PS: Gen 8:2 does NOT say "the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep
ceased." It says "The fountains of the deep were closed." The fountains were
opened ("broke up") on the first day of the Flood just as the windows of
heaven were opened on the first day of the Flood. There is _no continuing
action_ of opening (breaking up) the fountains of the deep any more than
there is a continuing action of opening up the windows of heaven. It all
occurs in one day, "on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day were
all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were
opened." Once opened, they both stayed open until in Gen 8:2 they were both
closed. If you are going to split continents apart based on Gen 7:11, you are
going to have to do it in one day or rewrite the Bible. And at the time of
Gen 8:2, you are going to have to pull the continents all back together again
because in 8:2 they are closed back up.
AR: No continuity of action? 7:11 says, "were ... broken up, ... were opened." We find that "were" is to exist, be, become. 7:11 then becomes "to exist ... to cleave, ... to exist to open wide." Thus to cleave is to exist and to open wide is to exist, or to exist cleaving and to exist opening. This implies continuity, not just a single event on one day. In 8:2, "were closed" is "to exist to shut up." Thus, to shut up is to exist. or to be in the state of being shut. This implies the continuity of being shut up. Therefore, to say that the breaking up continued until the action ceased is entirely acceptable.
[7:11, "The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." can become, "That same day to exist the whole reservoir of the great deep to cleave, and to exist the lattice of the sky to open wide." 8:2, "The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped," can become, "Both, the reservoirs of the deep and the lattice of heaven to exist to shut up." ]
PS: You are taking the verses out of their historical and biblical context.
Both in Mesopotamia and in Canaan there is clear evidence that the sea below
was understood to come up and out of earthly fountains to provide water for
agriculture. Weinfeld shows this very clearly in his paper, "Gen 7:11, 8:1,2
Against the Background of Ancient Near Eastern Tradition [Die Welt des
Orients 9 (1978) 242-248]. The Ugaritic lines in Aqhat C:1:45, 46 parallel
Deut 33:13, saying of a drought: "No dew. No rain. No welling up of the
Deep."
AR: Since this was written by Moses and not by redactors under slavish influence of the surrounding cultures, I find this irrelevant.
Thus, the LXX translates Deut 33:13 "deeps of
fountains," obviously not thinking of the Mediterranean or Galilean sea.
AR: The LXX is one of the lest reliable translations of the Bible, highly influenced by the Greek culture and philosophy of the time it was translated.
Thus, Ezekiel 31:3, 4 speaking of a cedar tree says, "The waters nourished
it, the deep (Tehom) made it to grow…" This is clearly the ocean beneath the
earth. No one would say of a tree either then or now that "the Mediterranean
or Gallilean sea made it to grow."
AR: This is symbolic and metaphoric poetry. One would hardly expect to find the real meaning of Tehom here.
Similarly, Deut 8:7 speaks of Palestine as
"a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs (plural tehom), flowing
forth in valleys and hills." The springs fed by the tehom below the earth are
so closely associated with the tehom they are called "tehoms." This is
certainly not a reference to the Mediterranean and Galilean seas.
AR: 8:7, KJV "...a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills:" This can just as well read "... of brooks of water, of fountains and rivers/lakes that spring out of valleys and hills." Tehom can be any deep place, not just seas and oceans. So, it is very likely a reference to the Jordan river and Galilee and Dead Seas which it connects.
PS: The understanding of Gen 7:11 as referring to the opening of earthly
springs goes back to the earliest Jewish literature we have. Genesis Rabbah
for example, comments about Gen 8:2 that since not _all_ the fountains are
explicitly mentioned as being closed, some must have remained open. It then
asks, which remained open and answers "the great well...and the cavern spring
of Paneas." Obviously fountains on the earth, not under the sea. (Parashah
33:4:1C)
AR: What was Jesus opinion of the Jewish writings other than the Bible? Matt15:3, 6, 9 "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? ... Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. ... They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men." I would not put much faith in the correctness of this Jewish commentary because it is likely influenced by the culture in which it was written.
PS: I don't know what Bible you are reading, but Gen 8:21 says absolutely
nothing about the waters crossing a boundary, much less that they will
"never again" do it. Prov 8:29 and Job 38:10, 11, on the other hand, are
about the creation week and they say that at that time God set a limit or
boundary for the sea that it might not transgress. As for your logical
conundrum, Ps 104:5 says, the foundations of the earth were laid so that "it
should not be moved for ever." If this is as rigidly binding as you want Ps
104:9 to be, then Rev 20:11 can never take place.
AR: Let's see if we can put 2 and 2 together. 8:21 "... never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done." What is it that God had just done? He has just destroyed all land life, "every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle ... (etc.)" 7:23, with a flood where, "the waters prevailed upon the earth ..." 7:24. If the waters had "prevailed upon the earth" and "all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered" 7: then they had not remained at the boundary that they could not cross. So when we read in Ps. 104:9 that "the waters are set at a boundary that they cannot cross, never again will they cover the earth," we can see a reference to the end of the Flood which God would never again use to destroy all living creatures.
AR: I see. You were there so you know what the words ment to the ancients.
What you mean is that you think the ancients believed a certain way so that
you can sit back and gloat about how much more intelligent and smart you are.
PS: What I mean is that there is plenty of ancient Near Eastern and Jewish
literature to tell us what the words meant, and we ought to use that
information to interpret the OT since it is an ancient Near Eastern book.
What creation science does is ignore those meanings and impose modern
meanings upon the text, thus effectually rewriting the Bible to fit the
theory.
AR: I agree, as long as it does not nullify plain teaching elsewhere in the Bible. The other literature ought to be judged by the Bible, not the other way around. You cannot impose the beliefs of Near Eastern cultures upon the Bible either. You have to look for what the Bible says itself, using the Bible to interpret the Bible. As I mentioned above, Jesus ignored the false teachings of other Jewish literature/traditions because it did not teach what the Bible actually taught. How much more critical should we be of non-Jewish literature of the time.
PS: Only a superficial study would think otherwise. In 1 Kings 18:5 Ahab
tells Obadiah to "Go through the land, unto all the fountains (Ma'yan) of
water, and unto all the brooks: peradventure we may find grass and save the
horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts." Obviously in those
circumstances, "ma'yan" refers to numerous fountains and springs, and I might
note they are all on the earth, not under the sea.
AR: The text can just as easily read, "Go through the land to all the reservoirs and valleys." (NIV). The brook Kherith had dried up by then, so it is very likely that Ahab was desperately looking for any kind of ponds of water anywhere that might still have water in them. Springs, per se, may very well have completely dried up as had the brooks. A reservoir is a reservoir anywhere, whether on land or whether holding the seas.
PS: Gerhard Hasel was a firm believer in a global flood and would not admit the
Bible represents the earth as floating on an ocean, but in his paper, "The
Fountains of the Deep" [Origins (1974) 1(2):67-72] he shows himself too well
informed to distort the meaning of "the fountains of the deep." He said at
the end of the paper, "Accordingly, the whole clause 'all the fountains of
the great deep burst forth' may be taken to refer to the fountains, which in
normal times furnished sufficient water for the needs of men and animals and
the irrigation of the fields...[and] refers to the splitting open of springs
of subterranean waters..."
AR: Hasel did not do a study of the use of the word 'fountain' in the Bible and so his analysis is flawed.
Allen
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