Philip wrote:K: So then, I ended up recoiling back to Scripture, our knowledge of civilisations and the like, to a more reasonable date of about 5000 years ago is when we likely ought to expect any flood event taking place if true.
K, even that date is WAY off, when we consider the estimates like the village in Canada they thing is 14,000 years old - the oldest habitation in N. America. I truly wonder if a separate line of humanity that began long before, but unconnected to Adam and Eve, is possible, Scripturally speaking?
It is only way off if you're trying to conform to a local flood idea. Research like this and history really throws a spanner in the work, and to me really means the demise of a local flood theory.
Take a look 12 or so months ago at my discussions with Hugh on the flood, and I was positing even 45-50k years ago, to try conform to a local flood. I was toying, since I've actually never tried to look into any reconciliation, since I just assumed we don't have all the facts (and we don't). Yet, if we also accept an "out-of-Africa" type model of humanity, like RTB did and does, then we have such happening around 50k years ago. This would really push a "local flood" date right back.
As for my own thoughts, there is a difference between "anatomically modern humans" and "behaviorally modern humans". I attach more significance to the latter really. While what gets classified as anatomically modern humans extends back to 125k to 200k years ago (depending on who you ask), the fuller range of human behaviour, intelligence and consciousness is displayed around 17,000 years ago with animal farming, agriculture, heighten spiritual expression and the like.
Now if we loosen the reigns on
"all" as not always meaning absolutely everything, but rather take its often intended use in language -- for example, when the Apostle traveled all over the world debating people and bringing gentiles to Christ, we understand that he didn't literally travel all over the world, but rather visited a great many gentile nations -- then there is little issue. There are many instances in Scripture where "all" doesn't mean all.
Second, the Biblical flood is within the context of Israel history and narrative. The "whole world" then, to borrow from local flood ideas, can and likely does have the context of the Middle-East region in mind. Therefore, we are to understand Noah's flood within that context. Further, "
the world at that time [being] deluged and destroyed" (2 Peter 3:6), the context here clear seems to be the world as in "people" rather than all the earth. Yet, I think global flood proponents have a good Scriptural point, in that that it does appear as though the
whole world was nonetheless affected. To what extent, I do not believe ALL the world as in ABSOLUTELY ALL, but rather there would have areas untouched and humans outside the ark who survived. The bulk of the event Scripture records would be the Mesopotamian region. The only animals Noah would have therefore taken, would have been certain kinds around there to perhaps ensure some species and ecosystems were able to be continued after. Other accounts of the flood (for example, the Greek mythological flood accounting) says some people escaped to the mountains. So, what we have is simply a catastrophe that devastated and left a known impact on our world.
When in doubt, like with not really knowing what happened with the extinction of dinosaurs, a favourite catastrophe is to assume a comet hit earth.
And that's my likely scenario, since such could displace much water and cause all sorts of other devastating consequences reported not only in Scripture, but features found in 100s of flood stories around the world.
