[Aptorian]

Not really, I guess if you went about googling and checking wiki you might be able to catch some discussions on stuff not included in the bible.

[frookenhauer]

Yeah, I will have a look, I was hoping for the easy option, Its hard enough deciphering the basic text, oh well, nothing good was ever easy

[Vicodin&FantasyBooks]

Frook if you are a 'fan' of the serpent you should read John Milton's Paradise Lost.

]Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books; a second edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve books (in the manner of the division of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification. The poem concerns the Judeo-Christian story of the Fall of Man; the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men" and elucidate the conflict between God's eternal foresight and free will.

Some commentators regard the character of Satan as a precursor of the Byronic hero.[3]

Milton worked for Oliver Cromwell and the Parliament of England and thus wrote first-hand for the Commonwealth of England. Arguably, the failed rebellion and reinstallation of the monarchy left him to explore his losses within Paradise Lost. Some commentators such as the artist and poet William Blake say that he sympathized with Satan in this work, in that both he and Satan had experienced a failed cause.[citation needed]

...

From memory:

"he[Satan] stood there on the edge of that inflamed sea and called his legions - angel forms thick as autumnal lieves that stray the brooks of VALLAMBROSA where the ETHRURIAN shades high overarched IMBOWR... or scattered sedge afloat.."

If you though the Bible is a toughtie to read get a hold of that one.

PP: And for further reference try to keep in mind that ideas based on simple analogy, reactionism or otherwise may seem novel to you but if you haven't really put a lot of thought in them, then they've probably been realized and developed much better by someone else before you. So try to do a little more research and enjoy the marvels of human culture alongside their true inventors. In other words you've only just stumbled upon the tip of the ice-berg and the fun stuff is yet to reveal itself.

Keep on reading.

PPP: Oh and the creation starts with adults and not children to stress on the fact that we are not God's children so much as we're His creations. To say it otherwise we're not entitled to unconditional love but more so we should earn the right in this life to call ourselves His offspring.

I'm afraid it has nothing to do with children embarrassing themselves and God through being mischievous.

This post has been edited by Vicodin&FantasyBooks: 03 November 2008 - 05:52 PM

[Terez]

Frookie, you need the book of Enoch, ftw. Google it - you can find the full text. It's one of the books that was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (along with almost every book of the Old Testament, showing that the versions we had at that time had not been corrupted at all in the 2000 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were written).

Anyway, the Book of Enoch was very popular among early Christians, and obviously accepted by many of the old Jews as being part of the Word.

If you read it, you'll see why the early Roman Catholics threw it out.

[frookenhauer]

Hey Vicodin! Hows it going with the taking language to bed scenario? Thanks for the input, I will in fact have a look at the whole Milton paradise lost => Byron hero. It sounds intriguing and might even raise my game . As for my expose on Genesis...Funny thing is, most of us agnostics and infidels have never really bothered to pick up the book. I'm actually finding it fascinating and worth sharing. Whether my own observations are worth sharing is up to the reader. And if brings up important and interesting reading for us, then its a good thing, no? (BTW I'm not being altruistic, this is fun )

Hi Terez, I was doing some reading on the dead sea scrolls earlier, but had not got to the Enoch book. Cheers! I'll have a look see. I was following up from the Lilith conundrum.

About Lilith. Shes proper old and some goddess from ancient mesopotamia, her relevance to the bible must have happened when the children of Israel were 'guests' of the Babylonians and she became known as a night demon in Jewish lore...She really came to light around the 10th century with paintings and stories and has generally been regarded as a baby killer and bearer of diseases. This is the stuff wiki has to say about lilith. Interesting stuff and what an utterly charming lady

[Terez]

The Book of Enoch expands on some stuff in Genesis about angels who mated with humans.

[frookenhauer]

Awesome! Biblical pr0n! Or is it going to be more of this 'knew' and 'begot' stuff...

[frookenhauer]

I'm going to have to wait till the weekend to do Milton and the dead sea scrolls stuff (which sounds totally awesome, because during the week time is money...Grah!) But in the meantime Genesis hads reached the time of Noah, Its about 1600 years after God created the 1st man (Adam) and things aren't quite going along according to Gods plan...

Chapter 6:

Quote

1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose. 3 And the LORD said: 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for that he also is flesh; therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.' 4 The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. {P}

5 And the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. 7 And the LORD said: 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.' 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. {P}

9 These are the generations of Noah. Noah was in his generations a man righteous and whole-hearted; Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11 And the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God saw the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. {S} 13 And God said unto Noah: 'The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; with rooms shalt thou make the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. 15 And this is how thou shalt make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. 16 A light shalt thou make to the ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it upward; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. 17 And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; every thing that is in the earth shall perish. 18 But I will establish My covenant with thee; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. 20 Of the fowl after their kind, and of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. 21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.' 22 Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

Sooo...God decides that its time that man didn't spend so much time alive, grossly unfair and why? Apart from the weird idea that your go juice is only viable after you hit the century, I would be quite happy to live up to a 1000 years, even 120 is a nice batting average, did that mean the go juice only became available in your 40s...40 year old virgins hahaha, sorry. Bugger knows what them nephilim were, possibly giants, possibly elves, dwarfs...And some potentially weird incest stuff as well. The sons of God are men and men began to multiply and bore daughters and whomsoever they chose....sounds pretty disgusting, but things were a little different back then, God was always available for a chat and admonishments.

Anyway god is pissed with all the wickedness that he sees, and even though he's perfect and we are made in his image and therefore perfect too, he's made a mistake with people, which kind of goes against the whole perfection thing, but never mind...He's pissed at everyone except Noah, Noah is fine and so are his immediate peeps. His father and grandfather who are still kicking about are in deep sh...water, but he's okay, how odd. So god commandeth the making of the Ark and he's pretty specific too . A cubit is roughly 45 cm, lets round it up to 0.5 m for accuracy. It was apparently the length from the elbow to the fingers, anyway...so the ark is 150 meters long, 25 meters wide and 15 meters high, in a word...WOW! That's a forest of Gopher wood, whatever that is, no-one is really sure what gopher wood is, but it must have some awesome tensile strength, cos that ship is big, not big enough to manage all of Earths' animals, but still plenty big (maybe they used up all of the earths gopher wood...even then sustainability was not really thought about...). And its funny how God omitted the fact that when talking about insects there is a completely different reproductive system, so no ants/bees aboard the good ship Ark. Now its getting silly, he wants to make sure there are enough provisions for all the animals as well, fools, there is not enough room! It must have been survival of the fittest in there when they ran out of food in the first week...

You got to laugh really, these ancient people really just didn't have a clue...So him and his three sons are building the worlds biggest ship, longer than and almost as wide as a football pitch. 3 stories of Zoo, how long did that take em? Its a good thing they get to live to a long age...Hold on, I get it, the people started going wild when god told them that they would no longer live to the grand old age of 900+. Its kind of like being told you have only weeks to live...you know the usual, run up a huge credit card bill, go to a loan shark etc, buy a Porche, start a war, you know...the fun stuff.

This post has been edited by frookenhauer: 07 November 2008 - 12:02 AM

[SiriusL]

You ought to look up Utnapishtim, if you haven't already read Gilgamesh. He's remarkably similar to Noah.

One has to wonder if Noah felt kind of bad. I mean, surely there wree some other people that weren't entirely wicked that he would have wanted to bring to his boat. Then there's the whole thing with Ham and seeing his drunk, naked father and thus being condemned. WTF is up with that?

[frookenhauer]

I'll add Gilgamesh to my list for this weekend. As for the Ham debacle, I'm going to comment on it when we get there, but suffice to say, its not really fair for the confused young man who loves his father and wants to kill his mother...

Oh and Noah's grandfather was definitely dead by the time Noah got round to constructing the Ark. His pops was still about possibly...chasing tail and murdering and the like, cos there's no space for the dude on board...

[Terez]

Frookie why did you change your name?

And I think you skipped over the part in Genesis about mating with angels or whatever they were.

Genesis Chapter 6 said:

1 When men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, "My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.

You can find all sorts of different ideas about who the Nephilim are. But many don't take into account the book of Enoch, which discusses it also, because Enoch is not in the canon. Jesus quotes the book of Enoch, though (in the canon), and it was popular among early Christians, before the Romans took over.

Enoch Chapter 6 said:

CHAPTER VI.

1. And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. 2. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.' 3. And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said unto them: 'I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' 4. And they all answered

p. 35

him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.' 5. Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. 6. And they were in all two hundred; who descended ⌈in the days⌉ of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. 7. And these are the names of their leaders: Sêmîazâz, their leader, Arâkîba, Râmêêl, Kôkabîêl, Tâmîêl, Râmîêl, Dânêl, Êzêqêêl, Barâqîjâl, Asâêl, Armârôs, Batârêl, Anânêl, Zaqîêl, Samsâpêêl, Satarêl, Tûrêl, Jômjâêl, Sariêl. 8. These are their chiefs of tens.

[frookenhauer]

Hey Terez, its just a temporary thing....Rodeo posted something in the inn that needed, no begged a reply from Vader himself, so I stepped into the breach. Its on that legendary or interesting relatives thingy...BTW normal service will be resumed tomorrow...By your command and all that

It looks like the sons of god were the angels...That explains a lot, so would Nephilim be the children of the angel + humans possibly? I assumed the author meant the sons of god were the direct male line descendants of Adam, To get more accuracy I might have to superimpose the Enoch & Dead Sea scrolls knowledge over the genesis and see what comes up. Weekends almost here, so...Also the whole idea of Angels running amok is probably one of the reasons that Enoch got shunted, possibly. Its such a shame that we can't lend credence to stuff that's written in the past, but its all good fun anyway Cheers Terez.

[Terez]

Enoch=Dead Sea Scrolls

I can't think of much else that was in the Scrolls other than the rules of the Qumran community. But then, I'm not an expert.

Oh, and I think the Nephilim were the angels.

This post has been edited by Terez: 07 November 2008 - 04:38 AM

[frookenhauer]

The dead sea scrolls are fragmented quite badly and so is all the research on them. I just find bits and pieces here and there. Would you mind pointing out a decent portal for info Terez? Cheers lass. As for Milton, no one told me it was one of them epic poems...Paradise lost is going on the back burner for the moment, its ginormous.

The more I read about the Nephilim, the more I'm convinced they are the offspring of Angels, but if anyone comes up with alternate ideas, I'm keeping the door open...

Okay people check your safety harnesses and make sure the strap on your life jacket is fastened. Its time...

Chapter 7

Quote

1 And the LORD said unto Noah: 'Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation. 2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, each with his mate; and of the beasts that are not clean two [and two], each with his mate; 3 of the fowl also of the air, seven and seven, male and 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 blot out from off the face of the earth.' 5 And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him. 6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. 7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the ground, 9 there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, male and female, as God commanded Noah. 10 And it came to pass after the seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, 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. 12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; 14 they, and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after its kind, and every fowl after its kind, every bird of every sort. 15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life. 16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God commanded him; and the LORD shut him in. 17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. 18 And the waters prevailed, and 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 mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered. 20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. 21 And all flesh perished that moved upon the earth, both fowl, and cattle, and beast, and every swarming thing that swarmeth upon the earth, and every man; 22 all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, whatsoever was in the dry land, died. 23 And He blotted out every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping thing, and fowl of the heaven; and they were blotted out from the earth; and Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.

Its funny I had an argument with Gem about this section of the bible (see the Alien thread), she was emphatic that all the people were warned beforehand that if they never changed their ways, things would come a pouring down. That's funny, it just looks like God had a look round, got angry, cried a bit and decided that it was time to wipe the whole lot of it out, with prejudice. Hold on one goddamn cotton picking moment, I though it was two by two, but the Ark is now fit to burst because the clean animals have 7 pairs and the not clean??? have 2 pairs. There is no way that the Ark has enough cubit space for all of it, we're a couple of thousands cubits short to manage such a feat. Maybe they hired some space from the Tardis or something, whatever. "We're going to need a bigger boat!"

Anyway it rained and rained for 40 days and nights and it rained so much that the tallest mountains were underwater too (Ha! I love it when they add this accuracy to things) which is pretty amazing because according to some projections (One of them TV program thingies, google for accuracy ) if all the ice melted in the world and the seas rose, it would barely rise by more than a dozen or so meters, which is bad, but not in the drowning mountain zone. So anyway, the Earth is scoured clean and it takes 150 days for the waters to subside, which is handy cos that Ark must have been full to the rafters with animal shite. I'm willing to bet that no one could be bothered to clean up with all that heaving and tossing.

Wow...Total annihilation. If you think about it, its awful, but some people just shrug their shoulders and say: "They deserved it." I beg to differ. If this actually happened, it would have been the ultimate crime...

[teholbeddict]

I guess God must have provided them with some super effective disinfectant/cleaning agent to swab the deck. All that time on that boat with all the waste from all those animals could lead to some interesting results!

This post has been edited by teholbeddict: 08 November 2008 - 03:54 AM

[Vicodin&FantasyBooks]

frookenhauer, on Nov 8 2008, 04:28 AM, said:

Wow...Total annihilation. If you think about it, its awful, but some people just shrug their shoulders and say: "They deserved it." I beg to differ. If this actually happened, it would have been the ultimate crime...

Some people believe that a couple thousand and more years ago the Bossphorus straight was closed and what is now the Black Sea was a plane inhabited with people. When at some point the straight got shaken by an earthquake the likes of which are not uncommon in modern day Turkey it burst open and the Mediteranian Sea spilled out to form the Black Sea.

Some empirical proof for that is the fact that the Black Sea is essentially a 'dead' sea in itself. Bellow 20 meters there is no life and the water is saturated with nitrogen. This goes to show that it was not a sea originally and some formations such as observed beach-like structures under 50 meters also suggest that it has risen significantly from what it's level used to be beforehand.

Now for a farmer in the third or fourth century BC to watch his fields flooded in a matter of days and then the water rising for several years would have made a great impression on that person's folklore. After that it's natural that things could have gotten a bit dramatic making several years into 40 days (or whatever) and adding a great storm to represent the wrath of God.

One time too many I have to overstate here that it doesn't matter if the stories are historically correct but what matters is the meaning they transcend for the cultures of past ages that created them.

Now this story is a particularly good example of that because it's partially based on truth and thus you might be for once compelled to sympathize with those people rather than scientifically dismantle the myths that kept their lives going. Just this one time, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. : )

This post has been edited by Vicodin&FantasyBooks: 09 November 2008 - 05:23 PM

[frookenhauer]

Heavenly sent Domestos: super duper cleaning power, cuts through shite like a sharp sword and leaves the deck shiny and new, if you buy 2 you get the third free, limited offer...Like it Tehol

I'm sorry Vicodin, farmers don't write religious books, they're too busy raising animals and ploughing fields and whatnot. Religious books are the domain of priests...And there is a Titanic difference between the steady flooding of an area of land and the claim that the Earth was scoured clean, drowned completely, leaving only a big boat and its occupants to survive.

In trying to defend the bible you are doing pretty much what Milton did, you are of the Devils party. The Bible is Gospel, it is the Truth, the book of God. People swear by it because of the truth contained therein. You are saying its just a bunch of folk tales that should not be put to any form of analysis. I'm sure Christians around the world would be thrilled with the sterling defense of their most precious work that you have mustered...Or maybe not. Thanks for all your help (The Devil)

As for the, ahem, rigorous scientific analysis that I am performing...How does talking about shite filling up the Ark really qualify? What I'm doing is reading the bible and pointing out the things in it that are questionable, silly and just plain wrong...I'm also including the relevant chapters, so does that means I am doing Gods work, without knowing it?

[Vicodin&FantasyBooks]

Well yes it was folklore before it was gospel. From my point of view there's nothing wrong with that and in fact from my point of view that's the whole beauty of it. The beauty of knowledge that didn't spring up from thin air in the matter of a few years but was rather developed through centuries of experience.

I certainly see where you're coming from, weather it be America or another predominantly religious country you feel it's necessary to point out the flaws of believing blindly into a gospel written 2000 years ago which may or may not be scientifically or even logically sound today.

All I want to do here by pointing out great individuals in the past who labored over the same problems is to try and show you the next step. Because when you've finally come to terms with the need to justify scientific truth in everyday life you'll see that there's a lot more to religion namely within culture mentality philosophy history. *

Quote

The phases of Milton's life closely parallel the major historical divisions of Stuart Britain - the Caroline ancien régime, the Commonwealth of England and the Restoration - and it is important to situate his poetry and politics historically in order to see how both spring from the philosophical and religious beliefs Milton developed during the English Revolution.

I've said before that I most likely won't make a good christian. I'm fine with that. And as far as being on the side of the devil I'm perfectly ok with that because I don't believe in a bi-polar world. I believe that the world becomes much more fascinating when you look at it from new and unique angles.

* But don't take my word for it. If things should be left to their own pace it shouldn't be long until you too grow tired of science and look into other more complicated and certainly more ambiguous aspects of life.

You see I've long wondered why people should look into religion from a logical standpoint - one that is a complete antipod to religious thinking, and not culture or history or philosophy - ways of though that are certainly more natural and close to the religious mind-set. And it has nothing to do with the romantic sense of antipods clashing in an epic battle of sorts.

For most people science is really everything they have. While your average person may not feel comfortable to discuss the often misleading ways of culture and politics throughout history, science is something we're all systematically trained into from a young age in order to become productive members of society. Science comes easy to the mind oftentimes it's plain dumb intuitive and that's all there is to it really.

The whole notion is not in any way justified it's just the path of least resistance for your every day person to interpret religion and the gospel - to have an opinion if be it any opinion at all or in this case the first opinion that comes to mind. ; )

PP: That is not in any way trying to offend you but simply hoping that you'll look into it and decide for yourself.

Quote

http://books.google.bg/books?id=FYBuk3Wi05...=result#PPP2,M1

This post has been edited by Vicodin&FantasyBooks: 10 November 2008 - 04:36 PM

[frookenhauer]

Hmmm...while this conversation is interesting enough, it still isn't enough to make me want to stop my scientific *snigger* analysis of the seminal works that is the Bible, more importantly right now...Genesis. You call it Folk tales, they call it the Truth, I call it a fabrication. I think there is everything wrong with turning folklore into Gospel. If the stories contained therein were merely kept as folk tales then I would have no problem at all, but when people raise a bunch of loosely stitched together stories on high and say "Lo! This is the word of thine God! Mark ye well the truth contained herein!..." That's when its time to have a look see and see what you can dig up and examine...and share

Look Vico, I know you mean well, but I feel the need to do this. In the past 3000 (the iron working thingy) years or so, people have lived by the rules and believed the book to be the truth. People have died because of this book, people have been tortured for disagreeing with whats contained inside, wars have been fought and countless atrocities committed in the name of the Lord. On the good side we have the sistine chapel and JS Bachs cathedral and other stuff which I suppose could be attributed to the benevolence of the church and whatnot...Please feel free to point out any amazing stuff that the bible may have helped to achieve and I will duly make note...Sorry, I digress. Plenty of events in the History of Mankind have taken place because of it and yet a dullard like myself, who, in the space of 7 chapters, has found glaring irregularities, invention and fantasy...It seems somebody just made it up and it might have sounded good even 500 years ago, but not so much today...Kind of makes all those deaths pretty wasteful, no?

So you see, the book, by claiming to be the truth has laid down a challenge for me, all I'm doing is stepping up to the plate, and so far its rather interesting. Do I have your permission to carry on?

P.S. I'm going to assume the affirmative, because you're not the boss of me

[frookenhauer]

...Chapter 8

Quote

1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; 2 the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. 3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually; and after the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. 4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. 6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 7 And he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. 8 And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth; and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark. 10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came in to him at eventide; and lo in her mouth an olive-leaf freshly plucked; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. 12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; and she returned not again unto him any more. 13 And it came to pass in the six hundred 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 dried. 14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dry. {S} 15 And God spoke unto Noah, saying: 16 'Go forth from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. 17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of all flesh, both fowl, and cattle, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may swarm in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.' 18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him; 19 every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, whatsoever moveth upon the earth, after their families; went forth out of the ark. 20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. 21 And the LORD smelled the sweet savour; and the LORD said in His heart: 'I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. 22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.'

This chapters pretty boring, but it does actually give some interesting dates. If we ignore all the blag about the 7th day and the 17tmonth, we've got the 601st year. I'm going to assume that this is Noahs 601st birthday, and what a present. A whole planet to, er, populate...Sure its a little wet, but at least its clean and completely hygenic and pollen free...Hold on...Authors, you've forgot about all the plants...The plants be drowned. I'm sure the Lord took care of it somehow, just like he must have sorted out the poop from the animals, and other cool stuff (Ha!).

Anyway the earth finally dries off in exactly so many days and everyone gets let out and breathes the clean crisp air of the outside and thanks the lord by building an awesome altar and setting fire to a load of animals as a way of saying thanks, cheers for wiping out all my neighbours and sweeping the world clean of all plants and creepeths, actually all the sea monsters *snigger* and sea creatures should be fine..., and god smells the sweet savour, with his omnipotent nose and promises not to do it again. Let that be a lesson to those people that got wiped out. All you needed to do was set fire to a bunch of animals and the big guy might have left you alone.

Well to get to where we all are today, my great, great,...., great great grandfather Noah and his peeps must have been boinking like crazy...Don't laugh, he's your grandfather too...And all this happened approximately 1691 years after the birth of Adam, according to the bible. Awesome stuff.

Is it me or is the Ark thingy just a little shabby? If he wanted to do the big wipe, while protecting Noah and his peeps, he could have tried something like this. Picked up Noah and the family + animals and opened up Eden, "Here you go guys, this was where it all began, you'll love it here, Be right back..." Snap my fingers and the world is mankind free...Let people out and let them multiply...simple, like me