1 Timothy 6:10 KJV – 10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
Genesis 6:14-16 KJV – 14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. 15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. 16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.
Boat or Box
The word for “ark” (Hebrew: תֵּבָה) means box. It doesn’t mean “boat”, which would be אֳנִיָּה.
There were no sails. There were no oars. There was a window, a door, and rooms on three stories inside. It was 300 cubits long. It was 50 cubits wide. It was 30 cubits high. It was a box. It was not built to go anywhere. It was built to float until it grounded after the flood waters retreated.
Many folk think that the global flood never happened. Many folk think the Bible repeated tales that were already well known. Many folk think all kinds of stuff.
The global flood occurred. The biblical account is accurate. Walt Brown offered the hydroplate theory describing what happened during the flood. One can read his book, In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, at the Creation Science Center. I find it compelling, although not all creationists do.
So When Did the Flood Occur?
Based on his textual reconstruction of the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies, Henry B. Smith, Jr. estimates it occurred in 3298 BC.
Walt Brown estimates the flood occurred in 3290 BC based on the orbits of the comets Halley and Swift-Tuttle. See pages 580-583 of In the Beginning.
Based on Dodwell’s obliquity of the ecliptic data, John Hartnett estimates it occurred in 3154 ± 191 BC.
Those estimates put creation at about 7600 years ago. This clearly conflicts with the 6000 year age of the Earth in the James Ussher chronology. Although I think this longer biblical chronology is more accurate, not all creationists agree.
What Is Your Biblical Chronology?
I know of no one who agrees with me on every point of this biblical chronology. If you don’t, you are one among everyone else.
That’s not Noah’s Ark. It’s a big boat leaving Miami. Noah had nowhere to go. He was waiting for the floating to stop, the dry land to appear, and the Lord to tell him to get out of the Ark.
During the Age of Mistaken Mythology, while Gabriel, Brian, and Edgar were eating, Brian asked Edgar, “What if the Earth were flat like this pizza…”
Gravity would pull the edges towards the center. Not knowing what to do with all the stuff gravity forced it to hold, the center would puff out. In no time, you’d have a big, beautiful ball.
Brian said, “I was going to ask, ‘How would it taste?'”
Isaiah 40:22 NKJV It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
One day while minding my own business Ryan told me that with AI super intelligence humanity had finally grown up, but the hoi polloi, myself included, were still living like ignorant nincompoops. I told him he had his AI head screwed on backwards.
Over the years, however, something happened to Ryan. One day he told me like a kid bubbling over that the hoi polloi, myself excluded this time, had it right all along!
Then all I heard him say was Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! as he lifted his eyes. I knew he was still having trouble getting his head screwed on straight, but this time I almost wished someone would snap my head on the way Someone must have done his.
Once upon a time in the really good old days the tooth fairy fooled tiny tots into thinking she was the one who left the pennies, and as inflation increased, the nickels, the dimes, the quarters and then even a dollar(!) under their pillows in exchange for their fallen out teeth. This was an easy job since the children’s own parents came up with the coins, made the argument and then let her take all the credit.
However, the day came – as inevitably it would – when children stopped believing (and/or parents stopped telling) tales that a tooth fairy might really want their teeth so she began to do odd jobs on the side. There were many opportunities, but she had to pretend to be someone (or something) other than who (or what) she really was which annoyed her.
But work is work and you have to do what you have to do which now included gigs where she played the last universal common ancestor, the big bang, deep dark matter, the mysterious multiverse or God knows what nonsense next. She had no clue what any of this stuff was, but as long as the children knew, since children normally knew quite well what they were told to know, she was as happy as any tooth fairy could be, so happy, in fact, that she decided she might as well – whether she deserved it or not and most likely she didn’t – live happily ever after.
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Denise offers the prompt word “stop” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
I went back to the Six Sentence Cafe & Bistro and found the tall, thin man setting the automaton up in the foyer as Doctor Zoltan Mystic and Seer who apparently could answer any question for 25 cents though he specialized in fortunes.
Finding a quarter in my pocket, I asked Zoltan, “What does a poem consist of?” and Zoltan raised up a card upon which I read: RHYME, METER AND HEART, BUT YOU BETTER USE THE PROMPT WORD FOIL SOMEWHERE IN THIS TALL TALE OF YOURS BEFORE YOU RUN OUT OF SENTENCES.
Wow, I thought, that was a more accurate answer than AI would have given me.
Perhaps reading my mind Zoltan gratuitously raised up another card upon which I read: I CAN EVEN WRITE THAT POEM FOR YOU AND FAKE THE HEART JUST LIKE YOU WOULD.
Wondering now if he was any better than AI, I inserted another quarter to ask him if he ever ran out of cardboard stock upon which he wrote those messages.
Up popped another card which read: HOW WOULD I KNOW?
Denise offers the prompt word “foil” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Jeff asked the gent who greeted him, Is this heaven or the other place? The gent searched for Jeff in the quantum computer and up popped a document giving full details of Jeff’s judgment.
So which is it?
Jeff was prepared to argue that he had been as good as the next guy ever could have been to foil any attempt to send him to that other place. After reading the details of the judgment the gent turned to Jeff with a welcoming smile.
It says right here that you have been assigned a room in a decent-enough-for-you mansion to be shared with all your exes and their exes and their exes’ exes and those exes’ exes’ exes and so on, so you tell me where you are.
Oh, there once was some nothing that said, “I am nothing, just something you’ve read or you’ve heard. That is all and my tales are tall, but with nothing your minds have been fed.”
During the homily Father Thomas said that if you want to see God make sure you have a pure heart. William, a freshman in high school, didn’t like it when Aunt Cecelia poked him from the pew behind them when it looked like he wasn’t paying attention, which he often wasn’t, as she did just then.
After Mass as Father Thomas stood at the entrance of the church ready to shake hands and chat with anyone who was not trying to rush out unnoticed William stopped to ask, Father Thomas, can we see God if we look at someone whose heart is pure? Father Thomas thought and then answered, Those pure in heart may be the main way that God lets those with impure hearts get a peek at what they’re missing.
Outside William’s parents – surprised by their son’s sudden interest in such matters – and Aunt Cecelia – who realized her nephew was getting a little too old to poke – felt it best not to say anything further.
Years later recalling Father Thomas after admitting decades of mistakes, William got the peek at what he was missing that he had been promised when he finally opened his eyes.
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Denise offers the prompt word “rush” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
I am grateful to Greg Doles for posting this song along with many other songs by The Porter’s Gate on his blog, Chasing Light.
