Talk:Noah's Ark/Archive 1

message: I thought Noah brought two of each unclean animal (one male and one female) on board to the ark.  But this article says two pair which means four of each?
:No, two by two means the mode of entry into the Ark — in pairs.71.100.184.44 20:45, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification Please (Number of clean/unclean animals) 

message: === Animals & Water Source ===
This article, particularly "The flood" and "The Flood under scrutiny", has several serious problems, which hopefully I will return to fix.  But first, can somebody support the claim that "mabbuwl" literally means "storehouse of water" or "heavenly ocean"?  I think this is quite suspect. Philip J. Rayment 15:11, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: While the flood might explain the extinction of species such as the dinosaur, it gives no explanation for the extinction of any marine life, which of course would not have drowned. Also, the Bible mentions that Noah took 1, 2 or 7 pair of EACH land animal on board (more precisely, every land animal with the breath of life in its nostrils). Why he would not have taken any dinosaur on board is not explained. It is impossible that dinosaurs didn't breath or breathed through their skin like some insects simply due to their size.
The flood is not used to explain extinction, as the ark was used to prevent extinction.  Nevertheless, the geologic upheavals involved with the flood would have suffocated and buried many marine creatures, potentially leading to some extinctions.  The paragraph assumes that dinosaurs were not on board then argues that on Biblical grounds they should have been.  The latter is correct (they should have been), so why the assumption that they weren't? Philip J. Rayment 04:12, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: The following discussion between two editors (apparently continuing what is just above the heading) was removed by one of them (the IP 198.208.159.14, AKA Charlie Turek), and then again, the second time over the protest of the other. It is now restored by Jerzy·t 07:33, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: If you do this, you need to be clear that the idea of "two different traditions", indeed the entire J,E,D,P, theory, is by no means universally accepted, but is just one way that people have tried to explain the Bible from a liberal perspective.  I suspect that one of your examples is the first reference to animals being in pairs, and the second to some animals being in sevens.  But this can just as easily be explained as initial summary information followed by more detailed information at a later date.  It is frequently possible to see patterns where none exist. Philip J. Rayment 15:52, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  2004 Fall (Dinosaurs and extinctions and the Ark) 

message: This article, particularly "The flood" and "The Flood under scrutiny", has several serious problems, which hopefully I will return to fix.  But first, can somebody support the claim that "mabbuwl" literally means "storehouse of water" or "heavenly ocean"?  I think this is quite suspect. Philip J. Rayment 15:11, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: While the flood might explain the extinction of species such as the dinosaur, it gives no explanation for the extinction of any marine life, which of course would not have drowned. Also, the Bible mentions that Noah took 1, 2 or 7 pair of EACH land animal on board (more precisely, every land animal with the breath of life in its nostrils). Why he would not have taken any dinosaur on board is not explained. It is impossible that dinosaurs didn't breath or breathed through their skin like some insects simply due to their size.
The flood is not used to explain extinction, as the ark was used to prevent extinction.  Nevertheless, the geologic upheavals involved with the flood would have suffocated and buried many marine creatures, potentially leading to some extinctions.  The paragraph assumes that dinosaurs were not on board then argues that on Biblical grounds they should have been.  The latter is correct (they should have been), so why the assumption that they weren't? Philip J. Rayment 04:12, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Animals & Water Source 

message: :The following discussion between two editors (apparently continuing what is just above the heading) was removed by one of them (the IP 198.208.159.14, AKA Charlie Turek), and then again, the second time over the protest of the other. It is now restored by Jerzy·t 07:33, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If you do this, you need to be clear that the idea of "two different traditions", indeed the entire J,E,D,P, theory, is by no means universally accepted, but is just one way that people have tried to explain the Bible from a liberal perspective.  I suspect that one of your examples is the first reference to animals being in pairs, and the second to some animals being in sevens.  But this can just as easily be explained as initial summary information followed by more detailed information at a later date.  It is frequently possible to see patterns where none exist. Philip J. Rayment 15:52, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restored Discussion 

message: It is fundamental to this community's use of talk pages that the course of the discussion be preserved, either in its original location or in archives easily found from that location.
The removal of one's own discussion (always in cases where it has appeared long enough to elicit comment by others, and generally in any case) requires extraordinary circumstances that produce a consensus for removal; unilateral removal of one's own remarks is vandalism, and removal of others' on-topic remarks, or removal of the context in which others' were made, is suppression of the others' right of expression, or effective forgery of their their signed remarks by changing their meaning.
The IP in question is warned that both the previous removals are absolutely unacceptable, and repetions will not be tolerated. 
If there is need to mark certain remarks as regretted, misconstrued, or whatever, that may be done, with time-stamps and signatures (coded with --~~~~ to provide a clear history, and it may even be justified to strike thru some text thusly to emphasize (without rendering it unreadable) that its content is substantially deprecated.  If that is desired, it should be discussed, again with proper time-stamps and signatures.
--Jerzy·t 07:33, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Preservation of Discussion 

message: First, i failed to make myself understood in an effort to be pithy.  I meant "goofy" not in the PoV sense of being laughably false, but in the sense of being at the fringe of opinion.  This is objectively goofy in that sense:
* The other subheads of "The historicity of the flood" describe familiar sorts of arguments, of multiple generations' standing, but this is still an obscure one after 25 years; i think i've heard all the others before, but never this one.
* This argument puts itself at odds with prevailing scientific opinion in a qualitatively different way from the others: biology and geology draw conclusions about events that can't be directly observed, using very complicated networks of evidence (including rocket-science methods like molecular biology and super-high-pressure, -temperature, and -viscosity chemistry, sonics, and fluid dynamics) that laypeople can't hope to check, so the arguments are hard to disprove to a layperson's satisfaction.  In contrast, the handful of sentences in the 2nd 'graph quickly attack the foundations of the argument with reasoning most people will believe they could verify to their satisfaction with a few hours' study of well-organized relevant evidence, and the only sense in which the 2nd 'graph has encountered rebuttal is the bizarre and unsupported implicit assertion that "boat" is an "abstract idea".  The linguistic evidence is far from the usual rocket science, and for most people the "Ancient Chinese characters" argument not only has no traction so far, but will continue to have none.
That is not PoV, it is verifiable if we were to finance a survey, and it is already clear by the standards that we already apply on VfD.
Here's what is PoV: 
: it's related to "other flood accounts," so it should follow that section.
The "Other flood accounts" section concerns various stories that are apparently unequivocal accounts of great floods; they are of interest because Noah's tale is an unequivocal account of a great flood; they are agreed to be relevant, despite whether they support historicity by showing a common experience of all cultures, or undercut historicity by showing the universal fact-free "saleability" of a compelling work of imagination -- or (why it's not in the article already is not to the point here today) patterns of thot that come as naturally to humans of any culture as do the "bird-of-prey + carnivore + snake = dragon" tales that combine the three horrors that haunt small primates. (Is it rhesus monkeys who have a specific warning cry for each of those predators?)
This is not another unequivocal account of a great flood, nor does it enter into the dicussion in the same way.  If this one were true, it would be about faithful transmission of details over something like 4000 miles (and the need to explain why those details show no other presence in pre-missionary Chinese culture, and why it took 500 years of missionaries before anyone came up with this theory).  It would be a totally different line of evidence.  And calling it relevant is PoV because it is only relevant if what some have called the goofy argument is accepted as true.  It doesn't need the support of the "Other flood accounts" section, nor does it supplement that section.  It is independent, and it belongs in a separate section under historicity.  A later section, so that the many readers who will judge it of negligible interest can make their decision on that after they've seen the meat and potatoes, rather than reading it (and maybe quitting the article completely in disappointment) because they hesitate to start skipping stuff when they're barely halfway through.  
No reasonable argument has been made for putting it anywhere but where I did, just before the "Theology" subsection. (At the risk of getting off track, that subsection is also differs, in different dimensions from those "Ancient Chinese characters" differs in, from all the other sections: it defends the historicity of a myth (in the Rudolf Bultmann sense) with the theology, rather than what the rest of the section does, which is defend the historicity of the myth with natural arguments, to the end of producing receptivity to the theology. I don't see (yet) any problem with it being in the historicity section, but i'm glad it's at one end or the other.)
:very persuasive:).  i consent to your better reasoning:).  Ungtss 01:33, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ancient Chinese characters (Evidence for real Noah's Ark in ancient Chinese characters) 

message: The article said:
:An Italian archaeological group named La Narkas is the most recent of numerous groups claiming to have pinpointed the location of Noah's Ark close to the top of Mount Ararat, which straddles the border of Turkey and Armenia. Photographs of this alleged discovery are available on their website .
until i removed it.
Is it the top (summit?) or some other portion of the mtn that crosses the border? In either case, the NYTimes/London Times 1983 Atlas of the World shows the summit outside Armenia by over 20 miles.  The Turkish-Armenian border (which is a river big enuf to extend about 300 miles up- and down-stream, from that area, parallel to the ridge Ararat is on, not down the mountainside) is at that point below 1000 m (in contrast to the 5156 m summit and 2000-3000 m ridge running from it parallel to the border.  If someone thot the reality justified describing it as straddling a border, why would they mention only the Armenian one?  The Turkish border with Iran is at least 25% closer than that of Armenia, and in a direction along a line that drops slowly as the ridge dies out, not steeply toward the valley and Armenia. It could be argued that the tail of the ridge crosses into Iran, but anyone who believes the mountain extends across the border with Armenia is probably a dupe of someone willing to lie (to raise money from Armenian-Americans? for the greater glory of God?) to produce that belief.
The removed 'graph should stay here until it is determined whether it is the website or the editor who cited it who can't be trusted, and fixed before moving it back.
--Jerzy·t 23:20, 14 & 23:32, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Impeachment of Narkas-based content (Disputing an Ararat Ark-photo) 

message: _ _ My edit summarized 
:  (rv ed of Jayjg to last by Festival of Souls, since cat is defined "Mythology is the study of myths: stories of a particular culture that it believes to be true and which feature a specific religious..)
restored the article to :Category:Mythology, whose full description is 
:Mythology is the study of myths: stories of a particular culture that it believes to be true and which feature a specific religious or belief system.
::For more information, see the article about Mythology.
_ _ In response, user:Codex Sinaiticus reverted, summarizing
: (rv; pick a less offensive term)
_ _ This talk page's article meets the Cat't criterion (which BTW is long-standing, see Category talk:Mythology), and the aspects that make it do so are significant aspects of the article, so it belongs in the Cat; in that light, removing it destroys an appropriate WP navigational facility, and constitutes vandalism.  No single article (or group of articles for that matter) is an acceptable place to act on any complaint about the offensiveness of the word "mythology" in this context (or for that matter, the accuracy of the Cat's description): if there is any problem, it is a problem with the Cat and must be addressed on it or its talk page; in view of the already evident controversiality of the desire to remove the Cat tag, it would be foolish to start with the Cat page rather than its talk page.
--Jerzy·t 21:43, 2005 August 2 (UTC)
The following material is being deprecated here by strikethru, with the contents copied to the various talk pages where they are pertinent:
#The first sentence to User talk:Jerzy/Codex Sinaiticus & Jerzy;
#The second sentence to User talk:Codex Sinaiticus#Formal Warning;
#The remainder to Category talk:Mythology.
--Jerzy·t 19:40, 2005 August 3 (UTC)
I would like to remind anyone who may be new to wikipedia to read the guideline policy: Assume good faith.  As for vandalism, I don't happen to think it is vandalism to remove an inappropriate or offensive category; this happens all the time on wikipedia.  Try leaving it to the reader to decide whether or not he feels this is mythology, instead of trying to make his mind up for him, which usually isn't going to be effective anyway.  Stick with verifiable, referenced assertions and above all, the principle of neutrality (this always wins on wikipedia with any pov that is controversial); throwing a "mythology" tag up is just a backhanded form of pov pushing in this case, especially as a great number of people disagree.  The definition at the article mythology makes it quite clear that this is a term only used for stories that could not have any truth to them, and is a way of implying this; therefore it is pov and should be removed in the paramount interest of maintaining NPOV without provoking cries of 'vandalism'... Codex Sinaiticus 03:37 & 03:42, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  As'm't to Cat "Mythology" (The meaning of the word "myth") 

message: Some salt-water fish can live in wide range of salty waters
Some ocean fish such as the Mozambique tilapia can thrive in waters that vary greatly in salt content. This fish can be transferred from freshwater to sea water and back and adjust to the change in salinity. The gills of adult fish contain mitochondrion-rich cells known also as ionocytes that regulate the internal ionic composition of cells. The mitochondrion-rich cells were classified into 4 kinds by Junya Hiroi and associates at St Marianna University School of Medicine, and University of Tokyo, Japan; the USGS Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center, Massachusetts; and the University of Massachusetts. After transfer of fish from freshwater to seawater, type IV cells appeared in 12 hours and increased in number thereafter. When fish were transferred from seawater back to freshwater the type IV cells decreased and disappeared within 48 hours and type III cells increased; in addition, type II cells, which are not found in sea water, appeared at 12 hours and continued to increase after that. Since the type I cell occurs in both water changes, it was thought to be an immature cell that could give rise to any of the other 3 cells. These changes were achieved by moving a sodium-potassium-chloride cotransporter from one surface to another and replacing it with a chloride channel. (Journal of Experimental Biology 208:2023-2036, 2005; from Science Briefs)71.100.184.44 21:02, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Some ocean fish such as the Mozambique tilapia can thrive in waters that vary greatly in salt content."  OK.  Nevertheless, as any aquarium owner and pet-shop proprietor can affirm, some is not the same as all.  And here, in the Ark story, we're definitely talking about all.  Anville 11:27, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How did fresh and saltwater fish survive the Flood? (How fish survived the Flood) 

message: There are no any Ark on Ararat. The word 'Ararat' on ancient jewish means Caucasus, Northern Lands or Northern Mountains, not one mountain. I think that Ark could stay anywhere on Caucasus mountains.
I found this:
 "On the mountain Karataw, Ark is remain,
 If this mountain not holy,
 What Ark doing there?"
                        Folk Poetry
Karataw is a mountain in modern Kazakhstan.
16:41, 23 September 2005 195.82.23.228
And in what language was that allegedly written? (not the translation, the original) Jim62sch 19:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not Ararat! (Real location of Ararat) 

message: So, the Bible says humanity descends from Noah, not from Adam? I am not that familiar with the Bible, so this is a honest question. --Daniduc 19:16, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't venture my own opinion here, I just answered the question as it was written by someone asking about what the Bible says.  What you usually see in the Bible is descent traced along the paternal line, to a male ancestor.  Mention of even the female ancestors' names there is the exception, not the rule.  Eve is mentioned, and of course, the Biblical view is that we are all today descended from her as well (and for that matter, from Noah's wife, not named in Genesis, but called "Emzara" in Jubilees...)Codex Sinaiticus 06:15, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm still trying to figure out where Cain's wife came from. Jim62sch 19:23, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are we Noah's descendents? (Question of descent from Adam and/or Noah) 

message: These people who believe there were dinosaurs on the Ark need to explain if there were trilobites, ammonites, sabre-tooth tigers, Neanderthals, pterodactyls, Hesperornis, brachiopods etc. on the Ark. Now there are modern brachiopods and fossils dated to the " very early Cambrian, roughly 550 million years ago" according to the Wikipedia article on Brachiopods.  Something's gotta give here.  Wikipedia speak with forked tongue.  Either the Earth existed long before the dates deduced from Genesis, or it did not.  I have seen a lot of Creationist and Intelligent Design material disputing radioactive dating as "inaccurate."  But the scientists using these methods know they are not perfectly accurate and include error ranges. For example, a paper in the current issue of Nature (Vol 483, pp. 51-56) discusses Neanderthal and Aurignacian (our ancestral) populations overlapping in France 40,000 to 42,000 and 42,000 to 43,000  years ago.  Hey, guys, if you step on a scale, and you are 6 ft tall and weigh 275 lbs, you can argue that the scale is not "accurate," but you are obese.  If it is 270 lbs or 280 lbs the result is the same. Carrionluggage 18:25, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The scientists "error ranges" have massive assumptions. Do a search on the RATE project for the latest scientific research into the problems with radiometric dating. And Neanderthals were just a variation of Homo Sapien. RossNixon 10:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: RATE doesn't rate as anything but drivel.  Neanderthals are of the species Homo Neanderthalensis.  Jim62sch 19:34, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trilobites, Neanderthals, and Obesity (Age of the Earth, etc) 

message: So is ark capped or not? In some places it is, in others it is not.
I think it should be capitalized (please note spelling - you want "capitalization" for the noun) because it is capitalized in the title, and it is a specific ark, "Ark" being part of the name. As in Empire State Building, not Empire State building. Carrionluggage 03:41, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ark is only capitalized when preceded by a definite article.  If preceded by an indefinite article, it is lower case. (e.g., an ark, the Ark) Jim62sch 13:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization (Is it ark or Ark?) 

message: The following paragraph has been removed by KillerChihuahua and re-added by Carrionluggage three times:
::The following objections are evidently proffered by supporters of a literal reading of the Bible, because they all are couched in the form of scientific objections, but few if any scientists would take the Flood story literally.  Witness that there is no scientist or other "skeptic" identified with any of these objections.  Nevertheless, there follow the "objections" which the proponents of literal interpretation of the Flood story concoct so as to provide a platform for their replies:
Comments on the history page are getting a tad vitriolic.
I find the skeptical objections to be reasonable; I find the paragraph to be POV and have removed it. Caroline Sanford 04:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Caroline, if you are going to make a link of a username, please add User: before the name, or else you make a redlink to a non-existent article, or (if there is an article with the same name as the user) you make a link to the article instead of the user. thanks! KillerChihuahua?!? 04:47, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skepticism (Literalism and Scepticism) 

message: Can anyone give a reason why this whole section should not be removed from an article titled "Noah's Ark"? KillerChihuahua?!? 17:59, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biology ("Biology" section to be removed?) 

message: "The skit told of an American soldier in World War II named Ed Davis." 
Was this a comedy show, or is this an obscure typo? --Slashme 16:27, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skit (Ark-searcher Ed davis) 

message: I edited out the section on linguistic and race classification. It read: 
"Linguistics until the 19th century divided the races and languages of the world into three categories: Semitic (Middle Eastern), Hamitic (North African) and Japhetic (European), under the assumption that the peoples of these regions were descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth respectively. The former two terms are still considered valid linguistic divisions, but the latter has largely fallen out of use since the mid-20th century. Exactly how languages outside of the classical world fit into this scheme has been debated."
This is simply nonsense - while the terms Semitic and Hamitic are indeed still in use for historical reasons, there's no connection today with the Flood story. The final sentence is the worst of all - there's no debate among linguists about how languages fit into the 19th century 3-fold division, it's a non-issue. Please, let's keep WP accurate!  PiCo 06:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: PiCo, you are completely correct.  Jim62sch 20:44, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  linguistic and race classification ("Linguistics" section) 

message: This entire page seems to me to be getting off topic, and is tending more to the subject of creation than being restricted to Noah's Ark and the reason for the ark's existence, the flood.
I would like to add some detail regarding the possible depth of floodwaters, but want to remove paragraph two of that section which deals with the possible creation of a single continent.  Short of where I can move it to, does anyone have any objection?  In my view, it is not relevant to the heading, and the argument that mountain heights have changed as a result of the flood has already been put. 
202.61.229.133 09:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Depth of floodwaters (Depth of floodwaters and Winnie the Pooh) 

message: These are in the modern searches section:
* 1840 earthquake story
* 1876 James Bryce story
* 1952 American oil worker named George Jefferson Green story
* 2004 Mount Ararat, samples turned out to be rock story
I can find no reference of any of these stories. We have 4 links under "Ark search", and none of them seem to cover any of these stories. We need to work on this, people - if there are modern searches which are on the sites which are not in the article, we need to add them, and we need to either find references for the searches listed or remove them as unsourced. KillerChihuahua?!? 22:54, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The 2004 story is about some New Zealand researchers who thought the samples they obtained may have been wood. http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-539.html RossNixon 07:51, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Forums are not considered reliable sources, however the link you posted gave another link to World Net Daily, which I am adding - thanks much! KillerChihuahua?!? 10:19, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The WND article did not show the results, that's why I added the Rense link. The NZ Herald requires a subscription to see older articles (couldn't find article even on www.archive.org), but I do remember the testing and results being discussed on our primetime TV news here in New Zealand. RossNixon 03:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree if we can find the source, we should put it here, but surely we can do better than Rense.com. If nothing else perhaps we can identify the issue of the NZH and add the information as we would any print source. KillerChihuahua?!? 11:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources for Modern searches (Self-explanatory) 

message: "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."
Is that to imply that Noah sacrificed all the clean animals? Or only one of each type of clean animal? In which case, Noah is responsible for the killing of 1/7th (or 1/2, depending) of all living, non-human things on the face of the Earth. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.156.242.39 (talk • contribs) 17:03, 16 January 2006  (UTC)
:it would be 1/14 or 1/2...but anyway...this is part of why I asked my question in the topic above re annotations.  Jim62sch 18:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There were probably, more animals born on the Ark during the year+ flooding and descending waters. It would be clean animals that were sacrificed, inwhich there were many more of them, than unclean... 7 pairs of clean vs. 1 pair of unclean. Also. since it would take a long while, for human procreation to repopulate the earth again, that would give plenty of time, for the animals to procreate, and lessen the chance of extinction. Slash Gordon 09:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point about the slow repopulation of the earth. Nevertheless, the reduction of the clean animals from 7 pairs down to 1 following the sacrifices would have meant that Noah and his family would have to stay vegetarian for a year or two after leaving the ark, or else! PiCo 09:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What date do we have for these Rabbinical records? 3000+ years after the event? rossnixon 10:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First few centuries of the Christian era - so certainly a long time after the event. But the point is that much thought has already been given to the question SlashGordan raises. Remember also that the rabbis were extremely learned men, both in scripture and in theology. Their opinions shouldn't simply be dismissed out of hand. Were the rabbis right? I don't know. I don't know that they were wrong, either. PiCo 10:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genesis 8:20 (More about clean/unclean animals) 

message: I added the above cat, even though Christian mythology is listed.  In fact, Christian mythology could probably be removed so long as Abrahamic mythology remains.  
Also, lest we get into a long fight over "mythology" again, the disclaimer above the cat listing is a must read for all.  Jim62sch 18:50, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course, this is all a violation of the previous workaround, where "Torah events" was made a subcat, so that a "mythology" supercat wouldn't have to appear on the page.  It seems your entire purpose is to go against all this that was decided by prior consensus, just to get the word "mythology" on the page somehow anyway with both a subcat and the supercat.  ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:48, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abrahamic mythology (Cat. "Mythology", part IV) 

message: I've given a substantial re-write to this section, as I felt there was much interesting material that could be added about the ancient Sumerian and other flood stories. Please comment and make any edits you feel are useful. Codex Siniaticus especially might like to look at how I've integrated his material on Berossus into the section. I've tried not to remove anything, only to add.
: Carrion: could you develop this a little further?  "In Norse mythology, rain is caused by a goddess milking her cows in the Dodola legend. The Chippewa Indians have a legend more like the Noah story [http://www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Ancient_religions/North_america/great_serpent.htm"  Jim62sch 19:25, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article this links to says Dodola is Slavic, not Norse, and also says nothing about a flood legend. Delete? PiCo 09:39, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wait, I though that if the theory wasn't supported by the facts we change the facts.  Oh, no, wait, that's in the White House.  Yes, delete.  Jim62sch 23:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other flood accounts (Revision of section on Mesopotamian/world flood myths) 

message: I've started adding references to the text of the article, beginning with the section headed "Narrative". I'll make them as hyperlinks wherever possible, otherwise as footnotes pointing to books. I'm using the RSV as my bible-text, because it's more readable than older ones and, I believe, more faithful to the original Hebrew. PiCo 11:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good, and the newer the Bible (generally speaking) the more reliable it is (as long as it doesn't translate "firmament" as "dome").  Jim62sch 22:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References+citations 

message: I re-wrote this section to give it more form and better content. Some dubious material has been edited out. Comments? PiCo 01:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did some grammar edits, I'll go back to it later for format.  There are a few things that read "oddly" to me, but it might just be that it's early in the morning and I'm tired.  Jim62sch 13:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I also updated the Gopher wood section, correcting the Latin and adding the Greek.  My friend hasn't heard back from her rabbi yet, so I can do anything with the Hebrew. Jim62sch 13:55, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section - The search for Noah's Ark (Revision of section with this title) 

message: I split this into two sub-sections, as there's a clear distinction between the Mesopotamian stories and the rest. I also rtied to keep the length down. Comments welcome. PiCo 13:01, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section - Other flood accounts (Creation of new sub-sections) 

message: I started adding footnotes, but it'll be a while before they are done.  Jim62sch 23:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Finished the footnotes but you might like to check them. PiCo 12:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  footnotes 

message: rossnixon deleted this from the end of the section on Searches for Noah's Ark, explaining that he [didn't] my correctionbelieve it [i.e. ark-searching] to be psuedoscience (plus some further explanation that I didn't quite understand):
:Searches for the physical Noah's Ark is regarded as pseudoscience by archaeologists, who point out that they consume time, energy, and money, all of which could be put to better use supporting existing scholarly excavations around the world.
carrionluggage reverted it soon after, without acknowledging or explaining. I regard this as bad manners, whatever my personal feelings about the passage. Rossnixon had the courtesy to explain why he made his edit, and if anyone disagrees, it should be brought here to the discussion page. I've re-reverted to rossnixon's edit, even though I don't agree with it (I actually wrote the deleted passage), and if anyone wants to put it back, they should give reasons here and take no action on the article page until a consensus is reached. PiCo 23:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just one other comment about this - searching for a possibly historic relic is an expedition or search, not practical science. Science (or pseudoscience) would be the analysis of any physical samples obtained. rossnixon 00:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. But I think what the archaeologists are talking about is exactly this spending of money on scientific analysis when scientists have already said the effort (the specific effort, not the general search) is a waste of time - for example, McGivern's spending money (his own, admittedly) to buy time with a commercial imaging satellite, and the Wyatt people's endless laboratory analyses of what the geologists have already told them is just a pile of mud. Funding for genuine archaeology is not easy to come by, and the academic practitioners see such things as a waste of money that could be put to better use. PiCo 00:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: We could point out that these searches are done more for religious reasons (essentially to verify the inerrancy of the bible), rather than for archaeological reasons, and that the Wyatt analyses are junk science...but calling the whole thing pseudoscience is probably inaccurate. Jim62sch 01:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All archaeological fieldwork is done for a reason, and to verify Biblical inerrancy is as valid a reason as any other. Science is about means, not aims, and so long as biblically-driven archeologists use recognised methods, (i.e. keep stratigraphic records, retain untouched areas at the site, etc), their activities have to be called archaeology. In fact, this is exactly what has happened with Wyatt and his mud-pile: he began by saying it was the Ark, but the results of the investigations he carried out - analyses conducted under scientific conditions by reputable laboratories - have led to his followers now claiming that the clay walls of the site (no longer claimed to contain wood) represent only the "bow wave", so to speak, of the Ark as it slid downhill. The original thesis ("this is the Ark") was crackpot, but the results of genuine archaeological methodology have led to a revision, as good science should. Maybe I'm convincing myself that it isn't pseudoscienceafter all, just a gigantic waste of time and money, a.k.a. junk science :). PiCo 01:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: 'For example. In the 1950's, one of the Atomic Energy Commission's top scientists began promoting the term "sunshine unit", to describe exposure to nucleotides and radiation. Like it was no more worrisome than getting a suntan. We all know that by the 1960's, fallout had become such a serious problem that it led to the end of above-ground nuclear testing...' ... etc etc. (I believe that the writer in Talk:LD50 meant "radioactive nuclides" and not "nucleotides").     Carrionluggage 20:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The search for Noah's Ark as pseudoscience (Is it pseudo-science to search for Noah's Ark?) 

message: I am at a loss to understand why my External links edit was reverted.  These links were quality links having to do specifically with the subject of Noah's Ark.
Dougp59 15:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the censorship (External links) (Editor complains of deletion of external links) 

message: I would like to change of the footnotes structure of this article, to something similar to timeline of evolution. While the current system contains the text of the footnotes in a special section, it would use the ref-tag to define the text of the footnote within the text (see the source of that article). In my opinion it would make further editing easier (though it may feel cluttered to some). For example, the ordering of the footnotes would be automatically corrected when sections are moved within the article, and footnotes can be added and edited without scrolling up and down. 
Another change I would like to make at the same time, is the format of the individual footnotes, again similar to the format in the timeline of evolution article, which would appear:
#"A representative quote from the referenced article or a quote that contains the information referenced." Exact name of page
Finally, I would suggest that bible references be linked to wikisource, for obvious reasons. Wikisource features, among other texts:
# Bible, King James
# Bible, World English
# Bible, English, American Standard
# Bible, Free
# Bible, English, King James, Documentary Hypothesis, JE source, Jahwist source
Are there reasons to not implement these changes? -- Ec5618 20:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bible translations are a minefield - all sorts of apparently harmless little words can blow up in your face. The KJV has the poetry, but the scholarship belongs elsewhere, and it seems many modern children are completely unable to understand Jacobean English (although I'm completely unable to understand many modern children, so that's fair enough). Unfortunately we have no choice but to use the Wikisource KJV for the documentary hypothesis as it's the only one available. Modern American translations tend (more than tend - almost all of them do this) to translate the Old Testament so that it confirms the New - e.g., because the NT, based on a Greek version of the Pentateuch, says Mary was a virgin, they translate the Hebrew "almah" at Isaiah 7:14 as "virgin" instead of the correct "young woman", because otherwise the NT would be wrong. The Revised Standard Version is the most accurate of modern translations, but it's very unpopular with American churches on account of consistently translating Hebrew as if it were Hebrew instead of Greek. Wikisource doesn't have the RSV - I'll look through those others and see if they accord to my extremely high standards (joke!). PiCo 23:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Most conservatives would agree that the NASB (New American Standard) is the most accurate, if a little stilted because of that. And finally, in 1995 they removed all the "thees and thous" rossnixon 00:54, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Footnotes (Suggested change to footnote format) 

message: Added this new section as it contains  a subset of information on the Ark not otherwise touched on. PiCo 06:53, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New section: Christian tradition 

message: How does everyone feel about putting this up as a candidate for Featured Article?  PiCo 11:21, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be cool with it.  I'd like to run a spell check at least first. Jim62sch 01:04, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, too much Documentary Hypothesis conjecture in it for me. I believe this hypothesis has been largely discredited. rossnixon 10:16, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

text: It's the nature of a hypothesis to be conjectural :). But, try looking at it this way: we're trying to write a balanced article, covering all aspects of the subject. The DH is one of those aspects: we should try to cover it fairly and objectively, like any other part. What you could do, and what would be very valuale given your personal background, would be if you could look at the "Literalist" section for us - is it fair, balanced, complete yet succint? That would be most welcome. PiCo 11:50, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article candidate? 

message: Under the Biblical literalism section it says that: 'Many conservative Christians (especially in the United States) and Orthodox Jews are believers in Biblical inerrancy, the concept that the Bible, as the word of God, does not set out to mislead, and hence should be interpreted using the historical-grammatical method whenever there is no clear reason for any other reading.' Orthodox Jews don't have any term like "historical-grammatical" interpretation and their methods are quite different from what that generally implies. If there are no objections, I will rewrite this sentence. JoshuaZ 01:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Go ahead. I think this sentence is rtying to get too detailed, and might be better just saying: "Many conservative Christians (especially in the United States) and Orthodox Jews are believers in Biblical inerrancy, the concept that the Bible, as the word of God, does not set out to mislead, and hence should be taken literally whenever there is no clear reason for any other reading." PiCo 01:31, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hmm, see my current wording. If you prefer your wording, feel free to swap it in. JoshuaZ 01:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I changed a "that" to a "who" for the sake of grammar (use a personal pronoun for persons), but otherwise it looks ok to me. IF you can do this, it would be very useful to check those traditional dates for the composition of the Pentateuch. Be sure to add a reference for any change you might make.PiCo 02:06, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orthodox Judaism. (New wording on Judaism's understanding of the Ark) 

message: What is this sentence trying to say?
"According to the hypothesis the five books of the Pentateuch—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy—were edited together in the 5th century BCE from four independent sources."
What is "the hypothesis"?--ragesoss 14:44, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see now; there was a bad copy-and-paste job from one section to another.  The narrative and textual analysis sections need some clean-up before I'm ready to vote FA.--ragesoss 14:58, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  weird sentence (An editor queries some mangled wording) 

message: The narrative and textual analysis sections have some repeated material about the Priestley text.--ragesoss 14:52, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made the clean-up. PiCo 22:30, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  repeated material (More mangled words)