Did it never rain on earth before Noah's flood?

Ok, so I did some searching and I can't find if this is a new topic or not. If not please close or move or whatever needs to be done.

During all my readings and seeking of ancient and lost knowledge the flood story is one of my favorites.

One part of the story that has always intrigued me is that it had never rained on earth before the flood. That was the reason that people laughed at Noah when he told them that it was going to rain. They had never seen rain before. Every night a heavy mist came up and the streams and creek had a higher tide and that was what watered everything.

Also, a sort of water canopy surrounded the earth in the atmosphere that protected everyone from the harmful effects of the sun. This water canopy or "firmamant" was what was opened up and all the water that was in it was let out and it rained down upon the earth causing global flooding. Men used to live to be hundreds of years old during Noah's time but that all changed after the flood.

Some think that the loss of this canopy is the cause of the excelleration of the aging process on humans. It had provided a protective layer that kept us healthy and filtered out harmful effects from the sun. Before the flood men supposedly lived to be hundreds of years old. Noah was reportedly 600 years old by some stories. After the flood the bible tells us that human lifespan became 120 years.

Do you think that this story could be true...that it never rained on earth before the flood? I remember reading somewhere about ancient men seeing fish in the sky...was ther really a canopy that even had fish in it???or maybe it was ancient drawings of fish in the sky???...I am having a terrible time finding links on that though.

Here are links that may be useful but is not what I based my post on...that came from my life journey.

www.gotquestions.org...
wiki.cotch.net...

I think that is a pretty far-out interpretation of the scriptures. I believe it had rained before the flood, just the flood was a particularly long rain, lasting forty days and forty nights.

apparently when the earth was still early and first began to rain it lasted for years before all of the oceans filled up it would of been constant monsoon but i doubt any life was around then so it probably did rain before hand

as for this aging thing i think thats most possible that we would'nt age as much with less exposure to the sun depends how old the story is of noah what sort of time period were looking at for the climate change then we could look up ice cores but loads of cultures have stories of the great flood so it would be hard to find out.

another note: the earths axsis is tilted if it was'nt we would'nt have seasons does any1 have a date on when it did tilt this might link in then

good post

try reading the 'epic of Gilgamesh' which is a much older Sumerian story that is remarkably similar to the story of Noah

Klain, you do know that the oceans are salt water, right?

yeh but that is imaterial i was talking about our atmosphere being created in ealry earth sorry i should of been more clear chemicals were being fused then like salt

I don't think that I am being "far-out"

Read Genisis 2: 5,6

5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.


www.bible-truth.org...
www.christiananswers.net...

I love the story of Gilgamesh...I think that he and Noah are the same person.

There are many, many global flood stories...anyone find anything about seeing fish in the skies?

[edit on 1/23/2005 by Cherish]

Originally posted by klain
apparently when the earth was still early and first began to rain it lasted for years before all of the oceans filled up it would of been constant monsoon but i doubt any life was around then so it probably did rain before hand
good post

i like that idea of it raining for years to fill up the oceans. did you never do science in school buddy?? how can it rain without first being water to be evaporated and then to condense only then to be released as rain. if you say god made it rain first then you prety much are saying there is no water cycle. for the water cycle to be true the water has to go round and round, yet you're saying that out of the blue all of this water fell to earth...impossible even by gods standards.
why do religions always trying and make creation so simple...have you ever seen the universe made in a more simple way than how genesis depicts it. same with this rain theory...rain merely fell one day and carried on for years, thus filling up the oceans. noah got two of every animal on the boat, a flood then came for 40 days, yet he survived because he built himself a nice wooden boat. if a flood reached to the top of mountains (because noah came to rest on a mountain top) then how does that water then recide? it can't go back to the ocean because it is the ocean, it's a world-wide ocean that's covering everything. that water would always then be here...we don't lose water and gain water, there's always the same amount whether it's in the sky or on the floor. therefore, if there was a flood of that magnitude then we would still be living like kevin costner in waterworld.

therefore, if there was a flood of that magnitude then we would still be living like kevin costner in waterworld.

Maybe Noah did live like that for awhile.

Didn't Kevin have gills in that movie?

I think that the water is now divided into ....hummm....ice caps and storms and oceans and great lakes....and......sleet,snow, rivers, streams, creeks and......????

Did I mention clouds??? What about hurricaines?????

Can someone please refresh me on chemistry regards where water came from in the first place. Im sure this was an ongoing process lasting a very very long time before the oceans "filled up".

www.infsearch.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/stream100/NAC/NAC69_OVP/1133133.wmx
heres a short video explanint the way science has determined water formed on earth.Copy and past to explorer address bar.

[edit on 23-1-2005 by Simcity4Rushour]

Thank you, Simcity. I was trying to find something about the makeup of water on a goole search and was having a bit of a difficult time sorting through it all.

It is possible that there has been a great flood. Many different early civilizations have stories of a great flood, correct? We write this off as copying each other's stories, but I think there was a flood. As for the science of where did the water go, well it is where it is now. What makes you think that there could not have been less water in the ocean, which was filled up by this barrier in the sky? And when the Earth flooded, these early people may have been in lower elevations that are now under the sea. That could help explain why there are still animals on the planet. It's obvious that Noah could not get all the animals onto a boat, so the animals that survived were either the ones that Noah did get to board the boat, or the ones who ran to higher ground or already lived in higher grounds. I think much can be learned from the early civilizations. Something great did happen to this planet, and the writings show. How can we believe in an ice age, yet not a flood? Don't you think the two could be related in a same time frame, or before or after method?

[edit on 23-1-2005 by steggyD]

[edit on 23-1-2005 by steggyD]

Most likely before the flood, if we are to assume that it had never rained (which is scriptural), there were no oceans. Now sure, there were bodies of water, rivers, springs, and all that, but no oceans as we know them.

Just think -- rain for forty days and forty nights? Where would all that water have gone? It took like nine months for the water to go down enough that they could land "in the mountains of Ararat."

After all, the earth is mostly water on the surface, and all the water had to come from somewhere. As for the issue of salt water vs. fresh water, I'm quite sure I don't have an answer for it. Either this question must be further researched, or just ascribe it to a miracle of God.

No, incorrect it rained before “Noah’s flood in earth”

Now if this is was an ideology thread then you may believe the bible flood, but because is in ancient and lost civilizations I am going to post my views.

The myth: ( And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth ) “Gen. 7.6"

The reality: In order to conform to Babylonian traditions, biblical redactors moved the flood story from the first day of Creation to the tenth generation of humanity.

First of all the flood time has been debated by historians, over and over again.

Is prove that the people of the time used to keep track of flood seasons so as you can see it was flood before Noah and the flood of the bible.

In Genesis 7:12 says that the rains “lasted forty days”.

In Genesis 7:19 says that the flood was “on earth for forty days”.

In Genesis 8: 6 says that “forty days passed and Noah opened the window of the ark”

Historians believe that these were sequential periods of floods that lasted for 40 days and that will amount 120 days.

That is the length of the Egyptian flood season in the solar calendar.

So it was floods before the Noah times and it indeed rained in earth before the flood.

Yes, it did.

The "Noah" flood is a legend based on a large local flood.

Ancient records (this would be the Egyptians and Sumerians and others) wrote about rainfall and drought. These records continue through the time of the Biblical Flood and beyond. There are trees that are thousands of years old, and they too record periods of rainfall and drought.

And this has been going on for billions (not millions; not thousands) of years.

Originally posted by Cherish

Also, a sort of water canopy surrounded the earth in the atmosphere that protected everyone from the harmful effects of the sun. This water canopy or "firmamant" was what was opened up and all the water that was in it was let out and it rained down upon the earth causing global flooding. Men used to live to be hundreds of years old during Noah's time but that all changed after the flood.

Almost all Christians have discounted this theory. In fact, it's one argument that Young Earth Creationists are advised NOT to use (by YECs themselves) because it's wrong.

And, again, we have writings from many civilizations. In the Mojave, there is rock art that dates to about 10,000 years BC where the Dreamers (shamans) invoked spirit helpers to bring rain.

Originally posted by Cherish
One part of the story that has always intrigued me is that it had never rained on earth before the flood.

Where does it say this? I get the impression that they on't beleive him because the idea is dumb? A better arguement for no rain before that is that there are no rainbows before the flood.

Every night a heavy mist came up and the streams and creek had a higher tide and that was what watered everything.

A heavy mist that deposits as much water as a rainfall? Sounds like, rainfall. How would higher tides help anything?

Also, a sort of water canopy surrounded the earth in the atmosphere that protected everyone from the harmful effects of the sun.

The usual water canopy considered would result in the pressure at the surface of the earth being so great that every living thing is crushed. It would also blot out the sun entirely. And if it crashed down, some have speculated that the energy released in that crashing would be enough to boil the water, let alone smash some puny little ark.

Some think that the loss of this canopy is the cause of the excelleration of the aging process on humans.

Why would protection from UV radiation result in people living hundreds of years? Are pale people longer lived than everyone else?

Do you think that this story could be true

No. Its preposterous on the face of it and all the evidence there is about the past indicates that nothing like it happened. It could be true in the sense that anything could be true, but not beyond that.

I think I have heard of this story before Cherish. A friend of mine who is a devout Christian would always debate with me about the bible being true\not true. (I am a christian as well, but I am intreged (sp?) about which stories were literal and which were just a story with a moral for us to learn from). Any how, Read in Genisis 1 Verse 6-9 "And God said, 'Let there be space between the waters, to seperate water from water.' And so it was. God made this space to seperate the waters above from the waters below. And God called the space "sky". This happened on the second day" I know this translation is really dumbed down, its a "New Living" tanslation, but at any rate, this could perhaps speak about the "canopy" that surrounded the earth. The waters above could have been very massive amounts of water somehow surrounding the earth forming this "cannopy".
Also, to water the plants it says in Genisis 2 Verse 6 (in my translation) "But water came up out of the ground and watered all the land."

Again, I think this is an interesting topic. I think it is plausible that the canopy surrounding earth could have some correlation why man lived for so long before\during the time of Noah. The great thing about this is that none of us can prove anything. We may all speculate, and say eachother are dumb for believing one way or another, putting our beliefs in our spiritual faith before science, but there is no way to prove it one way or another.

All of the science buffs will say God didnt' create anything, it was all formed from the big bang. I say god used the big bang to create the earth and every other thing. God is all powerful, God can do anything he wants. God can make man live as long as he see's fit. God can make water hover around the earth. God can make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights. God can make the animals migrate to Noahs' ark.

I dunno, hopefully this will help you out Cherish, someone else hearing the same story you researched. I find it highly plausible. Like I said, I'll choose to believe this story, and perhaps one day, after I pass on, I'll stand next to God and just smile knowing I was right all along.

Best Regards,

IronMan

Cherish, Even if you melted all the ice caps and released all the under water springs and lakes it would not flood the entire planet, it is physicly impossible to flood the planet with out offworld sources of wate, such as mass comets or pluto hitting us, however there probably wouldnt be any life left on Earth if we bombarded by comets, or if pluto hit us.

iori_komei:
There are some theories that say the flood not only consisted of rain but....GIANT TSUNAMI'S.....could it be that we were hit by an asteroid or something?

www.kjvbible.org...
www.goldenageproject.org.uk...