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Author Topic: Lost Cities and Civilizations  (Read 138785 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #45 on: February 17, 2015, 06:07:00 pm »
Ashvin,  Let me get his straight. You think that JESUS CHRIST was referring to a LOCAL flood when he was discussing Noah and the Ark?

I think it's a valid interpretation of the Genesis account and scientifically more plausible than a global one. If it is in fact the CORRECT interpretation, then it's obviously the one Jesus would have held too.

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Do you want the Gospels in Greek (as supposedly they were originally written in) and the old testament in Aramaic, Hebrew and whatever to accept that JESUS was raised in the JEWISH faith and read and beleived the Scriptures that do not say BEANS about the flood and Noah being allegorical, a parable, some children's scary story or a warning? Your NON-answer is absolutely BREATHTAKING!

I'm having a hard time believing that you are having such a hard time understanding what I'm saying. My posts have made clear that I do NOT believe it was allegorical, a parable or any other literary device. So I don't know why you keep mentioning those things.

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Fast forward to Mathew 24:37-39. Here the overall context is His RETURN when He won't be Mr. Nice Guy. He is using a historical reference (Noah, the ark and the flood that drowned every non-aquatic creature on EARTH, according to the scripture (the date it happened is not the issue, Ashvin - it's WHETHER it happened or not on a global scale that IS the issue AND the reason I said anybody claiming J.C. did not believe in global flood is mistaken.).

Where does it say "every non-aquatic creature"?

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J.C. is predicting what some Homo SAP civilizational conditions when He RETURNS. It's a prophecy. It's a rather IMPORTANT prophecy, is it not? Do you HONESTLY think Jesus Christ  would use a LOCAL FLOOD (where Noah and family got warned and survived while the bad people in a limited area drown)  comparison to HIS RETURN to JUDGE the EARTH?

Do you think He was planning to drop in on the same area as that LOCAL FLOOD and to hell with the rest of the planet?

Perhaps I am not understanding you, Ashvin. Would you please clarify your position on Noah and the extent of the flood? GO was kind enough to state right out that he thought it was a parable. He considered it a myth. He may still consider it a myth but he promises to ponder the issue. There is an honest response. Is that your opinion too?

Yes, you are misunderstanding me, and no that's not my opinion.

We BOTH agree that the Flood was universal (and that Jesus was talking about a literal, universal Flood), i.e. it wiped out ALL of humanity except Noah and his family. My position is that ALL of humanity could have been confined to a limited portion of the Earth at the time the Flood occurred. This position would assume that Adam & Eve and their descendants up to Noah didn't make it too far from Eden before the Flood came.

(this is the position held by Hugh Ross and others at Reasons to Believe - www.reasons.org)

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And by the way, I'm surprised you did not immediately point out to GO that "image and likeness" of God has absolutely nothing to do with our biology and everything to do with our spirit. Or do YOU labor under the erroneous view that our bodies are what was made in the "image and likeness" of God too?

I think GO and I both say it is about human spirit, NOT biology. But GO's point seemed to be that it would be weird for God to create humans in his image, but also more advanced and intelligent beings who are not in his image. My point was this would only be weird if the beings were fallen, since Jesus would be incarnated on at least one other planet as another being (not human) for their redemption. If they are not fallen, then it's not so weird (theologically), since we already accept the existence of unfallen angels who are probably more intelligent than we are.

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Back to Jesus Christ, we have enough trouble in forums like this to get people to believe Jesus Christ Himself came even the FIRST TIME, never mind returning! Look at all the hoops you jumped through when that article about J.C. being a myth was dropped here by Da godfader for fun and jollies over a year ago. I was so disgusted with it I could not bring myself even to comment on it. I am indebted to you for fighting the good fight then.

But now I'm very unsatisfied with your response about J.C. and Matthew 24:37-39. J.C. was not whistling Dixie, to put it mildly. He was talking about the most important event in Church Prophetic Teaching History. You CANNOT just gloss over that and concentrate on the cross, salvation and leave it at that. The Early Church got through those awful times with help from the Holy Spirit, sure. But the HOPE of His RETURN was one of the main forces in keeping the early Christians united.

That biblical passage is a HUGE deal! I caution you, JD and GO and any other believers reading this, to not pretend Jesus Christ was making an "unimportant" comparison between Noah's life saving ark and Jesus Christ's return.

Of course. I pointed out this same HUGE comparison to GO back when he still believed it was allegory, and I'm pretty sure that's why he decided to treat it more literally. The comparison rests in the LITERAL judgments of sin/evil which affect ALL of humanity, and the "Ark" (Jesus Christ) which offers us salvation. I hope my position is more clear to you now.

I also have a question - do you believe God would wipe out Arctic polar bears or penguins in Antarctica, even though they would have no interaction with humanity at the time of the Flood? That seems like overkill to me...

Ashvin,
I stand corrected. I see that you believe humanity was limited to the area around where Noah lived. Then, of course, the flood would not need to be world wide.

Of course the account of Noah does not say that non-aquatic animals were singled out for destruction; that's a logical conclusion a biblical researcher I read about in the 1980's reached when he studied the Noah's Ark and what types of life forms (all surface air breathers) were in it. Quite frankly, that's a no-brainer. But that researcher went on and on about seeds surviving so no seeds needed to be carried, dormant insects, insect eggs and pods that float (and so on). It wasn't necessary for all that to be spelled out in Scripture, was it?

As to the polar bears and penguins, both species would survive in a worldwide flood even though they are air breathers because they hang around and feed on ice flows. But the gist of your question is not about polar bears and penguins; it's about overkill. I get it.

So let me address it. You are the Biblical Scholar, not me. You are the one that has discussed the curse now and then from Adam on down. I have absolutely no sympathy for God's decision to curse all of life because Adam was disobedient.

I'm right there with WHD in being highly disgusted with the idea that a just God would do such a thing. I do not get it. I do not understand it. But just like all of nature was cursed because of whatever actually happened (I DO think the garden of Eden is 100% allegorical!) a long time ago between our species and God, the death of millions of totally innocent animals in the flood is a given that I accept.

So yeah, I believe the flood was worldwide and covered all the mountain tops (as the Scripture says). There are marine fossil shells found in the highest of mountains. The scientists claim that is because the mountains got pushed up. Some of them, sure. But marine fossils on mountains are ubiquitous all over the planet. And Ashvin, there is a lot more evidence, hard evidence, of a geologically recent worldwide flood than that.

But let us assume that there is NO EVIDENCE and the Bible is our only reference. Let us assume that God did some major overkill during Noah's flood. There is no question that the animal pairs that got lucky and were chosen to ride the boat equates to a death sentence for the numerous representatives of their species that were slated to drown. Without even considering polar bears or penguins, we are already into overkill=unjust God territory, are we not? We are not talking about the difference between a Divine misdemeanor and a felony. God is either 100% just or He is not God, right? Right.

So where do these apparently calloused and cruel Divine death sentences on innocent animals, never mind severely narrowing the gene pool, leave us? Shall we give the finger to the God of the Bible? Shall we say all religion is baloney? Shall we say J.C. did not know His ass from a hole in the ground? Not me. Only God has the authority to judge God.

Shall we say that it is obvious that there is no God and we are all evolved pond scum doing a Rorschach exercise on what we see in nature by projecting our feverish imaginations on why this, that and the other happened to try to make some sense or order where there actually is no order or sense? Are we just making it up as we go along because of our 'evolutionary advantage' (used to quickly discern threats, particularly threatening faces) called Pareidolia?

Pareidolia (/pærɨˈdoʊliə/ parr-i-DOH-lee-ə) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant.

I used to listen to a Pastor called J. Vernon McGee. He would respond to questions of that nature by saying that it's God's universe. What seems unjust as all hell to us has some purpose that we cannot fathom because of our limitations as humans.

The unbelievers call that wishful or magical thinking. I don't believe it is. It's a recognition that trying to logically countenance each and every action that God takes that involves causing the physical death of his creations as "good", only if it is limited to the guilty party (Homo SAP), is a quixotic effort.

Towards the end of His earthly ministry, J.C. said something that has always struck me as evidence that the Bible is VERY limited in what knowledge it has imparted to Homo SAPS on what goes on and why.

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John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

IOW, He has given them the basic stuff. The other info is WAY OUT there, more complex, more voluminous and more difficult to believe. We know very little about this universe.

My belief is that there was a worldwide flood (at least one). My evidence is the 12,500 year old catastrophe that scientists have found evidence for about some LARGE meteor fragments hitting the planet mostly in North America and triggering massive, rapid melting.

I believe that carved the Grand Canyon in decades, not millions of years, along with wiping out some very advanced civilizations. I believe THAT was Noah's flood. I think Jesus Christ knew that and a whole lot more He did not tell us.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2015, 12:59:14 am by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #46 on: February 20, 2015, 12:07:52 am »
UB,
Well said.

Ashvin,
You are right. You know nothing about maps ( I know that is a bit snarky but since you like to dish it out, I expect you can take it.).

As UB says. The type of map projection (Portolan) discussed does not invalidate a twisted coastline. The author is presenting a non-argument.

The author had one valid argument about Piri Reis that he subsequently contradicted. I will provide a post on that tomorrow along with addressing Dr. Ross views.

But here's something for you to ponder in regard to Portolan maps:

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Portolan Charts 'Too Accurate' to be Medieval

by Frank Jacobs
 
Portolan charts, it was always assumed, were compiled by medieval European mapmakers from contemporary sources. A Dutch doctoral dissertation now disproves this: these nautical charts are impossibly accurate, not just for medieval Europe, also for other likely sources, the Byzantines and the Arabs. So who made them – and when?

Mystery has always shrouded the sudden emergence, seemingly ex nihilo, of portolan charts. The oldest known example emerged in Pisa around 1290, without any obvious antecedents. This Carta Pisana kickstarted a tradition of amazingly accurate sea charts almost up to modern standards, although as with most other portolans, that accuracy was mainly limited to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

A typical portolan chart showed coastal contours and the location of harbours and ports, ignoring virtually all inland features. It would be criss-crossed by straight lines, connecting opposite shores by any of the 32 directions of the mariner's compass, thus facilitating navigation.

After popping up in Italy, portolans became coveted possessions in the seafaring nations of Spain and Portugal, where they ranked as state secrets.

Little or nothing is known of their origins and production, so the working hypothesis among cartographic historians was that portolans were somehow gathered together from the knowledge of medieval European sailors, possibly enhanced with older knowledge from Byzantine or Arab sources.

That hypothesis has now been disproven by Roelof Nicolai, a Dutch geodetic scientist who on 3 March obtained his doctorate degree from Utrecht University for a dissertation titled A Critical Review of the Hypothesis of a Medieval Origin for Portolan Charts.

In it, Nicolai puts forth the theory that portolan charts were made using techniques that were not at all available to medieval Europeans. So they must have copied them from unknown older sources – in all likelihood while failing to grasp how accurate those maps really were.

Nicolai demonstrates that portolans achieved their accuracy by using what seems like an early version of the Mercator Projection – almost three centuries early. Only in 1569 would the Flemish cartographer introduce his mathematical method of projecting spherical data onto a flat surface that would prove crucial to navigation (straight lines on the map equal straight lines at sea).

mozaik (graphic at link)

In blue: portolan shorelines; in red: actual shorelines. A close match in the Mediterranean and Black Seas, wildly off the mark in the British Isles and the Baltic.


“The portolan maps I've researched all seem to be made using the Mercator Projection”, Nicolai says. “They've all clearly been produced on medieval parchment, but those mapmakers probably didn't realise the accuracy of the maps they were producing. We immediately recognise the shape of the Mediterranean, but even in the Late Middle Ages, that shape was far from established on maps. Nobody really knew how all of the Mediterranean's shorelines ran”.

 Nicolai also showed that the portolans weren't produced as single pieces, but in fact are a mosaic: “There are obvious differences of scale and orientation between different areas on portolan maps. Not only does that demonstrate clearly that they were collated from different maps, it also shows that those medieval cartographers were not familiar with the techniques used to produce those different sources”.

The doctorandus also tried to replicate the presumed method by which portolan charts were produced, by averaging the data from numerous single sailing records detailing the location of harbours, the directions of sail, etc. The resulting accuracy was worse by a factor of 10 to that of the actual portolan charts – even while using methods of calculation averages that were developed only at the end of the 17th century. Only in the 19th century did cartographers manage to re-achieve the accuracy of the portolans.

So who was the producer of this anachronistic accuracy? Nicolai only points to the likely source of the maps: Constantinople. “But it is highly unlikely that they were produced there as well. As far as we can tell, the Byzantines really didn't add much to the scientific knowledge inherited from the Classical Age. They only acted as a repository for ancient Greek and Arabic knowledge. And why would the Byzantines even try to chart English and French coastlines? Those were way beyond their sphere of interest”.

Could portolans have an Arabic background? After all, the Arabs were keen astronomers and navigators, giving us the nautical rank of admiral (from 'Amir al Bahr', ruler of the sea). But Nicolai contends the accuracy of the portolans transcends the Arabs' navigational ability of the time. And what we know of Roman and Greek scientific knowledge, for that matter.

“Perhaps we should re-evaluate what we think was the state of science in Antiquity”, says Nicolai. “As long as this doesn't generate any speculation on so-called lost civilisations. As far as these portolans are concerned, we'll just have to think our way back step by step”.
[color]

http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/648-portolan-charts-too-accurate-to-be-medieval

Ashvin,
Your author does not have a clue of what he speaks in regard to Portolan maps.    In fact, anyone knowledgeable of maps does not want to use the Portolan chart nature of Piri Reis to claim it is "no big deal" because the reverse may be true BECAUSE it is a Portolan type chart.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #47 on: February 22, 2015, 07:53:02 pm »
Response to Dr. Ross's claim that Noah's Flood was local PART 1 of 2 PARTS

Agelbert NOTE: This is my last post on this thread. I will post any subsequent information in regard to the subjects of ancient maps, archeology, the worldwide flood(s), ancient high tech civilization evidence and evidence, or the lack of it, for ET influence on Homo SAPS on some other thread.   

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Ashvin,
I stand corrected. I see that you believe humanity was limited to the area around where Noah lived. Then, of course, the flood would not need to be world wide.

Of course the account of Noah does not say that non-aquatic animals were singled out for destruction; that's a logical conclusion a biblical researcher I read about in the 1980's reached when he studied the Noah's Ark and what types of life forms (all surface air breathers) were in it. Quite frankly, that's a no-brainer. But that researcher went on and on about seeds surviving so no seeds needed to be carried, dormant insects, insect eggs and pods that float (and so on). It wasn't necessary for all that to be spelled out in Scripture, was it?

As to the polar bears and penguins, both species would survive in a worldwide flood even though they are air breathers because they hang around and feed on ice flows. But the gist of your question is not about polar bears and penguins; it's about overkill. I get it.

So let me address it. You are the Biblical Scholar, not me. You are the one that has discussed the curse now and then from Adam on down. I have absolutely no sympathy for God's decision to curse all of life because Adam was disobedient.

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I don't believe God "cursed" all creation, as in he supernaturally placed a hex on it. I believe he was pointing out the simple fact that creation would now be subjected to the misuses and abuses of sinful humans. The "curse" was a natural consequence of humanity's fall.

You can define "curse" anyway you want, but  "Entropy and the wearing down and deterioration of every life form until it physically dies" is a fairly good working definition.

Nature apparently got shafted because of Adam's disobedience, PERIOD. Dr. Ross, when discussing another act by God  (Noah's flood) claims it was local, but the laws of thermodynamics that govern physical life processes in this universe, not just biochemstry on planet earth,  oviously are not.  I consider that massive overkill.

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I'm right there with WHD in being highly ****ed about the idea that a just God would do such a thing. I do not get it. I do not understand it. But just like all of nature was cursed because of whatever actually happened (I DO think the garden of Eden is 100% allegorical!) a long time ago between our species and God, the death of millions of totally innocent animals in the flood is a given that I accept.

So yeah, I believe the flood was worldwide and covered all the mountain tops (as the Scripture says). There are marine fossil shells found in the highest of mountains. The scientists claim that is because the mountains got pushed up. Some of them, sure. But marine fossils on mountains are ubiquitous all over the planet. And Ashvin, there is lot more evidence, hard evidence, of a geologically recent worldwide flood than that.

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I primarily rely on Hugh Ross for the scientific side of this:

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The Waters of the Flood
January 1, 2000
By Dr. Hugh Ross

"Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Genesis Flood is its geographical extent. Part of the basis for the controversy is that Genesis addresses the geophysics, geology, and geography of the flood only secondarily. Its main message is that God was compelled to cleanse the earth of the wickedness of man. The message of God's judgment against rampant evil is very clearly stated and understood in any translation. However, in order to comprehend the geological details concerning the flood, it is helpful, perhaps in this case essential, to read the Genesis text in the original Hebrew, and even then the text is not always as specific as one might like.

A good rule of Biblical interpretation is to analyze that which is less specific in the light of that which is more specific. As I mentioned in part seven of this series, the Bible is very specific about the extent of the defilement of man's sin and about God's response. The defilement is limited to the sinners, their progeny for several generations, birds and mammals which are part of their livelihood, their material possessions, and their agricultural land. Nowhere in the Bible do we see God's meting out judgment beyond those limits. Hence, we can expect that if mankind had never visited Antarctica, God would not have struck that territory. The extent of the Genesis flood would be limited to the extent of the defilement of man's sin. This interpretation is supported by the Genesis author's choice of the Hebrew words for creatures" destroyed by the flood, namely basar and nephesh. Part seven gives further details.

In Genesis 7:4-12 we are told that the flood arose from the earth's troposphere and from underground aquifers (not from some unknown place in outer space). These water resources are considerable, to be sure, but fall short of what verse 19 seems to require. According to Genesis 7:19, the waters "rose greatly ... and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered." The English translation seems to imply that even Mt. Everest was submerged under the flood waters.

Science has indeed discovered there is enough water locked away beneath the earth to flood the planet ABOVE the mountain tops. I'll dig up the article if you want.

Dr. Ross is unconvinced by the evidence presented by the scientific community of meteor fragments hitting the planet 12,500 years ago as a direct cause of Noah's flood BECAUSE of a biblical account that is NOT an eye witness account like the waters all around the ark are.

I see his logic. It's pretty good but it falls short. Noah saw a lot of water but there is no way he could have ascertained that the flood was global, so Noah's account of a global flood is suspect, particularly in the area of water torrents coming from inside the planet.

But that certainly does not rule out the hard scientific evidence of meteor fragment strikes, fossilization mechanism (discussed below) and the discovery of, not small, but gigantic (enough when added to our oceans to flood the whole planet!), under the earth, amounts of salt water that certainly could get freed by a lot of meteor induced tectonic activity. That knowledge comes from that very same geophysical body of knowledge Dr. Ross subsequently uses to claim the flood was local. He is cherry picking. That's not kosher.


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  The Hebrew word for "high," however, simply means elevated" and for "mountain," means anything from "a small hillock" to "a towering peak." The Hebrew verb for "covered" allows three alternatives: (1) inundated, (2) rained upon, or (3) washed over as by a rush of water. In any of these cases, 15 cubits of standing water, 15 cubits of sudden rainfall, or a 15-cubit rush of water, there would be no human or animal survivors. 

This is speculation. Wood floats. People hang on to it and float too. A cubit equals 450 mm = 18 inches. Fifteen cubits =  22.5 feet. The 2004 tsunami had survivors that hung on to things that floated. Some of these people were found alive in the ocean after several days.

Does Dr. Ross accept that the waters were (15 cubits above the surface of all Homo SAPS) for the length of time Moses claims that Noah claimed there were? If so, he had better deep six that word "rush" to describe the waters.  If so, he has a lot of explaining to do about how so much water could be in a previously dry area for so long.

But he doesn't go there because that would argue for a much larger flood (though not necessarily a planetary one) than a relatively small local flood. His faulty calculus is that God is limited to offing just mankind and the "defiled by association" animals and land. I wish that was true.

Please obseve more cherry picking below. Here he accepts the rather broad, and impossible to verify, Biblical claim that the waters went back to their previous levels. There is simply NO WAY that Noah could know that unless God told him that. Dr. Ross is reticent to believe other things God allegedly told Noah but accepts this revelation as fact?

Hello? We all agree that, after Noah's flood, the human population did not require birth control, right? It was going to be a while before Piri Reis made his map, right?  Noah did NOT KNOW WHERE the shores were before the flood and certainly did not know afterwards, period (this is an excellent argument for claiming antedilluvian civilization was NOT high tech. If it had been, Noah would certainly have known where the pre-flood shorelines were - Dr. Ross probably would claim that Noah and mankind were in such a small area that they COULD, in LOW TECH fashion,  measure the shorelines before and after the flood - how convenient for his local flood hypothesis.).

If the flood covered the planet and Noah knew where the shorelines were before and after the flood, he either lived in a global high tech civilization prior to the flood or got his info through Divine Revelation.   

As you see below,  Dr. Ross is being highly selective in what he claims science backs up as accurate and what Genesis is accurate on. His statement about the claim made by some that there were no high mountains before the flood is impossible to verify and not accepted by geological science OR claimed by the Bible either; it's just another red herring we must ignore. I've already stated that science has, indeed, discovered that there IS enough water to flood our planet to the mountain tops.


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Genesis 8 gives us the most significant evidence for a universal (with respect to man and his animals and lands), but not global, flood. The four different Hebrew verbs used in Genesis 8:1-8 to describe the receding of the flood waters indicate that these waters returned to their original sources. In other words, the waters of the flood are still to be found within the aquifers and troposphere and oceans of planet Earth. Since the total water content of the earth is only 22 percent of what would be needed for a global flood, it appears that the Genesis flood could not have been global.

The argument I have heard most frequently against this conclusion is that before the flood, there were no high mountains or deep oceans. The present day relief of the earth's surface is said to have been generated in a period of just a few months. I see several major problems with such a suggestion:
-it contradicts a vast body of geological data;
-it contradicts a vast body of geophysical data, at the same time requiring such cataclysmic effects as to render highly unlikely Noah's survival in an ark;
-it overlooks the geophysical difficulties of a planet with a smooth surface; and
-it contradicts our observations of the tectonics. The mechanisms that drive tectonic plate movements have extremely long time constants, so long that the effects of such a catastrophe would easily be measurable to this day. Since they are not, I conclude that the flood cannot be global.

As for the reference, "under the entire heavens," such expressions must always be understood in their context. What would constitute under the entire heavens for the people of Noah's time? The extent of their view from the entire region in which they existed or operated. Perhaps a verse from the New Testament will clarify my point. In Romans 1:8 the Apostle Paul declares that the faith of the Christians in Rome was being "reported all over the world." Since "all over the world" to the Romans meant the entire Roman Empire (and not the entire globe), we would not interpret Paul's words as an indication that the Eskimos and Incas were familiar at that time with the activities of the church at Rome.

Further support for a regional, rather than global, cataclysm comes from consideration of God's command to Noah after the flood, the same command He had given to Adam and later gave to the people who built the tower of Babel: "Fill the earth." The fact that God repeated this command to Noah (and intervened dramatically to disperse the people of Babel's day) implies that the people of Noah's generation had not filled the earth. This view is consistent with the geographical place names recorded in the first nine chapters of Genesis. They all refer to localities either in or very close to Mesopotamia."

Dr. Ross is a marvel of supposition and groundless logic. He is obviously swayed by the "vast body" of geological "evidence" by our geologists being challenged today by credentialed scientists.  He is rather pedantic as well.
His claim that the main controversy from a scientific perspective with the flood is the geographic extent is inaccurate. The main controversy, from a scientific perspective, is the FACT that one, or seven, breeding pairs is too narrow of a gene pool to guarantee the survival of species.

There is zero evidence that biblically clean animals require more breeding pairs than biblically unclean animals. The whole Ark trip is a massive bag of worms scientifically. So that means portions of it may be allegorical and there possibly were hundreds of arks in diverse places on the earth.

Ross is merely trying to establish the geographic area of the flood (the subject of his analysis), as the most controversial issue. It's a nice rhetorical touch. If the local flood hypothesis is established as the correct one, the other "issues" are minor details.   

Then he comes up with this clever gem of pedantic posturing:
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A good rule of Biblical interpretation is to analyze that which is less specific in the light of that which is more specific.

That application of that "good rule" properly depends on what the definition of "less specific" and "more specific" is. But on the face of it, it is an illogical premise. "MORE SPECIFIC", in regard to EVIDENCE, is where one must start to reach and/or define "LESS SPECIFIC", not the other way around. But we can hairplit that all day so let's assume he has a lick of sense and see where he goes with this.  .

Quote
" defilement is limited to the sinners, their progeny for several generations, birds and mammals which are part of their livelihood, their material possessions, and their agricultural land."

Beyond the "defilement" of the sinners and progeny , possessions and land, WHILE THEY LIVE ON IT ONLY (there is old testament scripture that challenges the progeny "defilement" too, by the way), the Bible certainly does not maintain anywhere that animals that are part of sinner livelihood (beyond DOMESTIC ANIMALS) are "defiled". But that term, "defilement", is a very, very devious term as applied here. Millions of WILD animals, totally unrelated to the LIVELIHOOD of mankind were KILLED by drowning.

To claim it was because they were "defiled by association" using his "less specific" to "more specific" baloney is ridiculous!

And this is the prize of gross assumptions:


Quote
"Nowhere in the Bible do we see God's meting out judgment beyond those limits. "

It's magical thinking but it sounds so pious and good. So he is saying that every bullock and every turtle dove and so on that got sacrificed on an altar deserved it? Will he doubletalk sacrifice for sin as NOT being "judgmental" or related to JUDGMENT?  According to Scripture, God ORDERED that done, NOT because those animals were part of the livelihood of man but because of mankind's sins.

Those animals were NOT DEFILED. In fact, unclean animals COULD NOT be sacrificed! 

And even that SENSELESS BUTCHERY was low level atonement sans total forgivess (not enough to do the job), so Christ had to be the Lamb of God. Christ was/is INNOCENT. ALL those sacrificed animals were INNOCENT. Scape goating ordered by GOD is a buck passing prima facie UNJUST act!

Dr. Ross is full of doubletalk.

To human eyes, unjust behavior by God is ALL OVER THE OLD TESTAMENT!  The young girl that had to DIE because some idiot promised God that the first person he saw would be sacrificed was UNJUST.

Many, many other examples abound. The 21 or over Israelites in Exodus were judged for their disobedience but the kids got a free pass. That was logical and just! The under 21 members of a people that had attacked the Israelites ordered killed was NOT justice.

People slaughtered because of what their ancestors did to the Israelites centuries previous, anyone?

Job, anyone?

Dr. Ross reads what he wants to into the Bible. I don't question God's sovereignty. And I do not sugar coat it either.

Then Ross proceeds to play fast and loose with "the earth" and "the heavens" by cherry picking a quote from Paul. And hairsplitting with the translations of "hills", "mountains" and water depths ignores that Scriptrure quote in Genesis where it states that the Ark was a certain number of cubits ABOVE the  HIGHEST mountains at maximum flood. He wants to define the term "highest" away too!  How convenient. This is hairspliting on steroids! Even a cursory search of the 66 Bible books would find numerous irrefutable uses of the adjective "highest" to mean exactly that!


End of Part 1 of 2 Parts:  Response to Dr. Ross's claim that Noah's Flood was local

Response to Dr. Ross's claim that Noah's Flood was local PART 2 of 2 PARTS
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #48 on: February 22, 2015, 08:00:06 pm »
Response to Dr. Ross's claim that Noah's Flood was local PART 2 of 2 PARTS

Also, the number of days this ark was out of sight of land implies a mind boggling amount of water for Noah, considering that he DID NOT live next to the ocean (if that had been the case, he would have built the ark next to the water) but lived up in the hills,  mountains or whatever. Even if the flood area was LOCAL, Dr. Ross is disingenuously lowballing its size by avoiding a DETAILED discussion of the time period the ark was on the waters. How convenient.

But this perfidy, hairsplitting and doubletalk is predicated on the premise, and Ashvin's premise too, that God does NOT do overkill. Yes He does. But it is a clever way to get Christians to nod their heads, isn't it? This charlatanry abuses the faith of Christians in a "GOOD" God by refusing to accept that there is no human way we can justify God's overkill.

It's God's universe, period. There is no need to baby talk and abuse the faith of people by making sanctimonious claims about what God's actions are limited by. But it sells books and keeps the simpletons happy. That does not make it right or logical.

See below a fascinating example of premise upon false premise leading to more and greater incorrect assumptions:


Quote
Further support for a regional, rather than global, cataclysm comes from consideration of God's command to Noah after the flood, the same command He had given to Adam and later gave to the people who built the tower of Babel: "Fill the earth."

Baloney. Dr. Ross cleverly leaves out a certain verb in the Noah account NOT present in the Adam account.

Quote
The fact that God repeated this command to Noah (and intervened dramatically to disperse the people of Babel's day) implies that the people of Noah's generation had not filled the earth.

God DID NOT "Repeat" the command to Noah that God gave to Adam. Mr. Ross takes ONE  VERSE out of context and throws in the Tower of Babel to confuse the issue. In fact, the Tower of Babel is OBVIOUSLY allegorical unless you think God was A) physically located at a distance from mankind down on the planet AND B)  concerned that humans could "get to him" with a united effort like a tower or human space flight. LOL! The last time I checked, humans are no threat to God. The Tower of Babel is an allegory, period. 

Quote
This view is consistent with the geographical place names recorded in the first nine chapters of Genesis. They all refer to localities either in or very close to Mesopotamia."

The first nine chapters of Genesis is a LOT of territory to cover with such a blanket statement about the consistency of his view. LONG before Moses sat down to write (more like rewrite from hand me down documents or oral traditions) Genesis, there is evidence of civilizations that came and went that God never told Moses beans about.

The Bible is trapped in a vice of chronology in this regard.  There no way that Biblical Scholars, who pay any attention to the chronology of the generations and the names, can handle a flood that happened 12,500 years ago.

That is why many fundamentalists, true to their rigid, all or nothing, personalities,  have to locked themselves in a Procrustean bed that denies verifiable science that PROVES the allegorical nature of several biblical passages.

This in no way denigrates from Biblical authority as a handbook for proper human behavior. Nevertheless, any crack in the scientific accuracy of the Biblical account is used by many to give the Bible, and God, the giant finger.

Dr. Ross is trying to straddle this arbitrary fence with his defense of the Bible and the Christian Faith. Good for him. But his cherry picking is the wrong way to go about it.

Ross left out the Noah quote from Jesus Christ. How convenient. The Kenotic school of thinking (see Kenosis -the relinquishment of divine attributes by Jesus Christ in becoming human ), rejected by many Christian scholars and accepted by many more today, is that J.C. shrunk his mental data base to Homo SAP size through the incarnation to the point of actually being a scientific ignoramous while He walked the earth. I agree that He did not have the full God picture of the universe; that would have made Him an ACTOR in THEATER, as RE has postulated. J.C. had doubts, and plenty of them. A fellow confident of kicking DEATH's ass by getting killed does not sweat blood.

But when He was talking about His return and Noah, He is making it rather clear what He KNEW and what HE DIDN'T KNOW (He didn't know when He was going to return but He knew Noah's flood affected all mankind throughout the world as His return would affect mankind throughout the world). Your logic that, "if the flood was local, then J.C. obviously believed it was local", applies equally if the flood was global.

Dr. Ross, makes broad statements based on the "macro" scientific evidence, only to devolve into the hairslpitting "micro" to support his broad claims. This is one of them:


Quote
The mechanisms that drive tectonic plate movements have extremely long time constants, so long that the effects of such a catastrophe would easily be measurable to this day. Since they are not, I conclude that the flood cannot be global.

Plate tectonics is a red herring wild goose chase that is irrelevant to geologic events within human history. Yeah, they happen slowly. But floods, particularly post ice age ones, happen rather quickly with a lot of help from a few large meteor fragments.

The evidence of global flooding has, in fact, been presented by credentialed geologists for over fifty years. Is it "easily" measured? Yes, but it is controversial to the mainstream uniformitarian geologic paradigm. Consequently, it has been rejected based on uniformitarian ideology, not lack of evidence. And spare me the "dating sediment layers" business. Dating a rock says NOTHING about whether that rock sediment was moved from here to there by a lot of water in a brief period. Sedimentation evidence, on the other hand, DOES.

According to uniformitarianism, all rock formations, including sedimentary rocks where fossils are found, formed over millions of years.

The fact that land AND MARINE fossils are found on land (not in the oceans) and fossilization mostly occurs in conditions of rapid sedimentation (which introduce anoxic conditions that preserve the shape and favor mineralization of the remains - small insects trapped in amber are an exception to this rule because amber also is an anoxic biochemical trap). IS evidence for global flood(s). Furthermore, it is NOT evidence, as mainstream geology claims, of "shallow seas covering the earth millions of years ago" BECAUSE fossils DO NOT FORM in sea water. The skeletons dissolve UNLESS anoxic conditions and biochemical bacterial decomposition is HALTED.

At the bottom of ALL oceans, no matter how deep OR ANOXIC, bacterial decomposition RECYCLES whale skeletons and anything else smaller. Please don't hairsplit with microscopic phytoplankton fossils and such. That is not evidence for ocean preservation of (above microscopic) marine fossils.

Fossilization is an ANOMALY! The biosphere is DESIGNED to recycle all parts of all life forms. Biological science accepts that! But mainstream geology does not want to admit that OBVIOUS fact BECAUSE their "geologic column" is their "BIBLE"!

The "body of geologic knowledge" Dr. Ross is referring to is selective and proven to be partly erroneous as well.

Dr. Ross obviously does not know or believe that a lot of water, carrying massive amounts of sediment and then receding within days or months, leaves multiple levels of sediment that give the FALSE uniformitarian school geologic paradigm view that it happened over millions of years.

But empirical proof of this is has already been obtained subsequent to the Mount Saint Helens eruption caused lake flood. The Grand Canyon strata is also evidence, hotly debated, that uniformitarians cannot counter with their dating methods. They found a mosquito with detectable, not mineralized blood in its gut. This was in a Grand Canyon area sedimentary rock strata allegedly over 16 million years old. The ROCKS may be that old, but a massive flood could have DEPOSITED them in sedimentary layers 12,500 years ago along with the mosquito. As usual, like the dino soft tissue, it's considered a mosquito that just happened to have preserved hemoglobin for 16 (or more) million years. It's a little too close to Jurassic Park for comfort IF that blood found in the gut from a feeding just before it got crushed was from a "you know what".  LOL

Since the effects of a catastrophic global flood 12,500, or so, ARE measurable to this day (good science is NEVER "easy"; it's always methodical and challenging), Dr. Ross CANNOT  assume or conclude that the flood was local. But he does anyway (see large "body" of "knowledge"). Dr. Ross's conclusion is based on the uniformitarian geology scientific consensus that is controversial, not on scientific evidence. 

The fact that fossils are found intermittently in sedimentary layers on land is evidence of (more than one) global flooding event. Dr. Ross is in denial of the FACT that fossilization is a FUNCTION of rapid sedimentation.

But there is more.


The Carbon-14 identified remains of humans in widely dispersed areas of the globe around the time (and before) of the catastrophic meteor fragment strikes 12,500 years ago argues for global flooding along with the 250 plus flood  "myths" of diverse cultures all over the planet. 

But let's talk Bible for the moment:

Below please find Genesis mentions of "the earth". I am certain that the author of Genesis was not changing his definition of "the earth", equating said expression to the entire planet sometimes and a local area at other times.

DR. Ross, and you, obviously do. I accuse Dr. Ross of using the cherry picking fallacious debating tactic. I accuse Ross of trying to stuff the local flood Procrustean bed into the Genesis account of a worldwide flood.

Putting aside the ancient world wide human remains Carbon-14 evidence, sunken cities pretty far from a local area of about 500 to 1000 miles around Turkey and the 12,500 year old meteor fragment catastrophe/possible breaching of massive underground, rock bound waters/massive volcanic eruptions/massive earthquakes/rapid glacial melt/giant tsunamis/flood for a moment, the Scripture is quite clear that the flood was worldwide.

If you accept that the flood was local, then when the Scripture describes the "whole heaven" in connection to the extent of the flood, I guess you will have to claim the "whole heaven" were local too! That is just one of several glaring logical inconsistencies in trying to squeeze  the "local flood" meme into Genesis. The Paul quote that Dr. Ross cherry picked is not evidence that the flood is local.


Quote
King James Bible
Chapter 7:
3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
14 They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the [size=12]whole heaven[/size], were covered.
21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
Chapter 8:
1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged;
3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.


Agelbert note: Please do not hairsplit with me here by bringing up the flight range of a dove (or a raven) as DEFINING the range of the flood.
That logic ignores all the other mentions of "the earth" quoted here.

Furthermore, any claim that this particular passage is "more significant" than the others, because it inserts the word "whole" in the phrase "the earth", completely ignores the fact that Ross is quite willing to equate the entire planet with "the earth" when he uses the "fill the earth" passage as alleged evidence that humanity AND the flood were area limited. Ross also cleverly forgets to mention the "replenish" verb in Genesis 9:1. How convenient. Ross CANNOT have it both ways.


Quote
13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.
14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.
17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.
19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.
22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Chapter 9:
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

According the Scripture passages above, "THE EARTH" = 

But you are otherwise convinced, so I see no point in discussing it further. I maintain my stance that you and Dr. Ross are wrong. We will have to agree to disagree.

I am done with this thread. Any further posts about strange sh it by me will be on some other thread.  I don't think it is prudent to spend long periods analyzing articles submitted by an allegedly objective party that expects me to diligently do so (your posted verbiage far exceeds mine but you are rather quick to remind me when I miss something  )  while simultaneously the very same allegedly objective party calmly admits he sees no need to watch the videos I post.

Those videos actually save time. The one presented by Az (by  scientist Dr. Robert Schoch that documented Egyptian Sphinx age and ancient high tech with data, not speculation) was a good one too. Yes, one can't put quotes to debate the video claims one by one but that is easily taken care of by recording the time period in seconds a certain quote was made. That is not hard and is quite specific. It saves time typing as well.

But that is, unfortunately for me, not your style. So I end up reading long articles you post, your arguments to me and other posters, and you end up never watching my posted videos.
 
Here's another excellent and informative video by Dr. Robert Schoch. I'm sorry you won't watch it, Ashvin. It's a bit boring but really quite good. Yep, Schoch sells books too.

The Sphinx, Gobekli Tepe, Ancient Catastrophes Dr Robert Schoch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R1TQ6ZiQBI&feature=player_embedded


End of Part 2 od 2 Parts.

Response to Dr. Ross's claim that Noah's Flood was local PART 1 of 2 PARTS
« Last Edit: February 24, 2015, 05:50:10 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #49 on: February 24, 2015, 06:06:24 pm »

(Image Credit: Daily Mail)
A scale model of Noah’s Ark has been built in India according to instructions on a 4,000 year old script.  :o   ???

Noah's Ark Rebuilt According To Ancient Specs 

The vessel, based on the ancient instruction manual, is coracle like, and was built using traditional methods with materials in India.

Built at around one fifth of the original size, the replica would be big enough to carry only some pairs of ‘well behaved animals’, according to Dr Irving Finkel of The British Museum, who first discovered the ancient cuneiform text.

The replicated ark weighed around 20 tonnes, with walls 20 feet high and a small living area on top. It was built as part of the documentary feature being produced called ‘The Real Noah’s Ark’, which is set to air shortly.

Building An Ark

The text describes God speaking to Atram-Hasis, who apparently is the original ‘Noah’ used in the stories that Noah’s Ark was allegedly based upon.

Quote
‘Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall! Atram-Hasis, pay heed to my advice, that you may live forever! Destroy your house, build a boat; despise possessions And save life! Draw out the boat that you will built with a circular design; Let its length and breadth be the same.’

Should be an interesting documentary. Read more here at The Daily Mail, along with some pictures and video.

http://itsastrangeworld.com/noahs-ark-rebuilt-according-ancient-instructions/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #50 on: February 28, 2015, 02:08:12 am »

Stone Age Britons imported wheat in shock sign of sophistication

Agelbert NOTE: That isn't shocking to me.  ;D

Thursday, February 26, 2015  Alister Doyle for Reuters   


OSLO (Reuters) – Stone Age Britons imported wheat about 8,000 years ago in a surprising sign of sophistication for primitive hunter-gatherers long viewed as isolated from European agriculture, a study showed on Thursday.

British scientists found traces of wheat DNA in a Stone Age site off the south coast of England near the Isle of Wight, giving an unexpected sign of contact between ancient hunter-gatherers and farmers who eventually replaced them.

The wheat DNA was dated to 8,000 years ago, 2,000 years before Stone Age people in mainland Britain started growing cereals and 400 years before farming reached what is now northern Germany or France, they wrote in the journal Science.

“We were surprised to find wheat,” co-author Robin Allaby of the University of Warwick told Reuters of finds at Bouldnor Cliff.

“This is a smoking gun of cultural interaction,” between primitive hunter-gatherers in Britain and farmers in Europe, he said of the findings in the journal Science.

“It will upset archaeologists. The conventional view of Britain at the time was that it was cut off,” he said. “We can only speculate how they got wheat — it could have been trade, a gift or stolen.”

The scientists also found DNA of oak, poplar and beech and of dogs or wolves, deer, grouse and auroch, a type of cow. There was no trace of wheat pollen in the samples, indicating that it was not grown locally.

The scientists found the DNA at what was apparently a pre-historic site for boat building. The sediments are now 11.5 meters (38 feet) below sea level.

Britain used to be connected by land to Europe during the Ice Age but melting icecaps pushed seas higher about 10,000 years ago. A land bridge may have lingered 8,000 years ago.

Farming reaching the Balkans about 8-9,000 years ago from the Middle East and eventually spread throughout Europe.

Greger Larson, an American archaeologist at Oxford University who was not involved in the study, praised the experts for extensive checks to ensure against misinterpretation or contamination of DNA.

The find of wheat “will make us re-evaluate the relationships between farmers and hunter-gatherers,” he told Reuters.

He said there has been other signs of contacts, including bones of domesticated pigs in Germany in Stone Age hunter-gatherer settlements. “There are trade networks that pre-date agriculture,” he said.

(Reporting By Alister Doyle)

Read more at http://newsdaily.com/2015/02/stone-age-britons-imported-wheat-in-shock-sign-of-sophistication/#P8lIKQy3SEYOrtdm.99
« Last Edit: January 17, 2020, 05:40:26 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #51 on: June 15, 2015, 01:27:40 am »

Quote
In 536 A.D., the greatest volcanic catastrophe in human history rocked Central America and set off a lethal chain of events, from climate change to famine to the Bubonic plague.

 How could one volcano have such a cataclysmic effect?

Follow experts in environmental hazards as they investigate the eruption that smothered the planet with billions of tons of ash.

Then see how new evidence and theories have shed new light on the apocalyptic disaster that destroyed empires and gave birth to the Dark Ages.

http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/videos/dark-age-volcano/34030?auto=true
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #52 on: August 08, 2015, 03:36:51 pm »
Quote
Archaeologists have discovered a mysterious Stonehenge-style monolith in the deep sea off the coast of Sicily, shedding new light on the earliest civilizations in the Mediterranean basin.

Broken in two parts, the 3.2-foot-long monolith has a rather regular shape and features three holes of similar diameter. One, which can be found at its end, crosses it completely from part to part, the others appear at two sides of the massive stone.

Such features leave no doubt that the monolith was man-made some 10,000 years ago:o

Underwater 'Stonehenge' Monolith Found Off Coast of Sicily
 
 Aug 6, 2015 04:50 PM ET  //  by  Rossella Lorenzi

http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/underwater-stonehenge-monolith-found-off-coast-of-sicily-150806.htm
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #53 on: August 31, 2015, 03:15:28 am »
Million-Dollar Find: Shipwreck's Golden Treasure Includes Very Rare Coin

by Elizabeth Palermo, Associate Editor   |   July 28, 2015 03:56pm ET
The "Tricentennial Royal" coin pictured here was die-cast, unlike most coins minted in the Spanish colonies during the 1700s. Credit: 1715 Fleet Queens Jewels, LLC

 
Treasure hunters off the Florida coast recently pulled up the haul of a lifetime: nearly $1 million worth of gold coins and elaborate gold chains, as well as an extremely rare Spanish coin known as a "Tricentennial Royal."

The treasures were hidden on the seafloor for 300 years before the crew of a salvage vessel brought them to the surface last month, on June 17. The riches were found just 1,000 feet (305 meters) offshore of Fort Pierce, Florida, according to Eric Schmitt, captain of the aptly named salvage vessel, Aarrr Booty, which was used to locate the treasure.

The ships that once carried the valuables set sail from Cuba on July 24, 1715, when the island was a Spanish colony. The ships' mission was to transport the riches below deck to Spain, which at the time was waging a war against France and was desperately in need of money to fund battles. [Shipwrecks Gallery: Secrets of the Deep]

But the ships never made it to Spain. A hurricane off Florida sank all but one of the 12 ships on July 30, 1715. The so-called "1715 Fleet" has been a treasure-hunter's fantasy ever since. In 2010, Brent Brisben and his father, William, obtained permits to explore the wrecks in search of sunken riches.

The lucky haul off Fort Pierce was the work of the entire Schmitt family, which includes Eric and his wife, as well as Eric's sister and parents. The Schmitts were subcontracted to explore the 12 different shipwrecks for Brisben's company (1715 Fleet Queen Jewels, LLC), which owns salvage permits.

Included in Aarrr Booty's recent haul were 51 gold coins and 40 feet of golden chain. But the real treasure salvaged from the deep was the rare Tricentennial Royal, one of very few gold coins minted for King Philip V of Spain, according Schmitt, lead diver of the Aarrr Booty vessel's treasure-hunting expeditions.

The coin is "very round" compared to most coins salvaged from the wrecks, said Schmitt, who told Live Science that the royal coin was die-cast (made by pouring molten gold into a coin mold). Most Colonial coins from this period were made using cruder methods that resulted in less uniform shapes, according to the coin-collecting website Coinquest. The round royal coin, which is about the size of a silver dollar, is worth an estimated $500,000, according to Brent Brisben.

And even though Brisben and Schmitt are excited about the discovery of this precious coin, both remain hopeful that even more treasure lies hidden off Florida. Brisben's company owns the salvage rights to five of the 11 ships that sank on July 30, 1715, he told Live Science. He estimates that $440 million worth of coins and other treasures have yet to be recovered from these centuries-old wrecks.

Among the treasures that are still at large are the elusive queen's jewels, which belonged to Philip V's second wife, Elizabeth Farnese, Duchess of Parma. The elaborate jewels were to be a part of the queen's dowry and were supposed to be brought to Spain by the 1715 Fleet. Because jewelry wasn't a taxable commodity in Spain at the time, details about the jewels weren't entered on any official documents, but a few ornate items were allegedly aboard the fleet when it sank, including a 74-carat emerald ring and 14-carat pearl earrings, according to Brisben.

Follow Elizabeth Palermo @techEpalermo. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Elizabeth Palermo
Elizabeth is an associate editor at Live Science who writes about science and technology. She graduated with a B.A. from the George Washington University. Elizabeth has traveled throughout the Americas, studying political systems and indigenous cultures and teaching English to students of all ages.


http://www.livescience.com/51679-shipwreck-treasure-hunters-gold-coins.html
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #54 on: December 30, 2015, 07:47:13 pm »

Quote
The middle ages: was it really as gruesome as it's commonly portrayed to be?

Daniel Baker, M.A. in European History, George Mason University

3.5k Views •  Daniel has 150+ answers in History.


Daniel is a Most Viewed Writer in Middle Ages.


The shortest answer I can give to this question, is "No, in most respects."  :o There are some ways in which the Middle Ages were as bad as they were commonly portrayed, but mostly they weren't.  I'll use a down-and-dirty definition of the Middle Ages as running from 476-1521 (fall of the last Western Roman Emperor to Luther not getting burned at the Diet of Worms), and blithely ignore all the subtleties and nuances.

No, not as bad as commonly portrayed:  


1.  Witchcraft.  It used to be popularly believed that the Middle Ages were the height of the witchcraft craze.  Not true; for most of the Middle Ages, it was actually heretical to believe in witches, as St. Augustine had said God wouldn't allow witches to exist.  There were a handful of witch executions in the late Middle Ages, but witch hunts didn't really take off until the papacy approved Heinrich Kramer's book Malleus Maleficarum in 1486. The witch hunts were at their worst in the late 16th to early 17th centuries, long after the end of the Middle Ages.

2. Prima nottae/jus primae noctis/droit de seigneur.  I love Braveheart as a movie, but as history it is inaccurate, and in no way is it more inaccurate than in relaunching this old canard. There is not the slightest evidence that medieval aristocrats ever had the legal right to deflower their peasants' brides on their wedding nights. Certainly a baron or his sons might rap e or sexually coerce women on the fief, and there wouldn't be much the victims could do about it in courts controlled by those very same barons, but the lords couldn't have done it openly without getting into trouble with the church and the royal courts.

3.  Bad teeth.  Sure, dental care was primitive in the Middle Ages, but there was a compensating advantage: a very low-sugar diet, which kept tooth decay under control.  People's teeth got much worse after the end of the Middle Ages, when sugar started to flow in from the Caribbean colonies.

4.  Absolute kingship. The popular image of the medieval king as an absolute ruler is a fiction; absolute monarchy is a post-medieval concept of the 16th and 17th centuries.  Medieval monarchs were constantly struggling for control with the church (a struggle they ultimately lost when the church won the right to name bishops and abbots), and with their own nobles (which turned out rather more successfully for the kings). 

5.  Technology.  It was once conventional wisdom that the Middle Ages were a time of technological retrogression.  In fact, most Roman technology was preserved, and lots of new technology was invented or imported: the compass, the moldboard plow, the horse collar, the stirrup, the waterwheel mill and trip-hammer, Arabic numerals, stained glass (brought to a height of perfection that we can't duplicate today), plate armor, and  the longbow.



Yes, as bad as portrayed, but no worse than earlier or later times:

1.  Disease. Yes, the medieval world suffered horribly from bubonic plague, not only in the famous outbreak of 1346, but also the more obscure but equally devastating Plague of Justinian in 541.  And there was the "sweating sickness," still not certainly diagnosed by modern physicians, and many other pestilences.  Against this, all medieval Europe had was Galen and the bogus theory of the humors.  The Muslim world was somewhat better off, since the Muslims had invented hospitals and understood the importance of cleanliness, but without the germ theory of disease even the Muslims were largely helpless against the power of epidemics.  Still, other eras suffered as badly or worse from disease as the Middle Ages; plague may have cost Athens the Peloponnesian Wars, and Roman medicine was no better than the medieval.  Plague continued into the early modern era, and smallpox got worse. And the virgin soil epidemics caused by the European discovery of the Americas dwarfed anything in the Middle Ages. Tetanus, diphtheria, small pox, syphilis, measles, mumps, cholera, typhoid were never ending dangers for which there was no treatment or cure. Slight scratches could easily become septic, and develop into blood poisoning to kill you.

2.  Famine.  When the crops failed, medieval European peasants died in droves - just like Roman peasants, Greek peasants, or early modern European peasants.

3.  Cruel punishments.   Hanging by slow strangulation was a medieval invention, but Roman death penalties were just as bad: crucifixion, impalement, mauling by beasts, and fustuarium (beating to death by cudgels).  Likewise, penalties like piercing the tongue with hot iron, breaking on the wheel, and hanging continued long past the end of the Middle Ages.

As bad or worse than portrayed: 

1.  Outside raids and invasions. It wasn't just the Vikings, who have a stranglehold on popular imagination: it was also the Alans, the Avars, the Bulgars, the Arabs, the Magyars, the Turks, and the Mongols.  The Romans had been pretty successful in keeping their borders secure, and while early modern Europe was rent with internal war, it had little to fear from outside invasion.

2.  Illiteracy.  The Middle Ages were the least literate period in European history since the Greek Dark Age  Yes, the German tribes had always been illiterate, but with the Middle Ages they helped make illiteracy the normal state of the ruling class in Christian Spain,  France, Britain, Italy, and the Balkans.  The ordinary Roman was illiterate too, but the upper crust was expected to read and write; that ceased to be true by the 800s.  Writing from the early Middle Ages is even more fragmentary than records from Rome, even though the Roman records are older.  Coming to Islamic Toledo, Gerard of Cremona himself remarked on the "poverty of the Latins" in books as compared to the Muslims.  The printing press, in turn, made the early modern period much more literate than medieval times.

3.  No road building.  The medievals seem to have relied mainly on Roman roads for land transport throughout the era. This was not because the technology had been lost, but because access to huge amounts of slave labor had been lost.   

4.  Crazy judicial methods. There may not have been much to choose from between Roman punishments and medieval ones, but at least the Romans had fairly sane methods of trial, without any oath-helpers, trials by ordeal of iron or water, or trials by combat.  While the frequency of these medieval judicial methods is somewhat exaggerated in the popular press (I read a pipe roll from King John of England's reign that had only one trial by combat and no ordeals out of several dozen judgments), the very fact that they were significant at all made the Middle Ages worse than the Roman or early modern periods.

https://www.quora.com/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #55 on: April 19, 2016, 04:25:28 pm »
A tale of lust and intrigue, of bribery and seduction.


Greedy, immoral human behavior is certainly not a recent phenomenon; it just has more 'leverage' now than several centuries ago. From making money off of parts of Saint bodies to stirring up people to "defend" a "sacred" place, it's always been about empathy deficit disordered, opportunistic individuals motivated by greed and power. They used then, as they do today (with a bit more nuance), an Orwellian interpretation of the Christ's teachings to "justify" it all. The fig leaf of "doing God's work" has ALWAYS been used to do EVIL.   


If you read what a certain French Cistercian Monk wrote on "Penitential Warfare"    in an effort to stir up a "holy" army to go down to Jerusalem and kick "infidel" ass, you can see EXACT propaganda parallels with the recent "Clash of Civilizations/War on Terror Arabs" BULLSHIT.  >:(   




And the atheists have the unadulterated gall to blame Jesus Christ for all this!

« Last Edit: April 19, 2016, 06:07:32 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #56 on: May 23, 2016, 02:28:35 pm »

Divers Find Roman-era Sunken Treasure in Shipwreck Off Israel

SNIPPET:

Divers in the Eastern Mediterranean last month came across a treasure trove of sunken artifacts dating back to the Roman Empire, finding remarkably well-preserved metal figures, statues, lamps and coins.

The treasure was submerged 1,600 years ago when the cargo ship it was on, taking the metal items to melt and recycle  :o  ;D, sank in the harbor of the ancient Roman port city of Caesarea, which is today part of Israel's Caesarea National Park. A layer of fine sand covered the artifacts, which helped protect the statues, leading authorities to say they looked as if they were cast yesterday.


 
http://now.howstuffworks.com/2016/05/17/roman-empire-caesarea-treasure-shipwreck-israel
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #57 on: November 03, 2016, 02:59:06 pm »
Have Ancient Monuments Always Been Protected?


It’s always sad to see visitors deface important monuments, and now most governments do their best to preserve their cultural heritage. At Stonehenge in England, tourists can no longer get near the stone monoliths -- they’ve been roped off and off-limits to visitors since 1977, to keep vandals from climbing on them, or chipping off hunks of stone to take home. However, taking a stone souvenir was actually encouraged before 1900 -- visitors were even given chisels when they arrived at the site so they could have a bit of Stonehenge for themselves.

Protected thousands of years later:

•Stonehenge landowner Sir Edmund Antrobus decided that the 5,000-year-old monument needed to be protected and petitioned for the help-yourself practice to be outlawed in 1900.

•Throughout the Victorian period, Stonehenge was a popular gathering place. More than 3,000 people would assemble at the summer solstice each year to watch the sun rise over the Heel Stone.

•Stonehenge was substantially restored in the early 20th century, when stones that had become wobbly were straightened, and then set in concrete.

http://www.wisegeek.com/have-ancient-monuments-always-been-protected.htm
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #58 on: January 06, 2017, 01:49:47 pm »

How Did the Aztecs Feel about Alcohol?   

The Aztecs did not tolerate crime or misbehavior in their society. Numerous offenses were punishable by death in the Aztec legal system, including homicide, perjury, robbery, destruction of crops, witchcraft, and even public drunkenness -- but only for younger offenders. Aztec elders could consume as much alcohol as they wished. The Aztecs' tipple of choice was pulque, a mildly alcoholic drink made from the fermented sap of the maguey plant. In the Aztec language, it was known as octli. The beverage's potency could be increased by adding certain roots and herbs.

Matters of life and death:

•Capital punishment could be carried out in a number of different ways, including hanging, stoning, beheading, disembowelment, burning, and quartering. If the victim chose to forgive the perpetrator, the death sentence could be vacated, and the perpetrator would become a slave of the victim’s family.

•Adultery was also a capital offense. Men were punished for adultery only if they had relations with a married woman. Married women were considered guilty regardless of the circumstances.

•The children of Aztec nobility could be sentenced to death if they were disrespectful, cowardly, or wasteful.

http://www.wisegeek.com/did-people-in-ancient-civilizations-drink-alcohol.htm
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Lost Cities and Civilizations
« Reply #59 on: April 11, 2017, 04:51:28 pm »
 

Found: oldest settlement in North America, confirms local tribe history

Mihai Andrei April 10, 2017
 
When Alisha Gauvreau, an anthropology PhD student at the University of Victoria started excavating a rocky spit on Triquet Island, some 500 kilometers northwest of Victoria, she didn’t really know what to expect, but this definitely surpassed even her most ambitious expectations.

The first North American settlers might have arrived on the coast and not on a frozen land bridge through Siberia  :o, as was previously believed. Image via Wikipedia

The archaeological team patiently dug and then sifted through meters upon meters of soil and peat, before they finally found something interesting: the charred remains of an ancient hearth. As it so often happens, that’s just the start of interesting things. Not long after that, Gauvreau and collaborators found a trove of items, including tools for lighting fires, fish hooks, and spears, all dating back from 14,000 years ago.

Quote

“I remember when we get the dates back and we just kind of sat there going, holy moly, this is old,” said Gauvreau.“What this is doing is just changing our idea of the way in which North America was first peopled.”

The findings tell an interesting story, that of an early migration occurring on British Columbia’s ancient coastline, and challenges some of the most widely-held beliefs about humans migrating to North America. The classic story is that humans arrived some 13,000 or 14,000 years ago, crossing a land bridge that connected modern-day Siberia to Alaska. But more and more research is starting to challenge that belief. The challenging theory is that people arrived on the coast, settling down on a coastal strip of land that did not freeze during the ice age. In a radio interview with the CBC, Gauvreau says that her research adds significant weight to that idea.

Quote
“[A]rchaeologists had long thought that … the coast would have been completely uninhabitable and impassible when that is very clearly not the case,” she explains.

To make things even more interesting, these findings support the ancient, oral, histories of aboriginals. The Heiltsuk people are the descendants of a number of tribal groups who came together Bella in the 19th century. For countless generations, Heiltsuk First Nation elders have told the story about how their ancestors arrived in the area, on the coast.


Quote
“{I}t reaffirms a lot of the history that our people have been talking about for thousands of years,” William Housty, a member of Heiltsuk Nation, proudly stated.

Now, anthropologists and archaeologists want to explore more of the coast and the coastal islands, to further document how the migration happened.

http://www.zmescience.com/science/archaeology/oldest-settlement-north-america-10042017/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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