if you had read it, and why I pointed out that you have absolutely no understanding of the basis on which this particular division of the narrative has been derived. If you want use an article which makes a case for a 'two-source' theory of the flood narrative on the basis of contradictions, then at least cite an article which specifically mentions contradictions and which uses them to identify different sources. Can you understand yet why the article you cited is insufficient to support the point you're trying to make? I'm being extremely generous in letting you include reference to it in the article under the section in which it appears. --Taiwan boi (talk) 11:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

...BTW, just to head off another possible argument: Yes, I KNOW that some apologists want to argue that "the flood" refers just to the active process of "flooding" (i.e. the rising waters) and that the waters then lay there for another 110 days (150-40). OK? Please don't accuse me of ignorance of that. I reject it, for the following reasons: it requires a redefinition of the use of mabbuwl that is not evidenced, it ignores the issue of the release of the raven after 40 days, and it is an unnecessary assumption given the additional evidence that already exists for the two-source view (such as the number-of-animals contradiction). I will also add that a contradiction doesn't "disappear" even if an apologist does work out a theoretical resolution for it: if the apologist cannot reasonably demonstrate that this was what the author probably intended, the existence of the apparent contradiction remains notable. --Robert Stevens (talk) 11:24, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

This will probably me my last post on this subject, because it's WAY off-topic, and because the misrepresentations (or ongoing misunderstandings) are becoming ridiculous. Just to clarify some of the above: there IS a contradiction regarding the Flood, and when making the case for that on this page (to defend against the DELETION, remember?), I don't NEED that reference. I can, and have, argued my case independently, referring directly to the Bible itself. The reference is only required (and is sufficient for) the ARTICLE. And the reference doesn't NEED to lay out the supporting reasoning in detail, because it's only being used to provide evidence that there is a NOTABLE OPINION regarding two durations for the Flood (which is all that the ARTICLE requires). And if you can't see that "40 days" contradicts "150 days", then there is no hope for you. And I really can't see anything charitable to say about "Your claim that the waters being referred to are in fact the flood is simply your opinion I'm afraid (but do please give me your academic qualifications for your translation and interpretation of the words in question)". The translation has already been done, by experts. The translations of mabbuwl as "flood" and mayim as "waters" is clear and consistent. The story is all about a worldwide inundation: did you somehow miss that? A little boat floating on a vast ocean of water that wasn't there before: and you're saying (in effect) "...Water? What water? I wonder what is this "water" I'm reading about?" WP:NOTAFORUM, WP:SOAP, WP:DNFTT. Goodbye. --Robert Stevens (talk) 12:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Secular Biblical Scholarship?

This implies to me that none of the scholars involved are Christians, Jews or Muslims. I don't think that's the case.--Doug Weller (talk) 15:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a source that it has this implication? "Academic" biblical scholarship could also be used. The issue is not how people describe themselves, it's what community has endorsed them as reliable authorities. Scholarship which hasn't been endorsed by Christian, Jewish, or Muslim religious communities is not reliable Christian, Jewish, or Muslim religious scholarship regardless of the commentator's self-described affiliations, in essentially the same way that scholarship that hasn't been endorsed by the academic community is not reliable academic (secular) scholarship, regardless of whether the commentator studied at a university or the commentator's personal claims of academic affiliation or expertise. See WP:V. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 12:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Seaworthiness

The section on seaworthiness says it would have been far bigger than the biggest wooden ships ever built. The Chinese treasure ships were said to be of comparable size but this is disputed. Even so the statement as included can't really stand up as there is quite a bit of evidence the treasure ships did exist and were of the size claimed. The best that could be said is that it would have been larger than the largest wooden ship whose dimensions are undisputed. Dmcq (talk) 19:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It looks as though any ships that large in the Chinese fleet were river barges. IF they were that large.Doug Weller (talk) 20:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Possibly but modern scholarship also shows the figures to be quite plausible, see Talk:Junk (ship)#Size of Zheng He's ships. Chinese junks were much more advanced compared to European ships of the time, for instance they had bulkheads and could sail into the wind. Just because Noah's Ark is a myth doesn't mean one has to agree with wrong arguments that purport to prove it so. Dmcq (talk) 12:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Modern scholarship shows the figures implausible - [14] "The results of this investigation support the conclusion of Xin Yuan-ou ?, professor of shipbuilding engineering at Shanghai Jiaotong University, who argues that it is highly unlikely that Zheng He's treasure ships were 450 ft long, and suggests that they were probably closer to 200-250 ft in length." And the replica being built is about 233 feet. See Largest wooden ships - lots of problems when you get over 300 or so feet long. Note that the Wyoming was in practice only 330 feet long and had serious problems. And it had iron cross bracings, are you arguing that Noah's ark had these?Doug Weller (talk) 13:20, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

It would be at least worth pointing out the view of certain Christian apologists that the Ark has ancient analogues, and that they argue comparisons of a free floating barge to a steam powered high masted iron clad schooner are invalid. For example, here it is argued that comparison to the Appomattox is inappropriate, and that a more appropriate comparison is to the entirely timber barge Santiago (336 feet long), which was longer, unmasted, not iron clad, and which had a service life of around 20 years. Other ancient analogues suggested in that article are the 'Giant Barge' of Caligula (unmasted, no iron cladding, about 341 feet), the warship of Ptolemy IV (unmasted, no iron cladding, about 390 feet), and the great obelisk barge of Hatshepsut (unmasted, no iron cladding, modern estimates range from 311-459 feet). It is argued that all of these are better analogues because they approximate not only the size by the actual shape and construction techniques which were used in the Bronze Age to construct barges. A review of the article you mentioned (Largest wooden ships), actually lists all of these ships, as well as the 377 foot long pleasure barge of Ptolemy IV (the existence of which is undisputed). I personally don't see the merit in comparing a 19th century tall masted iron clad clipper with a Bronze Age unmasted timber barge without iron cladding, but I'd be happy to see an explanation as to why this is relevant and analogous ancient timber barges aren't. --Taiwan boi (talk) 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Sholarship doesn't have a consensus. No I'm not saying they tried to stiffen the ships with steel. Personally I'd have thought that would be contrary to Chinese philosophy which is always going on about bending with the wind and accepting things and suchlike. If they built such a large ship I'd have imagined they'd have made it flexible in some way as for instance rafts can be. I'll be interested in seeing what this reconstruction turns out like when there is so little info. Dmcq (talk) 22:12, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Scholarship does, in fact, have an overwhelming consensus - the ark did not exist. There isn't any serious debate about it in any sort of scientific circle, and if we want to talk about the ark as a physical object, who are we going to listen to - the scientists, or the fundies? I think the evolution article holds the answer to which has priority under Wikipedia. Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Er, I believe that Dmcq was referring to the scholarly consensus regarding the Chinese baochuans, not the scholarly consensus regarding the Ark. I don't see anyone here arguing that there's no scholarly consensus regarding the Ark, I don't see anyone here arguing that the Ark must be referred to in this article as a genuine historical vessel, and I don't see anyone here arguing that we should listen to 'the fundies' rather than the scientists. Do you? --Taiwan boi (talk) 08:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Structure of the article & Mespotamian flood myths

I've reverted to the original structure of the article. This was changed without discussion some weeks ago by a newbie editor. The old structure follows the development of ideas about the Ark, from the oldest traditions (the Rabbinic ones) through Christian and then Islamic interpretations, to the emergence of scientific and secular scholarly approaches in the last few hundred years. It ends with literalist interpretations because they represent a rejection of the scientific worldview, of all advances in knowledge since about 1650.

I've also deleted the long section on the Ark and Mesopotamian flood-myths. This is not because I feel they have no place - they have a very important place - but because I feel the connection between these myths and the Noah's Ark story wasn't spelled out clearly. I'll do a revision later to bring this aspect back. PiCo (talk) 07:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)