Board index ‹ Noah's Ark & the Flood

[jimwalton]

The evidence against a global flood is extensive and convincing. Here is some of it:

1. The fossil record, which yields a record of life with a consistent pattern: more and more complex life forms appearing at progressively higher and newer levels. Burials for fish and mammals follows the same pattern of increasing complexity. A global flood theory requires the fossil record to be a somewhat haphazard jumble of odds and ends dumped by the flood, which is not the case.

2. There is no single, consistent, global, sedimentary flood layer.

3. The nature and composition of coal beds are not consistent with young earth and floodwater scenarios.

4. Thick salt bed formed by the slow evaporation of sea water (the Paradox Basin of Utah, where they reach a depositional thickness of 1.5 km with at least 29 separate cycles of salt deposition) is inconsistent with a theory that requires them to have formed in a single year (at a minimum rate of 4 m/day).

5. Typical ocean floors are covered by about 800 m of sediments. Assuming an average deposition rate of 0.01 mm/yr, an 800-meter accumulation would require 80 million years. Young earth creationists would require most of this accumulation to have taken place late in the flood year. The very delicate layering and fine grain size characteristic of these oozes and muds argue strongly against such wholesale and rapid dumping rates.

6. The top 2 km of Mt. Ararat’s 5.2 km height is a volcano built over deformed sedimentary rocks. Young creationists’ model requires that the entire volcanic growth took place very late in the flood year. This volcano had to violate all laws of thermal physics in order to cool completely in a few months in time for the ark to land on it.

7. Grand Canyon geology. For the Grand Canyon to have formed in one year would require massive layers of wet sediments to be deposited and hardened at astounding rates over the course of just a few weeks, leaving them solid enough to be incised into mile-high cliff by receding floodwaters. This could be true of limestone, but not of sandstone and shale, which require major loss of water, compaction and/or chemical cement to become a strong rock—all processes that involve significant amounts of time.

8. The examination of silt levels at the Sumerian cities of Ur, Kish, Shuruppak, Lagash and Uruk (all of which have occupation levels at least as early as 2800 BC) are from different periods (some from 4th millennium and some from 3rd) and do not reflect a single massive flood that inundated them all at the same time. Similarly, the city of Jericho, which been continuously occupied since 7000 BC, has no flood deposits whatsoever. Climatological studies have indicated that the period from 4500 to 3500 BC was significantly wetter in this region, but that offers little to go on.

9. Environmental Evidence:
a. According to Genesis, the sea level rose for 150 days until it covered the tops of the mountains, and then subsided for another 150 days. This is physically impossible. 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?
b. 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 was possible, it would have created currents that would have made survival in the ark unlikely.
c. It has long been know that rain clouds cannot possibly hold even 1/10th of 1% of the water required for a flood of this magnitude.
d. 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, was water receded only 15’ in 75 days. Yet it would have to have receded 17,000 in the next 75 days, because by the first day of the first month, the earth was dry.
e. What did the carnivorous animals eat until their prey populations were reestablished?
f. 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.
g. There are a number of animals that have been confined to local areas since before the Pleistocene Ice Age. If these (the kangaroos of Australia being an example) were to be brought to the ark in Mesopotamia and then released after the flood, it does not seem possible that they would or could migrate back to their previous locations without populating other parts of the world, especially since Australia is an island.
h. 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.

10. There would not have been enough room in the ark to accommodate two of all the species then in existence. Fossil evidence around the globe shows that there was an abundant animal population in every continent. Plus, they had one week to get 42,000 on board. Even if God brought them to the ark, that’s a traffic jam that would take more than one week to unsnarl.

11. Assuming 21,000 species of amphibian, reptile, bird, and mammals, we’re assuming at least 42,000 on board. Of the 8 caretakers, each would have to visit 2637 cages a day for feeding and cleaning. If each person worked a 12-hr shift, each cage would get 3 2/3 minutes of care a day.

12. To cover mountains 6 miles high would require 8 times more water than we have on the planet. Where did it come from and where did it go? That much additional water, if created specially for the purpose, would have altered the earth’s weight and disturbed the earth’s orbit around the sun, as well as the moon’s orbit around the earth.

13. Though there are accounts of a great flood around the globe, the differences between them are too extensive to allow confident claims that they must be narrative reflections of the same event. Flood stories are entirely lacking in Africa, occur only occasionally in Europe, and are absent in many parts of Asia. They are widespread in America, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific.

Derek Kidner says, “In themselves, these verses [Gen. 7.19-24] are not decisive for or against a localized flood: even the whole heaven (19) is likely, on the analogy of these chapters, to be the language of appearance (Paul uses similar speech hyperbolically in Col. 1.23). The concern of the story is to record the judgment which man brought on his whole world, not to dilate on geography. The very fact that a single word in Hebrew normally serves for either ‘country’ or ‘earth’ reflects a practical rather than theoretical interest.”
(- Derek Kidner, Genesis, InterVarsity Press, 1967, p. 91)

Kidner continues:
“If we possessed no physical clues to the early history of the earth and of the primitive distribution of mankind, it would have to be left an open question whether such expressions in the flood story as "the earth", "all the high mountains under the whole heaven", and "all flesh", in Genesis 7:19, 21, were to be understood in their modern or ancient sense. As it is, the various geological data that have been thought to favor a strictly universal flood have been successfully found wanting, in the opinion of most experts, and little reasonable doubt remains (although some would dispute this) that the events of Genesis 6-8 must have taken place within a limited though indeed a vast area, covering not the entire globe, but the scene of the human story of the previous chapters. Some opinions confine this to Mesopotamia, others envisage a still larger tract; there is certainly room for further investigation.
“But it also appears, from the distribution and generally accepted dating of human remains, that certain branches of mankind had been settled in countries far beyond the specific Old Testament horizon since the Paleolithic age, and unless this world population was drawn back into the vicinity of Mesopotamia before the Flood, or unless the paleontological data needs drastic reinterpretation, it seems to follow that the destruction of life was, like the inundation of the earth, complete in the relative and not the absolute sense. By "relative" we mean related to the area of direct Old Testament interest. The record neither affirms nor denies that man existed beyond the Mesopotamian Valley. Noah was certainly not a preacher of righteousness to the peoples of Africa, of India, of China or of America—places where there is evidence of mankind many thousands of years before the flood. The emphasis in Genesis is upon that group of cultures from which Abraham eventually came. The language of this story is in fact the everyday language normally used in Scripture, describing matters from the narrator's own vantage-point and within the customary frame of reference of his readers.
"Whether this is the right assessment of the evidence or not, we should be careful to read the account whole-heartedly in its own terms, which depict a total judgment on the ungodly world already set before us in Genesis—not an event of debatable dimensions in the world we may try to reconstruct. The whole living scene is blotted out, and the New Testament makes us learn from it the greater judgment that awaits not only our entire globe, but the universe itself (2 Peter 3:5-7).”
(- Derek Kidner, Genesis, InterVarsity Press, 1967, p. 93-95)

[jimwalton]

In addition, the universal language of the text need not be universal.

John Walton says:

It may sound strange to say, but the word "all" is not always absolute in biblical usage.
- Dt. 2.25: “I will put the…fear of you on all the nations under heaven.” Few would contend that this refers to more than the nations of Canaan and perhaps a few others.
- Gn. 41.57: Joseph opens the storehouses of Egypt, and "all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain... because the famine was severe in all the world." I do not know of anyone who contends that therefore the Eskimos must have been included.
Noah was not a preacher of righteousness to the people of Africa, India, China, or America, but to that group of cultures from which Abraham eventually came. The language of the story is normal for Scripture, describing everyday matters from the narrator’s vantage point and within the customary frame reference of his readers.

"Covering the Mountains." And when 7:19 refers to the mountains being covered, it uses the Pual form of the verb ksh. This verb is used for a wide variety of "covering" possibilities.
- 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.

"Fifteen cubits above." In 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.

"Tops of the mountains visible." This is the most difficult statement to explain for those arguing that the text does not require a global flood. In saying that the tops of the mountains became visible, this verse conveys that the tops, not just the flanks of the mountains, had been obscured. This still leaves two possibilities: they’ve been obscured by the horizon, and this represents the sighting of land, or they have been obscured by being submerged under the water. The latter appears to be the necessary conclusion in that the ark stops moving in verse 4 on the 17th day of the 7th month and that the tops of the mountains do not become visible until 2½ months later, the first day of the 10th month.
Mesopotamian geographers had no way of knowing that Babylonia and Assyria were part of the Eurasian landmass that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Arctic to Indian Oceans. The ancient geographers imagined that the continent they lived on was much smaller. On the World Map, the cosmic ocean marratu is drawn just beyond Assyria, Urartu (Akkadia – in the northern part of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley), and the mountains where the Euphrates rises [the Ararat chain].
In the Mesopotamian worldview, the known world was comprised of a single continent fringed with mountains and ringed by the cosmic sea. The fringe mountains were believed to hold up the heavens and have roots in the netherworld.
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 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.

New Testament. In Luke 17:27 Christ describes the indifferent routine of the people of Noah's times, yet the Flood came and destroyed them all. To this he likens the day when the Son of Man is revealed. The point is that people were unprepared for the disaster that was to strike. Likewise, 2 Peter 2:5 indicates that God did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, referring to people, not land. Finally, 2 Peter 3:5-6 declares that "the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed." These passages speak respectively about being prepared, about God's willingness and ability to rescue the righteous, and about God's ability to bring destructive judgment. Little can be inferred from them about the extent of the Flood.

(- John Walton, Genesis: The New NIV Application Commentary, Zondervan, 2001, pp. 321-329)

[Most Definitely]

What a minute. You don't believe the flood covered the whole world? What about GN 6.7, 13? What is that? He said he would destroy all humankind? How is that not the whole world?

[jimwalton]

Haven't you ever had a party and said, "It was AWESOME! All my friends were there!" But all your friends we're literally there, just enough that you would say that, hyperbolically, to express your point.

Now, look at Gn. 41.57 (same author, traditionally). Joseph is doling out food because the famine is severe. "And all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain..." Seriously? Were the Australians there? The Chinese? The Eskimos? I think not. "All" is hyperbole for "all the nations in the immediate region."

Look at Deut. 2.25 (same author, traditionally). God was commanding the Israelites to take the land of Canaan back. "This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven..." Here we are again. Were the Native Americans afraid? The Anglo-Saxons in the British Isles? Nope. "All" is hyperbole for all the nations in the Canaan/Mesopotamian region.

Back to Genesis 6. The Nephilim were a regional people group (Num. 13.33). Genesis 10: all of those listed in the table of nations are the Middle Eastern peoples, representing "all mankind" (Gn. 10.32).

So it's quite likely that the word "all" is hyperbole, that the Flood was MASSIVELY regional (continental?), took care of the ones about which God was speaking, and life went on from there. Makes sense to me.

[Most Definitely]

> Haven't you ever had a party and said, "It was AWESOME! All my friends were there!" But all your friends we're literally there, just enough that you would say that, hyperbolically, to express your point."

Sure, I understand the concept.

> Now, look at Gn. 41.57 (same author, traditionally). Joseph is doling out food because the famine is severe. "And all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain..." Seriously? Were the Australians there? The Chinese? The Eskimos? I think not. "All" is hyperbole for "all the nations in the immediate region."

Either it was hyperbole or he was talking about all the countries in the known world at that time.
If you are saying that it was hyperbole, that's fine by me.

> But if I told my friend that I was having a party and that everyone he knew was coming, it's not an exaggeration. I am saying that among the friends that he and I have, all of those people are coming.

Then again, maybe this is an exaggeration, the author is boasting. That's a common problem I run into, I cannot get a feel for what the author means because I don't know anything about the author of the bible, he may have been a madman.

>Look at Deut. 2.25 (same author, traditionally). God was commanding the Israelites to take the land of Canaan back. "This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven..." Here we are again. Were the Native Americans afraid? The Anglo-Saxons in the British Isles? Nope. "All" is hyperbole for all the nations in the Canaan/Mesopotamian region.

Same idea, all the recognized nations at that time. Or maybe it was just hyperbole, as you say.

>Back to Genesis 6. The Nephilim were a regional people group (Num. 13.33). Genesis 10: all of those listed in the table of nations are the Middle Eastern peoples, representing "all mankind" (Gn. 10.32).

Yeah, that makes sense.

>So it's quite likely that the word "all" is hyperbole, that the Flood was MASSIVELY regional (continental?), took care of the ones about which God was speaking, and life went on from there. Makes sense to me.

I was asking specifically about god saying that he was going to destroy all of mankind. He almost did.

Gn. 9:5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

So god really did want to kill everyone, but for some reason Noah got to live. I think we are of like minds here.

I just don't see a need for hyperbole, I can see what they mean by "all the nations" in the biblical context. It's only when you don't understand the context of the writing that hyperbole is the only answer.

[jimwalton]

> Either it was hyperbole or he was talking about all the countries in the known world at that time.

You understand what I'm talking about, then. Using hyperbole as a figure of speech, his reference to "all" doesn't necessarily mean "all." It might mean "all the countries in the known world at that time."

> I was asking specifically about god saying that he was going to destroy all of mankind.

Right, I remember. What I'm saying is that the judgment may have been on a very limited population of people. Depending on when the flood was (for instance, if it was before 10,000 BC), the population of the area may not have been that large. Jericho was first settled in about 7,000. Even by the time of Abraham (approx. 2000 BC), the population of the land was mostly nomads with some small (10 acres or less) cities scattered around. Before 10,000 BC, who's to know, but the "kill everyone" may have been a relatively small number.

> So god really did want to kill everyone, but for some reason Noah got to live.

The text approaches the narrative from a contrast of wickedness & corruption (violence, evil) vs. righteousness, of the hearts of humans being depraved and the heart of God being grieved by it. We also know that the story is somewhat of a redux of the creation story, where all was in chaos and God was acting to bring order and functionality to what he had made. (Gn. 9 is a clear mirror of Gn. 1.) Noah got to live because it was the only chance for humanity to have a chance at life, survival, and godliness. Aside from Noah, the region was beyond hope and help.

> I just don't see a need for hyperbole

Obviously the author's choice, but it does speak of the thorough corruption of the population.

> It's only when you don't understand the context of the writing that hyperbole is the only answer.

I don't think so. I think hyperbole is a reasonable literary tool for the narrative, just as it is for the many situations we use exaggeration to try to adequately describe.

[J Lord]

> So it's quite likely that the word "all" is hyperbole

Why did nobody believe this until science proved there was no worldwide flood? And why would the writers choose to use such a deceptive hyperbole? You would have to believe that the writers knew it wasn't a global flood but specifically inserted language about all the tallest mountains being covered by water, knowing that people had no way of scientifically proving otherwise and would not know what truly happened.

And if you think that people did not believe in a global flood until 1700 you will have to explain why. As far as I know people had no reason to disbelieve the explicit claim of a global flood until well after 1700. I know of no examples of bible believing people before this who claimed that the global flood as described in the bible never took place.

> If you were to go to a party and say, "Yo, EVERYBODY was there!" none of us would accuse you of lying.

No, because lying requires a certain intent. But you could correctly say that the statement is not objectively true.

[jimwalton]

> why would the writers choose to use such a deceptive hyperbole?

We shouldn't consider hyperbole as deceptive any more than any joke or any metaphor is. If we were to say to someone, "You dirty dog," no one would say you're being deceptive or not objectively true. We all understand such things, and literary genres have their place in our language and communication without diminishing the integrity of the communication.

> And if you think that people did not believe in a global flood until 1700 you will have to explain why

First of all, according to the ancients, the world was a circular disk that included Assyria, Babylon, Bit Yakin, Urartu, and a few other cities and geographic features all surrounded by ocean. That's all. That was "the whole earth" to them. (http://www.bibleorigins.net/NarMarratumWorldMap.html)

Second, the "mountains," in the ancient Near Eastern view, were the local mountains. The tall mountains, according to them, were not what they called "mountains," but the pillars that held up the heavens. Job 26.11.

http://emptybandwagon.wordpress.com/201 ... -identity/

(I'm not vouching for the article, just the picture of the cosmos about half way down.)

Third, there are ancient writers who didn't think the flood was global:
- Theophilus believed the flood was local, deluging only the plains of the ancient Near East.
- Augustine regarded it as allegorical, not literal
- Pseudo-Justin taught that it was local

Obviously, there are other church fathers who thought it was literally the whole earth. I'm having trouble hunting down ANY ancient Jewish writings about it.

Literary genres and figures of speech don't undermine the authority of communication.

[J Lord]

> If we were to say to someone, "You dirty dog,"

It isn't a good comparison. A figure of speech like this is not what is going on in the flood account. If something is a known figure of speech it is deceptive. If you are writing something that is not literally true, the hyperbole would have to be obvious in order avoid being deceptive.

> the "mountains," in the ancient Near Eastern view, were the local mountains

So now you're saying they weren't using hyperbole at all. They just got it wrong because they didn't know how big or what shape the world was? If this is what they thought then it wasn't hyperbole at all. They thought that literally every mountain was covered but didn't realize there were other mountains they didn't know about.

[jimwalton]

Here's what I'm saying: The ancients, including the Biblical ancients, had a very limited view of the world (as is proven by that Babylonian map). 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.) 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.

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.