To ask a stupid question? Noah's Ark

[Besttimelftheyear]

So I am not religious, but I would say I was brought up Christian. I would say my parents were non practicing Christians, but I was taught bible stories as truth and facts. The logical adult in me now says that most of the events can be explained quite simply.

Onto the question. Noah's Ark, is there any evidence of a global flood? Noah was supposed to have taken two of each animals onto the boat while the earth was flooded and wiped out everything else.

Surely this was simply a regular flood like we see today?

What are peoples beliefs or knowledge on this?

Imagine the bilge water on that vessel though.

Must have absolutely meefed.

I used to believe in evolution but am now a Christian who believes in a young earth creation. I believe that the account of Noah's flood is history and happened as described in the Bible.

This, and however big was the ark?!

Most countries will have had floods, if you could have asked the ancient people of the Britain and Germany etc... they would likely have had handed down stories of when the sea rose up like a monster and swallowed the whole country in between (Doggerland) and everyone on it.

There aren't many Christian denominations preaching Genesis as fact!

You can't rebuild a viable population on a single pair, or even seven pairs. The gene pool would be far too small.

You'd have needed a breeding population. Imagine the genetic inbreeding issues! Minimum Viable Population is larger than you would think. MVP varies by species but large mammals typically have a pretty big one. Fewer than 50 individuals is a pretty rough estimate. Not two, not seven.

There may have been floods, and animals, and a bloke with a boat. But none of this would have been anything other than a story.

Whoo, I was watching The Why Files on YT about floods yesterday. Apparently, pretty much every civilisation has a flood legend.

If you want to fall into a rabbit hole, have a look at this...

I spent most of yesterday down there! The guy from TWF is good tbh, he presents evidence and then debunks.

The one I like is the plausibility of quails stopping for almonds as they migrate, and causing the death of the Israelites by cyanide poisoning https://www.massmed.org/about/mms-leadership/history/don-t-eat-the-quails/

(others have suggested hemlock seeds and other causes)

https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=the%20irish%20rovers%20the%20unicorn%20lyrics&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:4d82d1c1,vid:dcPxhX_VQ3U,st:0&vuanr=16

Noah didn’t take the unicorns :(

😂

If there really was a global flood and Noah's Ark took two/seven of every kind of animal, one wonders how the kiwis got to Israel and back to NZ again. They're not known for being particularly strong swimmers.

Wouldn't the health of 'an initial breeding pair' have an affect on offspring produced even within only two initial individuals?

If eg the son and daughter of that couple went on to breed and both were healthy and had no genetic issues. Their offspring could well be fine. This could go on down the line for a period, each generation becoming more diluted.

There is some evidence of a flood in the right area but it was fairly localised, plenty of documentaries on theories, national geographic often have had them. Worldwide, no, not feasible

They used their boat! 😅

Biblical genre is a bit more complicated than that... In the Bible there may be allegory and poetry, but Jesus and Paul certainly spoke as if many old testament stories were historical events. I'm also not sure if the story neatly maps onto these symbols in the way you've stated. Jews hearing these stories through thr centuries certainly believed them to be historical events, and their additional symbolic interpretations would be considered void if they were simply myth.

Sorry, you believe a man called Noah built an ark (what is an ark)?

I thought only Bible literalist nutters believed shit like that.

Some say it was local, but I believe it was global and what they say was deposited in millions of years was deposited during the flood, fossils are from the flood and the continents split from Pangea to how it's now after the flood and after the flood an ice age. There are similar flood stories all over the world and in Australia were stories from Aboriginals that the sea level rose a lot.

Most of the Bible stories are much, much older than the Bible or Judaism. They were built on pre-existing religions; we have documents, carvings and grave goods to show that the Flood, miracle babies, people living hundreds of years, giants, good and bad spirits - the whole caboodle - had been parts of unifying mythologies since forever.

Things like floods and droughts, epidemics, geological events, pest invasions, etc, have always been parts of people's lives. Most were catastrophic for prehistoric societies so they were greatly feared. They had religion instead of science; everything that went wrong or turned out well was analysed in terms of the supernatural.

The Old Testament's better on things like places, people and politics (though still pretty approximate). That's because they saw everything through this same supernatural lens, so a real war was no different in their minds from a supernatural curse.

Wouldn't the health of 'an initial breeding pair' have an affect on offspring produced even within only two initial individuals?

A bit but not really. Initially yes. But you need diversity in a breeding population. Any population that inbreeds becomes more vulnerable and issues are always amplified. You don't have the diversity to survive environmental pressures. Recessive genes are expressed more. Typically recessive genes should be less common. In inbred populations they become the norm. Both desirable and undesirable. The pharaohs are a classic example!

In very basic terms, mortality is higher in inbred populations.

I should say the expression of the recessive genes.

Many ancient cultures tell of an 'ark'. The Golgafrinchans were supposed to have built 3 that travelled far to take their people ( well some of them anyway) to a place of safety. Their descendants are still around today.

These people were ahead of their time and are widely supposed to have invented a form of currency and even had problems with inflation!

The Sahul/Arafura Shelf between Northern Australia and Indonesia was exposed during the Last Glacial Maximum, which ended about 14,000 years ago. Same with Doggerland, between the UK and North-Eastern Europe.

As the ice sheets melted and sea levels rose, there were indeed many catastrophic floods.

In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy!