Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter Mattfeld" <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com>]

Dear Rolf,

My observations are interleaved below as WM.

All the best,  Walter

----- Original Message -----
From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2000 5:00 PM
Subject: Re: The Flood


>
> Walter Mattfeld wrote,
>
>
> >Michael is quite right about a flood depth of about 2 miles covering the
> >earth, if all the land forms were flattened. But my studies indicate that
at
> >no time in the geologic history of mankind was the whole earth ever been
> >completely flooded, nor were 90% of all animal forms wiped out, save
those
> >on the ark (by the way I am a social studies teacher, and have taught
> >Geography as well as History as well as Art).
> >
> >The "key problem," is the dating of the Flood. The Hebrew Bible
(Massoretic
> >Text) is quite clear that this Flood occured within the 3rd millenium
BCE,
> >or 4th if you want to cite the LXX, and Geologists are unaware of such
world
> >wide deposits engulfing the whole world and destroying man and animals at
> >this time, or at any time in the past. Dave is correct, practically all
> >cultures have Flood myths, but, then, flooding is pretty common, and when
it
> >occurs, primitive man tends to see it engulfing "his world," which then
> >becomes through embellishment the "whole world."
> >
>
>
> Dear Walter,
>
>
> Thomas Kuhn has argued that science consists of paradigms, which in effect
> are belief systems. When individual data seem to contradict the paradigm,
> it is explained away ad hoc. After a time, much contrary data
> accumulate,the paradigm is changed, and a new paradigm which can account
> for the data somewhat better, is born. The mechanism behind this change is
> not, according to Kuhn, rational thinking, but rather something irrational
> that can be compared to a religious revival.

WM: I would prefer to see a "rational mind" carefully weighing the evidence,
pro and con, realizing that the accumulating data defies the paradigm, and
thus, because of rational thinking, the paradigm is either modified or
scrapped for a new one. I see nothing "irrational" or "religious" (i.e.
"faith") in the paradigm building process.
>
> I suppose we agree that history cannot be proven. This means in effect
that
> each  person interprets the finds of his or her focus in light of his or
> her pradigm.
WM: As you know, the preferred word amongst Humanists is not "prove or
proven" but "plausible," but I understand what your point is.

From a scientific point of view, the weakness of the paradigm
> that the Bible is inerrant, is that no data can affect the conclusion,
> because the conslusion is drawn beforehand.
WM: Agreed. For those taking the position that Holy Writ is inerrant, no
amount of evidence or data, or plausibilities, will change their mind. Liz
earlier addressed this phenomena by stating humans are not always "rational"
they do possess "closed minds" on some issues.

One weakness of the present
> paradigms of Middle East history and Archaeology is that the general
> agreement of the researchers (their view of of the different cultures,
> their chronology, and their named periods etc.) are treated almost as
> *data*, while it basically builds on conjecture. This is a belief system
> just as the belief in the Bible as inerrant.
WM: I can understand your argument about Humanists having "a belief system"
about their data, but the important difference is that they allow and are
open to criticism of that system, willing to scrap their paradigms, while
those who hold to inerrancy would never consider that (understandably) as an
option, for reasons of faith.
>
>
> Before I started with my language studies 25 years ago, I made a study of
> the axioms behind the natural sciences and the historical sciences. I also
> studied the arguments of creationists who claimed to be scientists. While
I
> do not accept the creationist's view of a 6000 year old earth, that the
> sedimentary rocks are a result of the flood etc, some of the points that
> were presented are really thought provoking. While I stopped looking into
> creationist literature when I started with languages (and therefore I am
> not updated), I have worked a little with some of the points that
impressed
> me.
WM: Having begun my research "to prove the bible true," some 30 yrs ago, I
too, studied deeply the creationist literature, especially the writings of
Morris on the Flood (in fact I still have his book in my personal library).
But I was determined to keep an open mind and study both sides of the issue,
pro and con. So I studied the arguments of his Humanist critics and
eventually came to be persuaded he was in error on many of his assertions.
>
>
> First an illustration of what I mean when  I say that faith and conjecture
> play a great role in archaeology and history focused on periods before
2000
> BCE. In Kolsas near Oslo there is a very special lithofacies with lava,
red
> sandstone, volcanic ashes and black stone, volcanic ashes and red
> sandstone. At Sundvollen, 50 miles to the north there is a lithofacies
with
> exactly the same layers. Thus the two were correlatated as to age. A
> professor of geology had an excursion with his students when he found a
> single fossil at Kolsas, and on the basis of this single fossil alone, the
> Kolsos lithofacies was given an age 80 million years older than the same
> lithofacies at Sundvollen. The reason was the *theoretical* place of the
> fossil on the evolutionary scale! Archaeology and history do not work with
> lithofacies, but my point is that *unproved theory* is just as much the
> parameter with which new finds are interpreted in archaeology and history
> as it is in historical geology. So - the interpretations are not better
> than the axioms and assumptions on which they are built. I do not say that
> we should descard the historical and archeological sciences - they are
> useful indeed - but we should keep in mind that faith and conjecture play
a
> very important role in the interpretation of very old finds.
WM: I understand your point. I would quibble about the use of the word
"Faith" for Humanist understandings, but I understand where you are coming
from. I understand that "Faith" is associated with a belief system not based
on "proving things", one accepts, one does not demand proof or evidence-
quite the contrary with Humanist inquiry.
>
> As to the flood, the Bible is clear. To defend it, one must defended a
> world-wide flood covering all the mountains of the earth around 2400 BCE.
I
> have never seen the following points adressed in connection with the claim
> that the Quaternaty epoch and its ice-age(s) represent the Biblical flood,
> so I will play the devil's advocate:
WM: Humanist scholars have built up a series of pottery sequences to date
man's culture by in the Ancient Near East. According to this pottery
paradigm, there are cities that were founded as early as the 9th millenium
BCE (Jericho for example) as well as others, and they have exhibited no
flood debris universally dated to the 4th or 3rd millenium BCE when the
Hebrew Bible claims the Flood occurred.
>
> 1) While the earth and the universe seems to be billions of years, the
> surface of the earth is very young. It can be calculated how much erosion
> is caused by the rivers of the world (for instance the retreat of the
> Niagara Falls). Calculating this, we find that the big rivers are
5000-6000
> years old. What was before that?It can further be calculated that after
200
> million years the rivers would have filled the oceans with sediments. The
> thickness of the sediments on the bottom of the oceans is not great, and
> would accord more with the age of the rivers than with ages of millions
> upon millions of years.
WM: From what I can recall from memory (some 30 yrs ago), all of the above
is correct.
>
> 2) In Norway, and all over the earth we find raised beaches and lovered
> beaches. In Norway they are 125-150 meters above sea level and about the
> same below sea level. They suggest that the sea level has changed very
much.
>
> 3) On the continental shelves down to 1000 meters, particular formations
> being completely similar to river basins are found. They have rounded
> pebbles, and it can be seen how water has eroded the river beds. But it is
> impossible that sea level could have been a thousand meters below the
> present level, say the experts. But is it?
>
> 4) In the pacific ocean Guyots are found. They are very hig conical
> mountains with flat tops, indicating that the vawes have worked on them.
On
> their tops corals are found, but the problem is that these corals do not
> live at depths greater than 150 meters, and the flat tops of the Guyots
are
> 1000 meters beneath sea level. Has the whole ocen sunk 1000 meters, or has
> the sea level been that much lover?
>
> 5) Regarding great movements in the crust of the earth in recent times,
the
> Cambridge Ancient History, I:28-30 says: "From the Himalaya to the
Danubian
> region an astonishing number of streams cut their way through ranges that
> rise to elevations greater than those of their sources, and are believed
to
> do so because they first took their present courses before the ranges rose
> across their paths." In Scandinavia we find small and big stones on the
top
> of the mountains, to levels up to 1000 meter above their place of origin.
> Some rocks have even been transported from mountains a hundred miles away
> and have been raised to high levels.
>
> These five points show that the surface of the earth is very young, and
> that great upheavals in the crust have occurred in recent times. There is
> also evidence that the sea level may have changed dramatically in recent
> times. There is no way to demonstrate that what is mentioned are a result
> of a world-wide flood (history cannot be proven). But it shows there are
> phenomena which accords with the Biblical account, that is, if huge
amounts
> of water either came from below or from above and flooded the earth, and
> crustal movements after that pressed mountins up, we would expect to find
> what I have outlined above. Two problems that the creationists had not
> solved 25 years ago, are the great temperature differences that would be
> the result of changing water from one aggregate condition to another, and
> the problem of organisms  which had to adapt from fresh water to saline
> water. But the points above are intriguing indeed.
WM: I am aware of the geologic evidence for a "Young surface" to the earth,
the river silt deposits found on the continental shelves. But I don't see
that this phenomena can be worked into a 4th/3rd millenium BCE Noah's Flood.
To do that, one would have to demonstate that the Pottery sequences are
seriously out of whack for the ANE, thus the cities that are 9th millenium
BCE, are not. Then one would have to explain the bible's presentation of the
flood as being 4th/3rd millenium BCE which doesn't fit the paradigm of most
Geologists (those who have "no vested interest" in "proving the bible," like
Gish and Morris).
>
> My conclusion is that as far as data is concerned, the scientific view of
a
> gradual evolution from apes to man and then from primitive man to cultured
> man, is principally based on faith - on the present evolutionary paradigm.
> And its foundation is not better than the foundation of an inerrant view
of
> the Bible.
WM: Everyone is entitled to their view, and you to yours. I am impressed by
your research into the conflicting claims of the Creationists and the
Humanist Geologists. As for Evolution, it doesn't claim infallibility nor
inerrancy, it allows for challenges and modifications, when presented by
rationally based arguments of the data. It is my own conviction, as a result
of years of research, that Man did evolve from other animal forms. My
studies into animal behaviors have convinced me that man is an animal, and
all his negative behavior is programmed in him, being in his DNA. It is my
understanding that "Sin" ( and the concept of Law) is an invention of
society and religion to control this animal behavior or animal instincts and
prevent the strong from preying upon the weak.

> Let me add that I am just as negative etymological views regarding
> languages and comparative linguistics as old as 2000 BCE as I am to
history
> and archaeology. We simply cannot speak with certainty about so old
> phenomena.
WM: I understand your points, I hope you understand mine.
>
>
> Regards
>
> Rolf
>
>
> Rolf Furuli
> University of Oslo
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: [mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com]
> To unsubscribe, forward this message to
$subst('Email.Unsub')
> To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu.
>