by jimwalton » Wed Jun 07, 2017 3:44 pm
The first problem with your theory is the flaw of previous scholars of Scripture interpreting the genealogies as a gapless chronology. In the ancient world, genealogies were not primarily a way of record keeping, but only to establish continuity from one era to another. Their intention is to bridge a gap between major events (success as creation and the flood, the flood and Abraham, etc.) In the ancient world, genealogies were written for political ends to show divine right. There was no attempt to show every generation (as we do) or even chronology at times. That is, there could be rearrangement of the order of names, telescoping (leaving names out), or even changing the ages or lengths of reign to accommodate their political ends.
In the Bible, genealogies (as far as we know) were never rearranged or the ages or lengths of reigns changed, but the biblical authors did telescope generations for theological ends. The genealogies of the era of the monarchy and the Gospels show show they were sometimes fluid with who all belonged to a particular generation to arrive at specific symbolic numbers. For instance, the genealogies between Adam and Noah, and Noah and Abraham, are each set up to contain 10 members with the last having 3 sons. They have telescoped the genealogy to do this. (This type of telescoping also occurs in Assyrian genealogical records.) The ancients didn't think of the genealogies as representing every generation as our modern ones do. These facts were unknown centuries ago when Bishop Ussher was counting the years to determine when creation and the Flood were. We don't take his calculations as accurate Bible teaching. To be frank about it, he was dead wrong. Therefore, we can dismiss all thoughts that the Bible teaches that Noah's flood was around 2350-2250 BC. And we don't have to assume Scripture is incorrect to arrive at that conclusion.
Secondly, as far as the mountains is concerned, it helps to understand ancient scientific and geographical perspective. The ancients (as evidenced by Babylonian maps) had a very limited view of the world. They thought the world was a flat disk of about a few thousand miles in diameter. The disk rested on pillars that held it above the cosmic ocean. At the edge of the single continent there were high mountains that held up the sky (the firmament) and also kept out the ocean. (The high, "cosmic" mountains were thought to be the abodes of the gods, and certainly impervious to flooding. When they speak of the flood covering "the mountains", they were not including these peaks.) The firmament (heavens) was thought to be three superimposed "pavements" of various materials. This view was commonplace in the ancient Near East. If Noah built a boat, and there was a flood so severe that all he could see in any direction was water (none of the local mountains were visible), he would easily and clearly say that the whole earth had been flooded and that every living thing had been killed. It was obviously hyperbole; he had not taken a walk over the region to confirm that was truly the case, but it was true as far as was observable. It was true by every scientific measure available to the one who experienced it. In other words, Noah is not including the Alps, the top of Ararat, Mt. Kosciuszko, or any of these peaks.
Such a proposition as covering all the mountains is impossible on many levels. The local sea level can rise several feet an hour during a hurricane, but for the sea level to rise to the 17,000’ peak of Ararat it would have to rise to that height around the entire planet. That would require 620 million cubic miles of additional water weighing 3 quintillion tons. All the oceans of the world would have to triple in volume in only 150 days and then quickly shrink back to normal. Where did the water come from, and where did it go? The simple answer is, it didn't, and it's a misunderstanding of the biblical text in the context of the ancient world to claim that this is what the Bible teaches.
In addition, for the water to reach 17,000’ in 150 days, it would have had to rise at the rate of over 100’ per day, almost 5’ per hour. Even if that were possible, it would have created currents that would have made survival in the ark unlikely.
More: It has long been known that rain clouds can't possibly hold even 1/10th of 1% of the water required for a flood of this magnitude.
More: If the ark ran aground on the still submerged summit of Mt. Ararat on the 17th day of the 7th month, and the tops of the mountains became visible on the first day of the 10th month, the water receded only 15’ in 75 days. Yet it would have to recede 17,000 in the next 75 days, because by the first day of the first month, the earth was dry.
More: If the dove flew down into a valley to get an olive leaf (only growing in low elevations), how did it manage to fly back up to 17,000’ to the ark? Doves can’t do that.
More: A universal flood would mix all salt and fresh water, killing all freshwater fish and some saltwater fish. Those would not have been on the ark.
Instead, Noah is claiming (if we understand the Bible in the vernacular in which it was written and the intent of the author) that a massive flood had covered the local mountains. The high mountains were sacred, the dwelling place of the gods, the intersection between heaven and earth, and the central and highest place of the world. The point is that the flood executed judgment against the false gods, not that it was so high in geography and altitude.
But we can even explain further. What does he mean by "covered"? The verb the author uses is ksh, which has a variety of meanings.
- A people so vast they cover the land (Nu. 22.11)
- Weeds covering the land (Prov. 24.31)
- clothing covering someone (1 Ki. 1.1)
- something can be covered in the sense of being overshadowed (2 Chr. 5.8 – the cherubim over the ark; clouds in the sky, Ps. 147.8)
And what about being covered with water?
- Job 38.34; Jer. 46.8; Mal. 2.13: in these verses “covered” is figurative!
- If Genesis 7:19 is taken the same way, it suggests that the mountains were drenched with water or coursing with flash floods, but it does not demand that they were totally submerged under water. One can certainly argue that the context does not favor this latter usage, and I am not inclined to adopt it. The point is that it is not as easy as sometimes imagined to claim that the Bible demands that all the mountains were submerged.
- See also Ex. 1.7, where the Israelites "filled" the land (a different Hebrew word, but the same concept). It speaks of their great number, not literally meaning that they filled the country.
Fifteen cubits above. In Gn. 7:20, the Hebrew text says, "15 cubits from above [milme’la] rose the waters, and the mountains were covered." It is therefore not at all clear that it is suggesting the waters rose 15 cubits higher than the mountains. It can mean "above"; it can mean "upward" or "upstream". If this were the case in Genesis, it would suggest that the water reached 15 cubits upward from the plain, covering at least some part of the mountains.
Is it possible that the ancient writers did not count the mountains at the fringes of the world among the "high mountains" that the water covered? These mountains were places of the gods and would be impervious to floodwaters sent by the gods. In this scenario, the ark drifts on massive regional floodwaters to the edge of the known world and rests against the mountains of Ararat (or perhaps on the foothills of Ararat). Noah views this as the edge of the world, as some before Columbus's day believed they could reach the edge of the world. There the ark sits while the water recedes and the tops of the mountains in the occupied portion of the continent become visible. This means that when the waters totally dissipate, the ark is at the foot of the Ararat chain. The logic of not including the fringe mountains is that they were believed to support the heavens, and the waters are not seen as encroaching on or encountering the heavens.
Can we infer from this that Noah (or Moses, or even God) is a liar, and that the text is deceptive? No. Noah (or Moses) is telling us that the intent to judge the guilty parties was accomplished. The people Noah knew of ("every living creature on the earth") were all killed. God accommodates their understanding of geography and the world in the genres and literary devices in which they speak. God's intent is not to school them in geography, but in morality. He accommodates their limited view of the earth, but that's incidental to the message. The message (God judges sin, he favors righteousness, and he is the sovereign) comes through loud and clear. There's where the authority of the text lies. We are committed to the message, not to their faulty science. Noah believed that was his whole world; we don't. Israel believed in a solid sky; we don't. To set aside his culturally-bound words doesn't negate the authority of the message. So to understand Scripture properly we discern between the language and culture of Noah's day and the message that is the intent of the text. We are committed to the message. In asking whether or not the entire planet was inundated with water, we are dealing with how to read the terms, the figures of speech, and the hyperbole. But the text becomes authoritative as we deliberate over the truths the communicator intends to affirm through the language he has chosen? Certainly there was a flood—I don't doubt its historicity, but the extent of it can be negotiated. What cannot be negotiated, and where the text has punch, is in that God judged the corruption and depravity of guilty parties before evil humans completely ruined everything.
In other words, there are ways to take the Bible for what the author intended it to mean. And it's altogether possible that an accurate understanding of the flood is that of a massively regional (continental?) deluge, but still one that has no effect on the seas of the world, the high mountains, or the Aborigines of Australia.