packoutsandwich

Hey, I'm new and thought I'd chime in. So you know where I'm coming from, I am a Christian and I do believe the Bible is true. Concerning the flood account. I do not believe that it is necessary to see the flood account of Genesis 6-8 as a global flood. The words translated "earth" are "eretz" or "adam" which could be translated ground, land (under the heading of "land" alone it has the possible meanings of country, territory, district, region, piece of ground, etc.), dirt, or earth. Translators have chosen the translate most of the occurences of these words as "earth", but is earth in our mind and in the mind of the original author the same thing? No, it wasn't. When the "earth below" or "heavens above" are mentioned he probably meant all of the sky that he could see. A flood could well have encompassed all that Noah understood to be the world. A similar thing happens in the New Testament when the Great Commission, Jesus' command to deliver the gospel to entire world, is believed to be accomplished by the disciples and the early church. They had delivered the gospel throughout the Roman Empire, the entire known world in their eyes had heard the Gospel, and many were sitting back waiting for Jesus to return. In reality they had only just begun. Back to Noah, I believe that everything Noah knew, his entire world and more than he probably understood, was destroyed along with animals and humans within that area. It has already been stated within this thread that there are multiple flood accounts in other cultures such as the Sumerians. This should not be surprising if there was indeed a flood that occured, in fact the Sumerians demarcated it as a time period referencing events as "before the flood" and "since the flood". For these reasons and more I do not see understanding the flood as a local and not global phenomenon from a biblical standpoint. I think the historical evidence would seem to support this view as well. From a more practical standpoint, am I supposed to believe that koalas, kangaroos, tazmanian tigers, etc strung together a crude raft and piloted their way to Noah in order to be safe from a flood? I mean if they could do that then they probably could have weathered the storm with all the alligator meat the tazmanian devils provided... or something. About dinosaurs and creation. I hang my head in shame when I hear some Christians sects saying dinosaurs never existed... where the hell did all the bones come from? Before I talk about creation I think it's also important to point out that the creation of the world is pretty much summed up in less than a chapter of a 50 chapter book. I point it out just to show that the book really isn't interested in the topic, rather it's point is likened to a stepping stone for the reader to reach the Exodus. In creation, I would hold what would probably be called a "Modified Gap Theory". We ought to note that Genesis 1:1-2 is seperate from the "days of creation". The Earth is created and appears to be left, for how long who knows perhaps millions or billions of years. Was there life on the planet at this time, I don't see why not if the conditions were correct. Once the "days of creation" do begin the text doesn't say how long a day is either. The first chapter is very stylistic and seems to have more to say about the power of God rather than any kind of facts concerning what is created. It does not need to be 6 24 hour periods of time simply because they are called "days", which could be translated other ways as well. As for why dinosaurs aren't in the Bible, were any of the biblical writiers fighting them or something? If dinosaurs were extinct by the time the Bible was actually written then we shouldn't be surprised they aren't in there. What would be surprising is an ancient Hebrew Indiana Jones digging up dinosaur bones and fighting Nazis. I'm sure if pterodactyls flew all the Hebrews out of Egypt then they would have been mentioned. I need to go to bed but I'd like to hear any thoughts you may have.