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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Creation, Evolution, and Flood
Message-ID: <3492@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Sep-86 19:20:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.3492
Posted: Thu Sep 18 19:20:39 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 01:59:53 EDT
References: <349@aw.sei.cmu.edu.sei.cmu.edu>
Organization: University of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Sci.
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Xref: linus talk.origins:57 talk.religion.misc:135

Someone writes:
>Sorry, I don't see how the explosion of Thera
>could have caused the 'Biblical' flood.  The
>flood story we have in Genesis is almost certainly
>copied from the same source as the one in the
>Epic of Gilgamesh.  Now Thera blew her top around
>1450 BC.

Ignoring all the inferences about the various Sumerian flood sources, it
should be noted that the Thera eruption is right within the same time scale
as the Exodus.  Various theories have been posited in which the parted Yam
Suph ("Sea of Reeds") was actually on the Mediterranean coast, and having a
tidal wave cause both the dry land and the subsequent destruction of the
persuing egyptians.  THis fits well with a view of the Exodical account as
an exaggeration.

Of course, it would have been *awfully* convenient for fleeing Israelites :-)

C. Wingate