April 2023

Mistranslations

 
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Copied from the sermon notes of Pastor Don Elmore

May 7, 2023

Scripture Reading:  Genesis 8:11:

“And the dove [bird] came in to him [flew back to Noah who was still in the ark] in the evening; and, lo, in her [the bird’s] mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off [from the live olive tree]: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.”

If the waters covered all the earth, higher than the tallest mountain, wouldn’t the oceans cover all the different kinds of trees, including the olive tree, in most instances by many miles?  Wouldn’t the flood destroy all vegetation with its salt derived from the oceans?  So, how could the dove, fly from the ark and retrieve a live olive leaf shortly after the flood, if all the trees and all the vegetation had been destroyed for over a year?

Genesis 7:4: “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.”

According to this mistranslation, does it mean that the flood was world-wide?  That there were no giants, no evil seed line and no one else left alive on the earth?  That there were only eight people, of the same race, on the earth just 4500 years ago?