The Flood was allegorical

ImAMoron: I think it's based in literary traditions of the period

This is a thread i started when I was offered a debate by some doofus who calls himself " atheist of the year "

Apparently he's a massive coward who can't hold his own in a real debate on historical topics

ImAMoron: Here ya go, professor AOTY, here's a bit of literature to get you started

https://ccp.yale.edu/P237772

ImAMoron: Man, you guys sure are quick to run your mouths in chat, what happened ?

Where are you ?

ImAMoron: Man, I always suspected you keyboard warriors in religion chat aren't literate enough to be able to form rational arguments

lmao

ImAMoron: Lets see here.....

The word " flood " or " deluge " classically was applied as:

~ A title for a god

~ A title for a priest- king

~ A term in astronomy texts ( Like the link I dropped above ) referring, most often, to new moons and eclipses

~ A term used to refer to the " seat of power " ( Where persons of the ruling lineage considered " divine " actually lived, like the name of Jerusalem in Akkadian )

It even appears as:

~ A term in the Bible referring to a person



Your incredulity at a literal interpretation of the flood narrative in Genesis doesn't even qualify as a poor excuse for polemics



Step on up, chat warriors

ImAMoron: Geez, looks like " atheist of the year " has the IQ of a stool sample

How predictably underwhelming

ImAMoron: Well, that was fun

I thought I'd get an explanation of the use of the term " Bubbulu " on the Stele of Hammurabi or something profound

lmao

Zanjan: We don't take the words "flood" or "deluge" as words that can EVER be lifted out of context.

Words that can be separated from the subject matter are fixed words. For example, the word "car" is a noun; it identifies a vehicle that carries passengers and/or freight. That's THE fixed message.
No one can mistake the meaning for anything else. Same for the word "boat" and "airplane" - these words are always nouns, bearing the same message regardless of how the vehicle is constructed.

These words can also be used as a literary device - a metaphor - but if they are, they'll need context. Regardless, the message doesn't change.

The words "flood" or "deluge", however, are flexible - they can be used as nouns, verbs, and adjectives to produce countless diverse applications. We need context to guide us to the intended application. These also can be used as literary devices.

Allegory: this is a story within a story; the internal story is presumed to be hidden. In religious text, that's rarely the case. Religion is a system of education; ergo, the religious story is told to convey NEW understanding - if anything is deliberately hidden, that defeats its purpose.

The Parables: those are stories taken from real life (no names included), used as a teaching device. Fairly common situations are easy to relate to. They're used as similes.
Their purpose is to highlight the dynamics involved - the moral of the story. Some people aren't prepared enough to connect the dots but they might be at a later time.

The Biblical Flood was both an actual event and a simile; many words in it are used as symbols, albeit some symbology has been lost in time. Additionally, the story doubles as a prophecy - history is cyclical with short, medium and long cycles. In this case, a very rare event.

ImAMoron: Yeah ?

Context ?

I like how all the spans of time, the measurements, the ages, etc ,in the story of Noah are ALL easily shown to be derived from texts dealing with the calculation of the Synodic month average, since it was the staple of old calendars, just like it's the basis of the modern Hebrew calendar

There's a little context for you ( Not that I think you're remotely familiar with Mesopotamian or Egyptian literature )

And when you say " No one can mistake the meaning for anything else ", you're nowhere near close to being correct

Unless of course you want to address some linguistic cognates ?

ImAMoron: Aaaaaaand, btw, apparently none of you noticed that this " ark " was a cuboid ?

Probably missed that it's standard in Mesopotamian literature to express lunar semi-major axis distance using cubic and cuboid formulas, but that's discussed in the work of several well known math historians, so I'd suggest you start with some basic education in math history

You know, just so you have a little " context " when you're correcting everybody else about interpretations

If you REALLY need some clarification, start with the standardization of measurements in 2150 under Naram-Sin

Since that's also based on a cuboid

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Mesopotamian_units_of_measurement

Aaaaaaaaand, if you really want to get technical, we could point out that the Hebrew word for " ark " is actually the Egyptian word for " finger ", but you'd have to be familiar with how astronomers use fingers to make approximate measurements

...like they've done for thousands of years

If you want to get super technical, we could bust out some math they used back then

You know, for " context "



People always start talking about " context " but don't seem to actually have any when it comes to interpretation

Zanjan: Well, a lot can be said for numbers. Scientists see math as the universal language, the language of the universe. All things in the universe are connected so they vibrate. Nature likes pairs but arranges itself most often in sets of 3.

Christianity, for instance, uses 12 and 7 frequently but its favourite is #3. The number 3 arises frequently elsewhere; it's even a favourite in secular society.

Every calendar, be it lunar or solar, has always been tuned to earth's seasons; the months may be different lengths but the placement of the sun or moon in the sky was how the days of the year were calculated to 365. Surprisingly accurate even in very ancient times.

What other meaning to do you have for car? Perhaps you can provide some actual conversational examples that aren't slang or secret code.

ImAMoron: Allow me to waste the time to break your post down sentence by sentence then....

1. " Well a lot could be said for numbers "

- the same is true for anything so that's pretty much meaningless

2. " Scientists see math as the universal language "

- Um,....OK, want to discuss Wigner's " The Unreasonable Effective of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences " ?, or do you have some examples of scientists that make that claim that you could cite ?

Lets see them

3,4. " Christianity, for instance, uses 12 and 7 frequently but its favourite is #3. The number 3 arises frequently elsewhere; it's even a favourite in secular society. "

- That's meaningless numerological mumbo-jumbo, so

Also, I don't do numerology, so don't post that garbage in my threads, thanks

5,6 " Every calendar, be it lunar or solar, has always been tuned to earth's seasons; the months may be different lengths but the placement of the sun or moon in the sky was how the days of the year were calculated to 365. Surprisingly accurate even in very ancient times. "

OK, so the first thing you said that makes sense to me, but not entirely correct, there were different year lengths employed as well, and the year was actually rounded to 365 days, but also calculated to it's complete length using a Zig Zag function ( Feel free to look up what the Babylonian Zig Zag function was )

The standard synodic month length of ~ 29.53 days has been used for thousands of years, well known in academic literature and is still the modern standard of the Hebrew calendar

Hence why it's strictly defined in the Talmud as 29+ 13753/25920 days

It's also still used AND referenced by agencies like NASA and ESA


7,8 " What other meaning to do you have for car? Perhaps you can provide some actual conversational examples that aren't slang or secret code "

- OK smartass, first of all, get a grip

Ancient languages are polysemic, if you don't know what that is, you really have no business even attempting to debate here

Is that all you have ?

Zanjan: How can you say none of us knew various civilizations had a flood story?

These were different, according to their cultural setting. The coracle is one of the most ancient boats, next to the log dugout and raft made from reeds.

To this day, the world hasn't adopted a universal standard of measurement (it should be metric). The ancients had regional standards. Noah used the cubit (length of the forearm) because it was handy - they almost always had a forearm. Impossible to misplace somewhere. Moses used the forearm as a reminder to followers.

Noah's boat was rectangular with 3 decks; it had one door and one window. That's a significant observation, particularly for the prophetic content.

Interpretation is a dangerous thing - I avoid it completely. Only a Revelator of God has the authority to do that.

ImAMoron: I mean, I could have told you that " car " is employed in the English language as slang, but you're just trying to act like a smartass, so I'm wagering if I gave you the example you asked for, you wouldn't know what to do with it ?

yeah

ImAMoron: oh....yeah

OK, first off, you're clearly clueless about ancient conventions of measurement

lmao

What you describe as the length of a cubit is the description of the Egyptian hieroglyph used to write the word " cubit ", not the length of cubits

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm,_cubit_symbol_(hieroglyph)#:~:text=The Arm, palm down or,cubit (about 20 inches).

The Egyptian and Mesopotamian cubits were strictly defined, ESPECIALLY Royal cubits, so I raise the on you again

Listen, I've studied these topics for years, using the work of well-respected Academics, and websites provided by universities like Yale, Oxford, etc, so if you're seriously going to sit here and try and blow smoke up my ass like you have a single clue about these topics, I will gladly remove that ultracrepidarian bloviating

Is that all ya got ?

ImAMoron: Yeah, so let's go back to the link in the 2nd post

You guys seem to have conveniently sidestepped it in an effort avoid addressing the subject material

https://ccp.yale.edu/P237772

I think I'll just go ahead and copy past the relevant reference from Yale's site, and you can tell me what this tablet of the Enuma Anu Enlil series is referring to

--------------------------

[*] 30 ina AN.BIR₉ È-ma KIMIN<(SI-MEŠ-šú ) > KI IGI-MEŠ : KIMIN U₄ 3.KÁM U₄ 4.KÁM ma-gal GAL-ma

"[If] the moon rises at midday and ditto (i.e., it horns are looking at the earth), ditto (i.e., a flood will come)" (means) "on the third day (and) the fourth day [(...)] it (i.e., the moon) becomes unusually big."

-----------------------

Feel free to cite or reference any of the hyperlinked sources on the Yale page too, if you have some rational argument you want to make

This is a rather standard type of omen phrasing - using the word " flood " in relation to astronomical phenomena, and the above listed example is but one type

So there's one common and well known example, and that's just for a common omen text

We haven't even started to scratch the surface of this topic, either ( I have my own forum with about 75 extensive articles I've written, but that's for down the road, it's really geared more towards people who have things like math degrees

Wait till I post some screenshots of the brilliant comments people in chat here have made when I tried discussing these topics

Going to be embarrassing when I expose some of you as flakes with no real education