This has always puzzled me. How were early Biblical stories recorded after the earth had been destroyed in the flood? Did Noah and his family retain the world's history and then did they record it for us?
I imagine it would have to have been a divine task guided by God.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
.
Favorite Answer
In the days before the internet, before community libraries and other info sharing creations, knowledge was passed down both written and verbal. One theory I heard was that the originator of the knowledge we now call the book of Genesis (the first few chapters) was Adam, who passed this knowledge down to his offspring and so on until Noah and his family were the last survivors of the great flood. Noahs family then continued the tradition until we get to Moses, who was inspired to compile all of the info into the first 5 books of the Bible.
Alternatively, Moses could have been given much of the information through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but still would have had some historical knowledge of the societies which came previous to the Egyptians. Again compiling the Torah by inspiration of God.
Imitation9
1 - The bible said the mountain tops would be covered by 20 feet of water. Everest is 29,000 feet tall so the flood would have to be 5.5 miles deep. There isn't even close to enough water in the entire world.
2 - If the ark had been floating at that altitude, the temperature would have been around -50C. Noah and the animals would have frozen to death.
3 - If everything was covered over by so much water there would be evidence of it everywhere in the world. There isn't.
4 - How big would the ark have to have been to house *millions* of species and enough food and fresh water to sustain them?
5 - How did Noah create the required arctic, tropical, desert, maritime, freshwater, saltwater etc environments needed by the different species?
6 - If there were only 8 humans on the ark why do we have such a diversity of races in the world?
7 - How could the 8 humans on the ark prepare and put out food for *millions* of creatures every day?
8 - According to that story god killed very nearly every living thing on earth including almost the entire human population. Does that sound like a loving, forgiving god to you or someone who is worthy of worship?
9 - The story is based on earlier Babylonian and Sumerian myths so it isn't even Judeo-Christian in origin (see Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Akkadian story of Atrahasis).
10 - All the vegetation in the world would have been submerged under miles of water, cut off from light, oxygen and carbon dioxide, so it would all have died and the carbon cycle would have been disrupted and the production of oxygen ceased, suffocating those left on the ark.
11 - After the flood there would only have been two of each species. So what did all the predators eat?
12 - Rainbows are not a sign from god that he won't flood the earth again. They are simply light being refracted through moisture in the atmosphere, a common phenomenon that can also be seen at waterfalls, at the sea and so on.
13 - Various groups have claimed to have found the ark at *different* sites around the middle-east. Not one of them has provided evidence or been verified.
14 - Noah is supposed to have been 600 years old when he built the ark. Humans don't live that long.
15 - Noah and his family had to commit incest in order to populate the earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(mythology)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utnapishtim
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziusudra#Sumerian_flood_myth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrahasis#Synopsis
Yes, and for those of you that believe that Great Holey Book BS - Moses could have just stolen the stories from other myths. The Epic of Gilgamesh supposedly occurred 400~600 years before the Noah myth.
who goes there?
Noah did write an apocalypse and a book of some remedies for evil spirits but none of his works have ever been found, aside from fragments contained in other books. Noah supposedly gave them to his son Shem. I would think 1+2Enoch were among the books given to Shem and we have them today. The history of the world contained in Genesis was given to Moses on the mount, there is also another account of that history which Jesus calls 'the wisdom of God' - Lk11:49.
True Truthseeker
Peace.
Noah had three sons, who each had a wife. The flood stories were dispersed all over the globe at the confusion of the languages in Babylonia, Mesopatamia.
Shem, a son of Noah was known by Abraham, as a matter of fact, Sarah, Abraham's first wife DIED before Shem.
The recording of holy Writings however, BEGAN with Moses.
After speaking to Moses in Mount Sinai, Jehovah "proceeded to give Moses two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone written on by God's finger." (Ex 31:18) Later we read, "And Jehovah went on to say to Moses: 'Write down for yourself these words.'" (Ex 34:27) Jehovah, therefore, was the one who communicated with Moses and instructed him to write down and preserve the first books of the Bible canon. No council of men made them canonical; from their inception they had divine approval.
"As soon as Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book, "he commanded the Levites, saying: "Taking this book of the law, you must place it at the side of the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God, and it must serve as a witness there against you." (De 31:9, 24-26) It is
Serious scientists have supported the Noah account as factual.
The following points are plausible.
1. The mountains then were not as high as they are now.
2. Land mass distribution then may have been quite different from today.
3. Think continental drift/ shift, plate tectonics etc.
4. The volume of water in the DEEP ocean beds, sink holes, underground lakes, seas etc., is enormous. Profound flooding would would occur if these DEEP ravines were to be filled in, and the ice caps at the poles were to melt.
In a similar way ALL the faults found re the credibility of Noah's flood can be answered.
Pirate AM™
Well, since there is absolutely no reason to suspect that the story of Noah and the Flood are in any way true, there is no reason to wonder how early myths were recorded later.
Simply speaking, there is no reason to think that anything the Bible claims prior to the Kingdom of David might possibly resemble something close to the truth. From the time of "David" everything else the Bible records is no different from what any other culture claims.