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I believe God's word, I simply question the interpretation given by man's traditions.
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As to the cogency of the proof from tradition for the geographical universality of the Flood, it must be remembered that very few of the Fathers touched upon this question ex professo. Among those who do so there are some who restrict the Deluge to certain parts of the earth's surface without incurring the blame of offending against tradition.
(c) There are also certain scientific considerations which oppose the view that the Flood was geographically universal. Not that science opposes any difficulty insuperable to the power of God; but it draws attention to a number of most extraordinary, if not miraculous phenomena involved in the admission of a geographically universal Deluge.
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https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04702a.htm
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As to the cogency of the proof from tradition for the geographical universality of the Flood, it must be remembered that very few of the Fathers touched upon this question ex professo. Among those who do so there are some who restrict the Deluge to certain parts of the earth's surface without incurring the blame of offending against tradition.
- The earthly paradise, e.g., was exempted by many, irrespective of its location on the top of a high mountain or elsewhere;
- the same must be said of the place in which Mathusala must have lived during the Flood according to the Septuagint reading;
- St. Augustine knows of writers who exempted the mountain Olympus from the Flood, though he himself does not agree with them;
- Pseudo-Justin hesitatingly rejects the opinion of those who restrict the Flood to the parts of the earth actually inhabited by men;
- Cajetan revived the opinion that the Flood did not cover Olympus and other high mountains, believing that Genesis spoke only of the mountains under the aerial heaven;
- Tostatus sees a figure of speech in the expression of the Bible which implies the universality of the Flood; at any rate, he exempts the earthly Paradise from the Deluge, since Henoch had to be saved.
(c) There are also certain scientific considerations which oppose the view that the Flood was geographically universal. Not that science opposes any difficulty insuperable to the power of God; but it draws attention to a number of most extraordinary, if not miraculous phenomena involved in the admission of a geographically universal Deluge.
- First, no such geological traces can be found as ought to have been left by a universal Deluge; for the catastrophe connected with the beginning of the ice-age, or the geological deluge, must not be connected with the Biblical.
- Secondly, the amount of water required by a universal Deluge, as described in the Bible, cannot be accounted for by the data furnished in the Biblical account. If the surface of the earth, in round numbers, amounts to 510,000,000 square kilometres, and if the elevation of the highest mountains reaches about 9000 metres, the water required by the Biblical Flood, if it be universal, amounts to about 4,600,000,000 cubic kilometres. Now, a forty days' rain, ten times more copious than the most violent rainfall known to us, will raise the level of the sea only about 800 metres; since the height to be attained is about 9000 metres, there is still a gap to be filled by unknown sources amounting to a height of more than 8000 metres, in order to raise the water to the level of the greatest mountains.
- Thirdly, if the Biblical Deluge was geographically universal, the sea water and the fresh water would mix to such an extent that neither the marine animals nor the fresh-water animals could have lived in the mixture without a miracle.
- Fourthly, there are serious difficulties connected with the animals in the ark, if the Flood was geographically universal: How were they brought to Noah from the remote regions of the earth in which they lived? How could eight persons take care of such an array of beasts? Where did they obtain the food necessary for all the animals? How could the arctic animals live with those of the torrid zone for a whole year and under the same roof?
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https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04702a.htm
Point taken.
I've just always believed 2 Timothy 3:16, and my beliefs will not change.
God bless.
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