In light of past discussions on Historicity, I'm surprised nobody

[Archaea]

discussed this Dialogue article.

http://www.dialoguejournal.com/conte...4003-White.pdf

[Indy Coug]

Certainly a lot of the particulars of the Noah flood story are questionable, what is unquestionable is that the "Flood Myth" is common to hundreds of cultures all over the planet, even in very isolated cultures.

SOMETHING happened, IMO. How big the flood was or when it happened, I have no idea, but I don't chalk up the universality of the Flood Myth to some sort of subconscious psychological archetype.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Certainly a lot of the particulars of the Noah flood story are questionable, what is unquestionable is that the "Flood Myth" is common to hundreds of cultures all over the planet, even in very isolated cultures.

SOMETHING happened, IMO. How big the flood was or when it happened, I have no idea, but I don't chalk up the universality of the Flood Myth to some sort of subconscious psychological archetype.

The Chinese character for "boat" is comprised of sub-characters for "Ark" and "Eight people" just as told in

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gen/7/13#7

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by ChinoCoug

The Chinese character for "boat" is comprised of sub-characters for "Ark" and "Eight people" just as told in

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gen/7/13#7

Myth debunked.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG101.html

You should know your Chinese radicals better than that.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Myth debunked.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG101.html

You should know your Chinese radicals better than that.

I'm not convinced.

The Chinese character for boat (chuan 2) consists of the boat radical on the left and a phonetic element on the right. The phonetic element has two parts. The upper part is a primitive ideograph for "divide," though it looks the same as the character for "eight." The lower part is the pictograph for "mouth." However, these two elements have only phonetic significance.

If he's right, those two elements together should sound something like "chuan." But they're pronounced "yan." It's possible "yan" evolved-->chuan, but it's just as possible this character is a logical compound instead of a phonetic compound.

The "vessel" on the left side of the glyph is a pictograph of a dugout canoe, nothing like an ark.

This is plain ridiculous. "Vessel" is one of the characters for "ark," whether it looks like an ark or not.

According to the Bible, Noah's ark carried very many more than eight mouths.

This one's also hogwash. "Mouth" is a classifier for persons, and per Gen., eight persons were on the boat.
His citation of Wright is plausible; the other arguments are bunk.

[Archaea]

I admit my Chinese is horrible and I'm often confused by the complex machinations used to explain phonetic radicals,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_(Chinese_character)

Look at ma and hao, but I don't see that great a transition from chuan and yan.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

I admit my Chinese is horrible and I'm often confused by the complex machinations used to explain phonetic radicals,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_(Chinese_character)

Look at ma and hao, but I don't see that great a transition from chuan and yan.

"hao" didn't evolve into "ma." They just share the same "woman" radical.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by ChinoCoug

"hao" didn't evolve into "ma." They just share the same "woman" radical.

did I say that.

I understand that we have a meaning radical and some phonetic radicals but I don't know when something is supposed to act as a phonetic radical, do you?

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

did I say that.

I understand that we have a meaning radical and some phonetic radicals but I don't know when something is supposed to act as a phonetic radical, do you?

There are no rules, but in many cases it's obvious. Generally, the meaning radical comprises the left side of the word, the phonetic on the right. But with hao, both radicals are meaning radicals.