The Story Of Noah...

[has]

Are there any estimates of how many innocent men,women & children, who were drowned by 'God' during the flood?

[LazyGun]

Yep, thats the thing. It never happened, at least not as described. But, as story goes, assuming it did happen, god basically took it on himself to wipe out all humans bar 8, and all the wildlife bar what was on t'ark. I have biblical scholars suggest a few as 2000 or so, others reckon it would have been in the millions.

But as Scrivens points out, it is really nothing but a symbolic number, since it never happened ;)

Some discussions/contributions on the topic here;
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080509034204AAdSHDK

[jomifl]

It was only a local world wide flood I guess. Even today some people don't travel more than a few miles from their home.

[2sp_]

Say it did happen, wouldn't that mean that the entire human race was started by inbreeding and incest?

[beso]

Any engineer would know that a boat of that size could not be made from wood.

Noah would have to have been over 500 years old to get the job done.

So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.''

So His solution to violence? More violence. No wonder religious wars have always been so prevalent among those of the Abrahamic faiths.

[seadogg]

Mount Ararat is over 5,000 metres and is a volcanic peak. That would be one heck of a flood. I have climbed to over 4.000 metres and its not too comfortable up there. Most of the animals would have turned up their toes. Quite apart from the amount of water needed, this must be an allegorical tale to encourage good behaviour in the hearers.

[modeller]

Here is the description to show how impossible the whole story is but it makes interesting reading.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Global_flood

[Mosaic]

Steve, nature is not concerned with perceptions of blood relationship. A foetus is either viable or not. Societies have introduced the notion of incest being wrong, on the logical observation of the outcomes. That never stopped our aristocracy mind you.

[modeller]

I remember trying to explain to a cleric how impossible it all was but the only point he accepted was the fact when the animals were released there would be no food or drinkable water and the land would be dead for the following 10/20 years.
That's how long it takes for salt inundated soil to start growing arable crops. We know that from the reclamation of the sea in Holland. It would have been even worse for Noah because the land around Ararat even today is very poor .

I also asked him how 8 people could feed and muck out a million animals every day for a year and where would all the plants come from to plant up the world again' . His answer was that for God everything is possible.

[beso]

Ah but it wasn't salty. All that fresh water diluted the salt in the ocean.

Then all the flood water evaporated away leaving the oceans salty again. Simples.

[Peter Pedant]

No has - people have written about numbers and their meaning in Genesis - ie they dont mean much
or they have religious meaning (numerology - seven comes up a lot)

I thought this was gonna be
isnt it interesting how this fable comes up in a range of parallel texts and what is the significance ?

I dont know the answer to that q either

[modeller]

So Noah couldn't be a member of UKIP . Maybe he could have joined the Greens.

[modeller]

I think the most significant fact is that for 6 miles height of ocean (height of Everest ) to be suspended in the atmosphere before the rain started have exerted a pressure of over 15,000 pounds per square inch. compared with our normal atmospheric pressure of 14.5 psi. In other words we and everything else would have been squashed , in additioned to being drowned and asphyxiated. That would have included Noah .

[mikey4444]

None, because it didn't happen. Its madeup. Its a myth, a story. Its completely unfeasible.

[modeller]

beso The dilution would have been about 50% which means many /most marine animals would have died as well as most of the fresh water ones, for opposite reasons.
They would all have died anyway ,the same as the land animals from the 15,000 psi pressure .
When the water evaporated the salt would be precipitated onto all the land
killing most of the microganisms who were still alive. , leaving it sterile.

Once the water evaporated it would be suspended once more in the atmosphere, ( where else would it go ) making the pressure 15,000 psi. again.
So the choice of death is bing impossible to breath , being drowned or crushed.
For all these reasons the ark could not have been built , and had it been many years before the atmosphere became 100% saturated , then it too would have been crushed flat like every other building and plant life.

The only thing that would survive the flood would be hard rock. Remember also the arctic and antarctic, all the deserts and the tropics would be destroyed and with it the worlds climate.

[jim360]

Surely the Biblical answer would be "none -- they were all guilty of sinning before the Lord"?