Noah's Faith Condemns the World - Did It Really Happen?

Anthropologists have collected as many as 270 flood legends from nearly all the tribes and nations.  "The flood story is found throughout the world," says Claus Westermann.  "Like the creation narrative, it is part of our basic heritage. It is truly astonishing:  everywhere on earth we find stories of a great prim eval flood."  The explanation? Says expositor Enrico Galbiati:  "The insistent presence of a flood tradition is different and widely separated peoples is a sign of the historical reality of the fact that lies at the base of such traditions."  More important to Christians than scholarly observations, however, is the knowledge that Jesus himself spoke of the Flood as an actual event in the history of mankind. - LUKE 17:16, 27. 

The Nephilim in Mythology?

Tales about liaisons between gods and humans-and the "heroes" or "demigod's " born from these unions-were common to Greek, Egyptian, Ugaritic, Hurrian, and Mesopotamian theology.  Gods of Greek mythology had human form and great beauty.  They ate, drank, slept, and had sexual intercourse, quarreled, fought, seduced, and raped. Though supposedly holy, they were capable of deceit and crime. Heroes like Achillies were said to be of both divine and human descent and were endowed with super human ability but not with immorality. So, what Genesis says of the Nephilim sheds light on the possible or even probable origin of such myths. 

Next time: Do You Know Jehovah as Did Noah, Daniel, and Job?

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