All posts tagged: Noah

Violence breaks out during Catalonia's vote for independence on October 1, 2017 Credit: Beverly Yuen Thompson/Flickr/Creative Commons

Prophetic marker: A spirit of violence?

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As we study the Bible’s ancient account of Noah leading up to the flood we read that it was a wicked time. But there is one verse that sticks out: 11 Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. (Genesis 6:11 NASV) The earth was filled with violence. In fact, the Bible refers to the violence the permeated Noah’s day a couple of times. The Hebrew word for violence is ‘hamas’ and refers to violent acts and the same word is used to describe a mass murder recorded in the book of Judges when a brother murdered 70 of his siblings (Judges 9:24). For one to murder his brothers there must be a raging hatred. But ‘hamas’ encompasses all levels of violence words, intimidation and oppression. It was a violent world in Noah’s day. But the Bible adds one more key descriptor, it says the world was “full” of violence. The Hebrew word ‘timmale’ is not a complicated word. It means simply to “contain as much as …

Credit: Val D'Aquila/Flickr/Creative Commons

Noah’s Flood, Atlantis, and the Okotok

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People who don’t like the Bible, or believe that it is not true, like to point out the story of Noah’s flood as proof that they are correct. How can any reasonable person believe that the whole world was covered with water and animals marched two by two into a large wooden boat? Where is the scientific evidence for that? You might be surprised. Noah’s flood, in the Bible, is dated at about the same time as other flood stories from almost every ancient culture. Stories about a huge and deadly flood are found in the Australian outback, the mountains of Ecuador in South America, in China, in the stories of Gilgamesh and Noah’s flood from the ancient Middle East, and in the Greek story of Atlantis. Plato and other Greek writers told us about an ancient land of Atlantis that was flooded, and apparently the Atlanteans invaded other places, in desperation. Ancient flood stories are everywhere, from people who did not speak to each other. They made their own versions in isolation. We now …

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Evidence of Noah’s flood found in China?

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In nearly every culture in the world, there are a stories from their ancient past of a massive flood that wiped out the world — from Eskimos in the Northern Arctic to aborigines in Australia. According to an article in the Washington Post, the Chinese have a story of a flood that covered their mountains and hills. Ancient Chinese emperor Yao wrote: “The flood is pouring forth destruction. Boundless and overwhelming, it over tops hills and mountains. Rising and ever rising, it threatens the very heavens.” Compare his account to how Genesis describes Noah’s flood: 18 The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. (Genesis 7:18-19 NASV) Recently archaeologists uncovered evidence of a massive flood that hit China about 4,000 years ago. This included the remains of small children trapped by the waters. Their dating would put it in the time frame of the …

Photo of Atlantic ocean off of Brazil by Tiago Fioreze/Wikipedia

Where did all the water come from?

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For years, scientists have struggled to explain waters existence on earth. Their best theory is that it was alien — that comets laden with ice hit the earth filling our oceans. However, there is a new theory gaining ground that confirms the Biblical account. Geologists last year found a diamond that suggested deep beneath the earth’s surface there are massive oceans of water. This is exactly what the Bible says. We are told in Genesis 1, that when God formed the earth he created waters above and below (Genesis 1:7). In fact, the water below was a major source of the water used to fill the earth during Noah’s flood when the fountains of the deep exploded gushing water to the earth’s surface. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. (Genesis 7:11 NASV) In 2014, scientists from the University of Alberta were …

As in the days of Noah: Is history repeating itself with manipulation of human genes?

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[by Dean Smith] On April 18, 2015, scientists from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangdong, China publicly announced in the online journal Protein and Cell, they had edited the genes in a non-viable human embryo using a gene editing technique called CRIS PR-Cas9. This procedure enables them to remove genes, splice new ones in and basically recode any gene strand they want. They apparently modified a gene in a number of embryos thought to cause disease. It is less than exacting because of the 28 embryos they tampered with only seven attempts were successful. This is the first time that scientists have openly admitted to modifying human genes is an effort to create “designer” humans, even though in this instance the embryos did not survive, or so they said.

Yet another flood account uncovered — and they entered an ark two by two

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[by Dean Smith] Irvin Finkel works at the British Museum based in London. He is also an expert on the ancient scripts used by the Babylonians, Sumerians and Assyrians. While exploring the cuneiform texts of the Ancient Sumerians, he came across one that describes a great flood. In some significant ways it is very similar to the Biblical flood account, but in other ways different. The account holds to the same basic theme. God destroyed the world with a massive flood, but a handful of humans and a representative of all the animals were saved by an ark that rode out the flood. According to the Finkel the text is old dating to about 1750 BC.

What is a massive oak forest doing at the bottom of the North Sea?

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Dawn Watson and Rob Spray were scuba diving about 300 meters off the the coast of Cley Next to the Sea, Norfolk, England when Dawn made an incredible discovery. Cley Next to the Sea is located on Britain’s North coast bordering the North Sea. Dawn found a forest of oak trees at the bottom of the ocean. This included complete, but now fallen trees, some with branches 24 feet long (8 meters). The forest, previously buried in the sand, was probably uncovered by a recent storm in the area. A survey of the forest suggests at one point it may have stretched from England to Europe, covering thousands of acres.

Did the Genesis’ flood separate England from Europe?

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For decades, it was thought a land bridge that once connected Britain to Europe had disappeared through a combination of slow erosion and rising seas. Some believe this separation took place over one million years ago. However, that popular theory was tossed into the trash bin because of a 2006 study that was conducted on how England was populated. As part of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project (AHOB), researchers scanned the English Channel several kilometers off the coast of Sussex looking for examples of human settlement.

Did massive oceans beneath the earth’s surface contribute to Noah’s flood?

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Steven Jacobsen, a geophysicist from Northwestern University, and seismologist Brandon Schmandt from the University of New Mexico believe they have found a body of water far below the earth’s surface. The results of their study were published in Science. This group was sending seismic waves into the ground to discover what lies below. At 700 kms (400 miles) beneath the surface, they ran into a layer of ringwoodite. Their tests suggested it also contained water. The temperature and pressure at this level would cause the water to sweat out of the ringwoodite. Jocobsen said ringwoodite has a unique crystal structure that allows it to soak up water like a sponge.  The two speculated if just 1% of this ringwoodite mass contained water, it would be three times the size of the earth’s oceans.

Physics proves Noah’s ark could hold the animals of the earth

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With the controversial movie Noah showing in theaters, their timing couldn’t have been better. Physics students at the University of Leicester decided to test if Noah’s ark could have floated with two of each animal in the world on board. The students were shocked by their results. They found that the ark could have held the equivalent of 2.15 million sheep and easily done the job. Speaking on behalf of the group — made up of students Katie Raymer, Thomas Moore, Oliver Youle, Benjamin Jordan, — Moore, 22, said: You don’t think of the Bible necessarily as a scientifically accurate source of information, so I guess we were quite surprised it would work. We’re not proving that it’s true, but the concept definitely would work.”