At 10:44 PM 4/27/2010, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
On 04/27/2010 08:28 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> At 03:04 PM 4/27/2010, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
>> On the other hand, if it *is*
>> inerrant, then we can also take as true the fact that the rains lasted
>> 150 days, not more, not less, and that *all* the high mountains were
>> covered to a depth of 15 cubits. "Cubit" is a little hazy, but the
>> point is the water level rose to a level *at* *least* as high above sea
>> level as the highest mountain peak.
>
> That's taking a literalist interpretation.
Of course it's a "literalist" interpretation. Do you know any Christian
fundamentalists? How do you think the folks who believe the Ark existed
and is likely to be found on Ararat interpret that passage?
They interpret it according to their own desires and beliefs. But
they do not own that text and they have no right to claim that their
interpretation is the only sound one, and they aren't, among those
who accept the importance of the Bible, in the majority.
Where do you think the idea that it's all "for real" comes from? From
the fundamentalists, of course. And where do you think the notion that
the grounding place *was* *Ararat* comes from? The fundamentalists, of
course.
Okay, if you want to refute the fundamentalist view, sure. It's
preposterous. And it's not "fundamentalist," exactly, because it is
not a return to "fundamentals." We have the same problem with the
Qur'an and with our own "fundamentalists." They are not returning to
what the early Muslims believed, but to what much later religious
fanatics believed. It's really the same problem.
> What does the text actually
> say?
I don't read Hebrew so we'll need to be content with translations,
unless someone here does and has access to the Masoretic Text, or unless
someone here reads Greek and has a copy of the Septuagint.
NRSV (generally considered a good translation) says "The waters swelled
so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole
heaven were covered". I think that's pretty clear. You can twist it
around to try to make it fit the facts, but really, either *all* the
mountains on Earth were covered, or the passage is in error. (And if
it's in error, then the text isn't inerrant, and normal rules of textual
interpretation apply, and the whole Ark story becomes very suspect ...
to put it mildly.)
In other words, you think like a fundamentalist! You don't allow for
metaphor and figurative language. If it says "all," God damn it, it
must mean every single one, all over the earth. Hey, what about
mountains on the Moon? Are they "under the whole heaven"? I'd say so.
Wow, that must have been some flood, if it covered the mountains on
the moon, Mars, everywhere! After all, doesn't "everywhere" mean
every place in the universe? Let's see, how much water would it take
to fill the entire universe. Let me do the math! Wow! I'd say there
isn't that much water, therefore the story in the Bible is completely
bogus, any idiot can see it.
There are people who believe that the text is "inerrant," though that
is, in itself, a kind of preposterous, since there are so many
versions. What text? In what language? But what "inerrant" means to
these people is that if one accepts that it's from God, ultimately,
one will not be led astray by it, but there is still a responsibility
and a necessity to interpret it sensibly. The way I made these
arguments to Muslim fundies was that the Qur'an never says that it is
a science textbook, and it is always asking us to look around us and
to have some sense. (These people believe that because the Qur'an
mentions the "hands of God," as "everything is in his hands," God
must, therefore, have hands. What the best of the early scholars said
about this is, "This is what the book says, we do not say that it is
this or that it is that. It is what it is. And the Prophet talked
about people who would argue over things that made no difference at
all. And, indeed, that's described in the Qur'an itself.)
And the Qur'an is explicit, in one place, about itself: "Much of it
is fundamental, and much is figurative," and then it describes,
basically, the fundamentalists, on the one hand, as insisting on
figurative meaings as literal, perhaps, and the deniers, on the
other, who take the fundamental meaning and discount it as merely
figurative. (This is my read on the passages, it's not necessarily
just like I'm saying.) The Qur'an, according to the Prophet, was
revealed in "seven tongues," by which I and many others have
understood that it has many layers of interpretation, "seven" being
an Arabic expressin for "many."
Nouvelle Segond (also an excellent translation, entirely independent of
the NRSV/RSV/KJ series of translations) reads "Toutes les hautes
montagnes qui sont sous le ciel furent recouvertes." That, also, is
absolutely clear: All the high mountains which are under the sky were
covered.
So, I'm sitting on the edge of the Black sea, and every "mountain" I
can see becomes covered. Isn't that "all the high mountains under the sky?"
Look, I'm no believer in the inerrancy of the Torah. It was lost at
one point and was recovered from the memory or inspiration of very
few, maybe even one person. The general Muslim belief is that it was
originally from God, but that it had been changed in some ways. The
way I understand that is that it's like an imperfect reflection of
something. You can still get the message, the important part, you can
still recognize a friend in the mirror, but not every detail may be
absolutely accorate. Really, it's like any story told by a human
being, unless the original is preserved, which is quite unusual for
something that old. Basically didn't happen.
The Nouvelle Segond also has a lovely set of study notes, and in this
particular case, when I looked up the passage I was surprised to learn
that the story can be traced back farther than the OT. It appears, in
*very* similar form, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is a rather older
Babylonian document. As the earliest bits of Genesis seem to be
Babylonian, this suggests that the stories are not just similar, but
rather they are indeed the same story, *retold* in Genesis.
Well, so? Suppose that a massive flood happened. It's not impossible,
at all, and there is evidence for one there, there was a drastic
rise, suddenly, in the level of the Black Sea, it appears, at least
that's what I"ve read about. I think it was Scientific American.
There are, however, a few differences. The most notable, in the current
context, is that Mount Ararat is not mentioned in Gilgamesh; the
grounding place of the Ark in Gilgamesh is commonly translated as Mount
Nitsir but is, ultimately, obscure.
Since Gilgamesh is the older text, it appears, therefore, that the
specification of Ararat as grounding place is probably a late addition,
made long, long after the story was first told. Therefore, whether or
not there was a flood of some sort at the origin of the story, there
would seem to be no reason whatsoever to think the remains of the Ark,
if they still exist, would be found on Mount Ararat. The *only* reason,
in fact, for expecting it to be Ararat where they'd be found would be
the assumption that the Bible is literally true, for that is the only
assumption that'll give precedence to the late, retold version of the
story as it appears in Genesis.
And it's speculation. If the remains of a large boat is found high
up, it could mean all kinds of things.... And, in the end, I don't
care much. I gain practically nothing if the story happened roughly
as stated, or if it didn't. Doesn't help me to live my life. I would
not bet on either outcome, should conclusive evidence appear. It all
misses the point....
And that was more or less what I was driving at to start with.
> And what are "mountains?"
Oh please, don't go there. This is like saying "Genesis is all correct
but 'days' don't really mean 'days' they mean vague long chunks of time
at least a million years in duration."
Lucky guess. Hebrew is like Arabic, they are basically the same
language. I can go to a synagogue and I understand much of what is
being, say, sung or recited, because of the Arabic I know. And ayyaam
does indeed refer to "days" or to "periods." And we do that in English as well:
"Those were the days."
"In those days, dinosaurs walked the earth."
Etc. Look, when I started to read the Qur'an, I found that it had
been translated by people with their own ideas. That's why I learned
Arabic, to be able to tease out the interprettive overlays from the
original text, which is clearly of multivalent meaning. The Qur'an
calls itself a "reminder," which means it is pointing to what we already know.
So maybe "mountain" really meant
"ant hill". But in that case, maybe "Ararat" really meant "Pike's
Peak", and maybe "ark" really meant "small tent", and maybe "animals"
meant "plants".
No, in that language, writing remains within boundaries. "Mountains"
can mean "hills," but not "ant hills." Unless we are writing about
ants, then, maybe.
The point is, if it's not literally true *as* *written* then, as I said,
there's no reason to expect to find the Ark on Ararat, or anywhere else
-- and it's obviously not literally true. End of lecture.
Good. The mention of a place name is interesting. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_of_Ararat. This is not one
specific mountain, apparently. The connection between the modern
Mount Ararat and the resting-place of the Ark is quite a stretch,
indeed. You are assuming, apparantely, that the text refers to a
specific mountain. Ararat, actually, refered to a region, not a
specific mountain, and thus could refer to just about anything
including, yes, hills, or the foothills of mountains.
And it doesn't matter. Fundamentalists, generally, corrupt their
religion, that's my position. (And I will distinguish these from
those who simply seek to discover and practice the "fundamentals" of
their religion, which is something entirely different. Fundamentalism
in Christianity is a kind of sect, not the true seeking of the fundamentals.)
