Mabul FAQ

Q. How did Noach fit all the animals in the Teyvoh?
A. He used baby animals. A baby panda is really really small you know. Alternatively it was a nes.

Q. After the mabul, how did the Kangaroos get to Australia?
A. They hopped. Alternatively it was a nes.

Q. Why didn’t the mabul waters wash away the 30,000 year old cave paintings?
A. They used water resistant paints. Plus they aren’t 30,000 years old, because carbon dating is unreliable. Also, the paintings are probably a forgery anyway. Alternatively it was a nes.

Q. How come there’s evidence of continuous civilization in many parts of the world? Wouldn’t the mabul waters have killed everybody, and then the area would have been repopulated by different people at a much later date with an entirely different culture?
A. When the areas were repopulated, the new inhabitants didn’t bring much stuff with them, because there was so much left over from the previous civilization. Therefore the archeological digs show consistent cultural artifacts. This is also the reason we don’t find huge gaps in civilization; after the mabul, people knew that there were many places globally with pre built cities and plenty of pots and pans just lying around, so there was a lot of incentive to move there quickly. Alternatively it was a nes.

Q. If the mabul waters covered the mountains, there must have been trillions and trillions of tones of water. How come it left no trace?
A. Sure it left a trace. The grand canyon, fossil beds and all the other geological phenomena which the atheist scientists use to ‘prove’ that the world is billions of years old were all in fact caused by the waters of the mabul. Alternatively it was a nes.

Q. How come people think the mabul actually happened when every piece of evidence in every possible area shows that no way did such a thing ever happen, and that the story is obviously mythical?
A. People are stupid, especially when it comes to religious beliefs, they’ll believe anything. Millions of people are convinced that Jesus is the son of God. Millions of people are convinced God wrote the Bible. Millions of people are convinced Muhammad went to Heaven on a winged horse. What’s even more stupid is that all these millions of people are well aware of all the other millions of people and their ridiculous religious beliefs, yet they are all still convinced that their own ridiculous religious beliefs are not only 100% plausible, but actually even provable.

Q. How is such an absurd situation possible?
A. Beats me. We live in an absurd world. As Chazal say: olam sheker hu.

Q. How come the Science and Torah reconciliators avoid talking about the mabul being metaphorical? Do they think the mabul is real?
A. Of course not, but since no Rishonim or Acharonim have ever talked about it, they are too scared to approach the subject.

Q. Will Orthodox Judaism collapse if we admit that Noach is a fairy tale?
A. No, but Chareidi Judaism might.

HALOSCAN COMMENTS

Noach: The Ultimate Urban Myth

Every society has flood stories. There are literally thousands of them, some similar, some different. Why is this? Well, I guess there were a lot of floods. Also, the end of the ice age, and the massive flood about 8,000 years ago in the Crimea may have left some memories.

Most of ancient mythology is actually based around natural events such as floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, meteors, eclipses and similar. In fact, if you imagine the very ancient world, these kind of things would have been the most monumental and literally earth shattering events that happened. There were no world wars, no TV, no 24hr entertainment. So when a volcano or earthquake or flood happened, it would have spawned a massive amount of story telling and mythology. For more details read ‘When they severed earth from sky’.

So what about Noach? It’s a story. It didn’t happen. There was no Teyvoh with all the world’s animals. There was no massive flood, global or regional, where everybody got wiped out. There may have been a massive flood 8,000 years ago, but that’s not the story of Noach. It’s just mythology.

Why would God write such mythology?

The obvious answer is that He wouldn’t. No way would Melech Malchei Hamlochim Hakodosh Boruch Hu write a fairy tale about all the animals in the world being saved from global destruction on a boat. It’s just mythology. And, like all mythology, much meaning can be read into it. Jews are especially good at reading meaning into things, just look at this long list of divrei torah.

It’s mind boggling to me the lengths that religious fundies will go to insisting that God write this story. In fact, assuming God exists, this is a tremendous insult to Him. What kind of retarded god would write a nonsense story such as this? Don’t be stupid, God didn’t write the story of Noach, man did. And it’s insulting to God to claim He wrote it.

HALOSCAN COMMENTS

The truth, the partial truth, and everything but the truth

Another nutty theory from Avodah:

"The mabul happened, but the scientist lives on the wrong plane of reality to experience its aftereffects. That would explain why the human record is full of myths founded in the mabul experience, but the ground shows nothing. Why people both remember the flood and remember building societies elsewhere at the time (and before migdal bavel!)".

Oy.

I have a much better explanation: The human record is full of myths about massive floods because ..... lots of massive floods actually happened! Amazing how that works! But none of them were the 'mabul' by any stretch of the imagination.

Same author goes on to say:

There is only one emes. It's not a matter of "sufficient to contradict" as though we're playing a game and looking to see who has more points. Both sources of data must be in concert. If they aren't, then obviously I don't understand one or the other.

What's incredibly silly about this statement, and indeed about the whole discussion, is that the statement "both source of data must be in concert (i.e. Torah & Science) is of course a faith based belief.

The author doesn't hold that the Koran and Science must be in concert, nor does he hold that the Upanishads and Science must be in concert. Only Torah and Science must be in concert. Yet, based on this faith-based belief, we have spawned an entire industry of pundits looking to 'reason' to reconcile their core faith beliefs with science.

Either your methodology is based on reason and evidence, or it's based on faith and tradition.

If it's based on the former, then all the Science & Torah questions don't even start, as the global community of scientists has conclusively shown. According to this methodology, there is no good reason or evidence whatsoever to believe that the Torah is a source of inerrant historical truth (especially in early Breishis), so there's no conflict. End of discussion.

If it's based on the latter, then all the Science & Torah questions don't even start, as the global community of Gedolim has conclusively shown. There is no possibility that the Torah could be wrong, so any conflicts from science must be incorrect, for one reason or another.

Of course we have a third camp, those who want to keep their fundamentalist faith and also their science. They somehow want to base their methodology on both faith and reason. Since they 'believe' both must be true, they twist themselves into pretzels dodging and weaving trying to make sense of it all. The basis of their methodology is neither pure faith nor pure reason, but rather 'both must be true!' (which is in fact just faith).

Read this post for a good example.

Problem is, it doesn't work.

Bigger problem is, it makes the people desperately trying to make it work look very, very silly.

Biggest problem is, many of these people might otherwise have great things to contribute to
man's search for meaning, but they waste their time on trying to reconcile the unreconcileable and defend the indefensible.

When will they have the honesty to admit that?

On the other hand.....

The masses can't be expected to be told the cold hard truth, and yet still be passionate about Torah & Mitzvos. Once people realize what's true and what's not, they will lose their faith, and descend into the nihilistic hedonism common in popular culture (quite possibly).

Even hard core atheistic humanists try to make a case for Judaism, (see 'Respecting The Wicked Child' by Mitchell Silver), because they recognize the value of it. And there's no doubt that in this century at least, Orthodoxy is a far more viable form of Judaism than Conservative, Reform or Reconstructionist.

And arguments from Dawkins, Dennett and Harris that without religion the world would be a better place just aren't that convincing, see the review by the Chief Rabbi in a post below.

So, we want the values, beauty and lifestyle of religion (well, most of it), but we recognize most of it isn't true, or certainly not true enough to warrant 100% pure belief. However a community composed entirely of skeptics doesn't seem to work, and will inevitably tear itself apart just like Conservatism is doing before our very eyes. The Halachah has value (mostly), as this article by David Hazony demonstrates quite well.

I think many of us skeptics have come to the conclusion that truth is not the only fundamental. I posted about this a few weeks ago, also see this recent post by Orthoprax for a nicely written summary of a similar idea.

So what do we do? Ignore the truth? Be party to a pious fraud? Keep our views to ourselves? Form a new branch of Judaism? Just drop it and move on?

Over Yom Tov I heard that a well known Rabbi, Rabbi X, says you only need to believe in some kind of yetziat mitzrayim, and some kind of revelation at Sinai and that's it. I heard this from a very reliable source. And this isn't Rabbi Wolpe, or Rabbi Ismar Shorsh, or Rabbi Neil Gilpin. No! This is a well known Rabbi in the Orthodox community in Israel (speaking pivately of course). And I have heard similar from many other Rabbis too. My own Rabbi deems Judaism to be merely in the realm of the 'plausible', though I doubt he would preach that from the pulpit.

So are we doomed to only be able to admit the truth in private? I wonder if there is a branch of philosophy which deals with the truth, and when it needs to be discarded for the better good of society. Hopefully something more than Truthiness.

Anyone have any suggestions?

HALOSCAN COMMENTS