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Offline Theophilus  
#1 Posted : Monday, November 10, 2008 5:10:08 AM(UTC)
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I've been pondering the following passage in the Eden - Joy chapter of YY:

Quote:
Before we examine the next verse, recognize that scientifically, we have discovered that the earth was shrouded in water vapor for millions of years, creating a nurturing greenhouse effect. The climate was temperate from the equator to the poles. As a result, the evaporative heating process required to produce water vapor and then rain did not occur. We know this because we have found tropical fauna in the mouths and stomachs of mammoths recently freed from their icy graves north of the Arctic Circle. And petrified wood is bereft of tree rings, confirming consistent growing conditions and a lack of seasonal temperature variations and rain. Even the existence of dinosaurs is related. Without the direct assault of the sun’s damaging rays, reptiles, unlike other species, have virtually unlimited growth potential. That is not to say that there were not places and periods when the vapor canopy gave way to rain, only that there were extensive regions and extended periods when precipitation didn’t occur as it does today.

“Everyone (kol) ponder and consider (siah – imagine, meditate upon and think about) the earth (‘erets) before (terem – previous to the time of) the spreading out of the land (sadeh – expansion of the ground, open fields, and the terrestrial environment) came into being (hayah – came to exist) and of all the growth of (samah – springing to life, and the increase in size, quantity, and vitality of) green plants (‘eseb – vegetation) in this earlier (terem - previous) environment (sadeh – of expanding ground and of fields). For Yahuweh, God (‘elohym), had not (lo’) caused it to rain (matar) upon (‘al) the earth (‘erets – land and world). And (wa) ‘Adam (‘adam – man) was not there (‘ayin) to work (‘abad – toil in) the soil (‘adamah – ground).” (Genesis 2:5) “Imagine,” God says, “the world before land began to emerge from beneath the seas, before rain, and before man.” This is difficult for us because we humans are self centric and see most everything from our own perspective.


I understand that water vapor, (NOT CO2)is the principle greenhouse gas. I can also see the evidence Yada mentions for a warm climate / vapor canopy: lack of tree-rings in petrified wood, mammoth remains in the artic with tropical fauna, very large reptile fossils, etc. It still seems to me that over the Earth's long history our planet has experienced variations in climate to include periods of cold or ice ages and weathering prior to Adam's day almost 6,000 years ago.

In the last 1,000 years or so history has witnessed climate changes to include the mini-ice age, cooling associated with large volcanic eruptions, and the climatic shift that caused the Norsemen to abandon their settlements on Greenland which they indicate was once actually green rather than the ice sheet we see today.

I see evidence of glaciers in the northern USA with north to south running lakes and river valleys among other evidences for long lasting ice ages. I see the mountains in the Eastern USA much shorter, worn and weathered then the Rockies or Alps.

These signs make me think that our planet has experienced both long periods of warm climate such as Yada indicates as well as more temperate and even ice ages. As an example, I'll guess at period preceding the mass dinosaur extinction the Earth's climate was warm like Yada describes while soon after the global climate changed abruptly for the colder. I'll gather that in Adam's day the climate was again warm, changing soon after the meteor strike triggering the great flood in Noah's day roughly 1,000 years later.

I'm still unclear how this fits with Scripture's account of climate in Adam's day or a vapor canopy? Does this canopy allow for variations in climate? What of earlier meteor strikes, super massive volcanic eruptions like Yellow Stone? Would these permit colder periods or ice ages and yet allow a vapor canopy to endure or restore itself?

I'd love to know your thoughts on these questions and especially Yada’s.
Offline kp  
#2 Posted : Monday, November 10, 2008 8:35:15 AM(UTC)
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I, like you Theo, have been giving this a bit of thought lately. A careful analysis of Genesis 2 reveals that we (or is it just me?) usually read more into it than is actually there. I'd say the first three verses actually belong in chapter 1: they're a synopsis of the "seven days" of creation, as detailed in the preceding verses (chapter 1). Then, begining in 2:4 and going through 2:6, we have a description of what life was like on earth before man (Adam) was put here. That is, for vast eons of time in which vegetation established its foothold upon the earth---before man showed up---a water-vapor canopy (the ultimate "greenhouse") was in place---just as Yahweh designed it. Starting with verse 7, we see how man fits into the picture. But notice that God doesn't specifically declare that the greenhouse was still in place when Adam showed up. Rather, the implication seems to be that the arrival of humanity signalled a time when the greenhouse vapor canopy would no longer be necessary, because man had arrived "to till the ground." In other words, the whole planet became our responsibility (no pressure or anything.)

Back in the '60s, Whitcomb and Morris posited (in The Genesis Flood) that the collapse of this water vapor canopy was the proximate cause of the great flood. That always seemed reasonable to me, until I looked closer at the cyclical nature of hot and cold periods---and especially the recurring ice ages of the past 30 or 40 thousand years. Since at this juncture science no longer seemed to mesh with scripture, I quietly filed the whole thing away in the back of my mind, awaiting a solution---a mechanism for the flood that didn't involve the collapse of the water vapor canopy that certainly had existed for millions of years but was apparently (according to the evidence) no longer here. (In fact, it's possible that it was collapsed in the great Jurassic dynosaur extinction event of 65 million years ago, whether or not it was ever rebuilt in the interim.)

Then (as I reported in TOM II chapter 1), in 2005, Dallas Abbott, an adjunct research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., determined the date of a massive meteorite strike 900 miles southeast of Madagascar to have occurred within the lifetime of Noah, “around 2800 B.C.” The “Burckle Abysmal Impact Crater” left by this impact measures eighteen miles wide, which is huge, considering it’s some 12,500 feet beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean (and we all know what water does to muzzle velocity). The mega-tsunami it generated could have easily flooded a huge portion of the inhabited world, and it would have displaced enough water to account for forty days of rain over much of the earth’s surface. A plausible, verifyable mechanism for the flood of Noah had been found. No vapor canopy was needed to explain it. At last I could sleep at night.

Enthusiastically seizing upon a golden opportunity to trash Yahweh’s reputation, a scientist featured on the History Channel’s treatment of the Burckle Crater remarked, “We no longer need God to explain the multiple flood legends.” No, what this idiot needs God for is to explain how Noah (or any other flood-legend hero—there are at least 175 local versions that parallel the Genesis account) knew to build a big boat twenty or thirty years before a mega-tsunami flooded his world. Duh!

kp
Offline Robskiwarrior  
#3 Posted : Monday, November 10, 2008 10:22:37 AM(UTC)
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But was it necessarily a just mega-tsunami? I have just been thinking about this and the way that a large meteor would interact with water. The account in scripture is rain isn’t it? If a meteor was to strike the sea, it actually wouldn’t strike water, it would vaporise the water and strike the seabed... obviously this leaves a heck of a hole for the rest of the water to fall in to, including the new one created by the boiling space rock. The power of the strike would obviously cause a tsunami, but what about all the water that was vaporised... surely that amount of water vapour, when taken up into the atmosphere would certainly be too heavy to be held up there for too long... queue rain...

Just some thoughts...
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Offline Matthew  
#4 Posted : Monday, November 10, 2008 10:54:25 AM(UTC)
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I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago, I've always been wondering about this water canopy. Got an answer now, yippee!
Offline kp  
#5 Posted : Monday, November 10, 2008 2:20:23 PM(UTC)
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Robski, the answer (I'm thinkin') is "all of the above." The key, for me, was the size of the crater, and it's depth: 18 miles wide at a depth of 12,500 feet. That thing still had lots of velocity and momentum when it hit the bottom, over two miles down. So we're talking not only of a tsunami the likes of which the world hadn't seen for 65 million years (and Chixalub landed in very shallow water), but also billions of tons of sea water vaporized and then precipitated as rain over the course of the next 40 days. An ordinary hurricane can drop rain for weeks on end, and although the mechanism is different, the forces involved would have been multiplied many times over.

kp
Offline Robskiwarrior  
#6 Posted : Monday, November 10, 2008 3:33:24 PM(UTC)
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kp wrote:
Robski, the answer (I'm thinkin') is "all of the above." The key, for me, was the size of the crater, and it's depth: 18 miles wide at a depth of 12,500 feet. That thing still had lots of velocity and momentum when it hit the bottom, over two miles down. So we're talking not only of a tsunami the likes of which the world hadn't seen for 65 million years (and Chixalub landed in very shallow water), but also billions of tons of sea water vaporized and then precipitated as rain over the course of the next 40 days. An ordinary hurricane can drop rain for weeks on end, and although the mechanism is different, the forces involved would have been multiplied many times over.

kp



yea - the tsunami would also acount for the flood waters rising so fast... (if they did rise so fast...) I suppose if you didnt feel the impact then it starts raining and water starts sloshing around you are going to think the rain did it... dunno lol
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Offline Theophilus  
#7 Posted : Monday, November 10, 2008 4:02:48 PM(UTC)
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I'll second KP's vote on all the above. I'm thinking that the greater ocean depth of the strike in Noah's day may have meant more water vaporization / displacement and less atmospheric dust then the dinosaur killer strike off of Mexico.

It looks like we agree that ice ages have also occurred before Adam's fall. I'm still unclear how that fits in with a global greenhouse vapor canopy. I also agree that the Burckle Abysmal impact seems to fit Noah's flood better than that much water being suspended in the atmosphere then dropping. I recall reading an article critical of a vast vapor canopy suggesting that a canopy capable of raining globally for 40 days and nights would have meant crushing atmospheric pressure.

I'm still thinking that a more restrictive than current atmospheric barrier to harmful solar radiation seems to fit well with degrading genomes and the once longer life spans Scripture indicates. Maybe this is another aspect that will need to be filed until better information is available?
Offline kp  
#8 Posted : Tuesday, November 11, 2008 5:14:35 AM(UTC)
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Perhaps the answer as to why lifespans began falling off after the flood is that the gene pool, so robust when Adam and Chavvah left the garden, and then spread among millions, perhaps a billion humans, was reduced to eight people at the flood---and actually (since Noah's three sons all had the same mother) only five genetic sources: Noah, his wife, and their three daughters in law. And who knows how closely related they were. There were no Godly prohibitions against marrying close relatives until Moses was given the Torah.

kp
Offline edStueart  
#9 Posted : Tuesday, November 11, 2008 3:34:21 PM(UTC)
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This may be another piece of the puzzle: The atmospheric pressure required to hold the water canopy in suspension would have resulted in a high partial pressure of oxygen on the surface of the Earth. This would have had the effect of everyone living in a hyperbaric chamber, just like Michael Jackson!

Hyperbaric oxygen treatment is used in wound care, healing burns and is supposed to increase your lifespan. So if the water vapor canopy was held in place by high atmospheric pressure (a'la Whitcomb and Morris), the people living under it would have enjoyed the benefit of a radiation shield AND hyperbaric oxygen every day of their lives.

No way to know for sure, this side of the grave, but the pieces do fall into place quite nicely...
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Offline Theophilus  
#10 Posted : Wednesday, November 12, 2008 6:25:17 AM(UTC)
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That's an interesting insight Ed. I've heard some about oxygen treatment but did not realize that prolonging life-spans was a known benefit. I was also unaware that a vapor canopy would result in such an effect. I'd be interested to see if any atmospheric modeling has been done to examine how such an atmosphere would function?

Ken, if I understand your last post, your suggesting that the combined global population of both Adam's descendants and other unrelated humans may have been as high as one billion, not a population of Adams's descendants exclusively?

I'd agree that the flood de-populated the region of the World in which Adams descendants lived which left only 8 of his progeny alive in the World. I question that these 8 were the only human inhabitants left on the planet. I would think these were however the only ones left who were descendants from Adam and thus Neshamah equipped.

That leads me to another question which is the spreading out of Noah's sons. Assuming I'm correct in thinking that other humans were left alive immediately after the flood would not the descendants of Noah's sons have intermarried with the peoples of the regions we associate these sons with (Africa, Asia, Europe the Middle East)?
Offline kp  
#11 Posted : Wednesday, November 12, 2008 7:04:31 AM(UTC)
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Actually, Theo, I was just throwing the number out there to inject the idea that after a thousand years of population growth with these extremely long lifespans, the world could have had quite a lot more people in it (whether Adam's progeny or not) than we (okay, I) normally think of. I have no statistics, of course. It's reasonable to assume that neshama-equipped man had not spread over the entire earth, but had come to dominate the area from the Black Sea to the Fertile Crescent. Any way you slice it, the gene pool would have been drastically pinched at this point. I seem to recall reading somewhere that this sudden restriction of genetic depth shows up somehow in our Mitochoncrial DNA, though they "read" the date for the genetic bottleneck quite a bit earlier than the flood would have been. I'm not sure what they're basing their findings on.

kp
Offline Theophilus  
#12 Posted : Wednesday, November 12, 2008 8:22:53 AM(UTC)
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Ken, I can certainly see where a substantially longer lifespan given enough time could result in a large population. If Noah’s descendants intermarried with other surviving or distant peoples this would broaden the limited gene pool post flood, but still see the logic of genome degrading would shorten life-spans especially of these other peoples genes were more degraded then Noah’s grandkids. I think this covers Africa and Eur-Asia, but likely not Australia or the Americas.

I too recall seeing a program on one of the cable channels, (Discovery, Science or History) that was on the topic of either extinction events or greatly reduced populations. The event in question as I remember it was the eruption of a super volcano like Yellowstone, but in (South-East?) Asia around 8,000 years ago. I also remember something about a lesser event which was a big section of Mt Etna, Sicily falling into the Mediterranean creating a mega-Tsunami which devastated early civilizations living along much of that sea roughly 7,000 years ago. The specifics are somewhat hazy but I think the gist is there. I’ll could check on the details if there is interest.
Offline Matthew  
#13 Posted : Wednesday, November 12, 2008 10:03:18 AM(UTC)
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Theophilus wrote:
I also remember something about a lesser event which was a big section of Mt Etna, Sicily falling into the Mediterranean creating a mega-Tsunami which devastated early civilizations living along much of that sea roughly 7,000 years ago.

Archaeologists claim a flood about 7000 years ago caused major flooding in the region of Turkey. The cause of the flood they say is that European glaciers melted and flooded the Mediterranean Sea causing it to overflow. Here's an interesting article, http://edition.cnn.com/2...ood.finds.ap/index.html, concerning it. But in the Noah chapter of YY Yada references this sudden change "from freshwater lake to saltwater sea" to coincide with Noah's flood in 2968 BCE, about a 2000 year difference than what the article says.

But nevertheless, earth has gone through some major changes, from cold to hot to cold again, and back again, yet always managing to sustain some sort of life.
Offline Matthew  
#14 Posted : Monday, November 17, 2008 11:23:05 AM(UTC)
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kp wrote:
Perhaps the answer as to why lifespans began falling off after the flood is that the gene pool, so robust when Adam and Chavvah left the garden, and then spread among millions, perhaps a billion humans, was reduced to eight people at the flood---and actually (since Noah's three sons all had the same mother) only five genetic sources: Noah, his wife, and their three daughters in law. And who knows how closely related they were. There were no Godly prohibitions against marrying close relatives until Moses was given the Torah.


I don't want to deviate too far off topic but did everyone on the whole planet die, besides Noah and family, or just those in the region (Middle East basin area) and other areas directly affected by the Tsunamis?

Here is a quote from Yada in YY:

Quote:
God’s frustration was with Adam’s descendants who had used their nesamah/conscience poorly. These people, who had migrated east of Eden, were corrupt beyond hope, having chosen to associate with Satan and his lifeless spirit. This realization is one of many evidences that the flood was regional, that it had a specific purpose, and that it occurred in a specific place.

It says a specific place but does not give further details concerning the rest of mankind.
Offline kp  
#15 Posted : Monday, November 17, 2008 12:18:46 PM(UTC)
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Matthew asks, "Did everyone on the whole planet die, besides Noah and family, or just those in the region (Middle East basin area) and other areas directly affected by the Tsunamis?" We don't know for sure, for the original text isn't specific. When it talks about the "earth," the word being used is eretz, which can mean region, ground, or soil, or the whole planet---it's a non-specific designation. The only real description we have is in 7:22... "All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died." "All" is kol, which means all or every. "Breath" is neshamah, the property that was given to Adam in Genesis 2:7 that separated mankind's nature from that of the animals---the ability to be made eternally alive through the indwelling of a spirit. "Spirit" is ruach, and "life" is hayah---existence, being.

It is therefore clear (at least to me) that the flood wiped out every decendant of Adam (i.e., neshamah-equipped) who had a spirit (ruach) indwelling his neshamah (except for Noah's little group, who were safe on the ark). Therefore, the flood killed every man who had accepted or received a satanic or demonic spirit, but not necessarily every neshamah-equipped person on the planet. It's speculation, of course, but the text leaves open the possiblility that populations of Adam's progeny living outside a hypothetical "flood zone"---none of whom had any spirit whatsoever, whether Yahweh's or a demon's living within them---were left alive at the time of the flood.

kp
Offline Sarah  
#16 Posted : Friday, October 31, 2014 5:28:16 PM(UTC)
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Concerning the Great Flood, here is some new information regarding the Burckle Crater and deep water reservoirs:

http://strawn-04.blogspo...porting-biblical_17.html

If just the folks with a neshamah died, then why does God say that all the animals died also? Surely that would include all the Homo Sapiens without a neshamah.
Offline syeve  
#17 Posted : Friday, October 31, 2014 10:12:55 PM(UTC)
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Here is a thought I've bandied about from time to time and I might add, this is pure speculation since I can't attribute it to scripture, (nor am I an astro-physicist). However Yah mentioned to Noah that there would be seasons after the Flood, which implies that the planets climate was the same from pole to pole previous to the Flood.
So here goes my theory.
Most ancient civilizations used a 360 day solar calender. Could it be that at one time the earths axis was parallel to that of the sun instead of the current 23.5 degree angle? If so, perhaps the earth revolved around the sun in 360 days instead of 365.25 days because there was no tilt/wobble and so the earth would spin truer instead of wobbling, (like it does now, hence the seasons). This would be similar to a gyroscope that wobbles as it loses momentum when the spin slows. Since the earth was spinning true, not wobbling, at 0 degrees parallel to the sun, then this would accelerate the speed at which the earth revolved around the sun. Voila, a 360 day solar year,(try not to laugh).
Offline syeve  
#18 Posted : Saturday, November 1, 2014 3:21:55 PM(UTC)
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Water vapor canopy topic reply, part II.
Sorry Sarah,
I was not trying to change your topic but I was unable to scroll down to complete the thought. To continue my theory, I figured that when the earth's axis tipped to the present 23.5 degrees off parallel with the suns' axis, the vapor canopy precipitated. What could have caused the earth to tilt? Perhaps an asteroid impact that sloshed enough water around to effect an imbalance which impeded/slowed the earth's rotation as it revolved around the sun and like a gyroscope it began to wobble. This distorted the earth's shape, (more pear shaped than round), and kinda froze it in the current position/orbit in relation to the sun.
Could this be reversed? With all the seismic activity/asteroid impact in conjunction with magnetic pole reversal? Who knows. I figure the best way to find out is to respect and revere Yah/Towrah and be around to see what happens.

Edited by user Sunday, November 2, 2014 4:07:43 AM(UTC)  | Reason: spelling correction

Offline Sarah  
#19 Posted : Monday, November 3, 2014 11:02:14 AM(UTC)
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I think you are right. There must have been a 360-day year at one time, and probably will be so again in the future. I also am thinking maybe there were two or three (or more?) asteroid impacts at the time of the Burckle asteroid impact.
Offline Glitch  
#20 Posted : Saturday, December 20, 2014 10:31:35 AM(UTC)
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This is a fun topic. The earth tilt discussion is interesting. Perhaps the Burckle impact event caused a change in the earth's axis. We now know the large magnitude Chilean temblor a few years back produced a small but measurable change in the tilt of the earth axis. As far as vaporization, the asteroid was certainly hot around its surface, but I don't think heat vaporization was of huge significance. It displaced a tremendous amount of water mechanically I'm sure. A terrestrial crater shows what that force of impact can do.

The lifespans mentioned in Genesis is a fascinating topic to me as well. I long believed this was metaphorical, but now I think it's literally accurate. The genetic code would have been quite pristine at that time. The environment was also pristine, so there were no chemical pollutants to mutate DNA as today. Food and water were pure and healthy. Genetic law states the genome degrades over time, so declining lifespans makes sense. This is the result of trillions of iterations of cell reproduction - copy of a copy of a copy....

Another indicator of long lifespan is the size of the brow. A man's brow is the only bony structure the continues to grow, albeit slowly, over a man's lifetime. We have archeological evidence of skulls showing prominent, extended brows.
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