I was thinking this weekend while I was in the duck blind about the ludicrousness of Noah's Ark. For one, there are roughly 20,000 species of fish, 6,000 species of reptiles, 9,000 birds, 1,000 amphibians, and 15,000 species of mammals. That would take one hell of an ark to house all of those animals, plus the sheer resources required to feed them. There would also be the issue of cramped spaces and the animals fighting and killing each other, which would be unavoidable, therefor making some species extinct, since there was only one male and one female of each species. Then the issue of plant life being completely destroyed, thereby no food for the plant eating species. If the entire planet had been flooded, would there not be fossilized remains of sea life scattered across the continents? Next, with all life being destroyed, including flooded plant life, how was the earth's atmosphere oxygenated? Finally, where did all of that water go?
I guess my first question would be why would you not consider the 100+ other "myths?"
I have a couple of pet peeves, one being the incorrect use of language and the other being an incredibly parochial view.
Language is often intentionally employed, especially through erroneous translations, as a means to denigrate, debase and ridicule.
A good example is Plato's Atlantis. What we are told is that according to Plato, "Atlantis sank." Now, we all know that islands and continents, and in this case an island-continent (Plato's exact words) cannot sink. That is totally absurd. However, Plato never said Atlantis sank. What he said was Atlantis was inundated.
Did New Orleans "sink" during Hurricane Katrina? No, but New Orleans was inundated (ie flooded) was it not? Okay then.
We have the same problem here, as there was no Flood, rather there was a Deluge. Certainly a deluge can be a flood, but in this context it is not, and when you read the many other accounts, it is obvious that it is not.
Accounts of the Deluge span 6 continents (obviously not Antarctica) and are remarkably consistent, which unnerves the traditionalists because you can't have Cultural Diffusion if Cultures are not in contact with one another.
It is only the Hebrew account, and 2-3 others that vary, and point out those variations. From the more than 100 accounts we can see that:
1) There was Deluge;
2) It was a naturally occurring event of celestial or terrestrial origin -- more on that later, but only the Hebrews and two other accounts claim it was caused by a "god-thing";
3) The description of the Deluge more or less is an account of a series of large tsunamis -- only the Hebrew account confuses that;
4) The origin of the tsunamis was the southern hemisphere -- the Hebrew account says "the fountains of the deep" but that is archaic Sumerian-Akkadian phrase and actually refers to the south polar region;
5) The Deluge last 4-6 days before the waters calmed or resided -- the Hebrew account is the only one that varies and it claims 120 days and 365 days and one might be correct, but not both;
6) The Deluge was not a punishment on humankind -- the Hebrew account and two others claim it was;
7) A "god" warned one or more people about the pending disaster and guided them in the building of a watercraft to survive it -- in the Sumerian account the Hero of the Deluge (Ziusurda) was also given a skilled navigator to pilot the craft to safety -- the accounts from eastern Siberian and the Americas no craft were constructed, rather they were told to use normal watercraft (dugout canoes etc);
8) Animals if taken aboard the craft were used for food, not to save them -- the Hebrew account is the only one that varies -- the majority of Mesopotamian/Middle Eastern accounts claim the were given the "seeds" of certain (but not all) animals to save -- in the accounts originating in eastern Siberia and the Americas no attempts were made to save animals.
There is one other major difference between accounts of the Deluge originating in the Europe, the Middle East, Africa and western Asia, and the accounts originating in eastern Asia (Siberia) and the Americas, and that is all of the accounts from eastern Siberia and the Americas mention the "Water Comet," "Water Star," "Flaming Star," "Flaming Arrow," "Flaming Rock" etc.
That should be expected, since someone in Mesopotamia/Middle East could not see a meteor in Earth's atmosphere transiting the Americas. You could envision a large meteor entering Earth's atmosphere over the Siberian north polar region and coursing on a southeast transit across what is now Canada, the US, Mexico and the many Central/South American countries and striking the western ice sheet in Antarctica.
Such an event would go a long way explaining any number of things, such as why the western ice sheet was destroyed 10,000 years ago, why the sea levels rose 600-800 ft (180-240 m), why global temperatures increased 7°F in a mere 54 years, why there are "ghost beaches" at high latitudes, why there are animal "graveyards" consisting of a wide variety of animals not native to that region, and of course, the many Deluge accounts.
It's important to understand that at the time the Hebrew account was written, there were already several dozen written accounts in the Middle East and Mesopotamia that predate the Hebrew account by 1,000 to 4,000 years, so I consider it an outlier and one that has been tinkered with to conform to certain religio-political constraints.
For those who doubt that, consider this...
Genesis 7:23 So the Lord destroyed every living thing that was on the surface of the ground, including people, animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the sky. They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived
...which contradicts this...
Genesis 6:4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days (and also after this)
Numbers 13:33 We even saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves and to them.”
...so clearly we have a grotesque contradiction. Noah and those with him in the ark were not the only survivors.
The Nephilim survived too, since they were on the earth those days before the Deluge and also long, long after the Deluge.
The descendants of Anak cannot have come from the Nephilim if the Nephilim were all killed during the "Flood."
From that you can conclude that
1) Yahweh can't kill the Nephilim; or
2) The Nephilm were a helluva lot smarter than Noah since they didn't need a god-thing to tell them how to build an ark.
It also shows that Yahweh failed, since the purpose of the "Flood" was to destroy all evil, and since Noah was the only righteous man, then the Nephilim were not righteous and they out-witted, out-smarted and thwarted the plans of Yahweh.
