Noah's flood story is based on historical evidence

Thanks Pro for your fine Argument:We actually agree on many points, but lets not let mutual agreement get in the way of a good argument!Point 1: Longevity of Characters in both the Sumerian and Genesis Myths:This can be easily explained as Archaeological studies and Anthropological studies confirm that much of the mythology in Genesis was in fact copied from the Sumerian Myths while Ezra and his scribes were captives in Babylon.My own theory on the Early longevity was that primitive cultures in Sumer used a different time scale prior to the introduction of writing in Sumerian where writing originated. These oral based traditions kept track of the moon so their years were actually Lunar cycles and not Solar cycles.Thus Methuselah in his 900 year Lunar life span was actually 78 years of age in more recent times.This ties in with many of the ages of characters within the Genesis records.Noah was around 50 years old when he sailed on his Ark into the Persian Gulf.Excerpt: " Some literary critics explain these extreme ages as ancient mistranslations that converted the word "month" to "year", mistaking lunar cycles for solar ones: this would turn an age of 969 "years" into a more reasonable 969 lunar months, or 78½ years of the Metonic cycle.[9] However, the text says that Arpachshad (son of Shem) fathered Shelah at 35 years of age."Source: http://en.wikipedia.org... From the same source: “Longevity mythsare traditions about long-lived people (generally supercentenarians), either as individuals or groups of people, and practices that have been believed to confer longevity, but for which scientific evidence does not support the ages claimed or the reasons for the claims. “ As there is no scientific support for any such long-lived humans. No bones have ever been discovered demonstrating a lifespan greater than the maximum acceptable of modern humans. So we cannot consider the Sumerian mythology as backing up the Genesis accounts as according to the most recent evidences, the Genesis accounts are merely inaccurate copies of the Sumerian myths. SSource: http://www.ancient-origins.net... From the above Source: "According to historical mortality levels from the Encyclopaedia of Population (2003), average life expectancy for prehistoric humans was estimated at just 20 – 35 years; in Sweden in the 1750s it was 36 years; it hit 48 years by the 1900s in the USA; and in 2007 in Japan, average life expectancy was 83 years. "So it appears that the most likely story concerning the longevity myths of the Old Testament is that these were very roughly copied from the Sumerian myths, with alterations of names and places to make them fit into the overall Genesis theme.The Sumerian Evidence from those tablets is not Corroborative Evidence but Contributed Evidence for the Torah/Old Testament, which was itself derived from the Sumerian accounts, many centuries later.I agree with Pro that it was indeed a local flood, one which possibly extinguished the somewhat mythical "Garden Of Eden" that some researchers believe was their mythical representation of lush, fertile forests which possibly existed where the Persian Gulf now resides, prior to the rising of the sea levels several thousand years ago. They believe the loss of this fertile lands was a big change to the inhabitants and they felt as if their God(s) had turned against them and cast them out. Thus the origin of the Garden Of Eden myth. The Persian Gulf was at the intersection four rivers (two still remaining, two dried up in ancient times but their paths are still visible from satellite images) as was depicted in the Garden Of Eden location, according to scripture. [1]The Garden of Eden may appear off topic, though I'm using it to highlight how myths relay concepts and stories, although the characterizations changed drastically from Orator to Orator and the accuracy declines with each retelling. Both the Garden of Eden and the Great Flood myths had altered drastically from the very first evidence in Akkadian to Sumerian to Hebrew.The names of the players in the mythical stage changed as did the circumstances surrounding the myth.The only parts of the story which remained the same were.1: God(s) warned them of an impending flood.2: There was a man involved with his family who built a boat.3: They had many animals on the Boat.4: A flood washed the boat to where they could not sight land, so it appears the world was flooded.5: They survived and found dry land.From there the stories differ markedly.Sumerian/Akkadian :The man Utnapishtim, was a wealthy business man who built a large barge, likely made from segments, ancient tablets have depicted the ark as circular like a wheel with segments to house animals, nothing like the Biblical Ark. [2] Utnapishtim was taking animals to market to pay his taxes which he had not paid, so he was by no means a very righteous character as was Noah supposedly.It rained for 6 days, not 40 as in the Biblical account.The Ark was only at sea for 7 days before finding land.Utnapishtim was expelled for not paying his taxes, so his civilization did not perish from the flood [3].References:1: http://www.israel-a-history-of.com...[pageGallery]/0/ 2: http://www.news.com.au... 3: This is all I have time for, I will answer the following points in the next round hope I've given Pro something to argue against, if not, then we both agree so far.Thanks again Pro, back to you!